I Shall Wear Midnight

Preston nodded sagely. ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘The different body mass for one thing, which would mean you would end up with either one enormous human-sized cockroach, which I think would probably collapse under its own weight, or dozens or even hundreds of people-shaped cockroaches. But the snag there, I think, might be that their brain might work very badly – though, of course, if you had the right spells, I suppose you could magic all the bits of the human that wouldn’t fit into the cockroach into some kind of big bucket so they could use it to get themselves bigger again when they were tired of being small. But the problem there would be what happened if some hungry dog came along when the lid was off. That would be quite bad. Sorry, have I said something wrong?’

‘Er, no,’ said Tiffany. ‘Er, don’t you think that you’re a bit too smart to be a guard, Preston?’

Preston shrugged. ‘Well, the lads all think that I am useless,’ he said cheerfully. ‘They think that there’s got to be something wrong with someone who can pronounce the word “marvellous”.’

‘But, Preston … I know you are very clever and sufficiently erudite to know the meaning of the word “erudite”. Why do you sometimes pretend to be stupid – you know, like “doctrine” and “happy ass corp ass”?’

Preston grinned. ‘I was unfortunately born clever, miss, and I’ve learned that sometimes it’s not such a good idea to be all that clever. Saves trouble.’

Right now, it seemed to Tiffany that the clever thing would be not to be in the hall any longer. Surely the horrible woman couldn’t do too much damage, could she? But Roland had been so strange, acting as if they had never been friends, sounding as though he believed every complaint against her … He had never been like that before. Oh, yes … he was mourning his father, but he just didn’t seem … himself. And that dreadful old baggage had just bundled off to harry him while he was saying goodbye to his father in the coolness of the crypt, trying to find a way of saying the words that there had never been time for, trying to make up for too much silence, trying to bring back yesterday and nail it firmly to now.

Everyone did that. Tiffany had come back from quite a few deathbeds, and some were very nearly merry, where some decent old soul was peacefully putting down the weight of their years. Or they could be tragic, when Death had needed to bend down to harvest his due; or, well, ordinary – sad but expected, one light blinking off in a sky full of stars. And she had wondered, as she made tea, and comforted people, and listened to the tearful stories about the good old days from people who always had words left over that they thought should have been spoken. And she had decided that they weren’t there to be said in the past, but remembered in the here and now.

‘What do you think about the word “conundrum”?’

Tiffany stared at Preston, her mind still full of words people never said. ‘What was that you asked?’ she said, frowning.

‘The word “conundrum”,’ Preston repeated helpfully. ‘When you say the word, doesn’t it look in your head like a copper-coloured snake, curled up asleep?’

Now, Tiffany thought, during a day like this, anyone who wasn’t a witch would dismiss that as a bit of silliness, so that means I shouldn’t.

Preston was the worst-dressed guard in the castle; the newest guard always was. To him were given chain-mail trousers that were mostly full of holes²⁵ and suggested, against everything we know about moths, that moths could eat through steel. To him was given the helmet that, no matter what size your head was, would slide down and make your ears look big; and this was not forgetting that he had also inherited a breastplate with so many holes in it that it might be more useful for straining soup.

But his gaze was always alert, to the point where it made people uneasy. Preston looked at things. Really looked at things, so intensely that afterwards they must have felt really looked at. She had no idea what went on in his head, but it was surely pretty crowded.

‘Well, I must say I’ve never thought about that word “conundrum”,’ she said slowly, ‘but it is certainly metallic and slithery.’

‘I like words,’ said Preston. ‘“Forgiveness”: doesn’t it sound like what it is? Doesn’t it sound like a silk handkerchief gently falling down? And what about “susurration”? Doesn’t it sound to you like whispered plots and dark mysteries? … Sorry, is something wrong?’

‘Yes, I think something may be wrong,’ said Tiffany, looking at Preston’s worried face. ‘Susurration’ was her favourite word; she had never met anyone else who even knew it. ‘Why are you a guard, Preston?’