Witches Abroad

Nanny watched as the pair disappeared into the throng.

" ‘Allo, foxy lady," said a voice behind her. She looked around. There was no-one there.

"Down here."

She looked down.

A very small body wearing the uniform of a captain in the palace guard, a powdered wig and an ingratiating smile beamed up at her.

"My name's Casanunda," he said. "I'm reputed to be the world's greatest lover. What do you think?"

Nanny Ogg looked him up and down or, at least, down and further down.

"You're a dwarf," she said.

"Size isn't important."

Nanny Ogg considered her position. One colleague known for her shy and retiring nature was currently acting like that whatshername, the heathen queen who was always playing up to men and bathing in asses' milk and stuff, and the other one was acting very odd and dancing with a man even though she didn't know one foot from the other. Nanny Ogg felt she was at least owed a bit of time in which to be her own woman.

"Can you dance as well?" she said wearily.

"Oh yes. How about a date?"

"How old do you think I am?" said Nanny.

Casanunda considered. "All right, then. How about a prune?"

Nanny sighed, and reached down for his hand. "Come on."

Lady Volentia D'Arrangement staggered limply along a passageway, a forlorn thin shape in complicated corsetry and ankle-length underwear.

She wasn't at all sure what had happened. There had been that frightful woman, and then this feeling of absolute bliss and then... she'd been sitting on the carpet with her dress off. Lady Volentia had been to enough balls in her dull life to know that there were occasions when you woke up in strange rooms with your dress off, but that tended to be later in the evening and at least you had some idea of why you were there...

She eased her way along, holding on to the wall. Someone was definitely going to get told off about this.

A figure came around a bend in the corridor, idly tossing a turkey leg into the air with one hand and catching it with the other.

"I say," said Lady Volentia, "I wonder if you would be so good as to - oh..."

She looked up at a leather-clad figure with an eyepatch and a grin like a corsair raider.

"Wroowwwwl!"

"Oh. I say!"

Nothing to this dancing, Granny Weatherwax told herself. It's just moving around to music.

It helped to be able to read her partner's mind. Dancing is instinctive, after you've got past that stage of looking down to see what your feet are doing, and witches are good at reading resonating instincts. There was a slight struggle as the colonel tried to lead, but he soon gave in, partly in the face of Granny Weatherwax's sheer refusal to compromise but mainly because of her boots.

Lady D'Arrangement's shoes hadn't fitted. Besides, Granny was attached to her boots. They had complicated iron fixtures, and toecaps like battering rams. When it came to dancing, Granny's boots went exactly wherever they wanted to go.

She steered her helpless and slightly crippled partner towards Nanny Ogg, who had already cleared quite a space around her. What Granny could achieve with two pounds of hobnailed syncopation Nanny Ogg could achieve merely with her bosom.

It was a large and experienced bosom, and not one that was subject to restraint. As Nanny Ogg bounced down, it went up; when she gyrated right, it hadn't finished twirling left. In addition, Nanny's feet moved in a complicated jig step regardless of the actual tempo, so that while her body actually progressed at the speed of a waltz her feet were doing something a bit nearer to a hornpipe. The total effect obliged her partner to dance several feet away, and many surrounding couples to stop dancing just to watch in fascination, in case the build-up of harmonic vibrations dropped her into the chandeliers.

Granny and her helpless partner whirled past.

"Stop showin' off," Granny hissed, and disappeared into the throng again.

"Who's your friend?" said Casanunda.

"She's - " Nanny began.

There was a blast of trumpets.

"That was a bit off the beat," she said.

"No, that means the Duc is arriving," said Casanunda.

The band stopped playing. The couples, as one, turned and faced the main staircase.

There were two figures descending in stately fashion.

My word, he's a sleek and handsome devil, Nanny told herself. It just goes to show. Esme's right. You can never tell by lookin'.

And her...

... that's Lily Weatherwax?

The woman wasn't masked.

Give or take the odd laughter line and wrinkle, it was Granny Weatherwax to the life.

Almost...

Nanny found she was turning to find the white eagle head in the crowd. All heads were turned to die staircase, but there was one staring as if her gaze was a steel rod.

Lily Weatherwax wore white. Until that point it had never occurred to Nanny Ogg that there could be different colours of white. Now she knew better. The white of Lily Weatherwax's dress seemed to radiate; if all the lights went out, she felt, Lily's dress would glow. It had style. It gleamed, and had puffed sleeves and was edged with lace.