Witches Abroad (23 page)

‘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.
²⁰
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.
²¹

‘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.

Aloud, she said: ‘Well, it shouldn't be too much to arrange. I mean, normally it's
marrying
princes that's the hard bit.'

‘Not for me it isn't,' said Embers. ‘It's all
been
arranged. My other godmother says I've got to do it. She says it's my destiny.'

‘Other godmother?' said Magrat.

‘Everyone gets two,' said Ella. ‘The good one and the bad one. You
know
that. Which one are you?'

Magrat's mind raced.

‘Oh, the good one,' she said. ‘Definitely.'

‘Funny thing,' said Ella. ‘That's just what the other one said, too.'

Granny Weatherwax sat in her special knees-clenched, elbows-in way that put as little as possible of herself in contact with the outside world.

‘By gor', this is good stuff,' said Nanny Ogg, polishing her plate with what Granny could only hope was bread. ‘You ought to try a drop, Esme.'

‘Another helping, Mrs Ogg?' said Mrs Gogol.

‘Don't mind if I do, Mrs Gogol.' Nanny nudged Granny in the ribs. ‘It's really good, Esme. Just like stew.'

Mrs Gogol looked at Granny with her head on one side.

‘I think perhaps Mistress Weatherwax isn't worried about the food,' she said. ‘I think Mistress Weatherwax is worried about the service.'

A shadow loomed over Nanny Ogg. A grey hand took her plate away.

Granny Weatherwax gave a little cough.

‘I've got nothing
against
dead people,' she said. ‘Some of my best friends are dead. It just don't seem right, though, dead people walking about.'

Nanny Ogg looked up at the figure even now ladling a third helping of mysterious liquid on to her plate.

‘What d'
you
think about it, Mr Zombie?'

‘It's a great life, Mrs Ogg,' said the zombie.

‘There. See, Esme? He don't mind. Better than being shut up in a stuffy coffin all day, I'll be bound.'

Granny looked up at the zombie. He was – or, technically, had
been
– a tall, handsome man. He still was, only now he looked like someone who had walked through a room full of cobwebs.

‘What's your name, dead man?' she said.

‘I am called Saturday.'

‘Man Saturday, eh?' said Nanny Ogg.

‘No. Just Saturday, Mrs Ogg. Just Saturday.'

Granny Weatherwax looked into his eyes. They were more sentient than most eyes she had seen that belonged to people who were, technically, alive.

She was vaguely aware that there were things you had to do to a dead person to turn them into a zombie, although it was a branch of magic she'd never wanted to investigate. Yet you needed more than just a lot of weird fish innards and foreign roots – the person had to
want
to come back. They had to have some terrible dream or desire or purpose that would enable them to overcome the grave itself . . .

Saturday's eyes
burned
.

She reached a decision. She held out a hand.

‘Very pleased to meet you, Mister Saturday,' she said. ‘And I'm sure I'd enjoy your lovely stew.'

‘It's called gumbo,' said Nanny. ‘It's got lady's fingers in it.'

‘I know well enough that lady's fingers is a kind of plant, thank you very much,' said Granny. ‘I'm not entirely ignorant.'

‘All right, but make sure you get a helping with snakes' heads in it as well,' said Nanny Ogg. ‘They're the best part.'

‘What kind of plant is snakes' heads?'

‘Best if you just eat up, I reckon,' said Nanny.

They were sitting on the warped wood veranda round the back of Mrs Gogol's shack, overlooking the swamp. Mossy beards hung from every branch. Unseen creatures buzzed in the greenery. And everywhere there were v-shaped ripples cutting gently through the water.

‘I expect it's really nice here when the sun's out,' said Nanny.

Saturday trudged into the shack and returned with a makeshift fishing pole, which he baited and cast over the rail. Then he sort of switched off; no-one has more patience than a zombie.

Mrs Gogol leaned back in her rocking-chair and lit her pipe.

‘This used to be a great ole city,' she said.

‘What happened to it?' said Nanny.

Greebo was having a lot of trouble with Legba the cockerel.

For one thing, the bird refused to be terrorized. Greebo could terrorize most things that moved upon the face of the Discworld, even creatures nominally much bigger and tougher than he was. Yet somehow none of his well-tried tactics – the yawn, the stare and above all the slow grin – seemed to work. Legba merely looked down his beak at him, and pretended to scratch at the ground in a way that brought his two-inch spurs into even greater prominence.

That only left the flying leap. This worked on nearly every creature. Very few animals remained calm in the face of an enraged ball of whirring claws in the face. In the case of this bird, Greebo suspected, it might well result in his becoming a furry kebab.

But this had to be resolved. Otherwise generations of cats would laugh at him.

Cat and bird circled through the swamp, each apparently paying the other no attention whatsoever.

Things gibbered in the trees. Small iridescent birds barrelled through the air. Greebo glared up at them. He would sort them out later.

And the cockerel had vanished.

Greebo's ears flattened against his head.

There was still the birdsong and the whine of insects, but they were elsewhere. Here there was silence – hot, dark and oppressive – and trees that were somehow much closer together than he remembered.

Greebo looked around.

He was in a clearing. Around its sides, hanging from bushes or tied to trees, were things. Bits of ribbon. White bones. Tin pots. Perfectly ordinary things, anywhere else.

And in the centre of the clearing, something like a scarecrow. An upright pole with a crosspiece, on which someone had put an old black coat. Above the coat, on the tip of the pole, was a top hat. On top of the hat, watching him thoughtfully, was Legba.

A breeze blew through the stifling air, causing the coat to flap gently.

Greebo remembered a day when he'd chased a rat into the village windmill and had suddenly found that what had seemed merely a room with odd furniture in it was a great big machine which would, if he put a paw wrong, crush him utterly.

The air sizzled gently. He could feel his fur standing on end.

Greebo turned and stalked away haughtily, until he judged himself out of sight, whereupon his legs spun so fast that his paws skidded.

Then he went and grinned at some alligators, but his heart wasn't in it.

In the clearing, the coat moved gently again and then was still. Somehow, that was worse.

Legba watched. The air grew heavier, just as it does before a storm.

‘This used to be a great old city. A happy place. No-one
tried
to make it happy. It just happened, all by itself,' said Mrs Gogol. ‘That was when the old Baron was alive. But he was murdered.'

‘Who done it?' said Nanny Ogg.

‘Everyone knows it was the Duc,' said Mrs Gogol.

The witches looked at one another. Royal intrigues were obviously a bit different in foreign parts.

‘Pecked to death, was he?' said Nanny.

‘A foul deed?' said Granny.

‘The Duc is a title, not a bird,' said Mrs Gogol patiently. ‘The Baron was poisoned. It was a terrible night. And, in the morning, the Duc was in the palace. Then there was the matter of the will.'

‘Don't tell me,' said Granny. ‘I bet there was a will leaving everything to this Duc. I bet the ink was still wet.'

‘How did you know that?' said Mrs Gogol.

‘Stands to reason,' said Granny loftily.

‘The Baron had a young daughter,' said Mrs Gogol.

‘She'd be still alive, I reckon,' said Granny.

‘You surely know a lot of things, lady,' said Mrs Gogol. ‘Why'd you think that, then?'

‘Well . . .' said Granny. She was about to say: because I know how the stories work. But Nanny Ogg interrupted.

‘If this Baron was as great as you say, he must have had a lot of friends in the city, right?' she said.

‘That is so. The people liked him.'

‘Well, if I was a Duc with no more claim on things than a smudgy will and a little bottle of ink with the cork still out, I'd be lookin' for any chance to make things a bit more official,' said Nanny. ‘Marryin' the real heir'd be favourite. He could thumb his nose at everyone, then. I bet she don't know who she really is, eh?'

‘That's right,' said Mrs Gogol. ‘The Duc's got friends, too. Or keepers, maybe. Not people you'd want to cross. They've brought her up, and they don't let her out much.'

The witches sat in silence for a while.

Granny thought: no. That's not quite right. That's how it'd appear in a history book. But that's not the
story
.

Then Granny said, ‘'Scuse me, Mrs Gogol, but where do you come in all this? No offence, but I reckon that out here in the swamp it'd be all the same whoever was doing the rulin'.'

For the first time since they'd met her, Mrs Gogol looked momentarily uneasy.

‘The Baron was . . . a friend of mine,' she said.

‘Ah,' said Granny understandingly.

‘He wasn't keen on zombies, mark you. He said he thought the dead should be allowed their rest. But he never insisted. Whereas this new one . . .'