‘Sire!’
‘Go back to the castle!’
‘What, and leave you all alone, sire?’
‘This is a matter of extreme delicacy, sergeant. I am sure you are a man of sterling qualities, but there are times when even a king needs to be alone. It concerns a young woman, you understand.’
‘Ah. Point taken, sire.’
‘Thank you. Help me dismount, please.’
‘Sorry about all that, sire. Tactless of me.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘If you need any help getting her alight—’
‘
‘Thank you, sire. Much obliged.’
‘It’s your, ah, burning desire to be of service.’
‘Yes, sire?’
‘Make sure they put you up in one of the guest rooms.’
‘Yes, sire. Thank you, sire.’
There was the sound of a horse trotting away. A few seconds later the latch clonked and the Fool crept in.
It takes considerable courage to enter a witch’s kitchen in the dark, but probably no more than it takes to wear a purple shirt with velvet sleeves and scalloped edges. It had this in its favour, though. There were no bells on it.
He had brought a bottle of sparkling wine and a bouquet of flowers, both of which had gone flat during the journey. He laid them on the table, and sat down by the embers of the fire.
He rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day. He wasn’t, he felt, a good king, but he’d had a lifetime of working hard at being something he wasn’t cut out to be, and he was persevering. As far as he could see, none of his predecessors had tried at all. So much to do, so much to repair, so much to organize …
On top of it all there was the problem with the duchess. Somehow he’d felt moved to put her in a decent cell in an airy tower. She was a widow, after all. He felt he ought to be kind to widows. But being kind to the duchess didn’t seem to achieve much, she didn’t understand it, she thought it was just weakness. He was dreadfully afraid that he might have to have her head cut off.
No, being a king was no laughing matter. He brightened up at the thought. There was that to be said about it.
And, after a while, he fell asleep.
Well, she’d be back. There was a big world out there, and she knew how to pull the levers that made people do what she wanted. She wouldn’t burden herself with a husband this time, either. Weak! He was the worst of them, no courage in him to be as bad as he knew he was, inside.
She landed heavily on the moss, paused to catch her breath and then, with the knife ready in her hand, slipped away along the castle walls and into the forest.
She’d go all the way down to the far border and swim the river there, or maybe build a raft. By morning she’d be too far away for them ever to find her, and she doubted very much that they’d ever come looking.
Weak!
She moved through the forest with surprising speed. There were tracks, after all, wide enough for carts, and she had a pretty good sense of direction. Besides, all she needed to do was go downhill. If she found the gorge then she just had to follow the flow.
And then there seemed to be too many trees. There was still a track, and it went more or less in the right direction, but the trees on either side of it were planted rather more thickly than one might expect and, when she tried to turn back, there was no track at all behind her. She took to turning suddenly, half expecting to see the trees moving, but they were always standing stoically and firmly rooted in the moss.
She couldn’t feel a wind, but there was a sighing in the treetops.
‘All right,’ she said, under her breath. ‘All right. I’m going anyway. I
The weak banded together can be pretty despicable, but it dawned on the duchess that an alliance of the strong can be more of an immediate problem.
There was total silence for a few seconds, broken only by a faint panting, and then the duchess grinned, raised her knife, and charged the lot of them.
The front ranks of the massed creatures opened to let her pass, and then closed in again. Even the rabbits.
The kingdom exhaled.
There was a song that echoed and boomed from cliff to cliff, and resounded up the high hidden valleys, causing miniature avalanches. It funnelled along the secret tunnels under glaciers, losing all meaning as it rang between the walls of ice.
To find out what was actually being sung you would have to go all the way back down to the dying fire by the standing stone, where the cross-resonances and waves of conflicting echoes focused on a small, elderly woman who was waving an empty bottle.
‘—with a snail if you slow to a crawl, but the hedgehog—’
‘It tastes better at the bottom of the bottle, doesn’t it,’ Magrat said, trying to drown out the chorus.
‘That’s right,’ said Granny, draining her cup.
‘Is there any more?’
‘I think Gytha finished it, by the sound of it.’
They sat on the fragrant heather and stared up at the moon.
‘Well, we’ve got a king,’ said Granny. ‘And there’s an end of it.’
‘It’s thanks to you and Nanny, really,’ said Magrat, and hiccupped.
‘Why?’
‘None of them would have believed me if you hadn’t spoken up.’
‘Only because we was asked,’ said Granny.
‘Yes, but everyone knows witches don’t lie, that’s the important thing. I mean, everyone could see they
droit de seigneur
Nanny Ogg stopped singing.
‘Yes,’ said Granny Weatherwax. ‘Well.’
Magrat became aware of an uncomfortable atmosphere.
‘You did tell the truth, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘They really are brothers, aren’t they?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Gytha Ogg. ‘Definitely. I saw to his mother when your—when the new king was born. And to the queen when young Tomjon was born, and she told me who his father was.’
‘Gytha!’
‘Sorry.’
The wine was going to her head, but the wheels in Magrat’s mind still managed to turn.
‘Just a minute,’ she said.
‘I remember the Fool’s father,’ said Nanny Ogg, speaking slowly and deliberately. ‘Very personable young man, he was. He didn’t get on with his dad, you know, but he used to visit sometimes. To see old friends.’
‘He made friends easily,’ said Granny.
‘Among the ladies,’ agreed Nanny. ‘Very athletic, wasn’t he? Could climb walls like nobody’s business, I remember hearing.’
‘He was very popular at court,’ said Granny. ‘I know that much.’
‘Oh, yes. With the queen, at any rate.’
‘The king used to go out hunting such a lot,’ said Granny.
‘It was that droit of his,’ said Nanny. ‘Always out and about with it, he was. Hardly ever home o’nights.’
‘Just a minute,’ Magrat repeated.
They looked at her.
‘Yes?’ said Granny.
‘
‘We’re bound to be truthful,’ she said. ‘But there’s no call to be honest.’
‘No, no, what you’re saying is that the King of Lancre isn’t really—’
‘What I’m saying
someof us got mugs we weren’t entitled to, them being only for the kiddies and, all in all, things are a lot more satisfactory than they might be. That’s what I’m saying. Never mind what should be or what might be or what ought to be. It’s what things are that’s important.’