Maskerade

As a witch, she naturally didn't believe in any occult nonsense of any sort. But there were one or two truths down below the bedrock of the soul which had to be faced, and right in among them was this business of, well, of the maiden, the mother and the... other one.

There. She'd put words around it.

Of course, it was nothing but an old superstition and belonged to the unenlightened days when 'maiden' or 'mother' or... the other one... encompassed every woman over the age of twelve or so, except maybe for nine months of her life. These days, any girl bright enough to count and sensible enough to take Nanny's advice could put off being at least one of them for quite some time.

Even so... it was an old superstition–older than books, older than writing–and beliefs like that were heavy weights on the rubber sheet of human experi­ence, tending to pull people into their orbit.

And Magrat had been married for three months. That ought to mean she was out of the first category. At least‑ Nanny twitched her train of thought on to a branch line–she probably was. Oh, surely. Young Verence had sent off for a helpful manual. It had pictures in it, and numbered parts. Nanny knew this because she had sneaked into the royal bedroom while visiting one day, and had spent an instructive ten minutes drawing moustaches and spectacles on some of the figures. Surely even Magrat and Verence could hardly fail to... No, they must have worked it out, even though Nanny had heard that Verence had been seen enquiring of people where he might buy a couple of false moustaches. It'd not be long before Magrat was eligible for the second category, even if they were both slow readers.

Of course, Granny Weatherwax made a great play of her independence and self‑reliance. But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self‑reliant at. People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.

It was like hermits‑ There was no point freezing your nadgers off on top of some mountain while communing with the Infinite unless you could rely on a lot of impressionable young women to come along occasionally and say 'Gosh' .

...They needed to be three again. Things got exciting, when there were three of you. There were rows, and adventures, and things for Granny to get angry about, and she was only happy when she was angry. In fact, it seemed to Nanny, she was only Granny Weatherwax when she was angry.

Yes. They needed to be three.

Or else... it was going to be grey wings in the night, or the clang of the oven door...

The manuscript fell apart as soon as Mr Goatberger picked it up.

It wasn't even on proper paper. It had been written on old sugar bags, and the backs of envelopes, and bits of out‑of­-date calendar.

He grunted, and grabbed a handful of the musty pages to throw them on the fire.

A word caught his eye.

He read it, and his eye was dragged to the end of the sentence.

Then he read to the end of the page, doubling back a few times because he hadn't quite believed what he'd just read.

He turned the page. And then he turned back. And then he read on. At one point he took a ruler out of his drawer and looked at it thoughtfully.

He opened his drinks cabinet. The bottle tinkled cheerfully on the edge of the glass as he tried to pour himself a drink.

Then he stared out of the window at the Opera House on the other side of the road. A small figure was brushing the steps.

And then he said, 'Oh, my.'

Finally he went to the door and said, 'Could you come in here, Mr Cropper?'

His chief printer entered, clutching a sheaf of proofs. 'We're going to have to get Mr Cripslock to engrave page 11 again,' he said mournfully. 'He's spelled "famine" with seven letters–'

'Read this,' said Goatberger.

'I was just off to lunch–'

'Read this.'

'Guild agreement says–'

'Read this and see if you still have an appetite.'

Mr Cropper sat down with bad grace and glanced at the first page.

Then he turned to the second page.

After a while he opened the desk drawer and pulled out a ruler, which he looked at thoughtfully.

'You've just read about Bananana Soup Surprise?' said Goatberger.

'Yes!'

'You wait till you get to Spotted Dick.'

'Well, my old granny used to make Spotted Dick–'

'Not to this recipe,' said Goatberger, with absolute certainty.

Cropper fumbled through the pages. 'Blimey! Do you think any of this stuff works?'

'Who cares? Go down to the Guild. right now and hire all the engravers that're free. Preferably elderly ones.'

'But I've still got the Grune, June, August and Spune predictions for next year's Almanack to–'

'Forget them. Use some old ones.'

'People'll notice.'

'They've never noticed before,' said Mr Goatberger. 'You know the drill. Astounding Rains of Curry in Klatch, Amazing Death of the Seriph of Ee, Plague of Wasps in Howondaland. This is a lot more important.'

He stared unseeing out of the window again.

'Considerably more important.'