Lords and Ladies (Discworld #14)

Lords and Ladies (Discworld #14) Page 45

Magrat sagged. Nanny tapped her on the shoulder.

“You might need this at this point,” she said, and handed Magrat the winged helmet.

“The king's been very happy with-” Mrs. Scorbic began.

There was a click. She looked down the length of a crossbow and met Magrat's steady gaze.

“Go ahead,” said the Queen of Lancre softly, “bake my quiche.”

Verence sat in his nightshirt with his head in his hands. He could remember hardly anything about the night, except a feeling of coldness. And no one seemed very inclined to tell him.

There was a faint creak as the door opened.

He looked up. “Glad to see you're up and about already,” said Granny Weatherwax. “I've come to help you dress.”

“I've looked in the garderobe,” said Verence. “The . . . elves, was it? . . . they ransacked the place. There's nothing I can wear.”

Granny looked around the room. Then she went to a low chest and opened it. There was a faint tinkling of bells, and a flash of red and yellow.

“I thought you never threw them away,” she said. “And you ain't put on any weight, so they'll still fit. On with the motley. Magrat'll appreciate it.”

“Oh, no,” said Verence. “I'm very firm about this. I'm king now. It'd be demeaning for Magrat to marry a Fool. I've got a position to maintain, for the sake of the kingdom. Besides, there is such a thing as pride.”

Granny stared at him for so long that he shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, there is,” he said.

Granny nodded, and walked toward the doorway.

“Why're you leaving?” said Verence nervously.

“I ain't leaving,” said Granny, quietly, “I'm just shutting the door.”

And then there was the incident with the crown.

Ceremonies and Protocols of The Kingdom of Lancre was eventually found after a hurried search of Verence's bedroom. It was very clear about the procedure. The new queen was crowned, by the king, as part of the ceremony. It wasn't technically difficult for any king who knew which end of a queen was which, which even the most inbred king figured out in two goes.

But it seemed to Ponder Stibbons that the ritual wobbled a bit at this point.

It seemed, in fact, that just as he was about to lower the crown on the bride's head he glanced across the hall to where the skinny old witch was standing. And nearly everyone else did too, including the bride.

The old witch nodded very slightly.

Magrat was crowned.

Wack-fol-a-diddle, etc.

The bride and groom stood side by side, shaking hands with the long line of guests in that dazed fashion normal at this point in the ceremony.

“I'm sure you'll be very happy-”

“Thank you.”

“Ook!”

“Thank you.”

“Nail it to the counter, Lord Ferguson, and damn the cheesemongers!”

“Thank you.”

“Can I kiss the bride?”

It dawned on Verence that he was being addressed by fresh air. He looked down.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “you are-?”

“My card,” said Casanunda.

Verence read it. His eyebrows rose.

“Ah,” he said. “Uh. Urn. Well, well, well. Number two, eh?”

“I try harder,” said Casanunda.

Verence looked around guiltily, and then bent down until his mouth was level with the dwarfs ear.

“Could I have a word with you in a minute or two?”

The Lancre Morris Men got together again for the first time at the reception. They found it hard to talk to one another. Several of them jigged up and down absentmindedly as they talked.

“All right,” said Jason, “anyone remember? Really remember?”

“I remember the start,” said Tailor the other weaver.

“Definitely remember the start. And the dancing in the woods. But the Entertainment-”

“There was elves in it,” said Tinker the tinker. “That's why it all got buggered up,” said Thatcher the carter. “There was a lot of shouting, too.”

“There was someone with horns on,” said Carter, “and a great big-”

“It was all,” said Jason, “a bit of a dream.”

“Hey, look over there, Carter,” said Weaver, winking at the others, “there's that monkey. You've got something to ask it, ain't you?”

Carter blinked. “Coo, yes,” he said.

“Shouldn't waste a golden opportunity if I was you,” said Weaver, with the happy malice often shown by the clever to the simple.

The Librarian was chatting to Ponder and the Bursar. He looked around as Carter prodded him.

“You've been over to Slice, then, have you?” he said, in his cheery open way.

The Librarian gave him a look of polite incomprehension.

“Oook?”

Carter looked perplexed.

“That's where you put your nut, ain't it?”

The Librarian gave him another odd look, and shook his head.

“Oook.”

“Weaver!” Carter shouted, “the monkey says he didn't put his nut where the sun don't shine! You said he did! You didn't, did you? He said you did.” He turned to the Librarian. “He didn't. Weaver. See, I knew you'd got it wrong. You're daft. There's no monkeys in Slice.”

Silence flowed outward from the two of them.

Ponder Stibbons held his breath.

“This is a lovely party,” said the Bursar to a chair, “I wish I was here.”

The Librarian picked up a large bottle from the table. He tapped Carter on the shoulder. Then he poured him a large drink and patted him on the head.

Ponder relaxed and turned back to what he was doing. He'd tied a knife to a bit of string and was gloomily watching it spin round and round . . .

On his way home that night Weaver was picked up by a mysterious assailant and dropped into the Lancre. No one ever found out why. Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian ones. They're not all that subtle.

Others went home that night.

“She'll be getting ideas above her station in life,” said Granny Weatherwax, as the two witches strolled through the scented air.

“She's a queen. That's pretty high,” said Nanny Ogg. “Almost as high as witches.”

“Yes . . . well . . . but you ain't got to give yourself airs,” said Granny Weatherwax. “We're advantaged, yes, but we act with modesty and we don't Put Ourselves Forward. No one could say I haven't been decently modest all my life.”

“You've always been a bit of a shy violet, I've always said,” said Nanny Ogg. “I'm always telling people, when it comes to humility you won't find anyone more humile than Esme Weatherwax.”

“Always keep myself to myself and minded my own business-”

“Barely known you were there half the time,” said Nanny Ogg.

“I was talking, Gytha.”

“Sorry.” They walked along in silence for a while. It was a warm dry evening. Birds sang in the trees.

Nanny said, “Funny to think of our Magrat being married and everything.”

“What do you mean, everything?”

“Well, you know - married,” said Nanny. “I gave her a few tips. Always wear something in bed. Keeps a man interested.”

“You always wore your hat.”

“Right.” Nanny waved a sausage on a stick. She always believed in stocking up on any free food that was available.

“I thought the wedding feast was very good, didn't you? And Magrat looked radiant, I thought.”

“I thought she looked hot and flustered.”

“That is radiant, with brides.”

“You're right, though,” said Granny Weatherwax, who was walking a little way ahead. “It was a good dinner. I never had this Vegetarian Option stuff before.”

“When I married Mr. . Ogg, we had three dozen oysters at our wedding feast. Mind you, they didn't all work.”

“And I like the way they give us all a bit o' the wedding cake in a little bag,” said Granny.

“Right. You know, they says, if you puts a bit under your pillow, you dream of your future husb . . .” Nanny Ogg's tongue tripped over itself.

She stopped, embarrassed, which was unusual in an Ogg.

“It's all right,” said Granny “I don't mind.”

“Sorry, Esme.”

“Everything happens somewhere. I know. I know. Everything happens somewhere. So it's all the same in the end.”

“That's very continuinuinuum thinking, Esme.”

“Cake's nice,” said Granny, “but. . . right now . . . don't know why . . . what I could really do with, Gytha, right now . . . is a sweet.”

The last word hung in the evening air like the echo of a gunshot.

Nanny stopped. Her hand flew to her pocket, where the usual bag of fluff-encrusted boiled sweets resided. She stared at the back of Esme Weatherwax's head, at the tight bun of grey hair under the brim of the pointy hat.

“Sweet?” she said.

“I expect you've got another bag now,” said Granny, without looking around.

“Esme-”

“You got anything to say, Gytha? About bags of sweets?”

Granny Weatherwax still hadn't turned around.

Nanny looked at her boots.

“No, Esme,” she said meekly.

“I knew you'd go up to the Long Man, you know. How'd you get in?”

“Used one of the special horseshoes.”

Granny nodded. “You didn't ought to have brung him into it, Gytha.”

“Yes, Esme.”

“He's as tricky as she is.”

“Yes, Esme.”

“You're trying preemptive meekness on me.”

“Yes, Esme.”

They walked a little further.

“What was that dance your Jason and his men did when they'd got drunk?” said Granny.

“It's the Lancre Stick and Bucket Dance, Esme.”

“It's legal, is it?”

“Technically they shouldn't do it when there's women present,” said Nanny. “Otherwise it's sexual morrisment.”

“And I thought Magrat was very surprised when you recited that poem at the reception.”

“Poem?”

“The one where you did the gestures.”

“Oh, that poem.”

“I saw Verence making notes on his napkin.”

Nanny reached again into the shapeless recesses of her clothing and produced an entire bottle of champagne you could have sworn there was no room for.

“Mind you, I thought she looked happy,” she said. “Standing there wearing about half of a torn muddy dress and chain-mail underneath. Hey, d'you know what she told me?”

“What?”

“You know that ole painting of Queen Ynci? You know, the one with the iron bodice? Her with all the spikes and knives on her chariot? Well, she said she was sure the . . . the spirit of Ynci was helping her. She said she wore the armour and she did things she'd never dare do.”

“My word,” said Granny, noncommittally.

“Funny ole world,” agreed Nanny.

They walked in silence for a while.

“So you didn't tell her that Queen Ynci never existed, then?”

“No point.”

“Old King Lully invented her entirely 'cos he thought we needed a bit of romantic history. He was a bit mad about that. He even had the armour made.”