“Stealin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ fightin’!” shouted the blue men cheerfully.
“Tell the wee hag who we are, lads,” said the helmet twiddler.
There was the scrape of many small swords being drawn and thrust into the air.
“Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!”
Tiffany stared at them. They were all watching her to see what she was going to do next, and the longer she said nothing, the more worried they become. They lowered their swords, looking embarrassed.
“But we wouldna dare deny a powerful hag, except mebbe for strong drink,” said the twiddler, his helmet spinning desperately in his hands and his eyes on the bottle of Special Sheep Liniment. “Will ye no’ help us?”
“Help you?” said Tiffany. “I want you to help me! Someone has taken my brother in broad daylight.”
“Oh waily, waily waily!” said the helmet twiddler. “She’s come, then. She’s come a-fetchin’. We’re too late! It’s the Quin!”
“What, there were four of them?” said Tiffany.
“They mean the Queen,” said the toad. “The Queen of the—”
“Hush yer gob!” shouted the helmet twiddler, but his voice was lost in the wails and groans of the Nac Mac Feegle. They were pulling at their hair and stamping on the ground and shouting, “Alackaday!” and “Waily waily waily!” and the toad was arguing with the helmet twiddler and everyone was getting louder to make themselves heard—
Tiffany stood up. “Everybody shut up right now!” she said.
Silence fell, except for a few sniffs and faint wailys from the back.
“We wuz only dreeing our weird, mistress,” said the helmet twiddler, almost crouching in fear.
“But not in here!” snapped Tiffany, shaking with anger. “This is a dairy! I have to keep it clean!”
“Er…dreeing your weird means ‘facing your fate,’” said the toad.
“’Cause if the Quin is here, then it means our kelda is weakenin’ fast,” said the helmet twiddler. “An’ we’ll ha’ naeone tae look after us.”
No one to look after us, thought Tiffany. Hundreds of tough little men who could each win the Worst Broken Nose Contest need someone to look after them?
She took a deep breath.
“My mother’s in the house crying,” she said, “and…” I don’t know how to comfort her, she added to herself. I’m no good at this sort of thing, I never know what I should be saying. Out loud she said: “And she wants him back. Er. A lot.” She added, hating to say it, “He’s her favorite.”
She pointed to the helmet twiddler, who backed away.
“First of all,” she said, “I can’t keep thinking of you as the helmet twiddler, so what is your name?”
A gasp went up from the Nac Mac Feegle, and Tiffany heard one of them murmur, “Aye, she’s the hag, sure enough. That’s a hag’s question!”
The helmet twiddler looked around at them as if seeking help.
“We dinna give oour names,” he muttered. But another Feegle, somewhere safe at the back said, “Wheest! You canna refuse a hag!”
The little man looked up, very worried.
“I’m the Big Man o’ the clan, mistress,” he said. “An’ my name it is…” He swallowed. “Rob Anybody Feegle, mistress. But I beg ye not to use it agin me!”
The toad was ready for this.
“They think names have magic in them,” he murmured. “They don’t tell them to people in case they are written down.”
“Aye, an’ put upon comp-li-cated documents,” said a Feegle.