‘She’s coming back to Lancre with us, you bastard!’ screamed Magrat. She twisted in the Count’s grip and tried to slap him, but Agnes saw her face whiten as his hand tightened on her wrist.
‘That’s very bad language for a queen,’ said the Count. ‘And I am still very strong, even for a vampire. But you’re right. We shall all go back to Lancre. One big happy family, living in the castle. I must say, this place is losing its attractions. Oh, don’t blame yourself, Mrs Ogg. I’m sure others will do that for you-‘
He stopped. A sound that had been on the edge of hearing was getting louder. It had a rhythmic, almost tinny sound.
The crowd parted. Granny Weatherwax walked forward, slowly stirring.
‘No milk in this place,’ she said. ‘Not to be wondered at, really. I sliced a bit of lemon, but it’s not the same, I always think.’
She laid the spoon in the saucer with a clink that echoed around the hall, and gave the Count a smile.
‘Am I too late?’ she said.
The bolts rattled back, one by one.
‘. . . ‘th gone too far,’ Igor muttered. ‘The old marthter wouldn’t. . .’
The door creaked back on lovingly rusted hinges. Cool dry air puffed out of the darkness.
Igor fumbled with some matches and lit a torch.
‘. . . it’th all very well wanting a nithe long retht, but thith ith a dithgrathe . . .’
He ran along the dark corridors, half rough masonry, half sheer naked rock, and reached another chamber that was completely empty apart from a large stone sarcophagus in the centre, on the side of which was carved MAGPYR.
He stuffed the torch into a bracket, removed his coat and after considerable pushing heaved the stone lid aside.
‘Thorry about thith, marthter,’ he grunted as it thudded to the ground.
Inside the coffin grey dust twinkled in the torchlight.
‘. . . coming up here, mething everything up. . .’ Igor picked up his coat and took a thick wad of material out of his pocket. He unrolled it on the edge of the stone,. Now the light glinted off an array of scalpels, scissors and needles .
. . . threatening little babieth now . . . you never done that . . . only adventurouth femaleth over the age of theventeen and looking good in a nightie, you alwayth thed . . .’
He selected a scalpel and, with some care, nicked the little finger of his left hand.
A drop of blood appeared, swelled and dropped on to the dust, where it smoked.
‘That one’th for Thcrapth,’ said Igor with grim satisfaction.
By the time he’d reached the door white mist was already pouring over the edge of the coffin.
‘I’m an old lady’ said Granny Weatherwax, looking around sternly. ‘I’d like to sit down, thank you so very much.’
A bench was rushed forward. Granny sat, and eyed the Count.
‘What were you saying?’ she said.
‘Ah, Esmerelda,’ said the Count. ‘At last you come to join us. The call of the blood is too strong to be disobeyed, yes?’
‘I hope so,’ said Granny.
‘We’re all going to walk out of here, Miss Weatherwax.’
‘You’re not leaving here,’ said Granny. She stirred the tea again. The eyes of all three vampires swivelled to follow the spoon.
‘You have no choice but to obey me. You know that,’ said the Count.
‘Oh, there’s always a choice,’ said Granny.
Vlad and Lacrimosa leaned down on either side of their father. There was some hurried whispering. The Count looked up.
‘No, you couldn’t have resisted it,’ he said. ‘Not even you!’
‘I won’t say it didn’t cost me,’ said Granny. She stirred the tea again.
There was more whispering.
‘We do have the Queen and the baby’ said the Count. ‘I believe you think highly of them.’
Granny raised the cup halfway to her lips. ‘Kill ’em,’ she said. ‘It won’t benefit you.’
‘Esme!’ snapped Nanny Ogg and Magrat together.
Granny put the cup back in the saucer. Agnes thought she saw Vlad sigh. She could feel the pull herself . . .
I know what she did, whispered Perdita. So do I, thought Agnes.
‘He’s bluffing,’ Granny said.
‘Oh? You’d like a vampire queen one day, would you?’ said Lacrimosa.
‘Had one once, in Lancre,’ said Granny conversationally. ‘Poor woman got bitten by one of you people. Got by on blue steak and such. Never laid a tooth on anyone, the way I heard it. Griminir the Impaler, she was.’
‘The Impaler?’
‘Oh, I just said she wasn’t a bloodsucker. I didn’t say she was a nice person,’ said Granny. ‘She didn’t mind shedding blood, but she drew the line at drinking it. You don’t have to, neither.’
‘You know nothing about true vampires!’
‘I know more’n you think, and I know about Gytha Ogg,’ said Granny. Nanny Ogg blinked.
Granny Weatherwax raised the teacup again, and then lowered it. ‘She likes a drink. She’ll tell you it has to be best brandy. . .’ Nanny nodded affirmation ‘. . . and that’s certainly what she desires, but really she’ll settle for beer just like everyone else.’ Nanny Ogg shrugged as Granny went on: ‘But you wouldn’t settle for black puddings, would you, because what you really drink is power over people. I know you like I know myself. And one of the things I know is that you ain’t going to hurt a hair of that child’s head. Leastways,’ and here Granny absentmindedly stirred the tea again, ‘if she had any yet, you wouldn’t. You can’t, see.’
She picked up the cup and carefully scraped it on the edge of the saucer. Agnes saw Lacrimosa’s lips part, hungrily.
‘So all I’m really here for, d’you see, is to see whether you get justice or mercy,’ said Granny. ‘It’s just a matter of choosing.’
‘You really think we wouldn’t harm meat?’ said Lacrimosa, striding forward. ‘Watch!’
She brought her hand down hard towards the baby, and then jerked back as if she’d been stung.
‘Can’t do it,’ said Granny.
‘I nearly broke my arm!’
‘Shame,’ said Granny calmly.
‘You’ve put some . . . something magical in the child, have you?’ said the Count.
‘Can’t imagine who’d think I’d do such a thing,’ said Granny, while behind her Nanny Ogg looked down at her boots. ‘So here’s my offer, you see. You hand back Magrat and the baby and we’ll chop your heads off.’
‘And that’s what you call justice, is it?’ said the Count.
‘No, that’s what I call mercy,’ said Granny. She put the cup back in the saucer.
‘For goodness’ sake, woman, are you going to drink that damn tea or not?’ roared the Count.
Granny sipped it and made a face.
‘Why, what have I been thinkin’ of? I’ve been so busy talking it’s got cold,’ she said, and daintily tipped the contents of the cup on to the floor.
Lacrimosa groaned.
‘It’ll probably wear off soon,’ Granny went on, in the same easy voice. ‘But until it does, you see, you’ll not harm a child, you’ll not harm Magrat, you hate the thought of drinking blood, and you won’t run because you’ll never run from a challenge. . .’
‘What will wear off?’ said Vlad.
‘Oh, they’re strong, your walls of thought,’ said Granny dreamily. ‘I couldn’t get through them.’
The Count smiled.
Granny smiled, too. ‘So I didn’t,’ she added.
* * *
The mist rolled through the crypt, flowing along the floor, walls and ceiling. It poured up the steps and along a tunnel, the billows boiling ahead on one another as though engaged in a war.
An unwary rat, creeping across the flagstones, was too late. The mist flowed over it. There was a squeak, cut off, and when the mist had gone a few small white bones were all that remained.
Some equally small bones, but fully assembled and wearing a black hooded robe and carrying a tiny scythe, appeared out of nowhere and walked over to them. Skeletal claws tippy-tapped on the stone.
‘Squeak?’ said the ghost of the rat pathetically.
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats. This was really all it needed to know.
‘You wanted to know where I’d put my self,’ said Granny. ‘I didn’t go anywhere. I just put it in something alive, and you took it. You invited me in. I’m in every muscle in your body and I’m in your head, oh yes. I was in the blood, Count. In the blood. I ain’t been vampired. You’ve been Weatherwaxed. All of you. And you’ve always listened to your blood, haven’t you?’
The Count stared at her, open mouthed.
The spoon dropped out of her saucer and tinkled on to the floor, raising a wave in a thin white mist. It was rolling in from the walls, leaving a shrinking circle of black and white tiles in the middle of which were the vampires.