Wyrd Sisters Part 5

There was silence. Finally the duke prompted, "Go on, man."

"Well, it's more that they don't don't pay, you see. We never felt, that is, the old king didn't think...Well, they just don't." pay, you see. We never felt, that is, the old king didn't think...Well, they just don't."

The duke laid a hand on his wife's arm.

"I see," he said coldly. "Very well. You may go."

The chamberlain gave him a brief nod of relief and scuttled crabwise from the hall.

"Well!" said the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Indeed."

"That was how your family used to run a kingdom, was it? You had a positive duty duty to kill your cousin. It was clearly in the interests of the species," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "The weak don't deserve to survive." to kill your cousin. It was clearly in the interests of the species," said the d.u.c.h.ess. "The weak don't deserve to survive."

The duke s.h.i.+vered. She would keep on reminding him. He didn't, on the whole, object to killing people, or at least ordering them to be killed and then watching it happen. But killing a kinsman rather stuck in the throat or-he recalled-the liver.

"Quite so," he managed. "Of course, there would appear to be many witches, and it might be difficult to find the three that were on the moor."

"That doesn't matter."

"Of course not."

"Put matters in hand."

"Yes, my love."

Matters in hand. He'd put matters in hand all right. If he closed his eyes he could see the body tumbling down the steps. Had there been a hiss of shocked breath, down in the darkness of the hall? He'd been certain they were alone. Matters in hand! He'd tried to wash the blood off his hand. If he could wash the blood off, he told himself, it wouldn't have happened. He'd scrubbed and scrubbed. Scrubbed still he screamed.

Granny wasn't at home in public houses. She sat stiffly to attention behind her port-and-lemon, as if it were a s.h.i.+eld against the lures of the world.

Nanny Ogg, on the other hand, was enthusiastically downing her third drink and, Granny thought sourly, was well along that path which would probably end up with her usual dancing on the table, showing her petticoats and singing "The Hedgehog Can Never be b.u.g.g.e.red at All."

The table was covered with copper coins. Vitoller and his wife sat at either end, counting. It was something of a race.

Granny considered Mrs. Vitoller as she s.n.a.t.c.hed farthings from under her husband's fingers. She was an intelligent-looking woman, who appeared to treat her husband much as a sheepdog treats a favorite lamb. The complexities of the marital relations.h.i.+p were known to Granny only from a distance, in the same way that an astronomer can view the surface of a remote and alien world, but it had already occurred to her that a wife to Vitoller would have to be a very special woman with bottomless reserves of patience and organizational ability and nimble fingers.

"Mrs. Vitoller," she said eventually, "may I make so bold as to ask if your union has been blessed with fruit?"

The couple looked blank.

"She means-" Nanny Ogg began.

"No, I see," said Mrs. Vitoller, quietly. "No. We had a little girl once."

A small cloud hung over the table. For a second or two Vitoller looked merely human-sized, and much older. He stared at the small pile of cash in front of him.

"Only, you see, there is this child," said Granny, indicating the baby in Nanny Ogg's arms. "And he needs a home."

The Vitollers stared. Then the man sighed.

"It is no life for a child," he said. "Always moving. Always a new town. And no room for schooling. They say that's very important these days." But his eyes didn't look away.

Mrs. Vitoller said, "Why does he need a home?"

"He hasn't got one," said Granny. "At least, not one where he would be welcome."

The silence continued. Then Mrs. Vitoller said, "And you, who ask this, you are by way of being his-?"

"G.o.dmothers," said Nanny Ogg promptly. Granny was slightly taken aback. It never would have occurred to her.

Vitoller played abstractly with the coins in front of him. His wife reached out across the table and touched his hand, and there was a moment of unspoken communion. Granny looked away. She had grown expert at reading faces, but there were times when she preferred not to.

"Money is, alas, tight-" Vitoller began.

"But it will stretch," said his wife firmly.

"Yes. I think it will. We should be happy to take care of him."

Granny nodded, and fished in the deepest recesses of her cloak. At last she produced a small leather bag, which she tipped out onto the table. There was a lot of silver, and even a few tiny gold coins.

"This should take care of-" she groped-"nappies and suchlike. Clothes and things. Whatever."

"A hundred times over, I should think," said Vitoller weakly. "Why didn't you mention this before?"

"If I'd had to buy you, you wouldn't be worth the price."

"But you don't know anything about us!" said Mrs. Vitoller.

"We don't, do we?" said Granny, calmly. "Naturally we'd like to hear how he gets along. You could send us letters and suchlike. But it would not be a good idea to talk about all this after you've left, do you see? For the sake of the child."

Mrs. Vitoller looked at the two old women.

"There's something else here, isn't there?" she said. "Something big behind all this?"

Granny hesitated, and then nodded.

"But it would do us no good at all to know it?"

Another nod.

Granny stood up as several actors came in, breaking the spell. Actors had a habit of filling all the s.p.a.ce around them.

"I have other things to see to," she said. "Please excuse me."

"What's his name?" said Vitoller.

"Tom," said Granny, hardly hesitating.

"John," said Nanny. The two witches exchanged glances. Granny won.

"Tom John," she said firmly, and swept out.

She met a breathless Magrat outside the door.

"I found a box," she said. "It had all the crowns and things in. So I put it in, like you said, right underneath everything."

"Good," said Granny.

"Our crown looked really tatty compared to the others!"

"It just goes to show, doesn't it," said Granny. "Did anyone see you?"

"No, everyone was too busy, but-" Magrat hesitated, and blushed.

"Out with it, girl."

"Just after that a man came up and pinched my bottom." Magrat went a deep crimson and slapped her hand over her mouth.

"Did he?" said Granny. "And then what?"

"And then, and then-"

"Yes?"

"He said, he said-"

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'Hallo, my lovely, what are you doing tonight?'"

Granny ruminated on this for a while and then she said, "Old Goodie Whemper, she didn't get out and about much, did she?"

"It was her leg, you know," said Magrat.

"But she taught you all the midwifery and everything?"

"Oh, yes, that that," said Magrat. "I done lots."

"But-" Granny hesitated, groping her way across unfamiliar territory-"she never talked about what you might call the previous previous."

"Sorry?"

"You know," said Granny, with an edge of desperation in her voice. "Men and such."

Magrat looked as if she was about to panic. "What about them?"

Granny Weatherwax had done many unusual things in her time, and it took a lot to make her refuse a challenge. But this time she gave in.

"I think," she said helplessly, "that it might be a good idea if you have a quiet word with Nanny Ogg one of these days. Fairly soon."

There was a cackle of laughter from the window behind them, a c.h.i.n.k of gla.s.ses, and a thin voice raised in song: "-with a giraffe, if you stand on a stool. But the hedgehog-"

Granny stopped listening. "Only not just now," she added.

The troupe got under way a few hours before sunset, their four carts lurching off down the road that led toward the Sto plains and the big cities. Lancre had a town rule that all mummers, mountebanks and other potential criminals were outside the gates by sundown; it didn't offend anyone really because the town had no walls to speak of, and no one much minded if people nipped back in again after dark. It was the look of the thing that counted.

The witches watched from Magrat's cottage, using Nanny Ogg's ancient green crystal ball.

"It's about time you learned how to get sound on this thing," Granny muttered. She gave it a nudge, filling the image with ripples.

"It was very strange," said Magrat. "In those carts. The things they had! Paper trees, and all kinds of costumes, and-" she waved her hands-"there was this great big picture of forn parts, with all temples and things all rolled up. It was beautiful."

Granny grunted.

"I thought it was amazing the way all those people became kings and things, didn't you? It was like magic."

"Magrat Garlick, what are you saying? It was just paint and paper. Anyone could see that."

Magrat opened her mouth to speak, ran the ensuing argument through her head, and shut it again.

"Where's Nanny?" she said.

"She's lying out on the lawn," said Granny. "She felt a bit poorly." And from outside came the sound of Nanny Ogg being poorly at the top of her voice.

Magrat sighed.

"You know," she said, "if we are are his G.o.dmothers, we ought to have given him three gifts. It's traditional." his G.o.dmothers, we ought to have given him three gifts. It's traditional."

"What are you talking about, girl?"

"Three good witches are supposed to give the baby three gifts. You know, like good looks, wisdom and happiness." Magrat pressed on defiantly. "That's how it used to be done in the old days."

"Oh, you mean gingerbread cottages and all that," said Granny dismissively. "Spinning wheels and pumpkins and p.r.i.c.king your finger on rose thorns and similar. I could never be having with all that."

She polished the ball reflectively.

"Yes, but-" Magrat said. Granny glanced up at her. That was Magrat for you. Head full of pumpkins. Everyone's fairy G.o.dmother, for two pins. But a good soul, underneath it all. Kind to small furry animals. The sort of person who worried about baby birds falling out of nests.

"Look, if it makes you any happier," she muttered, surprised at herself. She waved her hands vaguely over the image of the departing carts. "What's it to be-wealth, beauty?"