A moment later she was out in the garden, her ear pressed against a beehive.
There were no bees flying this early in the day, but the sound inside was a roar.
‘They’ll know,’ said a voice behind her. Agnes stood up so quickly she bumped her head on the hive roof.
‘But they won’t say,’ Nanny added. ‘She’d have told ’em. Well done for thinkin’ about ’em, though.’
Something chattered at them from a nearby branch. It was a magpie.
‘Good morning, Mister Magpie,’ said Agnes automatically.
‘Bugger off, you bastard,’ said Nanny, and reached down for a stick to throw. The bird swooped off to the other side of the clearing.
‘That’s bad luck,’ said Agnes.
‘It will be if I get a chance to aim,’ said Nanny. ‘Can’t stand those maggoty-pies.’
‘ “One for sorrow,” said Agnes, watching the bird hop along a branch.
‘I always take the view there’s prob’ly going to be another one along in a minute,’ said Nanny, dropping a stick.
‘ “Two for joy”?’ said Agnes.
‘It’s “two for mirth”.’
‘Same thing, I suppose.’
‘Dunno about that,’ said Nanny. ‘I was joyful when our Jason was born, but I can’t say I was laughin’ at the time. Come on, let’s have another look.’
Two more magpies landed on the cottage’s antique thatch.
‘That’s “three for a girl-“‘ said Agnes nervously.
‘ “Three for a funeral” is what I learned,’ said Nanny. ‘But there’s lots of magpie rhymes. Look, you take her broomstick and have a look over towards the mountains, and I’ll-‘
‘Wait,’ said Agnes.
Perdita was screaming at her to pay attention. She listened.
Threes. . .
Three spoons. Three knives. Three cups.
The broken cup thrown away.
She stood still, afraid that if she moved or breathed something awful would happen.
The clock had stopped . . .
‘Nanny?’
Nanny Ogg was wise enough to recognize that something was happening and didn’t waste time on daft questions.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Go in and tell me what time the clock stopped at, will you?’
Nanny nodded and trotted off.
The tension in Agnes’s head stretched out thin and made a noise like a plucked string. She was amazed that the whine from it couldn’t be heard all round the garden. If she moved, if she tried to force things, it’d snap.
Nanny returned.
‘Three o’clock?’ said Agnes, before she opened her mouth.
‘Just after.’
‘How much after?’
‘Two or three minutes. . .’
‘Two or three?’
‘Three, then.’
The three magpies landed together on another tree and chased one another through the branches, chattering loudly.
‘Three minutes after three,’ said Agnes, and felt the tension ease and the words form. ‘Threes, Nanny. She was thinking in threes. There was another candlestick out in the goat shed, and some cutlery too. But she only put out threes.’
‘Some things were in ones and twos,’ said Nanny, but her voice was edged with doubt.
‘Then she’d only got one or two of them,’ said Agnes. ‘There were more spoons and things out in the scullery that she’d missed. I mean that for some reason she wasn’t putting out more than three.’
‘I know for a fact she’s got four cups,’ said Nanny.
‘Three,’ said Agnes. ‘She must’ve broken one. The bits are in the slop bucket.’
Nanny Ogg stared at her. ‘She’s not clumsy, as a rule,’ she mumbled. She looked to Agnes as though she was trying to avoid some huge and horrible thought.
A gust shook the trees. A few drops of rain spattered across the garden.
‘Let’s get inside,’ Agnes suggested.
Nanny shook her head. ‘It’s chillier in there than out here,’ she said. Something skimmed across the leaves and landed on the lawn. It was a fourth magpie. ‘ “Four for a birth,”‘ she added, apparently to herself. ‘That’d be it, sure enough. I hoped she wouldn’t realize, but you can’t get anything past Esme. I’ll tan young Shawn’s hide for him when I get home[ He swore he’d delivered that invite!’
‘Perhaps she took it away with her?’
‘No! If she’d got it she’d have been there last night, you can bet on it!’ snapped Nanny.
‘What wouldn’t she realize?’ said Agnes.
‘Magrat’s daughter!’
‘What? Well, I should think she would realize! You can’t hide a baby! Everyone in the kingdom knows about it.’
‘I mean Magrat’s got a daughter! She’s a mother!’ said Nanny.
‘Well, yes! That’s how it works! So?’
They were shouting at one another, and they both realized it at the same time,
It was raining harder now. Drips were flying off Agnes’s hat every time she moved her head.
Nanny recovered a little. ‘All right, I s’pose between us we’ve got enough sense to get in out of the rain.’
‘And at least we can light the fire,’ said Agnes as they stepped into the chill of the kitchen. ‘She’s left it all laid-‘
‘No!’
‘There’s no need to shout again!’
‘Look, don’t light the fire, right?’ said Nanny. ‘Don’t touch anything more than you have to!’
‘I could easily get more kindling in, and-‘
‘Be told! That fire wasn’t laid for you to light! And leave that door alone!’
Agnes stopped in the act of pushing away the stone.
‘Be sensible, Nanny, the rain and leaves are blowing in!’
‘Let ’em!’
Nanny flopped into the rocking chair, pulled up her skirt and fumbled in the depths of a lengthy knickerleg until she came up with the spirit flask. She took a long pull. Her hands were shaking.
‘I can’t start being a hag at my time of life,’ she muttered. ‘None of my bras’ll fit.’
‘Nanny?’
‘Yes?’
‘What the hell are you going on about? Daughter? Not lighting fires? Hags?’
Nanny replaced the flask and felt around in the other leg, coming up eventually with her pipe and tobacco pouch.
‘Not sure if I ought to tell you,’ she said.
Now Granny Weatherwax was well beyond the local woods and high in the forests, following a track used by the charcoal burners and the occasional dwarf.
Already Lancre was dying away. She could feel it ebbing from her mind. Down below, when things were quiet, she was always aware of the buzz of minds around her. Human and animal, they all stirred up together in some great mental stew. But here there were mainly the slow thoughts of the trees, which were frankly boring after the first few hours and could be safely ignored. Snow, still quite thick in the hollows and on the shadow sides of trees, was dissolving in a drizzle of rain.
She stepped into a clearing and a small herd of deer on the far edge raised their heads to watch her. Out of habit she stopped and gently let herself unravel, until from the deer’s point of view there was hardly anyone there.
When she began to walk forward again a deer
stepped out of some bushes and stopped and turned to face her.
She’d seen this happen before. Hunters talked about it sometimes. You could track a herd all day, creeping silently among the trees in search of that one clean shot, and, just as you were aiming, a deer would step out right in front of you, turn and watch – and wait. Those were the times when a hunter found out how good he was . . .
Granny snapped her fingers. The deer shook itself and galloped off.
She climbed higher, following the stony bed of a stream. Despite its swiftness, there was a border of ice along its banks. Where it dropped over a series of small waterfalls she turned and looked back down into the bowl of Lancre.
It was full of clouds.
A few hundred feet below she saw a black and white magpie skim across the forest roof.
Granny turned and scrambled quickly up the dripping, icy rocks and on to the fringes of the moor land beyond.
Up here there was more sky. Silence clamped down. Far overhead an eagle wheeled.
It seemed to be the only other life. No one ever came up here. The furze and heather stretched away for a mile between the mountains, unbroken by any path. It was matted, thorny stuff that would tear unprotected flesh to ribbons.
She sat down on a rock and stared at the unbroken expanse for a while. Then she reached into her sack and took out a thick pair of socks.
And set off, onwards and upwards.
* * *
Nanny Ogg scratched her nose. She very seldom looked embarrassed, but there was just a hint of embarrassment about her now. It was even worse than Nanny Ogg upset.
‘I ain’t sure if this is the right time,’ she said.
‘Look, Nanny,’ said Agnes, ‘we need her. If there’s something I ought to know, then tell me.’
‘It’s this business with . . . you know . . . three witches,’ she said. ‘The maiden, the mother and. . .’