The Shepherd's Crown (Discworld #41)(31)
The elves reeled, panic spreading rapidly from elf to elf as they shrank from the noise. From the sound. From the very scent of iron in the air.
Nonchalantly Of the Lathe the Swarf jumped down from the saddle, used his teeth to steal a stone knife from the guard, whose hands were now covering his pointy ears in an effort to block out the sound, and swiftly sliced through his bonds.
‘Told you. Iron Horse, that is,’ he said importantly. ‘Last train into Twoshirts is that. That’s where goblins work. With steel and iron.’
The Queen hadn’t flinched. She knew that. Some of the others had, but she could deal with them later – no elf should show fear in front of his queen. But in her mind, she thought: Train? It’s big. It’s iron, and we don’t know about it. And what we don’t know about it could get us killed. ‘How can we tame it?’ she demanded. ‘More importantly, can we make it ours? What grief we could make with something like that!’
Peaseblossom – a calm Peaseblossom, seemingly impervious to the general sense of terror among the elves – was at her elbow and smiled; a smile the Queen didn’t like. It cut through the dramatic style of the face he had chosen to wear, his eyes cold and merciless. He said, ‘We can torment the goblins until they tell us how to control it. Then they can do it for us.’
‘They won’t,’ said Of the Lathe the Swarf, giving Peaseblossom a dirty look. ‘Why should they?’
Peaseblossom reached down to grab the goblin, and Of the Lathe the Swarf reacted quickly, thrusting his small hands into his pockets and throwing a shower of silvery scraps over the elf. Peaseblossom screamed in pain as he fell from his horse.
The goblin laughed as the other elves hastily backed away. ‘Forgot what’s in my pockets, Mr Pee-pee flower? Told you about swarf, I did. Part of my name. Hurts, does it? Touch clever goblin these days, nasty things happens. Especially to elves.’ He pointed down at Peaseblossom, whose glamour had completely deserted him under the onslaught of the shower of iron filings.
The elf lay writhing on the grass, a small, weak, pathetic creature, crying from the pain.
‘Funny, no?’ said the goblin. ‘In this new world, little things like swarf – and goblins – do matter.’
fn1 And heard her. For Mrs Earwig’s copious amount of jewellery announced the witch with such a cheerful jangle that it was as if it had ambitions to move from being a set of charms and amulets to being a full instrumental fanfare.
fn2 Though a Feegle will cheerfully lie about almost anything, so Tiffany still went into any privy with her eyes peeled for flashes of Feegle; she had even once had a nightmare about a Feegle popping up out of the other hole of her parents’ two-holer.
CHAPTER 8
The Baron’s Arms
THE BARON’S ARMS was the kind of pub where John Parsley, hereditary landlord and bartender, was happy for the locals to mind the pumps when there was a rush or he needed to answer the call of nature. The kind of pub where men would arrive proudly carrying a huge cucumber or any other humorously shaped or suggestive vegetable from the garden just to show it off to all their friends.
Quite often there would be arguments, but arguments for the truth and not for a fight. Occasionally someone would try to wager money but this was frowned on by John Parsley. Although smoking was allowed – lots and lots of smoking – spitting was not tolerated. And, of course, there was swearing, with language as ripe as the humorous vegetables. After all, there were no women there except for Mrs Parsley, who turned a blind ear and would certainly put up with language such as ‘bugger’, it being considered nothing more than a colourful expression, used plentifully in this context as ‘How are you, you old bugger?’ and, more carefully, ‘Bugger me!’
The Barons, knowing the value of a thriving pub and not being above dropping in from time to time, had over the generations added improvements for the entertainment of their tenants. Soon after his marriage, for instance, the new young Baron had given the pub everything needful for playing darts. This hadn’t been a total success – in one enthusiastic match Shake Gently, widely acknowledged as the best ploughman on the Chalk, but not known for his intellectual acumen, had almost lost an eye. The darts were therefore now looked upon as deadly by all the locals, and the shove ha’penny board had been carefully put back into favour.
After a long day’s slog in the fields or sheds, the pub was a welcome refuge to many. Joe Aching, tenant farmer of Home Farm, had been promising himself a quiet pint throughout a day which had been beset by obstreperous animals and broken equipment. A pint, he had told himself, would put him in a better frame of mind for the discussion which he knew awaited him over supper about his wedding anniversary, which to his dark dismay he had forgotten. From long experience, he knew that this meant at least a week of cold dinners and cold shoulders, even the risk of a cold bed.
It was Saturday, a warm late summer evening, a clear night. The pub was full, though not as full as John Parsley would like. Joe took a seat at the long oak table outside the pub with his dog Jester curled around his ankles.
Coming from a long line of Achings who had farmed on the Chalk, Joe Aching knew every man who lived in the area and their families; he knew who worked and who didn’t work much, and he knew who was silly and who was smart. Joe himself wasn’t smart, but he was clever and a good farmer and, above all things, every Saturday night, wherever he actually sat, he held the chair in the pub. Here he was the fount of all knowledge.