'I know you, Champett Poldy,' she said. 'I recall I laid out your grandad and I brought you into the world.' She glanced at the crowds, which had regathered a little way off, and turned back to the guard, whose face was already a mask of terror. She leaned a little closer, and said, 'I gave you your first good hiding in this valley of tears and by all the gods if you cross me now I will give you your last.'
There was a soft metallic noise as the spear fell out of the man's fearful fingers. Granny reached and gave the trembling man a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
'But don't worry about it,' she added. 'Have an apple.'
She made to step forward, and a second spear barred her way. She looked up with interest.
The other guard was not a Ramtopper, but a city-bred mercenary brought up to swell the ranks depleted in recent years. His face was a patchwork of scar tissue. Several of the scars rearranged themselves into what was possibly a sneer.
'So that's witches' magic, is it?' said the guard. 'Pretty poor stuff. Maybe it frightens these country idiots, woman, but it doesn't frighten me.'
'I imagine it takes a lot to frighten a big strong lad like you,' said Granny, reaching up to her hat.
'And don't you try to put the wind up me, neither.' The guard stared straight ahead, and rocked gently on the balb of his feet. 'Old ladies like you, twisting people around. It shouldn't be stood for, like they say.'
'Just as you like,' said Granny, pushing the spear aside.
'Listen, I said—' the guard began, and grabbed Granny's shoulder. Her hand moved so quickly it hardly seemed to move at all, but suddenly he was clutching at his arm and moaning.
Granny replaced the hatpin in her hat and ran for it.
'We will begin,' said the duchess, leering, 'with the Showing of the Implements.'
'Seen 'em,', said Nanny. 'Leastways, all the ones beginning with P, S, I, T and W.'
'Then let us see how long you can keep that light conversational tone. Light the brazier, Felmet,' snapped the duchess.
'Light the brazier, Fool,' said the duke.
The Fool moved slowly. He hadn't expected any of this. Torturing people hadn't been on his mental agenda. Hurting old ladies in cold blood wasn't his cup of tea, and actually hurting witches in blood of any temperature whatsoever failed to be an entire twelve-course banquet. Words, he'd said. All this probably came under the heading of sticks and stones.
'I don't like doing this,' he murmured under his breath.
'Fine,' said Nanny Ogg, whose hearing was superb. 'I'll remember that you didn't like it.'
'What's that?' said the duke sharply.
'Nothing,' said Nanny. 'Is this going to take long? I haven't had breakfast.'
The Fool lit a match. There was the faintest disturbance in the air beside him, and it went out. He swore, and tried another. This time his shaking hands managed to get it as far as the brazier before it, too, flared and darkened.
'Hurry up, man!' said the duchess, laying out a tray of tools.
'Doesn't seem to want to light—' muttered the Fool, as another match became a fluttering streak of flame and then went out.
The duke snatched the box from his trembling fingers and caught him across the cheek with a handful of rings.
'Can no orders of mine be obeyed?' he screamed. 'Infirm of purpose! Weak! Give me the box!'
The Fool backed away. Someone he couldn't see was whispering things he couldn't quite make out in his ear.
'Go outside,' hissed the duke, 'and see that we are not disturbed!'
The Fool tripped over the bottom step, turned and, with a last imploring look at Nanny, scampered through the door He capered a little bit, out of force of habit.
'The fire isn't completely necessary,' said the Duchess. 'It merely assists. Now, woman, will you confess?'
'What to?' said Nanny.
'It's common knowledge. Treason. Malicious witchcraft. Harbouring the king's enemies. Theft of the crown—'
A tinkling noise made them look down. A blood-stained dagger had fallen off the bench, as though someone had tried to pick it up but just couldn't get the strength together. Nanm heard the king's ghost swear under'its breath, or what would have been its breath.
'—and spreading false rumours,' finished the duchess.
'—salt in my food—' said the duke, nervously, staring at the bandages on his hand. He kept getting the feeling that there was a fourth person in the dungeon.
'If you do confess,' said the duchess, 'you will merely be burned at the stake. And, please, no humorous remarks.'
'What false rumours?'
The duke closed his eyes, but the visions were still there 'Concerning the accidental death of the late King Verence.' he whispered hoarsely. The air swirled again.
Nanny sat with her head cocked to one side, as though listening to a voice only she could hear. Except that the duke was certain that he could hear something too, not exactly a voice, something like the distant sighing of the wind.
'Oh, I don't know nothing false,' she said. 'I know you stabbed him, and you gave him the dagger. It was at the top of the stairs.' She paused, head cocked, nodded, and added, 'Just by the suit of armour with the pike, and you said, "If it's to be done, it's better if it's done quickly", or something, and then you snatched the king's own dagger, the very same what is now lying on the floor, out of his belt and—'
'You lie! There were no witnesses. We made . . . there was nothing to witness! I heard someone in the dark, but there was no-one there! There couldn't have been anyone seeing anything!' screamed the duke. His wife scowled at him.
'Do shut up, Leonal,' she said. 'I think within these four walls we can dispense with that sort of thing.'
'Who told her? Did you tell her?'
'And calm down. No-one told her. She's a witch, for goodness sake, they find out about these things. Second glance, or something.'
'Sight,' said Nanny.
'Which you will not possess much longer, my good woman, unless you tell us who else knows and indeed, assist us on a number of other matters,' said the duchess grimly. 'And you will do so, believe me. I am skilled in these things.'
Granny glanced around the dungeon. It was beginning to get crowded. King Verence was bursting with such angry vitality that he was very nearly apparent, and was furiously trying to get a grip on a knife. But there were others behind – wavering, broken shapes, not exactly ghosts but memories, implanted in the very substances of the walls themselves by sheer pain and terror.
'My own dagger! The bastards! They killed me with my own dagger,' said the ghost of King Verence silently, raising his transparent arms and imploring the netherworld in general to witness this ultimate humiliation. 'Give me strength...'
'Yes,' said Nanny. 'It's worth a try.'
'And now we will commence,' said the duchess.
'What?' said the guard.
'I SAID,' said Magrat, 'I've come to sell my lovely apples. Don't you listen?'
'There's not a sale on, is there?' The guard was extremely nervous since his colleague had been taken off to the infirmary. He hadn't taken the job in order to deal with this sort of thing.
It dawned on him.
'You're not a witch, are you?' he said, fumbling awkwardly with his pike.
'Of course not. Do I look like one?'
The guard looked at her occult bangles, her lined cloak, her trembling hands and her face. The face was particulary worrying. Magrat had used a lot of powder to make her face pale and interesting. It combined with the lavishly applied mascara to give the guard the impression that he was looking at two flies that had crashed into a sugar bowl. He found his fingers wanted to make a sign to ward off the evil eyeshadow.
'Right,' he said uncertainly. His mind was grinding through the problem. She was a witch. Just lately there'd been a lot of gossip about witches being bad for your health. He'd been told not to let witches pass, but no-one had said anything about apple sellers. Apple sellers were not a problem. It was witches that were the
problem. She'd said she was an apple seller and he wasn't about to doubt a witch's word.
Feeling happy with this application of logic, he stood to one side and gave an expansive wave.
'Pass, apple seller,' he said.
'Thank you,' said Magrat sweetly. 'Would you like an apple?'
'No, thanks. I haven't finished the one the other witch gave me.' His eyes rolled. 'Not a witch. Not a witch, an apple seller An apple seller. She ought to know.'
'How long ago was this?'
'Just a few minutes . . .'
Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else. Currently she had arrived in the kitchens again, precipitating a breakdown in the cook, who was trying to roast some celery. The fact that several people had tried to buy apples from her wasn't improving her temper.
Magrat found her way to the Great Hall, empty and deserted at this time of day except for a couple of guards who were playing dice. They wore the tabards of Felmet's own personal bodyguard, and stopped their game as soon as she appeared.
'Well, well,' said one, leering. 'Come to keep us company have you, my pretty[12]. '
'I was looking for the dungeons,' said Magrat, to whom the words 'sexual harassment' were a mere collection of syllables.
'Just fancy,' said one of the guards, winking at the other. 'I reckon we can help you there.' They got up and stood either side of her; she was aware of two chins you could strike matches on and an overpowering smell of stale beer. Frantic signals from outlying portions of her mind began to break down her iron-hard conviction that bad things only happened to bad people.
They escorted her down several flights of steps into a maze of dank, arched passageways as she sought hurriedly for some polite way of disengaging herself.
'I should warn you,' she said, 'I am not, as I may appear, a simple apple seller.'
'Fancy that.'
'I am, in fact, a witch.'
This did not make the impression she had hoped. The guards exchanged glances.
'Fair enough,' said one. 'I've always wondered what it was like to kiss a witch. Around here they do say you gets turned into a frog.'
The other guard nudged him. 'I reckon, then,' he said, in the slow, ripe tones of one who thinks that what he is about to say next is going to be incredibly funny, 'you kissed one years ago.'
The brief guffaw was suddenly interrupted when Magrat was flung against the wall and treated to a close up view of the guard's nostrils.
'Now listen to me, sweetheart,' he said. 'You ain't the first witch we've had down here, if witch you be, but you could be lucky and walk out again. If you are nice to us, d'you see?'
There was a shrill, short scream from somewhere nearby.
'That, you see,' said the guard, 'was a witch having it the hard way. You could do us all a favour, see? Lucky you met us, really.'
His questing hand stopped its wandering. 'What's this?' he said to Magrat's pale face. 'A knife? A knife? I reckon we've got to take that very seriously, don't you, Hron?'
'You got to tie her hands and gag her,' said Hron hurriedly.
'They can't do no magic if they can't speak or wave their hands about . . .'
'You can take your hands off her!'
All three stared down the passage at the Fool. He was jingling with rage.
'Let her go this minute!' he shouted. 'Or I'll report you!'
'Oh, you'll report us, will you?' said Hron. 'And will anyone listen to you, you earwax-coloured little twerp?'
'This is a witch we have here,' said the other guard. 'So you can go and tinkle somewhere else.' He turned back to Magrat. 'I like a girl with spirit,' he said, incorrectly as it turned out.
The Fool advanced with the bravery of the terminally angry.
'I told you to let her go,' he repeated.
Hron drew his sword and winked at his companion.
Magrat struck. It was an unplanned, instinctive blow, its stopping power considerably enhanced by the weight of rings and bangles; her arm whirred around in an arc that connected with her captor's jaw and spun him twice before he folded up in a heap with a quiet little sigh, and incidentally with several symbols of occult significance embossed on his cheek.
Hron gaped at him, and then looked at Magrat. He raised his sword at about the same moment that the Fool cannoned into him, and the two men went down in a struggling heap Like most small men the Fool relied on the initial mad rush to secure an advantage and was at a loss for a follow-through and it would probably have gone hard with him if Hron hadn't suddenly become aware that a breadknife was pressed to his neck.
'Let go of him,' said Magrat, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
He stiffened. 'You're wondering whether I really would cut your throat,' panted Magrat. 'I don't know either. Think of the fun we could have together, finding out.'
She reached down with her other hand and hauled the Few to his feet by his collar.
'Where did that scream come from?' she said, without taking her eyes off the guard.
'It was down this way. They've got her in the torture dungeon and I don't like it, it's going too far, and I couldn't get in and I came to look for someone—'
'Well, you've found me,' said Magrat.
'You,' she said to Hron, 'will stay here. Or run away, for all I care. But you won't follow us.'
He nodded, and stared after them as they hurried down the passage. 'The door's locked,' said the Fool. 'There's all sorts of noises, but the door's locked.'
'Well, it's a dungeon, isn't it?'
'They're not supposed to lock from the inside!'
It was, indeed, unbudgeable. Silence came from the other side – a busy, thick silence that crawled through the cracks and spilled out into the passage, a kind of silence that is worse than screams.
The Fool hopped from one foot to the other as Magrat explored the door's rough surface.
'Are you really a witch?' he said. 'They said you were a witch, are you really? You don't look like a witch, you look very . . . that is . . .'He blushed. 'Not like a, you know, crone at all, but absolutely beautiful . . .' His voice trailed into silence . . .
I am totally in control of the situation, Magrat told herself. I never thought I would be, but I am thinking absolutely clearly.
And she realised, in an absolutely clear way, that her padding had slipped down to her waist, her head felt as though a family of unhygienic birds had been nesting in it, and her eyeshadow had not so much run as sprinted. Her dress was torn in several places, her legs were scratched, her arms were bruised, and for some reason she felt on top of the world.
'I think you'd better stand back, Verence,' she said. 'I'm not sure how this is going to work.'
There was a sharp intake of breath.
'How did you know my name?'
Magrat sized up the door. The oak was old, centuries old, but she could sense just a little sap under a surface varnished by the years into something that was nearly as tough as stone. Normally what she had in mind would require a day's planning and a bagful of exotic ingredients. At least, so she'd always believed. Now she was prepared to doubt it.
If you could conjure demons out of washtubs, you could do anything.
She became aware that the Fool had spoken.
'Oh, I expect I heard it somewhere,' she said vaguely.
'I shouldn't think so, I never use it,' said the Fool. 'I mean, it's not a popular name with the duke. It was me mam, you see. They like to name you after kings, I suppose. My grandad said I had no business having a name like that and he said I shouldn't go around—'
Magrat nodded. She was looking around the dank tunnel with a professional's eye.
It wasn't a promising place. The old oak planks had been down here in the darkness all these years, away from the clock of the seasons . . .
On the other hand . . . Granny had said that somehow all trees were one tre
e, or something like that. Magrat thought she understood it, although she didn't know exactly what it meant. And it was springtime up there. The ghost of life that still lived in the wood must know that. Or if it had forgotten, it must be told.
She put her palms flat on the door again and shut her eyes, tried to think her way out through the stone, out of the castle, and into the thin, black soil of the mountains, into the air, into the sunlight . . .
The Fool was merely aware that Magrat was standing very still. Then her hair stood out from her head, gently, and there was a smell of leafmould.
And then, without warning, the hammer that can drive a marshmallow-soft toadstool through six inches of solid pavement or an eel across a thousand miles of hostile ocean to a particular pond in an upland field, struck up through her and into the door.
She stepped back carefully, her mind stunned, fighting against a desperate urge to bury her toes into the rock and put forth leaves. The Fool caught her, and the shock nearly knocked him over.
Magrat sagged against the faintly jingling body, and felt triumphant. She had done it! And with no artificial aids! If only the others could have seen this . . .
'Don't go near it,' she mumbled. 'I think I gave it rather . . . a lot.' The Fool was still holding her toastrack body in his arms and was too overcome to utter a word, but she still got a reply.
'I reckon you did,' said Granny Weatherwax, stepping out of the shadows. 'I never would have thought of it myself.'
Magrat peered at her.
'You've been here all the time?'
'Just a few minutes.' Granny glanced at the door. 'Good technique,' she said, 'but it's old wood. Been in a fire, too, I reckon. Lot of iron nails and stuff in there. Can't see it working, I'd have tried the stones if it was me, but—'
She was interrupted by a soft 'pop'.
There was another, and then a whole series of them together, like a shower of meringues.
Behind her, very gently, the door was breaking into leaf.
Granny stared at it for a few seconds, and then met Magrat's terrified gaze.
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