"I said, I'll now call upon the respected Granny Weatherwax to say a few words, ha ha," he said.

"You said that, did you?"

"Yes!"

"You've gone a long way too far," said Granny.

"I have, haven't I!" The duke giggled.

Granny turned to the expectant crowds, which went silent.

"Go home," she said.

There was a further long silence.

"Is that all?" said the duke.

"Yes."

"What about pledges of eternal allegiance?"

"What about them? Gytha, will you stop waving at people!"

"Sorry."

"And now we are going to go, too," said Granny.

"But we were getting on so well," said the duke.

"Come, Gytha," said Granny icily. "And where's Magrat got to?"

Magrat looked up guiltily. She had been deep in conversation with the Fool, although it was the kind of conversation where both parties spend a lot of time looking at their feet and picking at their fingernails. Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarra.s.sment.

"We're leaving," said Granny.

"Friday afternoon, remember," hissed the Fool.

"Well, if I can," said Magrat.

Nanny Ogg leered.

And so Granny Weatherwax swept down the steps and through the crowds, with the other two running behind her. Several of the grinning guards caught her eye and wished they hadn't, but here and there, among the watching crowd, was a barely suppressed sn.i.g.g.e.r. She hurtled through the gateway, across the drawbridge and through the town. Granny walking fast could beat most other people at a run.

Behind them the duke, who had crested the latest maniac peak on the switchback of his madness and was coasting speedily toward the watersplash of despair, laughed.

"Ha ha."

Granny didn't stop until she was outside the town and under the welcoming eaves of the forest. She turned off the road and flumped down on a log, her face in her hands.

The other two approached her carefully. Magrat patted her on the back.

"Don't despair," she said. "You handled it very well, we thought."

"I ain't despairing, I'm thinking," said Granny. "Go away."

Nanny Ogg raised her eyebrows at Magrat in a warning fashion. They backed off to a suitable distance although, with Granny in her present mood, the next universe might not be far enough, and sat down on a moss-grown stone.

"Are you all right?" said Magrat. "They didn't do anything, did they?"

"Never laid a finger on me," said Nanny. She sniffed. "They're not your real royalty," she added. "Old King Gruneweld, for one, he wouldn't have wasted time waving things around and menacing people. It'd been bang, needles right under the fingernails from the word go, and no messing. None of this evil laughter stuff. He was a real real king. Very gracious." king. Very gracious."

"He was threatening to burn you."

"Oh, I wouldn't of stood for it. I see you've got a follower," said Nanny.

"Sorry?" said Magrat.

"The young fellow with the bells," said Nanny. "And the face like a spaniel what's just been kicked."

"Oh, him." Magrat blushed hotly under her pale makeup. "Really, he's just this man. He just follows me around."

"Can be difficult, can that," said Nanny sagely.

"Besides, he's so small. And he capers capers all over the place," said Magrat. all over the place," said Magrat.

"Looked at him carefully, have you?" said the old witch.

"Pardon?"

"You haven't, have you? I thought not. He's a very clever man, that Fool. He ought to have been one of them actor men."

"What do you mean?"

"Next time you have a look at him like a witch, not like a woman," said Nanny, and gave Magrat a conspiratorial nudge. "Good bit of work with the door back there," she added. "Coming on well, you are. I hope you told him about Greebo."

"He said he'd let him out directly, Nanny."

There was a snort from Granny Weatherwax.

"Did you hear the sn.i.g.g.e.ring in the crowd?" she said. "Someone sn.i.g.g.e.red!"

Nanny Ogg sat down beside her.

"And a couple of them pointed," she said. "I know."

"It's not to be borne!"

Magrat sat down on the other end of the log.

"There's other witches," she said. "There's lots of witches further up the Ramtops. Maybe they can help."

The other two looked at her in pained surprise.

"I don't think we need go that that far," sniffed Granny. " far," sniffed Granny. "Asking for for help help."

"Very bad practice," nodded Nanny Ogg.

"But you asked a demon to help you," said Magrat.

"No, we didn't," said Granny.

"Right. We didn't."

"We ordered it to a.s.sist."

"S'right."

Granny Weatherwax stretched out her legs and looked at her boots. They were good strong boots, with hobnails and crescent-shaped scads; you couldn't believe a cobbler had made them, someone had laid down a sole and built built up from there. up from there.

"I mean, there's that witch over Skund way," she said. "Sister Whosis, wossname, her son went off to be a sailor-you know, Gytha, her who sniffs and puts them antima.s.sacres on the backs of chairs soon as you sits down-"

"Grodley," said Nanny Ogg. "Sticks her little finger out when she drinks her tea and drops her Haitches all the time."

"Yes. Hwell. I haven't hlowered myself to talk to her hever since that business with the gibbet, you recall. I daresay she'd just love to come snooping haround here, running her fingers over heverything and sniffling, telling us how to do things. Oh, yes. Help Help. We'd all be in a fine to-do if we went around helping all the time."

"Yes, and over Skund way the trees talk to you and walk around of night," said Nanny. "Without even asking permission. Very poor organization."

"Not really good organization, like we've got here?" said Magrat.

Granny stood up purposefully.

"I'm going home," she said.

There are thousands of good reasons why magic doesn't rule the world. They're called witches and wizards, Magrat reflected, as she followed the other two back to the road.

It was probably some wonderful organization on the part of Nature to protect itself. It saw to it that everyone with any magical talent was about as ready to cooperate as a she-bear with toothache, so all that dangerous power was safely dissipated as random bickering and rivalry. There were differences in style, of course. Wizards a.s.sa.s.sinated each other in drafty corridors, witches just cut one another dead in the street. And they were all as self-centered as a spinning top. Even when they help other people, she thought, they're secretly doing it for themselves. Honestly, they're just like big children.

Except for me, she thought smugly.

"She's very upset, isn't she," said Magrat to Nanny Ogg.

"Ah, well," said Nanny. "There's the problem, see. The more you get used to magic, the more you don't want to use it. The more it gets in your way. I expect, when you were just starting out, you learned a few spells from Goodie Whemper, maysherestinpeace, and you used them all the time, didn't you?"

"Well, yes. Everyone does."

"Well-known fact," agreed Nanny. "But when you get along in the Craft, you learn that the hardest magic is the sort you don't use at all."

Magrat considered the proposition cautiously. "This isn't some kind of Zen, is it?" she said.

"Dunno. Never seen one."

"When we were in the dungeons, Granny said something about trying the rocks. That sounded like pretty hard magic."

"Well, Goodie wasn't much into rocks," said Nanny. "It's not really hard. You just prod their memories. You know, of the old days. When they were hot and runny."

She hesitated, and her hand flew to her pocket. She gripped the lump of castle stone and relaxed.

"Thought I'd forgotten it, for a minute," she said, lifting it out. "You can come out now."

He was barely visible in the brightness of day, a mere shimmer in the air under the trees. King Verence blinked. He wasn't used to daylight.

"Esme," said Nanny. "There's someone to see you."

Granny turned slowly and squinted at the ghost.

"I saw you in the dungeon, didn't I?" she said. "Who're you?"

"Verence, King of Lancre," said the ghost, and bowed. "Do I have the honor of addressing Granny Weatherwax, doyenne of witches?"

It has already been pointed out that just because Verence came from a long line of kings didn't mean that he was basically stupid, and a year without the distractions of the flesh had done wonders as well. Granny Weatherwax considered herself totally unsusceptible to b.u.t.tering up, but the king was expertly applying the equivalent of the dairy surplus of quite a large country. Bowing was a particularly good touch.

A muscle twitched at the corner of Granny's mouth. She gave a stiff little bow in return, because she wasn't quite sure what "doyenne" meant.

"I'm her," she conceded.

"You can get up now," she added, regally.

King Verence remained kneeling, about two inches above the actual ground.

"I crave a boon," he said urgently.

"Here, how did you get out of the castle?" said Granny.

"The esteemed Nanny Ogg a.s.sisted me," said the king. "I reasoned, if I am anch.o.r.ed to the stones of Lancre, then I can also go where the stones go. I am afraid I indulged in a little trickery to arrange matters. Currently I am haunting her ap.r.o.n."

"Not the first, either," said Granny, automatically.

"Esme!"

"And I beg you, Granny Weatherwax, to restore my son to the throne."

"Restore?"

"You know what I mean. He is in good health?"

Granny nodded. "The last time we Looked at him, he was eating an apple," she said.

"It is his destiny to be King of Lancre!"