Lords and Ladies

by Terry Pratchett

Page 13

 

  “Well, in a way, but-”

  “No one cheated,” said Nanny

  Margrat sagged into silence. Nanny patted her on the shoulder.

  “So you wont be telling anyone you saw me wave the bag of sweets at him, will you?” she said.

  “No, Nanny. ”

  “Theres a good going-to-be-queen. ”

  “Nanny?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  Magrat took a deep breath.

  “How did Verence know when we were coming back?”

  It seemed to Magrat that Nanny thought for just a few seconds too long.

  “Couldnt say,” she said at last. “Kings are a bit magical, mind. They can cure dandruff and that. Probably he woke up one morning and his royal prerogative gave him a tickle. ”

  The trouble with Nanny Ogg was that she always looked as if she was lying. Nanny Ogg had a pragmatic attitude to the truth; she told it if it was convenient and she couldnt be bothered to make up something more interesting.

  “Keeping busy up there, are you?” she said.

  “Ones doing very well, thank you,” said Magrat, with what she hoped was queenly hauteur.

  “Which one?” said Nanny.

  “Which one what?”

  “Which ones doing very well?”

  “Me!”

  “You should have said,” said Nanny, her face poker straight. “So long as youre keeping busy, thats the important thing. ”

  “He knew we were coming back,” said Magrat firmly. “Hed even got the invitations sorted out. Oh, by the way . . . theres one for you-”

  “I know, one got it this morning,” said Nanny. “Got all that fancy nibbling on the edges and gold and everything. Whos Ruservup?”

  Magrat had long ago got a handle on Nanny Oggs world-view.

  “RSVP,” she said. “It means you ought to say if youre coming. ”

  “Oh, onell be along all right, catch one staying away,” said Nanny. “Has ones Jason sent one his invite yet? Thought not. Not a skilled man with a pen, our Jason. ”

  “Invitation to what?” said Magrat. She was getting fed up with ones.

  “Didnt Verence tell one?” said Nanny. “Its a special play thats been written special for you. ”

  “Oh, yes,” said Magrat. “The Entertainment. ”

  “Right,” said Nanny. “Its going to be on Midsummers Eve. ”

  “Its got to be special, on Midsummers Eve,” said Jason Ogg.

  The door to the smithy had been bolted shut. Within were the eight members of the Lancre Morris Men, six times winners of the Fifteen Mountains All-Comers Morris Championship,[10] now getting to grips with a new art form.

  “I feel a right twit,” said Bestiality Carter, Lancres only baker. “A dress on! I just hope my wife doesnt see me!”

  “Says here,” said Jason Ogg, his enormous forefinger hesitantly tracing its way along the page, “that its a beaut-i-ful story of the love of the Queen of the Fairies - thats you, Bestiality-”

  “-thank you very much-”

  “-for a mortal man. Plus a hum-our-rus int-ter-lude with Comic Artisans. . . ”

  “Whats an artisan?” said Weaver the thatcher.

  “Dunno. Type of well, I reckon. ” Jason scratched his head. “Yeah. Theyve got em down on the plains. I repaired a pump for one once. Artisan wells. ”

  “Whats comic about them?”

  “Maybe people fall down em in a funny way?”

  “Why cant we do a Morris like normal?” said Obidiah Carpenter the tailor. [11]

  “Morris is for every day,” said Jason. “We got to do something cultural. This come all the way from Ankh-Morpork. ”

  “We could do the Stick and Bucket Dance,” volunteered Baker the weaver.

  “No one is to do the Stick and Bucket Dance ever again,” said Jason. “Old Mr. Thrum still walks with a limp, and it were three months ago. ”

  Weaver the thatcher squinted at his copy of the script.

  "Whos this bugger Exeunt Omnes he said.

  “I dont think much of my part,” said Carpenter, “its too small. ”

  “Its his poor wife I feel sorry for,” said Weaver, automatically.

  “Why?” said Jason. [13]

  “And whys there got to be a lion in it?” said Baker the weaver.

  “Cos its a play!” said Jason. “No oned want to see it if it had a . . . a donkey in it! Oi can just see people comin to see a play cos it had a donkey in it. This play was written by a real playsmith! Hah, I can just see a real playsmith putting donkeys in a play! He says hell be very interested to hear how we get on! Now just you all shut up!”

  “I dont feel like the Queen of the Fairies,” moaned Bestiality Carter. [14]

  “Youll grow into it,” said Weaver.

  “I hope not. ”

  “And youve got to rehearse,” said Jason.

  “Theres no room,” said Thatcher the carter.

  “Well, I aint doin it where anyone else can see,” said Bestiality. “Even if we go out in the woods somewhere, peoplell be bound to see. Me in a dress!”

  “They wont recognize you in your makeup,” said Weaver.

  “Make-up?”

  “Yeah, and your wig,” said Tailor the other weaver. “Hes right, though,” said Weaver. “If were going to make fools of ourselves, I dont want no one to see me until were good at it. ”

  “Somewhere off the beaten track, like,” said Thatcher the carter.

  “Out in the country,” said Tinker the tinker.

  “Where no one goes,” said Carter.

  Jason scratched his cheese-grater chin. He was bound to

  think of somewhere.

  “And whos going to play Exeunt Omnes?” said Weaver.

  “He doesnt have much to say, does he?”

  The coach rattled across the featureless plains. The land between Ankh-Morpork and the Ramtops was fertile, well-cultivated and dull, dull, dull. Travel broadens the mind. This landscape broadened the mind because the mind just flowed out from the ears like porridge. It was the kind of landscape where, if you saw a distant figure cutting cabbages, youd watch him until he was out of sight because there was simply nothing else for the eye to do.

  “I spy,” said the Bursar, “with my little eye, something beginning with . . . H. ”

  “Oook. ”

  “No. ”

  “Horizon,” said Ponder.

  “You guessed!”

  “Of course I guessed. Im supposed to guess. Weve had S for Sky, C for Cabbage, 0 for . . . for Ook, and theres nothing else. ”

  “Im not going to play anymore if youre going to guess. ” The Bursar pulled his hat down over his ears and tried to curl up on the hard seat.

  “Therell be lots to see in Lancre,” said the Archchancellor. “The only piece of flat land theyve got up there is in a museum. ”

  Ponder said nothing.

  “Used to spend whole summers up there,” said Ridcully. He sighed. “You know . . . things could have been very different. ”

  Ridcully looked around. If youre going to relate an intimate piece of personal history, you want to be sure its going to be heard.

  The Librarian looked out at the jolting scenery. He was sulking. This had a lot to do with the new bright blue collar around his neck with the word "PONGO on it. Someone was going to suffer for this.

  The Bursar was trying to use his hat like a limpet uses its shell.

  “There was this girl. ”

  Ponder Stibbons, chosen by a cruel fate to be the only one listening, looked surprised. He was aware that, technically, even the Archchancellor had been young once. After all, it was just a matter of time. Common sense suggested that wizards didnt flash into existence aged seventy and weighing nineteen stone. But common sense needed reminding.

  He felt he ought to say something.

  “Pretty, was she, sir?” he said.

  “No. No, I cant say she was. Striking. Thats the word. T
all. Hair so blond it was nearly white. And eyes like gimlets, I tell you. ”

  Ponder tried to work this out.

  “You dont mean that dwarf who runs the delicatessen in-” he began.

  “I mean you always got the impression she could see right through you,” said Ridcully, slightly more sharply than he had intended. “And she could run . . . ”

  He lapsed into silence again, staring at the newsreels of memory.

  “I wouldve married her, you know,” he said.

  Ponder said nothing. When youre a cork in someone elses stream of consciousness, all you can do is spin and bob in the eddies.

  “What a summer,” murmured Ridcully. “Very like this one, really. Crop circles were bursting like raindrops. And . . . well, I was having doubts, you know. Magic didnt seem to be enough. I was a bit . . . lost. Id have given it all up for her. Every blasted octogram and magic spell. Without a second thought. You know when they say things like she had a laugh like a mountain stream?”

  “Im not personally familiar with it,” said Ponder, “but I have read poetry that-”

  “Load of cobblers, poetry,” said Ridcully. "Ive listened to mountain streams and they just go trickle, trickle, gurgle.

  And you get them things in them, you know, insect things with little . . . anyway. Doesnt sound like laughter at all, is my point. Poets always get it wrong. Slike she had lips like cherries. Small, round, and got a stone in the middle? Hah!"

  He shut his eyes. After a while Ponder said, “So what happened, sir?”

  “What?”

  “The girl you were telling me about. ”

  “What girl?”

  “This girl. ”

  “Oh, that girl. Oh, she turned me down. Said there were things she wanted to do. Said thered be time enough. ”

  There was another pause.

  “What happened then?” Ponder prompted.

  “Happened? What dyou think happened? I went off and studied. Term started. Wrote her a lot of letters but she never answered em. Probably never got em, they probably eat the mail up there. Next year I was studying all summer and never had time to go back. Never did go back. Exams and so on. Expect shes dead now, or some fat old granny with a dozen kids. Wouldve wed her like a shot. Like a shot. ” Ridcully scratched his head. “Hah . . . just wish I could remember her name . . . ”

  He stretched out with his feet on the Bursar.

  “Sfunny, that,” he said. “Cant even remember her name. Hah! She could outrun a horse-”

  “Kneel and deliver!”

  The coach rattled to a halt.

  Ridcully opened an eye.

  “Whats that?” he said.

  Ponder jerked awake from a reverie of lips like mountain streams and looked out of the window.

  “I think,” he said, “its a very small highwayman. ”

  The coachman peered down at the figure in the road. It was hard to see much from this angle, because of the short body and the wide hat. It was like looking at a well-dressed mushroom with a feather in it.

  “I do apologize for this,” said the very small highwayman. “I find myself a little short. ”

  The coachman sighed and put down the reins. Properly arranged holdups by the Bandits Guild were one thing, but he was blowed if he was going to be threatened by an outlaw that came up to his waist and didnt even have a crossbow.