On his way home that night Weaver was picked up by a mysterious assailant 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. 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, 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, 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 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 flustered.”
“That is 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 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, embarrassed, 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. 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 grey 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 sexual 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 armour 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 armour 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 apron. Then she raised her hat and carefully lifted down a bowl of cream, custard, and jelly which she had secreted there.[44]
“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.”
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, eh?”
“Will you look at the size of the horn on that thing?”
“I can see clear enough,” said Granny calmly.
The unicorn lowered its head and charged. Nanny Ogg reached the nearest tree with low branches and leapt upward. . .
Granny Weatherwax folded her arms.
“Come on, Esme!”
“No. I ain’t been thinking clear enough, but I am now. There’s some things I don’t have to run from.”
The white shape bulleted down the avenue of trees, a thousand pounds of muscle behind twelve inches of glistening horn. Steam swirled behind it.
“Esme!”
Circle time was ending. Besides, she knew now why her mind had felt so unravelled, and that was a help. She couldn’t hear the ghostly thoughts of all the other Esme Weatherwaxes anymore.
Perhaps some lived in a world ruled by elves. Or had died long ago. Or were living what they thought were happy lives. Granny Weatherwax seldom wished for anything, because wishing was soppy, but she felt a tiny regret that she’d never be able to meet them.
Perhaps some were going to die, now, here on this path. Everything you did meant that a million copies of you did something else. Some were going to die. She’d sensed their future deaths . . . the deaths of Esme Weatherwax. And couldn’t save them, because chance did not work like that.
On a million hillsides the girl ran, on a million bridges the girl chose, on a million paths the woman stood. . .
All different, all one.
All she could do for all of them was be herself, here and now, as hard as she could.
She stuck out a hand.
A few yards away the unicorn hit an invisible wall. Its legs flailed as it tried to stop, its body contorted in pain, and it slid the rest of the way to Granny’s feet on its back.
“Gytha,” said Granny, as the beast tried to get upright, “you’ll take off your stockings and knot ’em into a halter and pass it to me carefully.”
“Esme. . .”
“What?”
“Ain’t got no stockings on, Esme.”
“What about the lovely red and white pair I gave you on Hogswatchnight? I knitted ’em myself. You know how I hates knitting.”
“Well, it’s a warm night. I likes to, you know, let the air circulate.”
“I had the devil of a time with the heels.”
“Sorry, Esme.”
“At least you’ll be so good as to run up to my place and bring everything that’s in the bottom of the dresser.”
“Yes, Esme.”
“But before that you’ll call in at your Jason’s and tell him to get the forge good and hot.”