Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett [63]
“She should use any wile she can lay her hands on,” said Nanny. “I don’t care what Granny said, there’s always a way. Like the hero in Tsort or wherever it was, who was completely invincible except for his heel and someone stuck a spear in it and killed him…”
“What are you expecting her to do, prod him all over?”
“I never understood that story, anyway,” said Nanny. “I mean, if I knew I’d got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I’d go into battle wearing very heavy boots—”
“You don’t know what he’s like,” said Agnes, ignoring the diversion. “He looks at me as if he’s undressing me with his eyes.”
“Eyes is allowed,” said Nanny.
“And he’s laughing at me all the time! As if he knows I don’t like him and that adds to the fun!”
“Now you get into that castle!” Nanny growled. “For Lancre! For the King! For everyone in the country! And if he gets too much, let Perdita take over, ’cos I reckon there’s some things she’s better at!”
In the shocked silence, there was a faint clinking noise from Nanny’s sideboard.
Magrat coughed. “J-just like a the old days,” she said. “Arguing all the time.”
Nanny stood up and unhooked a cast iron saucepan from the beam over the kitchen range.
“You can’t treat people like this,” said Agnes, sullenly.
“I can,” said Nanny, tiptoeing in the direction of the sideboard. “I’m the other one now, see?”
Ornaments flew and shattered as she brought the saucepan down hard, bottom upward.
“Got you, you little blue devil!” she shouted. “Don’t think I didn’t see you!”
The saucepan rose. Nanny leaned her weight on the handle but it still moved slowly along the dresser, rocking slightly from side to side, until it reached the edge.
Something red and blue dropped onto the floor and started moving toward the closed door.
At the same time Greebo shot past Agnes, accelerating. And then, just as he was about to spring, he changed his mind. All four feet extended their claws at the same time and bit into the floorboards. He rolled, sprang onto his feet, stopped, and started to wash himself.
The red and blue blur hit the door and picked itself up, becoming a blue man, six inches tall, with red hair. He carried a sword about the same size as himself.
“Ach, hins tak yer scaggie, yer dank yowl callyake!” he screamed.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Nanny, relaxing. “Do you want a drink?”
The sword was lowered slightly, but with a definite hint that it could be raised again at a moment’s notice.
“’tazit?”
Nanny reached down to the crate by her chair and sorted through the bottles.
“Scumble? My best. Vintage,” she said.
The wee man’s tiny eyes lit up. “Las’ Tuesda?”
“Right. Agnes, open that sewing box and pass me a thimble, will you? Come away here, man,” said Nanny, uncorking the bottle well away from the fire and filling up the thimble. “Ladies, this here’s…let’s see them tattoos…yeah, this here’s one of the Nac mac Feegle. The little bastards comes down and raids my still about once a year.”
“Yings, yow graley yin! Suz ae rikt dheu,” said the blue man, taking the thimble.
“What is he?” said Magrat.
“They’re gnomes,” said Nanny.
The man lowered the thimble. “Pictsies!”
“Pixies, if you insist,” said Nanny. “They live up on the high moors over toward Uberwald—”
“Ach! Bae, yon snae rikt speel, y’ol behennit! Feggers! Yon ken sweal boggin bludsuckers owl dhu tae—”
Nanny nodded while she listened. Halfway through the little man’s rant she topped up his thimble.
“Ah, right,” she said, when he seemed to have finished. “Well, he says the Nac mac Feegle have been forced out by the vampires, see? They’ve been driving all the…” her lips moved as she tried out various translations, “…old people…”
“That’s very cruel!” said Magrat.
“No…I mean…old races. The people that live in…the corners. You know, the ones you don’t see around a lot…centaurs, bogeys, gnomes—”
“Pictsies!”
“Yeah, right…driving ’em out of the country.”
“Why should they do that?”
“Probably not fashionable anymore,” said Nanny.
Agnes looked hard at the pixie.