Witches Abroad (29 page)

‘A Duc pond,' said Nanny.

There
were
flies everywhere. They buzzed on the window and zigzagged aimlessly back and forth across the ceiling.

‘Duc pond,' Nanny repeated, because people who make that kind of joke never let well alone, ‘like duck –'

‘I heard,' said Granny. She flailed at a fat bluebottle.

‘Anyway, you'd think there wouldn't be flies in a royal bedroom,' muttered Nanny.

‘You'd think there'd be a bed, in fact,' said Granny.

Which there wasn't. What there was instead, and what was preying somewhat on their minds, was a big round wooden cover on the floor. It was about six feet across. There were convenient handles.

They walked around it. Flies rose up and hummed away.

‘I'm thinking of a story,' said Granny.

‘Me too,' said Nanny Ogg, her tone slightly shriller than usual. ‘There was this girl who married this man and he said you can go anywhere you like in the palace but you mustn't open
that
door and she did and she found he'd murdered all his other . . .'

Her voice trailed off.

Granny was staring hard at the cover, and scratching her chin.

‘Put it like this,' said Nanny, trying to be reasonable against all odds. ‘What could we possibly find under there that's worse than we could imagine?'

They each took a handle.

Five minutes later Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg stepped outside the Duc's bedroom. Granny closed the door very quietly.

They stared at one another.

‘Cor,' said Nanny, her face still pale.

‘Yes,' said Granny. ‘Stories!'

‘I'd heard about . . . you know, people like him, but I never believed it. Yuk. I wonder what he looks like.'

‘You can't tell just by lookin',' said Granny.

‘It explains the flies, at any rate,' said Nanny Ogg.

She raised a hand to her mouth in horror.

‘And our Magrat's down there with him!' she said. ‘And you know what's going to happen. They're going to meet one another and—'

‘But there's hundreds of other people,' said Granny. ‘It's hardly what you'd call
intimate
.'

‘Yes . . . but even the thought of him, you know, even
touching
her . . . I mean, it'd be like holding a—'

‘Does Ella count as a princess, d'you think?' said Granny.

‘What? Oh. Yeah. Probably. For foreign parts. Why?'

‘Then that means there's more than one story here. Lily's letting several happen all at the same time,' said Granny. ‘Think about it. It's not touching that's the trick. It's
kissing
.'

‘We've got to get down there!' said Nanny. ‘We've got to stop it! I mean, you know me, I'm no prude, but . . . yuk . . .'

‘I say! Old woman!'

They turned. A small fat woman in a red dress and a towering white wig was peering haughtily at them from behind a fox mask.

‘Yes?' snapped Granny.

‘Yes,
my lady
,' said the fat woman. ‘Where are your manners? I demand that you direct me to the powder room this instant!
And what do you think you're doing?
'

This was to Nanny Ogg, who was walking around her and staring critically at her dress.

‘You're a 20, maybe a 22?' said Nanny.

‘What? What is this
impertinence
?'

Nanny Ogg rubbed her chin thoughtfully. ‘Well, I dunno,' she said, ‘red in a dress has never been
me
. You haven't got anything in blue, have you?'

The choleric woman turned to strike Nanny with her fan, but a skinny hand tapped her on the shoulder.

She looked up into Granny Weatherwax's face.

As she passed out dreamily she was aware of a voice, a long way off, saying, ‘Well, that's me fitted. But she's never a size 20. And if I had a face like that
I'd
never wear red . . .'

Lady Volentia D'Arrangement relaxed in the inner sanctum of the ladies' rest room. She removed her mask and fished an errant beauty spot from the depths of her décolletage. Then she reached around and down to try and adjust her bustle, an exercise guaranteed to produce the most ridiculous female gymnastics on every world except those where the panty girdle had been invented.

Apart from being as well-adapted a parasite as the oak bracket fungus Lady Volentia D'Arrangement was, by and large, a blameless sort of person. She always attended events for the better class of charity, and made a point of knowing the first names of nearly all her servants – the cleaner ones, at least. And she was, on the whole, kind to animals and even to children if they had been washed and didn't make too much noise. All in all, she didn't deserve what was about to happen to her, which was the fate Mother Nature had in store for any woman in this room on this night who happened to have approximately the same measurements as Granny Weatherwax.

She was aware of someone coming up beside her.

‘S'cuse me, missus.'

It turned out to be a small, repulsive lower-class woman with a big ingratiating smile.

‘What do you want, old woman?' said Lady Volentia.

‘S'cuse me,' said Nanny Ogg. ‘My friend over there would like a word with you.'

Lady Volentia looked around haughtily into . . .

. . . icy, blue-eyed, hypnotic oblivion.

‘What's this thing like an extra bu . . . hobo?'

‘It's a bustle, Esme.'

‘It's damn uncomfortable is what it is. I keep on feeling someone's following me around.'

‘The white suits you, anyway.'

‘No it don't. Black's the only colour for a proper witch. And this wig is too hot. Who wants a foot of hair on their heads?'

Granny donned her mask. It was an eagle's face in white feathers stuck with sequins.

Nanny adjusted some unmentionable underpinning somewhere beneath her crinoline and straightened up.

‘Cor, look at us,' she said. ‘Them feathers in your hair really look good.'

‘I've never been vain,' said Granny Weatherwax. ‘You know that, Gytha. No-one could ever call
me
vain.'

‘No, Esme,' said Nanny Ogg.

Granny twirled a bit.

‘Are you ready then, Dame Ogg?' she said.

‘Yes. Let's
do
it, Lady Weatherwax.'

The dance floor was thronged. Decorations hung from every pillar, but they were black and silver, the colours of the festival of Samedi Nuit Mort. An orchestra was playing on a balcony. Dancers whirled. The din was immense.

A waiter with a tray of drinks suddenly found that he was a waiter without a tray of drinks. He looked around, and then down to a small fox under a huge white wig.

‘Bugger off and get us some more,' said Nanny pleasantly. ‘Can you see her, your ladyship?'

‘There's too many people.'

‘Well, can you see the Duc?'

‘How do I know? Everyone's got masks on!'

‘Hey, is that food over there?'

Many of the less energetic or more hungry of the Genua nobility were clustered around the long buffet. All they were aware of, apart from sharp digs with a pair of industrious elbows, was an amiable monotone at chest height, on the lines of ‘. . . mind your backs . . . stand aside there . . . comin' through.'

Nanny fought her way to the table and nudged a space for Granny Weatherwax.

‘Cor, what a spread, eh?' she said. ‘Mind you, they have tiny chickens in these parts.' She grabbed a plate.

‘Them's quails.'

‘I'll 'ave three. 'Ere, charlie chan!'

A flunkey stared at her.

‘Got any pickles?'

‘I'm afraid not, ma'am.'

Nanny Ogg looked along a table which included roast swans, a roasted peacock that probably wouldn't have felt any better about it even if it
had
known that its tail feathers were going to be stuck back in afterwards, and more fruits, boiled lobsters, nuts, cakes, creams and trifles than a hermit's dream.

‘Well, got any relish?'

‘No, ma'am.'

‘Tomato ketchup?'

‘
No
, ma'am.'

‘And they call this a gormay paradise,' muttered Nanny, as the band struck up the next dance. She nudged a tall figure helping himself to the lobster. ‘Some place, eh?'

V
ERY NICE
.

‘Good mask you've got there.'

T
HANK YOU
.

Nanny was spun around by Granny Weatherwax's hand on her shoulder.

‘There's Magrat!'

‘Where? Where?' said Nanny.

‘Over there . . . sitting by the potted plants.'

‘Oh, yes. On the chassy longyew,' said Nanny. ‘That's “sofa” in foreign, you know,' she added.

‘What's she doing?'

‘Being attractive to men, I think.'

‘What,
Magrat
?'

‘Yeah. You're really getting good at that hypnotism, ain't you.'

Magrat fluttered her fan and looked up at the Compte de Yoyo.

‘La, sir,' she said. ‘You may get me another plate of lark's eggs, if you
really
must.'

‘Like a shot, dear lady!' The old man bustled off in the direction of the buffet.

Magrat surveyed her empire of admirers, and then extended a languorous hand towards Captain de Vere of the Palace Guard. He stood to attention.

‘
Dear
captain,' she said, ‘you may have the pleasure of the next dance.'

‘Acting like a hussy,' said Granny disapprovingly.

Nanny gave her an odd look.

‘Not really,' she said. ‘Anyway, a bit of hussing never did anyone any harm. At least none of those men look like the Duc. 'Ere, what you doing?'

This was to a small bald-headed man who was trying surreptitiously to set up a small easel in front of them.

‘Uh . . . if you ladies could just hold still for a few minutes,' he said shyly. ‘For the woodcut?'

‘What woodcut?' said Granny Weatherwax.

‘You
know
,' said the man, opening a small penknife. ‘Everyone likes to see their woodcut in the broadsheets after a ball like this? “Lady Thing enjoying a joke with Lord Whatsit”, that sort of thing?'

Granny Weatherwax opened her mouth to reply, but Nanny Ogg laid a gentle hand on her arm. She relaxed a little and sought for something more suitable to say.

‘I knows a joke about alligator sandwiches,' she volunteered, and shook Nanny's hand away. ‘There was a man, and he went into an inn and he said “Do you sell alligator sandwiches?” and the other man said “Yes” and he said, “Then give me an alligator sandwich – and don't be a long time about it!”'

She gave him a triumphant look.

‘Yes?' said the woodcutter, chipping away quickly, ‘And then what happened?'

Nanny Ogg dragged Granny away quickly, searching for a distraction.

‘Some people don't know a joke when they hear it,' said Granny.

As the band launched into another number Nanny Ogg fumbled in a pocket and found the dance card that belonged to an owner now slumbering peacefully in a distant room.

‘This is,' she turned the card round, her lips moving wonderingly, ‘Sir, Roger the Coverley?'

‘Ma'am?'

Granny Weatherwax looked around. A plump military man with big whiskers was bowing to her. He looked as though he'd enjoyed quite a few jokes in his time.

‘Yes?'

‘You promised me the honour of this dance, m'lady?'

‘No I didn't.'

The man looked puzzled. ‘But I assure you, Lady D'Arrangement . . . your card . . . my name is Colonel Moutarde . . .'

Granny gave him a look of deep suspicion, and then read the dance card attached to her fan.

‘Oh.'

‘Do you know how to dance?' hissed Nanny.

‘Of course.'

‘Never
seen
you dance,' said Nanny.

Granny Weatherwax had been on the point of giving the colonel as polite a refusal as she could manage. Now she threw back her shoulders defiantly.

‘A witch can do anything she puts her mind to, Gytha Ogg. Come, Mr Colonel.'

Nanny watched as the pair disappeared into the throng.

‘'Allo, foxy lady,' said a voice behind her. She looked around. There was no-one there.

‘Down here.'

She looked down.

A very small body wearing the uniform of a captain in the palace guard, a powdered wig and an ingratiating smile beamed up at her.

‘My name's Casanunda,' he said. ‘I'm reputed to be the world's greatest lover. What do you think?'

Nanny Ogg looked him up and down or, at least, down and further down.

‘You're a dwarf,' she said.

‘Size isn't important.'

Nanny Ogg considered her position. One colleague known for her shy and retiring nature was currently acting like that whatshername, the heathen queen who was always playing up to men and bathing in asses' milk and stuff, and the
other
one was acting very odd and dancing with a
man
even though she didn't know one foot from the other. Nanny Ogg felt she was at least owed a bit of time in which to be her own woman.

‘Can you dance as well?' she said wearily.

‘Oh yes. How about a date?'

‘How old do you think I am?' said Nanny.