Witches Abroad

Mrs Pleasant the cook had made herself a plate of red stripefish in crawfish sauce. She wasn't the finest cook in Genua - no-one got near Mrs Gogol's gumbo, people would almost come back from the dead for a taste of Mrs Gogol's gumbo - but the comparison was as narrow as that between, say, diamonds and sapphires. She'd done her best to cook up a good banquet, because she had her professional pride, but there wasn't much she felt she was able to do with lumps of meat.

Genuan cooking, like the best cooking everywhere in the multiverse, had been evolved by people who had to make desperate use of ingredients their masters didn't want. No-one would even try a bird's nest unless they had to. Only hunger would make a man taste his first alligator. No-one would eat a shark's fin if they were allowed to eat the rest of the shark.

She poured herself a rum and was just picking up the spoon when she felt herself being watched.

A large man in a black leather doublet was staring at her from the doorway, dangling a ginger cat mask from one hand.

It was a very direct stare. Mrs Pleasant found herself wishing she'd done something about her hair and was wearing a better dress.

"Yes?" she said. "What d'you want?"

"Waaant foood, Miss-uss Pleassunt," said Greebo.

She looked him up and down. There were some odd types in Genua these days. This one must have been a guest at the ball, but there was something very...familiar about him.

Greebo wasn't a happy cat. People had made a fuss just because he'd dragged a roast turkey off the table. Then the skinny female with the teeth had kept simpering at him and saying she'd see him later in the rose garden, which wasn't at all the cat way of doing things, and that'd got him confused, because this wasn't the right kind of body and nor was hers. And there were too many other males around.

Then he'd smelled the kitchen. Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.

"I seen you somewhere before?" said Mrs Pleasant.

Greebo said nothing. He'd followed his nose to a bowl on one of the big tables.

"Waaant," he demanded.

"Fish heads?" said Mrs Pleasant. They were technically garbage, although what she was planning with some rice and a few special sauces would turn them into the sort of dish kings fight for.

"Waant," Greebo repeated.

Mrs Pleasant shrugged.

"You want raw fish heads, man, you take ‘em," she said.

Greebo lifted the bowl uncertainly. He wasn't too good with fingers. Then he looked around conspiratorially and ducked under the table.

There were the sounds of keen gurgitation and the bowl being scraped around on the floor.

Greebo emerged.

"Millluk?" he suggested.

Fascinated, Mrs Pleasant reached for the milk jug and a cup-

"Saaaaucerrr," Greebo said.

- and a saucer.

Greebo took the saucer, gave it a long hard look, and put it on the floor.

Mrs Pleasant stared.

Greebo finished the milk, licking the remnant off his beard. He felt a lot better now. And there was a big fire over there. He padded over to it, sat down, spat on his paw and made an attempt to clean his ears, which didn't work because inexplicably neither ears nor paw were the right shape, and then curled up as best he could. Which wasn't very well, given that he seemed to have the wrong sort of backbone, too.

After a while Mrs Pleasant heard a low, asthmatic rumble.

Greebo was trying to purr.

He had the wrong kind of throat.

In a minute he was going to wake up in a bad temper and want to fight something.

Mrs Pleasant got on with her own supper. Despite the fact that a hulking great man had just eaten a bowl offish heads and lapped a saucer of milk in front of her, and was now stretched out uncomfortably in front of the fire, she found she didn't feel the least bit afraid. In fact she was fighting down an impulse to scratch his tummy.

Magrat wrenched off the other slipper as she ran down the long red carpet towards the palace gateway and freedom. Just getting away, that was the important thing. From was more urgent than to.

And then two figures drifted out of the shadows and faced her. She raised the slipper pathetically as they approached in absolute silence, but even in the twilight she could feel their gaze.

The crowds parted. Lily Weatherwax glided through, in a rustle of silk.

She looked Granny up and down, without any expression of surprise.

"All in white, too," she said, dryly. "My word, aren't you the nice one."

"But I've stopped you," said Granny, still panting with the effort. "I've broken it."

Lily Weatherwax looked past her. The snake sisters were coming up the steps, holding a limp Magrat between them.

"Save us all from people who think literally," said Lily. "The damn things come in pairs, you know."

She crossed to Magrat and snatched the second slipper out of her hand.

"The clock was interesting," she said, turning back to Granny. "I was impressed with the clock. But it's no good, you know. You can't stop this sort of thing. It has the momentum of inevitability. You can't spoil a good story. I should know."