Lords and Ladies (Discworld #14) 7

“Why? Why a castle in Lancre?” she said, mainly to herself, because talking to Millie was like talking to yourself. “We've never fought anyone. Apart from outside the tavern on a Saturday night.”

“Couldn't say, I'm sure, m'm,” said Millie.

Magrat sighed.

“Where's the king today?”

“He's opening Parliament, m'm.”

“Hah! Parliament!”

Which had been another of Verence's ideas. He'd tried to introduce Ephebian democracy to Lancre, giving the vote to everyone, or at least everyone “who be of good report and who be male and hath forty years and owneth a house[16] worth more than three and a half goats a year,” because there's no sense in being stupid about things and giving the vote to people who were poor or criminal or insane or female, who'd only use it irresponsibly. It worked, more or less, although the Members of Parliament only turned up when they felt like it and in any case no one ever wrote anything down and, besides, no one ever disagreed with whatever Verence said because he was King. What's the point of having a king, they thought, if you have to rule yourself? He should do his job, even if he couldn't spell properly. No one was asking him to thatch roofs or milk cows, were they?

“I'm bored, Millie. Bored, bored, bored. I'm going for a walk in the gardens.”

“Shall I fetch Shawn with the trumpet?”

“Not if you want to live.”

Not all the gardens had been dug up for agricultural experiments. There was, for example, the herb garden. To Magrat's expert eye it was a pretty poor herb garden, since it just contained plants that flavoured food. And at that Mrs. Scorbic's repertoire stopped short at mint and sage. There wasn't a sprig of vervain or yarrow or Old Man's Trousers anywhere in it.

And there was the famous maze or, at least, it would be a famous maze. Verence had planted it because he'd heard that stately castles should have a maze and everyone agreed that, once the bushes were a bit higher than their current height of about one foot, it would indeed be a very famous maze and people would be able to get lost in it without having to shut their eyes and bend down.

Magrat drifted disconsolately along the gravel path, her huge wide dress leaving a smooth trail.

There was a scream from the other side of the hedge, but Magrat recognized the voice. There were certain traditions in Lancre castle which she had learned.

“Good morning, Hodgesaargh,” she said.

The castle falconer appeared around the comer, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. On his other arm, claws gripping like a torture instrument, was a bird. Evil red eyes glared at Magrat over a razor-sharp beak.

“I've got a new hawk,” said Hodgesaargh proudly. “It's a Lancre crowhawk. They've never been tamed before. I'm taming it. I've already stopped it pecking myooooow-”

He flailed the hawk madly against the wall until it let go of his nose.

Strictly speaking, Hodgesaargh wasn't his real name. On the other hand, on the basis that someone's real name is the name they introduce themselves to you by, he was definitely Hodgesaargh.

This was because the hawks and falcons in the castle mews were all Lancre birds and therefore naturally possessed of a certain “sod you” independence of mind. After much patient breeding and training Hodgesaargh had managed to get them to let go of someone's wrist, and now he was working on stopping them viciously attacking the person who had just been holding them, i.e., invariably Hodgesaargh. He was nevertheless a remarkably optimistic and good-natured man who lived for the day when his hawks would be the finest in the world. The hawks lived for the day when they could eat his other ear.

“I can see you're doing very well,” said Magrat. “You don't think, do you, that they might respond better to cruelty?”

“Oh, no, miss,” said Hodgesaargh, “you have to be kind. You have to build up a bond, you see. If they don't trust you theyaaaagh-”

“I'll just leave you to get on with it then, shall I?” said Magrat, as feathers filled the air.

Magrat had been gloomily unsurprised to learn that there was a precise class and gender distinction in falconry - Verence, being king, was allowed a gyrfalcon, whatever the hell that was, any earls in the vicinity could fly a peregrine, and priests were allowed sparrowhawks. Commoners were just about allowed a stick to throw.[17] Magrat found herself wondering what Nanny Ogg would be allowed - a small chicken on a spring, probably.

There was no specific falcon for a witch but, as a queen, the Lancre rules of falconry allowed her to fly the wowhawk or Lappet-faced Worrier. It was small and short sighted and preferred to walk everywhere. It fainted at the sight of blood. And about twenty wowhawks could kill a pigeon, if it was a sick pigeon. She'd spent an hour with one on her wrist. It had wheezed at her, and eventually it had dozed off upside down.

But at least Hodgesaargh had a job to do. The castle was full of people doing jobs. Everyone had something useful to do except Magrat. She just had to exist. Of course, everyone would talk to her, provided she talked to them first. But she was always interrupting something important. Apart from ensuring the royal succession, which Verence had sent off for a book about, she-

“You just keep back there, girl. You don't want to come no further,” said a voice. Magrat bridled.

“Girl? One happens to be very nearly of the royal blood by marriage!”

“Maybe, but the bees don't know that,” said the voice. Magrat stopped.

She'd stepped out beyond what were the gardens from the point of view of the royal family and into what were the gardens from the point of view of everyone else - beyond the world of hedges and topiary and herb gardens and into the world of old sheds, piles of flowerpots, compost and, just here, beehives.

One of the hives had the lid off. Beside it, in the middle of a brown cloud, smoking his special bee pipe, was Mr. Brooks.

“Oh,” she said, “it's you, Mr. Brooks.” Technically, Mr. Brooks was the Royal Beekeeper. But the relationship was a careful one. For one thing, although most of the staff were called by their last names Mr. Brooks shared with the cook and the butler the privilege of an honorific. Because Mr. Brooks had secret powers. He knew all about honey flows and the mating of queens. He knew about swarms, and how to destroy wasps' nests. He got the general respect shown to those, like witches and blacksmiths, whose responsibilities are not entirely to the world of the humdrum and everyday-people who, in fact, know things that others don't about things that others can't fathom. And he was generally found doing something fiddly with the hives, ambling across the kingdom in pursuit of a swarm, or smoking his pipe in his secret shed which smelled of old honey and wasp poison. You didn't offend Mr. Brooks, not unless you wanted swarms in your privy while he sat cackling in his shed.

He carefully replaced the lid on the hive and walked away. A few bees escaped from the gaping holes in his beekeeping veil.

“Afternoon, your ladyship,” he conceded.

“Hello, Mr. Brooks. What've you been doing?”

Mr. Brooks opened the door of his secret shed, and rummaged about inside.

“They're late swarming,” said the beekeeper. “I was just checking up on 'em. Fancy a cup of tea, girl?”

You couldn't stand on ceremony with Mr. Brooks. He treated everyone as an equal, or more often as a slight inferior; it probably came of ruling thousands, every day and at least she could talk to him. Mr. Brooks had always seemed to her as close to a witch as it was possible to be while still being male.

The shed was stuffed full of bits of hive, mysterious torture instruments for extracting honey, old jars, and a small stove on which a grubby teapot steamed next to a huge saucepan.

He took her silence for acceptance, and poured out two mugs.

“Is it herbal?” she quavered.

“Buggered if I know. It's just brown leaves out of a tin.”

Magrat looked uncertainly into a mug which pure tannin was staining brown. But she rallied. One thing you had to do when you were queen, she knew, was Put Commoners at their Ease. She cast around for some easeful question.

“It must be very interesting, being a beekeeper,” she said.

“Yes. It is.”

“One's often wondered-”

“What?”

“How do you actually milk them?”

The unicorn prowled through the forest. It felt blind, and out of place. This wasn't a proper land. The sky was blue, not flaming with all the colours of the aurora. And time was passing. To a creature not born subject to time, it was a sensation not unakin to falling.

It could feel its mistress inside its head, too. That was worse even than the passing of time.

In short, it was mad.

Magrat sat with her mouth open.

“I thought queens were born,” she said.

“Oh, no,” said Mr. Brooks. “There ain't no such thing as a queen egg. The bees just decides to feed one of 'em up as a queen. Feeds 'em royal jelly”

“What happens if they don't?”

“Then it just becomes an ordinary worker, your ladyship,” said Mr. Brooks, with a suspiciously republican grin.

Lucky for it, Magrat thought.

“So they have a new queen, and then what happens to the old one?”

“Usually the old girl swarms,” said Mr. Brooks. “Pushes off and takes some of the colony with her. I must've seen a thousand swarms, me. Never seen a Royal swarm, though.”

“What's a Royal swarm?”

“Can't say for sure. It's in some of the old bee books. A swarm of swarms. It's something to see, they say.” The old ' beekeeper looked wistful for a moment.

'“Course,” he went on, righting himself, “the real fun starts if the weather's bad and the ole queen can't swarm, right?” He moved his hand in a sly circular motion. “What happens then is, the two queens - that's the old queen, right? And the new queen - the two queens start astalkin' one another among the combs, with the rain adrummin' on the roof of the hive, and the business of the hive agoin' on all around them,” Mr. Brooks moved his hands graphically, and Magrat leaned forward, “all among the combs, the drones all hummin', and all the time they can sense one another, 'cos they can tell, see, and then they spots one another and-”

“Yes? Yes?” said Magrat, leaning forward.

“Slash! Stab!”

Magrat hit her head on the wall of the hut.

“Can't have more'n one queen in a hive,” said Mr. Brooks calmly.

Magrat looked out at the hives. She'd always liked the look of beehives, up until now.

“Many's the time I've found a dead queen in front of the hive after a spell of wet weather,” said Mr. Brooks, happily. “Can't abide another queen around the place, you know. And it's a right old battle, too. The old queen's more cunnin'. But the new queen, she's really got everything to fight for.”

“Sorry?”

“If she wants to be mated.”

“Oh.”

“But it gets really interestin' in the autumn,” said Mr. Brooks. “Hive don't need any dead weight in the winter, see, and there's all these drones hangin' around not doing anything, so the workers drag all the drones down to the hive entrance, see, and they bite their-”

“Stop! This is horrible!” said Magrat. “I thought beekeeping was, well, nice.”