The Great Troll War

‘Tell you what,’ said the Troll Husband, who had been staring at the Princess for some time and drooling in a truly unpleasant manner – great gobs of sticky saliva that fell from his upswept tusks like melted mozzarella, ‘hand over the scrawny one and we’ll guarantee that once we find a way across this trench, you’ – he was pointing at me – ‘will not be killed and eaten. You shall be spared. It is a promise.’

Oddly, the Troll would be as good as its word. Although murderous in nature and utterly dismissive of a human’s right to life, they could still barter effectively with the ultimate bargaining chip: they would promise to spare your life. It was a gesture that was particularly effective for negotiating the surrender of the UnUnited Kingdoms as they swept through the island.

Offer resistance? Be killed and eaten.

Bow to your new overlords and follow their every demand? Be spared.

Guaranteed.

‘How could they promise such a thing?’ asked the Princess, whose schoolwork had centred more around deportment, strategic tantrums and estimating a prince’s net worth and marriageability at a glance, rather than learning about the other inhabitants of our island.

‘They have several active strands of Hive Memory,’ said Tiger, knowing quite a bit about Trolls, as not learning which fork was which at a state banquet really freed up some time. ‘It’s thought that memories are shared by the same familial affiliation – and once shared, they effectively have the same memories. If you want all Trolls to have the same memory, you’d only have to share it with all the tribal affiliations, so it never takes long.’

‘A Hive Memory could be useful,’ said the Princess.

‘Yes and no,’ said Tiger. ‘Within each memory-sharing tribe there are no secrets, double-dealing or lying. On the downside, card games within the Hive Memory affiliation are almost impossible, telling jokes pretty much pointless, and they have to binge-watch a TV series all at the same time to avoid spoilers.’

‘That’s true,’ I added. ‘When Bergerac came out on DVD, a Troll named Urgry watched it the night before they planned to do so and ended up being stoned to death by those in her affiliate for filling their heads full of spoilers.’

Trolls were particularly fond of crime TV shows from the seventies and eighties, with Murder, She wrote, Columbo and Bergerac being their favourites. They watched them again and again, as the aforementioned Hive Memory discouraged them from watching anything new because of the whole ‘spoiler stoning to death’ issue.

‘I’ve not heard of Bergerac,’ said the Princess, ‘but that’s easily explained: Mummy said TV was for the dull and uneducated – a princess’s place is on the telly, not watching it.’

The Princess’s upbringing had been horribly sheltered, but had lent her a very peculiar skillset. She could quote Tacitus, differentiate seventeen bottles of expensive mineral water by clarity alone, was able to guess the value of a tiara at forty paces and could skilfully project shallow indifference into a room long before she’d entered. All this, but she didn’t know how to open a window, use a telephone kiosk or boil an egg.

‘Bergerac was actually a really good TV series,’ I mused, ‘but well before my time. The series seven set were the only DVDs we had in the orphanage. We played them hundreds of times until they got scratched, then just re-enacted the stories from memory. I got to play Bergerac’s ex-wife Debbie, which was kind of fun. We performed episode three at the Courtyard Theatre in Hereford.’

‘That’s the one where the diamonds got stolen,’ said Tiger, something of an expert.

‘And,’ I added, ‘John Nettles sent us a nice note when he found out and donated a new minibus to the orphanage.’

‘Who’s John Nettles?’ asked the Princess.

Tiger and I looked at one another. As far as anyone in Mother Zenobia’s orphanage was concerned – nuns, children, everyone – there was no greater star than John Nettles.5

‘He’s the—’ I began, then: ‘Never mind.’

‘So how about it?’ asked the Troll Husband, who was still waiting for an answer. ‘The skinny handmaiden or your life?’

‘Looks a bit bony for a snack,’ said the Troll Wife, sizing up the Princess expertly, ‘unless you like your humans crunchy and lacking in nourishment.’

‘Not for a snack, silly,’ said her husband, ‘as a pet. They can be quite adorable – although sometimes you have to pull their tongues out to stop them squeaking.’

‘Okay,’ said his wife, ‘but remember to feed it this time – oh, and you must keep the males and females in separate cages or they’ll breed. And – yes, agreed – the babies can be very cute but before you know it some fool will give them names and we’ll be stuck with them, like, for ever.’

Trolls were, dismayingly, quite happy to keep humans as pets and, equally dismayingly, weren’t very diligent when it came to looking after them.

‘Hang on, what about me?’ said Tiger indignantly. ‘Why is Jennifer’s life threatened and not mine?’