I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett [75]
The sergeant nodded. It was not as if he had any other option.
As the guards moved away, dragging their unconscious colleague with them and trying not to look like, well, guards who were turning a walk away as closely into a running away as was possible, Tiffany knelt down by Rob Anybody and lowered her voice.
‘Look, Rob, I know about the secret tunnels.’
‘What scunner told ye about the secret tunnels?’
‘I am the hag o’ the hills, Rob,’ said Tiffany soothingly. ‘Shouldn’t I know about the tunnels? You are Feegles, and no Feegle will sleep in a house with only one entrance, right?’
The Feegle was calming down a bit now. ‘Oh aye, ye have a point there.’
‘Then can I please suggest you go and fetch young Amber? Nobody is going to touch the mound.’
After a little hesitation, Rob Anybody sprang into the entrance hole and was gone. It took some time for him to return – time Tiffany thankfully used by getting the sergeant to come back and help her gather up the guards’ dropped weapons – and when Rob did resurface he was accompanied by a great many more Feegles and the kelda. And also by a rather reluctant Amber, who blinked nervously in the daylight and said, ‘Oh, crivens!’
Tiffany knew that her own smile was false when she said, ‘I’ve come to take you home, Amber.’ Well, at least I’m not stupid enough to say something like ‘Won’t that be nice?’ she added to herself.
Amber glared at her. ‘Ye willnae get me back in that place,’ she announced, ‘and ye can stick it where the monkey put his jumper!’
And I don’t blame you, thought Tiffany, but now I can pass for being a grown-up and I have to say some stupid grown-up things …
‘But you do have a mother and father, Amber. I’m sure they miss you.’
She winced at the look of scorn the girl gave her.
‘Oh aye, and if the old scunner misses me he’ll aim another blow!’
‘Maybe we can go together, and help him change his ways?’ Tiffany volunteered, despising herself, but the image of those thick fingers heavy with nettle stings from that awful bouquet wouldn’t go away.
This time Amber actually laughed. ‘Sorry, mistress, but Jeannie told me you were clever.’
What was it that Granny Weatherwax had said once? ‘Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.’ And right now it would happen if you thought there was a thing called a father, and a thing called a mother, and a thing called a daughter, and a thing called a cottage, and told yourself that if you put them all together you had a thing called a happy family.
Aloud, she said, ‘Amber, I want you to come with me to see the Baron, so that he knows you are safe. After that, you can do as you please. That’s a promise.’
Tiffany felt a knocking on her boot, and looked down at the kelda’s worried face. ‘Can I have a wee word with ye?’ said Jeannie. Beside her, Amber was crouching down so that she could hold the kelda’s other hand.
Then Jeannie spoke again, if it was speech, and not song. But what could you sing that stayed in the air, so that the next note twisted around it? What could be sung that seemed to be a living sound that sung itself right back to you?
And then the song was gone, leaving only a hole and a loss.
‘That’s a kelda song,’ said Jeannie. ‘Amber heard me singing it to the little ones. It’s part of the soothings, and she understood it, Tiffany! I gave her nae help but she understood it! I know the Toad has tol’ ye this. But do ye ken what I am telling ye now? She recognizes meaning, and learns it. She is as close to being a kelda as any human could be. She is a treasure not to be thrown away! ‘
The words came out with unusual force for the kelda, who was usually so softly spoken. And Tiffany recognized it as helpful information that, ever so nicely, was a kind of threat.
Even the journey off the downland and into the village had to be negotiated. Tiffany, holding Amber by the hand, walked past the waiting guards and continued on, much to the embarrassment of the sergeant. After all, if you have been sent to bring somebody in, then you are going to