Lords And Ladies

"Fifty dollars each is daylight robbery!"

"No," said the coachman patiently. "Daylight robbery," he said, in the authoritative tones of the experienced, "is when someone steps out into the road with an arrow pointing at us and then all his friends swings down from the rocks and trees and take away all our money and things. And then there's nighttime robbery, which is like daytime robbery except they set fire to the coach so's they can see what they're about. Twilight robbery, now, your basic twilight robbery is-"

"Are you saying," said Ridcully, "that getting robbed is included in the price?"

"Bandits' Guild," said the coachman. "Forty dollars per head, see. It's a kind of flat rate."

"What happens if we don't pay it?" said Ridcully.

"You end up flat."

The wizards went into a huddle.

"We've got a hundred and fifty dollars," said Ridcully. "We can't get any more out of the safe because the Bursar ate the key yesterday"

"Can I try an idea, sir?" said Ponder.

"All right."

Ponder gave the coachman a bright smile.

"Pets travel free?" he suggested.

"Oook?"

Nanny Ogg's broomstick skimmed a few feet above the forest paths, cornering so fast that her boots scraped through the leaves. She leapt off at Granny Weather-wax's cottage so quickly that she didn't switch it off, and it kept going until it stuck in the privy.

The door was open.

"Cooee?"

Nanny glanced into the scullery, and then thumped up the small narrow staircase.

Granny Weatherwax was stretched rigid on her bed. Her face was grey, her skin was cold.

People had discovered her like this before, and it always caused embarrassment. So now she reassured visitors but tempted fate by always holding, in her rigid hands, a small handwritten sign which read:

I ATE'NT DEAD.

The window was propped open with a piece of wood.

"Ah," said Nanny, far more for her own benefit than for anyone else's, "I sees you're out. I'll, I'll, I'll just put the kettle on, shall I, and wait 'til you comes back?"

Esme's skill at Borrowing unnerved her. It was all very well entering the minds of animals and such, but too many witches had never come back. For several years Nanny had put out lumps of fat and bacon rind for a bluetit that she was sure was old Granny Postalute, who'd gone out Borrowing one day and never came back. Insofar as a witch could consider things uncanny. Nanny Ogg considered it uncanny.

She went back down to the scullery and lowered a bucket down the well, remembering to fish the newts out this time before she boiled the kettle.

Then she watched the garden.

After a while a small shape flittered across it, heading for the upstairs window.

Nanny poured out the tea. She carefully took one spoonful of sugar out of the sugar basin, tipped the rest of the sugar into her cup, put the spoonful back in the basin, put both cups on a tray, and climbed the stairs.

Granny Weatherwax was sitting up in her bed.

Nanny looked around.

There was a large bat hanging upside down from a beam.

Granny Weatherwax rubbed her ears.

"Shove the po under it, will you, Gytha?" she mumbled. "They're a devil for excusing themselves on the carpet."

Nanny unearthed the shyest article of Granny Weatherwax's bedroom crockery and moved it across the rug with her foot.

"I brought you a cup of tea," she said.

"Good job, too. Mouth tastes of moths," said Granny.

"Thought you did owls at night?" said Nanny.

"Yeah, but you ends up for days trying to twist your head right round," said Granny. "At least bats always faces the same way. Tried rabbits first off, but you know what they are for remembering things. Anyway, you know what they thinks about the whole time. They're famous for it."

"Grass."

"Right."

"Find out anything?" said Nanny

"Half a dozen people have been going up there. Every full moon!" said Granny. "Gels, by the shape of them. You only see silhouettes, with bats."

"You done well there," said Nanny, carefully. "Girls from round here, you reckon?"

"Got to be. They ain't using broomsticks."

Nanny Ogg sighed.

"There's Agnes Nitt, old Threepenny's daughter," she said. "And the Tockley girl. And some others."

Granny Weatherwax looked at her with her mouth open.

"I asked our Jason," she said. "Sorry."

The bat burped. Granny genteelly covered her hand with her mouth.

"I'm a silly old fool, ain't I?" she said, after a while.

"No, no," said Nanny. "Borrowing's a real skill. You're really good at it."

"Prideful, that's what I am. Once upon a time I'd of thought of asking people, too, instead of fooling around being a bat."

"Our Jason wouldn't have told you. He only told me 'cos I would've made 'is life a living hell if he didn't," said Nanny Ogg. "That's what a mother's for."

"I'm losing my touch, that's what it is. Getting old, Gytha."

"You're as old as you feel, that's what I always say."

"That's what I mean."

Nanny Ogg looked worried.

"Supposing Magrat'd been here," said Granny. "She'd see me being daft."

"Well, she's safe in the castle," said Nanny. "Learning how to be queen."