Maskerade. Part 49

"O' course, I helped out playin' the piano and tellin' jokes."

"An added bonus," said Granny, nodding.

"An' of course there was all those little nibbles I prepared. With the Special Party Dip."

"Yes indeed," said Granny, poker-faced. "Mrs. Palm was saying only this morning that she's thinking of retiring next year."

Nanny looked up and down the street again.

"I 'spect young Agnes'll be turning up any minute now," she said.

"I really couldn't say," said Granny haughtily.

"Not as though there's much for her here, after all."

Granny sniffed. "That's up to her, I'm sure."

"Everyone was very impressed, I reckon, when you caught that sword in your hand..."

Granny sighed. "Hah! Yes, I expect they were. They didn't think clearly, did they? People're just lazy. They never think: maybe she had something in her hand, a bit of metal or something. They don't think for a minute it was just a trick. They don't think there's always a perfectly good explanation if you look for it. They probably think it was some kind of magic."

"Yeah, but...you didn't didn't have anything in your hand, did you?" have anything in your hand, did you?"

"That's not the point. I might might have done." Granny looked up and down the square. "Besides, you can't magic iron." have done." Granny looked up and down the square. "Besides, you can't magic iron."

"That's very true. Not iron. Now, someone like ole Black Aliss, they could make their skin tougher than steel...but that's just an ole legend, I expect..."

"She could do it all right," said Granny. "But you can't go round messin' with cause and effect. That's what sent her mad, come the finish. She thought she could put herself outside of things like cause and effect. Well, you can't. You grab a sharp sword by the blade, you get hurt. World'd be a terrible place if people forgot that."

"You weren't hurt." weren't hurt."

"Not my fault. I didn't have time."

Nanny blew on her hands. "One good thing, though," she said. "It's a blessing the chandelier never came down. I was worried about that soon as I saw it. Looks too dramatic for its own good, I thought. First thing I'd smash, if I was a loony."

"Yes."

"Haven't been able to find Greebo since last night."

"Good."

"He always turns up, though."

"Unfortunately."

There was a clatter as the coach swung around the corner.

It stopped.

Then the coachman tugged on the reins and it did a U-turn and disappeared again.

"Esme?" said Nanny, after a while.

"Yes?"

"There's a man and two horses peering at us around the corner." She raised her voice. "Come on, I know you're there! Seven o'clock, this coach is supposed to leave! Did you get the tickets, Esme?"

"Me?"

"Ah," said Nanny uncertainly. "So...we haven't got eighty dollars for the tickets, then?"

"What've you got stuffed up your elastic?" said Granny as the coach advanced cautiously.

"Nothin' that is legal tender for travelin' purposes, I fear."

"Then...no, we can't afford tickets."

Nanny sighed. "Oh, well, I'll just have to use charm."

"It's going to be a long walk," said Granny.

The coach pulled up. Nanny looked up at the driver, and smiled innocently. "Good morning, my good sir!"

He gave her a slightly frightened but mainly suspicious look. "Is it?"

"We are desirous of traveling to Lancre but unfortunately we find ourselves a bit embarra.s.sed in the knicker department."

"You are?"

"But we are witches and could prob'ly pay for our travel by, e.g., curing any embarra.s.sing little ailments you may have."

The coachman frowned. "I ain't carrying you for nothing, old crone. And I haven't got any embarra.s.sing little ailments!"

Granny stepped forward.

"How many would you like?" she said.

Rain rolled over the plains. It wasn't an impressive Ramtops thunderstorm but a lazy, persistent, low-cloud rain, like a fat fog. It had been following them all day.

The witches had the coach to themselves. Several people had opened the door while it had been waiting to leave, but for some reason had suddenly decided that today's travel plans didn't include a coach ride.

"Making good time," said Nanny, opening the curtains and peering out of the window.

"I expect the driver's in a hurry."

"Yes, I 'spect he is."

"Shut the window, though. It's getting wet in here."

"Righty-ho."

Nanny grabbed the strap and then suddenly poked her head out into the rain.

"Stop! Stop! Tell the man to stop!"

The coach slewed to a halt in a sheet of mud.

Nanny threw open the door. "I don't know, trying to walk home, and in this weather, too! You'll catch your death!"

Rain and fog rolled in through the open doorway. Then a bedraggled shape pulled itself over the sill and slunk under the seats, leaving small puddles behind it.

"Tryin' to be independent," said Nanny. "Bless 'im."

The coach got under way again. Granny stared out at the endless darkening fields and the relentless drizzle, and saw another figure toiling along in the mud by the road that would, eventually, reach Lancre. As the coach swept past, it drenched the walker in thin slurry.

"Yes, indeed. Being independent's a fine ambition," she said, drawing the curtains.

The trees were bare when Granny Weatherwax got back to her cottage.

Twigs and seeds had blown in under the door. Soot had fallen down the chimney. Her home, always somewhat organic, had grown a little closer to its roots in the clay.

There were things to do, so she did them. There were leaves to be swept, and the woodpile to be built up under the eaves. The wind sock behind the beehives, tattered by autumn storms, needed to be darned. Hay had to be got in for the goats. Apples had to be stored in the loft. The walls could do with another coat of whitewash.

But there was something that had to be done first. It'd make the other jobs a bit more difficult, but there was no help for that. You couldn't magic iron. And you couldn't grab a sword without being hurt. If that wasn't true, the world'd be all over the place.

Granny made herself some tea, and then boiled up the kettle again. She took a handful of herbs out of a box on the dresser, and dropped them in a bowl with the steaming water. She took a length of clean bandage out of a drawer and set it carefully on the table beside the bowl. She threaded an extremely sharp needle and laid needle and thread beside the bandage. She scooped a fingerful of greenish ointment out of a small tin, and smeared it on a square of lint.

That seemed to be it.

She sat down, and rested her arm on the table, palm-up.

"Well," she said, to no one in particular, "I reckon I've got time now."

The privy had to be moved. It was a job Granny preferred to do for herself. There was something incredibly satisfying in digging a very deep hole. It was uncomplicated uncomplicated. You knew where you were with a hole in the ground. Dirt didn't get strange ideas, or believe that people were honest because they had a steady gaze and a firm handshake. It just lay there, waiting for you to move it. And, after you'd done it, you could sit there in the lovely warm knowledge that it'd be months before you had to do it again.

It was while she was at the bottom of the hole that a shadow fell across it.

"Afternoon, Perdita," she said without looking up.

She lifted another shovelful to head-height and flung it over the edge.

"Come home for a visit, have you?" she said.

She rammed the shovel into the clay at the bottom of the hole again, winced, and forced it down with her foot.

"Thought you were doing very well in the opera," she went on. "'Course, I'm not an expert in these things. Good to see young people seeking their fortune in the big city, though."

She looked up with a bright, friendly smile.

"I see you've lost a bit of weight, too." Innocence hung from her words like loops of toffee.

"I've been...taking exercise," said Agnes.

"Exercise is a fine thing, certainly," said Granny, getting back to her digging. "Though they do say you can have too much of it. When are you going back?"

"I...haven't decided."

"Weeelll, it doesn't pay to be always planning. Don't tie yourself down the whole time, I've always said that. Staying with your ma, are you?"

"Yes," said Agnes.

"Ah? Only Magrat's old cottage is still empty. You'd be doing everyone a favor if you aired it out a bit. You know...as long as you're here."

Agnes said nothing. She couldn't think of anything to say.

"Funny ole thing," said Granny, hacking around a particularly troublesome tree root. "I wouldn't tell everyone, but I was only thinking the other day, about when I was younger and called myself Endemonidia..."

"You did did? When?"

Granny rubbed her forehead with her bandaged hand, leaving a clay-red smudge.

"Oh, for about three, four hours," she said. "Some names don't have the stayin' power. Never pick yourself a name you can't scrub the floor in."

She threw her shovel out of the hole. "Give me a hand up, will you?"

Agnes did so. Granny brushed the dirt and leaf mold off her ap.r.o.n and tried to stamp the clay off her boots.

"Time for a cup of tea, eh?" she said. "My, you are are looking well. It's the fresh air. Too much stuffy air in that Opera House, I thought." looking well. It's the fresh air. Too much stuffy air in that Opera House, I thought."

Agnes tried in vain to detect anything in Granny Weatherwax's eyes other than transparent honesty and goodwill.

"Yes. I thought so, too," she said. "Er...you've hurt your hand?"

"It'll heal. A lot of things do."

She shouldered her shovel and headed toward the cottage; and then, halfway up the path, turned and looked back.