The king thumped the sill, his fist going several inches into the stone.
Then he pushed his way out into the air, disdaining to notice the drop, and half flew, half ran down across the courtyard and into the stables.
It took him a mere twenty seconds to learn that, to the great many things a ghost cannot do, should be added the mounting of a horse. He did succeed in getting into the saddle, or at least in straddling the air just above it, but when the horse finally bolted, terrified beyond belief by the mysterious things happening behind its ears, Verence was left sitting astride five feet of fresh air.
He tried to run, and got about as far as the gateway before the air around him thickened to the consistency of tar.
‘You can’t,’ said a sad, old voice behind him. ‘You have to stay where you were killed. That’s what haunting means. Take it from me. I know.’
Granny Weatherwax paused with a second scone halfway to her mouth.
‘Something comes,’ she said.
‘Can you tell by the pricking of your thumbs?’ said Magrat earnestly. Magrat had learned a lot about witchcraft from books.
‘The pricking of my ears,’ said Granny. She raised her eyebrows at Nanny Ogg. Old Goodie Whemper had been an excellent witch in her way, but far too fanciful. Too many flowers and romantic notions and such.
The occasional flash of lightning showed the moorland stretching down to the forest, but the rain on the warm summer earth had filled the air with mist wraiths.
‘Hoofbeats?’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘No-one would come up here this time of night.’
Magrat peered around timidly. Here and there on the moor were huge standing stones, their origins lost in time, which were said to lead mobile and private lives of their own. She shivered.
‘What’s to be afraid of?’ she managed.
‘Us,’ said Granny Weatherwax, smugly.
The hoofbeats neared, slowed. And then the coach rattled between the furze bushes, its horses hanging in their harnesses. The driver leapt down, ran around to the door, pulled a large bundle from inside and dashed towards the trio.
He was halfway across the damp peat when he stopped and stared at Granny Weatherwax with a look of horror.
‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, and the whisper cut through the grumbling of the storm as clearly as a bell.
She took a few steps forward and a convenient lightning flash allowed her to look directly into the man’s eyes. They had the peculiarity of focus that told those who had the Know that he was no longer looking at anything in this world.
With a final jerking movement he thrust the bundle into Granny’s arms and toppled forward, the feathers of a crossbow bolt sticking out of his back.
Three figures moved into the firelight. Granny looked up into another pair of eyes, which were as chilly as the slopes of Hell.
Their owner threw his crossbow aside. There was a glimpse of chain mail under his sodden cloak as he drew his sword.
He didn’t flourish it. The eyes that didn’t leave Granny’s face weren’t the eyes of one who bothers about flourishing things. They were the eyes of one who knows exactly what swords are for. He reached out his hand.
‘You will give it to me,’ he said.
Granny twitched aside the blanket in her arms and looked down at a small face, wrapped in sleep.
She looked up.
‘No,’ she said, on general principles.
The soldier glanced from her to Magrat and Nanny Ogg, who were as still as the standing stones of the moor.
‘You are witches?’ he said.
Granny nodded. Lightning skewered down from the sky and a bush a hundred yards away blossomed into fire. The two soldiers behind the man muttered something, but he smiled and raised a mailed hand.
‘Does the skin of witches turn aside steel?’ he said.
‘Not that I’m aware,’ said Granny, levelly. ‘You could give it a try.’
One of the soldiers stepped forward and touched the man’s arm gingerly.
‘Sir, with respect, sir, it’s not a good idea—’
‘Be silent.’
‘But it’s terrible bad luck to—’
‘Must I ask you again?’
‘Sir,’ said the man. His eyes caught Granny’s for a moment, and reflected hopeless terror.
The leader grinned at Granny, who hadn’t moved a muscle.
‘Your peasant magic is for fools, mother of the night. I can strike you down where you stand.’
‘Then strike, man,’ said Granny, looking over his shoulder. ‘If your heart tells you, strike as hard as you dare.’
The man raised his sword. Lightning speared down again and split a stone a few yards away, filling the air with smoke and the stink of burnt silicon.
‘Missed,’ he said smugly, and Granny saw his muscles tense as he prepared to bring the sword down.
A look of extreme puzzlement crossed his face. He tilted his head sideways and opened his mouth, as if trying to come to terms with a new idea. His sword dropped out of his hand and landed point downwards in the peat. Then he gave a sigh and folded up, very gently, collapsing in a heap at Granny’s feet.
She gave him a gentle prod with her toe. ‘Perhaps you weren’t aware of what I was aiming at,’ she whispered. ‘Mother of the night, indeed!’
The soldier who had tried to restrain the man stared in horror at the bloody dagger in his hand, and backed away.
‘I-I-I couldn’t let. He shouldn’t of. It’s – it’s not right to,’ he stuttered.
‘Are you from around these parts, young man?’ said Granny.
He dropped to his knees. ‘Mad Wolf, ma’am,’ he said. He stared back at the fallen captain. ‘They’ll kill me now!’ he wailed.
‘But you did what you thought was right,’ said Granny.
‘I didn’t become a soldier for this. Not to go round killing people.’
‘Exactly right. If I was you, I’d become a sailor,’ said Granny thoughtfully. ‘Yes, a nautical career. I should start as soon as possible. Now, in fact. Run off, man. Run off to sea where there are no tracks. You will have a long and successful life, I promise.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment, and added, ‘At least, longer than it’s likely to be if you hang around here.’
He pulled himself upward, gave her a look compounded of gratitude and awe, and ran off into the mist.
‘And now perhaps someone will tell us what this is all about?’ said Granny, turning to the third man.
To where the third man had been.
There was the distant drumming of hooves on the turf, and then silence.
Nanny Ogg hobbled forward.
‘I could catch him,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’
Granny shook her head. She sat down on a rock and looked at the child in her arms. It was a boy, no more than two years old, and quite naked under the blanket. She rocked him vaguely and stared at nothing.
Nanny Ogg examined the two corpses with the air of one for whom laying-out holds no fears.
‘Perhaps they were bandits,’ said Magrat tremulously.
Nanny shook her head.
‘A strange thing,’ she said. ‘They both wear this same badge. Two bears on a black and gold shield. Anyone know what that means?’
‘It’s the badge of King Verence,’ said Magrat.
‘Who’s he?’ said Granny Weatherwax.
‘He rules this country,’ said Magrat.
‘Oh. That king,’ said Granny, as if the matter was hardly worth noting.
‘Soldiers fighting one another. Doesn’t make sense,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Magrat, you have a look in the coach.’
The youngest witch poked around inside the bodywork and came back with a sack. She upended it, and something thudded on to the turf.
The storm had rumbled off to the other side of the mountain now, and the watery moon shed a thin gruel of light over the damp moorland. It also gleamed off what was, without any doubt, an extremely important crown.
‘It’s a crown,’ said Magrat. ‘It’s got all spiky bits on it.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Granny.
The child gurgled in its sleep. Granny Weatherwax didn’t hold with looking at the future, but now she could feel the future looking at her.
She didn’t like its expression at all.
King Verence was looking at the past, and had formed pretty much the same view.
‘You can see me?’ he said.
‘Oh, yes. Quite clearly, in fact,’ said the newcomer.
Verence’s brows knotted. Being a ghost seemed to require considerably more mental effort than being alive; he’d managed quite well for forty years without having to think more than once or twice a day, and now he was doing it all me time.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re a ghost, too.’
‘Well spotted.’
‘It was the head under your arm,’ said Verence, pleased with himself. ‘That gave me a clue.’
‘Does it bother you? I can put it back on if it bothers you,’ said the old ghost helpfully. He extended his free hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Champot, King of Lancre.’