Lords and Ladies Read online

Page 6

 

  “Me? No, Archchancellor. ”

  “Then itd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head. ”

  “Know him?” said Granny Weatherwax.

  Nanny Ogg knew everyone in Lancre, even the forlorn thing on the bracken.

  “Its William Scrope, from over Slice way,” she said. “One of three brothers. He married that Palliard girl, remember? The one with the air-cooled teeth?”

  “I hope the poor womans got some respectable black clothes,” said Granny Weatherwax.

  “Looks like hes been stabbed,” said Nanny. She turned the body over, gently but firmly. Corpses as such didnt worry her. Witches generally act as layers-out of the dead as well as midwives; there were plenty of people in Lancre for whom Nanny Oggs face had been the first and last thing theyd ever seen, which had probably made all the bit in the middle seem quite uneventful by comparison.

  “Right through,” she said. “Stabbed right through. Blimey whod do a thing like that?”

  Both the witches turned to look at the stones.

  “I dont know what, but I knows where it come from,” said Granny.

  Now Nanny Ogg could see that the bracken all around the stones was indeed well trodden down, and quite brown.

  “Im going to get to the bottom of this,” said Granny.

  “Youd better not go into-”

  “I knows exactly where I should go, thank you. ”

  There were eight stones in the Dancers. Three of them had names. Granny walked around the ring until she reached the one known as the Piper.

  She removed a hatpin from among the many that riveted her pointy hat to her hair and held it about six inches from the stone. Then she let it go, and watched what happened.

  She went back to Nanny.

  “Theres still power there,” she said. “Not much, but the ring is holding. ”

  “But whod be daft enough to come up here and dance around the stones?” said Nanny Ogg, and then, as a treacherous thought drifted across her mind, she added, “Magrats been away with us the whole time. ”

  “We shall have to find out,” said Granny, setting her face in a grim smile. “Now help me up with the poor man. ”

  Nanny Ogg bent to the task.

  “Coo, hes heavy. We couldve done with young Magrat up here. ”

  “No. Flighty,” said Granny Weatherwax. “Head easily turned. ”

  “Nice girl, though. ”

  “But soppy. She thinks you can lead your life as if fairy stories work and folk songs are really true. Not that I dont wish her every happiness. ”

  “Hope she does all right as queen,” said Nanny.

  “We taught her everything she knows,” said Granny Weatherwax.

  “Yeah,” said Nanny Ogg, as they disappeared into the bracken. “Dyou think. . . maybe. . . ?”

  “What?”

  “Dyou think maybe we ought to have taught her everything we know?”

  “Itd take too long. ”

  “Yeah, right. ”

  It took a while for letters to get as far as the Archchancellor. The post tended to be picked up from the University gates by anyone who happened to be passing, and then left lying on a shelf somewhere or used as a pipe lighter or a bookmark or, in the case of the Librarian, as bedding.

  This one had only taken two days, and was quite intact apart from a couple of cup rings and a bananary fingerprint. It arrived on the table along with the other post while the faculty were at breakfast. The Dean opened it with a spoon.

  “Anyone here know where Lancre is?” he said.

  “Why?” said Ridcully, looking up sharply.

  “Some kings getting married and wants us to come. ”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Some tinpot king gets wed and he wants us to come?”

  “Its up in the mountains,” said the Archchancellor, quietly “Good trout fishin in those parts, as I recall. My word. Lancre. Good grief. Hadnt thought about the place in years. You know, theres glacier lakes up there where the fishve never seen a rod. Lancre. Yes. ”

  “And its far too far,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

  Ridcully wasnt listening. “And theres deer. Thousands of head of deer. And elk. Wolves all over the place. Mountain lions too, I shouldnt wonder. I heard that Ice Eagles have been seen up there again, too. ”

  His eyes gleamed.

  “Theres only half a dozen of em left,” he said.

  Mustrum Ridcully did a lot for rare species. For one thing, he kept them rare.

  “Its the back of beyond,” said the Dean. “Right off the edge of the map. ”

  “Used to stay with my uncle up there, in the holidays,” said Ridcully, his eyes misty with distance. “Great days I had up there. Great days. The summers up there . . . and the skys a deeper blue than anywhere else, its very . . . and the grass. . . and. . . ”

  He returned abruptly from the landscapes of memory.

  “Got to go, then,” he said. “Duty calls. Head of state gettin married. Important occasion. Got to have a few wizards there. Look of the thing. Nobblyess obligay. ”

  “Well, Im not going,” said the Dean. “Its not natural, the countryside. Far too many trees. Never could stand it. ”

  “The Bursar could do with an outing,” said Ridcully. “Seems a bit jumpy just lately, cant imagine why. ” He leaned forward to look along the High Table. “Bursaaar!”

  The Bursar dropped his spoon into his oatmeal.

  “See what I mean?” said Ridcully. “Bundle o nerves the whole time. I WAS SAYING YOU COULD DO WITH SOME FRESH AIR, BURSAR. ” He nudged the Dean heavily. “Hope hes not going off his rocker, poor fella,” he said, in what he chose to believe was a whisper. “Spends too much time indoors, if you get my drift. ”

  The Dean, who went outdoors about once a month, shrugged his shoulders.

  “I EXPECT YOUD LIKE A LITTLE TIME AWAY FROM THE UNIVERSITY, EH?” said the Archchancellor, nodding and grimacing madly. “Peace and quiet? Healthy country livin?”

  “I, I, I, I should like that very much, Archchancellor,” said the Bursar, hope rising in his face like an autumn mushroom.

  “Good man. Good man. You shall come with me,” said Ridcully, beaming.

  The Bursars expression froze.

  “Got to be someone else, too,” said Ridcully. “Volunteers, anyone?”

  The wizards, townies to a man, bent industriously over their food. They always bent industriously over their food in any case, but this time they were doing it to avoid catching Ridcullys eye.

  “What about the Librarian?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, throwing a random victim to the wolves.

  There was a sudden babble of relieved agreement.

  “Good choice,” said the Dean. “Just the thing for him. Countryside. Trees. And. . . and. . . trees. ”

  “Mountain air,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

  “Yes, hes been looking peaky lately,” said the Reader in Invisible Writings. [7]

  “Itd be a real treat for him,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

  “Home away from home, I expect,” said the Dean. “Trees all over the place. ”

  They all looked expectantly at the Archchancellor.

  “He doesnt wear clothes,” said Ridcully. “And he goes ook all the time. ”

  “He does wear the old green robe thing,” said the Dean.

  “Only when hes had a bath. ”

  Ridcully rubbed his beard. In fact he quite liked the Librarian, who never argued with him and always kept himself in shape, even if that shape was a pear shape. It was the right shape for an orang-utan.

  The thing about the Librarian was that no one noticed he was an orang-utan anymore, unless a visitor to the University happened to point it out. In which case someone would say, “Oh, yes. Some kind of magical accident, wasnt it? Pretty sure it was something like that. One minute human, next minute an ape. Funny thing, really
. . . cant remember what he looked like before. I mean, he must have been human, I suppose. Always thought of him as an ape, really. Its more him. ”

  And indeed it had been an accident among the potent and magical books of the University library that had as it were bounced the Librarians genotype down the evolutionary tree and back up a different branch, with the significant difference that now he could hang on to it upside down with his feet.

  “Oh, all right,” said the Archchancellor. “But hes got to wear something during the ceremony, if only for the sake of the poor bride. ”

  There was a whimper from the Bursar.

  All the wizards turned toward him.

  His spoon landed on the floor with a small thud. It was wooden. The wizards had gently prevented him from having metal cutlery since what was now known as the Unfortunate Incident At Dinner.

  “A-a-a-a,” gurgled the Bursar, trying to push himself away from the table.

  “Dried frog pills,” said the Archchancellor. “Someone fish em out of his pocket. ”

  Wizards didnt rush this. You could find anything in a wizards pocket-peas, unreasonable things with legs, small experimental universes, anything. . .

  The Reader in Invisible Writings craned to see what had unglued his colleague.

  “Here, look at his porridge,” he said.

  There was a perfect round depression in the oatmeal.

  “Oh dear, another crop circle,” said the Dean.

  The wizards relaxed.

  “Damn things turning up everywhere this year,” said the Archchancellor. He hadnt taken his hat off to eat the meal. This was because it was holding down a poultice of honey and horse manure and a small mouse-powered electrostatic generator hed got those clever young fellas in the High Energy Magic research building to knock together for him, clever fellas they were, one day he might even understand half of what they were always gabblin on about. . .

  In the meantime, hed keep his hat on.

  “Particularly strong, too,” said the Dean. “The gardener told me yesterday theyre playing merry hell with the cabbages. ”

  “I thought them things only turned up out in fields and things,” said Ridcully. “Perfectly normal natural phenomenon. ”

  “If there is a suitably high flux level, the inter-continuum pressure can probably overcome quite a high base reality quotient,” said the Reader in Invisible Writings.

  The conversation stopped. Everyone turned to look at this most wretched and least senior member of the staff.

  The Archchancellor glowered.

  “I dont even want you to begin to start explainin that,” he said. “Youre probably goin to go on about the universe bein a rubber sheet with weights on it again, right?”

  “Not exactly a-”

  “And the word quantum is hurryin toward your lips again,” said Ridcully.

  “Well, the-”

  “And continuinuinuum too, I expect,” said Ridcully.

  The Reader in Invisible Writings, a young wizard whose name was Ponder Stibbons, sighed deeply.

  “No, Archchancellor, I was merely pointing out-”

  “Its not wormholes again, is it?”

  Stibbons gave up. Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a red rag to a bu-was like putting something very annoying in front of someone who was annoyed by it.