Crabbit Faery Tales and Folk Tales of Forumshire

Maw frowned at Petty's suggestion he take Figg into the museum. Pretty just snorted in derisory fashion.

“Fine,” Maw said eventually folding her arms across her chest, “but yi ken the price if yi lose her.”

“Aye, Maw,” Petty said his head dropping. He turned away and back to Figg, “cum oan, Maw says we cun go in.”

The street was busy and they had to stand side by side for several minutes whilst a procession of carts trundled by before it was safe for them to cross.

“What was all that about?” Figg asked as they waited.

“All whit?” Petty said evasively.

“What your Maw said about a price for losing me,” Figg pressed, given her plan was in fact to lose Petty somewhere in the museum and take her chances in the town.

“If A lose yi, A'll be sent awa'”

“Away? Away where?”

“Crabbit Academy,” Petty replied, “its brutal there, 'We taik yer bairns tae gie thum summit worth being crabbit aboot' as thur motto goes. Paw says since Pretty went awa tae...school, A've no hud enough tae be crabbit aboot. He thinks am gaing saft.”

“Doesn't sound too bad,” Figg said without much conviction, “I would have thought you would have liked more crabbit in your life,” and mentally added, “not that you need it.”

“Yi didnae unne'erstand, thur's nae lengths thu'll nae go tae, it's no jist the hourly beatings, or the standing in freezing rain oan the clifftaps, they, they, even,” he gulped, “even ban buckie during term time tae increase the crabbit. Cun yi even imagine!”

The carts finally parted before them and they crossed to the entrance of the Scuttle Museum with its grand, high arched ornate entrance through a set of double doors emblazoned with the McTyrant emblem of crossed buckie bottles.

“Damn it,” Figg thought as they darted across the road before the next wave of carts approached, “why did I have to ask what would happen if he lost me?!”

On the street corner a figure in a tall hood observed them go in, then turning scuttled off into a nearby alleyway and threw back their tal hood. It revealed a tall long face with a downturned mouth and a head of thick grey hair. The McBanks took a palantir from their pocket and tapped it, “Offo,” he said into it, “A've seen her, yon Gingerlocks. She's here awright. Here in toon.”




At his end Offo grinned, “Keep yer eye oan her and report back regular. A want tae know exactly where that lassie is,” he flicked the palantir off and grinned again, which given the traditional and genetic long down turned McBanks mouth was a bit like watching continental drift sped up. He turned to Blocko McBanks who was his second in command and said, “Wu've goat her. Wu'll teach her tae humiliate and set witches oan the McBanks. This is going to be be a night thut will change McBanks history fir ever!”

There was a squeak and a large rat scuttled up, it had a message attached to its back which Blocko undid and read.

For general communications Offo was happy to use his palantir and crows, but these were special messages. And it was key, no it was imperative that the good Ambassador knew nothing about his extra plans for tonight.

“How many's that noo?” Offo asked.

“Wu've hud confirmation frae the Red McBanks..”

“Strawberry,” Offo added.

“And the Purple...”

“Blackcurrant.”

“The Oranges ur here...”

“Orange.”

“Un the Greens.”

“Lime,” Offo counted off, “thuts aw the warriors loyal tae me frae maist branches of the clan,” his eyes gleamed, “thur is gaing tae be mair thun a robbery here the night when aw they McBanks pour into yon toon. Wul strike ut the very heart o' the McTyrant's, steal thur scuttle and avenge oorselves oan Gingerlocks. Aw in the wan night. A'll be a legend.”

“Aye,” Blocko confirmed nodding his long face in agreement, “thut yi wull.”




Figg stared up at the huge tapestry. It stretched the entire length of the main hall of the museum and they were standing at one end of it, closest to the entrance doorway. Its disappeared into the musty gloom ahead away from them.

On the panel immediately above them was depicted two figures. One carried a pickaxe and a bottle of buckie and was short legged, broad stomached and red of nose. The classic McTyrant profile in fact. Opposite this figure was another with a long face and downturned mouth, it too held a pickaxe. He was the classic McBanks profile. And between the two of them was a mine entrance.

“So who are they then?” Figg enquired.

“Well on the left is the first McTyrant, so legend says, afore thur were clans. An' oan the right is the first McBanks. Sae the story goes they wur baith miners, and they fund this mine taegither and started working it,” he led her along the tapestry to its second panel which depicted the McTyrant working at a mine face which had a crack in it,”wan day McTyrant wis working at yon wall when it cracked asunder, an doon he tumbled,” Petty indicted the side of this panel which displayed a figure flaying down through the empty air in a dark shaft. Petty led Figg further along the tapestry to the midsection of the wall, “an' here we have the discovery thut changed evrythung,” Petty exclaimed, “McTyrant finds the scuttle!”

Figg stared up at the figure on its knees clasping the small seemingly ordinary looking coal scuttle, although admittedly normally they are not surrounded with a glowing halo as this one was depicted to be.

“O' course,” Petty went on but in a hushed whisper, “the McBanks claim it was their man who fund it, but thur lying aboot that, yi cun tell thur lying when their mooths move.”

“I don't get it?” Figg said with a frown, “what's so magical about it?”

“Ah well, yi see,” Petty explained, “aw yi need is a wee pile o' coal, jist enough to require the use of a scuttle tae feed yir fire.”

“Right,” Figg said warily.

“And then you use yon a scuttle to get yer coal and put it on the fire.”

“And that's different from a normal coal scuttle in what way exactly?”

“Ah well yi see, yi fill yir scuttle frae yir pile, but yir pile ne'er gets any smaller sae long as yi use yon scuttle. Yi cun take un burn as much coal as yi like, and yet ne'eer run oot.”

Figg considered this,. “Ok I can see where that might be useful in a country where it can be freezing cold, pouring with rain and snowing all in the same hour, so why in the next panel do they appear to be trying to throttle each other?” Figg asked walking further down the length of the tapestry.

“Ah well yi see the McTyrant, he jist wunted tae use the scuttle tae keep his ain folk warm, that wi thur wid be mair in their sporrans fur the buckie and the chance of inspiration striking fur the gud aw all. But the McBanks said why stoap at jist wan village, they cud undercut every other seller oan the market as they'd huv nae overheads except paying a bunch of lads tae shovel the coal aw day and night. He thought it wid make um rich.”

“Did it?”

“Naw,” Petty shook his head and led her further along the tapestry, “it led tae the formation o' the first twa clans- The McTyrants un the McBanks, and then almost immediately the first clan war oo'er whose way fur the scuttle wis the right way.”

“And whose was the right way?” Figg asked glancing down the line of the tapestry which still had some way to go till halls length, and now they were this far into the hall she could see, with a sinking heart, that it continued along the back wall.

“Naebodies, we cun pretty much skip tae the end,” Petty explained leading her across the Hall, he waved a calloused hand at the middle section of the tapestry across the back wall, “its jist wan fight efter another fur decades.”

“Over the scuttle?”

“Aye, well yi see, it hud aw goat a bit political by this time an got caught up wi other notions,” he indicated the looming end panels of the tapestry before them which showed a bloody field of battle and a hilltop upon which several soldiers were raising the Scotshobbit flag with the cross of St Andy, patron saint and inventor of Buckie upon it, “it became part o' the freedom wars.”

“What does that mean?”

“Wull were big oan freedom,” Petty went on, “an the way sum folk say it the McBanks way everyone owed tae them, everywan wud be left in the end in servitude tae them as, as the mines closed they wud huv naewhere else tae get thur coal frae. The McBanks hud the scuttle at thus point yi see, and they took power wi it an then,” Petty gulped and shook his head, “thur came the taxes.”

“Taxes?”

“Aye, oan everything, started small, taxes on coos, yir chickens, bit then it goat worse, they taxed jelly which thuy made sae profited frae, and thur were sum trouble but noo enough. But they took it tae far, they brought in the Buckie Tax, and that wis it, uprising. Then, he came,” Petty said in hushed awed tones and held his arms up to the third last panel which depicted a red haired, red bearded giant of a McTyrant with a huge sword, “Willy Wales” Petty declared, “oor greatest freedom fighter.”

Figg squinted up at the figure, hands on hips and said in a tone determined not to be impressed by any answer, “So, what did he do then?”

“He united the McTyrants, raised them up against the McBanks, stole the scuttle back, wis captured and put into jelly and sent to twenty seven different parts of the country on show, in separate jelly dishes.”

“Oh,” Figg said, “then what happened.”

The last panel simply depicted Dunfuckinaboot, but with a glowing halo around the Keep.

“The scuttle wis brought here, un the priests declared it wis ne're tae be used again but kept as a symbol.”

“Of what?”

“A've never been very clear oan that,” Petty ruminated, “presumably that Eru moves in extremely fucking mysterious ways indeed. But it did get us oor freedom.”

Figg stared at him wondering if she should take her chances and just turn on heels and run.

“A shud take yi back tae Maw, must be time fur the market by noo.”

Figg stared at him intently till it made him uncomfortable, “Whits that look fir?”

“You don't see it, do you?”

“See whit?”

“The bloody obvious. You stand here and give me a proud cultural lesson about your peoples fight for freedom, and then causally mention you have to get me to market to sell me.”

Petty frowned puzzled, “So?”

“Really?” Figg said arching an eyebrow in disbelief, “what about my freedom?”

“Ah that's easy,” Petty replied confidently,. “I see where yir misunderstanding, yi dindae huv any, yir a slave.”

Figg ground her teeth,”I know that! I am pointing out that you lot are so big on freedom don't you think its a bit of a contradiction that you trade in slaves? You price your freedom and deprive it from others.”

Petty stared at her. After a moment he raised a hand and went to reply, didn't and lowered his hand again. Figg watched his face, which was like watching a contestant for Worlds Best Gurner, this apparently was what Petty looked like when a new idea was trying to find a footing in his head. Eventually and after much effort he managed to say, “U've ne'er gie'en it any thought afore noo.”

“Well you should,” Figg cried, “don't I have a right to my freedom as much as you do yours?”

“But,” Petty struggled, his face again delving back into professional gurner mode as he tried to process Figg's argument, “yi're wurth sae much money!”

Figg waved her arms all around the Hall at the tapestry, “Do you know what I see here Petty? I don't see McTyrants and McBanks. I see Scotshobbits. Tight-arsed, money-grubbing Scotshobbits! I don't see any difference between you.”

A light seemed to go on in Petty's head, “Buckie!” he suddenly cried, “A need buckie fur this,” he charged off madly to the small souvenir shop at the rear of the hall and Figg considered making a run for it back out into the streets, but now she was curious. Besides she might actually be on the verge of changing his mind about something. And she could not leave without finding out first if she could, or if it was even possible.

Petty came raising back with a selection of buckie souvenir miniatures, all of which he cracked open and gulped down. He promptly fell over and then sat back back up and thought, and thought hard, his face a crunched up collision of thoughts.

Finally he turned his eyes back up to Figg, “U've goat it.”

“And you can probably keep it,” Figg promptly replied.

“Naw, I see it noo its a clash yi see, Scots are keen on their sporrans yi see, and thur freedom, the twa colliding, an greed cuming oot oan tap. Yi know why hud ne'er thought it afore? Cause whenever I hear the word slave a dinnae think o' freedom, I think o' worth, o' coin, o' turning it into buckie,” he stood up resolutely,”it's noo right, is it?”

“No, it's not,” Figg agreed and in her stomach the butterflies opened their wings and fluttered again.

“A cannae let yi be selt,” Petty said as if realising it to himself out-loud rather than informing Figg, “It's no better tae sell a lassie thun tae hit her, thut's whit a reckon noo.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

BANG!

This was the sound of the huge double doors to the hall flying open with force and slamming back against the walls. A stream of blazing light fell in with a seemingly tall thin figure in it which as the blazing light coalesced down to Scotshobbit grey dreary light, the figure coalesced down, somewhat to Pretty tottering on her heels and storming towards them.

“Times up!” she cried as she approached and with a deft and strong arm she grabbed Figg by one of her long ginger trestles, “sale time,” she turned to Petty and shook her head at him,”An' didnae think A dinnae ken whit's going oan here, an it's disgusting. Wi A sassanech Petty! Yi make me sick.”

Despite yelping with the pain from her hair being pulled and the raging fury she felt at that and  the fact there was nothing she could do about it a part of Figg's brain made connections in Pretty's tone here, “Hold on!” she blurted out,”this sounds like the sort of talk about the thing nobody talks about, were we doing that? We can't have been, that can't be it!”

Pretty pulled Figg round in front of her and turned her lip gloss glare on her, “Whit's she havering aboot Petty? Is she mental? Say nuthing or wull get less fur her.”

With a swift and deft movement Pretty grabbed Figg's top lip and pulled it painfully back exposing her teeth, “No bad, bit white, wi cud maebae dae wi knocking a few oot fur show, go get us a hammer Petty.”

Figg squealed and squirmed but Pretty held her ever firmer and laughed, “A'd tell yi it'll noo be painful, but that I'd be lying, especially the way I knock em oot. Petty!”

“Cum oan,” Petty said walking by her, “we are late awready yi said, wi huv tae go. Cum oan, Maw will be raging if she's left oot there.”

Pretty shrugged, “A cun dae it later,” she said and still leading Figg by the hair she dragged her out into the sunlight of the main street, where it almost instantly clouded over and began to briefly rain.




Lance, Wee Mad Malky, Gwen and the three Eel-Wranglers were on a parallel road to Figg and Petty, but were likewise heading in the general direction of the Keep. Only Wee Mad Malky would potentially be a problem. Lance glanced down at Wee Mad Malky who was arguing with himself over whose turn it was to pay for the next drink. All right, it might be a big problem depending on Malky, or which of him was present when they got to the job at hand.

He glanced up at the Keep at the end of the road ahead and just in time to see at the crossroads before it, and to which they were heading, a sudden parade of vehicles.

There were emergency carts, Sherriffs by the dozen and as they got closer it seemed a whole lot of black statues were being carried and some sort of large metal contraption, it seemingly had undergone some sort of catastrophe as the metal was burned and twisted outwards in sharp edges.

“What in the name of Eru?” Lance said aloud.

“Thut's gonnie tuk a while tae pass,” Malky noted, “Cum oan, wi cun cut doon this alley and through the market,” he nodded to a narrow side street that delved off between leaning buildings, “its dark,” Wee Malky added worriedly.

They followed Malky into the alleyway,”Did that statue just wink at you?” Lance asked Gwen surprised.




Pretty, who had at least let go of Figg's hair and was content now to just constantly prod her forward, led them into the Market square filled with stalls all around its edges and a host of sellers of foods and wares wandering the crowds with their merchandise on trays about their necks. Kilts, tartan and the scream of bagpipes being tortured and in competition with one and other swept over them as they entered the throng. And in the very centre of the square, beneath a statue of McTyrant with the scuttle was a raised stage.

In ordinary circumstances Figg would have delighted in discovering this places mysteries and exploring its stalls and exotic wares. Though she may have drawn the line at the food on sticks which sometimes still seemed to be wriggling. Even under all the batter.

But these were not normal circumstances and after being led towards the stage beneath the McTyrant statue she found that Pretty was ushering her towards a large wooden pen, already filled with other slaves for sale of varying ages and both sexes.

She glanced at Petty who was staring mournfully at her. Well Figg thought now was the time for a bold and cunning plan. But Pretty's grip on her arm was like steel and the long manicured nails dug like claws into her flesh, she felt if she tried to pull away suddenly there was a good chance she would leave her arm behind still in Pretty's vice like grip.

And then it seemed it was too late for any plans anyway as Pretty all but threw her through the gate of the pen which slammed shut.

“Hope to never see yi agin” Pretty smiled at her sweetly, “but I dae so look forward tae spending the money fir yi oan a new pair o' shoes.”

“You, are a horrible person,” Figg replied flatly, “I just wanted you to know that.”

Pretty leant over the fence of the pen and hissed, “Don't yi think A already ken that love? Huv a gud life. As a slave,” she laughed and turned and left.

Figg stared round the pen at her forlorn and resigned companions, She noticed the armed guards around the pen. And then a fat man bald man in a large kilt took to the stage and the first of the slaves was ushered out to join him.

The sale was underway.



Though narrow and smelly the alley was not in fact that long and Lance and company soon emerged to find themselves in the thick of the noise and smells of the Market square. Directly across from them was the slave market.

“I must say Malky old fellow, you saved my bally bacon turning back up like that. I think we were up-stumps and out of wickets without you.” Lance was saying as the emerged from the alleyway.

“Whit colour o' bacon?” Malky asked, “A like mine pinkish red,” Wee Malky said, “Ah like mine raw,” Mad Malky added, “A like mine still oan the fuckin' move,” Mental Malky finished.

Suddenly Lance stared ahead in disbelief for there among the several young girls, few old women, and range of men was a girl with a shock of ginger hair, “Gingerlocks!” Lance cried,”By jingo! What in the bally world is she doing here and a slave too?”

Malky stared in the general direction of the slaves, and then his eyes widened, and widened some more, “Stoap the horses! Stoap the horses!” he said in excitable tones, “Whit a lass!”

“Gingerlocks?” Lance said his nose wrinkling in horror, “she's barely a child.”

“Naw yi lanky English streak o' pish,” Mad Malky snapped back, “Her!” He pointed as the crowds parted to reveal, standing by the stage and with Petty and Maw beside her, Pretty, “ma arseholes starting twitching like a rabbits nose!” Malky declared, “Thut's a sure sign! Look ut yon thighs thu cud crush the life oot o' yi, eyes like blades,” Malky sighed, “green eyes,” Wee Malky noted, “Mental eyes,” Mental Malky added, “Ah think um in love,” all of him said.






“You look fucking ridiculous!” Norc was saying to Ringo as they entered the square on the way to the Keep.

“Its noo ma fault,” Ringo replied tugging at the moustache stuck to the end of his chin for the umpteenth time,”It'll noo cum oaff.”

“Let me have another fucking go,” Norc said reaching out both hands to grasp it.

“Nooo!” Ringo leapt back from her, “no again, A thought yi were goanna rip ma chin aff last time.”

They pushed there way through the crowds heading for the rear of the square and the road out and on to the Keep when Norc spotted the mop of curls that was Figg.

“Hey those fuckers have got Gingerlocks!” she cried pulling on Ringo's arm, “And the bastards are going to sell her.”

“So they huv, but we cannae interfere.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“I may be undercover,” Ringo explained, “but I am still an officer of the law on duty,. I can't go buying slaves its against the rules.”

“Fuck the rules,” Norc replied defiantly, “that's Gingerlocks up there.”

“I cun see that, but even if A cud jist say fuck the rules, we need tae stay unnercover. That's the joab, I cannae go against the joab.”

Norc saw the look in his eye which meant she had hit a line he wouldn't cross, like the thing with bees wax and the broom-handle. “Then I'll fucking well buy her.”

“And how will that look?”

“What do you mean?”

“Norc the fearless Viking Warrior, famed throughoot the land cannae even pillage fir her ain slaves, she hus tae buy thum at market. You Vikings live an' die on yir reputation.”

This was unfortunately true, as Norc knew only to well, “Fuck!” she declared, “we have to do something!”


Petty figitted next to Maw. He hopped from foot to foot, he figitted some more. Maw looked down at him, noting how as each sale went on and Figg got closer to being next he figitted all the more.

“Oot wi it Petty,” Maw ordered.

Petty stopped figitting, stopped moving entirely in fact.

“Petty!” Maw growled in a tone she had programmed into Petty since his birth and to which he was unable to not respond to as she desired.

“It's no right!” he blurted out.

“Whit isnae right son?”

“Keeping oor ain freedom, an geing hers awa fur money.”

“Its how the world is Petty, learn tae live wi it or git crabbit enough tae change it, didnae moan tae me aboot it.”

“Maebeies a will dae sumthing aboot it,” Petty growled.

“She's goat in yir heid that lass,” Maw noted looking quizzically at him, “husn't she? Yi didnae wunt us tae sell her dae yi? And yi dinae want oany harm tae cum tae her, dae yi? Di yi wunt tae protect her?Look efter her? Is that it son?”

“Maebbies, whit does it aw mean Maw?”

“That yir growing up tae be a man Petty, and no yon daft ways yer faither thinks, killing cats.”

“Then didnae sell her Maw, let her go.”

Maw looked down at him with a gentle smile that was at the same time calculating, “It disnae muk me crabbit tae sell her Petty son, an a telt yir faither a would. But, if it makes yi crabbit enough, well, that's yir business tae tuk care o', isn't it?”

Petty stared up at the stage. There was only one large hulking lad of about fifteen before Figg. He was currently fetching 30 Forumshire crowns, which was an average price for a manual labour slave. On a good day Figg might fetch up to 50. And surveying the crowd of the obviously wealthy and the business men, and the less healthy sort of purchaser who tended to leer and dribble as they bid, today looked like a good day.

The boy was sold and Petty looked on in increasing desperation as Figg was pulled unwillingly from the pen and forced up onto the stage.

And then Petty thought again, “today looked like a good day” and looking around at the potential bidders as the sale of Figg got underway a mad idea struck him.

Hey! Tolkien never ended a chapter with a cliff-hanger! Good civilized behavior I call that. Humph.

{{{{ Tolkien obviously didn't grow up watching Doctor Who (although I would argue leaving an entire book with Frodo captured by the enemy and Sam left alone at the very edge of Mordor holding the Ring is a bloody cliffhanger- and a pretty damn big one too! }}}

Okay, so he ended books on cliffhangers. But he normally didn't do that with chapters.

{{Well at least you don't have to wait for the sequel to find out what happens next! I bet Doyle never had this trouble with his readers in the Strand when he left every week on a cliffhanger

Next part should be up late tomorrow night/early Saturday- doubt it will be the final part- its all turned out longer than expected due to unforeseen diversions! But we are definitely in the home stretch folks- so a sincere thanks to everyone who stuck about for all of this- its been nearly a year since I started it   Your commitment is hugely appreciated, the exercise is pointless without you.  
Incidentally I have no idea how long it is as for complicated reasons there was a problem with the original doc file and I had to do half of it roughly since in a new doc- so I don't actually have all of it in one place to do a page count- but I suspect it must be somewhere in novella territory by now!   }}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Incidentally I have no idea how long it is as for complicated reasons there was a problem with the original doc file and I had to do half of it roughly since in a new doc- so I don't actually have all of it in one place to do a page count- but I suspect it must be somewhere in novella territory by now!  

According to the criteria used by both the Hugo Awards (presented by the World Science Fiction Society) and the Nebula Awards (presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), the length definitions of various types of prose fiction are as follows:

• Short story: less than 7,500 words
  
• Novelette: between 7,500 and 17,500 words
  
• Novella: between 17,500 and 40,000 words
  
• Novel: more than 40,000 words
  

According to the document that I just copied and pasted all the installments into, the length of Petty's Gingerlocks and the Three Crabbit Scotshobbits parts 1-20 (including interludes) is:

*drum roll*

66,688 words!

Going with the common estimate of 300 words per page in a typical novel, Petty's (still unfinished) opus would be about 222 pages long so far. The average length of the novel has increased in recent decades so some people dispute the 40,000 word definition, saying it's too low, but a lot of classic novels from the mid-20th century and before ended up in around the same ballpark where Petty is now. The average word count of the last three parts is just under 3,700 words, so if the story takes another three installments of similar length to conclude, it will end up being about the same length as the first Harry Potter book. In any event, I'm pretty sure this is already the longest story ever posted on Forumshire by a considerable margin, unless I'm overlooking something really obvious.

Where would we be without the tenacity of Eldo I enjoy your "Stephen Fry" moments I really do I love that you take time & trouble to go into detail over things Its like you are the ship that is holding the deck hands together
Petty...... I'm still reading, & I bet I'm not alone

{{{Brilliant Eldo- cant believe its that long! As Azriel notes Eldo its great you take the time and trouble to do these things, especially when I'm too lazy/drunk to be arsed doing it myself

"I'm pretty sure this is already the longest story ever posted on Forumshire by a considerable margin, unless I'm overlooking something really obvious."- Eldo

I think Circles of Stone is longer, but I am not sure anyone but Azriel read that to the end (possibly Figg and Orwell too) but this is definitely the longest of the 'Forumshire' tales I've written here. (which is ironic given I created this thread as a place to write very short, fairly simple Forumshire tales based on fairy tales!)

"Stephen Fry moments" ... I love it, azriel. I'm glad you guys find my obscure detail posts to be worthwhile. I do this kind of thing for my own amusement and curiosity all the time, just part of how my mind works, but it's fun to share some of it with other people.

The bidding on Gingerlocks was underway.

It started modestly at 10 Forumshire farthings, Petty knew Maw would be expecting at least double that for her. If this worked she would get much more than she bargained for.

He darted with desperation in a low crab like posture, scuttling into the thick parts of the crowd, “15!” he heard the auctioneer, “Look at the hair oan that yi'll ne'er lose her, noo even oan the darkest o' nights..”

“Oi!” Figg interjected tossing her hair at him and frowning.

“Full o' spirit! Who'll gie me 20?....20!”

Petty darted into the heart of the throng between knees and the smelly damp end of kilts.

“30!” the auctioneer cried increasing the increments of sale in the hope of maximizing profit, “40 anyone give me 40 for this fine wild child on the cusp of womanhood!”

“I am going to bloody well swing for you matey!” Figg interjected again.

On the cusp of womanhood she might be but these were still Scotshobbits and 40 farthings was at the top end of her price range. “35 then. A bargain at 35?” the auctioneer asked.

Petty struck, with one sudden movement he sprung up from below taking the arm at the elbow of an unsuspecting crowd member with him: giving the impression that the man had just raised his left hand in the bidding gesture.

“35!” the auctioneer cried triumphantly as the man tried to splutter his protestations and find who had nudged him at the same time. But Petty had long since scuttled away between the hairy legs and knobbly knees to an adjacent spot where another arm jerkily shot into the air, “40! Do I hear 50!”

Another arm went skyward amidst the confused denial of its owner, “50! cun we get tae 60 fur this fine slave?! Comes free wi her very ain bustle!”

“You are seriously asking for it sunshine!” Figg growled.

Petty struck again.

“60!” and again “70” He didn't know how long he could get away with this, the protesting customers claiming they had not meant to bid were growing, as were the refusal of the sales men to agree with them about the matter- but eventually so many would claim the same thing Petty knew he must be rumbled.

And when the salesmen of this market got hold of you they didn't hand you over to the police. No, the police had laws. Whereas the sort of justice dished out by the salesmen of the slave market did not hold with laws. It was the sort of place where two very burly men in kilts who were probably champion caber tossers, or at least tossers, grabbed hold of one of your arms each and went off in different direction with them until something ripped.

“80! 90!” the auctioneer cried sweat on his brow and his voice cracking, “cun we reach 100!”

Petty took a moments reprieve by darting to the back of the stage and hiding down behind it, “Psst! Gingerlocks!” He hissed up at Figg who half turned towards the sound, “Dindae turn roond ya daft sassenach!” Petty cried and Figg's brow creased in sheer annoyance, “Its me. Petty” he explained needlessly as she could well hear that, “it's me, making yon bids sae high.”

“What for?” Figg demanded back in a hiss, “you trying to make more money out of me?”

“Naw!” Petty said genuinely offended for once, “I'm trying to disrupt the sale, make you too expensive, or make them abandun it or summit, anything, yi oany better ideas?”

“Well, no,” Figg hissed back.

“Right then,” Petty said and disappeared back into the crowd.

The butterflies took a lap round her stomach, he was trying to save her.

An arm shot up in the crowd.

“100!” A huge cry of protest but the bid was in.

Petty had no idea what this was achieving. Time was what he was trying to buy. Time he needed to come up with a better plan. But every minute that Figg remained unsold was a minute longer she was not owned by anyone and technically free.

But he knew as he darted away from the section of ground he was about to make his next target at the sight of the salesmen approaching, that someone would catch him eventually.

Even as this thought of inevitability came into his mind he careered in his haste to make a detour into the tree-trunk legs of a hulking salesmen and felt a huge hand grab him by the collar.

“Oh aye! An' whit huv A fund here?” the man growled as he hauled Petty up and in fact clear off the ground.

Petty gulped but just then his attention was suddenly taken up by a violent movement in the crowd behind his burly inquisitor. Bodies were being violently flung to either side as something unseen cut through the customers tossing them left and right and sometimes in bits as it approached.

And then Wee Mad Malky barrelled right into them.



Lance had been watching Wee Mad Malky with increasing anxiety. Ever since Malky had spotted the Scots girl in the tiny skirt with the impressively long legs and equally impressive everything else he seemed to have been becoming increasingly agitated. And increasingly arguing with himself in a low voice, or rather voices which Lance could catch little of but which did not bode well.

Malky was also, well vibrating, though that was not quite the word Lance was looking for to describe it. Malky was thrumming. Which was not a word Lance had ever thought could be applied to a person. But yes, that was the right word for it- Malky thrummed.

If you took a tuning fork and struck it that was what Malky now looked like. The edges of him were blurred as if some terrible pent up force were being contained within. Which it was. It was called his libido. And nature had seen fit to put a libido best suited to say, a giant, or perhaps the oceans horniest whale, into the body of Wee Mad Mental Malky instead.

Finally the slightly higher pitched more child like tones of Wee Malky cried out, “A cannae! A shudnae!” and then in a stronger more determined voiced Mad Malky said, “A can! An a shud!” and then in deep growl Mad Malky said, “A'm gonna! An a will! Right nooo! A'm a'cummin fare lassie o' the glens!” he cried and exploded into the crowd that lay between them and the Scots girl in a lust fuelled waist high ball of uncontrolled libido driven violence.

“Malky! Come back! We've a ruddy job to do!” Lance cried angrily and futilely after the disappearing Malky and then with a despondent shrug at Gwen and the eel-wranglers followed through the corridor of mangled and thrown bodies that marked Malky's passage.

“Sorry!” Lance found himself saying apolitically to the wounded wracked by English polite etiquette as he went by, “Terribly sorry about all this old chap, my sincere regrets my dear lady I do hope you find your leg again,” and the like in an endless display of cringing social awkwardness.



“What the fuck is going on?” Norc cried peering as best she could and hopping up and down to see over the top of the crowds at the commotion.

A body flew over their heads, kilt flapping and crunched down onto the cobbles behind them.

“A fucking fight!” Norc cried zealously.

“Naw! Naw!” Ringo immediately responded waving a finger at her shining eyes, “wu're undercover mind!”

Norc took a deep breath, long and slow, “you're right,” she said equally slowly, “you are absolutely fucking right,” she took another long slow breath and Ringo relaxed. Which was when she shot off into the crowd with a whoop of delight unsheathing her axe as she went.

“Bollocks!” Ringo cried and gave pursuit.



Petty groaned. Petty sat up and rubbed his head. He had no idea where he was, what was going on, what all the noise was about, or what al the blurs all around him were or why they seemed to be very agitated and excited blurs. He was in short in a state of confusion. Or as he put it to himself in plain Scots inside his own head, “A didnae ken if a need a shite or a haircut.” He did know he needed a buckie, but none was to hand.

He focused his eyes on the seeming pandemonium erupting around him, the air was full of cries- some of pain, some of suffering, some of the joy of the fight, and many more in general rousing encouragement of some spontaneous violent street theatre.

He focused. His eyes focused on Pretty, standing still by the stage with Maw. Screams of pain, pandemonium. 'Figures then,' he thought blurrily, 'she would be here.'

Then a small figure barrelled out of the crowd in a final flurry of bodies and screeched to a halt before Pretty. The figure stopped and swept his hat from his head, “A'm so gaing tae huv yi!” Wee Mad Malky declared fully earning his name.

Well Petty thought dreamily at least this should be funny and it wasn't him that would be on the end of Pretty's ire for once.

Pretty looked down disbelievingly at the figure of Malky before her, hat in hand.

“Yi want tae court me start by bowing lower un showing a lassie sum respect,” Pretty smiled at him sweetly and Malky immediately endeavoured to oblige putting his face at the perfect height and angle Pretty required to boot it full in the mouth and send Malky flying upwards and backwards where he landed among the already wounded and injured.


“Well” Figg thought,”this is not turning out as I expected a slave sale would.” She considered using the moment of chaos to run away but had two problems with this, one minor one major.

The minor problem was that as she had been led up onto the stage they had tied her hands together at the wrists- not painfully so, but tight enough so she could not easily slip out of her restraint.

The second more major issue she noticed when she half turned in her consideration of just bolting. The salesmen whose job it was to guard the slaves in the pen and bring them to the stage were still there. They had the sort of expressions on their faces of men who were used to standing still for huge periods of time, displaying remarkable bladder control, and who reacted to nothing, not even the current mayhem, unless they had been told to. They had been told to guard the slaves and keep them there and Figg got the distinct impression that if no-one told them otherwise they would stand there and do so as the seasons changed about them.

It also occurred to her looking at their blank, impassive hewn faces that they were also quite capable of sprining into action at a moments notice and snapping your arms off. Easy escape from the stage did not seem possible with hands tied and guards so close.

Suddenly the auctioneer pushed past her to the front of the stage, “No! NO!” the auctioneer cried, “stop this! We huv a sale in progress!” He had never sold a single slave for a 100 farthings before and there had been no sign the bidding on this one was slowing, the thought of losing such a huge sale gnawed at him and as the crowd were now thoroughly enjoying the spectacle, those parts of it not maimed as part of the spectacle that is, he could feel the sale slipping through his fingers. In desperation he grabbed a megaphone and yelled into it, “please! Cease this rammy now!”

Malky rose from the cobbles a tiny storm of menace and stalked onto the stage and up to the auctioneer and waved a hand in the direction of Pretty, “Cun yi noo see we're courting here?” he demanded.

“Aye!” Pretty cried indignantly also stalking onto the stage and flanking the auctioneer on the other side and towering over him in her heels, “he wis after some winching. Dirty little bugger.”

“Yi bet yer sweet arse A um,” Malky agreed, “but if thur's a chance o' a winch, A hud best go get a step ladder.”

“Yi huv as much chance aw a winch as this guy hus o' no getting the shit kicked oot him in the next five seconds,” Pretty said and punched the auctioneer in the face, “see.”

“Your fucking mental,” Malky said with awe and grabbed the megaphone, “watch this.”

The crowd gasped and winced and ooed in shock and sympathy and humour whilst Malky and Pretty giggled and laughed and set about introducing the megaphone to the Auctioneer in unpleasant ways.

“Noo yi can really talk oot yer arse,” Malky said to the upside down figure hanging over the stage with a megaphone sticking up out of their bottom firmly embedded pointy end first, “next time it gaes in wide end first,” Malky informed him.

“You're fucking mad,” Pretty said her eyes gleaming.

“Ah ken,” Malky grinned insanely back at her

“Un yer mental,” Pretty added admiringly.

“A um that,” Mad Malky confirmed.

“And so little and cute I cud put yi in ma bag like a wee dug!” Pretty enthused.

“Wull, maebbies, if its a nice coloured bag,” Wee Malky responded, “Um Wee Mad Malky,” all of himself introduced themselves to her formally with a shallow bow, “any chance o' a lumber.”

Pretty smiled down at him and then booted him squarely in the balls, he doubled up groaning, “Oh ya bitch!” he hissed between his teeth.

“Oh aye! A um indeed,” Pretty agreed wholeheartedly, “A work bloody hard at it too,” she kicked him the face while he was doubled over for good measure and he went over backwards with another pained cry and the words, “Will yi marry me hen?!”


Figg observed this behaviour with some interest, Clearly it was related to whatever it was people who got together eventually got round to doing, that no one would tell her about, but it was not like it was in the books she had read. There young girls trapped in lonely draughty castles, or locked in high towers were rescued by young blonde haired men with square jaws who fought nobly against horrid beasts for them or brought them fabled jewels. Here two Scotshobbits knocked the living hell out of each other and spoke at cross purposes.

It occurred to her that the witch Azriel had said something similar about boys pulling her hair, violence. Violence, love, and whatever it was no-one would tell her about- what did you get if you combined violence and love? She didn't think she wanted to know after-all, she didn't want any sort of violence. There wasn't violence in the stories of the square jawed blondes and their lonely maidens, at least not to each other, but then they never seemed to get round either to whatever it was no-one would talk about either.

Where these two crazed Scotshobbits going to go away and do whatever it was? After this? Why? The more hints she got the less of a picture they seemed to make and the more confused she got.

And what about Petty? She strained to pick him out in the sea of tartan and Scotshobbits before her but could not find him. What of the weird way she felt about him, drawn to him and yet despising him when she got there? What did that mean? Were they dancing to the steps to whatever music drove these two lunatics before her now? Maybe its was the same music but the tempo was different? Taking in the carnage before the stage it seemed this tempo was rather quick and violent and probably, short.



Lance and Gwen with the eel-wranglers fought to the front of the crowd, some of whom were helping the wounded, some of whom were robbing the wounded, and most of whom were just enjoying a good day out with the bairns.

“Malky what are you doing?” Lance demanded trying to help Wee Mad Malky up from the ground where Pretty had knocked him.

“Whit yi dain tae ma suitor?” Pretty demanded jumping down from the stage to loom over Lance, “Er,” Lance replied dry mouthed as Pretty's lip-gloss dazzled him, “he's a, friend of mine my dear lady....” he never got to the end of the sentence as Pretty has casually as if she were swatting a fly dealt him a backhander that sent Lance sailing into the crowd who generously caught him with a cheerful “Whaaay!” cry and shoved him spinning back in the direction of Pretty, “Didnae cull me dear lady,” Pretty explained as Lance spun back into place where he began.

Had Lance not been so busy he would have noticed that Gwen and the eel-wranglers had taken up subtle shifts in their postures. Upon sight of Pretty they had gone into defence postures, and competitive states of poise, grace, pouting, and lethal striking range, but it all belied that they were as wary around Pretty as gazelles around a lioness.

If the eel-wranglers guild was sexuality, feminine cunning and honed violence perfected in a controlled art-form, then Pretty was the wild natural equivalent of that, raw, more powerful but out of control. They recognised each other as war combatants on the battlefield, but unless the eel-wranglers choose to intervene Pretty was content to let them be, she was having too much fun with her new suitor and this sassenach.

Malky staggered to his feet and took in Lance stanindg before Pretty and went immediately into a jealous rage and leapt on him, “Yi cunnae huv her!” Malky cried as he tried to rip Lance's head off.

“I'm not trying to court her,” Lance cried, “I don't want her, you can have her!”

Malky let Lance fall to the ground where he coughed and choked a she rose, “Now bally well enough of this nonsense! We have a job to do, you sir are under contract.”

Malky pulled his contract from his pocket and turning to hold Pretty's fierce gaze he tore it in half, “whit contract, ma oanly contract is tae this mental bitch.”

Lance snorted in annoyance, “Fine, well you can damn well return your fee as well.”

Malky spun round and snarled, “Thut's fur oar honeymoon.”

“That is not your money any longer,” Lance snapped back.

“Ur yi trying tae steal ma man's money?” Pretty demanded, “money he has worked hard tae put aside fur oor honeymooon, tae spend, oan me?”

“He has not bally well worked hard for it,” Lance replied shaking his head, “he is whelching on the job is what he is doing.”

“Naw, um noo,” Malky said, “whit A'm dain' is fallin' in love, getting' marrit, an stealing yir money tae pay fir it.”

“Ah,” Lance replied, “I see.”

“So,” Pretty smiled sweetly at him as she casually draped one long leg over Malky's shoulder making him groan in pleasure and turn his head upwards in thanks, prayer and the hope of a glimpse up her tiny skirt, “yi cun either accept yir looses, or we set aboot yi? Whit's it tae be.”

“Well,” Lance said stiffly, “I think you will find that I do not in fact stand before you bally well on my own,” he turned to Gwen and the wranglers. Gwen shook her head negatively at him, “let me revise that last statement,” Lance gulped turning back to Pretty who had disconcertingly moved right up behind him when he turned his head so she was suddenly right there in his face.

He gulped, “It appears I do in fact stand here bally well alone before you after-all, “ he gulped again as Pretty stared deeply into his eyes, the sharp vibrant green pierced him and filled his soul with dread, “so, I hope you both have a lovely wedding and a great honeymoon,” he finished hastily and smiled.

Pretty stared at him a second or two longer in silence then suddenly smiled broadly and sweetly, “Ah thanks, that's really nice o' yi,” she kissed him sweetly on the forehead, grabbed Malky by the hand and pulling him along said, “Take me shopping Malky” leaving Lance standing stunned, immobile and with a large red lip imprint right on the middle of his forehead.

With both Pretty and Malky departing the scene some semblance of normality began to return. The pipers took back up their personal war against music whilst some of the less squeamish salespersons went to help unplug the auctioneer behind the stage.

Figg and the remaining slaves were temporarily returned to the pen whilst the local authorities came and took the wounded away.

Figg could still see no sign of Petty, though Maw was still there close at hand keeping an eye on her sale, arms folded characteristically across her chest and jaw jutting in suspicious defiance of the world. But no Petty.

Still Lance was here, surely to goodness he would help her and not her let her be sold as a slave? Or at the least buy her. She fervently hoped that he would.




“There they fucking are” Norc cried, “see, Lance!”

Lance turned to see Norc hurrying towards them accompanied by a man in a huge purple hat who it took a moment or two for Lance to work out was Constable Ringo McRotten, “Hello Norc,” Lance said but rather glumly, “and Ringo isn't it?” he peered under the hat, “you seem to have a moustache growing out of your chin old chap.”

“Shhhh!” Ringo said in hushed tones, “its noo me!”

“I say! It isn't?” Lance said then got confused in his English social etiquette suddenly fearing perhaps he had been wrong in his assumption, “I'm terribly sorry old chap, just you looked an awful lot like a fellow I..”

“Naw, it is me,” Ringo hissed, “um undercover.”

“Oh I see!” Lance said flushed with relief at having dodged a social faux pas and tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially at Ringo, “on the path of some miscreant what?”

Just then the auctioneer came carefully and with a somewhat stilted walk back out onto the stage, “Ladies and gents,” he squeaked and then coughed and tried to lower his voice in instalments, “the sale will go on! I believe we were at lot 8. Gingerlocks. A fine sassenach slave girl. We wull continue at the last bid which wus fur 100 farthings,” he dribbled as Figg was led from the pen back onto stage.



Petty weaved uncertainly round the edge of the crowd. Somewhere he had got lost, but suddenly as some bodies parted before him he saw Maw and in a dazed fashion walked towards her.

“Wur's Pretty?” he asked frowning and after a minutes silent consideration and mustering of his thoughts..

“Gon back tae...school agin,” Maw harrumphed without looking round, “gud riddance we cun get oan wi this, a didnae ken if yir were trying tae help her or jist bump the price up son, but well done. 100 farthings! Mair than three slaves worth in wan go,” she looked down at Petty who was oddly silent and noticed immediately he was very pale and weaving back and forth on the spot, “yi awrigth son?”

“Naw,” Petty said suddenly and fiercely, “its raining oan me aw the time Maw.”

Maw looked up at the sky which was cloudy as usual but dry, “raining? Its noo raining son.”

“Aye it is, aw the time, warm summer rain,” he said dreamily, “but, an' this is the bit that's muking me crabbit,” Petty said waving his hand then his arm about in crabbit annoyance, “its only raining doon ma neck,” and he turned round to show Maw where he had felt for the last five minutes the constant warm trickle of the rain running down his back.

Maw stared at him and his shirt was soaked through in his blood which was flowing still quite copiously from the wound in the back of his skull.

“A think,” Petty said ponderously and as if coming to an an important conclusion, “A'll jist fa' doon fir a wee minute.” And he fell down.




“What are we going to do now?” Lance demanded of Gwen, “we will never find someone of the right stature in time. Never.”

“Whit's the problem?” Ringo asked, “meabbies we cun help?”

“Not unless you happen to know someone of short height willing to risk their lives for little to no reward, as I've no money left to pay them with, before say, six pm this evening?”

Ringo shook his head, “Naw, sorry I dinnae.”

Norc smiled at them, “Daft bastards,” she said and nodded to the stage where Figg stood, “I know a slave who could help you and wouldn't need wages.”

The auctioneer held up his microphone then winced and threw it aside, “Do I hear 110?” he asked.

“One hundred and ten farthings!” Lance cried, “I can't pay that for her.”

“You'll huv tae,” Ringo said, “if yi want oot yir wee predicament.”

“Don't be so fucking tight,” Norc agreed, “It's for Gingerlocks.”

“It's not that,” Lance bemoaned, “it's that I only have two hundred left, and I need that as the stake in the big game tonight.”

“You're not going to buy her so you can go fucking play games?” Norc cried incredulously and instinctively reached for her axe.

“It's not as simple as that,” Lance tried to explain but could not as it was top secret, “but I have to be there for reasons other than playing games, I assure you both.”

“Is there no other fucking way to get money?”

“No,” Lance said without thinking about it, then he though about it, then he realised what he was thinking about, “no, definitely not.”

“110?” the auctioneer cried again but no one was taking him on at those prices without Petty bending their elbow in a literal sense, “In which case she wull be sold to Murdo McTyrant, currently convalescing, fur 100 farthings if thur are nae further bids,” he began going through the finalising process and hovering with his hammer over the gavel.

“Definitely not what?” Gwen asked.

“Now or fucking never,” Norc cried as the auctioneer said, “Going wance.”

On the stage Figg stared on horrified. Was Lance not going to bid for her? Was he just going to let her be sold? And there was Norc there too. How could she let this happen? Then it hit her, from the heated exchange she could clearly see they were having, that stupid bloody idiot Petty had made her too expensive. They couldn't afford to buy her!

“The Queen will have me ruddy well skinned if she finds out, and she probably will!” Lance wailed.

“Going twice!”

“Last fucking chance!”

Going thr....”

“110” Lance cried out shouting up his left hand as the hammer was falling.

“110!” the auctioneer echoed in delight and on the stage Gingerlocks suddenly turned her frown into a huge disbelieving grin, “Gingerlocks lot 8 sold to the sassencech in the dark suit. Going....going....gone!” The hammer banged.

A hammer was repeatedly banging inside Lances head too. Lance collapsed to the hard cobbles and put his head in his hands as the salesmen came up to take away just over half of all his remaining cash. He handed it over in grim silence.

“So what was the other way?” Gwen asked him, “the one you definitely couldn't do?”

“I can get a loan, from the Ambassador, and the Dark Planet,” Lance said mournfully, “take money from a foreign power.”

“To aid a royal mission,” Gwen pointed out.

“Yes and if I lose tonight? I won't have the Queens money, I wont have the Dark Planet's money. I'm dead. Bally well twice.”

“Then you will just not have to lose, won't you.”

Yes thought Lance, not lose playing some ridiculous Scotshobbit pub game he no idea about. He didn't even know how to toss his caber and was quite sure it was not the sort of act which one should be performing in public at all, let alone in a casino. He was quite sure any proper casino would throw you out for it. But he was not going to a proper casino, he was gong to a Scotshobbit casino where anything could happen. Winning the least likely of them.

Figg was brought to them still grinning, “Thanks everyone,” she enthused, “I thought for a minute there that stupid Scotshobbit had priced me out the market,” she stared round at them, “well go on then, do whatever it is you have to do around here to legally set me free.”

She looked eagerly into their faces, they were all suddenly downturned.

“Thing is,” Lance began.

“No,” Figg said her shoulders sinking “no things!”

“Well rather afraid there is, thing is see we need you to do something for us first, and as its reasonably possible that its not something you might, freely, choose to do, I can't risk making you free until its done.”

“You are keeping me as your slave?” Figg said incredulously and put her newly untied hands on her hips in indignation.

“Not exactly,” Lance said.

“Then set me free,” Figg demanded.

“I can't do that.”

“Then I am your slave, exactly,” Figg said triumphantly, her joy at wining the argument quickly quelled by the argument won.

“Just come with us and I will try to explain,” Lance sighed thinking that his day could not possibly get worse and then having to deal with the thought that given what lay ahead, yes of course it could and probably would.

“Has anyone seen Petty?” Figg enquired as they were moving off through the crowd.

“Who?” Lance asked.

“Sorry, Scotshobbit I met, he brought me here to be sold, kind of,” she craned her neck one way and other but could see neither Maw nor Petty anywhere.

“Was he someone important??” Lance said.

Figg hesitated, “No,” she said briskly, “no, no-one at all really.”



At the edge of the square near a bagpipe player who had failed to properly prepare his pipes and was now fighting them off from trying to throttle him Petty was being laid onto a stretcher and carried off with a worried Maw by his side.

“Gingerlocks!” Petty cried in delirium.

“She's goan son, fetched a fair price tae, yi shud be proud, yi dun well there,” she patted his cold clammy head worriedly, “didnae yi worry, she goat selt tae friends o' hers, shull be fine, and yi'll ne'er huv tae see yon Gingerlocks agin.”

Petty moaned on the stretcher as Figg, in the company of Lance and the eel-wranglers set off for the keep, and Figg wondered with no idea of the irony involved if Lance might know where there was a privy she could use.

I sense the end doth loom.

{{Is that a prediction or are you just pleading for the end? }}}

{{ The pieces are converging. I don't see how such a group of irascible characters can long inhabit the same space without things coming to a head. }}

I'm happy to see this tale come to fruition but also that you aren't rushing through things, Petty. Looking forward to seeing how things keep going down.

The end will come when the end is meant to
I'm still reading

{{{ Unwinds in its own good time does this tale But having said that we are definitely in the home straight(ish) }}}

Figg peered out from under the, well umbrella, that was the word she was going to use for it because that is what it was. Normally if she were talking about a small delicate three legged table sitting on a street outside a cafe with something multicoloured and striped and jaunty to sit under and shade you from the sun she would have said parasol. But this was Scotshobbitland and it was raining again. So umbrella it definitely was. It was still stripey though and determinedly jaunty.

You would think the idea of a street cafe at all in Scotshobbitland would be a non-starter. Who would want to sit out and eat and drink in the rain after-all? Scotshobbits apparently. But the fact was the locals only seemed to notice very heavy rain or when it occasionally turned to sleet or even snow for a flurry or two. The general drizzle and grey blankets of hanging wetness that swept in and over the town on a regular basis from the sea, often many times in an hour in fact, did not seem to register on the locals. They never dashed off for cloaks and hoods, they didn't cover bare arms, and they didn't run out and grab all the tables and chairs and bring them back in in a mad panic before
they got damaged in the wet, presumably on the basis that doing that every five minutes of the day got tedious very quickly and it was easier to just buy new furniture every so often.

No they just sort of endured it, acting as if the on/off parade of showers were simply not happening. Already since they had arrived at the cafe she had heard several Scotshobbit comment on the niceness of the day whilst sipping their buckie under an umbrella during yet another flurry of interminable drizzle.

Lance had taken them to this particular cafe because it gave an unrivalled view of the back of the keep and its crumbling granite cliff-face, split and sliced and dotted with daring shrubs and small brave trees growing at odd angles, a cliff climbing upwards over them to where eventually it was topped by the solid stone outer walls of the keep itself.

“So,” Figg mouthed slowly staring up the wall and the fortifications atop, “let me get this straight. You want me to climb halfway up that cliff over there and then into that tiny pipe thing,” she squinted to where about forty foot above the ground level the privy chute ended, “what is that anyway?”

This was met with an embarrassed silence from the eel-wranglers and a long pause from Lance, “Well, I am rather afraid, its the privy.”

“Of course it is,” Figg nodded, “so, to recap so far, I climb halfway up a cliff, then clamber up the inside of a privy, whereupon having emerged from it I steal this stupid McTyrant scuttle thing, and give it to Gwen?”

“Yes,” Lance confirmed.

“And you want to know if I will do it?” she paused and stared at Lance, “do the words, 'sod off you mad southern nonce' mean anything to you?”

Lance sighed, “I was rather afraid you might say something like that, very Northern.”

“Hey, watch it buster!” Figg retorted, “Do you have any idea what these McTyrants would do to me if they caught me? I've been in their museum they are daft for that scuttle thing, its like a holy relic to them.”

“We are going to put the bally thing back,.” Lance pointed out.

“Oh well, that's all right then isn't it?” Figg mocked, “I am sure if they catch me halfway out the chamber with it in my hands and I just explain it to them, tell them 'it's ok I am going to bring it back later' they will let me go on my way will they? Wave me on with a smile shall they?”

“Do as you are instructed and no one will get caught,” Lance hissed back at her trying to indicate by example of exaggerated whisper to keep her voice lower, as in her protestation Figg's voice has risen and drawn one or two drunken looks from other patrons enjoying a drink in the rain from under their umbrellas.

“Listen, you big southern girls blouse,” Figg hissed back and Lance bridled, “I am not climbing up some old privy to risk my life stealing the one thing in all these lands other than buckie they actually give a damn about. Not a chance kiddo.”

“I am afraid I am rather going to have to insist you do it.”

“What does that mean?”

“That legally you are my property, I bought you, I own you. You do as instructed. Sorry and all that but those are the hard facts of the matter you see. And I am also rather out of alternative choices, my burglar has run off and stole my money and the cost of buying you took care of the rest. You owe me, and this is how you can repay the debt.”

“It's like that is it?” Figg snorted, “I shouldn't have expected anything less from a southerner, you can't trust them my Da' used to say, slippery as those eels they eat. So you are not going to do the decent thing and let me go free then are you?”

“Oh yes, of course I will do that,” Lance said brightening up, “I would not think to do otherwise my dear girl, just once you've done the job is all.”



Ringo and Norc arrived within the entrance hall of the keep and were greeted, not unpolitely but firmly by the guards within.

It was just as well Lance and the others had not accompanied them or they would have discovered they were all going to the same place, and all with appointments to see the same person- Ambassador Amarie.

This was something Amarie was now painfully aware of.

As the two groups had met in the market square the Ambassador had a keen eye on them in her palantir, and her heart in her mouth that this chance meeting would lead to a stray word that would unravel the whole. It had not. But that was not the point as she knew only to well. It should never have been allowed to happen. She could not afford such risky further oversights. She had turned away from her palantir as Ringo and Norc passed beneath the keeps outer battlement with some relief.

And it was the Ambassador who had assured Ringo that things would be taken care of upon their arrival, and indeed they had been. Ringo was here as one Murdo Macleod, a Glesgie tartan merchant at the court on business, and Norc was, well she was listed as 'plus one' though it was debatable as to what sort of one she would be classed as.

“Any fucking wine?” Norc asked the clerk type who had announced them from his ledger as they approached the Main Hall, “that buckie shit gives me the wind, oh, or any of those little fucking nibble things you get on sticks?”

The clerk looked flustered and not just at the moustache growing from Murdo's chin which the clerk, who had been well trained, was too polite to mention but not so polite as to not keep staring at, “Yi wul find servants within the Court ready tae serve yi  my, um,” he seemed to look her Viking garb up and down head to foot with some uncertainty, “lady,” he finally ventured.

“Good,” Norc nodded at him with a mischievous grin, “Cause when I'm finished with the nibbles I'm going to need a deer and a keg of buckie to wash it down with.”

The clerks eyes widened, “An entire deer?”

“What do you think I am? I'm not a greedy bastard, you can take the antlers off,” Norc smiled at him, “Besides I'll share it with Murdo here. Well come on, fucking well jump to it.”

They were led into the Main Hall where they were heralded a second time upon entering to inform the Chief of the McTyrants who they were.

The Chief was fat. Not immensely fat but nor could you stop at portly for a description of him. He was simply fat. Fat in the  face, fat of neck, fat of arms, with two fat legs poking out from beneath his McTyrant tartan kilt, and particularly fat about the stomach, which as he sat on his High Chair at rooms end he was using as a tray to sit his buckie on.

“So, yir interested in the heft o' oor weave ur yi?” The Chief asked Ringo with an arched eyebrow.

“Um, yes, indeed, its the um weaving in fact I am most interested in seeing here,” Ringo replied doing his best given his knowledge of the trade was somewhere about zero and his experience of it amounted to wearing it.

“Wull Um sure yi'll dae gud business wi us,” the Chief said,”but yi'll huv taew tuk it up wi wan o' ma clerks, U've goat a big match oan the night at the casino.”

Ringo noted that on a table beside the Chiefs High Chair were several sets of dominoes, the Chief appeared to be playing several games at once.

The pleasantries dealt with Ringo and Norc were led aside at ushered to along table at which many of the courtiers were already sitting, talking, drinking and eating. Norc dove in.

As to the other courtiers Ringo had most of them pegged instantly, there were the usual hangers-on and yes-men of any court, easy to spot; the fawners and the flatterers. And then there were those who were clearly not natives, the envoys to court from other parts of Forumshire, they tended to look guarded and were constantly shifting their gaze about the Hall. He had spotted some eel-wranglers too moving with graceful ease among the courtiers, with a carefully placed gesture here, a well craft and timed word there going about their own guild activities for their own mysterious guild reasons. And lastly there were those who as his alter-ego Murdo, he himself belonged to: the merchants. They were easiest to spot as they were doing most of the talking and loudly, full of bravado and daring deeds of sale and purchase, brag and boast and occasionally the clink of gold changing hands in deals struck. And it was amongst such that Ringo now found himself beside a large man with an orange complexion, “Hi there,” the man said in the distinctive tones of one from the Ushobbit side of Forumshire, ”here on business?”

“Aye,” Ringo replied with a brisk nod, “Murdo Macleod, tartans the game.”

“Hey really?” the man said his unruly and straw like hair seeming to shift position for its own comfort as his head bobbed in animated conversation, “Names Drumpf. I'm going into the tartan business. We're going to make it great again!” the man said.

“Isn't it now?”

“No, I mean GREAT! Its going to be the best.”

Ringo stared at the merchants beaming face, “How?”

“By making it great again!” the man repeated.

“Aye, but how dae yi make it great agin?”

“I am going to have the best people, the best people. And they will be brilliant, everyone now is an idiot- stupid people, they are stupid. What can I say? They are. They are stupid people. My people will be the best.”

Ringo frowned at this, it didn't seem to mean anything, “Aye but how exactly are you going to make the tartan trade better?”

“I told you, it will be brilliant. We are going to be the best.”

Ringo felt his temperature beginning to rise, not that he actually gave a damn about the trade but this man's arguments were infuriating, if they could even be called arguments.

Norc leaned an arm across Ringo, “Pass the fucking salt,” she grunted between mouthfuls of boar leg.

Ringo decided to try again, “How will you make things better precisely? He enunciated slowly.

“We make bad deals, bad deals. I am going to make great deals. The best deals ever. I am going to bring back the jobs. No one will believe how many jobs I am going to bring back.”

“What jobs?” Ringo exploded, “the only tartan in Forumshire is made in Scotshobbitland.”

“And I am going to make it great again! I'm going to make the best tartan. Just the best!”

Ringo resisted the urge to punch the man in his orange face but was fortunately relieved from the pressure to do so by the arrival of a clerk indicating that the Ambassador was ready to see them.

“Don't you forget me,” Drumpf said as Ringo and Norc rose to leave the table, “we can do great deals together. The best deals.The best deals ever! Drumpf. Donnie Drumpf! Making tartan great again!”

Norc leaned across the table, “Can I just say,” she said politely and sweetly, “you have won my first prize...”

“That's great I love being first, I'm ahead in everything,” Drumpf interrupted.

Norc ground her teeth,”you have won my first prize,” she treated, “in being the most annoying fucking wanker in the shortest possible time, ever. Now why don't you fuck off and make yourself better?”

At which point Drumpf grabbed Norc by the back of her head and kissed her.

A gasp went up along the table as Drumpf released Norc.

She stared at him. She stared at him some more as if trying to work out if what had just happened had just happened, eventually she said, “WHAT THE FUCK?”

Ringo stepped back from the table, others quickly took his cue and began doing likewise. Whatever Norc did next this guy deserved it all.

Drumpf stared back up at Norc, a huge smug grin across his orang-utan coloured face, “Hey, I'm Donnie Drumpf, I can do that sort of thing.”

“Yeah,” Norc replied, “well I'm Norc the fucking Viking and they are going to be picking Drumpf balls out of the foie gras in here for fucking weeks,” and she leaped at him across the table intent on extreme acts of violence as Drumpf yelled, “I have great balls. I have the biggest balls you have ever seen!” Before going down under a flurry of furious Norc and axe blows.



Once the carnage in the Great Hall had been somewhat cleared and the serious search among the foie gras had began for the Drumpf balls Norc and Ringo were led up through the Keep to the high chambers where the Ambassador had her quarters.

They were held up briefly en-route however as several scotshobbits in chefs hats tried to corral a reluctant deer down a passage leading to the kitchens. Norc was in stitches of laughter, doubled over the entire time.


The first question out of the Ambassadors mouth upon greeting them was not perhaps not the most important matter or the most pertinent one but it was something she could not fail to notice, “Why do you have a moustache growing out of your chin?”

Ringo sighed, “It's noo supposed tae be there, it goat stuck and wi cannae git it aff?”

“What did you use, wood glue?”

“Naw, some theatre stuff.”

“I am sure the eel-wranglers of the Court will have something to shift it, they are very good with disguise and make-up.”

She led them to the balcony overlooking the main body of the Keep below and beyond that the town.

“I have made arrangements,” Amarie began, “there is a guard room, little used mid-way along the passageway leading into and out of the Scuttle chamber. You and Norc will place yourselves there. It is imperative, no matter what happens or what you may hear, that you remain there until you receive my signal on your palantir, then, and only then should you proceed from the room and make your arrests.”

“Wull we huv backup frae the local coppers?” Ringo asked.

“No,” Amarie replied half turning from him to look out over the balcony, “this is, political, the scuttle is sensitive. If the general populace were to learn that someone had tried to steal it there would be trouble, we want to avoid trouble.”

“Aye, we dae,” Ringo agreed.

“Excellent, we are in agreement then. The room has been prepared with food and drink for you, you should retire there out of sight until this evening when I will contact you again.”

Ringo nodded at this and they exited the Ambassadors chambers and were led down through a maze of back passages and stairwells to the guard room the Ambassador had spoken off.

“I didnae like this,” Ringo mused as the door closed behind them.

“What the fucks up?”

“Something fishy, why does she want us tae stay here till called no matter whit we hear oot there? Why nae back-up if this is a joint polis job wi the McTyrants unnur the Queens authority? Why us the Ambassador hidden us awa' doon here? It jist disnae sit right wi me.”

He fished out of his tunic the rolled up parchment that contained his authority from Queen Tinuviel. He unrolled it and scrutinised it.

“Fucking fake is it?”

“Naw, or if it is I cannae see it, looks genuine,” he smelt the parchment, “rasberry buckie,” he confirmed, “an' nae wan else dots their i's wi' a wee golf ball.”

He sat down at the table in the centre of the otherwise fairly sparse stone room, “jist summit no right.” he repeated.




Lance and company were held up somewhat in leaving the cafe as Figg insisted on watering and feeding her bustle, so it seemed from what they could observe. She also cooed at it.

“Strange girl that Gingerlocks,” Lance whispered to Gwen.

“Full of surprises if my eye is any judge,” Gwen replied.

Finished her odd ritual Figg returned to the group, “ready to go,” she confirmed and they set off the short distance remaining to the entrance to the Keep.

“Now,” Lance began instructing as they crossed the  causeway leading to the Keeps main doors, “Gingerlocks you will go with Gwen as soon as we enter the keep, best you are seen as little a possible what? People will just assume you are an apprentice in the eel-wranglers. So try not to,” he glanced down at Figg.

“Try not to what?” Figg demanded with a suspicious frown.

“Um, well, try not to, you know, clump about as much...”

Figg's growing intensity of frown ground Lance to a halt momentarily but bravely, and possibly foolishly he struggled on, “its just eel-wranglers, well they move, with a certain, you know, grace.”

“And I don't?” Figg said hands on hips now.

“Just do your best,” Lance added lamely and turned back to the business of walking intently in silence.

The entered under the dark threshold of the Keeps Main Doors and into the entrance hallway, “And what are you going to be doing whilst I am preparing to climb a smelly privy?” Figg asked of Lance  as Gwen led her away.

“Me? I am going to be learning Scottish pub games. Anyone got a dart board?”







In another part of Forumshire altogether, far from the violence of the Chiefs Hall, or the street cafes in the drizzle, or the scuttle was someone very interested in all these things. So interested they had orchestrated it themselves.

The person in question, who sat still in shadows but whose silhouette indicated a head of McBanksian proportions was, he knew, a greet ideas man. And this had been his greatest idea ever. Indeed the culmination of many great ideas distilled down into one final great idea.

But he was not a great organiser. He was a good organiser. Nothing less than a good organiser could have got proceedings this far.

But he had needed a great organiser. So he had hired one.

He glanced down at the palantir on his desk with its hotline to Ambassador Amarie.

Yes, she was the best organiser there was and she had so far organised everything to within perfection.

He wondered ruefully exactly when the penny would drop for the good Ambassador that whilst she had organised everything perfectly, it was just what she had organised was not what she thought she was organising. He wondered at what moment would she realise it.

Of course, when all was done, if it was done to satisfaction, then she would never know what it really was all about. No one would ever know what it was really all about. None but him.

And one other.







And so in the Keep Lance cursed under his breath as his dart bounced back out of the board for the hundredth time and fretted over having to ask the Ambassador for a loan.

And in the eel-wranglers quarters Figg contemplated the nights work and chided herself for missing Petty and wondering what had become of him, probably back home drunk on buckie by now she thought.

And at the top of the Keep Amarie gazed out over the fading light of the afternoon and the shifting columns of light over the grey tossed sea and calculated and considered all the strategic possibilities.

And in the heather and scrub, among the rills and small streams that ran in the hills around Dunfuckinaboot Offo McBanks waited in place and wondered just how the Ambassador was going to get him and his men through the thick city walls.

And deep in the heart of the Keep Paw McTyrant put down his mug of buckie, took up his Sacred Sporran of the Keeper and put it on, placed the Tall Hat of haggis hair upon his head and marched to the main chamber where he took up his place as the final guard and last barrier before the scuttle and contemplated his night ahead.

And in less than six hours time, though unknown to all involved, the history of Forumshire would be changed forever and the scuttle would pass into disputed Forumshire legend forever more. And this is the true tale of how that happened.

Oh I say *snort, snort"

{{{ The pieces are set the board is ready, the springs are wound up, all that's left now is to unleash the dogs of narrative and let the shit hit the fan!  }}}

Cry 'Havoc!', I do say, dear chap, cry 'Havoc!'

{{{The next, possibly last, part may be a day or say later than I would have hoped to have it up- went back into work today after being off to find they have me down to work on for 7 days, off 1, back 4, off 1, back an unknown amount as I run out of rota after a day (which I'm on) at that point- but its not looking good on the work and tiredness front in the short term at any rate }}}

Go well Petty

{{{aye, unto the night at this rate }}}

Figg stared up at the darkening cliff-face from the concealment of the bushes that grew around its base. There was a clump of tall birch trees here too behind which she was partly concealed.

She was dressed head to foot in black leather, which she strongly disapproved off but it was clear her bustle would not fit in the latrines shaft and the wisdom of a change of clothing was obvious.

Her bustle she had entrusted, kitten and all, to Gwen. This had meant letting Gwen into the secret of the kitten, but then with Petty no longer about she did not have to worry about concealment any more. Petty. She mused momentarily on him, not with any particular thoughts just for a moment she was still and in her belly the butterflies were flexing their wings. She shook her head and focused on the task at hand.

The cliff wall was on close inspection no great task to climb. It was granite and full of crevices and cracks, moss grown and in places wet where rain water streamed down from above and stained it an unpleasant greenish-brown in a long streaking line from the base of the latrine shoot to the cliffs foot. She tried not to focus on that.

But all in all out of a ten she would rate the difficulty of the climb to the latrine shaft, and she could use one of the trees for the first half anyway, at no more than a four. She rated the climb from the girls dorm down the the drainpipe and along the Assembly Hall roof and down the steeple higher, and she had made that climb both ways in her nocturnal escapes from the Little Sisters many a time.

She glanced out of the bushes back towards the street beyond and the cafe where earlier they had sat in the rain. It was closed now and deserted, cafes in Scotshobbitland did not stay open in the evenings, there was no point once the pubs were open. Traffic was minimal and fading with the light.

When the sun set her climb would begin. She steeled herself for the moment.



Lance turned from the balcony and returned back into the warmth of his room in the Keep with its wide roaring fire.

Outside the sky was darkening, the sun setting beyond the hills leaving marvellous trails of yellow and orange emblazoned in streaking zig-zags across the sky above and reflected in the wind tossed sea below.

He stood before a full length mirror and took in his own reflection. Dark of hair, square of jaw but not overly. Clean shaven and expertly scented by the skill of Gwen, he adjusted the tight collar at his neck of his starched white shirt and began to knot his bow-tie.

That task accomplished he turned to the table where over the back of the tall chair he had hung his black tuxedo jacket. His lucky tux. He had never lost at a casino when he wore it. As he reached out his hand to seize it he thought, 'But then, I've never been in a Scottish casino before.'

He pulled on the jacket, tugging it neatly into place at the cuffs and pulling it down smartly from the hem. He reappraised himself in the mirror. Debonair and suave. The rich English playboy up from the south to impress the natives by beating them at their own games. Scotshobbits could simply not resist the opportunity to pop the bubble of arrogance of a southern sassanech. It's why the Chief would never have refused his challenge to a game.

He glanced around the room, at the dart board on the wall, two darts still sticking from it, the third was stuck in the floor. He fervently hoped darts was not on the nights agenda. It was just not his game throwing things. Dominoes he liked better. It had limited patterns, it could be counted so as to have a reasonable chance of a good player knowing what the other must be holding. But it also had a large element of luck. He could not guarantee winning often enough to reclaim both his stake and enough to replay the Queen. And as for caber-tossing, well he just hoped not. Surely the Chief of the McTyrant's was too fat for such pursuits. 'Oh' he thought, 'what I would not give for a simple hand of poker or of blackjack.'

He stared at the table by the fire upon which stood a bag. A big fat bag with one thousand Forumshire Crowns. Courtesy, he gulped, of the Dark Planet and Ambassador Amarie.

The clock above the mantle chimed the hour. It was time. With one last look at himself in the mirror, and at the face looking back- which was his best casino face and was confident with a dash of brag and brash, a wining smile and completely unruffled. The mind behind the eyes which looked out of this face however was quite the opposite. It was quite possible Lance considered as he left the room that this was going to be his last night as a secret agent of the Queen.

Ambassador Amarie was waiting for him in the entrance hall. There was only one word to describe her figure hugging dress and carefully chosen accessories, or her perfectly done hair and that was stunning. She stunned.

She took his arm and smiling innocently at him and they left the Keep and following the Court who had already embarked in a drunken rabble half an hour earlier they crossed the causeway to the Casino in the bay.



Figg reached up a hand and got a firm hold, wiggling her fingers into the crack in the granite cliff-face and pulling herself from the upper branches of the tree she was in to the rock itself.

She glanced upwards through the dim light to where some fifteen or so feet still above her was the small dark opening of the latrine shaft. With a grim determination to just get this over with and earn her freedom she began to climb. Halfway up she paused to catch her breath and glanced round at the town now sprawled below her. From up here it was clear what a warren of streets and buildings Dunfuckinaboot was. It was possible there had been some town planning, as presumably the town-planners were McTyrants and therefore drunk, and the town had the look of being laid out by drunkards.

She wondered if Petty was down there somewhere in that sprawl of wooden and stone dwellings and pointy roofs and thick smoke rising from reeking chimneys? Then she wondered why she had that particular thought. He was gone. Probably back in his barrel by now getting drunk and killing things to prove he was a man. Internally she checked herself, some part of her, the part connected to the fluttering in her stomach, said 'no, that's not fair and you know it'. What is wrong with me? Figg thought despairingly, halfway up a cliff-face in the dark on a mission that if caught, would, at best, just see her killed, and she was thinking about some stupid, snot nosed, smelly Scotshobbit.' Get a grip on yourself Figg' she said under her breath, then added, 'and of this wall!' and striking a determined hand upwards she continued her ascent.





Casinos Lance reflected as he entered this one were places he knew. They had plush carpets. Baroque carved staircase bannisters that swept in elegant curves upwards to the card tables and private bars on the second floor. They had gold trimming. Croupiers in immaculate suits and with winning smiles, and girls with trays of cigarettes, drinks and short skirts and even more winning smiles.

There was always a gentle background hum of conversation punctuated by the odd outburst of excited exclamation as a big win was made followed by approving cheering from onlookers and gentle applause or cries of anguish and shock as a hand went the wrong way on a big stake.

Everything in a casino was friendly, welcoming, designed to put you at ease and comfort so you did not notice that the House had fleeced you of all you had and all you were wearing.

As an Agent of Her Majesty Lance had seen his fair share of Casinos in exotic far flung corners of Forumshire, it was amazing how many villains played roulette or blackjack. But this? Well this was a Scotshobbit Casino all right.

The entrance pillars were constructed of stacked buckie barrels above which on a huge arch the letters C A S I N O were lit up in multicoloured lamps casting a weird rainbow hue over the huge steps leading up to it.

Here the croupiers were immaculately dressed, and also heavily armed. They bore cudgels which even as Lance entered he saw they were not afraid to use as one hapless customer who had taken issue with a game was unceremoniously beaten and then thrown out through the arch and tumbled painfully down the stairs beyond. Even as Lance, with Amarie still on his arm, approached.

Inside was not a great deal better. There were no plush carpets, there was straw, not even very fresh straw. Fights broke out sporadically throughout the casino, sometimes between patrons, sometimes between staff and patrons and sometimes it seemed everyone. In fact it quickly became apparent that the bouncers at least equalled in number the customers and brought a great deal of boisterous enthusiasm with them to their work.

This colourful violence however was just punctuation to the backdrop of the games. Immediately as they came in were the more frivolous cheaper games, whack-a-haggis popular among them. A game in which haggis, tempted by dangling meat poked their heads out from holes in a board only to be met, if the player was successful, with a well placed mallet. Which on a successful and hard enough blow would smash their little skull in. It was a game which always drew a crowd.

There was a reason for this and as Lance and the Ambassador made their way down the centre aisles they saw why. Because the game was not as cruel or as unfair as it seemed at first appearence.

Anyone trying to hit a haggis, already made angry by being stuck in a table for hours on end whilst drunken idiots tried to hit it every time it wanted a meal, was taking a big risk.

For one there was a good chance any mallet striking a haggis's head would not do much more than irritate it further as their skulls were reinforced for tumbling down mountainsides, which was a self defence instinct when in a tight corner.

Secondly a haggis, who having been struck on the head by a mallet after being aggravated by being trapped in a table for hours whilst drunken idiots try to hit it over the head every time it wants a meal, will quickly find that a haggis' small piranha like teeth will some turn the mallet to sawdust and the offending hand holding it into its next meal given half a chance.

The crowd watching roared with a mix of laughter at the switch of events and approval for the hardy haggis as a player spun back from the table, right across the path of Lance and Amarie clutching the bloodied stump of what remained of his mallet hand.

You could lose more than your sporran in a Scotshobbit casino.

As if this was not enough chaos to walk into there were the other games. There were on their right as they went further into the Casino the darts boards, lined in a row and they noticed of increasing scale as they went, from normal board size to boards ten foot across at which the participants threw spears. Sometimes at each other.

And finally, within the confines of the building itself as the Caber tossers were, rightly Lance considered, in the grounds beyond the rear of the building which overlooked the sea, were the domino tables.

And it was here the Chief had taken his seat. This came as no surprise to Lance. Gwen had informed him that the Chief had been practising this very game all day in his Great Hall. And therefore so too had Lance.

The Court were gathered round the tables, various ministers and persons of state were playing games with their own backers or detractors gathered round their tables whilst the rest were in a noisy drunken broil around the huge trestle tables laden with deep fried food and buckie.

As Lance and Amarie finally approached, and the courtiers passed to let them through they saw the Chief in triumphant mood as his warm-up opponent, who held three dominoes in one hand, and from where Lance could see they totalled a whopping 17, chapped on the table.

With a huge roar the Chief rose from his seat and slammed down his final domino in place and clapped his hands together, “Right, noo chop his head aff!”

His opponent went boggle eyed and the Chief roared with laughter, “Whit a coupon, white as snaw afore the piss, am oanly pullin' yer leg. Yi jist lose yir sporran, huand it oe'er!” The Chief gestured with his out-stretchered hand for the man to place his sporran in the Chief's hand, which he did, it clinked with coins. “Next!” the Chief roared and bit a huge chunk from a leg of mutton.

Lance and Amarie steeped forward as the luckless player stepped aside.

“Good evening most noble Chief of the McTyrants,” Lance offered formally.

“Aye,” the Chief replied between gobs of mutton, “ne'er mind aw that!” he stood up, “welcome friends oor rich English cousin, if no cousin by blood then soon by sporran!” the Court dutifully roared with laughter.

“Only if your game is better than your Scots patter,” Lance countered with a friendly and disarming smile, and the crowd dutifully “oooed” at the challenge.

The Chief grinned at him out of his fat pudgy face,“We'll see laddie, shull we! We shull see! Bring us drink an' music!” The Chief sat back down heavily in his cushioned seat and a new game was set up, whilst the tables either side were likewise prepared for players.

Buckie arrived in large flagons which the Chief quaffed down. And Lance sipped more hesitantly as he took his seat.

“So what is to be our game? Dominoes one presumes,” Lance smiled. Amarie stood at his shoulder.

“Aye, three hand dominoes.”

Lance hesitated, the flagon pausing half way to his mouth, slowly he put it back down, “three-hand?”

“Aye, yi dinae think wi were gonna play like bairns di yi? Wan game at a time?” he laughed and slapped the table enthusiastically, “we play three games at wance.”

Inwardly Lance gulped and if it were possible to sweat only on the inside that was what it felt like he was doing. The exterior Lance was too experienced, too good at gaming to show the slightest sign of his inward permutations. Outwardly he smiled confidently, took another casual sip of his drink, and said, “no bairns here.”

“Gud,” the Chief nodded, “shall we say wan hundred per haund tae get us started?”

The inward sweat was a torrent now. He needed to keep the Chief and Court busy enough for long enough for their plan to succeed. At one hundred a hand, three hundred a game how long would his measly thousand take him.

“Of course,” he said smoothly, “one hundred it is.”

He was going to have to play the game of his life. Still he could do this. He could do this, he could keep track of the numbers on three games at once, he could. All he needed was to able to be able to concentrate, really, really, hard.

And that was when the bagpipe band right beside him struck up.




“I'm fucking bored!” Norc protested suddenly. She got up from the hard wooden chair she had been sitting on and paced the small, cell-like room she and Ringo were concealed in.

“We huv oor orders,” Ringo pointed out and went to the door which had a cell-like slot in it for looking out with a wooden shutter, he pulled it back and glanced out. The passageway beyond was empty, just to the right of the door it went round a corner and just as Ringo was closing the hatch again he heard footsteps and caught the dancing light of a torch on the stonework, “someone coming,” he informed Norc and they both fell silent. He left the hatch open just a crack, enough to see who passed by.

Norc waited patiently hearing the patter of feet, not heavy or iron shod or booted feet, but light steps go by the door. Ringo said nothing as he turned.

“Well?” Norc hissed at him, “Who the fuck was it?”

“Eel-wranglers.”

“What? What the fuck would they be doing down here? I'm going to go see.”

“Naw yire noo,” Ringo said firmly, “wuve tae stay here till yon palantir thingie goes aff, noo before, they wur oor orders.”

“Not my fucking orders,” Norc replied cheerily, “I'll keep out of sight, don't you want to know what the fuck is going on?”

Ringo hesitated.

“Look,” Norc said grabbing a sweeping brush which was leaning against the wall, “I'm fucking bored, either I go out there and see what those girls are up to, or,” she waggled the broom handle at him, “I find something else to entertain myself with until the Ambassador calls.”

Ringo sat down on the chair quickly and firmly, “Naw! Never again!” he said grimly, “fine go,” he conceded with a shake of his head and Norc threw the broom to him “Don't do anything with it I wouldn't do to you,” she grinned and opening the door a crack slipped out in to the passageway beyond.




'Chap, chap'

It was the sound of Lance tapping one of the two dominoes left in his hand against the table.
The right hand game was dead already- he had lost it on a spot count. He had been left with a double two the Chief, as Lance had already calculated, was holding the double blank- an unbeatable low score of zero. And so already the croupiers were removing that game, and Lace's hundred farthing stake, and preparing to set up another.

No the chap was for the game immediately before him. He looked down again at the snaking dominoes end to end. At one end they showed a four and at the other end a six. He had neither holding a one and blank, a good domino to hold onto in-case of a spot count, and a five and three. But neither were playable.

The Chief, who was humming along to the screeching of the bagpipes as he relaxed and enjoyed himself, occasionally fed buckie by one of his handmaidens grinned across at Lance and triumphantly laid down is final domino, he had a double four.

Lance had lost the middle game too. Two hundred of his thousand down already.

At his shoulder he heard Amarie take a sharp intake of breath. She was doing the part of glamorous onlooker, complete with small sticky drink in a small glass with an umbrella in it. And she was dressed to kill. The overall effect was quite stunning, and she had hoped quite distracting for the Chief. She was normally very good at this sort of thing and could give the Eel wranglers a run for their money when she wanted to be noticed. But unlike them she also knew how to go unnoticed. But tonight she had the glam turned up to full. It had not so far made the slightest difference as far as she could tell the Chief was more interested in the game, the bagpipe band and his buckie. It certainly did not seem to be affecting his play. Unfortunately for Lance.

As causally as he could Lance smiled at the Chief, “Win some lose some,” he said nonchalantly and turned to the third game as the croupiers set about resetting up the dominoes.

If Lance had been sweating on the inside before he now felt like he was starting to drown in there. He had to keep these games going long enough to distract the Court, and for that he had to have enough money to keep playing. He had realistically to win at least one hand out of the opening three.

He glanced down at his hand, he had one domino left, it was a two and three, and there waiting on his completion at one end of the game was a three just waiting his domino to match it. But it was the Chief to play, and he too only had one domino left.

Lance held his breath as the Chief stretched his hand towards the third board, his final domino in hand. And then with some annoyance the Chief sharply rapped the domino against the table top,.

Lance shrugged in a, 'those are the breaks' type of gesture and firmly placed his last domino down taking the hand. He was still in the game.





Figg glanced upwards. Another two hand holds to find and she would be there.

This was the trickiest part of the climb so far the rocks here were wet with decades or more of whatever came out the shaft and it stank. Not the fresh sharp sweet smell of fresh manure but the aged, imbued stench of entrenched muck and filth. The rocks themselves were seeped with it.

It was also the most exposed she had felt, far above the line of the tallest tree now and almost in the centre of the cliff itself. But fortunately the sky overhead was dark and the moon when it showed at all among the swift moving heavy clouds was no more than a thin curl of white casting almost no light.

With a final effort she pulled herself up until she was immediately before the opening. It was just wide enough for her fit into, or would be once she had removed the metal grating that protected it.

For this she had a small vial about her person that Lance had given her and with some difficulty and a great deal of care she unhooked one hand from the rock and reached down for the vial carefully and cautiously bring it back up to be level with the grating.

She had to very careful here. Lance had warned her that anything which could dissolve metal was certainly able to dissolve flesh. And working with only one hand to uncork it was tricky indeed and nearly caused her to slip at one point, at which she cursed under her breath. But finally she managed to squeeze a few drops from the vial and onto the grating, quickly withdrawing her hand as the liquid began to hiss and burn.

It took several more drops at each corner before the grill fell away, it bounced off the cliff-face and rang out and Figg clung to the rock unmoving in fear of it attracting attention, and she winced as it fell with a noisy flurry of leaves and snapping of branches to the ground below.

She held her breath, but no one came to investigate and with relief, and then resignation when she remembered where she was going, she pulled herself awkwardly upwards and into the shaft, using her hands and feet pressed against the tight shaft walls as her leverage she began the painful and arduous task of pushing upwards into the smelly pitch darkness.


There was a knock at the cell door and Ringo leapt up from his chair. “Its fucking me!” Norc's voice hissed and Ringo unlocked and opened the door allowing her slender frame to slip in.

“Wull?” he asked as soon as the door was closed and locked again, “Whits goan oan?”

“They are knocking out all the fucking guards, every guard protecting the scuttle.”

“Whit?” Ringo exclaimed sitting down heavily, “this disnae muk oany sense.”

“Inside fucking job,” Norc shrugged, “this must be how the McBanks are getting the scuttle.”

“The Eel-wranglers Guild would ne'er agree tae thus,” Ringo said shaking his head, “an' if they ur working fay Offo where's he? How does he get intae the keep withoot being spotted? A didnae like this at aw.”

“So what the fuck are we going to do about it?” Norc demanded.

“Nuthing,” Rngo said with a shrug, “A've goat ma orders, no matter whit, I wait till the Ambassador gies me the word tae move. Then wi shull see whit we shull see.”

“And in the fucking meantime,” Norc said reaching for the broom and grinning.

“Naw!”




“Yi seem tae huv lost yir cheerleader,” the Chief snorted at Lance over the top of his hand of dominoes and grinned as the sixth game folded in the Chief's favour.

Lance glanced up to see that Amarie was no longer standing behind him looking superb.

“The lasses love a winner lad,” the Chief said and then added conspiratorially and knowingly, “especially the ambitious wans. But they didnae hang aboot fir a looser.”

The Chief had a point Lance conceded in that he was down six games and had only won one. He was running out of money and any dreams he had had of turning the games and not just making his money back but also the loan to the Dark Planet were long gone. It was no longer about winning, it was not even about his career any more it was as good as over, it was about lasting. Lasting long enough for Amarie to test the scuttle and have it returned to its place of origin before anyone noticed. Now the internal sweat he felt like a waterfall inside his head was not for the game, it was for the anxious return of the Ambassador which would signal all was still going to plan. He had to stay in the game and keep the Chief busy at least till then, win or lose. Survival was the name of the game now.




The climb in the total darkness, with the constant reek of ageing excrement and the sense it was simply never going to end, was one of the worst things Figg ever had to do. And she had once been made to the scrub the bunions on the Head Little Sisters ancient stinking feet so she knew horror. But this, this was worse.

But finally, just as she was despairing that the shaft was endless and she would be stuck in a perpetual climbing hell of dark and stink her head thumped against a wooden seat which bounced upwards and let a dim shaft of pale light in, which to Figg was as dazzling as staring straight at a noon day sun. It was so bright she momentarily lost her grip and slid back several feet down the shaft before she managed to slow her descent with friction.

More carefully this time she climbed back up and shielding her eyes pried the wooden toilet seat back up and painfully clambered out the shaft.

When her eyes had adjusted to the light, which came from a single brazier which burned low beside a pillar at the rooms centre she took in her surroundings.

It was a circular room, comprised of large stone blocks and it had a large pillar of stone right in the centre. Opposite the pillar in the curve of the wall to her left was a large double door, next to it a large iron key hung on a peg driven into the stone wall. And in the pillar itself there was a small cupboard with wooden doors which were shut.

She glanced at the main doors wondering what was going on beyond them? Was Gwen and the eel-wranglers already waiting for her? Or were there guards waiting for her? Then she noticed that there was a spyhole in the door, a flap of dark leather was hung over it. Very cautiously and quietly Figg pulled back the leather and put her eye to the hole.

Outside there was a long hall with more pillars stretching off into a torch lit gloom. But close to the door, just on the other side was a guard in full dress of kilt and haggis helmet. And then as the guard half turned and picked his nose with great interest and Figg saw the full profile she realised who it was. The guard was Paw.

She stepped back from the door and considered this. As far as as he was aware the eel-wranglers plan was to use their charms to seduce the guards. Figg put that thought alongside the thought of Paw. The two were very hard to reconcile. But just as she was pondering this she heard Paws gruff voice barking, “Halt! Who goes thur?”

Figg stiffened. It must be the eel-wranglers, it was going to happen now. She hurried back to the door and the spyhole. Maybe, just maybe she was going to find out something about what it was they did no one would talk about, even if it was with Paw McTyrant. And again her mind rang an alarm bell at the thought of Paw being seduced by the wranglers. Though the thought of Paw and seduction of any sort save perhaps the sort that just hit you over the head and dragged you off was hard to fathom. She hoped she was about to live and learn.

It was not that Paw was immune to her shape as it glided, led it seemed by the wiggle of her curvaceous hips, towards him. Nor were his nostrils immune to the very carefully calibrated array of scents she wore that searched him out and tantalised his mind with forbidden promises before she had even got in physical proximity. And nor were eyes sufficiently under the control of his brain to stop them wandering lustfully, as intended, over her ever curve and fun bit, which was all of her.

No Paw's problem was that these things were immediately and instantly followed by an image in his mind, burned into his mind. It was of Maw, stout bare arms folded across her ample chest staring, staring deep into the depths of his soul.

This was then followed by another image which was of a grave marked with his name.

In the past his mind used to go through the events that would likely occur between Maw finding out Paw had betrayed her and him ending up in his grave, but over the years his mind had edited that bit out to save him the undue distress of the violence of it.

Suffice to say he would not be spending that time in happy years of bliss but rather in short hours of extreme agony.

As Gwen came within his reach he knew it always came down to what it always came down to- there was nothing any woman in Forumshire could offer him in the way of pleasure that would not be easily outweighed on the scales by the weight of violence Maw would bring to bare upon him in return. So he thought. Right up until Gwen whispered, “And I brought a long a friend.”

And a second woman homed into view undulating her way towards him full of promise and trailing exotic and erotically charged scent in her wake and before her.

Paw gulped and in his mind eye Maw glared at him as he contested which was going to win.
“Thank Eru,” he thought to himself as they closed in on him their eyes brimming with untold pleasures promised, “I huv a plan C.”


Figg watched through the spyhole as Gwen and another of her wranglers closed in on the profusely sweating Paw.

“Um sorry lass,” Paw said almost in tears at forcing himself to say it, “but A'm goona huv tae ask yi's tae leave oor A'm goona huv tae call fur assistant an arrest yi!”

“You don't want to arrest us,” Gwen purred at him, “but you can put me in handcuffs if you like,” she toyed and Paw whimpered.

“Naw,” he gulped, “A really um, Eru save me, goona huv tae ask yi tae leave. This area is aff limits tae, the public,” he croaked as Gwen softly and insidiously replied, “we're not the public, we can be friends.”

“We are very friendly girls indeed,” the other girl added,”let me show you.”

With a final effort Paw drew his weapon, “A cunnae let yi cum onnae closer,” he said with his voicing trembling as much as the weapon in his hand.

The girls moved closer together and draped seductive arms around each other and gazed into each other eyes, “then we will have to get closer to each other, “ Gwen murmured softly.

“Oh dear Eru,” Paw exclaimed.

“Why don't you just join us, we won't tell.”

Paw felt the weapon fall from his hand just as the girl reached up a hand to his brow and at the merest touch Paw collapsed in a heap on the floor, slightly to the surprise it seemed of the eel-wrangler who said, “Finally. But I barely touched him.”

“He's not allergic to your knock out perfume is he? Remember that guard in the palace in Italiashire? He swelled up like a balloon,” Gwen said concerned leaning over Paw and checking his breathing, “no, just low tolerance I guess, out cold. You wouldn't think sop from such a large man.”

Gwen all business and no seduction now bounded to the doors and knocked on them, “You in there Gingerlocks?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Yes,” Figg replied back through the door.

“Have you got the scuttle?”

“No, not yet, hold on,” Figg said and turning to the pillar at the centre of the room she threw open the small wooden doors in it and looked inside, “Um,” she called back,”We might have a problem.”

Looking inside the cupboard she could see that in it there was indeed a coal scuttle, plain, simple and old looking.

And sitting next to it was another identical one.