Witches Abroad

Genua was a strange city, Nanny decided. You got off the main streets, walked along a side road, went through a little gate and suddenly there were trees everywhere, with moss and them llamas hanging from them, and the ground began to wobble underfoot and become swamp. On either side of the track there were dark pools in which, here and there, among the lilies, were the kind of logs the witches had never seen before.

"Them's bloody big newts," she said.

"They're alligators."

"By gods. They must get good grub."

"Yeah!"

Mrs Gogol's house itself looked a simple affair of driftwood from the river, roofed with moss and built out over the swamp itself on four stout poles. It was close enough to the centre of the city that Nanny could hear street cries and the clip-clop of hooves, but the shack in its little swamp was wreathed in silence.

"Don't people bother you here?" said Nanny.

"Not them as I don't want to meet." The lily pads moved. A v-shaped ripple drifted across the nearest pool.

"Self-reliance," said Granny approvingly. "That's always very important."

Nanny regarded the reptiles with a calculating stare. They tried to match it, and gave up when their eyes started watering.

"I reckon I could just do with a couple of them at home," she said thoughtfully, as they slid away again. "Our Jason could dig another pond, no problem. What was it you said they et?"

"Anything they want to."

"I knows a joke about alligators," said Granny, in the tones of one announcing a great and solemn truth.

"You never!" said Nanny Ogg. "I never heard you tell a joke in your whole life!"

"Just because I don't tell ‘em don't mean I don't know ‘em," said Granny haughtily. "It's about this man - "

"What man?" said Nanny.

"This man went into an inn. Yes. It was an inn. And he saw a sign. The sign said "We serve every kind of sandwich." So he said "Get me an alligator sandwich -and make it quick!" ‘

They looked at her.

Nanny Ogg turned to Mrs Gogol.

"So... you live alone here, then?" she said brightly. "Not a living soul around?"

"In a manner of speakin'," said Mrs Gogol.

"You see, the point is, alligators are - " Granny began, in a loud voice, and then stopped.

The shack's door had opened.

This was another big kitchen. Once upon a time it had provided employment for half a dozen cooks. Now it was a cave, its far corners shadowy, its hanging saucepans and tureens dulled by dust. The big tables had been pushed to one side and stacked almost ceiling high with ancient crockery; the stoves, which looked big enough to take whole cows and cook for an army, stood cold.

In the middle of the grey desolation someone had set up a small table by the fireplace. It was on a square of bright carpet. A jam-jar contained flowers that had been arranged by the simple method of grabbing a handful of them and ramming them in. The effect was a little area of slightly soppy brightness in the general gloom.

Ella shuffled a few things around desperately and then stood looking at Magrat with a sort of defensively shy smile.

"Silly of me, really. I expect you're used to this sort of thing," she said.

"Um. Yes. Oh, yes. All the time," said Magrat.

"It was just that I expected you to be a bit... older? Apparently you were at my christening?"

"Ah. Yes?" said Magrat. "Well, you see, the thing is - "

"Still, I expect you can look like whatever you want," said Ella helpfully.

"Ah. Yes. Er."

Ella looked slightly puzzled for a moment, as if trying to work out why - if Magrat could look like whatever she wanted - she'd chosen to look like Magrat.

"Well, now," she said. "What do we do next?"

"You mentioned tea," said Magrat, buying time.

"Oh, sure." Ella turned to the fireplace, where a blackened kettle hung over what Granny Weatherwax always called an optimist's fire.

"What's your name?" she said over her shoulder.

"Magrat," said Magrat, sitting.

"That's a... nice name," said Ella, politely. "Of course, you know mine. Mind you, I spend so much time cooking over this wretched thing now that Mrs Pleasant calls me Embers. Silly, isn't it."

Emberella, thought Magrat. I'm fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like something you put up in the rain.

"It could use a little work," she conceded.

"I haven't the heart to tell her off, she thinks it sounds jolly," she said. "I think it sounds like something you put up in the rain."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Magrat. "Uh. Who's Mrs Pleasant?"

"She's the cook at the palace. She comes around to cheer me up when they're out..."

Ella spun around, holding the blackened kettle like a weapon.

"I'm not going to that ball!" she snapped. "I'm not going to marry the prince! Do you understand?"

The words came out like steel ingots.

"Right! Right!" said Magrat, taken aback by their force.

"He looks slimy. He makes my flesh crawl," said Embers darkly. "They say he's got funny eyes. And everyone knows what he does at night!"

Everyone bar one, Magrat thought. No-one ever tells me things like that.