‘You know your own minds best, I’m sure,’ said Nanny. ‘Got the holy water?’
‘Let’s hope it works better than the garlic,’ said Agnes.
‘Good luck.’ Nanny coded her head. ‘Sounds like the mob is spontaneously arriving at the gate. Go!’
Agnes ran off into the rain, around the castle to the doors of the kitchen. They were wide open. She made it to the corridor beyond the kitchens when a hand grabbed her shoulder, and then in a blur of speed two young men were standing in front of her.
They were dressed something like the young opera-goers she’d seen in Ankh-Morpork, except that their fancy waistcoats would have been considered far too fast by the staider members of the community, and they wore their hair long like a poet who hopes that romantically flowing locks will make up for a wretched inability to find a rhyme for ‘daffodil’.
‘Why are you in such a hurry, girl?’ one said.
Agnes sagged. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m very busy. Can we speed this up? Can we dispense with all the leers and “I like a girl with spirit” stuff? Can we get right to the bit where I twist out of your grip and kick you in the-‘
One of them struck her hard across the face.
‘No,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell Vlad of you!’ Perdita screamed in Agnes’s voice.
The other vampire hesitated.
‘Hah! Yes, he knows me!’ said Agnes and Perdita together. ‘Hah!’
One of the vampires looked her up and down.
‘What, you?’ he said.
‘Yes, her,’ said a voice.
Vlad strolled towards them, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat.
‘Demone? Crimson? To me, please?’
The two went and stood meekly in front of him. There was a blur, and then his thumbs were back in his waistcoat and the two vampires were in mid-crumple and sinking to the floor.
‘This is the kind of thing we don’t do to our guests,’ said Vlad, stepping over Demone’s twitching body and holding out his hands to Agnes. ‘Did they hurt you? Say the word and I’ll turn them over to Lacrimosa. She’s just discovered you have a torture chamber here. And to think we thought Lancre was backward!’
‘Oh, that old thing,’ said Agnes weakly. Crimson was making bubbling noises. I didn’t even see his hands move, said Perdita. ‘Er . . . it’s been there for centuries . . .’
‘Oh, really? She did say there weren’t enough straps and buckles. Still, she is . . . inventive. Just say the word.’
Say the word, Perdita prompted. That’d be two less of them.
‘Er . . . no,’ said Agnes. Ah . . . moral cowardice from the fat girl. ‘Er. . . who are they?’
‘Oh, we brought some of the clan in on the carts. They can make themselves useful, Father said.’
‘Oh? They’re relatives?’ Granny Weatherwax would’ve said yes, Perdita whispered.
Vlad coughed gently. ‘By blood,’ he said. ‘Yes. In a way. But . . . subservient. Do come this way.’
He gently took her arm and led her back up the passage, treading heavily on Crimson’s twitching hand as he did so.
‘You mean vampirism is like . . . pyramid selling?’ said Agnes. She was alone with Vlad. Admittedly this had the edge over being alone with the other two, but somehow at a time like this it seemed vital to hear the sound of her own
voice, if only to remind herself that she was alive.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Vlad. ‘Who sells pyramids?’
‘No, I mean . . . you bite five necks, and in two months’ time you get a lake of blood of your very own?’
He smiled, but a little cautiously. ‘I can see we will have a lot to learn,’ he said. ‘I understood every word fn that sentence, but not the sentence itself. I’m sure there is a lot you could teach me. And, indeed, I could teach you. . .’
‘No,’ said Agnes, flatly.
‘But when we- Oh, what is that moron doing now?’
A cloud of dust was advancing from the direction of the kitchens. In the middle of it, holding a bucket and a shovel, was Igor.
‘Igor!’
‘Yeth, marthter?’
‘You’re putting down dust again, aren’t you?’
‘Yeth, marthter.’
‘And why are you putting down dust, Igor?’ said Vlad icily.
‘You’ve got to have dutht, marthter. It’th tradi-‘
‘Igor, Mother told you. We don’t want dust. We don’t want huge candlesticks. We don’t want eyeholes cut in all the pictures, and we certainly don’t want your wretched box of damn spiders and your stupid little whip!’
In the ringing, red-hot silence Igor looked down at his feet.
‘. . . thpiderth webth ith what people ecthpect, marthter . . .’ he mumbled.
‘We don’t want them!’
‘. . . the old Count liked my thpiderth. . .’ said Igor, his voice like some little insect that would nevertheless not be squashed.
‘It’s ridiculous, Igor.’
‘. . . he uthed to thay, “Good webth today, Igor . . .”‘
‘Look, just . . . just go away, will you? See if you can’t sort out that dreadful smell from the garderobe. Mother says it makes her eyes water. And stand up straight and walk properly!’ Vlad called after him. ‘No one’s impressed by the limp!’
Agnes saw Igor’s retreating back pause for a moment, and she expected him to say something. But then he continued his wobbly walk.
‘He’s such a big baby,’ said Vlad, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that.’
‘Yes, I think I’m sorry too,’ said Agnes.
‘He’s going to be replaced. Father’s only been keeping him on out of sentiment. I’m afraid he came with the old castle, along with the creaking roof and the strange smell halfway up the main stairs which, I have to say, is not as bad as the one we’ve noticed here. Oh dear. . . look at this, will you? We turn our back for five minutes . . .’
There was a huge and very dribbly candle burning in a tall black candlestick.
‘King Verence had all those oil lamps put in, a lovely modern light, and Igor’s been going around replacing them with candles again! We don’t even know where he gets them from. Lacci thinks he saves his earwax . . .’
They were in the long room beside the great hall now. Vlad lifted the candlestick up so that the flame’s glow lit the wall.
‘Ah, they’ve put the pictures up. You ought to get to know the family . . .’
The light fell on a portrait of a tall, thin, grey haired man in evening dress and a red-lined cloak. He looked quite distinguished in a distant, aloof sort of way. There was the glimmer of a lengthened canine on his lower lip.
‘My great-uncle,’ said Vlad. ‘The last . . . incumbent.’
‘What’s the sash and star he’s wearing?’ said Agnes. She could hear the sounds of the mob, far off but growing louder.
‘The Order of Gvot. He built our family home. Don’tgonearthe Castle, we call it. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of it?’
‘It’s a strange name.’
‘Oh, he used to laugh about it. The local coachmen used to warn visitors, you see. “Don’t go near the castle,” they’d say. “Even if it means spending a night up a tree, never go up there to the castle,” they’d tell people. “Whatever you do, don’t set foot in that castle.” He said it was marvellous publicity. Sometimes he had every bedroom full by 9 p.m. and people would be hammering on the door to get in. Travellers would go miles out of their way to see what all the fuss was about. We won’t see his like again, with any luck. He did rather play to the crowd, I’m afraid. Rose from the grave so often that he had a coffin with a revolving lid. Ah . . . Aunt Carmilla . . .’
Agnes stared at a very severe woman in a figure-hugging black dress and deep-plum lipstick.
‘She was said to bathe in the blood of up to two hundred virgins at a time,’ Vlad said. ‘I don’t believe that. Use more than eighty virgins and even quite a large bath will overflow, Lacrimosa tells me.’
‘These little details are important,’ said Agnes, buoyed up by the excitement of terror. ‘And, of course, it is so hard to find the soap.’
‘Killed by a mob, I’m afraid.’
‘People can be so ungrateful.’
‘And this. . .’ the light passed along the hall ‘. . . is my grandfather . . .’
A bald head. Dark-rimmed, staring eyes. Two teeth like needles, two ears like batwings, fingernails that hadn’t been trimmed for years . . .
‘But half the picture’s just bare canvas,’ said Agnes.
‘The family story is that old Magyrato got hungry,’ said Vlad. ‘A very direct approach to things, my grandfather. See the reddish-brown stains just here? Very much in the old style. And here . . . well, some distant ancestor, that’s all I know.’