Lords And Ladies

"My dad said," said Weaver, "that one day he was leading our old cow to market and it took ill and fell down in the lane near her cottage and he couldn't get it to move and he went up to her place and he knocked on the door and she opened it and before he could open his mouth she said, "Yer cow's ill, Weaver" . . . just like that . . . And then she said-"

"Was that the old brindled cow what your dad had?" said Carter.

"No, it were my uncle had the brindled cow, we had the one with the crumpled horn," said Weaver. "Anyway-"

"Could have sworn it was brindled," said Carter. "I remember my dad looking at it over the hedge one day and saying, 'That's fine brindling on that cow, you don't get brindling like that these days.' That was when you had that old field alongside Cabb's Well."

"We never had that field, it was my cousin had that field," said Weaver. "Anyway-"

"You sure?"

"Anyway," said Weaver, she said, "You wait there, I'll give you something for it," and she goes out into her back kitchen and comes back with a couple of big red pills, and she-"

"How'd it get crumpled, then?" said Carter.

"-and she gave him one of the pills and said, 'What you do, you raise the old cow's tail and shove this pill where the sun don't shine, and in half a minute she'll be up and running as fast as she can,' and he thanked her, and then as he was going out of the door he said, 'What's the other pill for?' and she gave him a look and said, 'Well, you want to catch her, don't you?'"

"That'd be that deep valley up near Slice," said Carter.

They looked at him.

"What, exactly, are you talking about?" said Weaver.

"It's right behind the mountain," said Carter, nodding knowingly. "Very shady there. That's what she meant, I expect. The place where the sun doesn't shine. Long way to go for a pill, but I suppose that's witches for you."

Weaver winked at the others.

"Listen," he said, "I'm telling you she meant . . . well, where the monkey put his nut."

Carter shook his head.

"No monkeys in Slice," he said. His face became suffused with a slow grin. "Oh, I get it! She was daft!"

"Them playwriters down in Ankh," said Baker, "boy, they certainly know about us. Pass me the jug."

Jason turned his head again. He was getting more and more uneasy. His hands, which were always in daily contact with iron, were itching.

"Reckon we ought to be getting along home now, lads," he managed.

"'S'nice night," said Baker, staying put. "Look at them stars a-twinklin'."

"Turned a bit cold, though," said Jason.

"Smells like snow," said Carter.

"Oh, yeah," said Baker. "That's right. Snow at midsummer. That's what they get where the sun don't shine."

"Shutup, shutup, shutup," said Jason.

"What's up with you?"

"It's wrong! We shouldn't be up here! Can't you feel it?"

"Oh, sit down, man," said Weaver. "It's fine. Can't feel nothing but the air. And there's still more scumble in the jug."

Baker leaned back.

"I remember an old story about this place," he said. "Some man went to sleep up here once, when he was out hunting."

The bottle glugged in the dusk.

"So what? I can do that," said Carter. "I go to sleep every night, reg'lar."

"Ah, but this man, when he woke up and went home, his wife was carrying on with someone else and all his children had grown up and didn't know who he was."

"Happens to me just about every day," said Weaver gloomily.

Baker sniffed.

"You know, it does smell a bit like snow. You know? That kind of sharp smell."

Thatcher leaned back, cradling his head on his arm.

"Tell you what," he said, "if I thought my old woman'd marry someone else and my hulking great kids'd bugger off and stop eating up the larder every day I'd come up here with a blanket like a shot. Who's got that jug?"

Jason took a pull out of nervousness, and found that he felt better as the alcohol dissolved his synapses.

But he made an effort.

"Hey, lads," he slurred, "'ve got 'nother jug coolin' in the water trough down in the forge, what d'you say? We could all go down there now. Lads? Lads?"

There was the soft sound of snoring.

"Oh, lads."

Jason stood up.

The stars wheeled.

Jason fell down, very gently. The jug rolled out of his hands and bounced across the grass.

The stars twinkled, the breeze was cold, and it smelled of snow.

The king dined alone, which is to say, he dined at one end of the big table and Magrat dined at the other. But they managed to meet up for a last glass of wine in front of the fire.

They always found it difficult to know what to say at moments like this. Neither of them was used to spending what might be called quality time in the company of another person. The conversation tended toward the cryptic.