‘Drat,’ she said, under her breath.
She looked around carefully, in case anyone was watching. In fact it was only a hunting badger who, hearing the thumping of running feet, poked its head out from the bushes and saw Granny hurtling down the path with the broomstick held stiff-armed beside her. At last the magic caught, and she managed to vault clumsily on to it before it trundled into the night sky as gracefully as a duck with one wing missing.
From above the trees came a muffled curse against all dwarfish mechanics.
Most witches preferred to live in isolated cottages with the traditional curly chimneys and weed-grown thatch. Granny Weatherwax approved of this; it was no good being a witch unless you let people know.
Nanny Ogg didn’t care much about what people knew and even less for what they thought, and lived in a new, knick-knack crammed cottage in the middle of Lancre town itself and at the heart of her own private empire. Various daughters and daughters-in-law came in to cook and clean on a sort of rota. Every flat surface was stuffed with ornaments brought back by far-travelling members of the family. Sons and grandsons kept the logpile stacked, the roof shingled, the chimney swept; the drinks cupboard was always full, the pouch by her rocking chair always stuffed with tobacco. Above the hearth was a huge pokerwork sign saying ‘Mother’. No tyrant in the whole history of the world had ever achieved a domination so complete.
Nanny Ogg also kept a cat, a huge one-eyed grey tom called Greebo who divided his time between sleeping, eating and fathering the most enormous incestuous feline tribe. He opened his eye like a yellow window into Hell when he heard Granny’s broomstick land awkwardly on the back lawn. With the instinct of his kind he recognized Granny as an inveterate cat-hater and oozed gently under a chair.
Magrat was already seated primly by the fire.
It is one of the few unbendable rules of magic that its practitioners cannot change their own appearance for any length of time. Their bodies develop a kind of morphic inertia and gradually return to their original shape. But Magrat tried. Every morning her hair was long, thick and blond, but by the evening it had always returned to its normal worried frizz. To ameliorate the effect she had tried to plait violets and cowslips in it. The result was not all she had hoped. It gave the impression that a window box had fallen on her head.
‘Good evening,’ said Granny.
‘Well met by moonlight,’ said Magrat politely. ‘Merry meet. A star shines on—’
‘Wotcha,’ said Nanny Ogg. Magrat winced.
Granny sat down and started removing the pins that nailed her tall hat to her bun. Finally the sight of Magrat dawned on her.
‘Magrat!’
The young witch jumped, and clamped her knuckly hands to the virtuous frontage of her gown.
‘Yes?’ she quavered.
‘What have you got on your lap?’
‘It’s my familiar,’ she said defensively.
‘What happened to that toad you had?’
‘It wandered off,’ muttered Magrat. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t very good.’
Granny sighed. Magrat’s desperate search for a reliable familiar had been going on for some time, and despite the love and attention she lavished on them they all seemed to have some terrible flaw, such as a tendency to bite, get trodden on or, in extreme cases, metamorphose.
‘That makes fifteen this year,’ said Granny. ‘Not counting the horse. What’s this one?’
‘It’s a rock,’ chuckled Nanny Ogg.
‘Well, at least it should last,’ said Granny.
The rock extended a head and gave her a look of mild amusement.
‘It’s a tortoyse,’ said Magrat. ‘I bought it down in Sheepridge market. It’s incredibly old and knows many secrets, the man said.’
‘I know that man,’ said Granny. ‘He’s the one who sells goldfish that tarnish after a day or two.’
‘Anyway, I shall call him Lightfoot,’ said Magrat, her voice warm with defiance. ‘I can if I want.’
‘Yes, yes, all right, I’m sure,’ said Granny. ‘Anyway, how goes it, sisters? It is two months since last we met.’
‘It should be every new moon,’ said Magrat sternly. ‘Regular.’
‘It was our Grame’s youngest’s wedding,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Couldn’t miss it.’
‘And I was up all night with a sick goat,’ said Granny Weatherwax promptly.
‘Yes, well,’ said Magrat doubtfully. She rummaged in her bag. ‘Anyway, if we’re going to start, we’d better light the candles.’
The senior witches exchanged a resigned glance.
‘But we got this lovely new lamp our Tracie sent me,’ said Nanny Ogg innocently. ‘And I was going to poke up the fire a bit.’
‘I have excellent night vision, Magrat,’ said Granny sternly. ‘And you’ve been reading them funny books. Grimmers.’
‘Grimoires—’
‘You ain’t going to draw on the floor again, neither,’ warned Nanny Ogg. ‘It took our Dreen days to clean up all those wossnames last time—’
‘Runes,’ said Magrat. There was a look of pleading in her eyes. ‘Look, just one candle?’
‘All right,’ said Nanny Ogg, relenting a bit. ‘If it makes you feel any better. Just the one, mind. And a decent white one. Nothing fancy.’
Magrat sighed. It probably wasn’t a good idea to bring out the rest of the contents of her bag.
‘We ought to get a few more here,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s not right, a coven of three.’
‘I didn’t know we was still a coven. No-one told me we was still a coven,’ sniffed Granny Weatherwax. ‘Anyway, there’s no-one else this side of the mountain, excepting old Gammer Dismass, and she doesn’t get out these days.’
‘But a lot of young girls in my village . . .’ said Magrat. ‘You know. They could be keen.’
‘That’s not how we do it, as well you know,’ said Granny disapprovingly. ‘People don’t go and find witchcraft, it comes and finds them.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Magrat. ‘Sorry.’
‘Right,’ said Granny, slightly mollified. She’d never mastered the talent for apologizing, but she appreciated it in other people.
‘What about this new duke, then,’ said Nanny, to lighten the atmosphere.
Granny sat back. ‘He had some houses burned down in Bad Ass,’ she said. ‘Because of taxes.’
‘How horrible,’ said Magrat.
‘Old King Verence used to do that,’ said Nanny. ‘Terrible temper he had.’
‘He used to let people get out first, though,’ said Granny.
‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny, who was a staunch royalist. ‘He could be very gracious like that. He’d pay for them to be rebuilt, as often as not. If he remembered.’
‘And every Hogswatchnight, a side of venison. Regular,’ said Granny wistfully.
‘Oh, yes. Very respectful to witches, he was,’ added Nanny Ogg. ‘When he was out hunting people, if he met me in the woods, it was always off with his helmet and “I hope I finds you well, Mistress Ogg” and next day he’d send his butler down with a couple of bottles of something. He was a proper king.’
‘Hunting people isn’t really right, though,’ said Magrat.
‘Well, no,’ Granny Weatherwax conceded. ‘But it was only if they’d done something bad. He said they enjoyed it really. And he used to let them go if they gave him a good run.’
‘And then there was that great hairy thing of his,’ said Nanny Ogg.
There was a perceptible change in the atmosphere. It became warmer, darker, filled at the corners with the shadows of unspoken conspiracy.
‘Ah,’ said Granny Weatherwax distantly. ‘His droit de seigneur.’
‘Needed a lot of exercise,’ said Nanny Ogg, staring at the fire.
‘But next day he’d send his housekeeper round with a bag of silver and a hamper of stuff for the wedding,’ said Granny. ‘Many a couple got a proper start in life thanks to that.’
‘Ah,’ agreed Nanny. ‘One or two individ
uals, too.’
‘Every inch a king,’ said Granny.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Magrat suspiciously. ‘Did he keep pets?’
The two witches surfaced from whatever deeper current they had been swimming in. Granny Weatherwax shrugged.
‘I must say,’ Magrat went on, in severe tones, ‘if you think so much of the old king, you don’t seem very worried about him being killed. I mean, it was a pretty suspicious accident.’
‘That’s kings for you,’ said Granny. ‘They come and go, good and bad. His father poisoned the king we had before.’
‘That was old Thargum,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Had a big red beard, I recall. He was very gracious too, you know.’
‘Only now no-one must say Felmet killed the king,’ said Magrat.
‘What?’ said Granny.
‘He had some people executed in Lancre, the other day for saying it,’ Magrat went on. ‘Spreading malicious lies, he said. He said anyone saying different will see the inside of his dungeons, only not for long. He said Verence died of natural causes.’
‘Well, being assassinated is natural causes for a king,’ said Granny. ‘I don’t see why he’s so sheepish about it. When old Thargum was killed they stuck his head on a pole, had a big bonfire and everyone in the palace got drunk for a week.’
‘I remember,’ said Nanny. ‘They carried his head all round the villages to show he was dead. Very convincing, I thought. Specially for him. He was grinning. I think it was the way he would have liked to go.’
‘I think we might have to keep an eye on this one, though,’ said Granny. ‘I think he might be a bit clever. That’s not a good thing, in a king. And I don’t think he knows how to show respect.’
‘A man came to see me last week to ask if I wanted to pay any taxes,’ said Magrat. ‘I told him no.’
‘He came to see me, too,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘But our Jason and our Wane went out and tole him we didn’t want to join.’
‘Small man, bald, black cloak?’ said Granny thoughtfully.
‘Yes,’ said the other two.
‘He was hanging about in my raspberry bushes,’ said Granny. ‘Only, when I went out to see what he wanted, he ran away.’
‘Actually, I gave him tuppence,’ said Magrat. ‘He said he was going to be tortured, you see, if he didn’t get witches to pay their taxes . . .’
Lord Felmet looked carefully at the two coins in his lap.
Then he looked at his tax gatherer.
‘Well?’ he said.
The tax gatherer cleared his throat. ‘Well, sir, you see. I explained about the need to employ a standing army, ekcetra, and they said why, and I said because of bandits, ekcetra, and they said bandits never bothered them.’
‘And civil works?’
‘Ah. Yes. Well, I pointed out the need to build and maintain bridges, ekcetra.’
‘And?’
‘They said they didn’t use them.’
‘Ah,’ said the duke knowledgeably. ‘They can’t cross running water.’
‘Not sure about that, sir. I think witches cross anything they like.’
‘Did they say anything else?’ said the duke.
The tax gatherer twisted the hem of his robe distractedly.
‘Well, sir. I mentioned how taxes help to maintain the King’s Peace, sir . . .’
‘And?’
‘They said the king should maintain his own peace, sir. And then they gave me a look.’
‘What sort of look?’
The duke sat with his thin face cupped in one hand. He was fascinated.
‘It’s sort of hard to describe,’ said the taxman. He tried to avoid Lord Felmet’s gaze, which was giving him the distinct impression that the tiled floor was fleeing away in all directions and had already covered several acres. Lord Felmet’s fascination was to him what a pin is to a Purple Emperor.
‘Try,’ the duke invited.
The taxman blushed.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It . . . wasn’t nice.’
Which demonstrates that the tax gatherer was much better at figures than words. What he would have said, if embarrassment, fear, poor memory and a complete lack of any kind of imagination hadn’t conspired against it, was:
‘When I was a little boy, and staying with my aunt, and she had told me not to touch the cream, ekcetra, and she had put it on a high shelf in the pantry, and I got a stool and went after it when she was out anyway, and she’d come back and I didn’t know, and I couldn’t reach the bowl properly and it smashed on the floor, and she opened the door and glared at me: it was that look. But the worst thing was, they knew it.’
‘Not nice,’ said the duke.
‘No, sir.’
The duke drummed the fingers of his left hand on the arm of his throne. The tax gatherer coughed again.
‘You’re – you’re not going to force me to go back, are you?’ he said.
‘Um?’ said the duke. He waved a hand irritably. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Not at all. Just call in at the torturer on your way out. See when he can fit you in.’
The taxman gave him a look of gratitude, and bobbed a bow.
‘Yes, sir. At once, sir. Thank you, sir. You’re very—’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Lord Felmet, absently. ‘You may go.’
The duke was left alone in the vastness of the hall. It was raining again. Every once in a while a piece of plaster smashed down on the tiles, and there was a crunching from the walls as they settled still further. The air smelled of old cellars.
Gods, he hated this kingdom.
It was so small, only forty miles long and maybe ten miles wide, and nearly all of it was cruel mountains with ice-green slopes and knife-edge crests, or dense huddled forests. A kingdom like that shouldn’t be any trouble.
What he couldn’t quite fathom was this feeling that it had depth. It seemed to contain far too much geography.
He rose and paced the floor to the balcony, with its unrivalled view of trees. It struck him that the trees were also looking back at him.
He could feel the resentment. But that was odd, because the people themselves hadn’t objected. They didn’t seem to object to anything very much. Verence had been popular enough, in his way. There’d been quite a turnout for the funeral; he recalled the lines of solemn faces. Not stupid faces. By no means stupid. Just preoccupied, as though what kings did wasn’t really very important.
He found that almost as annoying as trees. A jolly good riot, now, that would have been more – more appropriate. One could have ridden out and hanged people, there would have been the creative tension so essential to the proper development of the state. Back down on the plains, if you kicked people they kicked back. Up here, when you kicked people they moved away and just waited patiently for your leg to fall off. How could a king go down in history ruling a people like that? You couldn’t oppress them any more than you could oppress a mattress.
He had raised taxes and burned a few villages on general principles, just to show everyone who they were dealing with. It didn’t seem to have any effect.
And then there were these witches. They haunted him.
‘Fool!’
The Fool, who had been having a quiet doze behind the throne, awoke in terror.
‘Yes!’
‘Come hither, Fool.’
The Fool jingled miserably across the floor.
‘Tell me, Fool, does it always rain here?’
‘Marry, nuncle—’
‘Just answer the question,’ said Lord Felmet, with iron patience.
‘Sometimes it stops, sir. To make room for the snow. And sometimes we get some right squand’ring orgulous fogs,’ said the Fool.
‘Orgulous?’ said the duke, absently.
The Fool couldn’t stop himself. His horrified ears heard his mouth blurt out: ‘Thick, my lord. From the Latatian orgulum, a soup or broth.’
But the duke wasn’t listening. Listening to the prattle of underlings was not, in his experience, particularly wo
rthwhile.
‘I am bored, Fool.’
‘Let me entertain you, my lord, with many a merry quip and lightsome jest.’
‘Try me.’
The Fool licked his dry lips. He hadn’t actually expected this. King Verence had been happy enough just to give him a kick, or throw a bottle at his head. A real king.
‘I’m waiting. Make me laugh.’
The Fool took the plunge.
‘Why, sirrah,’ he quavered, ‘why may a caudled fillhorse be deemed the brother to a hiren candle in the night?’
The duke frowned. The Fool felt it better not to wait.
‘Withal, because a candle may be greased, yet a fillhorse be without a fat argier,’ he said and, because it was part of the joke, patted Lord Felmet lightly with his balloon on a stick and twanged his mandolin.
The duke’s index finger tapped an abrupt tattoo on the arm of the throne.
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘And then what happened?’
‘That, er, was by way of being the whole thing,’ said the Fool, and added, ‘My grandad thought it was one of his best.’
‘I daresay he told it differently,’ said the duke. He stood up. ‘Summon my huntsmen. I think I shall ride out on the chase. And you can come too.’
‘My lord, I cannot ride!’
For the first time that morning Lord Felmet smiled.
‘Capital!’ he said. ‘We will give you a horse that can’t be ridden. Ha. Ha.’
He looked down at his bandages. And afterwards, he told himself, I’ll get the armourer to send me up a file.
A year went past. The days followed one another patiently. Right back at the beginning of the multiverse they had tried all passing at the same time, and it hadn’t worked.
Tomjon sat under Hwel’s rickety table, watching his father as he walked up and down between the lattys, waving one arm and talking. Vitoller always waved his arms when he spoke; if you tied his hands behind his back he would be dumb.
‘All right,’ he was saying, ‘how about The King’s Brides?’
‘Last year,’ said the voice of Hwel.
‘All right, then. We’ll give them Mallo, the Tyrant of Klatch,’ said Vitoller, and his larynx smoothly changed gear as his voice became a great rolling thing that could rattle the windows across the width of the average town square. ‘“In blood I came, And by blood rule, That none will dare assay these walls of blood—”’
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