“We could double up,” said Dozy.

“You can barely single up,” said Mr. Merryweather.

“Careful,” said Dozy.

And after they’d bickered and argued for another half hour, he had eventually managed to tell them about the job, and they had reluctantly agreed to earn some money. Mr. Merryweather had climbed behind the wheel and thought, not for the first time, that he understood why people liked tossing dwarfs around, and wondered if he could convince someone to toss his dwarfs, preferably off a high cliff.

They had arrived at Lollymore Castle, not far from the town of Biddlecombe, early that morning. It was cold and damp, and the dwarfs were already complaining before they even got out of the van. Still, they were given tea to warm them up, and then dressed in the costumes that had been specially made for them: little suits of armor, little coats of chain mail, lightweight helmets.

Then they were handed swords and maces, and Mr. Merryweather had sprinted from the van to stop them from killing someone.

“For crying out loud, don’t give them weapons,” he said, grabbing Jolly’s arm just in time to stop him from braining an assistant director with a mace. “They might, er, hurt themselves.”

He patted Jolly on the head. “They’re only little fellas, you know.” He hugged Jolly in the manner of a friendly uncle embracing a much-loved nephew, and received a kick in the shin for his trouble.

“Gerroff,” said Jolly. “And give me back my mace.”

“Look, don’t hit anyone with it,” hissed Mr. Merryweather.

“It’s a mace. It’s for hitting people with.”

“But you’re only supposed to be pretending. It’s a video.”

“Well, they want it to look real, don’t they?”

“Not that real. Not funeral real.”

Jolly conceded that Mr. Merryweather had a point, and the dwarfs went to inspect the castle as the director pointed out their “marks,” the places on the battlements where they were supposed to stand during filming.

“What’s our motivation?” asked Angry. “Why are we here?”

“What do you mean?” said the director. “You’re defending the castle.”

“This castle?”

“Yes.”

“Is it ours?”

“Of course it’s yours.”

“I beg to differ. The steps are too big. I nearly did myself an injury climbing up those steps. Almost ruptured something, I did. If we’d built this castle, we’d have made the steps smaller. Can’t be ours. Makes no sense.”

The director pinched the bridge of his nose hard and closed his eyes.

“Right then, you captured it from somebody else.”

“Who?” asked Jolly.

“Capsmodwa?” said Mumbles.

“That’s right,” said Angry. “Did we capture it from smaller dwarfs? We’re dwarfs—er, elves. I can’t even see over the battlements. How are four of us supposed to have captured this castle? What did we do, raid it in installments?”

“Perhaps it was just abandoned, and you took it over.”