Carpe Jugulum

  “A shorter fanfare this time, Shawn, I think,” said the King. “While I personally appreciate your skill, an occasion like this calls for something a little simpler than several bars of ‘Pink Hedgehog Rag.’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let us go, then.”

  They went out into the main passage just as Magrat’s group was passing, and the King took her hand.

  Nanny Ogg trailed after them. The King was right, in a way. She did feel…unusual, ill-tempered and snappish, as if she’d put on a vest that was too tight. Well, Granny would be here soon enough, and she knew how to talk to kings.

  You needed a special technique for that, Nanny reasoned; for example, you couldn’t say things like “who died and made you king?” because they’d know. “You and whose army?” was another difficult one, although in this case Verence’s army consisted of Shawn and a troll and was unlikely to be a serious threat to Shawn’s own mother if he wanted to be allowed to eat his tea indoors.

  She pulled Agnes to one side as the procession reached the top of the big staircase and Shawn went on ahead.

  “We’ll get a good view from the minstrel gallery,” she hissed, dragging Agnes into the king oak structure just as the trumpet began the royal fanfare.

  “That’s my boy,” she added proudly, when the final flourish caused a stir.

  “Yes, not many royal fanfares end with ‘shave and a haircut, no legs,’*” said Agnes.

  “Puts people at their ease, though,” said Shawn’s loyal mum.

  Agnes looked down at the throng, and caught sight of the priest again. He was moving through the press of guests.

  “I found him, Nanny,” she said. “He didn’t make it hard, I must say. He won’t try anything in a crowd, will he?”

  “Which one is it?”

  Agnes pointed. Nanny stared, and then turned to her.

  “Sometimes I think the weight of that damn crown is turning Verence’s head,” she said. “I reckon he really doesn’t know what he’s lettin’ into the kingdom. When Esme gets here she’s going to go through this priest like cabbage soup.”

  By now the guests had got themselves sorted out on either side of the red carpet that began at the bottom of the stairs. Agnes glanced up at the royal couple, waiting awkwardly, just out of sight for the appropriate moment to descend, and thought: Granny Weatherwax says you make your own right time. They’re the royal family. All they need to do is walk down the stairs and it’d be the right time. They’re doing it wrong.

  Several of the Lancre guests were occasionally glancing at the big double doors, shut for this official ceremony. They’d be thrown open later, for the more public and enjoyable part, but right now they looked…

  …like doors which would soon creak back and frame a figure against the firelight.

  She could see the image so clearly.

  The exercises Granny had reluctantly given her were working, Perdita thought.

  There was a hurried conversation among the royal party and then Millie hurried back up the stairs and toward the witches.

  “Mag—the Queen says, is Granny Weatherwax coming or not?” she panted.

  “Of course she is,” said Nanny.

  “Only, well, the King’s getting a bit…upset. He said it did say RSVP on the invitation,” said Millie, trying not to meet Nanny eye to eye.

  “Oh, witches never reservups,” said Nanny. “They just come.”

  Millie put her hand in front of her mouth and gave a nervous little cough. She glanced wretchedly toward Magrat, who was making frantic hand signals.

  “Only, well, the Queen says we’d better not hold things up, so, er, would you be godmother, Mrs. Ogg?”

  The wrinkles doubled on Nanny’s face as she smiled.

  “Tell you what,” she said brightly, “I’ll come and sort of stand in until Granny gets here, shall I?”

  Once again, Granny Weatherwax paced up and down in the spartan grayness of her kitchen. Occasionally she’d glance at the floor. There was quite a gap under the door, and sometimes things could be blown anywhere. But she’d already searched a dozen times. She must’ve got the cleanest floor in the country by now. Anyway, it was too late.

  Even so…Uberwald…*

  She strode up and down a few more times.

  “I’ll be blowed if I’ll give ’em the satisfaction,” she muttered.

  She sat down in her rocking chair, stood up again so quickly that the chair almost fell over, and went back to the pacing.

  “I mean, I never been the kind of person to put myself forward,” she said to the air. “I’m not the sort to go where I’m not welcome, I’m sure.”

  She went to make a cup of tea, fumbling with the kettle in shaking hands, and dropped the lid on her sugar bowl, breaking it.

  A light caught her eye. The half moon was visible over the lawn.

  “Anyway, it’s not as if I’ve not got other things to do,” she said. “Can’t all be rushing off to parties the whole time…wouldn’t have gone anyway.”

  She found herself flouncing around the corners of the floor again and thought: if I’d found it, the Wattley boy would have knocked at an empty cottage. I’d have gone and enjoyed meself. And John Ivy’d be sitting alone, now…

  “Drat!”

  That was the worst part about being good—it caught you coming and going.

  She landed in the rocking chair again and pulled her shawl around her, against the chill. She hadn’t kept the fire in. She hadn’t expected to be at home tonight.

  Shadows filled the corners of the room, but she couldn’t be bothered to light the lamp. The candle would have to do.

  As she rocked, glaring at the wall, the shadows lengthened.

  Agnes followed Nanny down into the hall. She probably wasn’t meant to, but very few people will argue with a hat of authority.

  Small countries were normal along this part of the Ramtops. Every glacial valley, separated from its neighbors by a route that required a scramble or, at worst, a ladder, more or less ruled itself. There seemed to Agnes to be any number of kings, even if some of them did their ruling in the evenings after they’d milked the cows. A lot of them were here, because a free meal is not to be sneezed at. There were also some senior dwarfs from Copperhead and, standing well away from them, a group of trolls. They weren’t carrying weapons, so Agnes assumed they were politicians. Trolls weren’t strictly subjects of King Verence, but they were there to say, in official body language, that playing football with human heads was something no one did anymore, much. Hardly at all, really. Not roun’ here, certainly. Dere’s practic’ly a law against it.

  The witches were ushered to the area in front of the thrones, and then Millie scurried away.

  The Omnian priest nodded at them.

  “Good, um, evening,” he said, and completely failed to set fire to anyone. He wasn’t very old and had a rather ripe boil beside his nose. Inside Agnes, Perdita made a face at him.

  Nanny Ogg grunted. Agnes risked a brief smile. The priest blew his nose noisily.

  “You must be some of these, um, witches I’ve heard so much about,” he said. He had an amazing smile. It appeared on his face as if someone had operated a shutter. One moment it wasn’t there, the next moment it was. And then it was gone.

  “Um, yes,” said Agnes.

  “Hah,” said Nanny Ogg, who could haughtily turn her back on people while looking them in the eye.

  “And I am, I am, aaaa…” said the priest. He stopped, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, I am sorry. the mountain air doesn’t agree with me. I am the Quite Reverend Mightily Oats.”

  “You are?” said Agnes. To her amazement, the man began to redden. The more she looked at him, the more she realized that he wasn’t much older than she was.

  “That is, Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats,” he said. “It’s much shorter in Omnian, of course. Have you by any chance heard the Word of Om?”

  “Which one? ‘Fire’?” said Nanny Ogg. “
Hah!”

  The nascent religious war was abruptly cut short by the first official royal fanfare to end with a few bars from the “Hedgehog Cakewalk.” The royal couple began to descend the stairs.

  “And we’ll have none of your heathen ways, thank you very much,” muttered Nanny Ogg behind the pastor. “No sloshing water or oil or sand around or cutting any bits off and if I hears a single word I understand, well, I’m standing behind you with a pointy stick.”*

  From the other side he heard, “He’s not some kind of horrible inquisitor, Nanny!”

  “But my pointy stick’s still a pointy stick, my girl!”

  What’s got into her? Agnes thought, watching the pastor’s ears turn red. That’s the way Granny would act. Perdita added: Perhaps she thinks she’s got to carry on like that because that old bat’s not here yet.

  Agnes was quite shocked at hearing herself think that.

  “You do things our way here, all right?” said Nanny.

  “The, um, King did explain it all to me, um,” said the pastor. “Er, do have anything for a headache. I’m afraid I—”

  “You put the key in one hand and let her grip the crown with the other,” Nanny Ogg went on.

  “Yes, um, he did—”

  “Then you tell her what her name is and her mum’s name and her dad’s name, mumbling a bit over the latter if the mum ain’t sure—”

  “Nanny! This is royalty!”

  “Hah, I could tell you stories, gel…and then, see, you give her to me and I tell her, too, and then I give her back and you tell the people what her name is, an’ then you give her to me, and then I give her to her dad, and he takes her out through the doors and shows her to everyone, everyone throws their hats in the air and shouts ‘hoorah!’ and then it’s all over bar the drinks and horses’ doovers and findin’ your own hat. Start extemporizin’ on the subject of sin and it’ll go hard with you.”

  “What is, um, your role, madam?”

  “I’m the godmother!”

  “Which, um, god?” The young man was trembling slightly.

  “It’s from Old Lancre,” said Agnes hurriedly. “It’s means something like ‘goodmother.’ It’s all right…as witches we believe in religious toleration…”

  “That’s right,” said Nanny Ogg. “But only for the right religions, so you watch your step!”

  The royal parents had reached the thrones. Magrat took her seat and, to Agnes’s amazement, gave her a sly wink.

  Verence didn’t wink. He stood there and coughed loudly.

  “Ahem!”

  “I’ve got a pastille somewhere,” said Nanny, her hand reaching toward her knicker leg.

  “Ahem!” Verence’s eyes darted toward his throne.

  What had appeared to be a gray cushion rolled over, yawned, gave the King a brief glance, and started to wash itself.

  “Oh, Greebo!” said Nanny. “I was wonderin’ where you’d got to…”

  “Could you please remove him, Mrs. Ogg?” said the King.

  Agnes glanced at Magrat. The Queen had half turned away, with her elbow on the arm of the throne and her hand covering her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking.

  Nanny grabbed her cat off the throne.

  “A cat can look at a king,” she said.

  “Not with that expression, I believe,” said Verence. He waved graciously at the assembled company, just as the castle’s clock began to strike midnight.

  “Please begin, Reverend.”

  “I, um, did have a small suitable homily on the subject of, um, hope for the—” the Quite Reverend Oats began, but there was a grunt from Nanny and he suddenly seemed to jerk forward slightly. He blinked once or twice and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “But alas I fear we have no time,” he concluded quickly.

  Magrat leaned over and whispered something in her husband’s ear. Agnes heard him say, “Well, dear, I think we have to, whether she’s here or not…”

  Shawn scurried up, slightly out of breath and with his wig on sideways. He was carrying a cushion. On the faded velvet was the big iron key of the castle.

  Millie Chillum carefully handed the baby to the priest, who held it gingerly.

  It seemed to the royal couple that he suddenly started to speak very hesitantly. Behind him, Nanny Ogg’s was an expression of extreme interest that was nevertheless made up of one hundred percent artificial additives. They also had the impression that the poor man was suffering from frequent attacks of cramp.

  “—we are gathered here together in the sight of…um…one another…”

  “Are you all right, Reverend?” said the King, leaning forward.

  “Never better, sir, um, I assure you,” said Oats miserably, “…and I therefore name thee…that is, you…”

  There was a deep, horrible pause.

  Glassy faced, the priest handed the baby to Millie. Then he removed his hat, took a small scrap of paper from the lining, read it, moved his lips a few times as he said the words to himself, and then replaced the hat on his sweating forehead and took the baby again.

  “I name you…Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre!”

  The shocked silence was suddenly filled.

  “Note Spelling?” said Magrat and Agnes together.

  “Esmerelda?” said Nanny.

  The baby opened her eyes.

  And the doors swung back.

  Choices. It was always choices…

  There’d been that man down in Spackle, the one that’d killed those little kids. The people’d sent for her and she’d looked at him and seen the guilt writhing in his head like a red worm, and then she’d taken them to his farm and showed them where to dig, and he’d thrown himself down and asked her for mercy, because he said he’d been drunk and it’d all been done in alcohol.

  Her words came back to her. She’d said, in sobriety: end it in hemp.

  And they’d dragged him off and hanged him in a hempen rope and she’d gone to watch because she owed him that much, and he’d cursed, which was unfair because hanging is a clean death, or at least cleaner than the one he’d have got if the villagers had dared defy her, and she’d seen the shadow of Death come for him, and then behind Death came the smaller, brighter figures, and then—

  In the darkness, the rocking chair creaked as it thundered back and forth.

  The villagers had said justice had been done, and she’d lost patience and told them to go home, then, and pray to whatever gods they believed in that it was never done to them. The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.

  She shuddered at a memory. Almost as horrible, but not quite.

  The odd thing was, quite a lot of villagers had turned up to his funeral, and there had been mutterings from one or two people on the lines of, yes, well, but overall he wasn’t such a bad chap…and anyway, maybe she made him say it. And she’d got the dark looks.

  Supposing there was justice for all, after all? For every unheeded beggar, every harsh word, every neglected duty, every slight…every choice…Because that was the point, wasn’t it? You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself. You were the one there, on the edge, watching and listening. Never any tears, never any apology, never any regrets…You saved all that up in a way that could be used when needed.

  She never discussed this with Nanny Ogg or any of the other witches. That would be breaking the secret. Sometimes, late at night, when the conversation tip-toed around to that area, Nanny might just drop in some line like “old Scrivens went peacefully enough at the finish” and may or may not mean something by it. Nanny, as far as she could see, didn’t agonize very much. To her, some things obviously had to be done, and that was that. Any of the thoughts that hung around she kept locked up tight, even from herself. Granny envied her.

&n
bsp; Who’d come to her funeral when she died?

  They didn’t ask her!

  Memories jostled. Other figures marched out into the shadows around the candlelight.

  She’d done things and been places, and found ways to turn anger outward that had surprised even her. She’d faced down others far more powerful than she was, if only she’d allowed them to believe it. She’d given up so much, but she’d earned a lot…

  It was a sign. She knew it’d come, sooner or later…They’d realized it, and now she was no more use…

  What had she ever earned? The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches, they gave you a bigger shovel.

  And you got these bare walls, this bare floor, this cold cottage.

  The darkness in the corners grew out into the room and began to tangle in her hair.

  They didn’t ask her!

  She’d never, ever asked for anything in return. And the trouble with not asking for anything in return was that sometimes you didn’t get it.

  She’d always tried to face toward the light. She’d always tried to face toward the light. But the harder you stared into the brightness the harsher it burned into you until, at last, the temptation picked you up and bid you turn around to see how long, rich, strong and dark, streaming away behind you, your shadow had become—

  Someone mentioned her name.

  There was a moment of light and noise and bewilderment.

  And then she awoke, and looked at the darkness flowing in, and saw things in black and white.

  “So sorry…delays on the road, you know how it is…”

  The newcomers hurried in and joined the crowd, who paid little attention because they were watching the unplanned entertainment around the thrones.

  “Note Spelling?”

  “Definitely a bit tricky,” said Nanny. “Esmerelda, now, that was a good one. Gytha would have been good too, but Esmerelda, yes, you can’t argue with it. But you know kids. They’ll all be calling her Spelly.”

  “If she’s lucky,” said Agnes gloomily.

  “I didn’t expect anyone to say it!” Magrat hissed. “I just wanted to make sure she didn’t end up with ‘Magrat’!”