Carpe Jugulum

by Terry Pratchett

  Hodgesaargh had been thinking about this a lot during the morning, as he tramped through damp bushes making the acquaintance of several disappointed ducks. He’d never bothered much about history, except the history of falconry, but he did know that there were once places—and in some cases still were—with a very high level of background magic, which made them rather exciting and not a good place to raise your young.

  Maybe the phoenix, whatever it really looked like, was simply a bird who’d worked out a way of making incubation work very, very fast.

  Hodgesaargh had actually got quite a long way, and if he’d had a bit more time he’d have worked out the next step, too.

  It was well after noon before Granny Weatherwax came off the moor, and a watcher might have wondered why it took such a long time to cross a little patch of moorland.

  They’d have wondered even more about the little stream. It had cut a rock-studded groove in the peat that a healthy woman could have leapt across, but someone had place a broad stone across it for a bridge.

  She looked at it for a while, and then reached into her sack. She took out a long piece of black material and blindfolded herself. Then she walked out across the stone, taking tiny steps with her arms flung out wide for balance. Halfway across she fell onto her hands and knees and stayed there, panting, for several minutes. Then she crawled forward again, by inches.

  A few feet below, the peaty stream rattled happily over the stones.

  The sky glinted. It was a sky with blue patches and bits of cloud, but it had a strange look, as though a picture painted on glass had been fractured and then the shards reassembled wrongly. A drifting cloud disappeared against some invisible line and began to emerge in another part of the sky altogether.

  Things were not what they seemed. But then, as Granny always said, they never were.

  Agnes practically had to pull Oats into Nanny Ogg’s house, which was in fact so far away from the concept of a witch’s cottage that it, as it were, approached it from the other side. It tended toward jolly clashing colors rather than black, and smelled of polish. There were no skulls or strange candles, apart from the pink novelty one that Nanny had once bought in Ankh-Morpork and only brought out to show to guests with the right sense of humor. There were lots of tables, mainly in order to display the vast number of drawings and iconographs of the huge Ogg clan. At first sight these looked randomly placed, until you worked out the code. In reality, pictures were advanced or retarded around the room as various family members temporarily fell in or out of favor, and anyone ending up on the small wobbly table near the cat’s bowl had some serious spadework to do. What made it worse was you could fall down the pecking order not because you’d done something bad, but because everyone else had done something better. This was why what space wasn’t taken up with family pictures was occupied by ornaments, because no Ogg who traveled more than ten miles from the homestead would dream of returning without a present. The Oggs loved Nanny Ogg and, well, there were even worse places than the wobbly table. A distant cousin had once ended up in the hall.

  Most of the ornaments were cheapjack stuff bought from fairs, but Nanny Ogg never minded, provided they were colorful and shiny. So there were a lot of cross-eyed dogs, pink shepherdesses and mugs with badly spelled slogans like “To the Wordl’s Best Mum” and “We Luove Our Nanny.” A huge gilded china beer stein that played “Ich Bin Ein Rattarsedschwein” from The Student Horse was locked in a glass-fronted cabinet as a treasure too great for common display, and had earned Shirl Ogg’s picture a permanent place on the dresser.

  Nanny Ogg had already cleared a space on the table for the green ball. She looked up sharply when Agnes entered.

  “You were a long time. Been dallyin’?” she said, in an armor-piercing voice.

  “Nanny, Granny would have said that,” said Agnes reproachfully.

  Nanny shivered. “You’re right, gel,” she said. “Let’s find her quickly, eh? I’m too cheerful to be a crone.”

  “There’s odd creatures everywhere!” said Agnes. “There’s loads of centaurs! We had to dive into the ditch!”

  “Ah, I did notice you’d got grass and leaves on your dress,” said Nanny. “But I was too polite to mention it.”

  “Where’re they all coming from?”

  “Down out of the mountains, I suppose. Why did you bring Soapy Sam back with you?”

  “Because he’s covered in mud, Nanny,” said Agnes sharply, “and I said he could have a wash down here.”

  “Er…is this really a witch’s cottage?” said Oats, staring at the assembled ranks of Oggery.

  “Oh dear,” said Nanny.

  “Pastor Melchio said they are sinks of depravity and sexual ex-cess.” The young man took a nervous step backward, knocking against a small table and causing a blue clockwork ballerina to begin a jerky pirouette to the tune of “Three Blind Mice.”

  “Well, we’ve got a sink all right,” said Nanny. “What’s your best offer?”

  “I suppose we should be grateful that was a Nanny Ogg comment,” said Agnes. “Don’t wind him up, Nanny. It’s been a busy morning.”

  “Er…which way’s the pump?” said Oats. Agnes pointed. He hurried out, gratefully.

  “Wetter than a thunderstorm sandwich,” said Nanny, shaking her head.

  “Granny was seen up above the long lake,” said Agnes, sitting down at the table.

  Nanny looked up sharply. “On that bit of moor?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s bad. That’s gnarly country up there.”

  “Gnarly?”

  “All scrunched up.”

  “What? I’ve been up there. It’s just heather and gorse and there’s a few old caves at the end of the valley.”

  “Oh really? Looked up at the clouds, did you? Oh well, let’s have a go…”

  When Oats came back, scrubbed and shining, they were arguing. They looked rather embarrassed when they saw him.

  “I said it’d need three of us,” said Nanny, pushing the glass ball aside. “Especially if she’s up there. Gnarly ground plays merry hell with scrying. We just ain’t got the power.”

  “I don’t want to go back to the castle!”

  “Magrat’s good at this sort of thing.”

  “She’s got a little baby to look after, Nanny!”

  “Yeah, in a castle full of vampires. Think about that. No knowing when they’ll get hungry again. Better for ’em both to be out of it.”

  “But—”

  “You get her out now. I’d come myself, but you said I just sit there grinnin’.”

  Agnes suddenly pointed a finger at Oats. “You!”

  “Me?” he quavered.

  “You said you could see they were vampires, didn’t you?”

  “I did?”

  “You did.”

  “That’s right, I did. Er…and?”

  “You didn’t find your mind becoming all pink and happy?”

  “I don’t think my mind has ever been pink and happy,” said Oats.

  “So why didn’t they get through to you?”

  Oats smiled uneasily and fished in his jacket.

  “I am protected by the hand of Om,” he said.

  Nanny inspected the pendant. It show a figure trussed across the back of a turtle.

  “You say?” she said. “That’s a good wheeze, then.”

  “Just as Om reach out his hand to save the prophet Brutha from the torture. so will he spread his wings over me in my time of trial,” said Oats, but he sounded as though he was trying to reassure himself rather than Nanny. He went on: “I’ve got a pamphlet if you would like to know more,” and this time the tone was much more positive, as if the existence of Om was a little uncertain whereas the existence of pamphlets was obvious to any open-minded, rational-thinking person.

  “Don’t,” said Nanny. She let the medallion go. “Well, Brother Perdore never needed any magic jewelry for fighting off people, that’s all I can say.”

  “No, he jus
t used to breathe alcohol all over them,” said Agnes. “Well, you’re coming with me, Mr. Oats. I’m not facing Prince Slime again alone! And you can shut up!”

  “Er, I didn’t say anything—”

  “I didn’t mean you, I meant—Look, you said you’ve studied vampires, didn’t you? What’s good for vampires?”

  Oats thought for a moment. “Er…a nice dry coffin, er, plenty of fresh blood, er, overcast skies…” His voice trailed off when he saw her expression. “Ah…well, it depends exactly where they’re from, I remember. Uberwald is a very big place. Er…cutting off the head and staking them in the heart is generally efficacious.”

  “But that works on everyone,” said Nanny.

  “Er…in Splintz they die if you put a coin in their mouth and cut their head off…”

  “Not like ordinary people, then,” said Nanny, taking out a notebook.

  “Er…in Klotz they die if you stick a lemon in their mouth—”

  “Sounds more like it.”

  “—after you cut their head off. I believe that in Glitz you have to fill their mouth with salt, hammer a carrot into both ears, and then cut off their head.”

  “I can see that must’ve been fun finding that out.”

  “And in the valley of the Ah they believe it’s best to cut off the head and boil it in vinegar.”

  “You’re going to need someone to carry all this stuff, Agnes,” said Nanny Ogg.

  “But in Kashncari they say you should cut off their toes and drive a nail through their neck.”

  “And cut their head off?”

  “Apparently you don’t have to.”

  “Toes is easy,” said Nanny. “Old Windrow over in Bad Ass cut off two of his with a spade and he weren’t even trying.”

  “And then, of course, you can defeat them by stealing their left sock,” said Oats.

  “Sorry?” said Agnes. “I think I misheard you there.”

  “Um…they’re pathologically meticulous, you see. Some of the gypsy tribes in Borogravia say that if you steal their sock and hide it somewhere they’ll spend the rest of eternity looking for it. They can’t abide things to be out of place or missing.”

  “I wouldn’t have put this down as a very widespread belief,” said Nanny.

  “Oh, they say in some villages that you can even slow them down by throwing poppyseed at them,” said Oats. “Then they’ll have a terrible urge to count every seed. Vampires are very anal retentive, you see?”

  “I shouldn’t like meeting one that was the opposite,” said Nanny.

  “Yes, well, I don’t think we’re going to have time to ask the Count for his precise address,” said Agnes quickly. “We’re going to go in, fetch Magrat and get back here, all right? Why are you such a vampire expert, Oats?”

  “I told you, I studied this sort of thing at college. We have to know the enemy if we’re to combat evil forces…vampires, demons, wit—” He stopped.

  “Do go on,” said Nanny Ogg, as sweet as arsenic.

  “But with witches I’m just supposed to show them the error of their ways.” Oats coughed nervously.

  “That’s something to look forward to, then,” said Nanny. “What with me not havin’ my fireproof corsets on. Off you go, then…all three of you.”

  “There’s three of us?” said Oats.

  Agnes felt her left arm tremble. Against every effort of will her wrist bent, her palm curled up and she felt a finger straining to unfold. Only Nanny Ogg noticed.

  “Like having your own chaperone all the time, ain’t it,” she said.

  “What was she talking about?” said Oats, as they headed for the castle.

  “Her mind’s wandering,” said Agnes, loudly.

  There were covered ox-carts rumbling up the street to the castle. Agnes and Oats stood to one side and watched them.

  The drivers didn’t seem interested in the bystanders. They wore drab, ill-fitting clothing, but an unusual touch was the scarf each one had wrapped around his neck so tightly that it might have been a bandage.

  “Either there’s a plague of sore throats in Uberwald or there will be nasty little puncture wounds under those, I’ll bet,” said Agnes.

  “Er…I do know a bit about the way they’re supposed to control people,” said Oats.

  “Yes?”

  “It sounds silly, but it was in an old book.”

  “Well?”

  “They find single-minded people easier to control.”

  “Single-minded?” said Agnes suspiciously. More carts rolled past.

  “It doesn’t sound right, I know. You’d think strong minded people would be harder to affect. I suppose a big target is easier to hit. In some of the villages, apparently, vampire hunters get roaring drunk first. Protection, you see? You can’t punch fog.”

  So we’re fog? said Perdita. So’s he, by the look of him…

  Agnes shrugged. There was a certain bucolic look to the faces of the cart drivers. Of course, you got that in Lancre too, but in Lancre it was overlaid by a mixture of guile, common sense and stubborn rock-headedness. Here the eyes behind the faces had a switched-off look.

  Like cattle, said Perdita.

  “Yes,” said Agnes.

  “Pardon?” said Oats.

  “Just thinking aloud…”

  And she thought of the way one man could so easily control a herd of cows, any one of which could have left him as a small damp depression in the ground had it wanted to. Somehow, they never got around to thinking about it.

  Supposing they are better than us, she thought. Supposing that, compared to them, we’re just—

  You’re too close to the castle, snapped Perdita. You’re thinking cow thoughts.

  Then Agnes realized that there was a squad of men marching behind the carts. They didn’t look at all like the carts’ drivers.

  And these, said Perdita, are the cattle prods.

  They had uniforms, of a sort, with the black and white crest of the Magpyrs, but they weren’t a body of men that looked smart in a uniform. They looked very much like men who killed other people for money, and not even for a lot of money. They looked, in short, like men who’d cheerfully eat a puppy sandwich. Several of them leered at Agnes when they went past, but it was only a generic leer that was simply leered on the basis that she had a dress on.

  More wagons came up behind them.

  “Nanny Ogg says you must take time by the foreskin,” Agnes said, and darted forward as the last wagon rumbled past.

  “She does?”

  “I’m afraid so. You get used to it.”

  She caught the back of the cart and pulled herself up, beckoning him hastily to follow.

  “Are you trying to impress me?” he said as she hauled him on board.

  “Not you,” she said. And realized, at this point, that what she was sitting on was a coffin.

  There were two of them in the back of the cart, packed around with straw.

  “Are they moving the furniture in?” said Oats.

  “Er…I think…it might…be occupied,” said Agnes.

  She almost shrieked when he removed the lid. The coffin was empty.

  “You idiot! Supposing there was someone in there!”

  “Vampires are weak during the day. Everyone knows that,” said Oats reproachfully.

  “I can…feel them here…somewhere,” said Agnes. The rattling of the cart changed as it rumbled onto the cobblestones of the courtyard.

  “Get off the other one and I’ll have a look.”

  “But supposing—”

  He pushed her off and raised the lid before she could protest further. “No, no vampire in here, either,” he said.

  “Supposing one’d just reached out and grabbed you by the throat!”

  “Om is my shield,” said Oats.

  “Really? That’s nice.”

  “You may chortle—”

  “I didn’t chortle.”

  “You can if you want to. But I’m sure we are doing the right thing. Did not Sonaton de
feat the Beast of Batrigore in its very cave?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He did. And didn’t the prophet Urdure vanquish the Dragon of Sluth on the Plain of Gidral after three days’ fighting?”

  “I don’t know that we’ve got that much time—”

  “And wasn’t it true the Sons of Exequial beat the hosts of Myrilom?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve heard of that?”

  “No. Listen, we’ve stopped. I don’t particularly want us to be found, do you? Not right now. And not by those guards. They didn’t look like nice men at all.”

  They exchanged a meaningful glance over the coffins, concerning a certain inevitability about the immediate future.

  “They’ll notice they’re heavier, won’t they?” said Oats.

  “Those people driving the carts didn’t look as though they notice anything very much.”

  Agnes stared at the coffin beside her. There was some dirt in the bottom, but it was otherwise quite clean and had a pillow at the head end. There were also some side pockets in the lining.

  “It’s the easiest way in,” she said. “You get into this one, I’ll get into that one. And, look…those people you just told me about…were they real historical characters?”

  “Certainly. They—”

  “Well, don’t try to imitate them yet, all right? Otherwise you’ll be a historical character too.”

  She shut the lid, and still felt there was a vampire around.

  Her hand touched the side pocket. There was something soft yet spiky there. Her fingers explored it in fascinated horror and discovered it to be a ball of wool with a couple of long knitting needles stuck through it, suggesting either a very domesticated form of voodoo or that someone was knitting a sock.