Wyrd Sisters Part 39

"We all seed you! You had it down just right, including the shouting."

"That's just acting!"

"Act, then. Being a king is, is-" Granny hesitated, and snapped her fingers at Magrat. "What do you call them things, there's always a hundred of them in anything?"

Magrat looked bewildered. "Do you mean percents?" she said.

"Them," agreed Granny. "Most of the percents in being a king is acting, if you ask me. You ought to be good at it."

Tomjon looked for help into the wings, where Hwel should have been. The dwarf was in fact there, but he wasn't paying much attention. He had the script in front of him, and was rewriting furiously.

BUT I I a.s.sURE YOU, YOU ARE NOT DEAD a.s.sURE YOU, YOU ARE NOT DEAD. TAKE IT FROM ME.

The duke giggled. He had found a sheet from somewhere and had draped it over himself, and was sidling along some of the castle's more deserted corridors. Sometimes he would go "whoo-oo" in a low voice.

This worried Death. He was used to people claiming that they were not not dead, because death always came as a shock, and a lot of people had some trouble getting over it. But people claiming that they were dead with every breath in their body was a new and unsettling experience. dead, because death always came as a shock, and a lot of people had some trouble getting over it. But people claiming that they were dead with every breath in their body was a new and unsettling experience.

"I shall jump out on people," said the duke dreamily. "I shall rattle my bones all night, I shall perch on the roof and foretell a death in the house-"

THAT'S BANSHEES.

"I shall if I want," said the duke, with a trace of earlier determination. "And I shall float through walls, and knock on tables, and drip ectoplasm on anyone I don't like. Ha. Ha."

IT WON'T WORK. LIVING PEOPLE AREN'T ALLOWED TO BE GHOSTS. I'M SORRY.

The duke made an unsuccessful attempt to float through a wall, gave up, and opened a door out onto a crumbling section of the battlements. The storm had died away a bit, and a thin rind of moon lurked behind the clouds like a ticket tout for eternity.

Death stalked through the wall behind him.

"Well then," said the duke, "if I'm not not dead, why are you here?" dead, why are you here?"

He jumped up onto the wall and flapped his sheet.

WAITING.

"Wait forever, bone face!" said the duke triumphantly. "I shall hover in the twilight world, I shall find some chains to shake, I shall-"

He stepped backward, lost his balance, landed heavily on the wall and slid. For a moment the remnant of his right hand scrabbled ineffectually at the stonework, and then it vanished.

Death is obviously potentially everywhere at the same time, and in one sense it is no more true to say that he was on the battlements, picking vaguely at non-existent particles of glowing metal on the edge of his scythe blade, than that he was waist-deep in the foaming, rock-toothed waters in the depths of Lancre gorge, his calcareous gaze sweeping downward and stopping abruptly at a point where the torrent ran a few treacherous inches over a bed of angular pebbles.

After a while the duke sat up, transparent in the phosph.o.r.escent waves.

"I shall haunt their corridors," he said, "and whisper under the doors on still nights." His voice grew fainter, almost lost in the ceaseless roar of the river. "I shall make basket chairs creak most alarmingly, just you wait and see."

Death grinned at him.

NOW YOU'RE TALKING.

It started to rain.

Ramtop rain has a curiously penetrative quality which makes ordinary rain seem almost arid. It poured in torrents over the castle roofs, and somehow seemed to go right through the tiles and fill the Great Hall with a warm, uncomfortable moistness.*

The hall was crowded with half the population of Lancre. Outside, the rus.h.i.+ng of the rain even drowned out the distant roar of the river. It soaked the stage. The colors ran and mingled in the painted backdrop, and one of the curtains sagged away from its rail and flapped sadly into a puddle.

Inside, Granny Weatherwax finished speaking.

"You forgot about the crown," whispered Nanny Ogg.

"Ah," said Granny. "Yes, the crown. It's on his head, d'you see? We hid it among the crowns when the actors left, the reason being, no one would look for it there. See how it fits him so perfectly."

It was a tribute to Granny's extraordinary powers of persuasion that everyone did see how perfectly it fitted Tomjon. In fact the only one who didn't was Tomjon himself, who was aware that it was only his ears that were stopping it becoming a necklace.

"Imagine the sensation when he put it on for the first time," she went on. "I expect there was an eldritch tingling sensation."

"Actually, it felt rather-" Tomjon began, but no one was listening to him. He shrugged and leaned over to Hwel, who was still scribbling busily.

"Does eldritch mean uncomfortable?" he hissed.

The dwarf looked at him with unfocused eyes.

"What?"

"I said, does eldritch mean uncomfortable?"

"Eh? Oh. No. No, I shouldn't think so."

"What does does it mean then?" it mean then?"

"Dunno. Oblong, I think." Hwel's glance returned to his scrawls as though magnetized. "Can you remember what he said after all those tomorrows? I didn't catch the bit after that..."

"And there wasn't any need for you to tell everyone I was-adopted," said Tomjon.

"That's how it was, you see," said the dwarf vaguely. "Best to be honest about these things. Now then, did he actually stab her, or just accuse her?"

"I don't want to be a king!" Tomjon whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "Everyone says I take after dad!"

"Funny thing, all this taking after people," said the dwarf vaguely. "I mean, if I took after my my dad, I'd be a hundred feet underground digging rocks, whereas-" His voice died away. He stared at the nib of his pen as though it held an incredible fascination. dad, I'd be a hundred feet underground digging rocks, whereas-" His voice died away. He stared at the nib of his pen as though it held an incredible fascination.

"Whereas what?"

"Eh?"

"Aren't you even listening listening?"

"I knew it was wrong when I wrote it, I knew it was the wrong way round...What? Oh, yes. Be a king. It's a good job. It seems there's a lot of compet.i.tion, at any rate. I'm very happy for you. Once you're a king, you can do anything you want."

Tomjon looked at the faces of the Lancre worthies around the table. They had a keen, calculating look, like the audience at a fatstock show. They were weighing him up. It crept upon him in a cold and clammy way that once he was king, he could do anything he wanted. Provided that what he wanted to do was be king.

"You could build your own theater," said Hwel, his eyes lighting up for a moment. "With as many trapdoors as you wanted, and magnificent costumes. You could act in a new play every night. I mean, it would make the Dysk look like a shed."

"Who would come to see me?" said Tomjon, sagging in his seat.

"Everyone."

"What, every night?"

"You could order them to," said Hwel, without looking up.

I knew he was going to say that, Tomjon thought. He can't really mean it, he added charitably. He's got his play. He doesn't really exist in this world, not right now at the moment.

He took off the crown and turned it over and over in his hands. There wasn't much metal in it, but it felt heavy. He wondered how heavy it would get if you wore it all the time.

At the head of the table was an empty chair containing, he had been a.s.sured, the ghost of his real father. It would have been nice to report that he had experienced anything more, when being introduced to it, than an icy sensation and a buzzing in the ears.

"I suppose I could help father pay off on the Dysk," he said.

"That would be nice, yes," said Hwel.

He spun the crown in his fingers and listened glumly to the talk flowing back and forth over his head.

"Fifteen years?" said the Mayor of Lancre.

"We had to," said Granny Weatherwax.

"I thought the baker was a bit early last week."

"No, no," said the witch impatiently. "It doesn't work like that. No one's lost anything."

"According to my figuring," said the man who doubled as Lancre's beadle, town clerk and grave-digger, "we've all lost fifteen years."

"No, we've all gained them," said the mayor. "It stands to reason. Time's like this sort of wiggly road, see, but we took a short cut across the fields."

"Not at all," said the clerk, sliding a sheet of paper across the table. "Look here..."

Tomjon let the waters of debate close over him again.

Everyone wanted him to be king. No one thought twice about what he wanted. His views didn't count.

Yes, that was it. No one wanted him him to be king, not precisely to be king, not precisely him him. He just happened to be convenient.

Gold does not tarnish, at least physically, but Tomjon felt that the thin band of metal in his hands had an unpleasant depth to its l.u.s.ter. It had sat on too many troubled heads. If you held it to your ear, you could hear the screams.

He became aware of someone else looking at him, their gaze playing across his face like a blowlamp on a lolly. He looked up.

It was the third witch, the young...the youngest one, with the intense expression and the hedgerow hairstyle. Sitting next to old Fool as though she owned a controlling interest.

It wasn't his face she was examining. It was his features. Her eyeb.a.l.l.s were tracking him from nape to nose like a pair of calipers. He gave her a little brave smile, which she ignored. Just like everyone else, he thought.

Only the Fool noticed him, and returned the smile with an apologetic grin and a tiny conspiratorial wave of the fingers that said: "What are we doing here, two sensible people like us?" The woman was looking at him again, turning her head this way and that and narrowing her eyes. She kept glancing at Fool and back to Tomjon. Then she turned to the oldest witch, the only person in the entire hot, damp room who seemed to have acquired a mug of beer, and whispered in her ear.

The two started a spirited, whispered conversation. It was, thought Tomjon, a particularly feminine way of talking. It normally took place on doorsteps, with all the partic.i.p.ants standing with their arms folded and, if anyone was so ungracious as to walk past, they'd stop abruptly and watch them in silence until they were safely out of earshot.

He became aware that Granny Weatherwax had stopped talking, and that the entire hall was staring at him expectantly.

"Hallo?" he said.

"It might be a good idea to hold the coronation tomorrow," said Granny. "It's not good for a kingdom to be without a ruler. It doesn't like it."

She stood up, pushed back her chair, and came and took Tomjon's hand. He followed her unprotestingly across the flagstones and up the steps to the throne, where she put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him gently down onto the threadbare red plush cus.h.i.+ons.

There was a sc.r.a.ping of benches and chairs. He looked around in panic.

"What's happening now?" he said.

"Don't worry," said Granny firmly. "Everyone wants to come and swear loyalty to you. You just nod graciously and ask everyone what they do and if they enjoy it. Oh, and you'd better give them the crown back."

Tomjon removed it quickly.

"Why?" he said.

"They want to present it to you."

"But I've already got it!" said Tomjon desperately.

Granny gave a patient sigh.

"Only in the wossname, real sense," she said. "This is more ceremonial."

"You mean unreal?"

"Yes," said Granny. "But much more important."

Tomjon gripped the arms of the throne.

"Fetch me Hwel," he said.

"No, you must do it like that. It's precedent, you see, first you meet the-"

"I said said, fetch me the dwarf. Didn't you hear me, woman?" This time Tomjon got the spin and pitch of his voice just right, but Granny rallied magnificently.