It ignored them all and strutted slowly to the fallen Queen. Magrat pulled herself to her feet and hefted the axe uncertainly.
The Queen uncoiled, leaping up and raising her hands, her mouth framing the first words of some curse—
The King held out a hand, and said nothing.
Only Magrat heard it.
Something about meeting by moonlight, she said later.
And they awoke.
The sun was well over the Rim. People pulled themselves to their feet, staring at one another.
There was not an elf in sight.
Nanny Ogg was the first to speak. Witches can generally come to terms with what actually ('s, instead of insisting on what ought to be.
She looked up at the moors. "The first thing we do," she said, "the first thing, is put back the stones."
"The second thing," corrected Magrat.
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-"
"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 me 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.
But it seemed to Ponder Stibbons that the ritual wobbled a bit at this point.
It seemed, in fact, that just as he was about to lower the crown on the bride's head he glanced across the hall to where the skinny old witch was standing. And nearly everyone else did too, including the bride.
The old witch nodded very slightly.
Magrat was crowned.
Wack-fol-a-diddle, etc.
The bride and groom stood side by side, shaking hands with the long line of guests in that dazed fashion normal at this point in the ceremony.
"I'm sure you'll be very happy-"
"Thank you."
"Ook!"
"Thank you."
"Nail it to the counter, Lord Ferguson, and damn the cheesemongers!"
"Thank you."
"Can I kiss the bride?"
It dawned on Verence that he was being addressed by fresh air. He looked down.
"I'm sorry," he said, "you are-?"
"My card," said Casanunda.
Verence read it. His eyebrows rose.
"Ah," he said. "Uh. Urn. Well, well, well. Number two, eh?"
"I try harder," said Casanunda.
Verence looked around guiltily, and then bent down until his mouth was level with the dwarfs ear.
"Could I have a word with you in a minute or two?"
The Lancre Morris Men got together again for the first time at the reception. They found it hard to talk to one another. Several of them jigged up and down absentmindedly as they talked.
"All right," said Jason, "anyone remember? Really remember?"
"I remember the start," said Tailor the other weaver.
"Definitely remember the start. And the dancing in the woods. But the Entertainment-"
"There was elves in it," said Tinker the tinker. "That's why it all got buggered up," said Thatcher the carter. "There was a lot of shouting, too."
"There was someone with horns on," said Carter, "and a great big-"
"It was all," said Jason, "a bit of a dream."
"Hey, look over there, Carter," said Weaver, winking at the others, "there's that monkey. You've got something to ask it, ain't you?"
Carter blinked. "Coo, yes," he said.
"Shouldn't waste a golden opportunity if I was you," said Weaver, with the happy malice often shown by the clever to the simple.
The Librarian was chatting to Ponder and the Bursar. He looked around as Carter prodded him.
"You've been over to Slice, then, have you?" he said, in his cheery open way.
The Librarian gave him a look of polite incomprehension.
"Oook?"
Carter looked perplexed.
"That's where you put your nut, ain't it?"
The Librarian gave him another odd look, and shook his head.
"Oook."
"Weaver!" Carter shouted, "the monkey says he didn't put his nut where the sun don't shine! You said he did! You didn't, did you? He said you did." He turned to the Librarian. "He didn't. Weaver. See, I knew you'd got it wrong. You're daft. There's no monkeys in Slice."
Silence flowed outward from the two of them.
Ponder Stibbons held his breath.
"This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here."
The Librarian picked up a large bottle from the table. He tapped Carter on the shoulder. Then he poured him a large drink and patted him on the head.
Ponder relaxed and turned back to what he was doing. He'd tied a knife to a bit of string and was gloomily watching it spin round and round . . .
On his way home that night Weaver was picked up by a mysterious assailant and dropped into the Lancre. No one ever found out why. Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian ones. They're not all that subtle.
Others went home that night.
"She'll be getting ideas above her station in life," said Granny Weatherwax, as the two witches strolled through the scented air.
"She's a queen. That's pretty high," said Nanny Ogg. "Almost as high as witches."
"Yes . . . well . . . but you ain't got to give yourself airs," said Granny Weatherwax. "We're advantaged, yes, but we act with modesty and we don't Put Ourselves Forward. No one could say I haven't been decently modest all my life."
"You've always been a bit of a shy violet, I've always said," said Nanny Ogg. "I'm always telling people, when it comes to humility you won't find anyone more humile than Esme Weatherwax."
"Always keep myself to myself and minded my own business-"
"Barely known you were there half the time," said Nanny Ogg.
"I was talking, Gytha."
"Sorry." They walked along in silence for a while. It was a warm dry evening. Birds sang in the trees.
Nanny said, "Funny to think of our Magrat being married and everything."
"What do you mean, everything?"
"Well, you know — married," said Nanny. "I gave her a few tips. Always wear something in bed. Keeps a man interested."
"You always wore your hat."
"Right." Nanny waved a sausage on a stick. She always believed in stocking up on any free food that was available.
"I thought the wedding feast was very good, didn't you? And Magrat looked radiant, I thought."
"I thought she looked hot and flustered."
"That is radiant, with brides."
"You're right, though," said Granny Weatherwax, who was walking a little way ahead. "It was a good dinner. I never had this Vegetarian Option stuff before."
"When I married Mr. . Ogg, we had three dozen oysters at our wedding feast. Mind you, they didn't all work."
"And I like the way they give us all a bit o' the wedding cake in a little bag," said Granny.
"Right. You know, they says, if you puts a bit under your pillow, you dream of your future husb . . ." Nanny Ogg's tongue tripped over itself.
She stopped, embarrassed, which was unusual in an Ogg.
"It's all right," said Granny "I don't mind."
"Sorry, Esme."
"Everything happens somewhere. I know. I know. Everything happens somewhere. So it's all the same in the end."
"That's very continuinuinuum thinking, Esme."
"Cake's nice," said Granny, "but. . . right now . . . don't know why . . . what I could really do with, Gytha, right now . . . is a sweet."
The last word hung in the evening air like the echo of a gunshot.
Nanny stopped. Her hand flew to her pocket, where the usual bag of fluff-encrusted boiled sweets resided. She stared at the back of Esme Weatherwax's head, at the tight bun of grey hair under the brim of the pointy hat.
"Sweet?" she said.
"I expect you've got another bag now," said Granny, without looking around.
"Esme-"
"You got anything to say, Gytha? About bags of sweets?"
Granny Weatherwax still hadn't turned around.
Nanny looked at her boots.
"No, Esme," she said meekly.
"I knew you'd go up to the Long Man, you know. How'd you get in?"
"Used one of the special horseshoes."
Granny nodded. "You didn't ought to have brung him into it, Gytha."
"Yes, Esme."
"He's as tricky as she is."
"Yes, Esme."
"You're trying preemptive meekness on me."
"Yes, Esme."
They walked a little further.
"What was that dance your Jason and his men did when they'd got drunk?" said Granny.
"It's the Lancre Stick and Bucket Dance, Esme."
"It's legal, is it?"
"Technically they shouldn't do it when there's women present," said Nanny. "Otherwise it's sexual morrisment."
"And I thought Magrat was very surprised when you recited that poem at the reception."
"Poem?"
"The one where you did the gestures."
"Oh, that poem."
"I saw Verence making notes on his napkin."
Nanny reached again into the shapeless recesses of her clothing and produced an entire bottle of champagne you could have sworn there was no room for.
"Mind you, I thought she looked happy," she said. "Standing there wearing about half of a torn muddy dress and chain-mail underneath. Hey, d'you know what she told me?"
"What?"
"You know that ole painting of Queen Ynci? You know, the one with the iron bodice? Her with all the spikes and knives on her chariot? Well, she said she was sure the . . . the spirit of Ynci was helping her. She said she wore the armour and she did things she'd never dare do."
"My word," said Granny, noncommittally.
"Funny ole world," agreed Nanny.
They walked in silence for a while.
"So you didn't tell her that Queen Ynci never existed, then?"
"No point."
"Old King Lully invented her entirely 'cos he thought we needed a bit of romantic history. He was a bit mad about that. He even had the armour made."
"I know. My great-grandma's husband hammered it out of a tin bath and a couple of saucepans."
"But you didn't think you ought to tell her that?"
"No."
Granny nodded.
"Funny thing," she said, "even when Magrat's completely different, she's just the same."
Nanny Ogg produced a wooden spoon from somewhere in her apron. Then she raised her hat and carefully lifted down a bowl of cream, custard, and jelly which she had secreted there[44].
"Huh. I really don't know why you pinches food the whole time," said Granny. "Verence'd give you a bathful of the stuff if you asked. You know he don't touch custard himself."
"More fun this way," said Nanny. "I deserve a bit of fun."
There was a rustling in the thick bushes and the unicorn burst through.
It was mad. It was angry. It was in a world where it did not belong. And it was being driven.
It pawed the ground a hundred yards away, and lowered its horn.
"Whoops," said Nanny, dropping her just desserts. "Come on. There's a tree here, come on."
Granny Weatherwax shook her head.
"No. I ain't runnin' this time. She couldn't get me before and she's tryin' through an animal, eh?"
"Will you look at the size of the horn on that thing?"
"I can see clear enough," said Granny calmly.
The unicorn lowered its head and charged. Nanny Ogg reached the nearest tree with low branches and leapt upward. . .
Granny Weatherwax folded her arms.
"Come on, Esme!"
"No. I ain't been thinking clear enough, but I am now. There's some things I don't have to run from."
The white shape bulleted down the avenue of trees, a thousand pounds of muscle behind twelve inches of glistening horn. Steam swirled behind it.
"Esme!"
Circle time was ending. Besides, she knew now why her mind had felt so unravelled, and that was a help. She couldn't hear the ghostly thoughts of all the other Esme Weatherwaxes anymore.
Perhaps some lived in a world ruled by elves. Or had died long ago. Or were living what they thought were happy lives. Granny Weatherwax seldom wished for anything, because wishing was soppy, but she felt a tiny regret that she'd never be able to meet them.
Perhaps some were going to die, now, here on this path. Everything you did meant that a million copies of you did something else. Some were going to die. She'd sensed their future deaths . . . the deaths of Esme Weatherwax. And couldn't save them, because chance did not work like that.
On a million hillsides the girl ran, on a million bridges the girl chose, on a million paths the woman stood. . .
All different, all one.
All she could do for all of them was be herself, here and now, as hard as she could.
She stuck out a hand.
A few yards away the unicorn hit an invisible wall. Its legs flailed as it tried to stop, its body contorted in pain, and it slid the rest of the way to Granny's feet on its back.
"Gytha," said Granny, as the beast tried to get upright, "you'll take off your stockings and knot 'em into a halter and pass it to me carefully."
"Esme. . ."
"What?"
"Ain't got no stockings on, Esme."
"What about the lovely red and white pair I gave you on Hogswatchnight? I knitted 'em myself. You know how I hates knitting."
"Well, it's a warm night. I likes to, you know, let the air circulate."
"I had the devil of a time with the heels."
"Sorry, Esme."
"At least you'll be so good as to run up to my place and bring everything that's in the bottom of the dresser."
"Yes, Esme."
"But before that you'll call in at your Jason's and tell him to get the forge good and hot."
Nanny Ogg stared down at the struggling unicorn. It seemed to be stuck, terrified of Granny but at the same time quite unable to escape.
"Oh, Esme, you're never going to ask our Jason to-"
"I won't ask him to do anything. And I ain't asking you, neither."
Granny Weatherwax removed her hat, skimming it into the bushes. Then, her eyes never leaving the animal, she reached up to the iron-grey bun of her hair and removed a few crucial pins.
The bun uncoiled a waking snake of fine hair, which unwound down to her waist when she shook her head a couple of times.
Nanny watched in paralysed fascination as she reached up again and broke a single hair at its root.
Granny Weatherwax's hands made a complicated motion in the air as she made a noose out of something almost too thin to see. She ignored the thrashing horn and dropped it over the unicorn's neck. Then she pulled.
Struggling, its unshod hooves kicking up great clods of mud, the unicorn struggled to its feet.
"That'll never hold it," said Nanny, sidling around the tree.
"I could hold it with a cobweb, Gytha Ogg. With a cobweb. Now go about your business."
"Yes, Esme."
The unicorn threw back its head and screamed.
Half the town was waiting as Granny led the beast into Lancre, hooves skidding on the cobbles, because when you tell Nanny Ogg you tell everyone.
It danced at the end of the impossibly thin tether, kicking out at the terminally unwary, but never quite managing to pull free.
Jason Ogg, still in his best clothes, was standing nervously at the open doorway to the forge. Superheated air vibrated over the chimney.
"Mister Blacksmith," said Granny Weatherwax, "I have a job for you."
"Er," said Jason, "that's a unicorn, is that."
"Correct."
The unicorn screamed again, and rolled mad red eyes at Jason.
"No one's ever put shoes on a unicorn," said Jason.
"Think of this," said Granny Weatherwax, "as your big moment."
The crowd clustered round, trying to see and hear while keeping out of the way of the hooves.
Jason rubbed his chin with his hammer.
"I don't know-"
"Listen to me, Jason Ogg," said Granny, hauling on the hair as the creature skittered around in a circle, "you can shoe anything anyone brings you. And there's a price for that, ain't there?"
Jason gave Nanny Ogg a panic-stricken look. She had the grace to look embarrassed.
"She never told me about it," said Granny, with her usual ability to read Nanny's expression through the back of her own head.
She leaned closer to Jason, almost hanging from the plunging beast. "The price for being able to shoe anything, anything that anyone brings you . . . is having to shoe anything anyone brings you. The price for being the best is always . . . having to be the best. And you pays it, same as me."
The unicorn kicked several inches of timber out of the door frame.
"But iron-" said Jason. "And nails-"
"Yes?"
"Iron'll kill it," said Jason. "If I nail iron to 'n, I'll kill 'n. Killing's not part of it. I've never killed anything. I was up all night with that ant, it never felt a thing. I won't hurt a living thing that never done me no harm."
"Did you get that stuff from my dresser, Gytha?"
"Yes, Esme."
"Bring it in here, then. And you, Jason, you just get that forge hot."
"But if I nail iron to it I'll-"
"Did I say anything about iron?"
The horn took a stone out of the wall a foot from Jason's head. He gave in.
"You'll have to come in to keep it calm, then," he said. "I've never shod a stallion like this'n without two men and a boy a-hanging on to it."
"It'll do what it's told," Granny promised. "It can't cross me."
"It murdered old Scrope," said Nanny Ogg. "I wouldn't mind him killing it."
"Then shame on you, woman," said Granny "It's an animal. Animals can't murder. Only us superior races can murder. That's one of the things that sets us apart from animals. Give me that sack."
She towed the fighting animal through the big double doors and a couple of the villagers hurriedly swung them shut. A moment later a hoof kicked a hole in the planking.
Ridcully arrived at a run, his huge crossbow slung over his shoulder.
"They told me the unicorn had turned up again!"
Another board splintered.
"In there?"
Nanny nodded.
"She dragged it all the way down from the woods," she said.
"But the damn thing's savage!"
Nanny Ogg rubbed her nose. "Yes, well . . . but she's qualified, ain't she? When it comes to unicorn taming. Nothing to do with witchcraft."
"What d'you mean?"
"I thought there was some things everyone knew about trapping unicorns," said Nanny archly. "Who could trap 'em, is what I am delicately hintin' at. She always could run faster'n you, could Esme. She could outdistance any man."
Ridcully stood there with his mouth open.
"Now, me," said Nanny, "I'd always trip over first ole tree root I came to. Took me ages to find one, sometimes."
"You mean after I went she never-"
"Don't get soft ideas. It's all one at our time o'life anyway," said Nanny "It'd never have crossed her mind if you hadn't turned up." An associated thought seemed to strike her. "You haven't seen Casanunda, have you?"
"'Ello, my little rosebud," said a cheerful, hopeful voice.
Nanny didn't even turn around.
"You do turn up where people aren't looking," she said.
"Famed for it, Mrs. Ogg."
There was silence from inside the forge. Then they could make out the tap-tap-tap of Jason's hammer.
"What they doing in there?" said Ridcully.
"It's stopping it kicking, whatever it is," said Nanny
"What was in the sack, Mrs. Ogg?" said Casanunda.
"What she told me to get," said Nanny "Her old silver tea set. Family heirloom. I've only ever seen it but twice, and once was just now when I put it in the sack. I don't think she's ever used it. It's got a cream jug shaped like a humorous cow."
More people had arrived outside the forge. The crowd stretched all the way across the square.
The hammering stopped. Jason's voice, quite close, said:
"We're coming out now."
"They're coming out now," said Nanny
"What'd she say?"
"She said they're coming out now."
"They're coming out now!"
The crowd pulled back. The doors swung open.
Granny emerged, leading the unicorn. It walked sedately, muscles moving under its white coat like frogs in oil. And its hooves clattered on the cobbles. Ridcully couldn't help noticing how they shone.
It walked politely alongside the witch until she reached the centre of the square. Then she turned it loose, and gave it a light slap on the rump.
It whinnied softly, turned, and galloped down the street, toward the forest. . .
Nanny Ogg appeared silently behind Granny Weatherwax as she watched it go.
"Silver shoes?" she said quietly "They'll last no time at all."
"And silver nails. They'll last for long enough," said Granny, speaking to the world in general. "And she'll never get it back, though she calls it for a thousand years."
"Shoeing the unicorn," said Nanny, shaking her head. "Only you'd think of shoeing a unicorn, Esme."
"I've been doing it all my life," said Granny.
Now the unicorn was a speck on the moor land. As they watched, it disappeared into the evening gloom.
Nanny Ogg sighed, and broke whatever spell there was.
"So that's it, then."
"Yes."
"Are you going to the dance up at the castle?"
"Are you?"
"Well. . . Mr. Casanunda did ask if I could show him the Long Man. You know. Properly. I suppose it's him being a dwarf. They're very interested in earthworks."
"Can't get enough of them," said Casanunda.
Granny rolled her eyes.
"Act your age, Gytha."
"Act? Don't have to act, can do it automatic," said Nanny. "Acting half my age . . . now that's the difficult trick. Anyway, you didn't answer me."
To the surprise of Nanny, and of Ridcully, and possibly even of Granny Weatherwax herself, she slipped her arm around Ridcully's arm.
"Mr. Ridcully and I are going to have a stroll down to the bridge."
"We are?" said Ridcully
"Oh, that's nice."
"Gytha Ogg, if you keep on looking at me like that I
shall give you a right ding around the ear."
"Sorry, Esme," said Nanny.
"Good."
"I expect you want to talk about old times," Nanny volunteered.
"Maybe old times. Maybe other times." The unicorn reached the forest, and galloped onward.
The waters of the Lancre gushed below. No one crossed the same water twice, even on a bridge.
Ridcully dropped a pebble. It went plunk.
"It all works out," said Granny Weatherwax, "somewhere. Your young wizard knows that, he just puts daft words around it. He'd be quite bright, if only he'd look at what's in front of him."
"He wants to stay here for a while," said Ridcully
gloomily. He flicked another pebble into the depths. "Seems fascinated by the stones. I can't say no, can I? The king's all for it. He says other kings have always had fools, so he'll try having a wise man around, just in case that works better."
Granny laughed. "And there's young Diamanda going to be up and about any day now," she said. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing. That's the thing about the future. It could turn out to be anything. And everything."
She picked up a pebble. It hit the water at the same time as one of Ridcully's own, making a double plunk.
"Do you think," said Ridcully, "that . . . somewhere . . .
it all went right?"
"Yes. Here!" Granny softened at the sight of his sagging shoulders.
"But there, too," she said.
"What?"
"I mean that somewhere Mustrum Ridcully married Esmerelda Weatherwax and they lived-" Granny gritted her teeth "-lived happily ever after. More or less. As much as anyone does."
"How d'you know?"
"I've been picking up bits of her memories. She seemed happy enough. And I ain't easily pleased."
"How can you do that?"
"I try to be good at everything I do."
"Did she say anything about-"
"She didn't say nothing! She don't know we exist! Don't ask questions! It's enough to know that everything happens somewhere, isn't it?"
Ridcully tried to grin.
"Is that the best you can tell me?" he said.
"It's the best there is. Or the next best thing."
* * *
Where does it end[45]?
On a summer night, with couples going their own ways, and silky purple twilight growing between the trees. From the castle, long after the celebrations had ended, faint laughter and the ringing of little silver bells. And from the empty hillside, only the silence of the elves.
The Queen uncoiled, leaping up and raising her hands, her mouth framing the first words of some curse—
The King held out a hand, and said nothing.
Only Magrat heard it.
Something about meeting by moonlight, she said later.
And they awoke.
The sun was well over the Rim. People pulled themselves to their feet, staring at one another.
There was not an elf in sight.
Nanny Ogg was the first to speak. Witches can generally come to terms with what actually ('s, instead of insisting on what ought to be.
She looked up at the moors. "The first thing we do," she said, "the first thing, is put back the stones."
"The second thing," corrected Magrat.
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-"
"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 me 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.
But it seemed to Ponder Stibbons that the ritual wobbled a bit at this point.
It seemed, in fact, that just as he was about to lower the crown on the bride's head he glanced across the hall to where the skinny old witch was standing. And nearly everyone else did too, including the bride.
The old witch nodded very slightly.
Magrat was crowned.
Wack-fol-a-diddle, etc.
The bride and groom stood side by side, shaking hands with the long line of guests in that dazed fashion normal at this point in the ceremony.
"I'm sure you'll be very happy-"
"Thank you."
"Ook!"
"Thank you."
"Nail it to the counter, Lord Ferguson, and damn the cheesemongers!"
"Thank you."
"Can I kiss the bride?"
It dawned on Verence that he was being addressed by fresh air. He looked down.
"I'm sorry," he said, "you are-?"
"My card," said Casanunda.
Verence read it. His eyebrows rose.
"Ah," he said. "Uh. Urn. Well, well, well. Number two, eh?"
"I try harder," said Casanunda.
Verence looked around guiltily, and then bent down until his mouth was level with the dwarfs ear.
"Could I have a word with you in a minute or two?"
The Lancre Morris Men got together again for the first time at the reception. They found it hard to talk to one another. Several of them jigged up and down absentmindedly as they talked.
"All right," said Jason, "anyone remember? Really remember?"
"I remember the start," said Tailor the other weaver.
"Definitely remember the start. And the dancing in the woods. But the Entertainment-"
"There was elves in it," said Tinker the tinker. "That's why it all got buggered up," said Thatcher the carter. "There was a lot of shouting, too."
"There was someone with horns on," said Carter, "and a great big-"
"It was all," said Jason, "a bit of a dream."
"Hey, look over there, Carter," said Weaver, winking at the others, "there's that monkey. You've got something to ask it, ain't you?"
Carter blinked. "Coo, yes," he said.
"Shouldn't waste a golden opportunity if I was you," said Weaver, with the happy malice often shown by the clever to the simple.
The Librarian was chatting to Ponder and the Bursar. He looked around as Carter prodded him.
"You've been over to Slice, then, have you?" he said, in his cheery open way.
The Librarian gave him a look of polite incomprehension.
"Oook?"
Carter looked perplexed.
"That's where you put your nut, ain't it?"
The Librarian gave him another odd look, and shook his head.
"Oook."
"Weaver!" Carter shouted, "the monkey says he didn't put his nut where the sun don't shine! You said he did! You didn't, did you? He said you did." He turned to the Librarian. "He didn't. Weaver. See, I knew you'd got it wrong. You're daft. There's no monkeys in Slice."
Silence flowed outward from the two of them.
Ponder Stibbons held his breath.
"This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here."
The Librarian picked up a large bottle from the table. He tapped Carter on the shoulder. Then he poured him a large drink and patted him on the head.
Ponder relaxed and turned back to what he was doing. He'd tied a knife to a bit of string and was gloomily watching it spin round and round . . .
On his way home that night Weaver was picked up by a mysterious assailant and dropped into the Lancre. No one ever found out why. Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian ones. They're not all that subtle.
Others went home that night.
"She'll be getting ideas above her station in life," said Granny Weatherwax, as the two witches strolled through the scented air.
"She's a queen. That's pretty high," said Nanny Ogg. "Almost as high as witches."
"Yes . . . well . . . but you ain't got to give yourself airs," said Granny Weatherwax. "We're advantaged, yes, but we act with modesty and we don't Put Ourselves Forward. No one could say I haven't been decently modest all my life."
"You've always been a bit of a shy violet, I've always said," said Nanny Ogg. "I'm always telling people, when it comes to humility you won't find anyone more humile than Esme Weatherwax."
"Always keep myself to myself and minded my own business-"
"Barely known you were there half the time," said Nanny Ogg.
"I was talking, Gytha."
"Sorry." They walked along in silence for a while. It was a warm dry evening. Birds sang in the trees.
Nanny said, "Funny to think of our Magrat being married and everything."
"What do you mean, everything?"
"Well, you know — married," said Nanny. "I gave her a few tips. Always wear something in bed. Keeps a man interested."
"You always wore your hat."
"Right." Nanny waved a sausage on a stick. She always believed in stocking up on any free food that was available.
"I thought the wedding feast was very good, didn't you? And Magrat looked radiant, I thought."
"I thought she looked hot and flustered."
"That is radiant, with brides."
"You're right, though," said Granny Weatherwax, who was walking a little way ahead. "It was a good dinner. I never had this Vegetarian Option stuff before."
"When I married Mr. . Ogg, we had three dozen oysters at our wedding feast. Mind you, they didn't all work."
"And I like the way they give us all a bit o' the wedding cake in a little bag," said Granny.
"Right. You know, they says, if you puts a bit under your pillow, you dream of your future husb . . ." Nanny Ogg's tongue tripped over itself.
She stopped, embarrassed, which was unusual in an Ogg.
"It's all right," said Granny "I don't mind."
"Sorry, Esme."
"Everything happens somewhere. I know. I know. Everything happens somewhere. So it's all the same in the end."
"That's very continuinuinuum thinking, Esme."
"Cake's nice," said Granny, "but. . . right now . . . don't know why . . . what I could really do with, Gytha, right now . . . is a sweet."
The last word hung in the evening air like the echo of a gunshot.
Nanny stopped. Her hand flew to her pocket, where the usual bag of fluff-encrusted boiled sweets resided. She stared at the back of Esme Weatherwax's head, at the tight bun of grey hair under the brim of the pointy hat.
"Sweet?" she said.
"I expect you've got another bag now," said Granny, without looking around.
"Esme-"
"You got anything to say, Gytha? About bags of sweets?"
Granny Weatherwax still hadn't turned around.
Nanny looked at her boots.
"No, Esme," she said meekly.
"I knew you'd go up to the Long Man, you know. How'd you get in?"
"Used one of the special horseshoes."
Granny nodded. "You didn't ought to have brung him into it, Gytha."
"Yes, Esme."
"He's as tricky as she is."
"Yes, Esme."
"You're trying preemptive meekness on me."
"Yes, Esme."
They walked a little further.
"What was that dance your Jason and his men did when they'd got drunk?" said Granny.
"It's the Lancre Stick and Bucket Dance, Esme."
"It's legal, is it?"
"Technically they shouldn't do it when there's women present," said Nanny. "Otherwise it's sexual morrisment."
"And I thought Magrat was very surprised when you recited that poem at the reception."
"Poem?"
"The one where you did the gestures."
"Oh, that poem."
"I saw Verence making notes on his napkin."
Nanny reached again into the shapeless recesses of her clothing and produced an entire bottle of champagne you could have sworn there was no room for.
"Mind you, I thought she looked happy," she said. "Standing there wearing about half of a torn muddy dress and chain-mail underneath. Hey, d'you know what she told me?"
"What?"
"You know that ole painting of Queen Ynci? You know, the one with the iron bodice? Her with all the spikes and knives on her chariot? Well, she said she was sure the . . . the spirit of Ynci was helping her. She said she wore the armour and she did things she'd never dare do."
"My word," said Granny, noncommittally.
"Funny ole world," agreed Nanny.
They walked in silence for a while.
"So you didn't tell her that Queen Ynci never existed, then?"
"No point."
"Old King Lully invented her entirely 'cos he thought we needed a bit of romantic history. He was a bit mad about that. He even had the armour made."
"I know. My great-grandma's husband hammered it out of a tin bath and a couple of saucepans."
"But you didn't think you ought to tell her that?"
"No."
Granny nodded.
"Funny thing," she said, "even when Magrat's completely different, she's just the same."
Nanny Ogg produced a wooden spoon from somewhere in her apron. Then she raised her hat and carefully lifted down a bowl of cream, custard, and jelly which she had secreted there[44].
"Huh. I really don't know why you pinches food the whole time," said Granny. "Verence'd give you a bathful of the stuff if you asked. You know he don't touch custard himself."
"More fun this way," said Nanny. "I deserve a bit of fun."
There was a rustling in the thick bushes and the unicorn burst through.
It was mad. It was angry. It was in a world where it did not belong. And it was being driven.
It pawed the ground a hundred yards away, and lowered its horn.
"Whoops," said Nanny, dropping her just desserts. "Come on. There's a tree here, come on."
Granny Weatherwax shook her head.
"No. I ain't runnin' this time. She couldn't get me before and she's tryin' through an animal, eh?"
"Will you look at the size of the horn on that thing?"
"I can see clear enough," said Granny calmly.
The unicorn lowered its head and charged. Nanny Ogg reached the nearest tree with low branches and leapt upward. . .
Granny Weatherwax folded her arms.
"Come on, Esme!"
"No. I ain't been thinking clear enough, but I am now. There's some things I don't have to run from."
The white shape bulleted down the avenue of trees, a thousand pounds of muscle behind twelve inches of glistening horn. Steam swirled behind it.
"Esme!"
Circle time was ending. Besides, she knew now why her mind had felt so unravelled, and that was a help. She couldn't hear the ghostly thoughts of all the other Esme Weatherwaxes anymore.
Perhaps some lived in a world ruled by elves. Or had died long ago. Or were living what they thought were happy lives. Granny Weatherwax seldom wished for anything, because wishing was soppy, but she felt a tiny regret that she'd never be able to meet them.
Perhaps some were going to die, now, here on this path. Everything you did meant that a million copies of you did something else. Some were going to die. She'd sensed their future deaths . . . the deaths of Esme Weatherwax. And couldn't save them, because chance did not work like that.
On a million hillsides the girl ran, on a million bridges the girl chose, on a million paths the woman stood. . .
All different, all one.
All she could do for all of them was be herself, here and now, as hard as she could.
She stuck out a hand.
A few yards away the unicorn hit an invisible wall. Its legs flailed as it tried to stop, its body contorted in pain, and it slid the rest of the way to Granny's feet on its back.
"Gytha," said Granny, as the beast tried to get upright, "you'll take off your stockings and knot 'em into a halter and pass it to me carefully."
"Esme. . ."
"What?"
"Ain't got no stockings on, Esme."
"What about the lovely red and white pair I gave you on Hogswatchnight? I knitted 'em myself. You know how I hates knitting."
"Well, it's a warm night. I likes to, you know, let the air circulate."
"I had the devil of a time with the heels."
"Sorry, Esme."
"At least you'll be so good as to run up to my place and bring everything that's in the bottom of the dresser."
"Yes, Esme."
"But before that you'll call in at your Jason's and tell him to get the forge good and hot."
Nanny Ogg stared down at the struggling unicorn. It seemed to be stuck, terrified of Granny but at the same time quite unable to escape.
"Oh, Esme, you're never going to ask our Jason to-"
"I won't ask him to do anything. And I ain't asking you, neither."
Granny Weatherwax removed her hat, skimming it into the bushes. Then, her eyes never leaving the animal, she reached up to the iron-grey bun of her hair and removed a few crucial pins.
The bun uncoiled a waking snake of fine hair, which unwound down to her waist when she shook her head a couple of times.
Nanny watched in paralysed fascination as she reached up again and broke a single hair at its root.
Granny Weatherwax's hands made a complicated motion in the air as she made a noose out of something almost too thin to see. She ignored the thrashing horn and dropped it over the unicorn's neck. Then she pulled.
Struggling, its unshod hooves kicking up great clods of mud, the unicorn struggled to its feet.
"That'll never hold it," said Nanny, sidling around the tree.
"I could hold it with a cobweb, Gytha Ogg. With a cobweb. Now go about your business."
"Yes, Esme."
The unicorn threw back its head and screamed.
Half the town was waiting as Granny led the beast into Lancre, hooves skidding on the cobbles, because when you tell Nanny Ogg you tell everyone.
It danced at the end of the impossibly thin tether, kicking out at the terminally unwary, but never quite managing to pull free.
Jason Ogg, still in his best clothes, was standing nervously at the open doorway to the forge. Superheated air vibrated over the chimney.
"Mister Blacksmith," said Granny Weatherwax, "I have a job for you."
"Er," said Jason, "that's a unicorn, is that."
"Correct."
The unicorn screamed again, and rolled mad red eyes at Jason.
"No one's ever put shoes on a unicorn," said Jason.
"Think of this," said Granny Weatherwax, "as your big moment."
The crowd clustered round, trying to see and hear while keeping out of the way of the hooves.
Jason rubbed his chin with his hammer.
"I don't know-"
"Listen to me, Jason Ogg," said Granny, hauling on the hair as the creature skittered around in a circle, "you can shoe anything anyone brings you. And there's a price for that, ain't there?"
Jason gave Nanny Ogg a panic-stricken look. She had the grace to look embarrassed.
"She never told me about it," said Granny, with her usual ability to read Nanny's expression through the back of her own head.
She leaned closer to Jason, almost hanging from the plunging beast. "The price for being able to shoe anything, anything that anyone brings you . . . is having to shoe anything anyone brings you. The price for being the best is always . . . having to be the best. And you pays it, same as me."
The unicorn kicked several inches of timber out of the door frame.
"But iron-" said Jason. "And nails-"
"Yes?"
"Iron'll kill it," said Jason. "If I nail iron to 'n, I'll kill 'n. Killing's not part of it. I've never killed anything. I was up all night with that ant, it never felt a thing. I won't hurt a living thing that never done me no harm."
"Did you get that stuff from my dresser, Gytha?"
"Yes, Esme."
"Bring it in here, then. And you, Jason, you just get that forge hot."
"But if I nail iron to it I'll-"
"Did I say anything about iron?"
The horn took a stone out of the wall a foot from Jason's head. He gave in.
"You'll have to come in to keep it calm, then," he said. "I've never shod a stallion like this'n without two men and a boy a-hanging on to it."
"It'll do what it's told," Granny promised. "It can't cross me."
"It murdered old Scrope," said Nanny Ogg. "I wouldn't mind him killing it."
"Then shame on you, woman," said Granny "It's an animal. Animals can't murder. Only us superior races can murder. That's one of the things that sets us apart from animals. Give me that sack."
She towed the fighting animal through the big double doors and a couple of the villagers hurriedly swung them shut. A moment later a hoof kicked a hole in the planking.
Ridcully arrived at a run, his huge crossbow slung over his shoulder.
"They told me the unicorn had turned up again!"
Another board splintered.
"In there?"
Nanny nodded.
"She dragged it all the way down from the woods," she said.
"But the damn thing's savage!"
Nanny Ogg rubbed her nose. "Yes, well . . . but she's qualified, ain't she? When it comes to unicorn taming. Nothing to do with witchcraft."
"What d'you mean?"
"I thought there was some things everyone knew about trapping unicorns," said Nanny archly. "Who could trap 'em, is what I am delicately hintin' at. She always could run faster'n you, could Esme. She could outdistance any man."
Ridcully stood there with his mouth open.
"Now, me," said Nanny, "I'd always trip over first ole tree root I came to. Took me ages to find one, sometimes."
"You mean after I went she never-"
"Don't get soft ideas. It's all one at our time o'life anyway," said Nanny "It'd never have crossed her mind if you hadn't turned up." An associated thought seemed to strike her. "You haven't seen Casanunda, have you?"
"'Ello, my little rosebud," said a cheerful, hopeful voice.
Nanny didn't even turn around.
"You do turn up where people aren't looking," she said.
"Famed for it, Mrs. Ogg."
There was silence from inside the forge. Then they could make out the tap-tap-tap of Jason's hammer.
"What they doing in there?" said Ridcully.
"It's stopping it kicking, whatever it is," said Nanny
"What was in the sack, Mrs. Ogg?" said Casanunda.
"What she told me to get," said Nanny "Her old silver tea set. Family heirloom. I've only ever seen it but twice, and once was just now when I put it in the sack. I don't think she's ever used it. It's got a cream jug shaped like a humorous cow."
More people had arrived outside the forge. The crowd stretched all the way across the square.
The hammering stopped. Jason's voice, quite close, said:
"We're coming out now."
"They're coming out now," said Nanny
"What'd she say?"
"She said they're coming out now."
"They're coming out now!"
The crowd pulled back. The doors swung open.
Granny emerged, leading the unicorn. It walked sedately, muscles moving under its white coat like frogs in oil. And its hooves clattered on the cobbles. Ridcully couldn't help noticing how they shone.
It walked politely alongside the witch until she reached the centre of the square. Then she turned it loose, and gave it a light slap on the rump.
It whinnied softly, turned, and galloped down the street, toward the forest. . .
Nanny Ogg appeared silently behind Granny Weatherwax as she watched it go.
"Silver shoes?" she said quietly "They'll last no time at all."
"And silver nails. They'll last for long enough," said Granny, speaking to the world in general. "And she'll never get it back, though she calls it for a thousand years."
"Shoeing the unicorn," said Nanny, shaking her head. "Only you'd think of shoeing a unicorn, Esme."
"I've been doing it all my life," said Granny.
Now the unicorn was a speck on the moor land. As they watched, it disappeared into the evening gloom.
Nanny Ogg sighed, and broke whatever spell there was.
"So that's it, then."
"Yes."
"Are you going to the dance up at the castle?"
"Are you?"
"Well. . . Mr. Casanunda did ask if I could show him the Long Man. You know. Properly. I suppose it's him being a dwarf. They're very interested in earthworks."
"Can't get enough of them," said Casanunda.
Granny rolled her eyes.
"Act your age, Gytha."
"Act? Don't have to act, can do it automatic," said Nanny. "Acting half my age . . . now that's the difficult trick. Anyway, you didn't answer me."
To the surprise of Nanny, and of Ridcully, and possibly even of Granny Weatherwax herself, she slipped her arm around Ridcully's arm.
"Mr. Ridcully and I are going to have a stroll down to the bridge."
"We are?" said Ridcully
"Oh, that's nice."
"Gytha Ogg, if you keep on looking at me like that I
shall give you a right ding around the ear."
"Sorry, Esme," said Nanny.
"Good."
"I expect you want to talk about old times," Nanny volunteered.
"Maybe old times. Maybe other times." The unicorn reached the forest, and galloped onward.
The waters of the Lancre gushed below. No one crossed the same water twice, even on a bridge.
Ridcully dropped a pebble. It went plunk.
"It all works out," said Granny Weatherwax, "somewhere. Your young wizard knows that, he just puts daft words around it. He'd be quite bright, if only he'd look at what's in front of him."
"He wants to stay here for a while," said Ridcully
gloomily. He flicked another pebble into the depths. "Seems fascinated by the stones. I can't say no, can I? The king's all for it. He says other kings have always had fools, so he'll try having a wise man around, just in case that works better."
Granny laughed. "And there's young Diamanda going to be up and about any day now," she said. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing. That's the thing about the future. It could turn out to be anything. And everything."
She picked up a pebble. It hit the water at the same time as one of Ridcully's own, making a double plunk.
"Do you think," said Ridcully, "that . . . somewhere . . .
it all went right?"
"Yes. Here!" Granny softened at the sight of his sagging shoulders.
"But there, too," she said.
"What?"
"I mean that somewhere Mustrum Ridcully married Esmerelda Weatherwax and they lived-" Granny gritted her teeth "-lived happily ever after. More or less. As much as anyone does."
"How d'you know?"
"I've been picking up bits of her memories. She seemed happy enough. And I ain't easily pleased."
"How can you do that?"
"I try to be good at everything I do."
"Did she say anything about-"
"She didn't say nothing! She don't know we exist! Don't ask questions! It's enough to know that everything happens somewhere, isn't it?"
Ridcully tried to grin.
"Is that the best you can tell me?" he said.
"It's the best there is. Or the next best thing."
* * *
Where does it end[45]?
On a summer night, with couples going their own ways, and silky purple twilight growing between the trees. From the castle, long after the celebrations had ended, faint laughter and the ringing of little silver bells. And from the empty hillside, only the silence of the elves.