Equal Rites Read online

Page 5

  “But could you light a fire with magic?” said Esk, as Granny slung an ancient black kettle on its hook. “I mean, if you wanted to. If it was allowed. ”

  “Maybe,” said Granny, who couldn't: fire had no mind, it wasn't alive, and they were two of the three reasons.

  “You could light it much better. ”

  “If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly,” said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege.

  “Yes, but -”

  “But me no buts. ”

  Granny rummaged in a dark wooden box on the dresser. She prided herself on her unrivalled knowledge of the properties of Ramtops herbage - none knew better than she the many uses of Earwort, Maiden's Wish and Love-Lies-Oozing - but there were times when she had to resort to her small stock of jealously traded and carefully hoarded medicines from Forn Parts (which as far as she was concerned was anywhere further than a day's journey) to achieve the desired effect.

  She shredded some dry red leaves into a mug, topped it up with honey and hot water from the kettle, and pushed it into Esk's hands. Then she put a large round stone under the grate later on, wrapped in a scrap of blanket, it would make a bedwarmer and, with a stern injunction to the girl not to stir from the chair, went out into the scullery.

  Esk drummed her heels on the chair legs and sipped the drink. It had a strange, peppery taste. She wondered what it was. She'd tasted Granny's brews before, of course, with a greater or lesser amount of honey in them depending on whether she thought you were making too much of a fuss, and Esk knew that she was famous throughout the mountains for special potions for illnesses that her mother - and some young women too, once in a while -just hinted at with raised eyebrows and lowered voices . . . .

  When Granny came back she was asleep. She didn't remember being put to bed, or Granny bolting the windows.

  Granny Weatherwax went back downstairs and pulled her rocking chair closer to the fire.

  There was something there, she told herself, lurking away in the child's mind. She didn't like to think about what it was, but she remembered what had happened to the wolves. And all that about lighting fires with magic. Wizards did that, it was one of the first things they learned.

  Granny sighed. There was only one way to be sure, and she was getting rather old for this sort of thing.

  She picked up the candle and went out through the scullery into the lean-to that housed her goats. They watched her without fear, each sitting in its pen like a furry blob, three mouths working rhythmically on the day's hay. The air smelled warm and slightly flatulent.

  Up in the rafters was a small owl, one of a number of creatures who found that living with Granny was worth the occasional inconvenience. It came to her hand at a word, and she stroked its bullet head thoughtfully as she looked for somewhere comfortable to lie. A pile of hay it would have to be.

  She blew out the candle and lay back, with the owl perched on her finger.

  The goats chewed, burped and swallowed their way through their cozy night. They made the only sound in the building.

  Granny's body stilled. The owl felt her enter its mind, and graciously made room. Granny knew she would regret this, Borrowing twice in one day would leave her good for nothing in the morning, and with a terrible desire to eat mice. Of course, when she was younger she thought nothing of it, running with the stags, hunting with the foxes, learning the strange dark ways of the moles, hardly spending a night in her own body. But it was getting harder now, especially coming back. Maybe the time would come when she couldn't get back, maybe the body back home would be so much dead flesh, and maybe that wouldn't be such a bad way of it, at that.

  This was the sort of thing wizards could never know. If it occurred to them to enter a creature's mind they'd do it like a thief, not out of wickedness but because it simply wouldn't occur to them to do it any other way, the daft buggers. And what good would it do to take over an owl's body? You couldn't fly, you needed to spend a lifetime learning. But the gentle way was to ride in its mind, steering it as gently as a breeze stirs a leaf.

  The owl stirred, fluttered up on to the little windowsill, and glided silently into the night.

  The clouds had cleared and the thin moon made the mountains gleam. Granny peered out through owl eyes as she sped silently between the ranks of trees. This was the only way to travel, once a body had the way of it! She liked Borrowing birds best of all, using them to explore the high, hidden valleys where no one went, the secret lakes between black cliffs, the tiny walled fields on the scraps of flat ground, tucked on the sheer rock faces, that were the property of hidden and secretive beings. Once she had ridden with the geese that passed over the mountains every spring and autumn, and had got the shock of her life when she nearly went beyond range of returning.

  The owl broke out of the forest and skimmed across the rooftops of the village, alighting in a shower of snow on the biggest apple tree in Smith's orchard. It was heavy with mistletoe.

  She knew she was right as soon as her claws touched the bark. The tree resented her, she could feel it trying to push her away.

  I'm not going, she thought.

  In the silence of the night the tree said, Bully me, then, just because I'm a tree. Typical woman.

  At least you're useful now, thought Granny. Better a tree than a wizard, eh?

  It's not such a bad life, thought the tree. Sun. Fresh air. Time to think. Bees, too, in the spring.

  There was something lascivious about the way the tree said “bees” that quite put Granny, who had several hives, off the idea of honey. It was like being reminded that eggs were unborn chickens.

  I've come about the girl, Esk, she hissed.

  A promising child, thought the tree, I'm watching her with interest. She likes apples, too.

  You beast, said Granny, shocked.

  What did I say? Pardon me for not breathing, I'm sure.

  Granny sidled closer to the trunk.

  You must let her go, she thought. The magic is starting to come through.

  Already? I'm impressed, said the tree.

  It's the wrong sort of magic!, screeched Granny. It's wizard magic, not women's magic! She doesn't know what it is yet, but it killed a dozen wolves tonight!

  Great! said the tree. Granny hooted with rage.

  Great? Supposing she had been arguing with her brothers, and lost her temper, eh?

  The tree shrugged. Snowflakes cascaded from its branches.

  Then you must train her, it said.

  Train? What do I know from training wizards!

  Then send her to university.

  She's female!, hooted Granny, bouncing up and down on her branch.

  Well? Who says women can't be wizards?

  Granny hesitated. The tree might as well have asked why fish couldn't be birds. She drew a deep breath, and started to speak. And stopped. She knew a cutting, incisive, withering and above all a self-evident answer existed. It was just that, to her extreme annoyance, she couldn't quite bring it to mind.

  Women have never been wizards. It's against nature. You might as well say that witches can be men.

  If you define a witch as one who worships the pancreative urge, that is, venerates the basic - the tree began, and continued for several minutes. Granny Weatherwax listened in impatient annoyance to phrases like Mother Goddesses and primitive moon worship and told herself that she was well aware of what being a witch was all about, it was about herbs and curses and flying around of nights and generally keeping on the right side of tradition, and it certainly didn't involve mixing with goddesses, mothers or otherwise, who apparently got up to some very questionable tricks. And when the tree started talking about dancing naked she tried not to listen, because although she was aware that somewhere under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn't mean to say she approved of it.

  The tree finished its
monologue.

  Granny waited until she was quite sure that it wasn't going to add anything, and said, That's witchcraft, is it?

  Its theoretical basis, yes.

  You wizards certainly get some funny ideas.

  The tree said, Not a wizard anymore, just a tree.

  Granny ruffled her feathers.

  Well, just you listen to me, Mr. so-called Theoretical Basis Tree, if women were meant to be wizards they'd be able to grow long white beards and she is not going to be a wizard, is that quite clear, wizardry is not the way to use magic, do you hear, it's nothing but lights and fire and meddling with power and she'll be having no part of it and good night to you.

  The owl swooped away from the branch. It was only because it would interfere with the flying that Granny wasn't shaking with rage. Wizards! They talked too much and pinned spells down in books like butterflies but, worst of all, they thought theirs was the only magic worth practicing.

  Granny was absolutely certain of one thing. Women had never been wizards, and they weren't about to start now.

  She arrived back at the cottage in the pale shank of the night. Her body, at least, was rested after its slumber in the hay, and Granny had hoped to spend a few hours in the rocking chair, putting her thoughts in order. This was the time, when night wasn't quite over but day hadn't quite begun, when thoughts stood out bright and clear and without disguise. She. . . .

  The staff was leaning against the wall, by the dresser.

  Granny stood quite still.

  “I see”, she said at last. “So that's the way of it, is it? In my own house, too?”

  Moving very slowly, she walked over to the inglenook, threw a couple of split logs on to the embers of the fire, and pumped the bellows until the flames roared up the chimney.

  When she was satisfied she turned, muttered a few precautionary protective spells under her breath, and grabbed the staff. It didn't resist; she nearly fell over. But now she had it in her hands, and felt the tingle of it, the distinctive thunderstorm crackle of the magic in it, and she laughed.

  It was as simple as this, then. There was no fight in it now.

  Calling down a curse upon wizards and all their works she raised the staff above her head and brought it down with a clang across the firedogs, over the hottest part of the fire.

  Esk screamed. The sound bounced down through the bedroom floorboards and scythed through the dark cottage.

  Granny was old and tired and not entirely clear about things after a long day, but to survive as a witch requires an ability to jump to very large conclusions and as she stared at the staff in the flames and heard the scream her hands were already reaching for the big black kettle. She upended it over the fire, dragged the staff out of the cloud of steam, and ran upstairs, dreading what she might see.

  Esk was sitting up in the narrow bed, unsinged but shrieking. Granny took the child in her arms and tried to comfort her; she wasn't sure how one went about it, but a distracted patting on the back and vague reassuring noises seemed to work, and the screams became wails and, eventually, sobs. Here and there Granny could pick out words like “fire” and “hot”, and her mouth set in a thin, bitter line.

  Finally she settled the child down, tucked her in, and crept quietly down stairs.

  The staff was back against the wall. She was not surprised to see that the fire hadn't marked it at all.

  Granny turned her rocking chair to face it, and sat down with her chin in her hand and an expression of grim determination.

  Presently the chair began to rock, of its own accord. It was the only sound in a silence that thickened and spread and filled the room like a terrible dark fog.