The witches were ushered to the area in front of the thrones, and then Millie scurried away.
The Omnian priest nodded at them.
‘Good, um, evening,’ he said, and completely failed to set fire to anyone. He wasn’t very old and had a rather ripe boil beside his nose. Inside Agnes, Perdita made a face at him.
Nanny Ogg grunted. Agnes risked a brief smile. The priest blew his nose noisily.
‘You must be some of these, um, witches I’ve heard so much about,’ he said. He had an amazing smile. It appeared on his face as if someone had operated a shutter. One moment it wasn’t there, the next moment it was. And then it was gone.
‘Um, yes,’ said Agnes.
‘Hah,’ said Nanny Ogg, who could haughtily turn her back on people while looking them in the eye.
‘And I am, I am, aaaa. . .’ said the priest. He stopped, and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Oh, I am sorry. The mountain air doesn’t agree with me. I am the Quite Reverend Mightily Oats.’
‘You are?’ said Agnes. To her amazement, the man began to redden. The more she looked at him, the more she realized that he wasn’t much older than she was.
‘That is, Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth Om Oats,’ he said. ‘It’s much shorter in Omnian, of course. Have you by any chance heard the Word of Om?’
‘Which one? “Fire”?’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Hah!’
The nascent religious war was abruptly cut short by the first official royal fanfare to end with a few bars from the ‘Hedgehog Cakewalk’. The royal couple began to descend the stairs.
‘And we’ll have none of your heathen ways, thank you very much,’ muttered Nanny Ogg behind the pastor. ‘No sloshing water or oil or sand around or cutting any bits off and if I hears a single word I understand, well, I’m standing behind you with a pointy stick.'[9]
From the other side he heard, ‘He’s not some kind of horrible inquisitor, Nanny!’
‘But my pointy stick’s still a pointy stick, my girl!’
What’s got into her? Agnes thought, watching the pastor’s ears turn red. That’s the way Granny would act. Perdita added: Perhaps she thinks she’s got to carry on like that because that old bat’s not here yet.
Agnes was quite shocked at hearing herself think that.
‘You do things our way here, all right?’ said Nanny.
‘The, um, King did explain it all to me, um,’ said the pastor. ‘Er, do you have anything for a headache. I’m afraid I-‘
‘You put the key in one hand and let her grip the crown with the other,’ Nanny Ogg went on.
‘Yes, um, he did-‘
‘Then you tell her what her name is and her mum’s name and her dad’s name, mumbling a bit over the latter if the mum ain’t sure-‘
‘Nanny! This is royalty!’
‘Hah, I could tell you stories, gel . . . and then, see, you give her to me and I tell her, too, and then I give her back and you tell the people what her name is, an’ then you give her to me, and then I give her to her dad, and he takes her out through the doors and shows her to everyone, everyone throws their hats in the air and shouts “Hoorah!” and then it’s all over bar the drinks and horses’ doovers and findin’ your own hat. Start extemporizin’ on the subject of sin and it’ll go hard with you.’
‘What is, um, your role, madam?’
‘I’m the godmother!’
‘Which, um, god?’ The young man was trembling slightly.
‘It’s from Old Lancre,’ said Agnes hurriedly. ‘It means something like “goodmother”. It’s all right . . . as witches we believe in religious toleration . . .’
‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘But only for the right religions, so you watch your step!’
The royal parents had reached the thrones. Magrat took her seat and, to Agnes’s amazement, gave her a sly wink.
Verence didn’t wink. He stood there and coughed loudly.
‘Ahem!’
‘I’ve got a pastille somewhere,’ said Nanny, her hand reaching towards her knickerleg.
‘Ahem!’ Verence’s eyes darted towards his throne.
What had appeared to be a grey cushion rolled over, yawned, gave the King a brief glance, and started to wash itself.
‘Oh, Greebo!’ said Nanny. ‘I was wonderin’ where you’d got to. . .’
‘Could you please remove him, Mrs Ogg?’ said the King.
Agnes glanced at Magrat. The Queen had half turned away, with her elbow on the arm of the throne and her hand covering her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking.
Nanny grabbed her cat off the throne.
‘A cat can look at a king,’ she said.
‘Not with that expression, I believe,’ said Verence. He waved graciously at the assembled company, just as the castle’s dock began to strike midnight.
‘Please begin, Reverend.’
‘I, um, did have a small suitable homily on the subject of, um, hope for the-‘ the Quite Reverend Oats began, but there was a grunt from Nanny and he suddenly seemed to jerk forward slightly. He blinked once or twice and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. ‘But alas I fear we have no time,’ he concluded quickly.
Magrat leaned over and whispered something in her husband’s ear. Agnes heard him say, ‘Well, dear, I think we have to, whether she’s here or not. . .’
Shawn scurried up, slightly out of breath and with his wig on sideways. He was carrying a cushion. On the faded velvet was the big iron key of the castle.
Millie Chillum carefully handed the baby to the priest, who held it gingerly.
It seemed to the royal couple that he suddenly started to speak very hesitantly. Behind him, Nanny Ogg’s was an expression of extreme interest that was nevertheless made up of one hundred per cent artificial additives. They also had the impression that the poor man was suffering from frequent attacks of cramp.
‘-we are gathered here together in the sight of . . . um . . . one another . . .’
‘Are you all right, Reverend?’ said the King, leaning forward.
‘Never better, sir, um, I assure you,’ said Oats miserably, ‘. . . and I therefore name thee . . . that is, you . . .’
There was a deep, horrible pause.
Glassy faced, the priest handed the baby to Millie. Then he removed his hat, took a small scrap of paper from the lining, read it, moved his lips a few times as he said the words to himself, and then replaced the hat on his sweating forehead and took the baby again.
‘I name you . . . Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre!’
The shocked silence was suddenly filled.
‘Note Spelling?’ said Magrat and Agnes together.
‘Esmerelda?’ said Nanny.
The baby opened her eyes.
And the doors swung back.
Choices. It was always choices . . .
There’d been that man down in Spackle, the one that’d killed those little kids. The people’d sent for her and she’d looked at him and seen the guilt writhing in his head like a red worm, and then she’d taken them to his farm and showed them where to dig, and he’d thrown himself down and asked her for mercy, because he said he’d been drunk and it’d all been done in alcohol.
Her words came back to her. She’d said, in sobriety: end it in hemp.
And they’d dragged him off and hanged him in a hempen rope and she’d gone to watch because she owed him that much, and he’d cursed, which was unfair because hanging is a clean death, or at least cleaner than the one he’d have got if the villagers had dared defy her, and she’d seen the shadow of Death come for him, and then behind Death came the smaller, brighter figures, and then-
In the darkness, the rocking chair creaked as it thundered back and forth.
The villagers had said justice had been done, and she’d lost patience and told them to go home, then, and pray to whatever gods they believed in that it was never done to them. The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.
She shuddered at a memory. Almost as horrible, but not quite.
The odd thing was, quite a lot of villagers had turned up to his funeral, and there had been mutterings from one or two people on the lines of, yes, well, but overall he wasn’t such a bad chap . . . and anyway, maybe she made him say it. And she’d got the dark looks.
Supposing there was justice for all, after all? For every unheeded beggar, every harsh word, every neglected duty, every slight . . . every choice . . . Because that was the point, wasn’t it? You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself. You were the one there, on the edge, watching and listening. Never any tears, never any apology, never any regrets . . . You saved all that up in a way that could be used when needed.