Lords And Ladies Part 35

Magrat pulled herself over the windowsill and collapsed, panting, on the floor. Then she staggered across to the door, which was missing its key. But there were two heavy wooden bars, which she slotted into place.

There was a wooden shutter for the window.

They'd never let her get away with it again. She'd been expecting an arrow but...no, something as simple as that wouldn't have been enough fun.

She glared at the darkness. So...there was this room. She didn't even know which one it was. She found a candlestick and a bundle of matches and, after some scrabbling, got it lit.

There were some boxes and cases piled by the bed. So...a guest room.

The thoughts trickled through the silence of her brain, one after another.

She wondered if they'd sing to her, and if she could stand it again. Maybe if you knew what to expect...

There was a gentle tap at the door.

"We have your friends friends downstairs, lady. Come dance with me." downstairs, lady. Come dance with me."

Magrat stared desperately around the room.

It was as featureless as guest bedrooms everywhere. Jug and basin on a stand, the horrible garderobe alcove inadequately concealed behind a curtain, the bed which had a few bags and bundles tossed on it, a battered chair with all the varnish gone and a small square of carpet made gray with age and ground-in dust.

The door rattled. "Let me in, sweet lady."

The window was no escape this time. There was the bed to hide under, and that'd work for all of two seconds, wouldn't it?

Her eye was drawn by some kind of horrible magic back to the room's garderobe, lurking behind its curtain.

Magrat lifted the lid. The shaft was definitely wide enough to admit a body. Garderobes were notorious in that respect. Several unpopular kings had met their end, as it were, in the garderobe, at the hands of an a.s.sa.s.sin with good climbing ability, a spear, and a fundamental approach to politics.

Something hit the door hard.

"Lady, shall I sing to you?"

Magrat reached a decision.

It was the hinges that gave way eventually, the rusty bolts finally losing their grip on the stone.

The alcove's half-drawn curtain moved in the breeze.

The elf smiled, strode to the curtain, and pulled it aside.

The oak lid was up.

The elf looked down.

Magrat rose up behind it like a white ghost and hit it hard across the back of the neck with the chair, which shattered.

The elf tried to turn and keep its balance, but there was still enough chair left in Magrat's hands for her to catch it on the desperate upswing. It toppled backward, flailed at the lid, and only succeeded in pulling it shut behind it. Magrat heard a thump and a scream of rage as it dropped into the noisome darkness. It'd be too much to hope that the fall would kill it. After all, it'd land in something soft.

"Not just high," said Magrat to herself, "but stinking."

Hiding under the bed is only good for about two seconds, but sometimes two seconds is enough.

She let go of the chair. She was shaking. But she was still alive, and that felt good. That's the thing about being alive. You're alive to enjoy it.

Magrat peered out into the pa.s.sage.

She had to move. She picked up a stricken chair leg for the little comfort that it gave, and ventured out.

There was a scream again, from the direction of the Great Hall.

Magrat looked the other way, toward the Long Gallery. She ran. There had to be a way out, somewhere, some gate, some window...

Some enterprising monarch had glazed the windows some time ago. The moonlight shone through in big silver blocks, interspersed with squares of deep shadow.

Magrat ran from light to shade, light to shade, down the endless room. Monarch after monarch flashed past, like a speeded-up film. King after king, all whiskers and crowns and beards. Queen after queen, all corsages and stiff bodices and Lappet-faced wowhawks and small dogs and- Some shape, some trick of moonlight, some expression on a painted face somehow cut through her terror and caught her eye.

That was a portrait she'd never seen before. She'd never walked down this far. The idiot vapidity of the a.s.sembled queens had depressed her. But this one...

This one, somehow, reached out to her.

She stopped.

It couldn't have been done from life. In the days of this this queen, the only paint known locally was a sort of blue, and generally used on the body. But a few generations ago King Lully I had been a bit of a historian and a romantic. He'd researched what was known of the early days of Lancre, and where actual evidence had been a bit spa.r.s.e he had, in the best traditions of the keen ethnic historian, inferred from revealed self-evident wisdom queen, the only paint known locally was a sort of blue, and generally used on the body. But a few generations ago King Lully I had been a bit of a historian and a romantic. He'd researched what was known of the early days of Lancre, and where actual evidence had been a bit spa.r.s.e he had, in the best traditions of the keen ethnic historian, inferred from revealed self-evident wisdom* and extrapolated from a.s.sociated sources. He'd commissioned the portrait of Queen Ynci the Short-Tempered, one of the founders of the kingdom. and extrapolated from a.s.sociated sources. He'd commissioned the portrait of Queen Ynci the Short-Tempered, one of the founders of the kingdom.

She had a helmet with wings and a spike on it and a ma.s.s of black hair plaited into dreadlocks with blood as a setting lotion. She was heavily made-up in the woad-and-blood-and-spirals school of barbarian cosmetics. She had a 42 D-cup breastplate and shoulder pads with spikes. She had knee pads with spikes on, and spikes on her sandals, and a rather short skirt in the fas.h.i.+onable tartan and blood motif. One hand rested nonchalantly on a double-headed battle axe with a spike on it, the other caressed the hand of a captured enemy warrior. The rest of the captured enemy warrior was hanging from various pine trees in the background. Also in the picture was Spike, her favorite war pony, of the now extinct Lancre hill breed which was the same general shape and disposition as a barrel of gunpowder, and her war chariot, which picked up the popular spiky theme. It had wheels you could shave with.

Magrat stared.

They'd never mentioned this.

They'd told her about tapestries, and embroidery, and farthingales, and how to shake hands with lords. They'd never told her about spikes.

There was a sound at the end of the gallery, from back the way she'd come. She grabbed her skirts and ran.

There were footsteps behind her, and laughter.

Left down the cloisters, then along the dark pa.s.sage above the kitchens, and past the- A shape moved in the shadows. Teeth flashed. Magrat raised the chair leg, and stopped in mid-strike.

"Greebo?"

Nanny Ogg's cat rubbed against her legs. His hair was flat against his body. This unnerved Magrat even more. This was Greebo Greebo, undisputed king of Lancre's cat population and father of most of it, in whose presence wolves trod softly and bears climbed trees. He was frightened.

"Come here, you b.l.o.o.d.y idiot!"

She grabbed him by the scruff of his scarred neck and ran on, while Greebo gratefully sank his claws into her arm to the bone* and scrambled up to her shoulder. and scrambled up to her shoulder.

She must be somewhere near the kitchen now, because that was Greebo's territory. This was an unknown and shadowy area, terror incognita, where the flesh of carpets and the plaster pillars ran out and the stone bone of the castle showed through.

She was sure there were footsteps behind her, very fast and light.

If she hurried around the next corner- In her arms, Greebo tensed like a spring. Magrat stopped.

Around the next corner- Without her apparently willing it, the hand holding the broken wood came up, moving slowly back.

She stepped to the corner and stabbed in one movement. There was a triumphant hiss which turned into a screech as the wood sc.r.a.ped down the side of the waiting elf's neck. It reeled away. Magrat bolted for the nearest doorway, weeping in panic, and wrenched at the handle. It swung open. She darted through, slammed the door, flailed in the dark for the bars, felt them clonk home, and collapsed on to her knees.

Something hit the door outside.

After a while Magrat opened her eyes, and then wondered if she really had opened her eyes, because the darkness was no less dark. There was a feeling of s.p.a.ce in front of her. There were all sorts of things in the castle, old hidden rooms, anything...there could be a pit there, there could be anything anything. She fumbled for the doorframe, guided herself upright, and then groped cautiously in the general direction of the wall.

There was a shelf. This was a candle. And this was a bundle of matches.

So, she insisted above her own heartbeat, this was a room that got used recently. Most people in Lancre still used tinderboxes. Only the king could afford matches all the way from Ankh-Morpork. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg got them too, but they didn't buy them. They got given them. It was easy to get given things, if you were a witch.

Magrat lit the stub of candle, and turned to see what kind of room she'd scuttled into.

Oh, no...

"Well, well," said Ridcully. "There's a familiar tree."

"Shut up."

"I thought someone someone said we just had to walk uphill," said Ridcully. said we just had to walk uphill," said Ridcully.

"Shut up."

"I remember once when we were in these woods you let me-"

"Shut up."

Granny Weatherwax sat down on a stump.

"We're being mazed," she said. "Someone's playing tricks on us."

"I remember a story once," said Ridcully, "where these two children were lost in the woods and a lot of birds came and covered them with leaves." Hope showed in his voice like a toe peeking out from under a crinoline.

"Yes, that's just the sort of b.l.o.o.d.y stupid thing a bird would think of," said Granny. She rubbed her head.

"She's doing it," she said. "It's an elvish trick. Leading travelers astray. She's mucking up my head. My actual head. Oh, she's good. Making us go where she wants. Making us go round in circles. Doing it to doing it," she said. "It's an elvish trick. Leading travelers astray. She's mucking up my head. My actual head. Oh, she's good. Making us go where she wants. Making us go round in circles. Doing it to me me."

"Maybe you've got your mind on other things," said Ridcully, not quite giving up hope.

"Course I've got my mind on other things, with you falling over all the time and gabbling a lot of nonsense," said Granny. "If Mr. Cleverd.i.c.k Wizard hadn't wanted to dredge up things that never existed in the first place I wouldn't be here, I'd be in the center of things, knowing what's going on." She clenched her fists.

"Well, you don't have to be," said Ridcully. "It's a fine night. We could sit here and-"

"You're falling for it too," said Granny. "All that dreamy-weamy, eyes-across-a-crowded-room stuff. Can't imagine how you keep your job as head wizard."

"Mainly by checking my bed carefully and makin' sure someone else has already had a slice of whatever it is I'm eating," said Ridcully, with disarming honesty. "There's not much to it, really. Mainly it's signin' things and having a good shout-"

Ridcully gave up.

"Anyway, you looked pretty surprised when you saw me," he said. "Your face went white."

"Anyone'd go white, seeing a full-grown man standing there looking like a sheep about to choke," said Granny.

"You really don't let up, do you?" said Ridcully. "Amazing. You don't give an inch."

Another leaf drifted past.

Ridcully didn't move his head.

"You know," he said, his voice staying quite level, "either autumn comes really early in these parts, or the birds here are the ones out of that story I mentioned, or someone's in the tree above us."

"I know."

"You know?"

"Yes, because I've been paying attention while you were dodging the traffic in Memory Lane," said Granny. "There's at least five of 'em, and they're right above us. How's those magic fingers of yours?"

"I could probably manage a fireball."

"Wouldn't work. Can you carry us out of here?"

"Not both of us."

"Just you?"

"Probably, but I'm not going to leave you."

Granny rolled her eyes. "It's true, you know," she said. "All men are swains. Push off, you soft old b.u.g.g.e.r. They're not intending to kill me. At least, not yet. But they don't hardly know nothing about wizards and they'll chop you down without thinking."

"Now who's being soft?"

"I don't want to see you dead when you could be doin' something useful."

"Running away isn't useful."

"It's going to be a lot more useful than staying here."