The Shepherd's Crown (6 page)

Tiffany went over to the old lady holding the little
girl. ‘Can I see her for just a moment, please, just to see if she’s, you know, if she’s all right?’

The rather toothless old crone handed over the little girl with alacrity. After all, she knew that Tiffany, apart from being a midwife, was a witch, and you never knew what a witch might do if you got on the wrong side of one. And when the old granny went to get her share of the drink, Tiffany
took the child in her arms and whispered a promise to her in a voice so low that no one could have heard. This little girl would clearly need some luck in her life. And with luck, now, she would get some. She took her back to her mother, who didn’t seem very impressed with her.

By now, Tiffany noticed, the little boys had names, but the girl didn’t. Worried about this, Tiffany said, ‘What about
your girl? Can’t she have a name?’

The mother looked over. ‘Name her after yourself. Tiffany is a nice name.’

Tiffany was flattered, but it didn’t take the worry away about baby Tiffany. Those big, strapping boys were going to get most of the milk, she thought. But not if she could do something about it, and so she decided that this particular family was going to be visited almost every week
for a time.

Then there was nothing for it, but to say, ‘Everything looks fine, you know where to find me, I’ll pop in and see you next week. And if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have other people to see.’

She kept on smiling, right up to the time when she came out of the cottage, picked up her broomstick and the white cat leaped onto the handle of it like a figurehead. The world is changing, Tiffany
thought – I can feel it.

Suddenly she caught a flash of the red that showed a Feegle or two lurking behind a milk churn. Tiffany had, if only for a few days, once been the kelda of the Nac Mac Feegle, and this created a bond between them that could never be broken. And they were
always there
– always, watching over her, making sure no harm came to their big wee hag.

But there was something different
today. This lurking was somehow not like their usual lurking, and . . .

‘Oh, waily waily,’ came a voice. It was Daft Wullie, a Feegle who had been somewhere else when the brains of a Feegle – small enough to begin with – had been handed out. He was shut up suddenly with a ‘whmpf’ as Rob slapped a hand over his mouth.

‘Shut yer gob, Wullie. This is hag business, ye ken,’ he said, stepping out
to stand in front of Tiffany, shuffling his feet and twiddling his rabbit-skull helmet in his hands. ‘It’s the big hag,’ he continued. ‘Jeannie tol’ me to come fetch ye . . .’

All the birds of the day, the bats and the owls of the night knew Tiffany Aching and didn’t fly in her way when she was busy, and the stick ploughed on through the air to Lancre. The little kingdom was a long flight from
the Chalk and Tiffany found her mind filling up with an invisible grey mist, and in that thought there was nothing but grief. She could feel herself trying to push back time, but even the best witchcraft could not do that. She tried not to think, but it’s hard to stop your brain working, no matter how much you try. Tiffany was a witch, and a witch learned to respect her forebodings, even if she
hoped that what she feared was not true.

It was early evening by the time she settled her broomstick down quietly outside Granny Weatherwax’s cottage, where she saw the unmistakable rotund shape of Nanny Ogg. The older witch had a pint mug in one hand and looked grey.

The cat, You, jumped off the broomstick instantly and headed into the cottage. The Nac Mac Feegles followed, making You scuttle
just a little faster in that way cats scuttle when they want to look like, oh yes, it was
their
decision to speed up and, oh no,
nothing
to do with the little red-haired figures melting into the shadows of the cottage.

‘Good to see you, Tiff,’ said Nanny Ogg.

‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ said Tiffany.

‘Yes,’ said Nanny. ‘Esme’s gone. In her sleep, last night, by the looks of it.’

‘I knew it,’
said Tiffany. ‘Her cat came to tell me. And the kelda sent Rob . . .’

Nanny Ogg looked Tiffany in the face and said, ‘Glad to see you’re not cryin’, my dear; that’s for later. You knows how Granny wanted things: no fuss or shoutin’, and definitely no cryin’. There’s other things as must be done first. Can you help, Tiff? She’s upstairs and you know what them stairs is like.’

Tiffany looked and
saw the long, thin wicker basket that Granny had made, waiting by the stairs. It was almost exactly the same size as Granny. Minus her hat, of course.

Nanny said, ‘That’s Esme for you, that is. Does everything for ’erself.’

Granny Weatherwax’s cottage was largely built of creaks, and you could play a tune with them if you wanted to. With accompaniment from the harmonious woodwork, Tiffany followed
Nanny Ogg as she huffed and puffed up the cramped little staircase that wound up and round like a snake – Nanny always said that you needed a corkscrew to get through it – until they arrived at the bedroom and the small, sad deathbed.

It could, Tiffany thought, have been the bed of a child, and there, laid out properly, was Granny Weatherwax herself, looking as if she was just sleeping. And there
too, on the bed by her mistress, was You the cat.

There was a familiar card on Granny’s chest, and a sudden thought struck Tiffany like a gong.

‘Nanny, you don’t suppose Granny could just be Borrowing, do you? Do you think that while her body is here, her actual self is . . . elsewhere?’ She looked at the white cat curled upon the bed and added hopefully, ‘In You?’

Granny Weatherwax had been
an expert at Borrowing – moving her mind into that of another creature, using its body, sharing its experiences.
^fn2
It was dangerous witchery, for an inexperienced witch risked losing herself in the mind of the other and never coming back. And, of course, whilst away from one’s body, people could get the wrong idea . . .

Nanny silently picked up the card from Granny’s chest. They looked at it
together:

Nanny Ogg turned it over as Tiffany’s hand crept towards Granny Weatherwax’s wrist and – even now, even when every atom of her witch being told her that Granny was no longer there – the young girl part of her tried to feel for even the slightest beat of life.

On the back of the card, however, there was a scrawled message that pretty much put the final strand in the willow basket below.

Quietly Tiffany said, ‘No longer “probably”.’ And then the rest of the note rocketed into her mind. ‘What? What does she mean by “All of it goes to Tiffany . . .”?’ Her voice tailed off as she looked at Nanny Ogg, aghast.

‘Yes,’ said Nanny. ‘That’s Granny’s writing, right enough. Good enough for me. You gets the cottage and the surroundin’ grounds, the herbs and the bees an’ everything else
in the place. Oh, but she always promised me the pink jug and basin set.’ She looked at Tiffany and went on, ‘I hopes you don’t mind?’

Mind?
Tiffany thought. Nanny Ogg is asking
me
if I mind? And then her mind rattled on to:
Two
steadings? I mean, I won’t need to live with my parents . . . But it will be a lot of travel . . . And the main thought hit her like a thunderbolt.
How can I possibly tread in the footsteps of Granny Weatherwax? She is . . . was . . . unfollowable!

Nanny didn’t get to be an old senior witch without learning a thing or two along the way. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a knot just yet, Tiff,’ she said briskly. ‘It won’t solve anything an’ will just make you walk odd. There’s plenty of time later to talk about . . . all of that. Right now, we needs to get on with
what must be done . . .’

Tiffany and Nanny had dealt with death many times. Out in the Ramtops, witches did the things that had to be done to make the departed presentable for the next world – the slightly messy things that weren’t talked about, and other little things like opening a window for the soul to get out. Granny Weatherwax had, in fact, already opened the window, though her soul, Tiffany
thought, could probably get out of anywhere and go anywhere she chose.

Nanny Ogg held up the two pennies from the bedside table and said, ‘She left ’em ready for us. Just like Esme, thoughtful to the end like. Shall we begin?’

Unfortunately Nanny had brought Granny Weatherwax’s bottle of triple-distilled peach brandy – for medicinal use
only
– from the scullery; she said it would help her as
she went through the rites for their sister in the craft, and although they dealt with Granny Weatherwax as if she were a precious gem, Nanny Ogg’s drinking was not helping.

‘She looks good, don’t she?’ said Nanny after the nasty bits – and, thank goodness, Granny had still had all her own teeth – were over and done with. ‘It’s a shame. Always thought as I’d be the first to go, what with my drinkin’
and suchlike, especially the suchlike. I’ve done a lot o’ that.’ In fact, Nanny Ogg had done a great deal of
everything
, and was commonly held to be so broad-minded that you could pull her mind out through her ears and tie a hat on with it.

‘Is there going to be a funeral?’ asked Tiffany.

‘Well, you know Esme. She wasn’t one for that kind of thing – never one to push herself forward
^fn3
– and
we witches don’t much like funerals. Granny called them fuss.’

Tiffany thought of the only other witch’s funeral she had been to. The late Miss Treason, for whom she had worked, had wanted a lot of fuss. She hadn’t wanted to miss the event herself either, so she had sent out invitations in advance. It had been . . . memorable.

As they put Granny Weatherwax to bed – as Granny had called it –
Nanny said, ‘Queen Magrat has to be told. She’s away in Genua at the moment with the King, but I daresay as she’ll be along soon as possible, what with all these railways and whatnot. Anyone else as needs to know will probably know already, you mark my words. But first thing tomorrow, before they get here, we’ll bury Esme the way she wanted, quiet-like an’ no fuss, in that wickerwork basket downstairs.
Very cheap, wickerwork baskets are, and quick to make, Esme always said. An’ you know Esme, she’s such a frugal person – nothing goes to waste.’

Tiffany spent the night on the truckle bed, a tiny thing which was usually pushed away when it wasn’t needed. Nanny Ogg had settled for the rocking chair downstairs, which squeaked and complained every time she rocked back. But Tiffany didn’t sleep.
There were a series of half-sleeps as the light of the moon filtered into the room, and every time she looked up there was You, the cat, asleep at the foot of Granny’s bed, curled up like a little white moon herself.

Tiffany had watched the dead before many times, of course – it was the custom for a departing soul to have company the night before any funeral or burial, as if to make a point to
anything that might be . . . lurking: this person
mattered
, there is someone here to make sure nothing evil creeps in at this time of danger. The night-time creaking of woodwork filled the room now and Tiffany, fully awake, listened as Granny Weatherwax began making sounds of her own as her body settled down. I’ve done this often, she told herself. It’s what we witches do. We don’t talk about
it, but we do it. We watch the dead to see that no harm comes to them out of the darkness. Although, as Nanny said, maybe it’s the
living
you have to watch – for despite what most people thought, the dead don’t hurt anybody.

What do I do now? she thought in the small hours of the night. What’s going to happen tomorrow? The world is upside down. I can’t replace Granny. Never in a hundred years.
And then she thought, What did young Esmerelda say when Nanny Gripes told her that her steading was the whole world?

She twisted and turned, then opened her eyes and looked up suddenly to see an owl gazing in at her from the windowsill, its huge eyes hanging in the darkness like a lantern to another world. Another omen? Granny had liked owls . . .

Now her Second Thoughts were at work, thinking
about what she was thinking. You can’t say you’re not good enough – no witch would ever say that, they told her. I mean, you know you are pretty good, yes; the senior witches know that you once threw the Queen of the Fairies from our world, and they saw you go through the gate with the hiver. They all saw you return too.