The Wee Free Men
Page 29

And what there was about the Queen’s voice was this: It said, in a friendly, understanding way, that she was right and you were wrong. And this wasn’t your fault, exactly. It was probably the fault of your parents, or your food, or something so terrible you’ve completely forgotten about it. It wasn’t your fault, the Queen understood, because you were a nice person. It was just such a terrible thing that all these bad influences had made you make the wrong choices. If only you’d admit that, Tiffany, then the world would be a much happier place—
—this cold place, guarded by monsters, in a world where nothing grows older, or up, said her Second Thoughts. A world with the Queen in charge of everything. Don’t listen.
She managed to take a step backward.
“Am I a monster?” said the Queen. “All I wanted was a little bit of company.”
And Tiffany’s Second Thoughts, quite swamped by the Queen’s wonderful voice, said: Miss Female Infant Robinson…
She’d come to work as a maid at one of the farms many years ago. They said that she’d been brought up in a Home for the Destitute in Yelp. They said she’d been born there after her mother had arrived during a terrible storm and the master had written in his big black diary: “To Miss Robinson, female infant,” and her young mother hadn’t been very bright and was dying in any case and had thought that was the baby’s name. After all, it had been written down in an official book.
Miss Robinson was quite old now, never said much, never ate much, but you never saw her not doing something. No one could scrub a floor like Miss Female Infant Robinson. She had a thin, wispy face with a pointed red nose, and thin, pale hands with red knuckles, which were always busy. Miss Robinson worked hard.
Tiffany hadn’t understood a lot of what was going on when the crime happened. The women talked about it in twos and threes at garden gates, their arms folded, and they’d stop and look indignant if a man walked past.
She picked up bits of conversation, though sometimes they seemed to be in a kind of code, like: “Never really had anyone of her own, poor old soul. Wasn’t her fault she was skinnier’n a rake,” and “They say that when they found her, she was cuddling it and said it was hers,” and “The house was full of baby clothes she’d knitted!” That last one had puzzled Tiffany at the time, because it was said in the same tone of voice that someone’d use to say, “And the house was full of human skulls!”
But they all agreed on one thing: We can’t have this. A crime’s a crime. The Baron’s got to be told.
Miss Robinson had stolen a baby, Punctuality Riddle, who had been much loved by his young parents even though they’d named him Punctuality (reasoning that if children could be named after virtues like Patience, Faith, and Prudence, what was wrong with a little good time-keeping?).
He’d been left in his crib in the yard and had vanished. And there had been all the usual searchings and weepings, and then someone had mentioned that Miss Robinson had been taking home extra milk.
It was kidnaping. There weren’t many fences on the Chalk, and very few doors with locks. Theft of all kinds was taken very seriously. If you couldn’t turn your back on what was yours for five minutes, where would it all end? The law’s the law. A crime’s a crime.
Tiffany had overheard bits of arguments all over the village, but the same phrases cropped up over and over again. Poor thing never meant no harm. She was a hard worker, never complained. She’s not right in the head. The law’s the law. A crime’s a crime.
And so the Baron was told, and he held a court in the Great Hall, and everyone who wasn’t wanted up on the hills turned up, including Mr. and Mrs. Riddle, she looking worried, he looking determined, and Miss Robinson, who just stared at the ground with her red-knuckled hands on her knees.
It was hardly a trial. Miss Robinson was confused about what she was accused of, and it seemed to Tiffany that so was everyone else. They weren’t certain why they were there, and they’d come to find out.
The Baron had been uneasy, too. The law was clear. Theft was a dreadful crime, and stealing a human being was much worse. There was a prison in Yelp, right beside the Home for the Destitute; some said there was even a connecting door. That was where thieves went.
And the Baron wasn’t a big thinker. His family had held the Chalk by not changing their mind about anything for hundreds of years. He sat and listened and drummed his fingers on the table and looked at people’s faces and acted like a man sitting on a very hot chair.
Tiffany was in the front row. She was there when the man started to give his verdict, umming and ahhing, trying not to say the words he knew he’d have to say, when the door at the back of the hall opened and the sheepdogs Thunder and Lightning trotted in.
They came down the aisle between the rows of benches and sat down in front of the Baron, looking bright-eyed and alert.
Only Tiffany craned to see back up the aisle. The doors were still slightly ajar. They were far too heavy even for a strong dog to push them open. And she could just make out someone looking through the crack.
The Baron stopped and stared. He, too, looked at the other end of the hall.
And then, after a few moments, he pushed the law book aside and said: “Perhaps we should do this a different way.”
And there was a different way, involving people paying a little more attention to Miss Robinson. It wasn’t perfect, and not everyone was happy, but it worked.
Tiffany smelled the scent of Jolly Sailor outside the hall when the meeting was over, and thought about the Baron’s dog. “Remember this day,” Granny Aching had said, and, “Ye’ll have cause to.”
Barons needed reminding.
“Who will speak up for you?” Tiffany said aloud.
“Speak up for me?” answered the Queen, her fine eyebrows arching.
And Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Watch her face when she is worried.
“There isn’t anyone, is there?” said Tiffany, backing away. “Is there anyone you’ve been kind to? Anyone who’ll say you’re not just a thief and a bully? Because that’s what you are. You’ve got a…You’re like the dromes, you’ve just got one trick.”
And there it was. Now she could see what her Third Thoughts had spotted. The Queen’s face flickered for a moment.
“And that’s not your body,” said Tiffany, plunging on. “That’s just what you want people to see. It’s not real. It’s just like everything else here, it’s hollow and empty—”
The Queen ran forward and slapped her much harder than a dream should be able to. Tiffany landed in the moss and Wentworth rolled away, yelling, “Wanna go-a toy-lut!”
Good, said Tiffany’s Third Thoughts.
“Good?” said Tiffany aloud.
“Good?” said the Queen.
Yes, said her Third Thoughts, because she doesn’t know you can have Third Thoughts and your hand is only a few inches from the frying pan and things like her hate iron, don’t they? She’s angry. Now make her furious, so that she doesn’t think. Hurt her.
“You just live here in a land full of winter and all you do is dream of summers,” said Tiffany. “No wonder the king went away.”
The Queen stood still for a moment, like the beautiful statue she so much resembled. Again, the walking dream flickered and Tiffany thought she saw…something. It was not much bigger than her, and almost human, and a little shabby and, just for a moment, shocked. Then the Queen was back, tall and angry, and she drew a deep breath—
Tiffany grabbed the pan and swung it as she rolled onto her feet. It hit the tall figure only a glancing blow, but the Queen wavered like air over a hot road, and screamed.
Tiffany didn’t wait to see what else was going to happen. She grabbed her brother again, and ran away, down through the grass, past the strange figures looking around at the sound of the Queen’s anger.
Now shadows moved in the shadowless grasses. Some of the people—the joke people, the ones that looked like a flap-the-pages picture book—changed shape and started to move after Tiffany and her screaming brother.
There was a booming noise on the other side of the clearing. The two huge creatures that Roland had called the Bumblebee women were rising off the ground, their tiny wings blurring with the effort.
Somebody grabbed her and pulled her into the grasses. It was Roland.
“Can you get out now?” he demanded, his face red.
“Er…” Tiffany began.
“Then we’d better just run,” he said. “Give me your hand. Come on!”
“Do you know a way out?” Tiffany panted, as they dashed through giant daisies.
“No,” Roland panted back. “There isn’t one. You saw…the dromes outside…this is a really strong dream.”
“Then why are we running?”
“To keep out of her way. If you hide long enough…Sneebs says she…forgets.”
I don’t think she’s going to forget me very quickly, Tiffany thought.
Roland had stopped, but she pulled her hand away and ran onward, with Wentworth clinging to her in silent amazement.
“Where are you going?” shouted Roland behind her.
“I really want to keep out of her way!”
“Come back! You’re running right back!”
“No I’m not! I’m running in a straight line!”
“This is a dream!” Roland shouted, but it was louder now because he was catching up to her. “You’re running right around—”
Tiffany burst into a clearing……the clearing.
The Bumblebee women landed on either side of her, and the Queen stepped forward.
“You know,” said the Queen, “I really expected better of you, Tiffany. Now, give me back the boy, and I shall decide what to do next.”
“It’s not a big dream,” mumbled Roland behind her. “If you go too far, you end up coming back—”
“I could make a dream for you that’s even smaller than you are,” said the Queen pleasantly. “That can be quite painful!”
The colors were brighter. And sounds were louder. Tiffany could smell something, too, and what was strange about that was that up until now there had been no smells.
It was a sharp, bitter smell that you never forgot. It was the smell of snow. And underneath the insect buzzings in the grass, she heard the faintest of voices.
“Crivens! I canna find the way oot!”
CHAPTER 11
Awakening
On the other side of the clearing, where the nut-cracking man had been at work, was the last nut, half as high as Tiffany. And it was rocking gently. The cracker took a swipe at it with the hammer, and it rolled out of the way.
See what’s really there, said Tiffany to herself, and laughed.
The Queen gave her a puzzled look. “You find this funny?” she demanded. “What’s funny about this? What is amusing about this situation?”
“I just had a funny thought,” said Tiffany. The Queen glared, as people without a sense of humor do when they’re confronted with a smile.