The Wee Free Men

“Crivens!”



“Oh no, not them,” said the Queen, throwing up her hands.



It wasn’t just the Nac Mac Feegle but also Wentworth, a strong smell of seaweed, a lot of water, and a dead shark. They appeared in midair and landed in a heap between Tiffany and the Queen. But a pictsie was always ready for a fight, and they bounced, rolled, and came up drawing their swords and shaking seawater out of their hair.



“Oh, ’tis you, izzut?” said Rob Anybody, glaring up at the Queen. “Face to face wi’ ye at last, ye bloustie ol’ callyack that ye are! Ye canna’ come here, unnerstan’? Be off wi’ ye! Are ye goin’ to go quietly?”



The Queen stamped heavily on him. When she took her foot away, only the top of his head was visible above the turf.



“Well, are ye?” he said, pulling himself out as if nothing had happened. “I don’t want tae have tae lose my temper wi’ ye! An’ it’s no good sendin’ your pets against us, ’cause you ken we can take ’em tae the cleaners!” He turned to Tiffany, who hadn’t moved. “You just leave this tae us, kelda. Us an’ the Quin, we go way back!”



The Queen snapped her fingers. “Always leaping into things you don’t understand,” she hissed. “Well, can you face these?”



Every Nac Mac Feegle sword suddenly glowed blue.



Back in the crowd of eerily lit pictsies, a voice that sounded very much like that of Daft Wullie said:



“Ach, we’re in real trouble noo…”



Three figures had appeared in the air, a little way away. The middle one, Tiffany saw, had a long red gown, a strange long wig, and black tights with buckles on his shoes. The others were just ordinary men, it seemed, in ordinary gray suits.



“Oh, ye are a harrrrrd wumman, Quin,” said William the gonnagle, “to set the lawyers ontae us.”



“See the one on the left there,” whimpered a pictsie. “See, he’s got a briefcase! It’s a briefcase! Oh, waily, waily, a briefcase, waily…”



Reluctantly, a step at a time, pressing together in terror, the Nac Mac Feegle began to back away.



“Oh, waily waily, he’s snappin’ the clasps,” groaned Daft Wullie. “Oh, waily waily waily, ’tis the sound o’ Doom when a lawyer does that!”



“Mister Rob Anybody Feegle and sundry others?” said one of the figures in a dreadful voice.



“There’s naebody here o’ that name!” shouted Rob Anybody. “We dinna know anythin’!”



“We have here a list of criminal and civil charges totaling nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty-three separate offenses—”



“We wasna there!” yelled Rob Anybody desperately. “Isn’t that right, lads?”



“—including more than two thousand cases of Making an Affray, Causing a Public Nuisance, Being Found Drunk, Being Found Very Drunk, Using Offensive Language (taking into account ninety-seven counts of Using Language That Was Probably Offensive If Anyone Else Could Understand It), Committing a Breach of the Peace, Malicious Lingering—”



“It’s mistaken identity!” shouted Rob Anybody. “It’s no’ oour fault! We wuz only standing there an’ someone else did it and ran awa’!”



“—Grand Theft, Petty Theft, Burglary, Housebreaking, Loitering with Intent to Commit a Felony—”



“We wuz misunderstood when we was wee bairns!” yelled Rob Anybody. “Ye’re only pickin’ on us ’cause we’re blue! We always get blamed for everythin’! The polis hate us! We wasna even in the country!”



But, to groans from the cowering pictsies, one of the lawyers produced a big roll of paper from his briefcase. He cleared his throat and read out: “Angus, Big; Angus, Not-as-big-as-Big-Angus; Angus, Wee; Archie, Big; Archie, One-Eyed; Archie, Wee Mad—”



“They’ve got oour names!” sobbed Daft Wullie. “They’ve got oour names! It’s the pris’n hoose for us!”



“Objection! I move for a writ of habeas corpus,” said a small voice. “And enter a plea of vis-ne faciem capite repletam, without prejudice.”



There was absolute silence for a moment. Rob Anybody turned to look at the frightened Nac Mac Feegle and said: “Okay, okay, which of youse said that?”



The toad crawled out of the crowd and sighed. “It suddenly all came back to me,” he said. “I remember what I was now. The legal language brought it all back. I’m a toad now, but”—he swallowed—“once I was a lawyer. And this, people, is illegal. These charges are a complete tissue of lies based on hearsay evidence.”



He raised yellow eyes toward the Queen’s lawyers. “I further move that the case be adjourned sine die on the basis of potest-ne mater tua suere, amice.”



The lawyers had pulled large books out of nowhere and were thumbing through them hastily.



“We’re not familiar with counsel’s terminology,” said one of them.



“Hey, they’re sweatin’,” said Rob Anybody. “You mean we can have lawyers on oour side as well?”



“Yes, of course,” said the toad. “You can have defense lawyers.”



“Defense?” said Rob Anybody. “Are you tellin’ me we could get awa’ wi’ it ’cause of a tishoo o’ lies?”



“Certainly,” said the toad. “And with all the treasure you’ve stolen, you can pay enough to be very innocent indeed. My fee will be—”



He gulped as a dozen glowing swords were swung toward him.



“I’ve just remembered why that fairy godmother turned me into a toad,” he said. “So, in the circumstances, I’ll take this case pro bono publico.”



The swords didn’t move.



“That means for free,” he added.



“Oh, right, we like the sound o’ that,” said Rob Anybody, to the sound of swords being sheathed. “How come ye’re a lawyer an’ a toad?”



“Oh, well, it was just bit of an argument,” said the toad. “A fairy godmother gave my client three wishes—the usual health, wealth, and happiness package—and when my client woke up one wet morning and didn’t feel particularly happy, she got me to bring an action for breach of contract. It was a definite first in the history of fairy godmothering. Unfortunately, as it turned out, so was turning the client into a small hand mirror and her lawyer, as you see before you, into a toad. I think the worst part was when the judge applauded. That was hurtful, in my opinion.”



“But ye can still remember all that legal stuff? Guid,” said Rob Anybody. He glared at the other lawyers. “Hey, youse scunners, we got a cheap lawyer and we’re no’ afraid tae use him!”



The other lawyers were pulling more and more paperwork out of the air now. They looked worried, and a little frightened. Rob Anybody’s eyes gleamed as he watched them.



“What does all that viznee-facey-em stuff mean, my learned friend?” he said.



“Vis-ne faciem capite repletam,” said the toad. “It was the best I could do in a hurry, but it means, approximately”—he gave a little cough—“‘Would you like a face which is full of head?’”



“And tae think we didna know legal talkin’ was that simple,” said Rob Anybody. “We could all be lawyers, lads, if we knew the fancy words! Let’s get them!”



The Nac Mac Feegle could change mood in a moment, especially at the sound of a battle cry. They raised their swords in the air.



“Twelve hundred angry men!” they shouted.



“Nae more courtroom drama!”



“We ha’ the law on oour side!”



“The law’s made to tak’ care o’ raskills!”



“No,” said the Queen, and waved her hand.



Lawyers and pictsies faded away. There was just her and Tiffany, facing one another on the turf at dawn, the wind hissing around the stones.



“What have you done with them?” Tiffany shouted.



“Oh, they’re around…somewhere,” said the Queen airily. “It’s all dreams, anyway. And dreams within dreams. You can’t rely on anything, little girl. Nothing is real. Nothing lasts. Everything goes. All you can do is learn to dream. And it’s too late for that. And I…I have had longer to learn.”



Tiffany wasn’t sure which of her thoughts was operating now. She was tired. She felt as though she was watching herself from above and a little behind. She saw herself set her boots firmly on the turf, and then…



…and then…



…and then, like someone rising from the clouds of a sleep, she felt the deep, deep Time below her. She sensed the breath of the downs and the distant roar of ancient, ancient seas trapped in millions of tiny shells. She thought of Granny Aching, under the turf, becoming part of the chalk again, part of the land under wave. She felt as if huge wheels, of time and stars, were turning slowly around her.



She opened her eyes and then, somewhere inside, opened her eyes again.



She heard the grass growing, and the sound of worms below the turf. She could feel the thousands of little lives around her, smell all the scents on the breeze, and see all the shades of the night.



The wheels of stars and years, of space and time, locked into place. She knew exactly where she was, and who she was, and what she was.



She swung a hand. The Queen tried to stop her, but she might as well have tried to stop a wheel of years. Tiffany’s hand caught her face and knocked her off her feet.



“Now I know why I never cried for Granny,” she said. “She has never left me.”



She leaned down, and centuries bent with her.



“The secret is not to dream,” she whispered. “The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I’m going. You cannot fool me anymore. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.”



I’ll never be like this again, she thought, as she saw the terror in the Queen’s face. I’ll never again feel as tall as the sky and as old as the hills and as strong as the sea. I’ve been given something for a while, and the price of it is that I have to give it back.



And the reward is giving it back, too. No human could live like this. You could spend a day looking at a flower to see how wonderful it is, and that wouldn’t get the milking done. No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is…no one could stand that for long.



She took a deep breath and picked the Queen up. She was aware of things happening, of dreams roaring around her, but they didn’t affect her. She was real and she was awake, more aware than she’d ever been. She had to concentrate even to think against the storm of sensations pouring into her mind.



The Queen was as light as a baby and changed shape madly in Tiffany’s arms—into monsters and mixed-up beasts, things with claws and tentacles. But at last she was small and gray, like a monkey, with a large head and big eyes and a little downy chest that went up and down as she panted.