Oats remembered the Count talking about contributing to the Arca Instrumentorum . . .
Those books were ancient! But so were vampires, weren’t they? And they were practically canonical! The freezing knife of doubt wedged itself deeper in his brain. Who knew who really wrote anything? What could you trust? Where was the holy writ? Where was the truth?
Granny pulled herself to her feet and tottered over to the bench, where Hodgesaargh had left his jar of flame. She examined it carefully.
Oats tightened his grip on the axe. It was, he had to admit, slightly more comforting than prayer at that moment. Perhaps you could start with the small truths. Like: he had an axe in his hand.
‘I wa- want to be certain,’ he said. ‘Are you . . . are you a vampire?’
Granny Weatherwax appeared not to hear the question.
‘Where’s Hodgesaargh with that tea?’ she said.
The falconer came in with a tray.
‘Nice to see you up and about, Mistress Weatherwax.’
‘Not before time.’
The tea slopped as she took the proffered cup. Her hand was shaking.
‘Hodgesaargh?’
‘Yes, mistress?’
‘So you’ve got a firebird here, have you?’
‘No, mistress.’
‘I saw you out huntin’ it.’
‘And I found it, miss. But it had been killed.
There was nothing but burnt ground, miss.’
‘You’d better tell me all about it.’
‘Is this the right time?’ said Oats.
‘Yes,’ said Granny Weatherwax.
Oats sat and listened. Hodgesaargh was an original storyteller and quite good in a very specific way. If he’d had to recount the saga of the Tsortean War, for example, it would have been in terms of the birds observed, every cormorant noted, every pelican listed, every battlefield raven taxonomically placed, no tern unturned. Some men in armour would have been involved at some stage, but only because the ravens were perching on them.
‘The phoenix doesn’t lay eggs,’ said Oats, at one point. This was a point a few points after the point where he asked the falconer if he’d been drinking.
‘She’s a bird,’ said Hodgesaargh. ‘That’s what birds do. I’ve never seen a bird that doesn’t lay eggs. I collected the eggshell.’
He scuttled off into the mews. Oats smiled nervously at Granny Weatherwax.
‘Probably a bit of chicken shell,’ he said. ‘I’ve read about the phoenix. It’s a mythical creature, a symbol, it-‘
‘Can’t say for sure,’ said Granny. ‘I’ve never seen one that close to.’
The falconer returned, clutching a small box. It was full of tufts of fleece, in the middle of which was a pile of shell fragments. Oats picked up a couple. They were a silvery grey and very light.
‘I found them in the ashes.’
‘No one’s ever claimed to have found phoenix
eggshell before,’ said Oats accusingly.
‘Didn’t know that, sir,’ said Hodgesaargh innocently. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have looked.’
‘Did anyone else ever look, I wonder?’ said Granny. She poked at the fragments. ‘Ah. . .’ she said.
‘I thought p’raps the phoenixes used to live somewhere very dangerous-‘ Hodgesaargh began.
‘Everywhere’s like that when you’re newborn,’ said Granny. ‘I can see you’ve been thinking, Hodgesaargh.’
‘Thank you, Mistress Weatherwax.’
‘Shame you didn’t think further,’ Granny went on.
‘Mistress?’
‘There’s the bits of more than one egg here.’
‘Mistress?’
‘Hodgesaargh,’ said Granny patiently, ‘this phoenix laid more than one egg.’
‘What? But it can’t! According to mythology-‘ Oats said.
‘Oh, mythology,’ said Granny. ‘Mythology’s just the folktales of people who won ‘cos they had bigger swords. They’re just the people to spot the finer points of ornithology, are they? Anyway, one of anything ain’t going to last for very long, is it? Firebirds have got enemies, same as everything else. Give me a hand up, Mister Oats. How many birds in the mews, Hodgesaargh?’
The falconer looked at his fingers for a moment.
‘Fifty.’
‘Counted ’em lately?’
They stood and watched while he walked from post to post. Then they stood and watched while he walked back and counted them again. Then he spent some time looking at his fingers.
‘Fifty-one?’ said Granny helpfully.
‘I don’t understand it, mistress.’
‘You’d better count them by types, then.’
This produced a count of nineteen lappet-faced worriers where there should have been eighteen.
‘Perhaps one flew in because it saw the others,’ said Oats. ‘Like pigeons.’
‘It doesn’t work like that, sir,’ said the falconer.
‘One of ’em won’t be tethered,’ said Granny. ‘Trust me.’
They found it at the back, slightly smaller than the other worriers, hanging meekly from its perch.
Fewer birds could sit more meekly than the Lancre wowhawk, or lappet-faced worrier, a carnivore permanently on the lookout for the vegetarian option. It spent most of its time asleep in any case, but when forced to find food it tended to sit on a branch out of the wind somewhere and wait for something to die. When in the mews the worriers would initially perch like other birds and then, talons damped around the pole, doze off peacefully upside down. Hodgesaargh bred them because they were found only in Lancre and he liked the plumage, but all reputable falconers agreed that for hunting purposes the only way you could reliably bring down prey with a wowhawk was by using it in a slingshot.
Granny reached out towards it.
‘I’ll fetch you a glove,’ said Hodgesaargh, but she waved him away.
The bird hopped on to her wrist.
Granny gasped, and little threads of green and blue burned like marsh gas along her arm for a moment.
‘Are you all right?’ said Oats.
‘Never been better. I’ll need this bird, Hodgesaargh.’
‘It’s dark, mistress.’
‘That won’t matter. But it’ll need to be hooded.’
‘Oh, I never hood wowhawks, mistress. They’re never any trouble.’
‘This bird . . . this bird,’ said Granny, ‘is a bird I reckon no one’s ever seen before. Hood it.’
Hodgesaargh hesitated. He recalled the circle of scorched earth and, before it, something looking for a shape in which it could survive . . .
‘It is a wowhawk, isn’t it, mistress?’
‘And what makes you ask that?’ said Granny slowly. ‘After all, you’re the falconer in these parts.’
‘Because I found . . . in the woods . . . I saw. . .’
‘What did you see, Hodgesaargh?’
Hodgesaargh gave up in the face of her stare. To think that he’d tried to capture a phoenix! At least the worst the other birds could do would be to draw blood. Supposing he’d been holding it . . . He was overcome by a very definite burning desire to get this bird out of here.
Strangely, though, the other birds weren’t disturbed at all. Every hooded head was turned towards the little bird on Granny Weatherwax’s wrist. Every blind, hooded head.
Hodgesaargh picked up another hood. As he fastened it over the bird’s head he thought, for a moment, that there was a flash of gold from underneath.
He put that down as not his business. He’d survived quite happily in the castle for many years by knowing where his business was, and he was suddenly very clear that it wasn’t here, thank goodness.
Granny took a few deep breaths.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Now we’ll go up to the castle.’
‘What for? Why?’ said Oats.
‘Good grief, man, why d’you think?’
‘The vampires are gone,’ said the priest. ‘While you were . . . getting better. Mr Hodges . . . aargh found out. They’ve just left the soldiers and the, er, servants. There was a lot of noise and the coach went, too. There’s guards all over the place.’
‘How did the coach get out, then?’
‘Well, it was the vampires’ coach and their servant was driving it, but Jason Ogg said he saw Mrs Ogg, too.’
Granny steadied herself against the wall.
‘Where did they go?’
‘I thought you could read their minds or something,’ said Oats.
‘Young man, right now I don’t think I can read my own mind.’
‘Look, Granny Weatherwax, it’s obvious to me you’re still weak from loss of blood-‘
‘Don’t you dare tell me what I am,’ said Granny. ‘Don’t you dare. Now, where would Gytha Ogg’ve taken them?’
‘I think-‘
‘Uberwald,’ said Granny. ‘That’ll be it.’
‘What? How can you know that?’
‘Because nowhere in the village’d be safe, she wouldn’t go up to the gnarly ground on a night like this and with a baby to carry as well, and heading down on to the plains’d be downright daft ‘cos there’s no cover and I wouldn’t be surprised if the road is washed out by now.’
‘But that’ll be right into danger!’
‘More dangerous than here?’ said Granny. ‘They know about vampires in Uberwald. They’re used to ’em. There’s safe places. Pretty strong inns all along the coach road, for a start. Nanny’s practical. She’ll think of that, I’m betting.’ She winced, and added, ‘But they’ll end up in the vampires’ castle.’
‘Oh, surely not!’
‘I can feel it in my blood,’ said Granny. ‘That’s the trouble with Gytha Ogg. Far too practical.’ She paused. ‘You mentioned guards?’