The Wee Free Men

“Ach, she’s a bit on the big side, no offense to her.”



“Aye, but a kelda has to be big, ye ken, to have lots of wee babbies.”



“Aye, fair enough, big wimmin is a’ very well, but if a laddie was tae try tae cuddle this one, he’d have tae leave a chalk mark to show where he left off yesterday.”



“An’ she’s a bit young.”



“She needna have any babbies yet, then. Or mebbe not too many at a time, say. Nae more than ten, mebbe.”



“Crivens, lads, what’re ye talkin’ aboout? ’Tis Rob Anybody she’ll choose anyway. Ye can see the big man’s poor wee knees knocking fra’ here!”



Tiffany lived on a farm. Any little beliefs that babies are delivered by storks or found under bushes tend to get sorted out early on if you live on a farm, especially when a cow is having a difficult calving in the middle of the night. And she’d helped with the lambing, when small hands could be very useful in difficult cases. She knew all about the bags of red chalk the rams had strapped to their chests, and why you knew later on that the ewes with the red smudges on their backs were going to be mothers in the spring. It’s amazing what a child who is quiet and observant can learn, and this includes things people don’t think she is old enough to know.



Her eye spotted Fion, on the other side of the hall. She was smiling, in a worrying way.



“What’s happening, Rob Anybody?” she said, laying the words down carefully.



“Ah, weel…it’s the clan rules, ye ken,” said the Feegle awkwardly. “Ye being the new kelda an’, an’, weel, we’re bound to ask ye, see, nae matter what we feel, we gotta ask ye mutter mutter mutter…” He stepped back quickly.



“I didn’t quite catch that,” said Tiffany.



“We’ve scrubbed up nice, ye ken,” Rob Anybody said. “Some o’ the lads actually had a bath in the dewpond, e’en though ’tis only May, and Big Yan washed under his arms for the first time ever, and Daft Wullie has picked ye a bonny bunch of flowers…”



Daft Wullie stepped forward, swollen with nervous pride, and thrust the aforesaid bouquet into the air. They probably had been nice flowers, but he didn’t have much idea of what a bunch was or how you picked one. Stems and leaves and dropping petals stuck out of his fist in all directions.



“Very nice,” said Tiffany, taking another sip of the tea.



“Guid, guid,” said Rob Anybody, wiping his forehead. “So mebbe you’d like tae tell us mutter mutter mutter…”



“They want to know which one of them you’re going to marry,” said Fion loudly. “It’s the rules. Ye have to choose, or quit as kelda. Ye have to choose yer man an’ name the day.”



“Aye,” said Rob Anybody, not meeting Tiffany’s eye.



Tiffany held the cup perfectly steady, but only because suddenly she couldn’t move a muscle. She was thinking: Aaargh! This is not happening to me! I can’t—he couldn’t—we wouldn’t—they’re not even—this is ridiculous! Run away!



But she was aware of hundreds of nervous faces in the shadows. How you deal with this is going to be important, said her Second Thoughts. They’re all watching you. And Fion wants to see what you’ll do. You really oughtn’t to dislike a girl four feet shorter than you, but you do.



“Well, this is very unexpected,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “A big honor, of course.”



“Aye, aye,” said Rob Anybody, looking at the floor.



“And there’s so many of you, it’d be so hard to choose,” Tiffany went on, still smiling. And her Second Thoughts said: He’s not happy about it either!



“Aye, it will that,” said Rob Anybody.



“I’d just like to have a little fresh air while I think about it,” said Tiffany, and didn’t let the smile fade until she was out on the mound again.



She crouched down and peered among the primrose leaves. “Toad!” she yelled.



The toad crawled out, chewing something. “Hm?” it said.



“They want to marry me!”



“Mm phmm ffm mm?”



“What are you eating?”



The toad swallowed. “A very undernourished slug,” it said.



“I said they want to marry me!”



“And?”



“And? Well, just—just think!”



“Oh, right, yeah, the height thing,” said the toad. “It might not seem much now, but when you’re five feet seven he’ll still be six inches high—”



“Don’t laugh at me! I’m the kelda!”



“Well, of course, that’s the point, isn’t it,” said the toad. “As far as they’re concerned, there’s rules. The new kelda marries the warrior of her choice and settles down and has lots and lots of Feegles. It’d be a terrible insult to refuse—”



“I am not going to marry a Feegle! I can’t have hundreds of babies! Tell me what to do!”



“Me? Tell the kelda what to do? I wouldn’t dare,” said the toad. “And I don’t like being shouted at. Even toads have their pride, you know.” He crawled back into the leaves.



Tiffany took a deep breath, ready to shout, and then closed her mouth.



The old kelda must’ve known about this, she thought. So…she must have thought I’d be able to deal with it. It’s just the rules, and they didn’t know what to do about them. None of them wanted to marry a big girl like her, even if none of them would admit it. It was just the rules.



There must be a way round it. There had to be. But she had to accept a husband and she had to name the day. They’d told her that.



She stared at the thorn trees for a moment. Hmm, she thought.



She slid back down the hole.



The pictsies were waiting nervously, every scarred and bearded face watching hers.



“I accept you, Rob Anybody,” she said.



Rob Anybody’s face became a mask of terror. She heard him mutter, “Aw crivens!” in a tiny voice.



“But of course, it’s the bride who names the day, isn’t it?” said Tiffany cheerfully. “Everyone knows that.”



“Aye,” Rob Anybody quavered. “That’s the tradition, right enough.”



“Then I shall.” Tiffany took a deep breath. “At the end of the world is a great big mountain of granite rock a mile high,” she said. “And every year, a tiny bird flies all the way to the rock and wipes its beak on it. Well, when the little bird has worn the mountain down to the size of a grain of sand…that’s the day I’ll marry you, Rob Anybody Feegle!”



Rob Anybody’s terror turned to outright panic, but then he hesitated and, very slowly, started to grin.



“Aye, guid idea,” he said slowly. “It doesna do tae rush these things.”



“Absolutely,” said Tiffany.



“And that’d gi’ us time tae sort oout the guest list an a’ that,” the pictsie went on.



“That’s right.”



“Plus there’s a’ that business wi’ the wedding dress and buckets o’ flowers and a’ that kind of stuff,” said Rob Anybody, looking more cheerful by the second. “That sort thing can tak’ forever, ye ken.”



“Oh yes,” said Tiffany.



“But she’s really just said no!” Fion burst out. “It’d take millions of years for the bird to—”



“She said aye!” Rob Anybody shouted. “Ye a’ heard her, lads! An’ she’s named the day! That’s the rules!”



“Nae problem aboot the mountain, neither,” said Daft Wullie, still holding out the flowers. “Just ye tell us where it is and I reckon we could ha’ it doon a lot faster than any wee burdie—”



“It’s got to be the bird!” yelled Rob Anybody desperately. “Okay? The wee burdie! Nae more arguin’! Anyone feelin’ like arguin’ will feel ma boot! Some o’ us ha’ got a wee laddie to steal back fra’ the Quin!” He drew his sword and waved it in the air. “Who’s coming wi’ me?”



That seemed to work. The Nac Mac Feegle liked clear goals. Hundreds of swords and battleaxes, and one bunch of battered flowers in the case of Daft Wullie, were thrust into the air, and the war cry of the Nac Mac Feegle echoed around the chamber. The period of time it takes a pictsie to go from normal to mad fighting mood is so tiny, it can’t be measured on the smallest clock.



Unfortunately, since the pictsies were very individualistic, each one had his own cry and Tiffany could only make out a few over the din:



“They can tak’ oour lives but they canna tak’ oour troousers!”



“Ye’ll tak’ the high road an’ I’ll tak’ yer wallet!”



“There can only be one t’ousand!”



“Ach, stick it up yer trakkans!”



But the voices gradually came together in one roar that shook the walls:



“Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!”



This died away, a cloud of dust dropped from the roof, and there was silence.



“Let’s gae!” cried Rob Anybody.



As one Feegle, the pictsies swarmed down the galleries and across the floor and up the slope to the hole. In a few seconds the chamber was empty, except for the gonnagle and Fion.



“Where have they gone?” said Tiffany.



“Ach, they just go,” said Fion, shrugging. “I’m going tae stay here and look after the fire. Someone ought to act like a proper kelda.” She glared at Tiffany.



“I do hope you find a clan for yourself soon, Fion,” said Tiffany sweetly. The pictsie scowled at her.



“They’ll run arroond for a while, mebbe stun a few bunnies and fall over a few times,” said William. “They’ll slow down when they find oout they don’t ken what they’re supposed to do yet.”



“Do they always just run off like this?” said Tiffany.



“Ach, well, Rob Anybody disna want too much talk about marryin’,” said William, grinning.



“Yes, we have a lot in common in that respect,” said Tiffany.



She pulled herself out of the hole and found the toad waiting for her.



“I listened in,” he said. “Well done. Very clever. Very diplomatic.”



Tiffany looked around. There were a few hours to sunset, but the shadows were already lengthening.



“We’d better be going,” she said, tying on her apron. “And you’re coming, toad.”



“Well, I don’t know much about how to get into—” the toad began, trying to back away. But toads can’t back up easily, and Tiffany grabbed him and put him in her apron pocket.



She headed for the mounds and stones. My brother will never grow up, she thought, as she ran across the turf. That’s what the old lady said. How does that work? What kind of a place is it where you never grow up?



The mounds got nearer. She saw William and Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock running along beside her, but there was no sign of the rest of the Nac Mac Feegle.