“Haha, Nanny. Very funny.”
“They were saying all this stuff about drinkin’ blood and killin’ people and everyone was just noddin’ and sayin’, ‘Well, well, how very fascinatin’?”
“Yes!”
“And eatin’ garlic?”
“Yes!”
“That can’t be right, can it?”
“I don’t know, perhaps we used the wrong sort of garlic!”
Nanny rubbed her chin, torn between the vampiric revelation and prurient curiosity about Perdita.
“How does Perdita work, then?” she said.
Agnes sighed. “Look, you know the part of you that wants to do all the things you don’t dare do, and thinks the thoughts you don’t dare think?”
Nanny’s face stayed blank. Agnes floundered. “Like…maybe…rip off all your clothes and run naked in the rain?” she hazarded.
“Oh yes. Right,” said Nanny.
“Well…I suppose Perdita is that part of me.”
“Really? I’ve always been that part of me,” said Nanny. “The important thing is to remember where you left your clothes.”
Agnes remembered too late that Nanny Ogg was in many ways a very uncomplicated personality.
“Mind you, I think I know what you mean,” Nanny went on in a more thoughtful voice. “There’s times when I’ve wanted to do things and stopped meself…” She shook her head. “But…vampires…Verence wouldn’t be so stupid as to send an invitation to vampires, would he?” She paused for thought. “Yes, he would. Prob’ly think of it as offering the hand of friendship.”
She stood up. “Right, they won’t have left yet. Let’s get straight to the jelly. You get extra garlic and a few stakes, I’ll round up Shawn and Jason and the lads.”
“It won’t work, Nanny. Perdita saw what they can do. The moment you get near them, you’ll forget all about it. They do something to your mind, Nanny.”
Nanny hesitated.
“Can’t say I know that much about vampires,” she said.
“Perdita thinks they can tell what you’re thinking too.”
“Then this is Esme’s type of stuff,” said Nanny. “Messing with minds and so on. It’s meat and drink to her.”
“Nanny, they were talking about staying! We have to do something!”
“Well, where is she?” Nanny almost wailed. “Esme ought to be sortin’ this out!”
“Maybe they’ve got to her first?”
“You don’t think so, do you?” said Nanny, now looking quite panicky. “I can’t think about a vampire getting his teeth into Esme.”
“Don’t worry, dog doesn’t eat dog.” It was Perdita who blurted it out, but it was Agnes who got the blow. It wasn’t a ladylike slap of disapproval. Nanny Ogg had reared some strapping sons; the Ogg forearm was a power in its own right.
When Agnes looked up from the hearthrug Nanny was rubbing some life back into her hand. She gave Agnes a solemn look.
“We’ll say no more about that, shall we?” she commanded. “I ain’t gen’rally given to physicality of that nature but it saves a lot of arguing. Now, we’re goin’ back to the castle. We’re going to sort this out right now.”
Hodgesaargh shut the book and looked at the flame. It was true, then. There’d even been a picture of one just like it in the book, painstakingly drawn by another royal falconer two hundred years before. He wrote that he’d found the thing up on the high meadows, one spring. It’d burned for three years, and then he’d lost it somewhere.
If you looked at it closely, you could even see the detail. It was not exactly a flame. It was more like a bright feather…
Well, Lancre was on one of the main migration routes, for birds of all sorts. It was only a matter of time.
So…the new hatchling was around. They needed time to grow, it said in the book. Odd that it should lay an egg here, because it said in the book that it was always hatched in the burning deserts of Klatch.
He went and looked at the birds in the mews. They were still very alert.
Yes, it all made sense. It had flown in here, among the comfort of other birds, and laid its egg, just like it said it did in the book, and then it had burned itself up to hatch the new bird.
If Hodgesaargh had a fault, it lay in his rather utilitarian view of the bird world. There were birds that you hunted, and there were birds you hunted with. Oh, there were other sorts, tweeting away in the bushes, but they didn’t really count. It occurred to him that if ever there was a bird you could hunt with, it’d be the phoenix.
Oh yes. It’d be weak, and young, and it wouldn’t have gone far.
Hmm…birds tended to think the same way, after all.
It would have helped if there was one picture in the book. In fact, there were several, all carefully drawn by ancient falconers who claimed it was a firebird they’d seen.
Apart from the fact that they all had wings and a beak, no two were remotely alike. One looked very much like a heron. Another looked like a goose. One, and he scratched his head about this, appeared to be a sparrow. Bit of a puzzle, he decided, and left it at that and selected a drawing that looked at least slightly foreign.
He glanced at the bird gloves hanging on their hooks. He was good at rearing young birds. He could get them eating out of his hand. Later on, of course, they just ate his hand.
Yes. Catch it young and train it to the wrist. It’d have to be a champion hunting bird.
Hodgesaargh couldn’t imagine a phoenix as quarry. For one thing, how could you cook it?
…and in darkest corner of the mews, something hopped onto a perch…
Once again Agnes had to run to keep up as Nanny Ogg strode into the courtyard, elbows pumping furiously. The old lady marched up to a group of men standing around one of the barrels and grabbed two of them, spilling their drinks. Had it not been Nanny Ogg, this would have been a challenge equal to throwing down a glove or, in slightly less exalted circles, smashing a bottle on the edge of a bar.
But the men looked sheepish and one or two of the others in the circle even scuffled their feet and made an attempt to hide their pints behind their backs.
“Jason? Darren? You come along of me,” Nanny commanded. “We’re after vampires, right? Any sharp stakes around here?”
“No, Mum,” said Jason, Lancre’s only blacksmith. Then he raised his hand. “But ten minutes ago the cook come out and said, did anyone want all these nibbly things that someone had mucked up with garlic and I et ’em, Mum.”
Nanny sniffed, and then took a step back, fanning her hand in front of her face. “Yeah, that should do it all right,” she said. “If I give you the signal, you’re to burp hugely, understand?”
“I don’t think it’ll work, Nanny,” said Agnes, as boldly as she dared.
“I don’t see why, it’s nearly knocking me down.”
“I told you, you won’t get close enough, even if it’ll work at all. Perdita could feel it. It’s like being drunk.”
“I’ll be ready for ’em this time,” said Nanny. “I’ve learned a thing or two from Esme.”
“Yes, but she’s—” Agnes was going to say “better at them than you,” but changed it to “not here…”
“That’s as may be, but I’d rather face ’em now than explain to Esme that I didn’t. Come on.”
Agnes followed the Oggs, but very uneasily. She wasn’t sure how far she trusted Perdita.
A few guests had departed, but the castle had laid on a pretty good feast and Ramtop people at any social level were never ones to pass up a laden table.
Nanny glanced at the crowd and grabbed Shawn, who was passing with a tray.
“Where’s the vampires?”
“What, Mum?”
“That Count…Magpie…”
“Magpyr,” said Agnes.
“Him,” said Nanny.
“He’s not a…he’s gone up to…the solar, Mum. They all have—What’s that smell of garlic, Mum?”
“It’s your brother. All right, let’s keep goi
ng.”
The solar was right at the top of the keep. It was old, cold and drafty. Verence had put glass in the huge windows, at his queen’s insistence, which just meant that now the huge room attracted the more cunning, insidious kind of draft. But it was the royal room—not as public as the great hall, but the place where the king received visitors when he was being formally informal.
The Nanny Ogg expeditionary force corkscrewed up the spiral staircase. She advanced across the good yet threadbare carpet to the group seated around the fire.
She took a deep breath.
“Ah, Mrs Ogg,” said Verence, desperately. “Do join us.”
Agnes looked sideways at Nanny, and saw her face contort into a strange smile.
The Count was sitting in the big chair by the fire, with Vlad standing behind him. They both looked very handsome, she thought. Compared to them Verence, in his clothes that never seemed to fit right and permanently harassed expression, looked out of place.
“The Count was just explaining how Lancre will become a duchy of his lands in Uberwald,” said Verence. “But we’ll still be referred to as a kingdom, which I think is very reasonable of him, don’t you agree?”
“Very handsome suggestion,” said Nanny.
“There will be taxes, of course,” said the Count. “Not onerous. We don’t want blood—figuratively speaking!” He beamed at the joke.
“Seems reasonable to me,” said Nanny.
“It is, isn’t it,” said the Count, beaming. “I knew it would work out so well. And I am so pleased, Verence, to see your essential modern attitude. People have quite the wrong idea about vampires, you see. Are we fiendish killers?” He beamed at them. “Well, yes, of course we are. But only when necessary. Frankly, we could hardly hope to rule a country if we went around killing everyone all the time, could we? There’d be none left to rule, for one thing!” There was polite laughter, loudest of all from the Count.
It made perfect sense to Agnes. The Count was clearly a fair-minded man. Anyone who didn’t think so deserved to die.
“And we are only human,” said the Countess. “Well…in fact, not only human. But if you prick us do we not bleed? Which always seems such a waste.”
They’ve got you again, said a voice in her mind.
Vlad’s head jerked up. Agnes felt him staring at her.
“We are, above all, up to date,” said the Count. “And we do like what you’ve done to this castle, I must say.”
“Oh, those torches back home!” said the Countess, rolling her eyes. “And some of the things in the dungeons, well, when I saw them I nearly died of shame. So…fifteen centuries ago. If one is a vampire then one is,” she gave a deprecating little laugh, “a vampire. Coffins, yes, of course, but there’s no point in skulking around as if you’re ashamed of what you are, is there? We all have…needs.”
You’re all standing around like rabbits in front of a fox! Perdita raged in the caverns of Agnes’s brain.
“Oh!” said the Countess, clapping her hands together. “I see you have a pianoforte!”
It stood under a shroud in a corner of the room where it had stood for four months now. Verence had ordered it because he’d heard they were very modern, but the only person in the kingdom who’d come close to mastering it was Nanny Ogg who would, as she put it, come up occasionally for a tinkle on the ivories.* Then it had been covered over on the orders of Magrat and the palace rumor was that Verence had got an ear-bashing for buying what was effectively a murdered elephant.
“Lacrimosa would so like to play for you,” the Countess commanded.
“Oh, Mother,” said Lacrimosa.
“I’m sure we should love it,” said Verence. Agnes wouldn’t have noticed the sweat running down his face if Perdita hadn’t pointed it out: He’s trying to fight it, she said. Aren’t you glad you’ve got me?
There was some bustling while a wad of sheet music was pulled out of the piano stool and the young lady sat down to play. She glared at Agnes before beginning. There was some sort of chemistry there, although it was the sort that results in the entire building being evacuated.
It’s a racket, said the Perdita within, after the first few bars. Everyone’s looking as though it’s wonderful but it’s a din!
Agnes concentrated. The music was beautiful but if she really paid attention, with Perdita nudging her, it wasn’t really there at all. It sounded like someone playing scales, badly and angrily.
I can say that at any time, she thought. Any time I want, I can just wake up.
Everyone else applauded politely. Agnes tried to, but found that her left hand was suddenly on strike. Perdita was getting stronger in her left arm.
Vlad was beside her so quickly that she wasn’t even aware that he’d moved.
“You are a…fascinating woman, Miss Nitt,” he said. “Such lovely hair, may I say? But who is Perdita?”
“No one, really,” Agnes mumbled. She fought against the urge to bunch her left hand into a fist. Perdita was screaming at her again.
Vlad stroked a strand of her hair. It was, she knew, good hair. It wasn’t simply big hair, it was enormous hair, as if she was trying to counterbalance her body. It was glossy, it never split, and was extremely well behaved except for a tendency to eat combs.
“Eat combs?” said Vlad, coiling the hair around his finger.
“Yes, it—”
He can see what you’re thinking.
Vlad looked puzzled again, like someone trying to make out some faint noise.
“You…can resist, can’t you,” he said. “I was watching you when Lacci was playing the piano and losing. Do you have any vampire blood in you?”
“What? No!”
“It could be arranged, haha.” He grinned. It was the sort of grin that Agnes supposed was called infectious but, then, so was measles. It filled her immediate future. Something was pouring over her like a pink fluffy cloud saying: it’s all right, everything is fine, this is exactly right…
“Look at Mrs. Ogg there,” said Vlad. “Grinning like a pumpkin, ain’t she. And she is apparently one of the more powerful witches in the mountains. It’s almost distressing, don’t you think?”
Tell him you know he can read minds, Perdita commanded.
And again, the puzzled, quizzical look.
“You can—” Agnes began.
“No, not exactly. Just people,” said Vlad. “One learns, one learns. One picks things up.” He flung himself down on a sofa, one leg over the arm, and stared thoughtfully at her.
“Things will be changing, Agnes Nitt,” he said. “My father is right. Why lurk in dark castles? Why be ashamed? We’re vampires. Or, rather, vampyres. Father’s a bit keen on the new spelling. He says it indicates a clean break with a stupid and superstitious past. In any case, it’s not our fault. We were born vampires.”
“I thought you became—”
“—vampires by being bitten? Dear me, no. Oh, we can turn people into vampires, it’s an easy technique, but what would be the point? When you eat…now what is it you eat? Oh yes, chocolate…you don’t want to turn it into another Agnes Nitt, do you? Less chocolate to go around.” He sighed. “Oh dear, superstition, superstition everywhere we turn. Isn’t it true that we’ve been here at least ten minutes and your neck is quite free of anything except a small amount of soap you didn’t wash off?”
Agnes’s hand flew to her throat.
“We notice these things,” said Vlad. “And now we’re here to notice them. Oh, Father is powerful in his way, and quite an advanced thinker, but I don’t think even he is aware of the possibilities. I can’t tell you how good it is to be out of that place, Miss Nitt. The werewolves…oh dear, the werewolves…Marvelous people, it goes without saying, and of course the Baron has a certain rough style, but really…give them a good deer hunt, a warm spot in front of the fire and a nice big bone and the rest of the world can go hang. We have done our best, we really have. No one has done more than Father to bring our part of the country into the Centur
y of the Fruitbat—”
“It’s nearly over—” Agnes began.
“Perhaps that’s why he’s so keen,” said Vlad. “The place is just full of…well, remnants. I mean…centaurs? Really! They’ve got no business surviving. They’re out of place. And frankly all the lower races are just as bad. The trolls are stupid, the dwarfs are devious, the pixies are evil and the gnomes stick in your teeth. Time they were gone. Driven out. We have great hopes of Lancre.” He looked around disdainfully. “After some redecoration.”
Agnes looked back at Nanny and her sons. They were listening quite contentedly to the worst music since Shawn Ogg’s bagpipes had been dropped down the stairs.
“And…you’re taking our country?” she said. “Just like that?”
Vlad gave her another smile, stood up, and walked toward her. “Oh yes. Bloodlessly. Well…metaphorically. You really are quite remarkable, Miss Nitt. The Uberwald girls are so sheep-like. But you…you’re concealing something from me. Everything I feel tells me you’re quite under my power—and yet you’re not.” He chuckled. “This is delightful…”
Agnes felt her mind unraveling. The pink fog was blowing through her head…
…and looming out of it, deadly and mostly concealed, was the iceberg of Perdita.
As Agnes withdrew into the pinkness she felt the tingle spread down her arms and legs. It was not pleasant. It was like sensing someone standing right behind you, and then feeling them take one step forward.
Agnes would have pushed him away. That is, Agnes would have dithered and tried to talk her way out of things, but if push had come to shove then she’d have pushed hard. But Perdita struck, and when her hand was halfway around she turned it palm out and curled her fingers to bring her nails into play…
He caught her wrist, his hand moving in a blur.
“Well done,” he said, laughing.
His other hand shot out and caught her other arm as it swung.
“I like a woman with spirit!”
However, he had run out of hands, and Perdita still had a knee in reserve. Vlad’s eyes crossed and he made that small sound best recorded as “ghni…”
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