Wyrd Sisters Part 14

"Quite so."

"And what did the animals do then?"

"Went away. It It had brought them there, it let them go." had brought them there, it let them go."

"No one et anyone else?"

"Not where I saw."

"Funny thing."

"Right enough."

Nanny Ogg stared at the setting sun.

"I don't reckon a lot of kingdoms do that sort of thing," she said. "You saw the theater. Kings and such are killing one another the whole time. Their kingdoms just make the best of it. How come this one takes offense all of a sudden?"

"It's been here a long time," said Granny.

"So's everywhere," said Nanny, and added, with the air of a lifetime student, "Everywhere's been where it is ever since it was first put there. It's called geography."

"That's just about land," said Granny. "It's not the same as a kingdom. A kingdom is made up of all sorts of things. Ideas. Loyalties. Memories. It all sort of exists together. And then all these things create some kind of life. Not a body kind of life, more like a living idea. Made up of everything that's alive and what they're thinking. And what the people before before them thought." them thought."

Magrat reappeared and began to lay the fire with the air of one in a trance.

"I can see you've been thinking about this a lot," said Nanny, speaking very slowly and carefully. "And this kingdom wants a better king, is that it?"

"No! That is, yes. Look-" she leaned forward-"it doesn't have the same kind of likes and dislikes as people, right?"

Nanny Ogg leaned back. "Well, it wouldn't, would it," she ventured.

"It doesn't care if people are good or bad. I don't think it could even tell tell, anymore than you could tell if an ant was a good ant. But it expects the king to care for it."

"Yes, but," said Nanny wretchedly. She was becoming a bit afraid of the gleam in Granny's eye. "Lots of people have killed each other to become king of Lancre. They've done all kinds of murder."

"Don't matter! Don't matter!" said Granny, waving her arms. She started counting on her fingers. "For why," she said. "One, kings go around killing each other because it's all part of destiny and such and doesn't count as murder, and two, they killed for the kingdom. That's the important bit. But this new man just wants the power. He hates the kingdom."

"It's a bit like a dog, really," said Magrat. Granny looked at her with her mouth open to frame some suitable retort, and then her face softened.

"Very much like," she said. "A dog doesn't care if its master's good or bad, just so long as it likes the dog."

"Well, then," said Nanny. "No one and nothing likes Felmet. What are we going to do about it?"

"Nothing. You know we can't meddle."

"You saved that baby," said Nanny.

"That's not meddling!"

"Have it your way," said Nanny. "But maybe one day he'll come back. Destiny again. And you said we should hide the crown. It'll all come back, mark my words. Hurry up with that tea, Magrat."

"What are you going to do about the burghers?" said Granny.

"I told them they'll have to sort it out themselves. Once we use magic, I said, it'd never stop. You know that."

"Right," said Granny, but there was a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

"I'll tell you this, though," said Nanny. "They didn't like it much. They was muttering when they left."

Magrat blurted out, "You know the Fool, who lives up at the castle?"

"Little man with runny eyes?" said Nanny, relieved that the conversation had returned to more normal matters.

"Not that little," said Magrat. "What's his name, do you happen to know?"

"He's just called Fool," said Granny. "No job for a man, that. Running around with bells on."

"His mother was a Beldame, from over Blackgla.s.s way," said Nanny Ogg, whose knowledge of the genealogy of Lancre was legendary. "Bit of a beauty when she was younger. Broke many a heart, she did. Bit of a scandal there, I did hear. Granny's right, though. At the end of the day, a Fool's a Fool."

"Why d'you want to know, Magrat?" said Granny Weatherwax.

"Oh...one of the girls in the village was asking me," said Magrat, crimson to the ears.

Nanny cleared her throat, and grinned at Granny Weatherwax, who sniffed aloofly.

"It's a steady job," said Nanny. "I'll grant you that."

"Huh," said Granny. "A man who tinkles all day. No kind of husband for anyone, I'd say."

"You-she'd always know where he was," said Nanny, who was enjoying this. "You'd just have to listen."

"Never trust a man with horns on his hat," said Granny flatly.

Magrat stood up and pulled herself together, giving the impression that some bits had to come quite a long way.

"You're a pair of silly old women," she said quietly. "And I'm going home."

She marched off down the path to her village without another word.

The old witches stared at one another.

"Well!" said Nanny.

"It's all these books they read today," said Granny. "It overheats the brain. You haven't been putting ideas in her head, have you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know know what I mean." what I mean."

Nanny stood up. "I certainly don't see why a girl should have to be single her whole life just because you think it's the right thing," she said. "Anyway, if people didn't have children, where would we be?"

"None of your girls is a witch," said Granny, also standing up.

"They could could have been," said Nanny defensively. have been," said Nanny defensively.

"Yes, if you'd let them work it out for themselves, instead of encouragin' them to throw themselves at men."

"They're good-lookin'. You can't stand in the way of human nature. You'd know that if you'd ever-"

"If I'd ever what?" said Granny Weatherwax, quietly.

They stared at one another in shocked silence. They could both feel it, the tension creeping into their bodies from the ground itself, the hot, aching feeling that they'd started something they must finish, no matter what.

"I knew you when you were a gel," said Nanny sullenly. "Stuck-up, you were."

"At least I spent most of the time upright," said Granny. "Disgustin', that was. Everyone thought so."

"How would you know?" snapped Nanny.

"You were the talk of the whole village," said Granny.

"And you were, too! They called you the Ice Maiden. Never knew that, did you?" sneered Nanny.

"I wouldn't sully my lips by sayin' what they called you," shouted Granny.

"Oh yes?" shrieked Nanny. "Well, let me tell you, my good woman-"

"Don't you dare talk to me in that tone of voice! I'm not anyone's good woman-"

"Right!"

There was another silence while they stared at one another, nose to nose, but this silence was a whole quantum level of animosity higher than the last one; you could have roasted a turkey in the heat of this silence. There was no more shouting. Things had got far too bad for shouting. Now the voices came in low and full of menace.

"I should have known better than to listen to Magrat," growled Granny. "This coven business is ridiculous. It attracts entirely the wrong sort of people."

"I'm very glad we had this little talk," hissed Nanny Ogg. "Cleared the air."

She looked down.

"And you're in my territory, madam." you're in my territory, madam."

"Madam!"

Thunder rolled in the distance. The permanent Lancre storm, after a trip through the foothills, had drifted back toward the mountains for a one-night stand. The last rays of sunset shone livid through the clouds, and fat drops of water began to thud on the witches' pointed hats.

"I really don't have time for all this," snapped Granny, trembling. "I have far more important things to do."

"And me," said Nanny.

"Good night to you."

"And you."

They turned their backs on one another and strode away into the downpour.

The midnight rain drummed on Magrat's curtained windows as she thumbed her way purposefully through Goodie Whemper's books of what, for want of any better word, could be called natural magic.

The old woman had been a great collector of such things and, most unusually, had written them down; witches didn't normally have much use for literacy. But book after book was filled with tiny, meticulous handwriting detailing the results of patient experiments in applied magic. Goodie Whemper had, in fact, been a research witch.*

Magrat was looking up love spells. Every time she shut her eyes she saw a red-and-yellow figure on the darkness inside. Something had to be done about it.

She shut the book with a snap and looked at her notes. First, she had to find out his name. The old peel-the-apple trick should do that. You just peeled an apple, getting one length of peel, and threw the peel behind you; it'd land in the shape of his name. Millions of girls had tried it and had inevitably been disappointed, unless the loved one was called Scscs. That was because they hadn't used an unripe Sunset Wonder picked three minutes before noon on the first frosty day in the autumn and peeled left-handedly using a silver knife with a blade less than half an inch wide; Goodie had done a lot of experimenting and was quite explicit on the subject. Magrat always kept a few by for emergencies, and this probably was one.

She took a deep breath, and threw the peel over her shoulder.

She turned slowly.

I'm a witch, she told herself. This is just another spell. There's nothing to be frightened of. Get a grip of yourself, girl. Woman Woman.

She looked down, and bit the back of her hand out of nervousness and embarra.s.sment.

"Who'd have thought it?" she said aloud.

It had worked.

She turned back to her notes, her heart fluttering. What was next? Ah, yes-gathering fern seed in a silk handkerchief at dawn. Goodie Whemper's tiny handwriting went on for two pages of detailed botanical instructions which, if carefully followed, resulted in the kind of love potion that had to be kept in a tightly-stoppered jar at the bottom of a bucket of iced water.

Magrat pulled open her back door. The thunder had pa.s.sed, but now the first gray light of the new day was drowned in a steady drizzle. But it still qualified as dawn, and Magrat was determined.

Brambles tugging at her dress, her hair plastered against her head by the rain, she set out into the dripping forest.

The trees shook, even without a breeze.

Nanny Ogg was also out early. She hadn't been able to get any sleep anyway, and besides, she was worried about Greebo. Greebo was one of her few blind spots. While intellectually she would concede that he was indeed a fat, cunning, evil-smelling multiple rapist, she nevertheless instinctively pictured him as the small fluffy kitten he had been decades before. The fact that he had once chased a female wolf up a tree and seriously surprised a she-bear who had been innocently digging for roots didn't stop her worrying that something bad might happen to him. It was generally considered by everyone else in the kingdom that the only thing that might slow Greebo down was a direct meteorite strike.

Now she was using a bit of elementary magic to follow his trail, although anyone with a sense of smell could have managed it. It had led her through the damp streets and to the open gates of the castle.

She gave the guards a nod as she went through. It didn't occur to either of them to stop her because witches, like beekeepers and big gorillas, went where they liked. In any case, an elderly lady banging a bowl with a spoon was probably not the spearhead of an invasion force.