He sidled towards the table and, with great care, pulled the sheaf of paper from under the sleeping dwarf’s head, lowering it gently on to a cushion.
The top sheet read:...
really
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
‘The ghost stays,’ said Hwel sullenly.
‘But people always jeer and throw things. Anyway, you know how hard it is to get all the chalk dust out of the clothes.’
‘The ghost stays. It’s a dramatic necessity.’
‘You
‘Well, it was.’
‘And in
‘Sea battles,’ breathed Hwel. ‘Shipwrecks. Tritons. Pirates!’
‘Squeaky bearings, laddie,’ groaned Vitoller, shifting his weight on his stick. ‘Maintenance expenses. Overtime.’
‘It does look extremely … intricate,’ Hwel admitted. ‘Who designed it?’
‘A daft old chap in the Street of Cunning Artificers,’ said Vitoller. ‘Leonard of Quirm. He’s a painter really. He just does this sort of thing for a hobby. I happened to hear that he’s been working on this for months. I just snapped it up quick when he couldn’t get it to fly.’
They watched the mock waves turn.
‘You’re bent on going?’ said Vitoller, at last.
‘Yes. Tomjon’s still a bit wild. He needs an older head around the place.’
‘I’ll miss you, laddie. I don’t mind telling you. You’ve been like a son to me. How old are you, exactly? I never did know.’
‘A hundred and two.’
Vitoller nodded gloomily. He was sixty, and his arthritis was playing him up.
‘You’ve been like a father to me, then,’ he said.
‘It evens out in the end,’ said Hwel diffidently. ‘Half the height, twice the age. You could say that on the overall average we live about the same length of time as humans.’
The playmaster sighed. ‘Well, I don’t know what I will do without you and Tomjon around, and that’s a fact.’
‘It’s only for the summer, and a lot of the lads are staying. In fact it’s mainly the apprentices that are going. You said yourself it’d be good experience.’
Vitoller looked wretched and, in the chilly air of the half-finished theatre, a good deal smaller than usual, like a balloon two weeks after the party. He prodded some wood shavings distractedly with his stick.
‘We grow old, Master Hwel. At least,’ he corrected himself, ‘I grow old and you grow older. We have heard the gongs at midnight.’
‘Aye. You don’t want him to go, do you?’
‘I was all for it at first. You know. Then I thought, there’s destiny afoot. Just when things are going well, there’s always bloody destiny. I mean, that’s where he came from. Somewhere up in the mountains. Now fate is calling him back. I shan’t see him again.’
‘It’s only for the summer—’
Vitoller held up a hand. ‘Don’t interrupt. I’d got the right dramatic flow there.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s fine of you to say that.’
‘I mean it. Look at me. I wasn’t supposed to be writing plays. Dwarfs aren’t even supposed to be able to
‘The light’s got to be right.’
‘Could be some destiny at work there.’
Hwel shrugged. Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn’t trust it. Often you couldn’t even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else—coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer.
He used destiny a lot. As a tool for his plays it was even better than a ghost. There was nothing like a bit of destiny to get the old plot rolling. But it was a mistake to think you could spot the shape of it. And as for thinking it could be controlled …
‘He’s definitely on his way,’ she said, at last. ‘In a cart.’
‘A fiery white charger would have been favourite,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘You know. Caparisoned, and that.’
‘Has he got a magic sword?’ said Magrat, craning to see.
Granny Weatherwax sat back.
‘You’re a disgrace, the pair of you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know—magic chargers, fiery swords. Ogling away like a couple of milkmaids.’
‘A magic sword
‘I can’t be having with that old stuff,’ said Granny. ‘You can wait days for the damn things to hit and then they nearly take your arm off.’
‘And a strawberry birthmark,’ said Nanny Ogg, ignoring the interruption.
The other two looked at her expectantly.
‘A strawberry birthmark,’ she repeated. ‘It’s one of those things you’ve got to have if you’re a prince coming to claim your kingdom. That’s so’s everyone will know. O’course, I don’t know how they know it’s
It must of worked, she told herself. Else he wouldn’t be coming here, would he? All those others must be his trusty band of good companions. After all, common sense, he’s got to come five hundred miles across difficult country, anything could happen.