Wyrd Sisters

‘Yes, yes, all right, I’m sure,’ said Granny. ‘Anyway, how goes it, sisters? It is two months since last we met.’

‘It should be every new moon,’ said Magrat sternly. ‘Regular.’

‘It was our Grame’s youngest’s wedding,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Couldn’t miss it.’

‘And I was up all night with a sick goat,’ said Granny Weatherwax promptly.

‘Yes, well,’ said Magrat doubtfully. She rummaged in her bag. ‘Anyway, if we’re going to start, we’d better light the candles.’

The senior witches exchanged a resigned glance.

‘But we got this lovely new lamp our Tracie sent me,’ said Nanny Ogg innocently. ‘And I was going to poke up the fire a bit.’

‘I have excellent night vision, Magrat,’ said Granny sternly. ‘And you’ve been reading them funny books. Grimmers.’

‘Grimoires—’

‘You ain’t going to draw on the floor again, neither,’ warned Nanny Ogg. ‘It took our Dreen days to clean up all those wossnames last time—’

‘Runes,’ said Magrat. There was a look of pleading in her eyes. ‘Look, just one candle?’

‘All right,’ said Nanny Ogg, relenting a bit. ‘If it makes you feel any better. Just the one, mind. And a decent white one. Nothing fancy.’

Magrat sighed. It probably wasn’t a good idea to bring out the rest of the contents of her bag.

‘We ought to get a few more here,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s not right, a coven of three.’

‘I didn’t know we was still a coven. No-one told me we was still a coven,’ sniffed Granny Weatherwax. ‘Anyway, there’s no-one else this side of the mountain, excepting old Gammer Dismass, and she doesn’t get out these days.’

‘But a lot of young girls in my village …’ said Magrat. ‘You know. They could be keen.’

‘That’s not how we do it, as well you know,’ said Granny disapprovingly. ‘People don’t go and find witchcraft, it comes and finds them.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Magrat. ‘Sorry.’

‘Right,’ said Granny, slightly mollified. She’d never mastered the talent for apologizing, but she appreciated it in other people.

‘What about this new duke, then,’ said Nanny, to lighten the atmosphere.

Granny sat back. ‘He had some houses burned down in Bad Ass,’ she said. ‘Because of taxes.’

‘How horrible,’ said Magrat.

‘Old King Verence used to do that,’ said Nanny. ‘Terrible temper he had.’

‘He used to let people get out first, though,’ said Granny.

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny, who was a staunch royalist. ‘He could be very gracious like that. He’d pay for them to be rebuilt, as often as not. If he remembered.’

‘And every Hogswatchnight, a side of venison. Regular,’ said Granny wistfully.

‘Oh, yes. Very respectful to witches, he was,’ added Nanny Ogg. ‘When he was out hunting people, if he met me in the woods, it was always off with his helmet and “I hope I finds you well, Mistress Ogg” and next day he’d send his butler down with a couple of bottles of something. He was a proper king.’

‘Hunting people isn’t really right, though,’ said Magrat.

‘Well, no,’ Granny Weatherwax conceded. ‘But it was only if they’d done something bad. He said they enjoyed it really. And he used to let them go if they gave him a good run.’

‘And then there was that great hairy thing of his,’ said Nanny Ogg.

There was a perceptible change in the atmosphere. It became warmer, darker, filled at the corners with the shadows of unspoken conspiracy.

‘Ah,’ said Granny Weatherwax distantly. ‘His droit de seigneur.’

‘Needed a lot of exercise,’ said Nanny Ogg, staring at the fire.

‘But next day he’d send his housekeeper round with a bag of silver and a hamper of stuff for the wedding,’ said Granny. ‘Many a couple got a proper start in life thanks to that.’

‘Ah,’ agreed Nanny. ‘One or two individuals, too.’

‘Every inch a king,’ said Granny.^{20}

‘What are you talking about?’ said Magrat suspiciously. ‘Did he keep pets?’

The two witches surfaced from whatever deeper current they had been swimming in. Granny Weatherwax shrugged.

‘I must say,’ Magrat went on, in severe tones, ‘if you think so much of the old king, you don’t seem very worried about him being killed. I mean, it was a pretty suspicious accident.’

‘That’s kings for you,’ said Granny. ‘They come and go, good and bad. His father poisoned the king we had before.’

‘That was old Thargum,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Had a big red beard, I recall. He was very gracious too, you know.’

‘Only now no-one must say Felmet killed the king,’ said Magrat.

‘What?’ said Granny.

‘He had some people executed in Lancre, the other day for saying it,’ Magrat went on. ‘Spreading malicious lies, he said. He said anyone saying different will see the inside of his dungeons, only not for long. He said Verence died of natural causes.’

‘Well, being assassinated is natural causes for a king,’ said Granny. ‘I don’t see why he’s so sheepish about it. When old Thargum was killed they stuck his head on a pole, had a big bonfire and everyone in the palace got drunk for a week.’

‘I remember,’ said Nanny. ‘They carried his head all round the villages to show he was dead. Very convincing, I thought. Specially for him. He was grinning. I think it was the way he would have liked to go.’