Lords And Ladies tds-14

by Terry David John Pratchett

  "Buggered if I know. It's just brown leaves out of a tin."

  Magrat looked uncertainly into a mug which pure tannin was staining brown. But she rallied. One thing you had to do when you were queen, she knew, was Put Commoners at their Ease. She cast around for some easeful question.

  "It must be very interesting, being a beekeeper," she said.

  "Yes. It is."

  "One's often wondered-"

  "What?"

  "How do you actually milk them?"

  The unicorn prowled through the forest. It felt blind, and out of place. This wasn't a proper land. The sky was blue, not flaming with all the colours of the aurora. And time was passing. To a creature not born subject to time, it was a sensation not unakin to falling.

  It could feel its mistress inside its head, too. That was worse even than the passing of time.

  In short, it was mad.

  Magrat sat with her mouth open.

  "I thought queens were born," she said.

  "Oh, no," said Mr. Brooks. "There ain't no such thing as a queen egg. The bees just decides to feed one of 'em up as a queen. Feeds 'em royal jelly"

  "What happens if they don't?"

  "Then it just becomes an ordinary worker, your ladyship," said Mr. Brooks, with a suspiciously republican grin.

  Lucky for it, Magrat thought.

  "So they have a new queen, and then what happens to the old one?"

  "Usually the old girl swarms," said Mr. Brooks. "Pushes off and takes some of the colony with her. I must've seen a thousand swarms, me. Never seen a Royal swarm, though."

  "What's a Royal swarm?"

  "Can't say for sure. It's in some of the old bee books. A swarm of swarms. It's something to see, they say." The old ' beekeeper looked wistful for a moment.

  '"Course," he went on, righting himself, "the real fun starts if the weather's bad and the ole queen can't swarm, right?" He moved his hand in a sly circular motion. "What happens then is, the two queens — that's the old queen, right? And the new queen — the two queens start astalkin' one another among the combs, with the rain adrummin' on the roof of the hive, and the business of the hive agoin' on all around them," Mr. Brooks moved his hands graphically, and Magrat leaned forward, "all among the combs, the drones all hummin', and all the time they can sense one another, 'cos they can tell, see, and then they spots one another and-"

  "Yes? Yes?" said Magrat, leaning forward.

  "Slash! Stab!"

  Magrat hit her head on the wall of the hut.

  "Can't have more'n one queen in a hive," said Mr. Brooks calmly.

  Magrat looked out at the hives. She'd always liked the look of beehives, up until now.

  "Many's the time I've found a dead queen in front of the hive after a spell of wet weather," said Mr. Brooks, happily. "Can't abide another queen around the place, you know. And it's a right old battle, too. The old queen's more cunnin'. But the new queen, she's really got everything to fight for."

  "Sorry?"

  "If she wants to be mated."

  "Oh."

  "But it gets really interestin' in the autumn," said Mr. Brooks. "Hive don't need any dead weight in the winter, see, and there's all these drones hangin' around not doing anything, so the workers drag all the drones down to the hive entrance, see, and they bite their-"

  "Stop! This is horrible!" said Magrat. "I thought beekeeping was, well, nice."

  "Of course, that's around the time of year when the bees wear out," said Mr. Brooks. "What happens is, see, your basic bee, why, it works 'til it can't work no more, and you'll see a lot of old workers acrawlin' around in front of the hive 'cos-"

  "Stop it! Honestly, this is too much. I'm queen, you know. Almost."

  "Sorry, miss," said Mr. Brooks. "I thought you wanted to know a bit about beekeeping."

  "Yes, but note this!"

  Magrat swept out.

  "Oh, I dunno," said Mr. Brooks. "Does you good to get close to Nature."

  He shook his head cheerfully as she disappeared among the hedges.

  "Can't have more than one queen in a hive," he said. "Slash! Stab! Hehheh!" From somewhere in the distance came the scream of Hodgesaargh as nature got close to him.

  Crop circles opened everywhere.

  Now the universes swung into line. They ceased their boiling spaghetti dance and, to pass through this chicane of history, charged forward neck and neck in their race across the rubber sheet of incontinent Time.

  At such time, as Ponder Stibbons dimly perceived, they had an effect on one another — shafts of reality crackled back and forward as the universes jostled for position.

  If you were someone who had trained their mind to be the finest of receivers, and were running it at the moment with the gain turned up until the knob broke, you might pick up some very strange signals indeed . . .

  The clock ticked.

  Granny Weatherwax sat in front of the open box, reading. Occasionally she stopped and closed her eyes and pinched her nose.

  Not knowing the future was bad enough, but at least she understood why. Now she was getting flashes of deja vu. It had been going on all week. But they weren't her deja vus. She was getting them for the first time, as it were — flashes of memory that couldn't have existed. Couldn't have existed. She was Esme Weatherwax, sane as a brick, always had been, she'd never been—

  There was a knock at the door.

  She blinked, glad to be free of those thoughts. It took her a second or two to focus on the present. Then she folded up the paper, slipped it into its envelope, pushed the envelope back into its bundle, put the bundle into the box, locked the box with a small key which she hung over the fireplace, and walked to the door. She did a last-minute check to make sure she hadn't absentmindedly taken all her clothes off, or something, and opened it.

  "Evenin'," said Nanny Ogg, holding out a bowl with a cloth over it, "I've brung you some-"

  Granny Weatherwax was looking past her.

  "Who're these people?" she said.

  The three girls looked embarrassed.

  "See, they came round my house and said-" Nanny Ogg began.

  "Don't tell me. Let me guess," said Granny. She strode out, and inspected the trio.

  "Well, well, well," she said. "My word. My word. Three girls who want to be witches, am I right?" Her voice went falsetto. "'Oh, please, Mrs. Ogg, we has seen the error of our ways, we want to learn proper witchcraft." Yes?"

  "Yes. Something like that," said Nanny. "But-"

  "This is witchcraft," said Granny Weatherwax. "It's not. . . it's not a game of conkers. Oh, deary, deary me."

  She walked along the very short row of trembling girls.

  "What's your name, girl?"

  "Magenta Frottidge, ma'am."

  "I bet that's not what your mum calls you?"

  Magenta looked at her feet.

  "She calls me Violet, ma'am."

  "Well, it's a better colour than magenta," said Granny. "Want to be a bit mysterious, eh? Want to make folks feel you got a grip on the occult? Can you do magic? Your friend taught you anything, did she? Knock my hat off."

  "What, ma'am?"

  Granny Weatherwax stood back, and turned around.

  "Knock it off. I ain't trying to stop you. Go on."

  Magenta-shading-to-Violet shaded to pink.

  "Er . . . I never got the hang of the psycho-thingy . . ."

  "Oh, dear. Well, just let's see what the rest can do . . . Who're you, girl?"

  "Amanita, ma'am."

  "Such a pretty name. Let's see what you can do."

  Amanita looked around nervously.

  "I, er, don't think I can while you're watching me-" she began.

  "That's a shame. What about you, on the end?"

  "Agnes Nitt," said Agnes, who was much faster on the uptake than the other two and saw that there was no point in pushing Perdita.

  "Go on, then. Try."

  Agnes concentrated.

  "Oh, deary, deary me," said Granny. "And my hat's still o
n. Show them, Gytha."

  Nanny Ogg sighed, picked up a piece of fallen branch, and hurled it at Granny's hat. Granny caught the stick in mid-air.

  "But, but — you said we had to use magic-" Amanita began.

  "No, I didn't," said Granny.

  "But anyone could have done that," said Magenta. ' "Yes, but that's not the point," said Granny. "The point is that you didn't." She smiled, which was unusual for her. "Look, I don't want to be nasty to you. You're young. The world's full of things you could be doing. You don't want to be witches. Not if you knew what it means. Now just go away. Go home. Don't try the paranormal until you know what's normal. Go on. Run along."

  "But that's just trickery! That's what Diamanda said! You just use words and trickery-" Magenta protested.

  Granny raised a hand.

  In the trees, the birds stopped singing.

  "Gytha?"

  Nanny Ogg gripped her own hat brim defensively.

  "Esme, listen, this hat cost me two whole dollars-"

  The boom echoed through the woods.

  Bits of hat lining zigzagged gently out of the sky.

  Granny pointed her finger at the girls, who tried to lean out of the way.

  "Now," she said, "why don't you go and see to your friend? She was beat. She probably ain't very happy. That's no time to go leaving people."

  They still stared at her. Her finger seemed to fascinate them.

  "I just asked you to go home. Perfectly reasonable voice. Do you want me to shout?"

  They turned and ran.

  Nanny Ogg glumly pushed her hand through the stricken hat brim.

  "It took me ages to get that pig cure together," she mumbled. "You need eight types of leaves. Willow leaves, tansy leaves, Old Man's Trousers leaves . . . I was collecting 'em all day. It's not as though leaves grow on trees-"

  Granny Weatherwax watched the disappearing girls.

  Nanny Ogg paused. Then she said: "Takes you back, eh? I remember when I was fifteen, standing in front of old Biddy Spective, and she said in that voice of hers, 'You want to be a what and I was that frightened I near widd-"

  "I never stood in front of no one," said Granny Weatherwax distantly. "I camped on old Nanny Gripes' garden until she promised to tell me everything she knew. Hah. That took her a week and I had the afternoons free."

  "You mean you weren't Chosen?"

  "Me? No. I chose," said Granny. The face she turned to Nanny Ogg was one she wouldn't forget in a hurry, although she might try. "I chose, Gytha Ogg. And I want that you should know this right now. Whatever happens. I ain't never regretted anything. Never regretted one single thing. Right?"

  "If you say so, Esme."

  What is magic?

  There is the wizards' explanation, which comes in two forms, depending on the age of the wizard. Older wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes, and the importance of having at least four good meals every day. Younger wizards, particularly the pale ones who spend most of their time in the High Energy Magic building[18], chatter at length about fluxes in the morphic nature of the universe, the essentially impermanent quality of even the most apparently rigid time-space framework, the implausibility of reality, and so on: what this means is that they have got hold of something hot and are gabbling the physics as they go along . . .

  It was almost midnight. Diamanda ran up the hill toward the Dancers, the briars and heather tearing at her dress. The humiliation banged back and forth in her skull. Stupid malicious old women! And stupid people, too! She'd won. According to the rules, she'd won! But everyone had laughed at her.

  That stung. The recollection of those stupid faces, all grinning. And everyone supporting those horrible old women, who had no idea about the meaning of witchcraft and what it could become.

  She'd show them.

  Ahead of her, the Dancers were dark against the moonlit clouds.

  Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.

  She was going to have an early night. It had been a busy day

  There was a jar of boiled sweets by her bed, and a thick glass bottle of the clear fluid from her complicated still out behind the woodshed. It wasn't exactly whiskey, and it wasn't exactly gin, but it was exactly 90° proof, and a great comfort during those worrying moments that sometimes occurred around 3 A.M. when you woke up and forgot who you were. After a glass of the clear liquid you still didn't remember who you were, but that was all right now because you were someone else anyway.

  She plumped up the four pillows, kicked her fluffy slippers into the comer, and pulled the blankets over her head, creating a small, warm, and slightly rank cave. She sucked a boiled sweet; Nanny had only one tooth left, and that had taken all she could throw at it for many years, so a sweet at bedtime wasn't going to worry it much.

  After a few seconds a sense of pressure on her feet indicated that the cat Greebo had taken up his accustomed place on the end of the bed. Greebo always slept on Nanny's bed; the way he'd affectionately try to claw your eyeballs out in the morning was as good as an alarm clock. But she always left a window open all night in case he wanted to go out and disembowel something, bless him.

  Well, well. Elves. (They couldn't hear you say the word inside your head, anyway. At least, not unless they were real close.) She really thought they'd seen the last of them. How long was it, now? Must be hundreds and hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Witches didn't like to talk about it, because they'd made a big mistake about the elves. They'd seen through the buggers in the end, of course, but it had been a close thing. And there'd been a lot of witches in those days. They'd been able to stop them at every turn, make life in this world too hot for them. Fought them with iron. Nothing elvish could stand iron. It blinded them, or something. Blinded them all over.

  There weren't many witches now. Not proper witches. More of a problem, though, was that people didn't seem to be able to remember what it was like with the elves around. Life was certainly more interesting then, but usually because it was shorter. And it was more colourful, if you liked the colour of blood. It got so people didn't even dare talk openly about the bastards.

  You said: The Shining Ones. You said: The Fair Folk. And you spat, and touched iron. But generations later, you forgot about the spitting and the iron, and you forgot why you used those names for them, and you remembered only that they were beautiful.

  Yes, there'd been a lot of witches in them days. Too many women found an empty cradle, or a husband that never came home from the hunt. Had been the hunt.

  Elves! The bastards . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . somehow, yes, they did things to memory.

  Nanny Ogg turned over in bed. Greebo growled in protest.

  Take dwarfs and trolls, for e.g. People said: Oh, you can't trust 'em, trolls are OK if you've got 'em in front of you, and some of 'em are decent enough in their way, but they're cowardly and stupid, and as for dwarfs, well, they're greedy and devious devils, all right, fair enough, sometimes you meet one of the clever little sods that's not too bad, but overall they're no better'n trolls, in fact—

  —they're just like us.

  But they ain't any prettier to look at and they've got no style. And we're stupid, and the memory plays tricks, and we remember the elves for their beauty and the way they move, and forget what they were. We're like mice saying, "Say what you like, cats have got real style."

  People never quaked in their beds for fear of dwarfs. They never hid under the stairs from trolls. They might have chased 'em out of the henhouse, but trolls and dwarfs were never any more than a bloody nuisance. They were never a terror in the night.

  We only remembers that the elves sang. We forgets what it was they were singing about.

  Nanny Ogg turned over again. There was a slithering noise from the end of the bed, and a muffled yowl as Greebo hit the floor.

  And Nanny sat up.

  "Get your walking paws on, young fella-me-lad. We're going out."

&n
bsp; As she passed through the midnight kitchen she paused, took one of the big black flatirons from the hob by the fire, and attached it to a length of clothesline.

  For all her life she'd walked at night through Lancre with no thought of carrying a weapon of any sort. Of course, for most of that time she'd recognizably been a witch, and any importunate prowler would've ended up taking his essentials away in a paper bag, but even so it was generally true of any woman in Lancre. Man too, come to that.

  Now she could sense her own fear.

  The elves were coming back all right, casting their shadows before them.

  Diamanda reached the crest of the hill.

  She paused. She wouldn't put it past that old Weatherwax woman to have followed her. She felt sure there had been something tracking her in the woods.

  There was no one else around.

  She turned.

  "Evenin', miss."

  "You? You did follow me!"

  Granny got to her feet from the shadow of the Piper, where she had been sitting quite invisibly in the blackness.

  "Learned that from my dad," she said. "When he went hunting. He always used to say a bad hunter chases, a good hunter waits."

  "Oh? So you're hunting me now?"

  "No. I was just waiting. I knew you'd come up here. You haven't got anywhere else to go. You've come to call her, haven't you? Let me see your hands."

  It wasn't a request, it was a command. Diamanda found her hands moving of their own accord. Before she could pull them back the old woman had grabbed them and held them firmly; her skin felt like sacking.

  "Never done a hard day's work in your life, have you?" said Granny, pleasantly. "Never picked cabbages with the ice on 'em, or dug a grave, or milked a cow, or laid out a corpse."

  "You don't have to do all that to be a witch!" Diamanda snapped.

  "Did I say so? And let me tell you something. About beautiful women in red with stars in their hair. And probably moons, too. And voices in your head when you slept. And power when you came up here. She offered you lots of power, I expect. All you wanted. For free."

  Diamanda was silent.

  "Because it happened before. There's always someone who'll listen." Granny Weatherwax's eyes seemed to lose their focus.