"He said I mustn't tell you. But he also said, 'They'll come anyway, I hope they do.' Strange, really. He seemed in a very good mood when he said it. Um. Can I see you after the show?"

"Is that all he said?"

"Oh, there was something about showing witches their future. I didn't understand it. I really would like to see you after the show, you know. I brought-"

"I think I might be washing my hair," said Magrat vaguely. "Excuse me, I really ought to be going."

"Yes, but I brought you this pres-" said the Fool vaguely, watching her departing figure.

He sagged as she disappeared between the trees, and looked down at the necklace wound tightly between his nervous fingers. It was, he had to admit, terribly tasteless, but it was the sort of thing she liked, all silver and skulls. It had cost him too much.

A cow, misled by his horns, stuck its tongue in his ear.

It was true, the Fool thought. Witches did did do unpleasant things to people, sometimes. do unpleasant things to people, sometimes.

Tomorrow night came, and the witches went by a roundabout route to the castle, with considerable reluctance.

"If he wants us to be here, I don't want to go," said Granny. "He's got some plan. He's using headology on us."

"There's something up," said Magrat. "He had his men set fire to three cottages in our village last night. He always does that when he's in a good mood. That new sergeant is a quick man with the matches, too."

"Our Daff said she saw them actors practicin' this morning," said Nanny Ogg, who was carrying a bag of walnuts and a leather bottle from which rose a rich, sharp smell. "She said it was all shouting and stabbing and then wondering who done it and long bits with people muttering to themselves in loud voices."

"Actors," said Granny, witheringly. "As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more."

"They shout so loud, too," said Nanny. "You can hardly hear yourself talk." She was also carrying, deep in her ap.r.o.n pocket, a lump of haunted castle rock. The king was getting in free.

Granny nodded. But, she thought, it was going to be worth it. She hadn't got the faintest idea what Tomjon had in mind, but her inbuilt sense of drama a.s.sured her that the boy would be bound to do something important. She wondered if he would leap off the stage and stab the duke to death, and realized that she was hoping like h.e.l.l that he would.

"All hail wossname," she said under her breath, "who shall be king here, after."

"Let's get a move on," said Nanny. "All the sherry'll be gone."

The Fool was waiting despondently inside the little wicket gate. His face brightened when he saw Magrat, and then froze in an expression of polite surprise when he saw the other two.

"There's not going to be any trouble, is there?" he said. "I don't want there to be any trouble. Please."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Granny regally, sweeping past.

"Wotcha, jinglebells," said Nanny, elbowing the man in the ribs. "I hope you haven't been keeping our girl here up late o'nights!"

"Nanny!" said Magrat, shocked. The Fool gave the terrified, ingratiating rictus of young men everywhere when confronted by importunate elderly women commenting on their intimately personal lives.

The older witches brushed past. The Fool grabbed Magrat's hand.

"I know where we can get a good view," he said.

She hesitated.

"It's all right," said the Fool urgently. "You'll be perfectly safe with me."

"Yes, I will, won't I," said Magrat, trying to look around him to see where the others had gone.

"They're staging the play outside, in the big courtyard. We'll get a lovely view from one of the gate towers, and no one else will be there. I put some wine up there for us, and everything."

When she still looked half-reluctant he added, "And there's a cistern of water and a fireplace that the guards use sometimes. In case you want to wash your hair."

The castle was full of people standing around in that polite, sheepish way affected by people who see each other all day and are now seeing each other again in unusual social circ.u.mstances, like an office party. The witches pa.s.sed quite unremarked among them and found seats in the rows of benches in the main courtyard, set up before a hastily a.s.sembled stage.

Nanny Ogg waved her bag of walnuts at Granny.

"Want one?" she said.

An alderman of Lancre shuffled past her and pointed politely to the seat on her left.

"Is anyone sitting here?" he said.

"Yes," said Nanny.

The alderman looked distractedly at the rest of the benches, which were filling up fast, and then down at the clearly empty s.p.a.ce in front of him. He hitched up his robes with a determined expression.

"I think that since the play is commencing to start, your friends must find a seat elsewhere, when they arrive," he said, and sat down.

Within seconds his face went white. His teeth began to chatter. He clutched at his stomach and groaned.*

"I told told you," said Nanny, as he lurched away. "What's the good of asking if you're not going to listen?" She leaned toward the empty seat. "Walnut?" you," said Nanny, as he lurched away. "What's the good of asking if you're not going to listen?" She leaned toward the empty seat. "Walnut?"

"No, thank you," said King Verence, waving a spectral hand. "They go right through me, you know."

"Pray, gentles all, list to our tale..."

"What's this?" hissed Granny. "Who's the fellow in the tights?"

"He's the Prologue," said Nanny. "You have to have him at the beginning so everyone knows what the play's about."

"Can't understand a word of it," muttered Granny. "What's a gentle, anyway?"

"Type of maggot," said Nanny.

"That's nice, isn't it? 'Hallo maggots, welcome to the show.' Puts people in a nice frame of mind, doesn't it?"

There was a chorus of "sshs."

"These walnuts are d.a.m.n tough," said Nanny, spitting one out into her hand. "I'm going to have to take my shoe off to this one."

Granny subsided into unaccustomed, troubled silence, and tried to listen to the prologue. The theater worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn't belong to her, one that wasn't in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn't belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn't know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better.

The duke and d.u.c.h.ess were sitting on their thrones right in front of the stage. As Granny glared at them the duke half turned, and she saw his smile.

I want the world the way it is, she thought. I want the past the way it was. The past used to be a lost better than it is now.

And the band struck up.

Hwel peered around a pillar and signaled to Wimsloe and Brattsley, who hobbled out into the glare of the torches.

OLD M MAN (an Elder): " (an Elder): "What hath befell the land?"

OLD W WOMAN (a Crone): "' (a Crone): "'Tis a terror-"

The dwarf watched them for a few seconds from the wings, his lips moving soundlessly. Then he scuttled back to the guardroom where the rest of the cast were still in the last hasty stages of dressing. He uttered the stage manager's traditional scream of rage.

"C'mon," he ordered. "Soldiers of the king, at the double! And the witches-where are the blasted witches?"

Three junior apprentices presented themselves.

"I've lost my wart!"

"The cauldon's all full of yuk!"

"There's something living in this wig!"

"Calm down, calm down," screamed Hwel. "It'll all be all right on the night!"

"This is the night, Hwel!"

Hwel s.n.a.t.c.hed a handful of putty from the makeup table and slammed on a wart like an orange. The offending straw wig was rammed on its owner's head, livestock and all, and the cauldron was very briefly inspected and p.r.o.nounced full of just the right sort of yuk, nothing wrong with yuk like that.

On stage a guard dropped his shield, bent down to pick it up, and dropped his spear. Hwel rolled his eyes and offered up a silent prayer to any G.o.ds that might be watching.

It was already going wrong. The earlier rehearsals had their little teething troubles, it was true, but Hwel had known one or two monumental horrors in his time and this one was shaping up to be the worst. The company was more jittery than a potful of lobsters. Out of the corner of his ear he heard the on-stage dialogue falter, and scurried to the wings.

"-avenge the terror of thy father's death-" he hissed, and hurried back to the trembling witches. He groaned. Divers alarums. This lot were supposed to be terrorizing a kingdom. He had about a minute before the cue.

"Right!" he said, pulling himself together. "Now, what are you? You're evil hags, right?"

"Yes, Hwel," they said meekly.

"Tell me what you are," he commanded.

"We're evil hags, Hwel."

"Louder!"

"We've Evil Hags!"

Hwel stalked the length of the quaking line, then turned abruptly on his heel, "And what are you going to do?"

The 2nd Witche scratched his crawling wig.

"We're going to curse people?" he ventured. "It says in the script-"

"I-can't-HEAR-you!"

"We're going to curse people!" they chorused, springing to attention and staring straight ahead to avoid his gaze.

Hwel stumped back along the line.

"What are you?"

"We're hags, Hwel!"

"What kind of hags?"

"We're black and midnight hags!" they yelled, getting into the spirit.

"What kind of black and midnight hags?"

"Evil black and midnight hags!" black and midnight hags!"

"Are you scheming?"

"Yeah!"

"Are you secret?"

"Yeah!"

Hwel drew himself to his full height, such as it was.

"What-are-you?" he screamed.

"We're scheming evil secret black and midnight hags!"

"Right!" He pointed a vibrating finger toward the stage and lowered his voice and, at that moment, a dramatic inspiration dived through the atmosphere and slammed into his creative node, causing him to say, "Now I want you to get out there and give 'em h.e.l.l. Not for me. Not for the G.o.ddam captain." He shifted the b.u.t.t of an imaginary cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, and pushed back a nonexistent tin helmet, and rasped, "But for Corporal Walkowski and his little dawg."

They stared at him in disbelief.

On cue, someone shook a sheet of tin and broke the spell.

Hwel rolled his eyes. He'd grown up in the mountains, where thunderstorms stalked from peak to peak on legs of lightning. He remembered thunderstorms that left mountains a different shape and flattened whole forests. Somehow, a sheet of tin wasn't the same, no matter how enthusiastically it was shaken.