It was on this cue that there came a thunderous knocking at the castle door. It seriously disturbed the castle porter, who was playing Cripple Mister Onion with the castle cook and the castle’s Fool in the warmth of the kitchen.
He growled and stood up. ‘There is a knocking without,’ he said.
‘Without what?’ said the Fool.
‘Without the door, idiot.’
The Fool gave him a worried look. ‘A knocking without a door?’ he said suspiciously. ‘This isn’t some kind of Zen, is it?’
When the porter had grumbled off in the direction of the gatehouse the cook pushed another farthing into the kitty and looked sharply over his cards at the Fool.
‘What’s a Zen?’ he said.
The Fool’s bells tinkled as he sorted through his cards. Without thinking, he said: ‘Oh, a sub-sect of the Turnwise Klatch philosophical system of Sumtin, noted for its simple austerity and the offer of personal tranquillity and wholeness achieved through meditation and breathing techniques; an interesting aspect is the asking of apparently nonsensical questions in order to widen the doors of perception.’
‘How’s that again?’ said the cook suspiciously. He was on edge. When he’d taken the breakfast up to the Great Hall he’d kept getting the feeling that something was trying to take the tray out of his hands. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, this new duke had sent him back for . . . He shuddered. Oatmeal! And a runny boiled egg! The cook was too old for this sort of thing. He was set in his ways. He was a cook in the real feudal tradition. If it didn’t have an apple in its mouth and you couldn’t roast it, he didn’t want to serve it.
The Fool hesitated with a card in his hand, suppressed his panic and thought quickly.
‘I’faith, nuncle,’ he squeaked, ‘thou’t more full of questions than a martlebury is of mizzensails.’
The cook relaxed.
‘Well, okay,’ he said, not entirely satisfied. The Fool lost the next three hands, just to be on the safe side.
The porter, meanwhile, unfastened the hatch in the wicket gate and peered out.
‘Who dost knock without?’ he growled.
The soldier, drenched and terrified though he was, hesitated.
‘Without? Without what?’ he said.
‘If you’re going to bugger about, you can bloody well stay without all day,’ said the porter calmly.
‘No! I must see the duke upon the instant!’ shouted the guard. ‘Witches are abroad!’
The porter was about to come back with, ‘Good time of year for it’, or ‘Wish I was, too’, but stopped when he saw the man’s face. It wasn’t the face of a man who would enter into the spirit of the thing. It was the look of someone who had seen things a decent man shouldn’t wot of . . .
‘Witches?’ said Lord Felmet. ‘Witches!’ said the duchess.
In the draughty corridors, a voice as faint as the wind in distant keyholes said, with a note of hope, ‘Witches!’
The psychically inclined . . .
‘It’s meddling, that’s what it is,’ said Granny Weatherwax. ‘And no good will come of it.’
‘It’s very romantic,’ said Magrat breathily, and heaved a sigh.
‘Goochy goo,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘Anyway,’ said Magrat, ‘you killed that horrid man!’
‘I never did. I just encouraged . . . things to take their course.’ Granny Weatherwax frowned. ‘He didn’t have no respect. Once people lose their respect, it means trouble.’
‘Izzy wizzy wazzy, den.’ ,
‘That other man brought him out here to save him!’ shouted Magrat. ‘He wanted us to keep him safe! It’s obvious! It’s destiny!’
‘Oh, obvious,’ said Granny. ‘I’ll grant you it’s obvious. Trouble is, just because things are obvious doesn’t mean they’re true.’
She weighed the crown in her hands. It felt very heavy, in a way that went beyond mere pounds and ounces.
‘Yes, but the point is—’ Magrat began.
‘The point is,’ said Granny, ‘that people are going to come looking. Serious people. Serious looking. Pull-down-the-walls and burn-off-the-thatch looking. And—’
‘Howsa boy, den?’
‘—And, Gytha , I’m sure we’ll all be a lot happier if you’d stop gurgling like that!’ Granny snapped. She could feel her nerves coming on. Her nerves always played up when she was unsure about things. Besides, they had retired to Magrat’s cottage, and the decor was getting to her, because Magrat believed in Nature’s wisdom and elves and the healing power of colours and the cycle of the seasons and a lot of other things Granny Weatherwax didn’t have any truck with.
‘You’re not after telling me how to look after a child,’ snapped Nanny Ogg mildly. ‘And me with fifteen of my own?’
‘I’m just saying that we ought to think about it,’ said Granny.
The other two watched her for some time. ‘Well?’ said Magrat.
Granny’s fingers drummed on the edge of the crown. She frowned.
‘First, we’ve got to take him away from here,’ she said, and held up a hand. ‘No, Gytha, I’m sure your cottage is ideal and everything, but it’s not safe. He’s got to be somewhere away from here, a long way away, where no-one knows who he is. And then there’s this.’ She tossed the crown from hand to hand.
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Magrat. ‘I mean, you just hide it under a stone or something. That’s easy. Much easier than babies.’
‘It ain’t,’ said Granny. The reason being, the country’s full of babies and they all look the same, but I don’t reckon there’s many crowns. They have this way of being found, anyway. They kind of call out to people’s minds. If you bunged it under a stone up here, in a week’s time it’d get itself discovered by accident. You mark my words.’
‘It’s true, is that,’ said Nanny Ogg, earnestly. ‘How many times have you thrown a magic ring into the deepest depths of the ocean and then, when you get home and have a nice bit of turbot for your tea, there it is?’
They considered this in silence.
‘Never,’ said Granny irritably. ‘And nor have you. Anyway, he might want it back. If it’s rightfully his, that is. Kings set a lot of store by crowns. Really, Gytha, sometimes you say the most—’
‘I’ll just make some tea, shall I?’ said Magrat brightly, and disappeared into the scullery.
The two elderly witches sat on either side of the table in polite and prickly silence. Finally Nanny Ogg said, ‘She done it up nice, hasn’t she? Flowers and everything. What are them things on the walls?’
‘Sigils,’ said Granny sourly. ‘Or some such.’
‘Fancy,’ said Nanny Ogg, politely. ‘And all them robes and wands and things too.’
‘Modern,’ said Granny Weatherwax, with a sniff. ‘When I was a gel, we had a lump of wax and a couple of pins and had to be content. We had to make our own enchantment in them days.’
‘Ah, well, we’ve all passed a lot of water since then,’ said Nanny Ogg sagely. She gave the baby a comforting jiggle.
Granny Weatherwax sniffed. Nanny Ogg had been married three times and ruled a tribe of children and grandchildren all over the kingdom. Certainly, it was not actually forbidden for witches to get married. Granny had to concede that, but reluctantly. Very reluctantly. She sniffed again, disapprovingly; this was a mistake.
‘What’s that smell?’ she snapped.
‘Ah,’ said Nanny Ogg, carefully repositioning the baby. ‘I expect I’ll just go and see if Magrat has any clean rags, shall I?’
And now Granny was left alone. She felt embarrassed, as one always does when left alone in someone else’s room, and fought the urge to get up and inspect the books on the shelf over the sideboard or examine the mantelpiece for dust. She turned the crown round and round in her hands. Again, it gave the impression of being bigger and heavier than it actually was.
She caught sight of the mirror over the mantelpiece and looked down at the crown. It was tempting. It was practically begging her to try it for size. Well, and why not? She made sure that the others weren’t around and then, in one movement, whipped off her hat and placed the crown on her head.
It seemed to fit. Granny drew herself up proudly, and waved a hand imperiously in the general direction of the hearth.
‘Jolly well do this,’ she said. She beckoned arrogantly at the grandfather clock. ‘Chop his head off, what ho,’ she commanded. She smiled grimly.
And froze as she heard the screams, and the thunder of horses, and the deadly whisper of arrows and the damp, solid sound of spears in flesh. Charge after charge echoed across her skull. Sword met shield, or sword, or bone -relentlessly. Years streamed across her mind in the space of a second. There were times when she lay among the dead, or hanging from the branch of a tree; but always there were hands that would pick her up again, and place her on a velvet cushion . . .