Maskerade (5 page)

He touched his helmet respectfully at Granny Weatherwax.

‘Got a lot of letters, Mum,' he said to Nanny Ogg. ‘Er. They're all addressed to, er, well … er … you'd better have a look, Mum.'

Nanny Ogg took the proffered bundle.

‘“The Lancre Witch”,' she said aloud.

‘That'd be me, then,' said Granny Weatherwax firmly, and took the letters.

‘Ah. Well, I'd better be going …' said Nanny, backing towards the door.

‘Can't imagine why people'd be writing to me,'
said Granny, slitting an envelope. ‘Still, I suppose news gets around.' She focused on the words.

‘“Dear Witch,”' she read, ‘“I would just like to say how much I appreciated the Famous Carrot and Oyster Pie recipe. My husband—”'

Nanny Ogg made it halfway down the path before her boots became, suddenly, too heavy to lift.

‘
Gytha Ogg, you come back here right now!
'

Agnes tried again. She didn't really know anyone in Ankh-Morpork and she did need someone to talk to, even if they didn't listen.

‘I suppose mainly I came because of the witches,' she said.

Christine turned, her eyes wide with fascination. So was her mouth. It was like looking at a rather pretty bowling ball.

‘Witches?!' she breathed.

‘Oh, yes,' said Agnes wearily. Yes. People were always fascinated by the idea of witches. They should try living around them, she thought.

‘Do they do spells and ride around on broomsticks?!'

‘Oh, yes.'

‘No wonder you ran away!'

‘What? Oh … no … it's not like that. I mean, they're not
bad
. It's much … worse than that.'

‘Worse than bad?!'

‘They think they know what's best for everybody.'

Christine's forehead wrinkled, as it tended to
when she was contemplating a problem more complex than ‘What is your name?'

‘That doesn't sound very ba—'

‘They … mess people around. They think that just because they're right that's the same as good! It's not even as though they do any
real
magic. It's all fooling people and being clever! They think they can do what they like!'

The force of the words knocked even Christine back. ‘Oh, dear!! Did they want you to do something?!'

‘They want me to
be
something. But I'm not going to!'

Christine stared at her. And then, automatically, forgot everything she'd just heard.

‘Come on,' she said, ‘let's have a look around!!'

Nanny Ogg balanced on a chair and took down an oblong wrapped in paper.

Granny watched sternly with her arms folded.

‘Thing is,' Nanny babbled, under the laser glare, ‘my late husband, I remember him once sayin' to me, after dinner, he said, “You know, Mother, it'd be a real shame if all the stuff you know just passed away when
you
did. Why don't you write some of it down?” So I scribbled the odd one, when I had a moment, and then I thought it'd be nice to have it all properly done so I sent it off to the Almanack people in Ankh-Morpork and they hardly charged me anything and a little while ago they sent me this, I think it's a very good job, it's amazing how they get all the letters so neat—'

‘You done a
book
,' said Granny.

‘Only cookery,' said Nanny Ogg meekly, as one might plead a first offence.

‘What do you know about it? You hardly ever do any cooking,' said Granny.

‘I do specialities,' said Nanny.

Granny looked at the offending volume.

‘“
The Joye of Snacks
,”' she read out loud. ‘“Bye A Lancre Witch.” Hah! Why dint you put your own name on it, eh? Books've got to have a name on 'em so's everyone knows who's guilty.'

‘It's my
gnome de plum
,' said Nanny. ‘Mr Goatberger the Almanack man said it'd make it sound more mysterious.'

Granny cast her gimlet gaze to the bottom of the crowded cover, where it said, in very small lettering, ‘CXXviith Printyng. More Than Twenty Thoufand Solde! One half dollar.'

‘You sent them some money to get it all printed?' she said.

‘Only a couple of dollars,' said Nanny. ‘Damn' good job they made of it, too. And then they sent the money back afterwards, only they got it wrong and sent three dollars extra.'

Granny Weatherwax was grudgingly literate but keenly numerate. She assumed that anything written down was probably a lie, and that applied to numbers too. Numbers were used only by people who wanted to put one over on you.

Her lips moved silently as she thought about numbers.

‘Oh,' she said, quietly. ‘And that was it, was it? You never wrote to him again?'

‘Not on your life. Three dollars, mind. I dint want him saying he wanted 'em back.'

‘I can see that,' said Granny, still dwelling in the world of numbers. She wondered how much it cost to do a book. It couldn't be a lot: they had sort of printing mills to do the actual work.

‘After all, there's a lot you can do with three dollars,' said Nanny.

‘Right enough,' said Granny. ‘You ain't got a pencil about you, have you? You being a literary type and all?'

‘I got a slate,' said Nanny.

‘Pass it over, then.'

‘I bin keeping it by me in case I wake up in the night and I get an idea for a recipe, see,' said Nanny.

‘Good,' said Granny vaguely. The slate pencil squeaked across the grey tablet.
The paper must cost something. And you'd probably have to tip someone a couple of pennies to sell it
… Angular figures danced from column to column.

‘I'll make another cup of tea, shall I?' said Nanny, relieved that the conversation appeared to be coming to a peaceful end.

‘Hmm?' said Granny. She stared at the result and drew two lines under it. ‘But you enjoyed it, did you?' she called out. ‘The writin'?'

Nanny Ogg poked her head around the scullery door. ‘Oh, yes. The money dint matter,' she said.

‘You've never been very good at numbers, have you?' said Granny. Now she drew a circle around the final figure.

‘Oh, you know me, Esme,' said Nanny cheerfully. ‘I couldn't subtract a fart from a plate of beans.'

‘That's good, 'cos I reckon this Master Goatberger owes you a bit more than you got, if there's any justice in the world,' said Granny.

‘Money ain't everything, Esme. What I say is, if you've got your health—'

‘I reckon, if there's any justice, it's about four or five thousand dollars,' said Granny quietly.

There was a crash from the scullery.

‘So it's a good job the money don't matter,' Granny Weatherwax went on. ‘It'd be a terrible thing otherwise. All that money, matterin'.'

Nanny Ogg's white face appeared around the edge of the door. ‘He never!'

‘Could be a bit more,' said Granny.

‘It never!'

‘You just adds up and divides and that.'

Nanny Ogg stared in horrified fascination at her own fingers.

‘But that's a—' She stopped. The only word she could think of was ‘fortune' and that wasn't adequate. Witches didn't operate in a cash economy. The whole of the Ramtops, by and large, got by without the complications of capital.
Fifty
dollars was a fortune. A hundred dollars was a, was a, was … well, it was
two
fortunes, that was what it was.

‘It's a lot of money,' she said weakly. ‘What couldn't I do with money like that?'

‘Dunno,' said Granny Weatherwax. ‘What did you do with the three dollars?'

‘Got it in a tin up the chimney,' said Nanny Ogg.

Granny nodded approvingly. This was the kind of good fiscal practice she liked to see.

‘Beats me why people'd fall over themselves to read a cookery book, though,' she added. ‘I mean, it's not the sort of thing that—'

The room fell silent. Nanny Ogg shuffled her boots.

Granny said, in a voice laden with a suspicion that was all the worse because it wasn't yet quite sure what it was suspicious of: ‘It
is
a cookery book, isn't it?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Nanny hurriedly, avoiding Granny's gaze. ‘Yes. Recipes and that. Yes.'

Granny glared at her. ‘
Just
recipes?'

‘Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. And some … cookery anecdotes, yes.'

Granny went on glaring.

Nanny gave in.

‘Er … look under Famous Carrot and Oyster Pie,' she said. ‘Page 25.'

Granny turned the pages. Her lips moved silently. Then: ‘I
see
. Anything else?'

‘Er … Cinnamon and Marshmallow Fingers … page 17 …'

Granny looked it up.

‘And?'

‘Er … Celery Astonishment … page 10.'

Granny looked
that
up, too.

‘Can't say it astonished
me
,' she said. ‘And …?'

‘Er … well, more or less all of Humorous Puddings and Cake Decoration. That's all of Chapter Six. I done illustrations for that.'

Granny turned to Chapter Six. She had to turn the book around a couple of times.

‘What one you looking at?' said Nanny Ogg, because an author is always keen to get feedback.

‘Strawberry Wobbler,' said Granny.

‘Ah. That one always gets a laugh.'

It did not appear to be obtaining one from Granny. She carefully closed the book.

‘Gytha,' she said, ‘this is
me
askin' you this. Is there any page in this book, is there any single recipe, which does not in some way relate to … goings-on?'

Nanny Ogg, her face red as her apples, seemed to give this some lengthy consideration.

‘Porridge,' she said, eventually.

‘Really?'

‘Yes. Er. No, I tell a lie, it's got my special honey mixture in it.'

Granny turned a page.

‘What about this one? Maids of Honour?'

‘Weeelll
, they starts
out
as Maids of Honour,' said Nanny, fidgeting with her feet, ‘but they ends up Tarts.'

Granny looked at the front cover again.
The Joye of Snacks
.

‘An' you actually set out to—'

‘It just sort of turned out that way, really.'

Granny Weatherwax was not a jouster in the lists of love but, as an intelligent onlooker, she knew how the game was played. No wonder the book had sold like hot cakes. Half the recipes told you how to make them. It was surprising the pages hadn't singed.

And it was by ‘A Lancre Witch'. The world was,
Granny Weatherwax modestly admitted, well aware of who
the
witch of Lancre was;
viz
, it was her.

‘Gytha Ogg,' she said.

‘Yes, Esme?'

‘Gytha Ogg, you look me in the eye.'

‘Sorry, Esme.'

‘“A Lancre Witch”, it says here.'

‘I never thought, Esme.'

‘So you'll go and see Mr Goatberger and have this stopped, right? I don't want people lookin' at me and thinkin' about the Bananana Soup Surprise. I don't even
believe
the Bananana Soup Surprise. And I ain't relishin' going down the street and hearin' people makin' cracks about bananas.'

‘Yes, Esme.'

‘And I'll come with you to make sure you do.'

‘Yes, Esme.'

‘And we'll talk to the man about your money.'

‘Yes, Esme.'

‘And we might just drop in on young Agnes to make sure she's all right.'

‘Yes, Esme.'

‘But we'll do it diplomatic like. We don't want people thinkin' we're pokin' our noses in.'

‘Yes, Esme.'

‘No one could say I interfere where I'm not wanted. You won't find anyone callin'
me
a busybody.'

‘Yes, Esme.'

‘That was, “Yes, Esme, you won't find anyone callin'
you
a busybody”, was it?'

‘Oh, yes, Esme.'

‘You sure about that?'

‘Yes, Esme.'

‘Good.'

Granny looked out at the dull grey sky and the dying leaves and felt, amazingly enough, her sap rising. A day ago the future had looked aching and desolate, and now it looked full of surprises and terror and bad things happening to people …

If she had anything to do with it, anyway.

In the scullery, Nanny Ogg grinned to herself.

Agnes had known a little bit about the theatre. A travelling company came to Lancre sometimes. Their stage was about twice the size of a door, and ‘backstage' consisted of a bit of sacking behind which was usually a man trying to change trousers and wigs at the same time and another man, dressed as a king, having a surreptitious smoke.

The Opera House was almost as big as the Patrician's palace, and far more palatial. It covered three acres. There was stabling for twenty horses and two elephants in the cellar; Agnes spent some time there, because the elephants were reassuringly larger than her.

There were rooms behind the stage so big that entire sets were stored there. There was a whole ballet school somewhere in the building. Some of the girls were on stage now, ugly in woolly jumpers, going through a routine.

The inside of the Opera House – at least, the backstage inside — put Agnes strongly in mind of the clock her brother had taken apart to find the tick.

It was hardly a building. It was more like a machine. Sets and curtains and ropes hung in the darkness like dreadful things in a forgotten cellar. The stage was only a small part of the place, a little rectangle of light in a huge, complicated darkness full of significant machinery …

A piece of dust floated down from the blackness high above. She brushed it off.

‘I thought I heard someone up there,' she said.

‘It's probably the Ghost!!' said Christine. ‘We've got one, you know! Oh, I said
we
!! Isn't this exciting?!'