Equal Rites

She leaned forward, her hooked nose a few inches from the staff. Cutangle was almost certain that the staff tried to lean backwards out of her way.

“Shall I tell you what happens to wicked staffs?” she hissed. “If Esk is lost to the world, shall I tell you what I will do to you? You were saved from the fire once, because you could pass on the hurt to her. Next time it won’t be the fire.”

Her voice sank to a whiplash whisper.

“First it’ll be the spokeshave. And then the sandpaper, and the auger, and the whittling knife—”

“I say, steady on,” said Cutangle, his eyes watering.

“—and what’s left I’ll stake out in the woods for the fungus and the woodlice and the beetles. It could take years.”

The carvings writhed. Most of them had moved around the back, out of Granny’s gaze.

“Now,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to pick you up and we are all going back to the University, aren’t we? Otherwise it’s blunt saw time.”

She rolled up her sleeves and extended a hand.

“Wizard,” she said, “I shall want you to release it.”

Cutangle nodded miserably.

“When I say now, now! Now!”

* * *

Cutangle opened his eyes again.

Granny was standing with her left arm extended full length in front of her, her hand clamped around the staff.

The ice was exploding off it, in gouts of steam.

“Right,” finished Granny, “and if this happens again I shall be very angry, do I make myself clear?”

Cutangle lowered his hands and hurried towards her.

“Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “It’s like holding a hot icicle,” she said. “Come on, we haven’t got time to stand around chatting.”

“How are we going to get back?”

“Oh, show some backbone, man, for goodness sake. We’ll fly.”

Granny waved her broomstick. The Archchancellor looked at it doubtfully.

“On that?”

“Of course. Don’t wizards fly on their staffs?”

“It’s rather undignified.”

“If I can put up with that, so can you.”

“Yes, but is it safe?”

Granny gave him a withering look.

“Do you mean in the absolute sense?” she asked. “Or, say, compared with staying behind on a melting ice floe?”

* * *

“This is the first time I have ever ridden on a broomstick,” said Cutangle.

“Really.”

“I thought you just had to get on them and they flew,” said the wizard. “I didn’t know you had to do all that running up and down and shouting at them.”

“It’s a knack,” said Granny.

“I thought they went faster,” Cutangle continued, “and, to be frank, higher.”

“What do you mean, higher?” asked Granny, trying to compensate for the wizard’s weight on the pillion as they turned back upriver. Like pillion passengers since the dawn of time, he persisted in leaning the wrong way.

“Well, more sort of above the trees,” said Cutangle, ducking as a dripping branch swept his hat away.

“There’s nothing wrong with this broomstick that you losing a few stone wouldn’t cure,” snapped Granny. “Or would you rather get off and walk?”

“Apart from the fact that half the time my feet are touching the ground anyway,” said Cutangle. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. If someone had asked me to list all the perils of flying, you know, it would never have occurred to me to include having one’s legs whipped to death by tall bracken.”

“Are you smoking?” said Granny, staring grimly ahead. “Something’s burning.”

“It was just to calm my nerves what with all this headlong plunging through the air, madam.”

“Well, put it out this minute. And hold on.”

The broomstick lurched upwards and increased its speed to that of a geriatric jogger.

“Mr Wizard.”

“Hallo?”

“When I said hold on—”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t mean there.”

There was a pause.

“Oh. Yes. I see. I’m terribly sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

“My memory isn’t what it was… I assure you… no offense meant.”

“None taken.”

They flew in silence for a moment.

“Nevertheless,” said Granny thoughtfully, “I think that, on the whole, I would prefer you to move your hands.”

* * *

Rain gushed across the leads of Unseen University and poured into the gutters where ravens’ nests, abandoned since the summer, floated like very badly built boats. The water gurgled along ancient, crusted pipes. It found its way under tiles and said hallo to the spiders under the eaves. It leapt from gables and formed secret lakes high amongst the spires.

Whole ecologies lived in the endless rooftops of the University, which by comparison made Gormenghast look like a toolshed on a railway allotment;^{20} birds sang in tiny jungles grown from apple pips and weed seeds, little frogs swam in the upper gutters, and a colony of ants were busily inventing an interesting and complex civilisation.

One thing the water couldn’t do was gurgle out of the ornamental gargoyles ranged around the roofs. This was because the gargoyles wandered off and sheltered in the attics at the first sign of rain. They held that just because you were ugly it didn’t mean you were stupid.