Finally she sat down in her rocking chair and glared at the doorway.
Owls were hooting in the forest when someone came running up the path and hammered on the door.
Anyone who hadn’t heard about Granny’s iron self control, which you could bend a horseshoe round, might just have thought they heard her give a tiny sigh of relief.
‘Well, it’s about time-‘ she began.
The excitement up at the castle was just a distant hum down in the mews. The hawks and falcons sat hunched on their perches, lost in some inner world of stoop and up draught. There was the occasional clink of a chain or flutter of a wing.
Hodgesaargh the falconer was getting ready in the tiny room next door when he felt the change in the air. He stepped out into a silent mews. The birds were all awake, alert, expectant. Even King Henry the eagle, whom Hodgesaargh would only go near at the moment when he was wearing full plate armour, was peering around.
You got something like this when there was a rat in the place, but Hodgesaargh couldn’t see one. Perhaps it had gone.
For tonight’s event he’d selected William the buzzard, who could be depended upon. All Hodgesaargh’s birds could be depended upon, but more often than not they could be depended upon to viciously attack him on sight. William, however, thought that she was a chicken, and she was usually safe in company.
But even William was paying a lot of attention to the world, which didn’t often happen unless she’d seen some corn.
Odd, thought Hodgesaargh. And that was all.
The birds went on staring up, as though the roof simply was not there.
Granny Weatherwax lowered her gaze to a red, round and worried face.
‘Here, you’re not-‘ She pulled herself together. ‘You’re the Wattley boy from over in Slice, aren’t you?’
‘Y’g’t. . .’ The boy leaned against the doorjamb and fought for breath. ‘You g’t–‘
‘Just take deep breaths. You want a drink of water?’
‘You g’t t’-‘
‘Yes, yes, all right. Just breathe . . .’
The boy gulped air a few times.
‘You got to come to Mrs Ivy and her baby missus!’
The words came out in one quick stream.
Granny grabbed her hat from its peg by the door and pulled her broomstick out of its lodging in the thatch.
‘I thought old Mrs Patternoster was seeing to her,’ she said, ramming her hatpins into place with the urgency of a warrior preparing for sudden battle.
‘She says it’s all gone wrong miss!’
Granny was already running down her garden path.
There was a small drop on the other side of the clearing, with a twenty-foot fall to a bend in the track. The broom hadn’t fired by the time she reached it but she ran on, swinging a leg over the bristles as it plunged.
The magic caught halfway down and her boots dragged across the dead bracken as the broom soared up into the night.
The road wound over the mountains like a dropped ribbon. Up here there was always the sound of the wind.
The highwayman’s horse was a big black stallion. It was also quite possibly the only horse with a ladder strapped behind the saddle.
This was because the highwayman’s name was Casanunda, and he was a dwarf. Most people thought of dwarfs as reserved, cautious, law-abiding and very reticent on matters of the heart and other vaguely connected organs, and this was indeed true of almost all dwarfs. But genetics rolls strange dice on the green baize of life and somehow the dwarfs had produced Casanunda, who preferred fun to money and devoted to women all the passion that other dwarfs reserved for gold.
He also regarded laws as useful things and he obeyed them when it was convenient. Casanunda despised highwaymanning, but it got you out in the fresh air of the countryside, which was very good for you, especially when the nearby towns were lousy with husbands carrying a grudge and a big stick.
The trouble was that no one on the road took him seriously. He could stop the coaches all right, but people tended to say, ‘What? I say, it’s a lowwayman. What up? A bit short, are you? Hur, hur, hur,’ and he would be forced to shoot them in the knee.
He blew on his hands to warm them, and looked up at the sound of an approaching coach.
He was about to ride out of his meagre hiding place in the thicket when he saw the other highwayman trot out from the wood opposite.
The coach came to a halt. Casanunda couldn’t hear what transpired, but the highwayman rode around to one of the doors and leaned down to speak to the occupants . . .
. . . and a hand reached out and plucked him off his horse and into the coach.
It rocked on its springs for a while, and then the door burst open and the highwayman tumbled out and lay still on the road.
The coach moved on . . .
Casanunda waited a little while and then rode down to the body. His horse stood patiently while he untied the ladder and dismounted.
He could tell the highwayman was stone dead. Living people are expected to have some blood in them.
The coach stopped at the top of a rise a few miles further on, before the road began the long winding fall towards Lancre and the plains.
The four passengers got out and walked to the start of the drop.
The clouds were rolling in behind them but here the air was frosty clear, and the view stretched all the way to the Rim under the moonlight. Down below, scooped out of the mountains, was the little kingdom.
‘Gateway to the world,’ said the Count de Magpyr.
‘And entirely undefended,’ said his son.
‘On the contrary. Possessed of some extremely effective defences,’ said the Count. He smiled in the night. ‘At least . . . until now . . .’
‘Witches should be on our side,’ said the Countess.
‘She will be soon, at any rate,’ said the Count. ‘A most . . . interesting woman. An interesting family. Uncle used to talk about her grandmother. The Weatherwax women have always had one foot in shadow. It’s in the blood. And most of their power comes from denying it. However,’ and his teeth shone as he grinned in the dark, ‘she will soon find out on which side her bread is buttered.’
‘Or her gingerbread is gilded,’ said the Countess.
‘Ah, yes. How nicely put. That’s the penalty for being a Weatherwax woman, of course. When they get older they start to hear the clang of the big oven door.’
‘I’ve heard she’s pretty tough, though,’ said the Count’s son. ‘A very sharp mind.’
‘Let’s kill her!’ said the Count’s daughter.
‘Really, Lacci dear, you can’t kill everything.’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘No. I rather like the idea of her being . . . useful. And she sees everything in black and white. That’s always a trap for the powerful. Oh, yes. A mind like that is so easily . . . led. With a little help.’
There was a whirr of wings under the moonlight and something bi-coloured landed on the Count’s shoulder.
‘And this. . .’ said the Count, stroking the magpie and then letting it go. He pulled a square of white card from an inner pocket of his jacket. Its edge gleamed briefly. ‘Can you believe it? Has this sort of thing ever happened before? A new world order indeed. . .’
‘Do you have a handkerchief, sir?’ said the Countess. ‘Give it to me, please. You have a few specks. . .’
She dabbed at his chin and pushed the bloodstained handkerchief back into his pocket.
‘There,’ she said.
‘There are other witches,’ said the son, like someone turning over a mouthful that was proving rather tough to chew.
‘Oh, yes. I hope we will meet them. They could be entertaining.’
They climbed back into the coach.
Back in the mountains, the man who had tried to rob the coach managed to get to his feet, which seemed for a moment to be caught in something. He rubbed his neck irritably and looked around for his horse, which he found standing behind some rocks a little way away.
When he tried to lay a hand on the bridle it passed straight through the leather and the horse’s neck, like smoke. The creature reared up and galloped madly away.
It was not, the highwayman thought muzzily, going to be a good night. Well, he’d be damned if he’d lose a horse as well as some wages. Who the hell were those people? He couldn’t quite remember what had happened in the carriage, but it hadn’t been enjoyable.
The highwayman was of that simple class of men who, having been hit by someone bigger than them, finds someone smaller than them for the purposes of retaliation. Someone else was going to suffer tonight, he vowed. He’d get another horse, at least.