I Shall Wear Midnight (42 page)

‘Oh aye,’ said a voice about one inch from her ear.

‘Well, I don’t want you to help me tonight. This is a hag thing, you understand?’

‘Oh aye, we seen the big posse of hags. It’s a big hag night the noo.’

‘I must—’ Tiffany began. And then an idea struck her. ‘I have to fight the man with no eyes. And they are here to see how good a fighter I am. And so I mustn’t cheat by using Feegles. That’s an important hag rule. Of course, I respect the fact that cheating is an honourable Feegle tradition, but hags don’t cheat,’ she went on, aware that this was a huge lie. ‘If you help me, they will know, and all the hags will put me to scorn.’

And Tiffany thought, And if I lose, it will be Feegles versus hags, and that’s a battle that the world will remember. No pressure, eh?

Aloud, she said, ‘You understand, right? This once, just this once, you will do as I tell you and
not help me
.’

‘Aye, we understand ye. But ye ken that Jeannie says we must look out for ye at all times, because ye are our hag o’ the hills,’ said Rob.

‘I’m sorry to say that the kelda is not here,’ said Tiffany, ‘but I am and I have to tell you that if you help me this once I will no longer be your hag o’ the hills. I’m under a geas, ye ken. It’s a hag geas, and that’s a big geas indeed.’ She heard a group groan, and added, ‘I
mean it. The chief hag is Granny Weatherwax and you know
her
.’ There was another groan. ‘There you are then,’ said Tiffany. ‘This time, please, let me do things my way. Is that understood?’

There was a pause, and then the voice of Rob Anybody said, ‘Och aye.’

‘Very well,’ said Tiffany, and took a deep breath and went to find her broomstick.

Taking Preston with her didn’t seem such a good idea as they rose above the roofs of the castle.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were scared of flying?’ she said.

‘That’s hardly fair,’ said Preston. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever flown.’

When they were at a decent height, Tiffany looked at the weather. There were clouds above the mountains, and the occasional flash of summer lightning. She could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance. You were never far from a thunderstorm in the mountains. The mist had lifted, and the moon was up; it was a perfect night. And there was a breeze. She had hoped for this. And Preston had his arms around her waist; she wasn’t sure whether she had hoped for that or not.

They were well down onto the plains at the foot of the Chalk now, and even by moonlight Tiffany could see dark rectangles where earlier fields had been cleared. The men were always meticulous about not letting the fires get out of hand; nobody wanted wildfire – there was no telling what that would burn. The field they reached was the very last one. They always called it the King. Usually when the King was burned, half the village was waiting to catch any rabbits that fled the flames. That should have happened today, but everybody had been … otherwise occupied.

The chicken houses and the pigsty were in a field just above it at the top of a bank, and it was said that the King grew such bountiful
crops because the men found it much easier to cart the mulch onto the King rather than take it all to the lower fields.

They landed by the pigsties, to the usual ferocious screaming of piglets, who believed that no matter what is actually happening, the world is trying to saw them in half.

She sniffed. The air smelled of pig; she was sure, absolutely sure, that she would nevertheless smell the ghost if and when he was here. Mucky though they were, the pigs nevertheless had a natural smell; the smell of the ghost, on the other hand, would make a pig smell like violets by comparison. She shuddered. The wind was getting up.

‘Are you sure you can kill it?’ whispered Preston.

‘I think I can make it kill itself. And Preston, I absolutely forbid you to help me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Preston. ‘Temporal power, you understand. You can’t give me orders, Miss Aching, if that’s all right by you.’

‘You mean your sense of duty and your obedience to your commander means that you must help me?’ she said.

‘Well, yes, miss,’ said Preston, ‘and a few other considerations.’

‘Then I really need you, Preston, I really do. I
think
I could do this myself, but it will make it so much easier if you help me. What I want you to do is—’

She was almost certain that the ghost would not be able to over-hear, but she lowered her voice anyway, and Preston absorbed her words without blinking and simply said, ‘That sounds pretty straightforward, miss. You can rely on the temporal power.’

‘
Yuck! How did I end up here?
’

Something grey and sticky and smelling very much of pig and beer tried to pull itself over the pigsty wall. Tiffany knew it was Roland, but only because it was highly improbable that
two
bridegrooms had been thrown into the pigsty tonight. And he rose like something nasty from the swamp, dripping … well, just dripping; there was hardly any necessity to go into details. Bits of him splashed off.

He hiccupped. ‘There appears to be an enormous pig in my bedroom, and it would seem that I have mislaid my trousers,’ he said, his voice baffled by alcohol. The young Baron peered around, understanding not so much dawning as bursting. ‘I don’t think this is my bedroom, is it?’ he said, and slowly slipped back into the sty.

She smelled the ghost
. Over and above the mix of smells coming from the pigsty it stood out like a fox among chickens. And now the ghost spoke, in a voice of horror and decay.
I can feel you here, witch, and others too. I do not care about them, but this new body, while not very robust, has … a permanent agenda of its own. I am strong. I am coming. You cannot save everybody. I doubt if your fiendish flying stick can carry four people. Who will you leave behind? Why not leave them all? Why not leave the tiresome rival, the boy who spurned you, and the persistent young man? Oh, I know how you think, witch!

But I don’t think that way, Tiffany thought to herself. Oh, I might have liked to see Roland in the pigsty, but people aren’t just people, they are people surrounded by circumstances.

But you aren’t. You’re not even people any more.

Beside her, with a horrible sucking noise, Preston pulled Roland out of the pigsty, against the protest of the sow. How lucky for both of them that they couldn’t hear the voice.

She paused.
Four people? The tiresome rival?
But there was only herself, Roland and Preston, wasn’t there?

She looked towards the far end of the field, in the moon shadow of the castle. A white figure was running towards them at speed.

It had to be Letitia.
Nobody
around here wore so much billowing white all the time. Tiffany’s mind spun with the algebra of tactics.

‘Preston, off you go. Take the broomstick.’

Preston nodded and then saluted, with a grin. ‘At your service, miss.’

Letitia arrived in a flurry and expensive white slippers. She stopped dead when she saw Roland, who was sober enough to try to

cover, with his hands, what Tiffany knew she would always now think of as his passionate parts. This simply made a squelching noise, since he was thickly encrusted in pig muck.

‘One of his chums told me they threw him in the pigsty for a laugh!’ Letitia said indignantly. ‘And they call themselves his friends!’

‘I think
they
think that’s what friends are for,’ said Tiffany absentmindedly. To herself she thought, Is this going to work? Have I overlooked something? Have I understood what I should do? Who do I think I’m talking to? I suppose I’m looking for a sign, just a sign.

There was a rustling noise. She looked down. A hare looked up at her and then, without panicking, lost herself in the stubbles.

‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ said Tiffany, and felt panicked herself. After all,
was
that an omen, or was it just a hare who was old enough not to run instantly when she saw people? And it wasn’t good manners, she was sure, to ask for a second sign to tell you if the first sign wasn’t just a coincidence, was it?

At this point, this
very
point, Roland started to sing, possibly because of drink, but also perhaps because Letitia was industriously wiping him down while keeping her eyes closed so that, as an unmarried woman, she wouldn’t see anything unseemly or surprising. And the song that Roland sang went: ‘
Tis pleasant and delightful on the bright summer’s morn, to see the fields and the meadows all covered in corn, and the small birds were singing on every green spray, and the larks they sang melodious, at the dawning of the day
…’ He paused. ‘My father used to sing that quite a lot when we walked in these fields …’ he said. He was at that stage when drunken men started to cry, and the tears left little trails of pink behind as the muck was washed from his cheeks.

But Tiffany thought, Thank you. An omen was an omen. You picked the ones that worked. And this was the big field, the field where they burned the last of the stubbles. And
the hare runs into the fire
. Oh, yes, the omens. They were always so important.

‘Listen to me, both of you. I am not going to be argued with by you, because you, Roland, are rascally drunk and you, Letitia, are a witch’ – Letitia beamed at that point – ‘who is junior to me, and therefore both of you
will do what I tell you
. And that way, all of us may get back to the castle alive.’

They both stopped and listened, Roland swaying gently.

‘When I shout,’ Tiffany continued, ‘I want you to each grab one of my hands and
run
! Turn if I turn, stop if I stop, although I doubt very much that I shall want to stop. Above all, don’t be afraid, and
trust me
. I’m almost sure I know what I’m doing.’ Tiffany realized that this wasn’t the best assurance, but they didn’t seem to notice. She added, ‘And when I say leap, leap as if a devil is behind you, because it
will
be.’

The stink was suddenly unbearable. The sheer hatred in it seemed to beat on Tiffany’s brain. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes, she thought as she stared into the night-time gloom. By the stinking of my nose, something evil this way goes, she added, to stop herself gibbering as she scanned the distant hedge for movement.

And there was a figure.

There, heavy-set, walking towards them down the length of the field. It moved slowly, but was gathering speed. There was an awkwardness about it. ‘
When he takes over a body, the owner of the body becomes a part of him too. No escape, no release
.’ That’s what Eskarina had told her. Nothing good, nothing capable of redemption, could have thoughts that stank like that. She gripped the hands of the arguing couple and dragged them into a run. The … creature was between them and the castle. And was going more slowly than she’d expected. She risked another look and saw the glint of metal in its hands.
Knives
.

‘Come on!’

‘These aren’t very good shoes for running in,’ Letitia pointed out.

‘My head aches,’ Roland supplied as Tiffany towed them towards the bottom of the field, ignoring all complaints as dry corn stalks snatched at them, caught hair, scratched legs and stung feet. They were barely going at a jog. The creature was following them doggedly. As soon as they turned to run up towards the castle and safety, it would gain on them …

But the creature was having difficulties as well, and Tiffany wondered how far you could push a body if you didn’t feel its pain, couldn’t feel the agony of the lungs, the pounding of the heart, the cracking of the bones, the dreadful ache that pushed you to the last gasp and beyond. Mrs Proust had whispered to her, eventually, the things that the man Macintosh had done, as if saying the words aloud would pollute the air. Against that, how did you rank the crushing of the little songbird? And yet somehow that lodged in the mind as a crime beyond mercy.

There will be no mercy for a song now silenced. No redemption for killing hope in the darkness. I know you.

You are what whispered in Petty’s ear before he beat up his daughter. You are the first blast of the rough music.

You look over the shoulder at the man as he picks up the first stone, and although I think you are part of us all and we will never be rid of you, we can certainly make your life hell.

No mercy. No redemption.

Glancing back, she saw its face looming bigger now and redoubled her efforts to drag the tired and reluctant couple over the rough ground. She managed a breath to say, ‘Look at him! Look at it! Do you want him to catch us?’ She heard a brief scream from Letitia and a groan of sudden sobriety from her husband-to-be. The eyes of the luckless Macintosh were bloodshot and wide open, the lips stuck in a frenzied grin. It tried to take advantage of the sudden narrowed gap but the other two had found fresh strength in their fear and they were almost pulling
Tiffany
along.

And now there was a clear run up the field. It all depended on Preston. Amazingly, Tiffany felt confident. He is trustworthy, she thought, but there was a horrible gurgle behind them. The ghost was driving its host harder, and she could imagine the swish of a long knife. Timing had to be everything. Preston
was
trustworthy. He had understood, hadn’t he? Of course he had. She could trust Preston.