Maskerade (2 page)

Agnes's hand flew to her mouth, and then she reached down.

‘Oh, I'm so sorry!'

The hand had that clammy feel that makes a holder think longingly of soap. He pulled it away quickly, pushed his greasy hair out of his eyes and gave her a terrified smile; he had what Nanny Ogg called an underdone face, its features rubbery and pale.

‘No trouble miss!'

‘Are you all right?'

He scrambled up, got the broom somehow
tangled between his knees, and sat down again sharply.

‘Er … shall I hold the broom?' said Agnes helpfully.

She pulled it out of the tangle. He got up again, after a couple of false starts.

‘Do you work for the Opera House?' said Agnes.

‘Yes miss!'

‘Er, can you tell me where I have to go for the auditions?'

He looked around wildly. ‘Stage-door!' he said. ‘I'll show you!' The words came out in a rush, as if he had to line them up and fire them all in one go before they had time to wander off.

He snatched the broom out of her hands and set off down the steps and towards the corner of the building. He had a unique stride: it looked as though his body were being dragged forward and his legs had to flail around underneath it, landing wherever they could find room. It wasn't so much a walk as a collapse, indefinitely postponed.

His erratic footsteps led towards a door in the side wall. Agnes followed them in.

Just inside was a sort of shed, with one open wall and a counter positioned so that someone standing there could watch the door. The person behind it must have been a human being because walruses don't wear coats. The strange man had disappeared somewhere in the gloom beyond.

Agnes looked around desperately.

‘Yes, miss?' said the walrus man. It really was
an
impressive
moustache, which had sapped all the growth from the rest of its owner.

‘Er … I'm here for the … the auditions,' said Agnes. ‘I saw a notice that said you were auditioning—'

She gave a helpless little smile. The doorkeeper's face proclaimed that it had seen and been unimpressed by more desperate smiles than even Agnes could have eaten hot dinners. He produced a clipboard and a stub of pencil.

‘You got to sign here,' he said.

‘Who was that … person who came in with me?'

The moustache moved, suggesting a smile was buried somewhere below. ‘Everyone knows our Walter Plinge.'

This seemed to be all the information that was likely to be imparted.

Agnes gripped the pencil.

The most important question was: what should she call herself? Her name had many sterling qualities, no doubt, but it didn't exactly roll off the tongue. It snapped off the palate and clicked between the teeth, but it didn't roll off the tongue.

The trouble was, she couldn't think of one with great rotational capabilities.

Catherine, possibly.

Or … Perdita. She could go back to trying Perdita. She'd been embarrassed out of using that name in Lancre. It was a mysterious name, hinting of darkness and intrigue and, incidentally, of someone who was quite thin. She'd even given herself a
middle initial – X – which stood for ‘someone who has a cool and exciting middle initial'.

It hadn't worked. Lancre people were depressingly resistant to cool. She had just been known as ‘that Agnes who calls herself Perditax'.

She'd never
dared
tell anyone that she'd like her
full
name to be Perdita X Dream. They just wouldn't
understand
. They'd say things like: if you think that's the right name for you, why have you still got two shelves full of soft toys?

Well, here she could start afresh. She was good. She knew she was good.

Probably no hope for the Dream, though.

She was probably stuck with the Nitt.

Nanny Ogg usually went to bed early. After all, she was an old lady. Sometimes she went to bed as early as 6 a.m.

Her breath puffed in the air as she walked through the woods. Her boots crunched on the leaves. The wind had died away, leaving the sky wide and clear and open for the first frost of the season, a petal-nipping, fruit-withering little scorcher that showed you why they called Nature a mother …

A third witch.

Three witches could sort of … spread the load.

Maiden, mother and … crone. There.

The trouble was that Granny Weatherwax combined all three in one. She was a maiden, as far as Nanny knew, and she was at least in the right age-bracket for a crone; and, as for the third, well …
cross Granny Weatherwax on a bad day and you'd be like a blossom in the frost.

There was bound to be a candidate for the vacancy, though. There were several young girls in Lancre who were just about the right age.

Trouble was, the young men of Lancre knew it too. Nanny wandered the summer hayfields regularly, and had a sharp if compassionate eye and damn' good over-the-horizon hearing. Violet Frottidge was walking out with young Deviousness Carter, or at least doing something within ninety degrees of walking out. Bonnie Quarney had been gathering nuts in May with William Simple, and it was only because she'd thought ahead and taken a little advice from Nanny that she wouldn't be bearing fruit in February. And pretty soon now young Mildred Tinker's mother would have a quiet word with Mildred Tinker's father, and
he'd
have a word with his friend Thatcher and
he'd
have a word with his son Hob, and then there'd be a wedding, all done in a properly civilized way except for maybe a black eye or two.
¹
No doubt about it, thought Nanny with a misty-eyed smile: innocence, in a hot Lancre summer, was that state in which innocence is lost.

And then a name rose out of the throng. Oh, yes. Her. Why hadn't she thought of
her
? But you didn't, of course. Whenever you thought about the young girls of Lancre, you didn't remember her. And then you said, ‘Oh, yes, her too, of course. O' course,
she's got a wonderful personality. And good hair, of course.'

She was bright, and talented. In many ways. Her voice, for one thing. That was her power, finding its way out. And of course she also had a wonderful personality, so there'd be not much chance of her being … disqualified …

Well, that was settled, then. Another witch to bully and impress would set Granny up a treat, and Agnes would be bound to thank her eventually.

Nanny Ogg was relieved. You needed at least three witches for a coven. Two witches was just an argument.

She opened the door of her cottage and climbed the stairs to bed.

Her cat, the tom Greebo, was spread out on the eiderdown like a puddle of grey fur. He didn't even awake as Nanny lifted him up bodily so that, nightdress-clad, she could slide between the sheets.

Just to keep bad dreams at bay, she took a swig out of a bottle that smelled of apples and happy brain-death. Then she pummelled her pillow, thought ‘Her … yes,' and drifted off to sleep.

Presently Greebo awoke, stretched, yawned and hopped silently to the floor. Then the most vicious and cunning a pile of fur that ever had the intelligence to sit on a bird table with its mouth open and a piece of toast balanced on its nose vanished through the open window.

A few minutes later, the cockerel in the garden next door stuck up his head to greet the bright new day and died instantly mid-‘doodle-doo'.

*    *    *    

There was a huge darkness in front of Agnes while, at the same time, she was half-blinded by the light. Just below the edge of the stage, giant flat candles floated in a long trough of water, producing a strong yellow glare quite unlike the oil lamps of home. Beyond the light, the auditorium waited like the mouth of a very big and extremely hungry animal.

From somewhere on the far side of the lights a voice said, ‘When you're ready, miss.'

It wasn't a particularly unfriendly voice. It just wanted her to get on with it, sing her piece, and go.

‘I've, er, got this song, it's a—'

‘You've given your music to Miss Proudlet?'

‘Er, there isn't an accompaniment actually, it—'

‘Oh, it's a
folk
song, is it?'

There was a whispering in the darkness, and someone laughed quietly.

‘Off you go then … Perdita, right?'

Agnes launched into the Hedgehog Song, and knew by about word seven that it had been the wrong choice. You needed a tavern, with people leering and thumping their mugs on the table. This big brilliant emptiness just sucked at it and made her voice hesitant and shrill.

She stopped at the end of verse three. She could feel the blush starting somewhere around her knees. It'd take some time to get to her face, because it had a lot of skin to cover, but by then it'd be strawberry pink.

She could hear whispering. Words like ‘timbre' emerged from the susurration and then, she wasn't
surprised to hear, came ‘impressive build'. She did, she knew, have an impressive build. So did the Opera House. She didn't have to feel good about it.

The voice spoke up.

‘You haven't had much training, have you, dear?'

‘No.' Which was true: Lancre's only other singer of note was Nanny Ogg, whose attitude to songs was purely ballistic. You just pointed your voice at the end of the verse and went for it.

Whisper, whisper.

‘Sing us a few scales, dear.'

The blush was at chest-height now, thundering across the rolling acres …

‘Scales?'

Whisper. Muffled laugh.

‘Do-Re-Mi? You know, dear? Starting low? La-la-lah?'

‘Oh. Yes.'

As the armies of embarrassment stormed her neckline, Agnes pitched her voice as low as she could and went for it.

She concentrated on the notes, working her way stolidly upwards from sea-level to mountaintop, and took no notice at the start when a chair vibrated across the stage or, at the end, when a glass broke somewhere and several bats fell out of the roof.

There was silence from the big emptiness, except for the thud of another bat and, far above, a gentle tinkle of glass.

‘Is … is that your full range, lass?'

People were clustering in the wings and staring at her.

‘No.'

‘No?'

‘If I go any higher people faint,' said Agnes. ‘And if I go lower everyone says it makes them feel uncomfortable.'

Whisper, whisper. Whisper,
whisper
, whisper.

‘And, er, any other—?'

‘I can sing with myself in thirds. Nanny Ogg says not everyone can do that.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Up here?'

‘Like … Do-Mi. At the same time.'

Whisper, whisper
.

‘Show us, lass.'

‘
Laaaaaa
!'

The people at the side of the stage were talking excitedly.

Whisper, whisper.

The voice from the darkness said: ‘Now, your voice projection—'

‘Oh, I can do
that,'
snapped Agnes. She was getting rather fed up. ‘Where would you like it projected?'

‘I'm sorry? We're talking about—'

Agnes ground her teeth. She
was
good. And she'd show them …

‘To here?'

‘Or there?'

‘Or here?'

It wasn't that much of a trick, she thought. It could be very impressive if you put the words in the mouth of a nearby dummy, like some of the travelling showmen did, but you couldn't pitch it far
away and still manage to fool a whole audience.

Now that she was accustomed to the gloom she could just make out people turning around in their seats, bewildered.

‘What's your name again, dear?' The voice, which had at one point shown traces of condescension, had a distinct beaten-up sound.

‘Ag— Per … Perdita,' said Agnes. ‘Perdita Nitt. Perdita X … Nitt.'

‘We may have to do something about the Nitt, dear.'

Granny Weatherwax's door opened by itself.

Jarge Weaver hesitated. Of course, she
were
a witch. People'd told him this sort of thing happened.