There was armour for men. There was armour for horses. There was armour for fighting dogs. There was even armour for ravens, although King Gumt the Stupid’s plan for an aerial attack force had never really got off the ground. There were more pikes, and swords, cutlasses, rapiers, epees, broadswords, flails, momingstars, maces, clubs, and huge knobs with spikes. They were all piled together and, in those places where the roof had leaked, were rusted into a lump. There were longbows, short bows, pistol bows, stirrup bows, and crossbows, piled like firewood and stacked with the same lack of care. Odd bits of armour were piled in more heaps, and were red with rust. In fact rust was everywhere. The whole huge room was full of the death of iron.
Magrat went on, like some clockwork toy that won’t change direction until it bumps into something.
The candlelight was reflected dully in helmets and breastplates. The sets of horse armour in particular were terrible, on their rotting wooden frames – they stood like exterior skeletons, and, like skeletons, nudged the mind into thoughts of mortality. Empty eye sockets stared sightlessly down at the little candlelit figure.
“Lady?”
The voice came from outside the door, far behind Magrat. But it echoed around her, bouncing off the centuries of mouldering armaments.
They can’t come in here, Magrat thought. Too much iron. In here, I’m safe.
“If lady wants to play, we will fetch her friends.”
As Magrat turned, the light caught the edge of something, and gleamed.
Magrat pulled aside a huge shield.
“Lady?”
Magrat reached out.
“Lady?”
Magrat’s hands held a rusty iron helmet, with wings.
“Come dance at the wedding, lady.”
Magrat’s hands closed on a well-endowed breastplate, with spikes.
Greebo, who had been tracking mice through a prone suit of armour, stuck his head out of a leg.
A change had come over Magrat. It showed in her breathing. She’d been panting, with fear and exhaustion. Then, for a few seconds, there was no sound of her breathing at all. And finally it returned. Slowly. Deeply. Deliberately.
Greebo saw Magrat, who he’d always put down as basically a kind of mouse in human shape, lift the hat with the wings on it and put it on her head.
Magrat knew all about the power of hats.
In her mind’s ear she could hear the rattle of the chariots.
“Lady? We will bring your friends to sing to you.”
She turned.
The candlelight sparkled off her eyes.
Greebo drew back into the safety of his armour. He recalled a particular time when he’d leapt out on a vixen. Normally Greebo could take on a fox without raising a sweat but, as it turned out, this one had cubs. He hadn’t found out until he chased her into her den. He’d lost a bit of one ear and quite a lot of fur before he’d got away.
The vixen had a very similar expression to the one Magrat had now.
“Greebo? Come here!”
The cat turned and tried to find a place of safety in the suit’s breastplate. He was beginning to doubt he’d make it through the knight.
Elves prowled the castle gardens. They’d killed the fish in the ornamental pond, eventually.
Mr. Brooks was perched on a kitchen chair, working at a crevice in the stable wall.
He’d been aware of some sort of excitement, but it was involving humans and therefore of secondary importance. But he did notice the change in the sound from the hives, and the splintering of wood.
A hive had already been tipped over. Angry bees clouded around three figures as feet ripped through comb and honey and brood.
The laughter stopped as a white-coated, veiled figure appeared over the hedge. It raised a long metal tube.
No one ever knew what Mr. Brooks put in his squirter. There was old tobacco in it, and boiled-up roots, and bark scrapings, and herbs that even Magrat had never heard of. It shot a glistening stream over the hedge which hit the middle elf between the eyes, and sprayed over the other two.
Mr. Brooks watched dispassionately until their struggles stopped.
“Wasps,” he said.
Then he went and found a box, lit a lantern and, with great care and delicacy, oblivious to the stings, began to repair the damaged combs.
* * *
Shawn couldn’t feel much in his arm anymore, except in the hot dull way that indicated at least one broken bone, and he knew that two of his fingers shouldn’t be looking like that. He was sweating, despite being only in his vest and drawers. He should never have taken his chain-mail off, but it’s hard to say no when an elf is pointing a bow at you. Shawn knew what, fortunately, many people didn’t – chain-mail isn’t much defence against an arrow. It certainly isn’t when the arrow is being aimed between your eyes.
He’d been dragged along the corridors to the armoury. There were at least four elves, but it was hard to see their faces. Shawn remembered when the travelling Magic Lanthorn show had come to Lancre. He’d watched entranced as different pictures had been projected on to one of Nanny Ogg’s bedsheets. The elf faces put him in mind of that. There were eyes and a mouth in there somewhere, but everything else seemed to be temporary, the elves’ features passing across their faces like the pictures on the screen.
They didn’t say much. They just laughed a lot. They were a merry folk, especially when they were twisting your arm to see how far it could go.
The elves spoke to one another in their own language. Then one of them turned to Shawn, and indicated the armoury door.
“We wish the lady to come out,” it said. “You must say to her, if she does not come out, we will play with you some more.”
“What will you do to us if she does come out?” said Shawn.
“Oh, we shall still play with you,” said the elf. “That’s what makes it so much fun. But she must hope, must she not? Talk to her now.”
He was pushed up to the door. He knocked on it, in what he hoped was a respectful way.
“Urn. Miss Queen?”
Magrat’s voice was muffled.
“Yes?”
“It’s me, Shawn.”
“I know.”
“I’m out here. Um. I think they’ve hurt Miss Tockley. Um. They say they’ll hurt me some more if you don’t come out. But you don’t have to come out because they daren’t come in there because of all the iron. So I shouldn’t listen to them if I was you.”
There were some distant clankings, and then a twang.
“Miss Magrat?”
“Ask her,” said the elf, “if there is any food and water in there.”
“Miss, they say-”
One of the elves jerked him away. Two of them took up station either side of the doorway, and one put his pointed ear to it.
Then it knelt down and peered through the keyhole, taking care not to come too near the metal of the lock.
There was a sound no louder than a click. The elf remained motionless for a moment, and then keeled over gently, without a sound.
Shawn blinked.
There was about an inch of crossbow bolt sticking out of its eye. The feathers had been sheared off by its passage through the keyhole.
“Wow,” he said.
The armoury door swung open, revealing nothing but darkness.
One of the elves started to laugh.
“So much for him,” it said. “How stupid . . . Lady? Will you listen to your warrior?”
He gripped Shawn’s broken arm, and twisted.
Shawn tried not to scream. Purple lights flashed in front of his eyes. He wondered what would happen if he passed out.
He wished his mum was here.
“Lady,” said the elf, “if you-”
“All right,” said Magrat’s voice, from somewhere in the darkness. “I’m going to come out. You must promise not to hurt me.”
“Oh, indeed I do, lady.”
“And you’ll let Shawn go.”
“Yes.”
The elves on either side of the doorway nodded at each other.
“Please?” Magrat pleaded.
“Yes.”
Shawn groaned. If it had been Mum or Mistress Weatherwax, they’d have fought to the death. Mum was right – Magrat always was the nice soft one . . .
. . . who’d just fired a crossbow through a keyhole.
Some eighth sense made Shawn shift his weight. If the elf relaxed his grip for just one second, Shawn was ready to stagger.
Magrat appeared in the doorway. She was carrying an ancient wooden box with the word “Candles” on the side in peeling paint.
Shawn looked hopefully along the corridor.
Magrat smiled brightly at the elf beside him. “This is for you,” she said, handing over the box. The elf took it automatically. “But you mustn’t open it. And remember you promised not to hurt me.”
The elves closed in behind Magrat. One of them raised a hand, with a stone knife in it.