‘There’s a passage in the scriptures,’ one of the intruders said, once the last sack had landed and split wide, and the last tottering remains of the house of sticks had fallen in (Julian had known about that particular weak spot from the outset, but he hadn’t been expecting an attack from directly overhead) ‘about the man who spits at heaven. Later on, perhaps, when you’re more in the mood—’

‘A bath wouldn’t hurt, either,’ added a colleague. ‘Being one with the basics of nature is all very well, but wearing ‘em’s a different matter entirely.’

Sitting among the ruins of his house, the tattered remnants of a dung-sack festooned around his neck like a Jacobean collar, Julian groaned. ‘All right, then,’ he said, ‘I quit. You win. I’ve had enough. Ham and eggs, bacon sandwich, gammon Hawaii, sweet and sour pork balls; you name it, I’m your pig. Just get it over with, will you?’

There was a brief silence; then the first intruder cleared his throat. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘we’re vegetarians. All we wanted to know was, are we on the right road for the Hundred Acre Wood?’

Julian nodded. ‘Follow your nose as far as the next clearing but one and wait for a dramatic plot reversal,’ he sighed. ‘There’s usually one along every ten minutes or so.’

‘Many thanks,’ the intruder said. ‘If it’s any consolation, the river of predestination has many bends but few bridges.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Julian assured him. ‘And now, if you don’t mind—’

‘Carry on,’ replied the intruder. ‘Be seeing you. Strive to be at peace.’

‘Same to you with knobs on. Look,’ he added irritably, ‘it’s probably none of my business, and really I can’t be bothered with anything much right now, but who are you guys? My brothers didn’t send you here, by any chance?’

The intruder regarded him inquisitively. ‘Your brothers?’

‘Eugene and Desmond.’

‘And they’d be, um, pigs? Like you?’

‘That’s right. Unless my mum had a really adventurous time before she met my dad, all my brothers are pigs.’

‘And the sages teach us that all pigs are our brothers,’ the intruder replied politely. ‘But no, can’t say they did. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met a talking pig before. Actually, we’re samurai.’

‘Samurai.’ Julian thought hard. ‘That’s a kind of Italian sausage.’

The intruder conferred briefly with his colleagues. ‘Not really,’ he said, ‘except insofar as all things are, at the most fundamental level, one and the same. Mostly, though, we’re warrior-philosophers, and we’re off to kill a wicked queen.’

‘Really?’ Julian, who’d never cared much for politics, backed away a little. ‘Gosh,’ he added.

‘It’s our calling,’ explained the first intruder. ‘To defend the weak against the strong, the oppressed against the oppressor, the humble and meek against the overbearing — sorry, am I boring you?’

‘No, no,’ Julian assured him. ‘I was just, er, counting you. I make it seven.’

‘Congratulations. Well done.’

Julian frowned hopelessly. ‘Yes, but seven,’ he said. ‘Seven samurai. Seven samurai defending the weak and oppressed and all that. No offence, lads, but are you sure you aren’t dwarves?’

The intruders looked at each other. ‘I don’t think so,’ said one of them. ‘We’d have noticed something like that.’

Julian shrugged. ‘Oh well, never mind, it was just a thought. Best of luck with the, um, wicked queen.’

The intruders bowed politely and strolled away back into the forest, leaving Julian alone with his scattered bundles of sticks and his aromatic artillery. Seven, he thought. Seven samurai. Seven dwarves. The Secret Seven. The Secret Magnificent Seven Dwarf Samurai Against Thebes.

Whatever.

He pulled the sack off his neck, brushed himself down and Went off to look for some bricks.

Chapter 9

‘My God,’ muttered Grimm #2. ‘It’s a gnome.’

Dumpy growled like a hungry tiger who’s just received a tax demand. ‘You just say something, friend?’ he hissed. ‘Or was that just my imagination?’

‘It’s all right,’ Fang said, standing in front of Grimm #2. ‘I’ll deal with this.’ He leaned forward, until he and the dwarf were almost touching noses. ‘You,’ he said. ‘No trouble, understood. You want trouble, go pick on someone your own size.’

‘He jes’ done called me a—’

‘Yes,’ Fang interrupted quickly, ‘I know. But he’s thick as a brick and foreign. Make allowances.’

Dumpy stared back. ‘Do that all the time,’ he replied. ‘Especially when they’re running, otherwise you miss ‘em behind. Nobody calls me a gnome and gets away with it, understood?’

Fang straightened his back and turned to stare at Grimm #2. ‘You,’ he snapped. ‘Did you just call this gentleman a gnome?’

‘Ye— no,’ Grimm #2 said, ‘certainly not. Wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.’

‘See?’ Fang said. ‘And you there, in the doorway, the other short gentleman. Did you hear anybody call anybody a gnome?’

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. ‘I wasn’t listening,’ he said diplomatically. ‘In fact, I’m morally certain I wasn’t even here at the time. I was probably somewhere else entirely. Look, can we shelve the posturing just for now and get on with the business in hand? I hate to break up a good confrontation, but we’re on a schedule.’

Fang growled a bit more. Wolfpack didn’t hold with dwarves, and a Wolfpack officer is afraid of no one; even if they’re four foot nothing and mostly made up of nose, beard and shoes — (Huh? demanded Fang’s logic centres. You know, replied the provisional wing of his memory. Dwarves. Little punk tough guys who’re always starting fights and throwing their weight around. At least, we think they’re always starting fights. We seem to remember it that way.)

‘All right,’ Fang said. ‘Say what you want and then get out.’

Dumpy made an aggressive noise at the back of his throat; but before he could turn it into words, Rumpelstiltskin interrupted. Born diplomat, that little guy. That would explain, Fang rationalised, why I don’t like him.

‘Dead simple,’ Rumpelstiltskin said smoothly. ‘We were looking for the witch, that’s all.’

‘You too?’ Grimm #2 broke in. ‘My God, she’s popular today. Sorry, but you’ll have to join the queue, because we saw her first.’

‘Since when’ve folk been standing in line for witches?’ Dumpy said, frowning. ‘Always thought the trick was stayin’ out of their way, not findin’ them. ‘Cept when there’s a new witch in town, of course, an’ everybody’s tryin’ to find out if she’s good. Like they say, a new broomstick sweeps clean.’

‘Fair enough. So what do you want her for, then?’

Dumpy muttered something and looked away. ‘We’re stuck,’ said a voice from Rumpelstiltskin’s hat. ‘He’s supposed to be rounding up seven dwarves, but we’ve only been able to find four.’

Fang blinked. ‘Four dwarves?’ he queried. ‘You can’t have looked properly.’

‘You reckon?’

‘But dwarves always come in sevens,’ Fang replied. ‘Like cans of beer always come in sixes. It’s… it’s.’

‘It’s in the story,’ Tom Thumb finished the sentence for him. ‘I know. But suddenly they don’t any more. And I for one’d like to know why.’

While this conversation had been taking place, Fang’s elf had been sitting on the mantelpiece behind a framed hand-stitched sampler, swinging her legs in the air and chewing on a hunk of ancient grey-streaked chocolate that had turned up among the fluff and broken rubber bands in Fang’s handsome-prince issue embroidered waistcoat. Now, however, she was sitting in rapt attention with a look on her face that could only have had one of two possible explanations, either chronic indigestion or a bad case of love, and as far as he knew the elf had a digestion like a cement mixer. True, it should have been the handsome prince and some generic industry-standard princess getting the treatment rather than a very small, hat-dwelling person and a maladjusted elf. Now sure enough, Fang was greatly relieved at not being in the frame; but he was puzzled as well; the same level of curiosity as a man might exhibit if he’d just walked blindfold across a minefield and not been blown up.