Lords And Ladies tds-14

by Terry David John Pratchett

They both looked down at the still body of Granny Weatherwax. A few stray bees were flying disconsolate circles in the grass near her head.

  Nanny Ogg winked at Magrat.

  "You did well there, girl. Didn't think you had it in you to survive an attack like that. It fairly had me widdling myself."

  "I've had practice," said Magrat darkly.

  Nanny Ogg raised her eyebrows, but made no further comment. Instead she nudged Granny with her boot.

  "Wake up, Esme," she said. "Well done. We won."

  "Esme?"

  Ridcully knelt down stiffly and picked up one of Granny's arms.

  "It must have taken it out of her, all that effort," burbled Nanny. "Freeing Magrat and everything-"

  Ridcully looked up.

  "She's dead," he said.

  He thrust both arms underneath the body and got unsteadily to his feet.

  "Oh, she wouldn't do a thing like that," said Nanny, but in the voice of someone whose mouth is running on automatic because their brain has shut down.

  "She's not breathing and there's no pulse," said the wizard.

  "She's probably just resting."

  "Yes."

  Bees circled, high in the blue sky.

  * * *

  Ponder and the Librarian helped drag the stones back into position, occasionally using the Bursar as a lever. He was going through the rigid phase again.

  They were unusual stones. Ponder noticed — quite hard, and with a look about them that suggested that once, long ago, they had been melted and cooled.

  Jason Ogg found him standing deep in thought by one of them. He was holding a nail on a piece of string. But, instead of hanging from the string, the nail was almost at right angles, and straining as if desperate to reach the stone. The string thrummed. Ponder watched it as though mesmerized.

  Jason hesitated. He seldom encountered wizards and wasn't at all sure how you were supposed to treat them.

  He heard the wizard say: "It sucks. But why does it suck?"

  Jason kept quiet.

  He heard Ponder say: "Maybe there's iron and . . . and iron that loves iron? Or male iron and female iron? Or common iron and royal iron? Some iron contains something else? Some iron makes a weight in the world and other iron rolls down the rubber sheet?"

  The Bursar and the Librarian joined him, and watched the swinging nail.

  "Damn!" said Ponder, and let go of the nail. It hit the stone with a plink.

  He turned to the others with the agonized expression of a man who has the whole great whirring machinery of the Universe to dismantle and only a bent paper clip to do it with.

  "What ho, Mr. Sunshine!" said the Bursar, who was feeling almost cheerful with the fresh air and lack of shouting.

  "Rocks! Why am I messing around with lumps of stone? When did they ever tell anyone anything?" said Ponder. "You know, sir, sometimes I think there's a great ocean of truth out there and I'm just sitting on the beach playing with . . . with stones."

  He kicked the stone.

  "But one day we'll find a way to sail that ocean," he said. He sighed. "Come on. I suppose we'd better get down to the castle."

  The Librarian watched them join the procession of tired men who were staggering down the valley.

  Then he pulled at the nail a few times, and watched it fly back to the stone.

  "Oook."

  He looked up into the eyes of Jason Ogg.

  Much to Jason's surprise, the orang-utan winked.

  Sometimes, if you pay real close attention to the pebbles you find out about the ocean.

  The clock ticked.

  In the chilly morning gloom of Granny Weatherwax's cottage. Nanny Ogg opened the box.

  Everyone in Lancre knew about Esme Weatherwax's mysterious box. It was variously rumoured to contain books of spells, a small private universe, cures for all ills, the deeds of lost lands and several tons of gold, which was pretty good going for something less than a foot across. Even Nanny Ogg had never been told about the contents, apart from the will.

  She was a bit disappointed but not at all surprised to find that it contained nothing more than a couple of large envelopes, a bundle of letters, and a miscellaneous assortment of common items in the bottom.

  Nanny lifted out the paperwork. The first envelope was addressed to her, and bore the legend: To Gytha Ogge, Reade This NOWE.

  The second envelope was a bit smaller and said: The Will of Esmerelda Weatherwax, Died Midsummer's Eve.

  And then there was a bundle of letters with a bit of string round them. They were very old; bits of yellowing paper crackled off them as Magrat picked them up.

  "They're all letters to her," she said.

  "Nothing odd about that," said Nanny. "Anyone can get letters."

  "And there's all this stuff at the bottom," said Magrat. "It looks like pebbles."

  She held one up.

  "This one's got one of those curly fossil things in it," she said. "And this one . . . looks like that red rock the Dancers were made of. It's got a darning needle stuck to it. How strange."

  "She always paid attention to small details, did Esme. Always tried to see inside to the real thing."

  They were both silent for a moment, and the silence wound out around them and filled the kitchen, to be sliced into gentle pieces by the soft ticking of the clock.

  "I never thought we'd be doing this," said Magrat, after a while. "I never thought we'd be reading her will. I thought she'd keep on going for ever."

  "Well, there it is," said Nanny. "Tempus fuggit."

  "Nanny?"

  "Yes, love?"

  "I don't understand. She was your friend but you don't seem . . . well. . . upset?"

  "Well, I've buried a few husbands and one or two kiddies. You get the hang of it. Anyway, if she hasn't gone to a better place she'll damn well be setting out to improve it."

  "Nanny?"

  "Yes, love?"

  "Did you know anything about the letter?"

  "What letter?"

  "The letter to Verence."

  "Don't know anything about any letter to Verence."

  "He must have got it weeks before we got back. She must have sent it even before we got to Ankh-Morpork."

  Nanny Ogg looked, as far as Magrat could tell, genuinely blank.

  "Oh, hell," said Magrat. "I mean this letter."

  She fished it out of the breastplate.

  "See?"

  Nanny Ogg read:

  "Dear sire. This is to inform youe that Magrate Garlick will bee retouning to Lancre on or aboute Blind Pig Tuesday. Shee is a Wet Hen but shee is clean and has got Good Teeth. If you wishes to marrie her, then starte arranging matters without delae, because if you just proposes and similar she will lede you a Dance because there is noone like Magrat for getting in the way of her own life. She does not Knoe her own Mind. You aere Kinge and you can doe what you like. You muste present her with a Fate Accompli. PS. I hear there is talk aboute making witches pay tax, no kinges of Lancre has tried this for many a Year, you could profit from their example. Yrs. in good health, at the moment. A FRIEND (MSS)."

  The ticking of the clock stitched the blanket of silence.

  Nanny Ogg turned to look at it.

  "She arranged it all!" said Magrat. "You know what Verence is like. I mean, she hardly disguised who she was, did she? And I got back and it was all arranged-"

  "What would you have done if nothing had been arranged?" said Nanny.

  Magrat looked momentarily taken aback.

  "Well, I would . . . I mean, if he had . . . I'd-"

  "You'd be getting married today, would you?" said Nanny, but in a distant voice, as if she was thinking about something else.

  "Well, that depends on-"

  "You want to, don't you?"

  "Well, yes, of course, but-"

  "That's nice, then," said Nanny, in what Magrat thought of as her nursery voice.

  "Yes, but she pushed me on one side and shut me up in the castle and I got so wound up-"
r />   "You were so angry that you actually stood Up to the Queen. You actually laid hands on her," said Nanny. "Well done. The old Magrat wouldn't have done that, would she? Esme could always see the real thing. Now nip out of the back door and look at the log pile, there's a love."

  "But I hated her and hated her and now she's dead!"

  "Yes, dear. Now go and tell Nanny about the log pile."

  Magrat opened her mouth to frame the words "I happen to be very nearly queen" but decided not to. Instead she graciously went outside and looked at the log pile.

  "It's quite high," she said, coming back and blowing her nose. "Looks like it's just been stacked."

  And she wound up the clock yesterday," said Nanny. "And the tea caddy's half full, I just looked."

  "Well?"

  "She wasn't sure," said Nanny. "Hmm." She opened the envelope addressed to her. It was larger and flatter than the one holding the will, and contained a single piece of card.

  Nanny read it, and let it drop on to the table.

  "Come on," she said. "We ain't got much time!"

  "What's the matter?"

  "And bring the sugar bowl!"

  Nanny wrenched open the door and hurried toward her broomstick.

  "Come on!"

  Magrat picked up the card. The writing was familiar. She'd seen it several times before, when calling on Granny Weatherwax unexpectedly.

  It said: I ATE'NT DEAD.

  "Halt! Who goes there?"

  "What're you doing on guard with your arm in a sling, Shawn?"

  "Duty calls. Mum."

  "Well, let us in right now."

  "Are you Friend or Foe, Mum?"

  "Shawn, this is almost-Queen Magrat here with me, all right?"

  "Yes, but you've got to-"

  "Right now!"

  "Oooaaaww, Mum!"

  Magrat tried to keep up with Nanny as she scurried through the castle.

  "The wizard was right. She was dead, you know. I don't blame you for hoping, but I can tell when people are dead."

  "No, you can't. I remember a few years ago you came running down to my house in tears and it turned out she was just off Borrowing. That's when she started using the sign."

  "But-"

  "She wasn't sure what was going to happen," said Nanny. "That's good enough for me."

  "Nanny-"

  "You never know until you look," said Nanny Ogg, expounding her own Uncertainty Principle.

  Nanny kicked open the doors to the Great Hall.

  "What's all this?"

  Ridcully got up from his chair, looking embarrassed.

  "Well, it didn't seem right to leave her all alone-"

  "Oh dear, oh dear," said Nanny, gazing at the solemn tableau.

  "Candles and lilies. I bet you pinched 'em yourself, out of the garden. And then you all shut her away indoors like this."

  "Well-"

  "And no one even thought to leave a damn window

  open! Can't you hear them?"

  "Hear what?" Nanny looked around hurriedly and picked up a silver candlestick. "No!"

  Magrat snatched it out of her hand. "This happens to be," winding her arm back, "very nearly," taking aim, "my castle-"

  The candlestick flew up, turning end over end, and hit a big stained glass window right in the centre.

  Fresh sunlight extruded down to the table, visibly moving in the Disc's slow magical field. And down it, like marbles down a chute, the bees cascaded.

  The swarm settled on the witch's head, giving the impression of a very dangerous wig.

  "What did you-" Ridcully began.

  "She's going to swank about this for weeks," said Nanny. "No one's ever done it with bees. Their mind's everywhere, see? Not just in one bee. In the whole swarm."

  "What are you-"

  Granny Weatherwax's fingers twitched.

  Her eyes flickered. Very slowly, she sat up. She focused on Magrat and

  Nanny Ogg with some difficulty, and said:

  "I wantzzz a bunzzch of flowerszz, a pot of honey, and someone to szzzting."

  "I brung the sugar bowl, Esme," said Nanny Ogg.

  Granny eyed it hungrily, and then looked at the bees that were taking off from her head like planes from a stricken carrier.

  "Pour a dzzrop of water on it, then, and tip it out on the table for them."

  She stared triumphantly at their faces as Nanny Ogg bustled off.

  "I done it with beezzz! No one can do it with beezzz, and I done it! You endzzz up with your mind all flying in different directionzzz! You got to be good to do it with beezzz!"

  Nanny Ogg sloshed the bowl of makeshift syrup across the table. The swarm descended.

  "You're alive?" Ridcully managed.

  "That's what a univerzzity education doezz for you," said Granny, trying to massage some life into her arms. "You've only got to be sitting up and talking for five minutzz and they can work out you're alive."

  Nanny Ogg handed her a glass of water. It hovered in the air for a moment and then crashed to the floor, because Granny had tried to grasp it with her fifth leg.

  "Zzorry."

  "I knew you wasn't certain!" said Nanny.

  "Czertain? Of courze I waz certain! Never in any doubt whatsoever."

  Magrat thought about the will.

  "You never had a moment's doubt?"

  Granny Weatherwax had the grace not to look her in the eye. Instead, she rubbed her hands together.

  "What's been happening while I've been away?"

  "Well," said Nanny, "Magrat stood up to the-"

  "Oh, I knew she'd do that. Had the wedding, have you?"

  "Wedding?" The rest of them exchanged glances.

  "Of course not!" said Magrat. "Brother Perdore of the Nine Day Wonderers was going to do it and he was knocked out cold by an elf, and anyway people are all-"

  "Don't let's have any excuses," said Granny briskly. "Anyway, a senior wizard can conduct a service at a pinch, ain't that right?"

  "I, I, I think so," said Ridcully, who was falling behind a bit in world events.

  "Right. A wizard's only a priest without a god and a damp handshake," said Granny

  "But half the guests have run away!" said Magrat.

  "We'll round up some more," said Granny

  "Mrs. Scorbic will never get the wedding feast done in time!"

  "You'll have to tell her to," said Granny.

  "The bridesmaids aren't here!"

  "We'll make do."

  "I haven't got a dress!"

  "What's that you've got on?"

  Magrat looked down at the stained chain-mail, the mud-encrusted breastplate, and the few damp remnants of white silk that hung over them like a ragged tabard.

  "Looks good to me," said Granny "Nanny'll do your hair."

  Magrat reached up instinctively, removed the winged helmet, and patted her hair. Bits of twigs and fragments of heather had twisted themselves in it with comb-breaking complexity It never looked good for five minutes together at the best of times; now it was a bird's nest.

  "I think I'll leave it," she said.

  Granny nodded approvingly

  "That's the way of it," she said. "It's not what you've got that matters, it's how you've got it. Well, we're just about ready, then."

  Nanny leaned toward her and whispered.

  "What? Oh, yes. Where's the groom?"

  "He's a bit muzzy. Not sure what happened," said Magrat.

  "Perfectly normal," said Nanny, "after a stag night."

  There were difficulties to overcome:

  "We need a Best Man."

  "Ook."

  "Well, at least put some clothes on."

  Mrs. Scorbic the cook folded her huge pink arms.

  "Can't be done," she said firmly.

  "I thought perhaps just some salad and quiche and some light-" Magrat said, imploringly.

  The cook's whiskery chin stuck out firmly.

  "Them elves turned the whole kitchen upside down," she said. "It's going to take m
e days to get it straight. Anyway, everyone knows raw vegetables are bad for you, and I can't be having with them eggy pies."

  Magrat looked beseechingly at Nanny Ogg; Granny Weatherwax had wandered off into the gardens, where she was getting a tendency to stick her nose in flowers right out of her system.

  "Nothin' to do with me," said Nanny. "It's not my kitchen, dear."

  "No, it's mine. I've been cook here for years," said Mrs. Scorbic, "and I knows how things should be done, and I'm not going to be ordered around in my own kitchen by some chit of a girl."

  Magrat sagged. Nanny tapped her on the shoulder.

  "You might need this at this point," she said, and handed Magrat the winged helmet.

  "The king's been very happy with-" Mrs. Scorbic began.

  There was a click. She looked down the length of a crossbow and met Magrat's steady gaze.

  "Go ahead," said the Queen of Lancre softly, "bake my quiche."

  Verence sat in his nightshirt with his head in his hands. He could remember hardly anything about the night, except a feeling of coldness. And no one seemed very inclined to tell him.

  There was a faint creak as the door opened.

  He looked up. "Glad to see you're up and about already," said Granny Weatherwax. "I've come to help you dress."

  "I've looked in the garderobe," said Verence. "The . . . elves, was it? . . . they ransacked the place. There's nothing I can wear."

  Granny looked around the room. Then she went to a low chest and opened it. There was a faint tinkling of bells, and a flash of red and yellow.

  "I thought you never threw them away," she said. "And you ain't put on any weight, so they'll still fit. On with the motley. Magrat'll appreciate it."

  "Oh, no," said Verence. "I'm very firm about this. I'm king now. It'd be demeaning for Magrat to marry a Fool. I've got a position to maintain, for the sake of the kingdom. Besides, there is such a thing as pride."

  Granny stared at him for so long that he shifted uncomfortably.

  "Well, there is," he said.

  Granny nodded, and walked toward the doorway.

  "Why're you leaving?" said Verence nervously.

  "I ain't leaving," said Granny, quietly, "I'm just shutting the door."

  And then there was the incident with the crown.

  Ceremonies and Protocols of The Kingdom of Lancre was eventually found after a hurried search of Verence's bedroom. It was very clear about the procedure. The new queen was crowned, by the king, as part of the ceremony. It wasn't technically difficult for any king who knew which end of a queen was which, which even the most inbred king figured out in two goes.