Her foot rattled a piece of pottery.
She grunted as she went down on one knee. Spilt mud and shards of broken pot littered the floor. Here and there, unrooted and snapped, were some unheeded pieces of dead twig.
Only some kind of fool would have stuck bits of wood in pots of mud far underground and expected anything to happen.
Nanny picked one up and sniffed it tentatively. It smelled of mud. And nothing else.
She’d have liked to have-known how it had been done. Just professional interest, of course. And she knew she never would, now. Walter was a busy man now, up in the light. And, for something to begin, other things had to end.
‘We all wears a mask of one sort or another,’ she said to the damp air. ‘No sense in upsetting things now, eh. . .’
The coach didn’t leave until seven o’clock in the morning. By Lancre standards that was practically midday. The witches got there early.
‘I was hoping to shop for a few souvenirs,’ said Nanny, stamping her feet on the cobbles to keep warm. ‘For the kiddies.’
‘No time,’ said Granny Weatherwax.
‘Not that it would have made any difference on account of me not having any money to buy ‘em with,’ Nanny went on.
‘Not my fault if you fritter your money away,’ said Granny.
‘I don’t recall having a single chance to frit.’
‘Money’s only useful for the things it can do.’
‘Well, yes. I could’ve done with having some new boots, for a start.’
Nanny jiggled up and down a bit, and whistled around her tooth.
‘Nice of Mrs Palm to let us stay there gratis,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘O’ course, I helped out playin’ the piano and tellin’ jokes.’
‘An added bonus,’ said Granny, nodding.
‘An’ of course there was all those little nibbles I prepared. With the Special Party Dip.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Granny, poker-faced. ‘Mrs Palm was saying only this morning that she’s thinking of retiring next year.’
Nanny looked up and down the street again.
‘I ‘spect young Agnes’ll be turning up any minute now,’ she said.
‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Granny haughtily.
‘Not as though there’s much for her here, after all.’
Granny sniffed. ‘That’s up to her, I’m sure.’
‘Everyone was very impressed, I reckon, when you caught that sword in your hand. . .’
Granny sighed. ‘Hah! Yes, I expect they were. They didn’t think clearly, did they? People’re just lazy. They never think: maybe she had something in her hand, a bit of metal or something. They don’t think for a minute it was just a trick. They don’t think there’s always a perfectly good explanation if you look for it. They probably think it was some kind of magic.’
‘Yeah, but. . . you didn’t have anything in your hand, did you?’
‘That’s not the point. I might have done.’ Granny looked up and down the square. ‘Besides, you can’t magic iron.
‘That’s very true. Not iron. Now, someone like ole Black Aliss, they could make their skin tougher than steel. . . but that’s just an ole legend, I expect. . .’
‘She could do it all right,’ said Granny. ‘But you can’t go round messin’ with cause and effect. That’s what sent her mad, come the finish. She thought she could put herself outside of things like cause and effect. Well, you can’t. You grab a sharp sword by the blade, you get hurt. World’d be a terrible place if people forgot that.’
‘You weren’t hurt.’
‘Not my fault. I didn’t have time.’
Nanny blew on her hands. ‘One good thing, though,’ she said. ‘It’s a blessing the chandelier never came down. I was worried about that soon as I saw it. Looks too dramatic for its own good, I thought. First thing I’d smash, if I was a loony.’
‘Yes.’
‘Haven’t been able to find Greebo since last night.’
‘Good.’
‘He always turns up, though.’
‘Unfortunately.’
There was a clatter as the coach swung around the corner.
It stopped.
Then the coachman tugged on the reins and it did a Uturn and disappeared again.
‘Esme?’ said Nanny, after a while.
‘Yes?’
‘There’s a man and two horses peering at us around the corner.’ She raised her voice. ‘Come on, I know you’re there! Seven o’clock, this coach is supposed to leave! Did you get the tickets, Esme?’
‘Me?’
‘Ah,’ said Nanny uncertainly. ‘So. . . we haven’t got eighty dollars for the tickets, then?’
‘What’ve you got stuffed up your elastic?’ said Granny as the coach advanced cautiously.
‘Nothin’ that is legal tender for travellin’ purposes, I fear.’
‘Then. . . no, we can’t afford tickets.’
Nanny sighed. ‘Oh, well, I’ll just have to use charm.’
‘It’s going to be a long walk,’ said Granny.
The coach pulled up. Nanny looked up at the driver, and smiled innocently. ‘Good morning, my good sir!’
He gave her a slightly frightened but mainly suspicious look. ‘Is it?’
‘We are desirous of travelling to Lancre but unfortunately we find ourselves a bit embarrassed in the knicker department.’
‘You are??
‘But we are witches and could prob’ly pay for our travel by, e.g., curing any embarrassing little ailments you may have.’
The coachman frowned. ‘I ain’t carrying you for nothing, old crone. And I haven’t got any embarrassing little ailments!’
Granny stepped forward.
‘How many would you like?’ she said.
Rain rolled over the plains. It wasn’t an impressive Ramtops thunderstorm but a lazy, persistent, low-cloud rain, like a fat fog. It had been following them all day.
The witches had the coach to themselves. Several people had opened the door while it had been waiting to leave, but for some reason had suddenly decided that today’s travel plans didn’t include a coach ride.
‘Making good time,’ said Nanny, opening the curtains and peering out of the window.
‘I expect the driver’s in a hurry.’
‘Yes, I ‘spect he is.’
‘Shut the window, though. It’s getting wet in here.’
‘Righty-ho.’
Nanny grabbed the strap and then suddenly poked her head out into the rain.
‘Stop! Stop! Tell the man to stop!’
The coach dewed to a halt in a sheet of mud.
Nanny threw open the door. ‘I don’t know, trying to walk home, and in this weather too! You’ll catch your death!’
Rain and fog rolled in through the open doorway. Then a bedraggled shape pulled itself over the sill and slunk under the seats, leaving small puddles behind it.
‘Tryin’ to be independent,’ said Nanny. ‘Bless ‘im.’
The coach got under way again. Granny stared out at the endless darkening fields and the relentless drizzle, and saw another figure toiling along in the mud by the road that would, eventually, reach Lancre. As the coach swept past, it drenched the walker in thin slurry.
‘Yes, indeed. Being independent’s a fine ambition,’ she said, drawing the curtains.
The trees were bare when Granny Weatherwax got back to her cottage.
Twigs and seeds had blown in under the door. Soot had fallen down the chimney. Her home, always somewhat organic, had grown a little closer to its roots in the clay.
There were things to do, so she did them. There were leaves to be swept, and the woodpile to be built up under the eaves. The windsock behind the beehives, tattered by autumn storms, needed to be darned. Hay had to be got in for the goats. Apples had to be stored in the loft. The walls could do with another coat of whitewash.
But there was something that had to be done first. It’d make the other jobs a bit more difficult, but there was no help for that. You couldn’t magic iron. And you couldn’t grab a sword without being hurt. If that wasn’t true, the world’d be all over the place.
Granny made herself some tea, and then boiled up the kettle again. She took a handful of herbs out of a box on the dresser, and dropped them in a bowl with the steaming water. She took a length of clean bandage out of a drawer and set it carefully on the table beside the bowl. She threaded an extremely sharp needle and laid needle and thread beside the bandage. She scooped a fingerful of greenish ointment out of a small tin, and smeared it on a square of lint.
That seemed to be it.
She sat down, and rested her arm on the table, palm-up.
‘Well,’ she said, to no one in particular, ‘I reckon I’ve got time now.’
The privy had to be moved. It was a job Granny preferred to do for herself. There was something incredibly satisfying in digging a very deep hole. It was uncomplicated. You knew where you were with a hole in the ground. Dirt didn’t get strange ideas, or believe that people were honest because they had a steady gaze and a firm handshake. It just lay there, waiting for you to move it. And, after you’d done it, you could sit there in the lovely warm knowledge that it’d be months before you had to do it again.