Lords And Ladies tds-14

by Terry David John Pratchett

  Like: East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

  Or: Behind the North Wind.

  Or: At the Back of Beyond.

  Or: There and Back Again.

  Or: Beyond the Fields We Know.

  And sometimes there's a short cut. A door or a gate. Some standing stones, a tree cleft by lightning, a filing cabinet.

  Maybe just a spot on some moor land somewhere . . .

  A place where there is very nearly here.

  Nearly, but not quite. There's enough leakage to make pendulums swing and psychics get nasty headaches, to give a house a reputation for being haunted, to make the occasional pot hurl across a room. There's enough leakage to make the drones fly guard.

  Oh, yes. The drones.

  There are things called drone assemblies. Sometimes, on fine summer days, the drones from hives for miles around will congregate in some spot, and fly circles in the air, buzzing like tiny early warning systems, which is what they are.

  Bees are sensible. It's a human word. But bees are creatures of order, and programmed into their very genes is a hatred of chaos.

  If some people once knew where such a spot was, if they had experience of what happens when here and there become entangled, then they might — if they knew how — mark such a spot with certain stones.

  In the hope that enough daft buggers would take it as a warning, and keep away.

  "Well, what'd you think?" said Granny, as the witches hurried home.

  "The little fat quiet one's got a bit of natural talent," said Nanny Ogg. "I could feel it. The rest of 'em are just along for the excitement, to my mind. Playing at witches. You know, ooh-jar boards and cards and wearing black lace gloves with no fingers to 'em and paddlin' with the occult."

  "I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in touble."

  "But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.

  "That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em."

  Granny Weatherwax slowed to a walk.

  "What about her?" she said.

  "What exactly about her do you mean?" — "You felt the power there?"

  "Oh, yeah. Made my hair stand on end."

  "Someone gave it to her, and I know who. Just a slip of a gel with a head full of wet ideas out of books, and suddenly she's got the power and don't know how to deal with it. Cards! Candles! That's not witchcraft, that's just party games. Paddlin' with the occult. Did you see she'd got black fingernails?"

  "Well, mine ain't so clean-"

  "I mean painted."

  "I used to paint my toenails red when I was young," said Nanny, wistfully.

  "Toenails is different. So's red. Anyway," said Granny, "you only did it to appear allurin'."

  "It worked, too."

  "Hah!"

  They walked along in silence for a bit.

  "I felt a lot of power there," Nanny Ogg said, eventually.

  "Yes. I know."

  "A lot."

  "Yes."

  "I'm not saying you couldn't beat her," said Nanny quickly. "I'm not saying that. But I don't reckon I could, and it seemed to me it'd raise a bit of a sweat even on you. You'll have to hurt her to beat her."

  "I'm losin' my judgment, aren't I?"

  "Oh, I-"

  "She riled me, Gytha. Couldn't help myself. Now I've got to duel with a gel of seventeen, and if I wins I'm a wicked bullyin' old witch, and if I loses . . ."

  She kicked up a drift of old leaves.

  "Can't stop myself, that's my trouble."

  Nanny Ogg said nothing.

  "And I loses my temper over the least little-"

  "Yes, but-"

  "I hadn't finished talkin'."

  "Sorry, Esme."

  A bat fluttered by. Granny nodded to it.

  "Heard how Magrat's getting along?" she said, in a tone of voice which forced casualness embraced like a corset.

  "Settling in fine, our Shawn says."

  "Right."

  They reached a crossroads; the white dust glowed very faintly in the moonlight. One way led into Lancre, where Nanny Ogg lived. Another eventually got lost in the forest, became a footpath, then a track, and eventually reached Granny Weatherwax's cottage.

  "When shall we . . . two . . . meet again?" said Nanny

  Ogg.

  "Listen," said Granny Weatherwax. "She's well out of it, d'you hear? She'll be a lot happier as a queen!"

  "I never said nothing," said Nanny Ogg mildly.

  "I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!"

  "See you about eleven o'clock, then?"

  "Right!"

  The wind got up again as Granny walked along the track to her cottage.

  She knew she was on edge. There was just too much to do. She'd got Magrat sorted out, and Nanny could look after herself, but the Lords and the Ladies . . . she hadn't counted on them.

  The point was . . .

  The point was that Granny Weatherwax had a feeling she was going to die. This was beginning to get on her nerves.

  Knowing the time of your death is one of those strange bonuses that comes with being a true magic user. And, on the whole, it is a bonus.

  Many a wizard has passed away happily drinking the last of his wine cellar and incidentally owing very large sums of money.

  Granny Weatherwax had always wondered how it felt, what it was that you suddenly saw looming up. And what it turned out to be was a blankness.

  People think that they live life as a moving dot travelling from the Past into the Future, with memory streaming out behind them like some kind of mental cometary tail. But memory spreads out in front as well as behind. It's just that most humans aren't good at dealing with it, and so it arrives as premonitions, forebodings, intuitions, and hunches. Witches are good at dealing with it, and to suddenly find a blank where these tendrils of the future should be has much the same effect on a witch as emerging from a cloud bank and seeing a team of sherpas looking down on him does on an airline pilot.

  She'd got a few days, and then that was it. She'd always expected to have a bit of time to herself, get the garden in order, have a good clean up around the place so that whatever witch took over wouldn't think she'd been a sloven, pick out a decent burial plot, and then spend some time sitting out in the rocking chair, doing nothing at all except looking at the trees and thinking about the past. Now . . . no chance.

  And other things were happening. Her memory seemed to be playing up. Perhaps this is what happened. Perhaps you just drained away toward the end, like old Nanny Gripes, who ended up putting the cat on the stove and the kettle out for the night.

  Granny shut the door behind her and lit a candle.

  There was a box in the dresser drawer. She opened it on the kitchen table and took out the carefully folded piece of paper. There was a pen and ink in there, too.

  After some thought, she picked up where she had left off:

  . . . and to my friend Gytha Ogg I leave my bedde and the rag rugge the smith in Bad Ass made for me, and the matchin jug and basin and wosiname sett she always had her eye on, and my broomstick what will be Right as Rain with a bit of work.

  To Magrat Garlick I leave the Contentes elsewhere in this box, my silver tea service with the milk jug in the shape of a humorous cow what is an Heir Loom, also the Clocke what belonged to my mother, but I charge her alwayes to keep it wound, for when the clocke stops-

  There was a noise outside.

  If anyone else had been in the room with her Granny Weatherwax would have thrown open the door boldly, but she was by herself. She picked up the poker very carefully, moved surprisingly soundlessly to the door given the nature of her boots, and listened intently.

  There was something in the
garden.

  It wasn't much of a garden. There were the Herbs, and the soft fruit bushes, a bit of lawn and, of course, the beehives. And it was open to the woods. The local wildlife knew better than to invade a witch's garden.

  Granny opened the door carefully.

  The moon was setting. Pale silver light turned the world into monochrome.

  There was a unicorn on the lawn. The stink of it hit her.

  Granny advanced, holding the poker in front of her. The unicorn backed away, and pawed at the ground.

  Granny saw the future plain. She already knew the when. Now she was beginning to apprehend the how.

  "So," she said, under her breath, "I knows where you came from. And you can damn well get back there."

  The thing made a feint at her, but the poker swung toward it.

  "Can't stand the iron, eh? Well, just you trot back to your mistress and tell her that we know all about iron in Lancre. And I knows about her. She's to keep away, understand? This is my place!"

  Then it was moonlight. Now it was day.

  There was quite a crowd in what passed for Lancre's main square. Not much happened in Lancre anyway, and a duel between witches was a sight worth seeing.

  Granny Weatherwax arrived at a quarter to noon. Nanny Ogg was waiting on a bench by the tavern. She had a towel around her neck, and was carrying a bucket of water in which floated a sponge.

  "What's that for?" said Granny.

  "Half time. And I done you a plate of oranges."

  She held up the plate. Granny snorted.

  "You look as if you could do with eating something, anyway," said Nanny. "You don't look as if you've had anything today. . ."

  She glanced down at Granny's boots, and the grubby hem of her long black dress. There were scraps of bracken and bits of heather caught on it.

  "You daft old besom!" she hissed. "What've you been doing!"

  "I had to-"

  "You've been up at the Stones, haven't you! Trying to hold back the Gentry."

  "Of course," said Granny. Her voice wasn't faint. She wasn't swaying. But her voice wasn't faint and she wasn't swaying. Nanny Ogg could see, because Granny Weatherwax's body was in the grip of Granny Weatherwax's mind.

  "Someone's got to," she added.

  "You could have come and asked me!"

  "You'd have talked me out of it."

  Nanny Ogg leaned forward.

  "You all right, Esme?"

  "Fine! I'm fine! Nothing wrong with me, all right?"

  "Have you had any sleep at all?" she said.

  "Well-"

  "You haven't, have you? And then you think you can just stroll down here and confound this girl, just like that?"

  "I don't know," said Granny Weatherwax.

  Nanny Ogg looked hard at her.

  "You don't, do you?" she said, in a softer tone of voice. "Oh, well . . . you better sit down here, before you fall down. Suck an orange. They'll be here in a few minutes."

  "No she won't," said Granny "She'll be late."

  "How d'you know?"

  "No good making an entrance if everyone isn't there to see you, is it? That's headology."

  In fact the young coven arrived at twenty past twelve, and took up station on the steps of the market pentangle on the other side of the square.

  "Look at 'em," said Granny Weatherwax. "All in black, again."

  "Well, we wear black too," said Nanny Ogg the reasonable.

  "Only 'cos it's respectable and serviceable," said Granny morosely. "Not because it's romantic. Hah. The Lords and Ladies might as well be here already."

  After some eye contact. Nanny Ogg ambled across the square and met Perdita in the middle. The young would-be witch looked worried under her makeup. She held a black lace handkerchief in her hands, and was twisting it nervously.

  "Morning, Mrs. Ogg," she said.

  "Afternoon, Agnes."

  "Um. What happens now?"

  Nanny Ogg took out her pipe and scratched her ear with it.

  "Dunno. Up to you, I suppose."

  "Diamanda says why does it have to be here and now?"

  "So's everyone can see," said Nanny Ogg. "That's the point, ain't it? Nothing hole and comer about it. Everyone's got to know who's best at witchcraft. The whole town. Everyone sees the winner win and the loser lose. That way there's no argument, eh?"

  Perdita glanced toward the tavern. Granny Weatherwax had dozed off.

  "Quietly confident," said Nanny Ogg, crossing her fingers behind her back.

  "Um, what happens to the loser?" said Perdita.

  "Nothing, really," said Nanny Ogg. "Generally she leaves the place. You can't be a witch if people've seen you beat."

  "Diamanda says she doesn't want to hurt the old lady too much," said Perdita. "Just teach her a lesson."

  "That's nice. Esme's a quick learner."

  "Um. I wish this wasn't happening, Mrs. Ogg."

  "That's nice."

  "Diamanda says Mistress Weatherwax has got a very impressive stare, Mrs. Ogg."

  "That's nice."

  "So the test is . . . just staring, Mrs. Ogg."

  Nanny put her pipe in her mouth.

  "You mean the old first-one-to-blink-or-look-away challenge?"

  "Um, yes."

  "Right." Nanny thought about it, and shrugged. "Right. But we'd better do a magic circle first. Don't want anyone else getting hurt, do we?"

  "Do you mean using Skorhian Runes or the Triple Invocation octogram?" said Perdita.

  Nanny Ogg put her head on one side.

  "Never heard of them things, dear," she said. "I always does a magic circle like this . . ."

  She sidled crabwise away from the fat girl, dragging one toe in the dust. She edged around in a rough circle about fifteen feet across, still dragging her boot, until she backed into Perdita.

  "Sorry. There. Done it."

  "That's a magic circle?"

  "Right. People can come to harm else. All kinds of magic zipping around the place when witches fight."

  "But you didn't chant or anything."

  "No?"

  "There has to be a chant, doesn't there?"

  "Dunno. Never done one."

  "Oh."

  "I could sing you a comic song if you likes," said Nanny helpfully.

  "Um, no. Um." Perdita had never heard Nanny sing, but news gets around.

  "I like your black lace hanky," said Nanny, not a bit abashed. "Very good for not showing the bogies."

  Perdita stared at the circle as though hypnotized. "Um. Shall we start, then?"

  "Right."

  Nanny Ogg scurried back to the bench and elbowed Granny in the ribs.

  "Wake up!"

  Granny opened an eye.

  "I weren't asleep, I was just resting me eyes."

  "All you've got to do is stare her down!"

  "At least she knows about the importance of the stare, then. Hah! Who does she think she is? I've been staring at people all my life!"

  "Yes, that's what's bothering me — aaahh . . . who's Nona's little boy, then?"

  The rest of the Ogg clan had arrived.

  Granny Weatherwax personally disliked young Pewsey. She disliked all small children, which is why she got on with them so well. In Pewsey's case, she felt that no one should be allowed to wander around in just a vest even if they were four years old. And the child had a permanently runny nose and ought to be provided with a handkerchief or, failing that, a cork.

  Nanny Ogg, on the other hand, was instant putty in the hands of any grandchild, even one as sticky as Pewsey

  "Want sweetie," growled Pewsey, in that curiously deep voice some young children have.

  "Just in a moment, my duck, I'm talking to the lady," Nanny Ogg fluted.

  "Want sweetie now."

  "Bugger off, my precious, Nana's busy right this minute."

  Pewsey pulled hard on Nanny Ogg's skirts.

  "Now sweetie now!"

  Granny Weatherwax leaned down until her impressive nose was
about level with Pewsey's gushing one.

  "If you don't go away," she said gravely, "I will personally rip your head off and fill it with snakes."

  "There!" said Nanny Ogg. "There's lots of poor children in Klatch that'd be grateful for a curse like that."

  Pewsey's little face, after a second or two of uncertainty, split into a pumpkin grin.

  "Funny lady," he said.

  "Tell you what," said Nanny, patting Pewsey on the head and then absentmindedly wiping her hand on her dress, "you see them young ladies on the other side of the square? They've got lots of sweeties."

  Pewsey waddled off.

  "That's germ warfare, that is," said Granny Weatherwax.

  "Come on," said Nanny. "Our Jason's put a couple of chairs in the circle. You sure you're all right?"

  "I'll do."

  Perdita Nitt traipsed across the road again.

  "Er . . . Mrs. Ogg?"

  "Yes, dear?"

  "Er. Diamanda says you don't understand, she says they won't be trying to outstare one another . . ."

  Magrat was bored. She'd never been bored when she was a witch. Permanently bewildered and overworked yes, but not bored.

  She kept telling herself it'd probably be better when she really was queen, although she couldn't quite see how.

  In the meantime she wandered aimlessly through the castle's many rooms, the swishing of her dress almost unheard above the background roar of the turbines of tedium:

  —humdrumhumdrumhumdrum-

  She'd spent the whole morning trying to learn to do tapestry, because Millie assured her that's what queens did, and the sampler with its message "Gods bless this House" was even now lying forlornly on her chair.

  In the Long Gallery were huge tapestries of ancient battles, done by previous bored regal incumbents; it was amazing how all the fighters had been persuaded to stay still long enough. And she'd looked at the many, many paintings of the queens themselves, all of them pretty, all of them well-dressed according to the fashion of their times, and all of them bored out of their tiny well-shaped skulls.

  Finally she went back to the solar. This was the big room on top of the main tower. In theory, it was there to catch the sun. It did. It also caught the wind and the rain. It was a sort of drift net for anything the sky happened to throw.

  She yanked on the bellpull that in theory summoned a servant. Nothing happened. After a couple of further pulls, and secretly glad of the exercise, she went down to the kitchen. She would have liked to spend more time there. It was always warm and there was generally someone to talk to. But nobblyess obligay — queens had to live Above Stairs.