Wyrd Sisters - Страница 21

‘When our Jason finds out, he’s going to give the duke a real seeing-to, miz. He says it’s about time someone did.’

Nanny Ogg’s Jason was a young man with the build and, Magrat had always thought, the brains of a herd of oxen. Thick-skinned though he was, she doubted whether he could survive a hail of arrows.

‘Don’t tell him yet,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘There could be another way …’

‘I’ll go and find Granny Weatherwax, shall I, miz?’ said Shawn, hopping from one leg to another. ‘She’ll know what to do, she’s a witch.’

Magrat stood absolutely still. She had thought she was angry before, but now she was furious. She was wet and cold and hungry and this person—once upon a time, she heard herself thinking, she would have burst into tears at this point.

‘Oops,’ said Shawn. ‘Um. I didn’t mean. Whoops. Um …’ He backed away.

‘If you happen to see Granny Weatherwax,’ said Magrat slowly, in tones that should have etched her words into glass, ‘you can tell her that I will sort it all out. Now go away before I turn you into a frog. You look like one anyway.’

She turned, hitched up her skirts, and ran like hell towards her cottage.

***

Lord Felmet was one of nature’s gloaters. He was good at it.

‘Quite comfortable, are we?’ he said.

Nanny Ogg considered this. ‘Apart from these stocks, you mean?’ she said.

‘I am impervious to your foul blandishments,’ said the duke. ‘I scorn your devious wiles. You are to be tortured, I’ll have you know.’

This didn’t appear to have the required effect. Nanny was staring around the dungeon with the vaguely interested gaze of a sightseer.

‘And then you will be burned,’ said the duchess.

‘OK,’ said Nanny.

‘OK?’

‘Well, it’s bloody freezing down here. What’s that big wardrobe thing with the spikes?’

The duke was trembling. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘Now you realize, eh? That, my dear lady, is an Iron Maiden. It’s the latest thing. Well may you—’

‘Can I have a go in it?’

‘Your pleas fall on deaf …’ The duke’s voice trailed off. His twitch started up.

The duchess leaned forward until her big red face was inches away from Nanny’s nose.

‘This insouciance gives you pleasure,’ she hissed, ‘but soon you will laugh on the other side of your face!’

‘It’s only got this side,’ said Nanny.

The duchess fingered a tray of implements lovingly. ‘We shall see,’ she said, picking up a pair of pliers.

‘And you need not think any others of your people will come to your aid,’ said the duke, who was sweating despite the chill. ‘We alone hold the keys to this dungeon. Ha ha. You will be an example to all those who have been spreading malicious rumours about me. Do not protest your innocence! I hear the voices all the time, lying …’

The duchess gripped him ferociously by the arm. ‘Enough,’ she rasped. ‘Come, Leonal. We will let her reflect on her fate for a while.’

‘… the faces … wicked lies … I wasn’t there, and anyway he fell … my porridge, all salty …’ murmured the duke, swaying.

The door slammed behind them. There was a click of locks and a thudding of bolts.

Nanny was left alone in the gloom. A flickering torch high on the wall only made the surrounding darkness more forbidding. Strange metal shapes, designed for no more exalted purpose than the destruct-testing of the human body, cast unpleasant shadows. Nanny Ogg stirred in her chains.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I can see you. Who are you?’

King Verence stepped forward.

‘I saw you making faces behind him,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘All I could do to keep a straight face myself.’

‘I wasn’t making faces, woman, I was scowling.’

Nanny squinted. ‘’Ere, I know you,’ she said. ‘You’re dead.’

‘I prefer the term “passed over”,’ said the king.

‘I’d bow,’ said Nanny. ‘Only there’s all these chains and things. You haven’t seen a cat around here, have you?’

‘Yes. He’s in the room upstairs, asleep.’

Nanny appeared to relax. ‘That’s all right, then,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to worry.’ She stared around the dungeon again. ‘What’s that big bed thing over there?’

‘The rack,’ said the king, and explained its use. Nanny Ogg nodded.

‘What a busy little mind he’s got,’ she said.

‘I fear, madam, that I may be responsible for your present predicament,’ said Verence, sitting down on or at least just above a handy anvil. ‘I wished to attract a witch.’

‘I suppose you’re no good at locks?’

‘I fear they would be beyond my capabilities as yet … but surely—’ the ghost of the king waved a hand in a vague gesture which encompassed the dungeon, Nanny and the manacles —’to a witch all this is just so much—’

‘Solid iron,’ said Nanny. ‘You might be able to walk through it, but I can’t.’

‘I didn’t realize,’ said Verence. ‘I thought witches could do magic.’

‘Young man,’ said Nanny, ‘you will oblige me by shutting up.’

‘Madam! I am a king!’

‘You are also dead, so I wouldn’t aspire to hold any opinions if I was you. Now just be quiet and wait, like a good boy.’

Against all his instincts, the king found himself obeying. There was no gainsaying that tone of voice. It spoke to him across the years, from his days in the nursery. Its echoes told him that if he didn’t eat it all up he would be sent straight to bed.

Nanny Ogg stirred in her chains. She hoped they would turn up soon.

‘Er,’ said the king uneasily. ‘I feel I owe you an explanation …’

***

‘Thank you,’ said Granny Weatherwax, and because Shawn seemed to be expecting it, added, ‘You’ve been a good boy.’

‘Yes’m,’ said Shawn. ‘M’m?’

‘Was there something else?’

Shawn twisted the end of his chain-mail vest out of embarrassment. ‘It’s not true what everyone’s been saying about our mam, is it, m’m?’ he said. ‘She doesn’t go round putting evil curses on folk. Except for Daviss the butcher. And old Cakebread, after he kicked her cat. But they wasn’t what you’d call real curses, was they, m’m?’

‘You can stop calling me m’m.’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘They’ve been saying that, have they?’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘Well, your mam does upset people sometimes.’

Shawn hopped from one leg to another.

‘Yes, m’m, but they says terrible things about you, m’m, savin’ your presence, m’m.’

Granny stiffened.

‘What things?’

‘Don’t like to say, m’m.’

‘What things?’

Shawn considered his next move. There weren’t many choices.

‘A lot of things what aren’t true, m’m,’ he said, establishing his credentials as early as possible. ‘All sorts of things. Like, old Verence was a bad king and you helped him on the throne, and you caused that bad winter the other year, and old Norbut’s cow dint give no milk after you looked at it. Lot of lies, m’m,’ he added, loyally.

‘Right,’ said Granny.

She shut the door in his panting face, stood in thought for a moment, and retired to her rocking chair.

Eventually she said, once more, ‘Right.’

A little later she added, ‘She’s a daft old besom, but we can’t have people going round doing things to witches. Once you’ve lost your respect, you ain’t got a thing. I don’t remember looking at old Norbut’s cow. Who’s old Norbut?’

She stood up, took her pointed hat from its hook behind the door and, glaring into the mirror, skewered it in place with a number of ferocious hatpins. They slid on one by one, as unstoppable as the wrath of God.

She vanished into the outhouse for a moment and came back with her witch’s cloak, which served as a blanket for sick goats when not otherwise employed.

Once upon a time it had been black velvet; now it was just black. It was carefully and slowly fastened by a tarnished silver brooch.

No samurai, no questing knight, was ever dressed with as much ceremony.

Finally Granny drew herself up, surveyed her dark reflection in the glass, gave a thin little smile of approval, and left via the back door.

The air of menace was only slightly dispelled by the sound of her running up and down outside, trying to get her broomstick started.

——

Magrat was also regarding herself in the mirror.

She’d dug out a startlingly green dress that was designed to be both revealing and clinging, and would have been if Magrat had anything to display or cling to, so she’d shoved a couple of rolled-up stockings down the front in an effort to make good the more obvious deficiencies. She had also tried a spell on her hair, but it was naturally magic-resistant and already the natural shape was beginning to assert itself (a dandelion clock at about 2 p.m.).

Magrat had also tried make-up. This wasn’t an unqualified success. She didn’t have much practice. She was beginning to wonder if she’d overdone the eyeshadow.

Her neck, fingers and arms between them carried enough silverware to make a full-sized dinner service, and over everything she had thrown a black cloak lined with red silk.

In a certain light and from a carefully chosen angle, Magrat was not unattractive. Whether any of these preparations did anything for her is debatable, but they did mean that a thin veneer of confidence overlaid her trembling heart.