Spree was cornered.

Four irate farmers circled her, and yet more clomped down the creaky cellar steps, all wielding pitchforks, torches and other weapons of the type favoured by angry mobs everywhere.

Spree folded her purple wings behind her and tried to look at small as possible. She closed her impish green eyes and covered her face with shaking hands. Her long pointed ears drooped, giving her the air of a disconcerted cat.

It wasn’t that there was an angry mob of Peoples wielding painful-looking farm implements at her. It wasn’t even that there seemed to be no escape from behind the kegs piled in the corner. Even the fact that the green slime running down the walls had dripped into her hair paled in comparison with her real problem.

She really, really needed a drink.

By now all the farmers had reached the stack of barrels behind which she was hiding, even that bumbling Bort O’Brien. Whoever had created the image of the country bumpkin has obviously encountered Bort O’Brien at some point, complete with the piece of straw hanging out from between his few remaining teeth. He was muscle-bound, and seldom inconvenienced by strenuous cranial activity. Or, to put it in terms he would understand, he was just plain thick.

Bort’s bushy brows furrowed and his lips moved as he lined up the words in his head, like a child attempting a particularly difficult four-piece puzzle.

“Uh, Frank, wha’ we gon’ do now?” he finally managed.

Frank O’Reilley shushed him. Raging mobs were all well and fine, but not when they happened to be in his cellar, and in particular, in front of twelve kegs of his finest ale. Occasions such as these required diffusing. At least according to his well-thumbed copy of Ye Booke of Taverne Management. He wasn’t sure exactly what diffusing meant exactly, but he was sure it had something to do with not blowing up his treasured stock of Scarborough Brown. He motioned for the Doherty brothers to move the barrels aside.

“An’ carefully, mind. That’s me best, that is,” he hissed.

Spree had been watching this exchange with mild amusement from between pale mauve fingers. As Jimbo and Crusher Doherty heaved the barrels from about her hiding place, she decided it was time to strike. The stupid Peoples were in range. She leapt up onto the pile and put on her best attack face.

She put her ears down and opened her eyes as wide as they would go – already bright, they looked feverish in the torchlight. She clasped her hands in front of her, and shifted her weight onto one foot girlishly.

I’m cute. I’m harmless. I have appealingly fluffy purple hair. Look, see how little and sweet I am. How could you be angry with a face like this?

One by one the weather-beaten and sun-baked expressions of the local yokels softened. How could they have been so angry with such a cute, fluffy, harmless little…

“Fairy…” Bort had taken a thick step forward and made as if to pick up Shree. “Wan’ pet fairy.”

Big mistake.

In a flash the Look For Fooling Peoples was wiped off her face, and replaced with an expression that may have been pushing the boundaries of cute, but was definitely too full of sharp teeth to even be sharing a border with harmless.

“Don’t… call… Fairy!” She lunged at Bort, and he dropped the rake he’d been clasping with a yelp of pain and surprise as she sank needle-like teeth into his hand. His cry startled the other men out of their stupor and they closed in on her.

She bounced up onto Bort’s shoulder and made a jump for the nearest stack of Salicia Dry, flapping her little wings as hard as they’d go. She missed the top by inches, but managed to claw a hold onto the rim of the barrel. As she scrambled up, she muttered angrily.

“Not Fairy… Call Spree Fairy… Pah! Flying…”

You wouldn’t say that Spree couldn’t fly. Well, not if you wanted to retain the use of both hands. She could fly if she wanted to. She just didn’t want to. Flying was for fairies.

Not that it wouldn’t have come in handy with the crazy Peoples chasing her, but Spree had her pride. Instead she dropped behind the piled ale, keeping close to the wall and skipping her way to the door, the farmers in hot pursuit. Bort bellowed and shook the hand that wasn’t dripping blood at her. He shoved his way through the gathered crowd and started heaving barrels over his shoulder.

The heavy oak wood splintered from its binding, spilling frothy ale onto the floor. A pair of dusty work boots skidded in the puddle and their owner fell on the man behind him, causing a domino effect of large men and sharp weaponry. There was grunting and swearing as the mass of bodies tried to separate itself.

Spree took advantage of the confusion to make a last dash to the stairs. She landed on the top stair with an unpleasant splat that knocked the wind out of her lungs. Bort had miraculously escaped the game of human dominoes and was raging clumsily towards her. Still gasping for breath, Spree hopped up the remaining six steps and squeezed her way under the door like a tube of toothpaste, leaving Bort to ponder the mechanics of the door handle.

She ran from the back room, expecting the door to burst open at any moment and took cover beneath the barstools. Panting, she hid behind the Accidental Bucket, wrinkling her long nose at the smell of the things that had accidentally made their way into the bucket.

She had worn out her welcome at yet another pub. She really was disappointed this time – she liked the Cat and Minstrel. It was a good pub, not posh like the Silver Gazelle where they actually washed their glasses and people pretended to know what type of beer a Gazelle was, nor was it dodgy like the Murky Orc, where one stood a real chance of dying in a bar fight, rather than just losing the usual limbs or having a barstool embedded in one’s head. Especially if you were the type of person who referred to yourself as “one,” then you were jus’ askin’ fer it, mate.

Spree allowed herself one last wistful glance at the Scarborough Brown sign hanging above the bar, then started looking for escape routes. A harassed looking man in a red coachman’s uniform attracted her attention. Aha! Transport. Good, very good.

She latched onto a shiny black shoe with an enormous, ornate and thoroughly tasteless silver buckle, clinging on for dear life as it walked out the pub’s battered wooden doors.

Duchess Alice leaned back on the plump plush cushions in her carriage. She had been Duchess of Spent for a little over three months and she was still enjoying herself immensely. Abusing the local peasantry, living in the romantic old castle with its murky dungeons and riding around in the coach with the precious little family crest on the door, it made being married to the Duke of Spent almost bearable.

Ah, that family crest. Alice Snodgrass had been born into the nouveau riche, the type of social climbing family that knew babies were meant to be born with some kind of silver cutlery around their faces, but had missed the point completely. As a result, Baby Alice was born with a metaphorical silver fork in her eye, and things hadn’t improved since then. At the ripe age of sixteen, her parents had despaired of ever marrying her off for the much sought after landed title. That was when she caught the rheumy eye of Egbert, Duke of Spent. Okay, so he was a tad on the old side, but the all sooner to be rid of him and get all his lovely things. Although there was the pesky little matter about an heir…

Alice shuddered. Speaking of the old codger, it was nearly time to be back the castle to feed him his carefully pureed pheasant. She hadn’t managed to slip any arsenic into it thus far, he always made her taste it first, but there was always hope.

“Spilkins, what’s taking so long? Surely it can’t take so long to water the horses. We need to go back to the castle.”

“Yes Milady. At once Milady.” Spilkins wiped his moustache, newly fortified with strong whiskey, and flicked the reins at the horses.

It wouldn’t do to upset Duchess Alice. She was a one-person hunting trip. She had a baying laugh like a hound, but her face was definitely that of the fox, complete with a few whiskers. Though perhaps the hunting trip was less bloody than Duchess Alice’s little pastime.

The horses seemed strangely jumpy. If Spilkins had felt the little purple hands easing his hip flask out of his pocket, he might have been wiser as to why.