Lords And Ladies Part 51

"Shouldn't waste a golden opportunity if I was you," said Weaver, with the happy malice often shown by the clever to the simple.

The Librarian was chatting to Ponder and the Bursar. He looked around as Carter prodded him.

"You've been over to Slice, then, have you?" he said, in his cheery open way.

The Librarian gave him a look of polite incomprehension.

"Oook?"

Carter looked perplexed.

"That's where you put your nut, ain't it?"

The Librarian gave him another odd look, and shook his head.

"Oook."

"Weaver!" Carter shouted, "the monkey says he didn't put his nut where the sun don't s.h.i.+ne! You said he did! You didn't, did you? He said you did." He turned to the Librarian. "He didn't, Weaver. See, I knew you'd got it wrong. You're daft daft. There's no monkeys in Slice."

Silence flowed outward from the two of them.

Ponder Stibbons held his breath.

"This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here."

The Librarian picked up a large bottle from the table. He tapped Carter on the shoulder. Then he poured him a large drink and patted him on the head.

Ponder relaxed and turned back to what he was doing. He'd tied a knife to a bit of string and was gloomily watching it spin round and round...

On his way home that night Weaver was picked up by a mysterious a.s.sailant and dropped into the Lancre. No one ever found out why. Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian ones. They're not all that subtle.

Others went home that night.

"She'll be getting ideas above her station in life," said Granny Weatherwax, as the two witches strolled through the scented air.

"She's a queen queen. That's pretty high," said Nanny Ogg. "Almost as high as witches."

"Yes...well...but you ain't got to give yourself airs," said Granny Weatherwax. "We're advantaged advantaged, yes, but we act with modesty and we don't Put Ourselves Forward. No one could say I haven't been decently modest all my life."

"You've always been a bit of a shy violet, I've always said," said Nanny Ogg. "I'm always telling people, when it comes to humility you won't find anyone more humile than Esme Weatherwax."

"Always keep myself to myself and minded my own business-"

"Barely known you were there half the time," said Nanny Ogg.

"I was talking, talking, Gytha." Gytha."

"Sorry."

They walked along in silence for a while. It was a warm dry evening. Birds sang in the trees.

Nanny said, "Funny to think of our Magrat being married and everything?"

"What do you mean, everything?"

"Well, you you know- know-married," said Nanny. "I gave her a few tips. Always wear something in bed. Keeps a man interested."

"You always wore your hat."

"Right."

Nanny waved a sausage on a stick. She always believed in stocking up on any free food that was available.

"I thought the wedding feast was very good, didn't you? And Magrat looked radiant, I thought."

"I thought she looked hot and fl.u.s.tered." thought she looked hot and fl.u.s.tered."

"That is is radiant, with brides." radiant, with brides."

"You're right, though," said Granny Weatherwax, who was walking a little way ahead. "It was a good dinner. I never had this Vegetarian Option stuff before."

"When I married Mr. Ogg, we had three dozen oysters at our our wedding feast. Mind you, they didn't all work." wedding feast. Mind you, they didn't all work."

"And I like the way they give us all a bit o' the wedding cake in a little bag," said Granny.

"Right. You know, they says, if you puts a bit under your pillow, you dream of your future husb..." Nanny Ogg's tongue tripped over itself.

She stopped, embarra.s.sed, which was unusual in an Ogg.

"It's all right," said Granny. "I don't mind."

"Sorry, Esme."

"Everything happens somewhere. I know. I know know. Everything happens somewhere. So it's all the same in the end."

"That's very continuinuinuum thinking, Esme."

"Cake's nice," said Granny, "but...right now...don't know why...what I could really do with, Gytha, right now...is a sweet."

The last word hung in the evening air like the echo of a gunshot.

Nanny stopped. Her hand flew to her pocket, where the usual bag of fluff-encrusted boiled sweets resided. She stared at the back of Esme Weatherwax's head, at the tight bun of gray hair under the brim of the pointy hat.

"Sweet?" she said.

"I expect you've got another bag now," said Granny, without looking around.

"Esme-"

"You got anything to say, Gytha? About bags of sweets?"

Granny Weatherwax still hadn't turned around.

Nanny looked at her boots.

"No, Esme," she said meekly.

"I knew you'd go up to the Long Man, you know. How'd you get in?"

"Used one of the special horseshoes."

Granny nodded. "You didn't ought to have brung him into it, Gytha."

"Yes, Esme."

"He's as tricky as she is."

"Yes, Esme."

"You're trying preemptive meekness on me."

"Yes, Esme."

They walked a little further.

"What was that dance your Jason and his men did when they'd got drunk?" said Granny.

"It's the Lancre Stick and Bucket Dance, Esme."

"It's legal, is it?"

"Technically they shouldn't do it when there's women present," said Nanny. "Otherwise it's s.e.xual morrisment."

"And I thought Magrat was very surprised when you recited that poem at the reception."

"Poem?"

"The one where you did the gestures."

"Oh, that poem."

"I saw Verence making notes on his napkin."

Nanny reached again into the shapeless recesses of her clothing and produced an entire bottle of champagne you could have sworn there was no room for.

"Mind you, I thought she looked happy," she said. "Standing there wearing about half of a torn muddy dress and chain-mail underneath. Hey, d'you know what she told me?"

"What?"

"You know that ole painting of Queen Ynci? You know, the one with the iron bodice? Her with all the spikes and knives on her chariot? Well, she said she was sure the...the spirit of Ynci was helping her. She said she wore the armor and she did things she'd never dare do."

"My word," said Granny, noncommittally.

"Funny ole world," agreed Nanny.

They walked in silence for a while.

"So you didn't tell her that Queen Ynci never existed, then?"

"No point."

"Old King Lully invented her entirely 'cos he thought we needed a bit of romantic history. He was a bit mad about that. He even had the armor made."

"I know. My great-grandma's husband hammered it out of a tin bath and a couple of saucepans."

"But you didn't think you ought to tell her that?"

"No."

Granny nodded.

"Funny thing," she said, "even when Magrat's completely different, she's just the same."

Nanny Ogg produced a wooden spoon from somewhere in her ap.r.o.n. Then she raised her hat and carefully lifted down a bowl of cream, custard, and jelly which she had secreted there.*

"Huh. I really don't know why you pinches food the whole time," said Granny. "Verence'd give you a bathful of the stuff if you asked. You know he don't touch custard himself."

"More fun this way," said Nanny. "I deserve a bit of fun."

There was a rustling in the thick bushes and the unicorn burst through.

It was mad. It was angry. It was in a world where it did not belong. And it was being driven.

It pawed the ground a hundred yards away, and lowered its horn.

"Whoops," said Nanny, dropping her just desserts. "Come on. There's a tree here, come on come on."

Granny Weatherwax shook her head.

"No. I ain't runnin' this time. She couldn't get me before and she's tryin' through an animal animal, eh?"

"Will you look at the size of the horn on that thing?"

"I can see clear enough," said Granny calmly.