Granny forbore to comment. But she watched with grim satisfaction as the owner finished the dish and gave her a hopeful smile.
‘Oh, now he expects us to eat them,’ she said. ‘He only goes and sets fire to them, and then he still expects us to eat them!’
It might later have been possible to chart the progress of the witches across the continent by some sort of demographic survey. Long afterwards, in some quiet, onion-hung kitchens, in sleepy villages nestling among hot hills, you might have found cooks who wouldn’t twitch and try to hide behind the door when a stranger came into the kitchen.
Dear Jason,
It is defnity more warmer here, Magrat says it is because we are getting further from the Hub and, a funny thing, all the money is different. You have to change it for other money which is all different shapes and is not proper money at all in my opnion. We generally let Esme sort that out, she gets a very good rate of exchange, it is amazing, Magrat says she will write a book called Travelling on One Dollar a Day, and it’s always the same dollar. Esme is getting to act just like a foreigner, yesterday she took her shawl off, next thing it will be dancing on tables. This is a picture of some famous bridge or other. Lots of love, MUM.
The sun beat down on the cobbled street, and particularly on the courtyard of a little inn.
‘It’s hard to imagine,’ said Magrat, ‘that it’s autumn back home.’
‘Garkon? Mucho vino aveck zei, grassy ass.’
The innkeeper, who did not understand one word and was a good-natured man who certainly did not deserve to be called a garkon, smiled at Nanny. He’d smile at anyone with such an unlimited capacity for drink.
‘I don’t hold with putting all these tables out in the street, though,’ said Granny Weatherwax, although without much severity. It was pleasantly warm. It wasn’t that ^he didn’t like autumn, it was a season she always looked forward to, but at her time of life it was nice to know that it was happening hundreds of miles away while she wasn’t there.
Underneath the table Greebo dozed on his back with his legs in the air. Occasionally he twitched as he fought wolves in his sleep.
‘It says in Desiderata’s notes,’ said Magrat, turning the stiff pages carefully, ‘that in the late summer here they have this special traditional ceremony where they let a lot of bulls run through the street.’
‘That’d be something worth seeing,’ said Granny Weatherwax. ‘Why do they do it?’
‘So all the young men can chase them to show how brave they are,’ said Magrat. ‘Apparently they pull their rosettes off.’
A variety of expressions passed across Nanny Ogg’s wrinkled face, like weather over a stretch of volcanic badlands.
‘Sounds a bit strange,’ she said at last. ‘What do they do that for?’
‘She doesn’t explain it very clearly,’ said Magrat. She turned another page. Her lips moved as she read on. ‘What does cojones mean?’
They shrugged.
‘Here, you want to slow down on that drink,’ said Granny, as a waiter put down another bottle in front of Nanny Ogg. ‘I wouldn’t trust any drink that’s green.’
‘It’s not like proper drink,’ said Nanny. ‘It says on the label it’s made from herbs. You can’t make a serious drink out of just herbs. Try a drop.’
Granny sniffed the opened bottle.
‘Smells like aniseed,’ she said.
‘It says “Absinthe” on the bottle,’ said Nanny.
‘Oh, that’s just a name for wormwood,’ said Magrat, who was good at herbs. ‘My herbal says it’s good for stomach diforders and prevents sicknefs after meals.’
‘There you are, then,’ said Nanny. ‘Herbs. It’s practic’ly medicine.’ She poured a generous measure for the other two. ‘Give it a go, Magrat. It’ll put a cheft on your cheft.’
Granny Weatherwax surreptitiously loosened her boots. She was also debating whether to remove her vest. She probably didn’t need all three.
‘We ought to be getting on,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m fed up with the broomsticks,’ said Nanny. ‘More than a couple of hours on a stick and I’ve gone rigid in the dairy air.’
She looked expectantly at the other two. ‘That foreign for bum,’ she added. ‘Although, it’s a funny thing, in some foreign parts “bum” means “tramp” and “tramp” means “hobo”. Funny things, words.’
‘A laugh a minute,’ said Granny.
‘The river’s quite wide here,’ said Magrat. ‘There’s big boats. I’ve never been on a proper boat. You know? The kind that doesn’t sink easily?’
‘Broomsticks is more witchy,’ said Granny, but not with much conviction. She did not have Nanny Ogg’s
international anatomical vocabulary, but bits of her she wouldn’t even admit to knowing the names of were definitely complaining.
‘I saw them boats,’ said Nanny. ‘They looked like great big rafts with houses on. You wouldn’t hardly know you’re on a boat, Esme. ‘Ere, what’s he doing?’
The innkeeper had hurried out and was taking the jolly little tables back inside. He nodded at Nanny and spoke with a certain amount of urgency.
‘I think he wants us to go inside,’ said Magrat.
‘I likes it out here,’ said Granny. ‘I LIKES IT OUT HERE, THANK YOU,’ she repeated. Granny Weatherwax’s approach to foreign tongues was to repeat herself loudly and slowly.
‘ ‘Ere, you stop trying to take our table away!’ snapped Nanny, thumping his hands.
The innkeeper spoke hurriedly and pointed up the street.
Granny and Magrat glanced inquiringly at Nanny Ogg. She shrugged.
‘Didn’t understand any of that,’ she admitted.
‘WE’RE STOPPIN’ WHERE WE ARE, THANK YOU,’ said Granny. The innkeeper’s eyes met hers. He gave in, waved his hands in the air in exasperation, and went inside.
‘They think they can take advantage of you when you’re a woman,’ said Magrat. She stifled a burp, discreetly, and picked up the green bottle again. Her stomach was feeling a lot better already.
‘That’s very true. D’you know what?’ said Nanny Ogg, ‘I barricaded meself in my room last night and a man didn’t even try to break in.’
‘Gytha Ogg, sometimes you – ‘ Granny stopped as she caught sight of something over Nanny’s shoulder.
‘There’s a load of cows coming down the street,’ she said.
Nanny turned her chair around.
‘It must be that bull thing Magrat mentioned,’ she said. ‘Should be worth seein’.’
Magrat glanced up. All along the street people were craning out of every second-storey window. A jostle of horns and hooves and steaming bodies was approaching rapidly.
‘There’s people up there laughing at us,’ she said accusingly.
Under the table Greebo stirred and rolled over. He opened his good eye, focused on the approaching bulls, and sat up. This looked like being fun.
‘Laughin’?’ said Granny. She looked up. The people aloft did indeed appear to be enjoying a joke.
Her eyes narrowed.
‘We’re just goin’ to carry on as if nothin’ is happening,’ she declared.
‘But they’re quite big bulls,’ said Magrat nervously.
‘They’re nothing to do with us,’ said Granny. ‘It’s nothin’ to do with us if a lot of foreigners want to get excited about things. Now pass me the herbal wine.’
As far as Lagro te Kabona, innkeeper, could remember the events of that day, they seemed to happen like this:
It was the time of the Thing with the Bulls. And the mad women just sat there, drinking absinthe as if it was water! He tried to get them to come indoors, but the old one, the skinny one, just shouted at him. So he let them bide, but left the door open – people soon got the message when the bulls came down the street with the young men of the village after them. Whoever snatched the big red rosette from between the horns of the biggest bull got the seat of honour at that night’s feast plus – Lagro smiled a smile of forty years’ remembrance – a certain informal but highly enjoyable relationship with the young women of the town for quite some time after …
And the mad women just sat there.
The leading bull had been a bit uncertain about this.
Its normal course of action would be to roar and paw the ground a bit to get the targets running in an interesting way and its mind wasn’t able to cope with this lack of attention, but that hadn’t been its major problem, because its major problem had been twenty other bulls right behind it.
And even that ceased to be its major problem, because the terrible old woman, the one all in black, had stood up, muttered something at it and smacked it between the eyes. Then the horrible dumpy one whose stomach had the resilience and capacity of a galvanized water tank fell backwards off her chair, laughing, and the young one – that is, the one who was younger than the other two – started flapping at the bulls as if they were ducks.