Preston grinned. ‘I was unfortunately born clever, miss, and I’
ve learned that sometimes it’s not such a good idea to be all that clever. Saves trouble.’
Right now, it seemed to Tiffany that the clever thing would be not to be in the hall any longer. Surely the horrible woman couldn’t do too much damage, could she? But Roland had been so strange, acting as if they had never been friends, sounding as though he believed every complaint against her … He had never been like that before. Oh, yes … he was mourning his father, but he just didn’t seem … himself. And that dreadful old baggage had just bundled off to harry him while he was saying goodbye to his father in the coolness of the crypt, trying to find a way of saying the words that there had never been time for, trying to make up for too much silence, trying to bring back yesterday and nail it firmly to now.
Everyone did that. Tiffany had come back from quite a few deathbeds, and some were very nearly merry, where some decent old soul was peacefully putting down the weight of their years. Or they could be tragic, when Death had needed to bend down to harvest his due; or, well, ordinary – sad but expected, one light blinking off in a sky full of stars. And she had wondered, as she made tea, and comforted people, and listened to the tearful stories about the good old days from people who always had words left over that they thought should have been spoken. And she had decided that they weren’t there to be said in the past, but remembered in the here and now.
‘What do you think about the word “conundrum”?’
Tiffany stared at Preston, her mind still full of words people never said. ‘What was that you asked?’ she said, frowning.
‘The word “conundrum”,’ Preston repeated helpfully. ‘When you say the word, doesn’t it look in your head like a copper-coloured snake, curled up asleep?’
Now, Tiffany thought, during a day like this, anyone who wasn’t a witch would dismiss that as a bit of silliness, so that means I shouldn’t.
Preston was the worst-dressed guard in the castle; the newest guard always was. To him were given chain-mail trousers that were mostly full of holes25 and suggested, against everything we know about moths, that moths could eat through steel. To him was given the helmet that, no matter what size your head was, would slide down and make your ears look big; and this was not forgetting that he had also inherited a breastplate with so many holes in it that it might be more useful for straining soup.
But his gaze was always alert, to the point where it made people uneasy. Preston looked at things. Really looked at things, so intensely that afterwards they must have felt really looked at. She had no idea what went on in his head, but it was surely pretty crowded.
‘Well, I must say I’ve never thought about that word “conundrum”,’ she said slowly, ‘but it is certainly metallic and slithery.’
‘I like words,’ said Preston. ‘“Forgiveness”: doesn’t it sound like what it is? Doesn’t it sound like a silk handkerchief gently falling down? And what about “susurration”? Doesn’t it sound to you like whispered plots and dark mysteries? … Sorry, is something wrong?’
‘Yes, I think something may be wrong,’ said Tiffany, looking at Preston’s worried face. ‘Susurration’ was her favourite word; she had never met anyone else who even knew it. ‘Why are you a guard, Preston?’
‘Don’t like sheep very much, not very strong so I can’t be a ploughman, too ham-fisted to be a tailor, too scared of drowning to run away to sea. My mother taught me to read and write, much against my dad’s wishes, and since that meant I was no good for a proper job, I got packed off to be an apprentice priest in the Church of Om. I quite liked that; I learned a lot of interesting words, but they threw me out for asking too many questions, such as, “Is this really true or what?”’ He shrugged. ‘Actually, I quite like the guarding.’ He reached down and pulled a book out of his breastplate, which in fact could have accommodated a small library, and went on,‘There’s plenty of time for reading if you keep out of sight, and the metaphysics is quite interesting as well.’
Tiffany blinked. ‘I think you just lost me there, Preston.’
‘Really?’ said the boy. ‘Well, for example, when I’m on night duty and somebody comes to the gate, I have to say “Who goes there, friend or foe?” To which, of course, the correct answer is “Yes”.’
It took Tiffany a moment to work this one out, and she began to have some insight into how Preston might have a problem holding down a job. He continued, ‘The conundrum begins if the person at the gate says “Friend”, since they may well be lying; but the lads who have to go out at night have very cleverly devised their own shibboleth with which to answer my question, and that is: “Get your nose out of that book, Preston, and let us in right now!”‘
‘“Shibboleth” being …?’ The boy was fascinating. It was not often you found somebody who could make nonsense sound wonderfully sensible.
‘A kind of code word,’ said Preston. ‘Strictly speaking, it means a word that your enemy would be unable to say. For example, in the case of the Duchess, it might be a good idea to choose a word like “please”.’
Tiffany tried not to laugh. ‘That brain of yours is going to get you into trouble one day, Preston.’
‘Well, so long as it’s good for something.’
There was a scream from the distant kitchen, and one thing that makes humans different from animals is that they run towards a distress call, rather than away from it. Tiffany arrived only seconds behind Preston, and even they weren’t the first. A couple of girls were comforting Mrs Coble the cook, who was sobbing on a chair while one of the girls was wrapping a kitchen towel around her arm. The floor was steaming and a black cauldron was lying on its side.
‘I tell you, they were there!’ the cook managed between sobs. ‘All wriggling. I shall always remember it. And kicking and crying out “Mother!” I shall remember their little faces for as long as I live!’ She began sobbing again, great big sobs that threatened to choke her. Tiffany beckoned to the nearest kitchen maid, who reacted as though she’d been struck and tried to cower back.
‘Look,’ said Tiffany, ‘can someone please tell me what— What are you doing with that bucket?’ This was to another maid, who was dragging a bucket up from the cellar and who, at the sound of a command on top of the turmoil, dropped it. Shards of ice flew across the floor. Tiffany took a deep breath. ‘Ladies, you don’t put ice on a scald, however sensible it seems. Cool some tea – but don’t make it cold – and soak her arm in it for at least a quarter of an hour. Everybody understand? Good. Now, what happened ?’
‘It was full of frogs!’ the cook screamed. ‘They was puddings and I set them to boiling, but when I opened it up, they was little frogs, all shouting for their mother! I told everyone, I told them! A wedding and a funeral from the same house, that’s bad luck, that is. It’s witchcraft, that’s what it is!’ Then the woman gasped and clamped her free hand over her mouth.
Tiffany kept a straight face. She looked in the cauldron, and she looked around on the floor. There was no sign of any frogs anywhere, although there were two enormous puddings, still wrapped in their pudding cloths, at the bottom of the cauldron. When she picked them out, still very hot, and placed them on the table, she couldn’t help noticing that the maids backed away from them.
‘Perfectly good plum duff,’ she said cheerily. ‘Nothing to worry about here.’
‘I have often noticed,’ said Preston, ‘that in some circumstances, boiling water can seethe in a very strange way, with water droplets appearing to jump up and down just above the surface, which I might suggest is one reason why Mrs Coble thought she was seeing frogs?’ He leaned closer to Tiffany and whispered, ‘And another reason may quite possibly be that bottle of finest cream sherry I can see on the shelf over there, which appears to be almost empty, coupled with the lone glass noticeable in the washing-up bowl over there.’ Tiffany was impressed; she hadn’t noticed the glass.
Everyone was watching her. Somebody ought to have been saying something, and since nobody was, it had better be her.
‘I’m sure the death of our Baron has upset us all,’ she began, and got no further, because the cook sat bolt upright in the chair and pointed a trembling finger at her.