Lords and Ladies (Discworld #14) 7

Verence was looking at her with some concern.

“Is it the witching?” he said. “You don't have to give that up entirely, of course. I've got a great respect for witches. And you can be a witch queen, although I think that means you have to wear rather revealing clothes and keep cats and give people poisoned apples. I read that somewhere. The witching's a problem, is it?”

“No,” Magrat mumbled, “it's not that. . . um . . . did you mention a crown?”

“You've got to have a crown,” said Verence. “Queens do. I looked it up.”

Her brain cut in again. Queen Magrat, it suggested. It held up the mirror of the imagination . . .

“You're not upset, are you?” said Verence.

“What? Oh. No. Me? No.”

“Good. That's all sorted out, then. I think that just about covers everything, don't you?”

“Um-”

Verence rubbed his hands together.

“We're doing some marvellous things with legumes,” he said, as if he hadn't just completely rearranged Magrat's life without consulting her. “Beans, peas . . . you know. Nitrogen fixers. And marl and lime, of course. Scientific husbandry. Come and look at this.”

He bounced away enthusiastically.

“You know,” he said, “we could really make this kingdom work.”

Magrat trailed after him.

So that was all settled, then. Not a proposal, just a statement. She hadn't been quite sure how the moment would be, even in the darkest hours of the night, but she'd had an idea that roses and sunsets and bluebirds might just possibly be involved. Clover had not figured largely Beans and other leguminous nitrogen fixers were not a central feature.

On the other hand Magrat was, at the core, far more practical than most people believed who saw no further than her vague smile and collection of more than three hundred pieces of occult jewellery, none of which worked.

So this was how you got married to a king. It all got arranged for you. There were no white horses. The past flipped straight into the future, carrying you with it.

Perhaps that was normal. Kings were busy people. Magrat's experience of marrying them was limited.

“Where are we going?” she said.

“The old rose garden.”

Ah . . . well, this was more like it.

Except that there weren't any roses. The walled garden had been stripped of its walks and arbors and was now waist high in green stalks with white flowers. Bees were furiously at work in the blossoms.

“Beans?” said Magrat.

“Yes! A specimen crop. I keep bringing the farmers up here to show them,” said Verence. He sighed. “They nod and mumble and smile but I'm afraid they just go off and do the same old things.”

“I know,” said Magrat. “The same thing happened when I tried to give people lessons in natural childbirth.”

Verence raised an eyebrow. Even to him the thought of Magrat giving lessons in childbirth to the fecund and teak-faced women of Lancre was slightly unreal.

“Really? How had they been having babies before?” he said.

“Oh, any old way,” said Magrat. They looked at the little buzzing bean field.

“Of course, when you're queen, you won't need to-” Verence began.

It happened softly, almost like a kiss, as light as the touch of sunlight.

There was no wind, only a sudden heavy calmness that made the ears pop.

The stems bent and broke, and lay down in a circle. The bees roared, and fled.

The three witches arrived at the standing stone together.

They didn't even bother with explanations. There were some things you know.

“In the middle of my bloody herbs!” said Granny Weatherwax.

“On the palace garden!” said Magrat.

“Poor little mite! And he was holding it up to show me, too!” said Nanny Ogg.

Granny Weatherwax paused.

“What're you talking about, Gytha Ogg?” she said.

“Our Pewsey was growing mustard-and-cress on a flannel for his Nan,” said Nanny Ogg, patiently. “He shows it to me, right enough, and just as I bends down and - splat! Crop circle!”

“This,” said Granny Weatherwax, “is serious. It's been years since they've been as bad as this. We all know what it means, don't we. What we've got-”

“Um,” said Magrat.

“-to do now is-”

“Excuse me,” said Magrat. There were some things you had to be told.

“Yes?”

“I don't know what it means,” said Magrat. “I mean, old Goodie Whemper-”

“-maysherestinpeace-” the older witches chorused.

“-told me once that the circles were dangerous, but she never said anything about why.”

The older witches shared a glance.

“Never told you about the Dancers?” said Granny Weatherwax.

“Never told you about the Long Man?” said Nanny Ogg.

“What Dancers? You mean those old stones up on the moor?”

“All you need to know right now,” said Granny Weatherwax, “is that we've got to put a stop to Them.”

“What Them?”

Granny radiated innocence. . .

“The circles, of course,” she said.

“Oh, no,” said Magrat. "I can tell by the way you said it.

You said Them as though it was some sort of curse. It wasn't just a them, it was a them with a capital The."

The old witches looked awkward again.

“And who's the Long Man?” said Magrat.

“We do not,” said Granny, “ever talk about the Long Man.”

“No harm in telling her about the Dancers, at any rate,” mumbled Nanny Ogg.

“Yes, but . . . you know . . . I mean . . . she's Magrat,” said Granny.

“What's that meant to mean?” Magrat demanded.

“You probably won't feel the same way about Them, is what I am saying,” said Granny.

“We're talking about the-” Nanny Ogg began.

“Don't name 'em!”

“Yeah, right. Sorry.”

“Mind you, a circle might not find the Dancers,” said Granny. “We can always hope. Could be just random.”

“But if one opens up inside the-” said Nanny Ogg.

Magrat snapped.

“You just do this on purpose! You talk in code the whole time! You always do this! But you won't be able to when I'm queen\”

That stopped them.

Nanny Ogg put her head on one side.

“Oh?” she said. “Young Verence popped the question, then?”

“Yes!”

“When's the happy event?” said Granny Weatherwax, icily.

“Two weeks' time,” said Magrat. “Midsummer Day.”

“Bad choice, bad choice,” said Nanny Ogg. “Shortest night o' the year-”

“Gytha Ogg!”

“And you'll be my subjects,” said Magrat, ignoring this. “And you'll have to curtsy and everything!”

She knew as soon as she said it that it was stupid, but anger drove her on.

Granny Weatherwax's eyes narrowed.

“Hmm,” she said. “We will, will we?”

“Yes, and if you don't,” said Magrat, “you can get thrown in prison.”

“My word,” said Granny. “Deary deary me. I wouldn't like that. I wouldn't like that at all.”

All three of them knew that the castle dungeons, which in any case had never been its most notable feature, were now totally unused. Verence II was the most amiable monarch in the history of Lancre. His subjects regarded him with the sort of good-natured contempt that is the fate of all those who work quietly and conscientiously for the public good. Besides, Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.

“Queen Magrat, eh?” said Nanny Ogg, trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit. “Cor. Well, the old castle could do with a bit of lightening up-”

“Oh, it'll lighten up all right,” said Granny.

“Well, anyway, I don't have to bother with this sort of thing,” said Magrat. “Whatever it is. It's your business. I just shan't have time, I'm sure.”

“I'm sure you can please yourself, your going-to-be-majesty,” said Granny Weatherwax.

“Hah!” said Magrat. “I can! You can jol - you can damn well find another witch for Lancre! All right? Another soppy girl to do all the dreary work and never be told anything and be talked over the head of the whole time. I've got better things to do!”

“Better things than being a witch?” said Granny

Magrat walked into it. “Yes!”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Nanny

“Oh. Well, then I expect you'll be wanting to be off,” said Granny, her voice like knives. “Back to your palace, I'll be bound.”

“Yes!”

Magrat picked up her broomstick.

Granny's arm shot out very fast and grabbed the handle.

“Oh, no,” she said, “you don't. Queens ride around in golden coaches and whatnot. Each to their own. Brooms is for witches.”

“Now come on, you two,” began Nanny Ogg, one of nature's mediators. “Anyway, someone can be a queen and a w-”

“Who cares?” said Magrat, dropping the broomstick. “I don't have to bother with that sort of thing anymore.”

She turned, clutched at her dress, and ran. She became a figure outlined against the sunset.

“You daft old besom, Esme,” said Nanny Ogg. “Just because she's getting wed.”

“You know what she'd say if we told her,” said Granny Weatherwax. “She'd get it all wrong. The Gentry. Circles. She'd say it was . . . nice. Best for her if she's out of it.”

“They ain't been active for years and years,” said Nanny. “We'll need some help. I mean . . . when did you last go up to the Dancers?”

“You know how it is,” said Granny “When it's so quiet. . . you don't think about 'em.”

“We ought to have kept 'em cleared.”

“True.”

“We better get up there first thing tomorrow,” said Nanny Ogg.

“Yes.”

“Better bring a sickle, too.”

There isn't much of the kingdom of Lancre where you could drop a football and not have it roll away from you. Most of it is moor land and steeply forested hillside, giving way to sharp and ragged mountains where even trolls wouldn't go and valleys so deep that they have to pipe the sunlight in.

There was an overgrown path up to the moor land where the Dancers stood, even though it was only a few miles from the town. Hunters tracked up there sometimes, but only by accident. It wasn't that the hunting was bad but, well - there were the stones.

Stone circles were common enough everywhere in the mountains. Druids built them as weather computers and since it was always cheaper to build a new 33-MegaLith circle than upgrade an old slow one there were generally plenty of ancient ones around.

No druids ever came near the Dancers.

The stones weren't shaped. They weren't even positioned in any particularly significant way. There wasn't any of that stuff about the sun striking the right stone at dawn on the right day. Someone had just dragged eight red rocks into a rough circle.