The Lancre Caper – Epilogue
I wasn't meaning to write this, as my preference at the end of "Lancre Caper" was to leave Deborah Rust's eventual fate mercifully undescribed – save that for annoying Feegles, it was likely to be painful and personally embarrassing. The details were to be left to the imagination.
But I've been asked for it, repeatedly and with emphasis, by many readers, including Fledge, Beka,Space Anjl, and others..... so who am I to be ungracious and not oblige.
Partly inspired by the current advertising campaign for Tango soft drinks. For those outside the UK. Tango do very unsubtle adverts. One of which had me laughing all the way home, so they deserve the plug here.
It was a pleasant early summer morning on the Rust estate, a patchwork of small farms either working for themselves and paying rent to the Lord, or else farming directly for Lord Rust's personal convenience. (Or at least, that of his estate manager: Lord Rust generally saw his country holdings only as a playground for huntin', shootin', and fishin'. The business of making money out of his tenant farmers and farm labourers he left to professionals).
. A group of estate hands were gathered around George Barford the gamekeeper. The meeting was as close as stolid country folk ever come to mutiny or rebellion against the Squire or his appointed representative: it was abundantly clear they were not happy, and they were beseeching George, one of their own in a position where he occasionally had Rust's ear, to do something about it. Their collective rumbling of discontent grew louder and more bucolic.
"Look, lads, I know how you feel." George pleaded. "I really do. She was a prize pain in the arse last summer and I know she annoyed a lot of people. But Young Lady Rust wants to spend a few days out in the country working with the Little People like she did last summer. I can't go to her dad and say "excuse me, Ronald. Your daughter's being a right royal little cow, and she ain't half pissing a lot of people off. If you don't watch out, they'll be hanging her by the heels from the nearest stout oak tree". It don't work, I tell you now! I'd be sacked and you'd all be evicted. We're expected to put up and shut up. I'm sorry, and yes Edward Grundy, I know you're steamin' with rage, but the least we can do is divert her. Find her something to do that she like and leave her too it, just draw straws like last year as to who baby-sits the little brat. Now I got the straws ready here, we'll all pick, you first , Neil Carter, then you, Clive Horobin…"
And thus it was decided.
Young Lady Rust turned up at ten that morning, bright and keen, and because even the Rusts teach their children to behave with a modicum of surface civility to the lower orders (1), she immediately said "I want to go out poisoning vermin, Mr Barford, like last summer. How soon can we get going?"
Well, that was safe enough, Barford thought. She learnt to use the apparatus last summer – perhaps a damn sight too enthusiastically - and only needed minimum supervision in the end. Hard luck on Mike Tucker, who drew the short straw, but that's life.
Barford had barely said "I'm sure we can accommodate you there, Miss Deborah"… when the bloody brat said something that took the smile right off his face.
"I know exactly what sort of vermin I'm looking for, Mr Barford!" she said, excitedly. "Now, Daddy said some sheep are being taken out towards Quirm Lane Bridge, but he's puzzled they're not being taken by foxes or wolves or other vermin. And hat you seemed reluctant to want to do anything about it, Mr Barford. Now when I was at school last term we had a jolly interesting lesson, for once, though I didn't realise how interesting it was going to be until later, and I think I've worked it out!"
Deborah almost bounced up and down in her excitement; George reflected that if she stopped scowling and learnt to smile with her eyes a bit more, she would actually be quite pretty. And her bouncing up and down like that, at the age of thirteen, was just reinforcing things… he put the uncomfortable thought out of his mind – he had daughters himself, and he din't trust some of the lads round here, not one inch. (Ye gods, there's something else to watch for in the Rust girls as they get older. His Lordship ain't doing to thank me if his girl has a roll in the hay with a good-looking ploughboy! That Lucinda were a devil for that!)
He forced his voice to stay level and unconcerned.
"And what did you learn at school that could solve the problem of the occasional missing sheep, miss Deborah? Sheep is tricky creatures, too stupid to realise they're in danger. They do stray and get lost now and again…"
"There's an old mound down there, isn't there? From the really old days. The kind that daft old people tell you in one breath there's buried treasure in, and in the next, they say it's no good going after it because the mound has terrible evil spirits in it who'll get you if you go anywhere near it with a spade, Well, mr Barford, that's where the vermin live who are taking the sheep and that's where we're going to gas them to death!"
Barford stepped back, trying not to show how aghast he was, and hoping his weatherbeaten face would hide how pale he'd suddenly become. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mike Carter and Eddie Grundy exchange a consternated look, then nod at each other, while the normally bone-idle layabout Grundy took to his heels and moved faster than he'd done since Lord Rust had come this way, impressing people for heavy labour doing some essential road-mending for the estate.
What are they teaching them these days? The gentry ain't meant to know these things, it upsets the entire social order if they gets to know to much! She knows enough to know something about the wee free men, but not enough to know they're evil little buggers if riled. Why does she think I let them take a sheep now and again? I knew education for girls was a bad idea!
"…and Miss Band, one of my teachers, a frightful jumped-up lower-middle class woman, said she'd annoyed a nest of these little blue vermin. She's a priest's daughter, of course, and she can't be blamed for her father being a sky-pilot, but it does mean she's got her head in the clouds most of the time!"
"Er… miss… do you think this is a good idea?"
Deborah Rust turned the glacial blue family cold stare on him, as befits a lumpen prole who has dared contradict his social betters, and said
"Of course it's a good idea. I thought of it! Now fetch the gassing equipment! I've got some super poisons here!"
"George Barford sighed, deeply, and perfunctorily touched his forelock.
"As you wish, miss Deborah."
He turned and issued an instruction to Mike Carter. Out of the corner of his mouth, he added "Go slowly. I think I know where Eddie's gone. Give him time to get there and warn 'em before Madam arrives."
Eddie Grundy paused only to duck inside his cottage and grab a bottle. His wife Clarrie accosted him in the hall.
"Are you drinking already, at this hour of the morning, Edward Grundy!"
"Leave me be, woman, there's a crisis on! Deborah Rust is in town, for one thing! "
Clarrie paused.
"You'd better pour me a glass, then." She said.
"And she wants to gas vermin in the old mound at Quirm Bridge!"
"Better make it a big glass, Eddie!"
Eddie sighed, and brought out a second bottle of Bearhugger's finest. The one he'd been hoping to save until Soul Cake day. But if the alternative were to have…them…. getting pissed off and taking out their displeasure on the village… he slipped out and ran again, down towards Quirm Road.
"Are we ready? Good-oh. Let's go! Chop-chop!"
Really, thought Deborah, contentedly, the peasants aren't all that stupid and slow as long as you give them simple, clear, instructions.
And a little procession marched off, consisting of Deborah Rust, follwed by a glum-looking George Barford, followed by Mike Carter and Roy Tucker, with the handcart carrying the Equipment. Neither Mike nor Roy looked happy at all, but they'd drawn the short straws. They knew the Duty.
Eddie Grundy arrived, panting and breathless, at the old fairy mound. Anyone meeting Eddie would see a plump, cunning-looking, peasant who they suspected would know how to duck and dive and connive and avoid, where possible, a honest day's work. This was broadly correct, but deep down in there, especially when under stress, was a normally under-used brain that could accomplish surprisingly complex things. And he was about to do one such.
Walking up to the mound, but very carefully not stepping onto it, he stood in the silence of the day, seemingly alone, as birds sang and insects buzzed in the growing heat of the day. He raised the bottle of Bearhuggers and waved it in the air, as if trying to attract attention.
Suddenly, there was a change in the quality of the seeming solitude, as if he was looking into the Void that wizards go on about, and the Void had decided to take a personal interest in him. He swallowed, nervously.
"I've come from George Barford" he said. "You know him. George would have come here himself, he usually does the talking with you, but he can't make it today. So he sent me. He needs to get a message to you. Listen."
"Dinna turn round, laddie" a voice came, from grassroots level. "We're listenin'."
"This is important. You know Lord Rust, cold bastard, colder than an Ice-Giant's left nadger, thinks he owns all the land round here? Well, his daughter's in town. Vicious evil little brat."
"We ken Rust, aye. Him an' his gets. We ran the son af of our land before now. Wi'oot his troosers."
"I remember. But this is Deborah. She was round here last summer gassing things."
"We recall. Big Tam and Daft Boab brought a badger back. If it wisnae for the kelda an' her wisdom, we'd have etten it. She tried it oot oan a stoat. It heeled over and died efter the first bite. Enough poison for to keel all of us."
"That's what she wants to do. Like poisoning badgers in their sett. Only to you. You're in trouble."
There was a sudden chill silence. Eddie felt sweat running down his back. Cold sweat.
Then a sudden roar of rage, as of many voices, rolled up from the earth, Eddie wanted to run, but his feet were suddenly rooted.
"WE'RE in trouble? Ye wouldnae care tae rephrase that, would yiz, mister Grundy?"
"Trouble is on its way. Mr Barford asks you. The men with her are not there of their own will. If a Rust tells you to do something, you do it, or you lose your house and your land and your livelihood. He asks you to leave them be. On his honour. He also asks that when you punish the girl, not to kill her or damage her permanently. Just scare her. Teach her a lesson. It's a lot to ask as she wants to kill you. But if she gets damaged, Lord Rust damages us in return."
"Whit's your price?"
Eddie deliberately set the bottle of Bearhuggers in the ground and stepped back from it. There was a sensation of a certain thawing of diplomatic relations.
Aye. That, and a ship-beastie, will do nicely."
"I'll get Mr Barford to arrange you a sheep."
A blue flash zipped past, like a bargain-basement slightly soiled kingfisher, and the whiskey was gone.
"Aff ye gang, then, mister Grundy. We'll sort things oot frae here, dinna ye fret!"
Eddie ran, hearing behind him:
"Pit that DOON, ye thieven' wee scunner ye! That's for EFTER, ye shilpit wee nyaff, ye! I dinna ken if ye've noticed, but we have a problem tae sairt oot! And we sairt it oot SOBER, de ye hear me?Hands aff the poteen!"
Deborah Rust prepared the equipment in the lee of the mound, excitedly explaining all the things she'd learnt in poisons class from Mericet last term. Mike and Roy, having been tipped of by a nod from Eddie Grundy, stood respectfully a little way off, prepared to run at an instant's notice. George Barford stood a little way off, partly concealed in the trees and undergrowth, smoking his pipe. Lucinda nodded, and went forward to insert the nozzle of the apparatus into a handy rabbit-hole that, from the class description, looked about right.
She wasn't completely stupid: she'd registered the tell-tale signs of Feegle habitation, such as rabbit-holes that looked well-used but with no sign of rabbits. In fact, no small animals that could be confused with food lived in Feegle mounds. The sensible ones moved out very quickly, and the unwary ones got eaten.
Up in the summer sky, a buzzard called. George Barford, recognising a predator on game-birds, reflexively raised his crossbow, then thought better of it. Lord Rust shouted at him for not doing enough to keep down birds of prey. It was no use trying to tell him that there were such things as morags, birds of prey used by Feegles for flying and scouting. Shoot one of those and an aggrieved pilot was likely to land on you – heavily - from a great height, demanding to know if you knew how long it takes tae train one of those, ye trigger-happy bigjob ye, ye have to stairt frae the eigg! No, George allowed them an acceptable wastage rate of young pheasants. It was easier that way. He sighed. Being a gamekeeper in Feegle territory was not easy.
Something was happening… his ears.
Deborah was suddenly rolling on the grass and screaming, holding her ears. There was just a hint of sound, way up in the high-pitched register… George had heard that younger people had far higher hearing sensitivity in the high registers. Deborah was thirteen, wasn't she? He heard Mike and Roy shout and run. He felt the earwax shift, melt and run.
Great gods, that little Feegle… the gonnagle, isn't he? Playing the…mousepipes… within inches of Deborah's ears. No wonder she's writhing on the ground like that… ah. Here they come.
A swirling shouting crowd of Feegle appeared from every exit point the mound offered. Hundreds, well over a thousand, George estimated. Deborah was swept up and brought down on her back. George watched as she was tied to firmly driven stakes at both wrists and ankles. The blue tide then formed a milling jeering circle around her, apart from a smaller sub-group that went to investigate the gassing apparatus.
"Morning, mister Barford!" one of them called to him, raising a thumb. George nodded acknowledgement, and watched as they set about working the apparatus out.
"Aye, serve her richt if we stick it up her wee pink bum and poomp the bellows, know what I mean?"
"We cannae do that, Wee Psychotic Jock" another one said. "We promised Mr Barford, ye ken? Through his man Grundy. Not tae kill or damage the girl. The Big Yin agreed".
"But we can pit the girl tae inconvenience, aye! . The Big Yin tellt us tae see if we can empty this thing, and sairt of refill it. Hey, Mr Barford, whit's the best way?"
George considered, and said: "Point it downwind so the breeze disperses it. Kill the fire in the boiler. Then pump the bellows till it's empty, taking great care not to breathe the fumes. Then it's best washed out after."
"Cheers, Mister Barford, yiz is a guid man for a bigjob!"
George was not a vindictive or unreasonable man: informally, he was the nearest thing the village of Quirmbridge and its environs had to a Town Watch, and he knew how to handle people. He nodded to the Feegle.
"Do me a favour, would you. Put a gag on her, so if – when – her father asks, I can say I was on the other side of the estate and didn't hear her calling for help. Oh, and it's shaping for a hot day. If you're going to keep her for any length of time to teach her a well-deserved lesson (2), give her some water now and again? Thank you."
One of the Feegle went off to relay the request; George saw the Big Yan look his way and raise a thumb in agreement. The rest set about making safe and dismantling the poison apparatus.
George nodded. The Feegle, when you got to know them, might be dirty, disreputable, and capable of stealing everything not actually secured by very heavy steel bolts to ten feet of concrete underpinning. But when they entered into an agreement as between equals, they were the most reliable people on the Disc. Vaguely, he wondered what they were going to refill the gassing machine with. Well, he'd see… he reached into his satchel for the sandwiches Mrs Barford had prepared, and settled down for a long wait.
Deborah Rust looked up through frightened eyes at the little blue man, indescribably smelly and ugly, that stood silently on her upper chest, looking down at her. Is this how Miss Band had felt all those years ago? But she was fairly sure Miss Band had not been staked out over what felt like a very restless anthill. She could feel things crawling inside her clothes. And – yecch, how gross! -she could see right up the little blue man's kilt. Was this part of the terrible retribution?
"That wisnae nice, lassie" the blue man said, shaking his head. "that wisnae nice at all. If ye was an archie ollolologist, at least ye'd have had an excuse, ye ken whit I mean? We'd still no' have appreciated it, but it least you'd have had an explanation."
He paused, shaking his head again.
"We ken your family, lassie. Awfu' people. People round here are too frightened to dae anything because they're scared of your feyther. From whit I hear, wi' good reason. Cross him and he takes everything from you. Now that's no way to live. No way at all."
Nae laird! Nae quin! Nae master! Nae laird! Nae quin! Nae master! Nae laird! Nae quin! Nae master!
The chant went up from the Feegle horde crowding all around her, rising in volume, in anger, in pride, with much shaking of weapons.
"And your feyther is nae oor Laird!" the Big Yan shouted. "Is that why he sent yiz here tae kill us? Like sae many meece-beasties in a burrow? Did he think we wiz wee, sleekit, timorous and cowerrin, or something? WE ARE NOT! WE ARE NAC MAC FEEGLE!"
Again the chant ran round the throng. Deborah felt a rare and strange emotion for a Rust.
Fear.
"We have something planned for ye. Jist lately, we've been living a high-fibre high carbo-thingy diet wi' plenty of starch in it, aye. The first summer vegetables, ye ken, and a Kelda who makes us eat them because they're guid for us. It all his to gae somewhere. We've been storing something up for ye in yon poison-bottle of yours. A bit of an acrobatic feat , aye, but we're managin' and there's a thousand of us. It'll take a little while, but you're no' goin' anywhere in a hurry."
He nodded, and jumped down. Deborah was let in relative peace for a while, and at one point the gag was eased and a stream of water was inexpertly slopped in her mouth and nostrils, She heard voices in the distance, comments like
Name o'the Goads, Daft Boab! That wiz sick! Whit have ye been eatin?
Aye weel. She'll smell that one!
Better oot than in, Big Yan!
Deborah was aware of a new thing happening. A solid phalanx of Feegle marched up to her and stopped. Their ranks unfolded to reveal a different kind of Feegle. Slightly taller, with curves rather than angles, and a bulbous midriff signifying…
"Look at me, girl!" The voice had harmonics and tones that made it hard to disobey. It carried only a residual hint of the harsh accent of the males, but had a lilt and a beat to it that put it into the same geographical area. Deborah looked, vaguely recalling Herr von Graumunchen talking about the loosely-grouped regional accents to be found out beyond Llamedos, in the wild highlands inland from coastal Hergen...
"I am Kelda. I am mother of this clan." The look in the sprite-woman's eyes combined anger with motherly compassion.
"You tried to kill my children. You were acting from fear and spite and malice. The mother in me would happily see you dead in your turn, as a danger to my folk"
Deborah' eyes widened.
"But the mother in me knows you too have a mother, and she would grieve for your passing. Killing you would not make things right. It would create a new grievance and offer your father ,the enemy of this land, fresh reason to come back and kill us, as if we were vermin. I have not that right. Therefore I have forbidden my brothers and sons from killing you. They are wild, they are fighters, but they are not murderers. Luckily for you, they are just.
" You must return to your people and find your own redemption, Deborah Rust. The wind whispers that you are shallow, violent, vindictive, bitter and twisted. But you must have a chance to find your redemption. And who knows, your children might turn out to be decent human beings. Killing you would take away their potential. And you may even listen to Alice Band when she talks to you about respect and compassion and all the things which are foreign to your nature as it is now."
The Kelda, stately, turned to go.
"I have seen. I believe I have understood. My brothers and sons now have one of their rather coarse, silly, crude, pranks to play on you. But they will let you go afterwards. Learn from your humiliation. Learn humility, Deborah Rust."
The Kelda left. Then the rst of the Feegle returned with the poison gun and pumping apparatus.
"Ready fellas? Yin! Tan! Tethera!"
A well-oiled Feegle team started to work the bellows. Deborah's eyes widened in fear as the nozzle was held close to her face.
Then the foul, noxious, gust hit her full-on. She gagged and retched and writhed at her bonds.
Essentially, it was the bottled essence of a thousand Feegle farts.
Eventually, they cut the bonds and let her go. Then she was alone outside the mound, throwing up and coughing and crying.
After a decent interval, George Barford appeared.
"Come on, miss." He said, gently. "Let's get this stuff on the cart and get you home".
For once, Deborah Rust went quietly and meekly.
George Barford nodded at the mound. It had been a good day after all.
"Right! Settle down!"
Miss Band welcomed the class to a new year at the Assassins' School, and repeated he usual platitudes, which are expected ov even the best teachers at he start of term, about it being a new year, a new start, and an opportunity to build and develop on what we learnt last year.
"And now could I have your essays on the theme of What I did in the Summer Holiday, please? And I'm especially looking forward to reading yours, Miss Rust!"
Deborah Rust smiled weakly and added her essay to the pile… she had considered lying and making it up. But after some unaccustomed thought, she'd realised that it wouldn't do. Not with Miss Band. So she'd written the searing embarrassing scarifying truth, adding a plea at the end, please, please, please don't make me read this out in class!
Alice Band finished Deborah's essay and smiled. Maybe there was some hope for the girl after all... She paused, and graded it A+.
(1) Or at least, the better-educated and slightly brighter ones who could be relied on, and paid slightly more, to keep the herd in order, like factory foremen, farm managers, senior servants, and gamekeepers.
(2) At one time or another, George had longed to up-end all the Rust children, and administer a much-needed physical chastisement. Only fear of sacking and eviction had made him restrain his big right hand, but it still itched to slap.
Author's Afternote:
Yes. I know. I freely admit pinching the minor characters names from long-running BBC radio soap opera set in carrot-crunching rural England, The Archers. It seemed fitting, somehow, as there is, among other things, a very Rust-like family called the Aldridges who own too much land and treat the peasants like feudal serfs.