Anyone who hadn’t heard about Granny’s iron self-control, which you could bend a horseshoe round, might just have thought they heard her give a tiny sigh of relief.
“Well, it’s about time—” she began.
The excitement up at the castle was just a distant hum down here in the mews. The hawks and falcons sat hunched on their perches, lost in some inner world of stoop and updraft. There was the occasional clink of a chain or flutter of a wing.
Hodgesaargh the falconer was getting ready in the tiny room next door when he felt the change in the air. He stepped out into a silent mews. The birds were all awake, alert, expectant. Even King Henry the eagle, who Hodgesaargh would only go near at the moment when he was wearing full plate armor, was peering around.
You got something like this when there was a rat in the place, but Hodgesaargh couldn’t see one. Perhaps it had gone.
For tonight’s event he’d selected William the buzzard, who could be depended upon. All Hodgesaargh’s birds could be depended upon, but more often than not they could be depended upon to viciously attack him on sight. William, however, thought that she was a chicken, and she was usually safe in company.
But even William was paying a lot of attention to the world, which didn’t often happen unless she’d seen some corn.
Odd, thought Hodgesaargh. And that was all.
The birds went on staring up, as though the roof simply was not there.
Granny Weatherwax lowered her gaze to a red, round and worried face.
“Here, you’re not—” She pulled herself together. “You’re the Wattley boy from over in Slice, aren’t you!”
“Y’g’t…” The boy leaned against the doorjamb and fought for breath. “You g’t—”
“Just take deep breaths. You want a drink of water?”
“You g’t t’—”
“Yes, yes, all right. Just breathe…”
The boy gulped air a few times.
“You got to come to Mrs. Ivy and her baby missus!”
The words came out in one quick stream.
Granny grabbed her hat from its peg by the door and pulled her broomstick out of its lodging in the thatch.
“I thought old Mrs. Patternoster was seeing to her,” she said, ramming her hatpins into place with the urgency of a warrior preparing for sudden battle.
“She says it’s all gone wrong, miss!”
Granny was already running down her garden path.
There was a small drop on the other side of the clearing, with a twenty-foot fall to a bend in the track. The broom hadn’t fired by the time she reached it but she ran on, swinging a leg over the bristles as it plunged.
The magic caught halfway down and her boots dragged across the dead bracken as the broom soared up into the night.
The road wound over the mountains like a dropped ribbon. Up here there was always the sound of the wind.
The highwayman’s horse was a big black stallion. It was also quite possibly the only horse with a ladder strapped behind the saddle.
This was because the highwayman’s name was Casanunda, and he was a dwarf. Most people thought of dwarfs as reserved, cautious, law-abiding and very reticent on matters of the heart and other vaguely connected organs, and this was indeed true of almost all dwarfs. But genetics rolls strange dice on the green baize of life and somehow the dwarfs had produced Casanunda, who preferred fun to money and devoted to women all the passion that other dwarfs reserved for gold.
He also regarded laws as useful things and he obeyed them when it was convenient. Casanunda despised highwaymanning, but it got you out in the fresh air of the countryside which was very good for you, especially when the nearby towns were lousy with husbands carrying a grudge and a big stick.
The trouble was that no one on the road took him seriously. He could stop the coaches all right, but people tended to say, “What? I say, it’s a lowwayman. What’s up? A bit short, are you? Hur, hur, hur,” and he would be forced to shoot them in the knee.
He blew on his hands to warm them, and looked up at the sound of an approaching coach.
He was about to ride out of his meager hiding place in the thicket when he saw the other highwayman trot out from the wood opposite.
The coach came to a halt. Casanunda couldn’t hear what transpired, but the highwayman rode around to one of the doors and leaned down to speak to the occupants…
…and a hand reached out and plucked him off his horse and into the coach.
It rocked on its springs for a while, and then the door burst open and the highwayman tumbled out and lay still on the road.
The coach moved on…
Casanunda waited a little while and then rode down to the body. His horse stood patiently while he untied the ladder and dismounted.
He could tell the highwayman was stone dead. Living people are expected to have some blood in them.
The coach stopped at the top of a rise a few miles farther on, before the road began the long winding fall toward Lancre and the plains.
The four passengers got out and walked to the start of the drop.
The clouds were rolling in behind them but here the air was frosty clear, and the view stretched all the way to the Rim under the moonlight. Down below, scooped out of the mountains, was the little kingdom.
“Gateway to the world,” said the Count de Magpyr.
“And entirely undefended,” said his son.
“On the contrary. Possessed of some extremely effective de-fenses,” said the Count. He smiled in the night. “At least…until now…”
“Witches should be on our side,” said the Countess.
“She will be soon, at any rate,” said the Count. “A most…interesting woman. An interesting family. Uncle used to talk about her grandmother. The Weatherwax women have always had one foot in shadow. It’s in the blood. And most of their power comes from denying it. However,” and his teeth shone as he grinned in the dark, “she will soon find out on which side her bread is buttered.”
“Or her gingerbread is gilded,” said the Countess.
“Ah, yes. How nicely put. That’s the penalty for being a Weatherwax woman, of course. When they get older they start to hear the clang of the big oven door.”
“I’ve heard she’s pretty tough, though,” said the Count’s son. “A very sharp mind.”
“Let’s kill her!” said the Count’s daughter.
“Really, Lacci dear, you can’t kill everything.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“No. I rather like the idea of her being…useful. And she sees everything in black and white. That’s always a trap for the powerful. Oh yes. A mind like that is so easily…led. With a little help.”
There was a whir of wings under the moonlight and something bi-colored landed on the Count’s shoulder.
“And this…” said the Count, stroking the magpie and then letting it go. He pulled a square of white card from an inner pocket of his jacket. Its edge gleamed briefly. “Can you believe it? Has this sort of thing ever happened before? A new world order indeed…”
“Do you have a handkerchief, sir?” said the Countess. “Give it to me, please. You have a few specks…”
She dabbed at his chin and pushed the bloodstained handkerchief back into his pocket.
“There,” she said.
“There are other witches,” said the son, like someone turning over a mouthful that was proving rather tough to chew.
“Oh yes. I hope we will meet them. They could be entertaining.”
The coach went on.
Back in the mountains, the man who had tried to rob the coach managed to get to his feet, which seemed for a moment to be caught in something. He rubbed his neck irritably and looked around for his horse, which he found standing behind some rocks a little way away.
When he tried to lay a hand on the bridle it passed straight through the leather and the horse’s neck, like smoke. The creature reared up and galloped madly away.
It was not, the hi
ghwayman thought muzzily, going to be a good night. Well, he’d be damned if he’d lose a horse as well as some wages. Who the hell were those people? He couldn’t quite remember what had happened in the carriage, but it hadn’t been enjoyable.
The highwayman was of that simple class of men who, having been hit by someone bigger than them, finds someone smaller than them for the purposes of retaliation. Someone else was going to suffer tonight, he vowed. He’d get another horse, at least.
And, on cue, he heard the sound of hoofbeats on the wind. He drew his sword and stepped out into the road.
“Stand and deliver!”
The approaching horse halted obediently a few feet away. This was not going to be such a bad night after all, he thought. It really was a magnificent creature, more of a warhorse than an everyday hack. It was so pale that it shone in the light of the occasional star and, by the look of it, there was silver on its harness.
The rider was heavily wrapped up against the cold.
“Your money or your life!” said the highwayman.
I’m sorry?
“Your money,” said the highwayman, “or your life. Which part of this don’t you understand?”
Oh, I see. Well, I have a small amount of money.
A couple of coins landed on the frosty road. The highwayman scrabbled for them but could not pick them up, a fact that only added to his annoyance.
“It’s your life, then!”
The mounted figure shook its head. I think not. I really do.
It pulled a long curved stick out of a holster. The highwayman had assumed it was a lance, but now a curved blade sprang out and glittered blue along its edges.
I must say that you have an amazing persistence of vitality, said the horseman. It was no so much a voice, more an echo inside the head. If not a presence of mind.
“Who are you?”
I’m Death, said Death. And I really am not here to take your money. Which part of this don’t you understand?
Something fluttered weakly at the window of the castle mews. There was no glass in the frame, just thin wooden slats to allow some passage of air.
And there was a scrabbling, and then a faint pecking, and then silence.
The hawks watched.
Outside the window something went whoomph.
Beams of brilliant light jerked across the far wall and, slowly, the bars began to char.
Nanny Ogg knew that while the actual party would be in the Great Hall all the fun would be outside, in the courtyard around the big fire. Inside it’d be all quails’ eggs, goose-liver jam and little sandwiches that were four to the mouthful. Outside it’d be roasted potatoes floating in vats of butter and a whole stag on a spit. Later on, there’d be a command performance by that man who put weasels down his trousers, a form of entertainment that Nanny ranked higher than grand opera.
As a witch, of course, she’d be welcome anywhere and it was always a good idea to remind the nobs of this, in case they forgot. It was a hard choice, but she decided to stay outside and have a good dinner of venison because, like many old ladies, Nanny Ogg was a bottomless pit for free food. Then she’d go inside and fill the gaps with the fiddly dishes. Besides, they probably had that expensive fizzy wine in there and Nanny had quite a taste for it, provided it was served in a big enough mug. But you needed a good depth of beer before you loaded up on the fancy stuff.
She picked up a tankard, ambled to the front of the queue at the beer barrel, gently nudged aside the head of a man who’d decided to spend the evening lying under the tap, and drew herself a pint.
As she turned back she saw the splay-footed figure of Agnes approaching, still slightly uneasy with the idea of wearing the new pointy hat in public.
“Wotcha, girl,” said Nanny. “Try some of the venison, it’s good stuff.”
Agnes looked doubtfully at the roasting meat. Lancre people looked after the calories and let the vitamins go hang.
“Do you think I could get a salad?” she ventured.
“Hope not,” said Nanny happily
“Lot of people here,” said Agnes.
“Everyone got a invite,” said Nanny. “Magrat was very gracious about that, I thought.”
Agnes craned her head. “Can’t see Granny around anywhere, though.”
“She’ll be inside, tellin’ people what to do.”
“I haven’t seen her around much at all, lately,” said Agnes. “She’s got something on her mind, I think.”
Nanny narrowed her eyes.
“You think so?” she said, adding to herself: you’re getting good, miss.
“It’s just that ever since we heard about the birth,” Agnes waved a plump hand to indicate the general high-cholesterol celebration around them, “she’s been so…stretched, sort of. Twanging.”
Nanny Ogg thumbed some tobacco into her pipe and struck a match on her boot.
“You certainly notice things, don’t you,” she said, puffing away. “Notice, notice, notice. We’ll have to call you Miss Notice.”
“I certainly notice you always fiddle around with your pipe when you’re thinking thoughts you don’t much like,” said Agnes. “It’s displacement activity.”
Through a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke Nanny reflected that Agnes read books. All the witches who’d lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn’t, the reason being that the words got in the way.
“She has been a bit quiet, that’s true,” she said. “Best to let her get on with it.”
“I thought perhaps she was sulking about the priest who’ll be doing the Naming,” said Agnes.
“Oh, old Brother Perdore’s all right,” said Nanny. “Gabbles away in some ancient lingo, keeps it short and then you just give him sixpence for his trouble, fill him up with brandy and load him on his donkey and off he goes.”
“What? Didn’t you hear?” said Agnes. “He’s laid up over in Skund. Broke his wrist and both legs falling off his donkey.”
Nanny Ogg took her pipe out of her mouth.
“Why wasn’t I told?” she said.
“I don’t know, Nanny. Mrs. Weaver told me yesterday.”
“Oo, that woman! I passed her in the street this morning! She could’ve said!”
Nanny poked her pipe back in her mouth as though stabbing all uncommunicative gossips. “How can you break both your legs falling off a donkey?”
“It was going up that little path on the side of Skund Gorge. He fell sixty feet.”
“Oh? Well…that’s a tall donkey, right enough.”
“So the King sent down to the Omnian mission in Ohulan to send us up a priest, apparently,” said Agnes.
“He did what?” said Nanny.
A small gray tent was inexpertly pitched in a field just outside the town. The rising wind made it flap, and tore at the poster which had been pinned onto an easel outside.
It read: GOOD NEWS! OM WELCOMES YOU!!!
In fact no one had turned up to the small introductory service that Mightily Oats had organized that afternoon, but since he had an-nounced one he had gone ahead with it anyway, singing a few cheerful hymns to his own accompaniment on the small portable harmonium and then preaching a very short sermon to the wind and the sky.
Now the Quite Reverend Oats looked at himself in the mirror. He was a bit uneasy about the mirror, to be honest. Mirrors had led to one of the Church’s innumerable schisms, one side saying that since they encouraged vanity they were bad, and the other saying that since they reflected the goodness of Om they were holy. Oats had not quite formed his own opinion, being by nature someone who tries to see something in both sides of every question, but at least the mirrors helped him get his complicated clerical collar on straight.
It was still very new. The Very Reverend Mekkle, who’d taken Pastoral Practice, had advised that the rules about starch were only really a guideline, but Oats hadn’t wanted to put a foot wrong and his collar could have been used as a razor.
H
e carefully lowered his holy turtle pendant into place, noting its gleam with some satisfaction, and picked up his finely printed graduation copy of the Book of Om. Some of his fellow students had spent hours carefully ruffling the pages to give them that certain straight-and-narrow credibility, but Oats had refrained from this as well. Besides, he knew most of it by heart.
Feeling rather guilty, because there had been some admonitions at the college against using holy writ merely for fortune telling, he shut his eyes and let the book flop open at random.
Then he opened his eyes quickly and read the first passage they encountered.
It was somewhere in the middle of Brutha’s Second Letter to the Omish, gently chiding them for not replying to the First Letter to the Omish.
“…silence is an answer that begs three more questions. Seek and you will find, but first you should know what you seek…”
Oh well. He shut the book.
What a place! What a dump. He’d had a short walk after the service, and every path seemed to end in a cliff or a sheer drop. Never had he seen such a vertical country. Things had rustled at him in the bushes, and he’d got his shoes muddy. As for the people he’d met…well, simple ignorant country folk, salt of the earth, obviously, but they’d just stared at him carefully from a distance, as if they were waiting for something to happen to him and didn’t care to be too close to him when it did.
But still, he mused, it did say in Brutha’s Letter to the Simonites that if you wished the light to be seen you had to take it into dark places. And this was certainly a dark place.
He said a small prayer and stepped out into the muddy, windy darkness.
Granny flew high above the roaring treetops, under a half moon.
She distrusted a moon like that. A full moon could only wane, a new moon could only wax, but a half moon, balancing so precariously between light and dark…well, it could do anything.
Witches always lived on the edges of things. She felt the tingle in her hands. It was not just from the frosty air. There was an edge somewhere. Something was beginning.