Mightily Oats has not picked a good time to be a priest. He thought he'd come to Lancre for a simple ceremony. Now he's caught up in a war between vampires and witches.
There's Young Agnes, who is really in two minds about everything. Magrat, who is trying to combine witchcraft and nappies, Nanny Ogg ... and Granny Weatherwax, who is big trouble.
And the vampires are intelligent. They've got style and fancy waistcoats. They're out of the casket, and want a bite of the future.
Mightily Oats knows he has a prayer, but he wishes he had an axe.
They lined up and looked down into the new place and then, weapons waving, raised a battle cry. It would have been more impressive if they'd agreed on one before, but as it was it sounded as though every single small warrior had a battle cry of his very own and would fight anyone who tried to take it away from him.
* * *
In Ghat they believe in vampire watermelons, although folklore is silent about what they believe about vampire watermelons. Possibly they suck back.
* * *
There are dozens of ways to [kill vampires], quite apart from the stake through the heart, which also works on normal people so if you have any stakes left over you don't have to waste them.
* * *
Lacrimosa: "After all, chickens don't burn. Not easily, anyway."
Vlad: "We heard you experiment. Killing them first might have been a good idea."
Lacrimosa: "What's the point in that?"
Count Magpyr: "Well, dear, it would have been quieter."
* * *
Count Magpyr: "Igor! On to Lancre!"
Igor: "Yeth, marthter."
Count Magpyr: "Oh, for the last time, man ... is that any way to talk?"
Igor: "It'th the only way I know, marthter."
* * *
As [Agnes] tucked in her hair and observed herself critically in the mirror she sang a song. She sang in harmony. Not, of course, with her reflection in the glass, because that kind of heroine will sooner or later end up singing a duet with Mr. Blue Bird and other forest creatures and then there's nothing for it but a flamethrower.
* * *
Those who are inclined to casual cruelty say that inside a fat girl is a thin girl and a lot of chocolate.
* * *
Perditha thought that not obeying rules was somehow cool. Agnes thought that rules like "Don't fall into this huge pit of spikes" were there for a purpose.
* * *
When people were in serious trouble they went to a witch. [Footnote: Sometimes, of course, to say, "Please stop doing it."]
* * *
Perdita thought black was cool. Agnes thought that black wasn't a good colour for the circumferentially challenged... oh, and that "cool" was a dumb word used only by people whose brains wouldn't fill a spoon.
* * *
All Hodgesaargh's birds could be depended upon, but more often than not they could be depended upon to viciously attack him on sight.
* * *
Casanunda despised highwaymanning, but it got you out into the fresh air of the countryside, which was very good for you, especially when the nearby towns were lousy with husbands carrying a grudge and a big stick.
* * *
Highwayman: "Who are you?"
Death: I'M DEATH. AND I REALLY AM NOT HERE TO TAKE YOUR MONEY. WHICH PART OF THIS DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?
* * *
Nanny Ogg knew that while the actual party would be in the Great Hall all the fun would be outside, in the courtyard around the big fire. Inside it'd be all quails' eggs, goose-liver jam and little sandwiches that were four to the mouthful. Outside it'd be roasted potatoes floating in vats of butter and a whole stag on a spit.
* * *
Lancre people looked after the calories and let the vitamins go hang.
* * *
...Nanny reflected that Agnes read books. All the witches who'd lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way.
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "How can you break both your legs falling off a donkey?"
Agnes: "It was going up that little path on the side of Skund Gorge. He fell sixty feet."
Nanny Ogg: "Oh? Well ... that's a tall donkey, right enough."
* * *
It struck people as odd that, while Lancre people refused point-blank to have any truck with democracy, on the basis that governing was what the King ought to do and they'd be sure to tell him if he went wrong, they didn't make very good servants. Oh, they could cook and dig and wash and footle and buttle and did it very well but could never quite get the hang of the serving mentality. King Verence was quite understanding about this, and put up with Shawn ushering guests into the dining room with a cry of "Lovely grub, get it while it's hot!"
* * *
"I'm going to have a word with young Verence," said Nanny.
"He is the King, Nanny," said Agnes.
"That's no reason for him to go around acting like he was royalty."
"I think it is, actually."
* * *
Lancre operated on the feudal system, which was to say, everyone feuded all the time and handed on the fight to their descendants.
* * *
A bloody good grudge, Lancre reckoned, was like a fine old wine. You looked after it carefully and left it to your children.
* * *
Usually the royal falconer was vainly fighting off his hawks, who attacked him for a pastime, and in the case of King Henry kept picking him up and dropping him again in the belief that he was a giant tortoise.
* * *
Normally Igor wouldn't have wasted any time. But the family had been getting on his nerves, and he reacted in the traditional way of the put-upon servant by suddenly becoming very stupid.
* * *
She glanced at the crib in the corner. It had more loops and lace than any piece of furniture should.
* * *
You can build up a very strange view of someone via the things they leave behind the dresser.
* * *
"Well, if it was a choice of wishing a chile health, wealth and happiness, or Granny Weatherwax being on her side, I know which I'd choose."
* * *
Lancrastrians never threw away anything that worked. The trouble was, they seldom changed anything that worked, either.
* * *
...the Lancrastrian idea of posh sanitation was a non-slippery path to the privy and a mail-order catalogue with really soft pages.
* * *
The people of Lancre wouldn't dream of living in anything other than a monarchy. They'd done so for thousands of years and knew that it worked. But they'd also found that it didn't do to pay too much attention to what the King wanted, because there was bound to be another king along in forty years or so and he'd be certain to want something different and so they'd have gone to all that trouble for nothing.
* * *
"...it's one thing saying you've got the best god, but sayin' it's the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my opinion. I know where I can find at least two any day of the week."
* * *
Verence: "We're part of a big world. We have to play that part. For example, what about the Muntab question?"
Nanny Ogg: "Where the hell's Muntab?"
Verence: "Several thousand miles away, Mrs. Ogg. But it has ambitions Hubwards, and if there's war with Borogravia we will certainly have to adopt a position."
Nanny Ogg: "This one several thousand miles away looks fine by me."
* * *
Well, Granny would be here soon enough, and she knew how to talk to kings. You needed a special technique for that, Nanny reasoned; for example, you couldn't say things like "Who died and made you King?", because they'd know. "You and whose army?" was another difficult one, although in this case Verence's army consisted of Shawn and a troll and was unlikely to be a serious threat to Shawn's own mother if he wanted to be allowed to eat his tea indoors.
* * *
There seemed to Agnes to be any number of kings, even if some of them did their ruling in the evenings after they'd milked the cows. A lot of them were here, because a free meal is not to be sneezed at.
* * *
Lancre people considered that anything religious that wasn't said in some ancient and incomprehensible speech probably wasn't the genuine article.
* * *
"What is, um, your role, madam?"
"I'm the godmother!"
"Which, um, god?" The young man was trembling slightly.
* * *
Agnes: "It's all right ... as witches we believe in religious toleration..."
Nanny Ogg: "That's right. But only for the right religions, so you watch your step!"
* * *
"I name you ... Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre!"
* * *
The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches they gave you a bigger shovel.
* * *
She'd never, ever asked for anything in return. And the trouble with not asking for anything in return was that sometimes you didn't get it.
* * *
"His full name is James What The Hell's That Cow Doing In Here Poorchick," said Magrat.
"That was a very strange day, I do remember that," said Nanny.
* * *
"So I've got to take Esmerelda out to her people and tell them one of her middle names is Note Spelling?" said Verence.
"Well, we did once have a king called My God He's Heavy the First," said Nanny.
* * *
...Lancre people had a fresh if somewhat sideways approach to names, generally just picking a sound they liked. Sometimes there was a logic to it, but only by accident. There'd be a Chlamydia Weaver toddling around today if her mother hadn't suddenly decided that Sally was easier to spell.
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "Been on the drink already, I expect."
Mightily Oats: "I never even touch alcohol!"
Nanny Ogg: "I knew there was something wrong with you as soon as I looked at you."
* * *
Attractive men were not in plentiful supply in Lancre, where licking your hand and smoothing your hair down before taking a girl out was considered swanky.
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "Where're you from, Igor?"
Igor: "What maketh you think my name ith... Igor?"
Nanny Ogg: "Lucky guess?"
Igor: "You think everyone from Uberwald ith called Igor, do you? I could have any one of a thouthand different nameth, woman."
Nanny Ogg: "Look, I'm Nanny Ogg and thith, excuse me, this is Agnes Nitt. And you are...?"
Igor: "My name ith... well, it'th Igor, ath a matter of facththth. But it might not have been!"
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "A glass of wine, p'raps?"
Igor: "I do not drink ... wine."
Nanny Ogg: "I've got some brandy."
Igor: "Oh, right. I drink brandy like thtink."
* * *
The only sensible way to hold a conversation with Igor was when you had an umbrella.
* * *
Not many people ever tasted Nanny Ogg's home-made brandy; it was technically impossible. Once it encountered the warmth of the human mouth it immediately turned into fumes. You drank it via your sinuses.
* * *
She collided with Agnes at the entrance to the kitchen. Two trays slid to the floor, spilling garlic vol-au-vents, garlic dip, garlic stuffed with garlic and tiny cubes of garlic on a stick, stuck into a garlic.
"Either there's a lot of vampires in these parts or we're doing something wrong," said Agnes flatly.
"I've always said you can't have too much garlic," said Nanny.
"Everyone else disagrees, Nanny."
* * *
Agnes: "Vampires aren't supposed to show up in a mirror, are they?"
Nanny Ogg: "Good thinking! There's one in the lavvie. I'll kind of hover in there. Everyone's got to go sooner or later."
Agnes: "But what if a man comes in?"
Nanny Ogg: "Oh, I won't mind. I won't be embarassed."
* * *
"We are vampires," said Vlad. "Or, we prefer, vampyres. With a 'y'. It's more modern."
* * *
"I feel a bit ... odd," said Agnes.
"Ah, could be the drink," said Nanny.
"I haven't had any!"
"No? Well, there's the problem right there."
* * *
"Nanny?"
"Yes, luv?"
"Are there such things as blue mice?"
"Not while you're sober, dear."
"I think ... I'm owed a drink, then."
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "How does Perdita work, then?"
Agnes: "Look, you know the part of you that wants to do all the things you don't dare do, and thinks the thoughts you don't dare think? Like ... maybe ... rip off all your clothes and run naked in the rain?"
Nanny Ogg: "Oh, yes. Right."
Agnes: "Well ... I suppose Perdita is that part of me."
Nanny Ogg: "Really? I've always been that part of me. The important thing is to remember where you left your clothes."
* * *
He was good at rearing young birds. He could get them eating out of his hand. Later, of course, they just ate his hand.
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "We're after vampires, right? Any sharp stakes around here?"
Jason: "No, Mum. But ten minutes ago the cook come out and said, did anyone want all these nibbly things that someone had mucked up with garlic and I et 'em, Mum."
Nanny Ogg: "Yeah, that should do it all right. If I give you the signal, you're to burp hugely, understand?"
* * *
"People have quite the wrong idea about vampires, you see. Are we fiendish killers? ... Well, yes, of course we are."
* * *
King Verence was very keen that someone should compose a national anthem for Lancre, possibly referring to its very nice trees, and had offered a small reward. Nanny Ogg reasoned that it would be easy money because national anthems only ever have one verse or, rather, all have the same second verse, which goes "nur... hnur... mur... nur nur, hnur... nur... nur, hnur" at some length until everyone remembers the last line of the first verse and sings it as loudly as they can.
* * *
[Lacrimosa] glared at Agnes before beginning. There was some sort of chemistry there, although it was the sort that results in the entire building being evacuated.
* * *
It was the sort of grin that Agnes supposed was called infectious but, then, so was measles.
* * *
...Perdita struck, and when her hand was halfway around she turned it palm out and curled her fingers to bring her nails into play...
He caught her wrist, his hand moving in a blur.
"Well done," he said, laughing.
His other hand shot out and caught her other arm as it swung.
"I like a woman with spirit!"
However, he had run out of hands, and Perdita still had a knee in reserve. Vlad's eyes crossed and he made that small sound best recorded as "ghni..."
* * *
Countess: "Your uncle [the vampire] always had big windows and easily twitched aside curtains, didn't he, Count?"
Count Magpyr: "Yes indeed."
Countess: "And when it came to running water, he always kept the moat flowing perfectly, didn't he?"
Count Magpyr: "Fed from a mountain stream, I believe."
Countess: "And, for a vampire, he always seemed to have so many ornamental items around the castle that could be bent or broken into the shape of some religious symbol, as I recall."
Count Magpyr: "He certainly did. A vampire of the old school."
Countess: "Yes. The stupid school."
* * *
People often got the wrong idea about Nanny Ogg, and she took care to see that they did.
* * *
Nanny could find an innuendo in "Good morning." She could certainly find one in "innuendo."
* * *
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple-corer.
* * *
"But that's just a bit of superstition, isn't it? Witches don't have to come in threes."
"Oh, no. Course not," said Nanny. "You can have any number up to about, oh, four or five."
"What happens if there's more, then? Something awful?"
"Bloody great row, usually."
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "Sometimes I reckon she's terrified she'll go bad without noticin'."
Agnes: "Granny? But she's as moral as--"
Nanny Ogg: "Oh, yes, she is. But that's because she's got Granny Weatherwax glarin' over her shoulder the whole time."
* * *
"I thought you'd like this sort of thing, dear," said the Countess. "It's the sort of thing your crowd does, isn't it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" said the girl.
"Oh, staying up until gone noon and wearing brightly coloured clothes, and giving yourself funny names," said the Countess.
"Like Gertrude," sneered Vlad. "And Pam. They think it's cool."
-- Vampire goth
* * *
"I hated the way you used to leap out in corridors and flick holy water on us," said Lacrimosa.
"It wasn't holy at all," said her father. "It was strongly diluted. Mildly devout at worst."
* * *
"Will it be enough to know that the world is your oyster?"
Her forehead wrinkled in perplexity. "Why should I want it to be some nasty little sea creature?" she said.
* * *
"[Igor'll] never retire," said Vlad. "He'll never take a hint."
"And it's so old fashioned having a servant called Igor," said the Countess. "He really is too much."
"Look, it's simple," said Lacrimosa. "Just take him down to the cellars, slam him in the Iron Maiden, stretch him on the rack over a fire for a day or two, and then slice him thinly from the feet upwards, so he can watch. You'll be doing him a kindness, really."
* * *
"I remember when you told me to put my cat out of its misery," said Lacrimosa.
"I really meant you to stop what you were doing to it."
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "I was a rabbit for three whole days until our Jason went and fetched Esme and she brought me back. Much longer and there wouldn't have been a me to come back."
Agnes: "Rabbits sound dull."
Nanny Ogg: "They have their ups and downs."
* * *
Nanny's face was a picture, possibly painted by an artist with a very strange sense of humour.
* * *
Mightily Oats: "Er ... you don't like me very much, do you?"
Agnes: "I've hardly met you."
Mightily Oats: "A lot of people don't like me as soon as they've met me."
Agnes: "I suppose that saves time."
* * *
[Hodgesaargh had] been brought up to respect witches, and Miss Nitt was a witch. The man with her hadn't been a witch, but his manner fitted him into that class of people Hodgesaargh mentally pigeonholed as "my betters", although in truth this was quite a large category. He wasn't about to disagree with his betters. Hodgesaargh was a one-man feudal system.
* * *
All that stuff about birds hatching from ashes must have been written by someone who didn't know anything about birds. As for there only ever being one phoenix, well, that'd obviously been written down by a man who ought to get out in the fresh air more and meet some ladies.
* * *
"Just as Om reached out his hand to save the prophet Brutha from the torture, so will he spread his wings over me in my time of trial," said Oats, but he sounded as though he was trying to reassure himself rather than Nanny. He went on: "I've got a pamphlet if you would like to know more," and this time the tone was much more positive, as if the existence of Om was a little uncertain whereas the existence of pamphlets was obvious to any open-minded rational-thinking person.
* * *
Agnes: "Look, you said you've studied vampires, didn't you? What's good for vampires?"
Mightily Oats: "Er ... a nice dry coffin, er, plenty of fresh blood, er, overcast skies..."
* * *
"Er, cutting off the head and staking [vampires] in the heart is generally efficacious."
"But that works on everyone," said Nanny.
"Er ... In Splintz they die if you put a coin in their mouth and cut their head off."
"Not like ordinary people, then," said Nanny, taking out a notebook.
"Er ... In Klotz they die if you stick a lemon in their mouth--"
"Sounds more like it."
"--after you cut their head off."
--See a trend?
* * *
"Vampires are very anal-retentive, you see?"
"I shouldn't like meeting one that was the opposite," said Nanny.
* * *
They looked very much like men who killed other people for money, and not even for a lot of money.
* * *
Several of them leered at Agnes when they went past, but it was only a generic leer that was simply leered on the basis that she had a dress on.
* * *
"Oh ... thit."
* * *
Mrs. Scorbic was permanently angry, in the same way that mountains are permanently large.
* * *
"Verence said Omnianism seemed a very sensible and stable religion," hissed Magrat.
They both looked at Oats, mentally trying the words on him for size.
* * *
"You find a bag or something and empty into it all the stuff in the top drawer over there, and take the potty, and the little truck, oh, and the stuffed animals, and the bag of nappies, and the bag for used nappies, and the bath, and the bag with the towels, and the box of toys, and the wind-up things, and the musical box, and the bag with the little suits, oh, and the woolly hat..."
-- Packing with children
* * *
There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the ones the magpies know themselves.
* * *
"Ooaauooow!"
...but there was probably no combination of vowels that could do justice to the cry Nanny Ogg made on seeing a young baby. It included sounds known only to cats.
* * *
The young priest took the baby nervously, holding it, as some men do, as if it would break or at least explode.
* * *
"Er, are you going to do some magic?" said Oats, behind them.
"What's the problem?" said Nanny.
"I mean, does it involve, er..." he coloured up, "er ... removing your garments and dancing around and summoning lewd and salacious creatures? Only I'm afraid I couldn't be a party to that. The Book of Om forbids consorting with false enchanters and deceitful soothsayers, you see."
"I wouldn't consort with false enchanters, neither," said Nanny. "Their beards fall off."
"We're real," said Magrat.
"And we certainly don't summon lewd and salacious creatures," said Agnes.
"Unless we want to," said Nanny Ogg, almost under her breath.
* * *
She was not, herself, hugely in favour of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn't exactly difficult. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they'd been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they'd got the label which said "mother," everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said "child"...
* * *
The result would have been called primitive even by people too primitive to have a word yet for "primitive."
* * *
She looked down. She didn't want to, but it was a direction occupying a lot of the world.
* * *
"Damn!" And Agnes would never say "damn", which was why Perdita did so at every suitable occasion.
* * *
These [caves] were caverns. The difference is basically one of rugged and poetic grandeur. These had a lot of both.
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "Blow, I left my pipe back there."
Agnes: "I didn't see you take it out."
Nanny Ogg: "Really? Then I'd better go and leave it there, hadn't I?"
* * *
And what have we got now? Perdita chimed in. The knowing but technically inexperienced young woman, the harassed young mother and the silver-haired golden ager ... doesn't exactly sound mythic, does it?
* * *
One of Nanny Ogg's hidden talents was knowing when to say nothing. It left a hole in the conversation that the other person felt obliged to fill.
* * *
"I'll make the tea, shall I?" said Magrat, getting up.
"No, you sit down. It's Agnes's job to make the tea," said Nanny. "You're the mother, so it's your job to pour."
"What's your job, Nanny?" said Agnes.
"I drinks it," said Nanny promptly.
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "Maybe we'll not see the back of these vampires by going over to the curtains and saying, My, isn't it stuffy in here?' but there's got to be some other way."
Agnes: "And if there isn't?"
Nanny Ogg: "Marry him."
Magrat: "That's horrible!"
Agnes: "I'd rather kill myself."
Nanny Ogg: "Dun't have to be a long marriage. Put a pointy stake in your garter and our lad'll be getting cold even before they've finished cutting up the wedding cake."
* * *
"If we was men, we'd be talking about layin' down our lives for the country. As women, we can talk about laying down."
* * *
"You mean just because she's a woman she should use sexual wiles on him?" said Magrat. "This is so ... so ... well, it's so Nany Ogg, that's all I can say."
"She should use any wile she can lay her hands on," said Nanny.
* * *
"Like the hero in Tsort or whatever it was, who was completely invincible except for his heel and someone stuck a spear in it and killed him ... I never understood that story anyway," said Nanny. "I mean, if I knew I'd got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I'd go into battle wearing very heavy boots--"
* * *
Agnes looked hard at the pixie. On a scale of ethereal from one to ten he looked as if he was on some other scale, probably one buried in deep ocean sludge.
* * *
"These [pixies] steal cattle?" said Agnes. "Full-size cattle? How many of them does it take?"
"Four."
"Four?"
"One under each foot."
* * *
"And they'll be useful," Nanny added, lowering her voice. "Fighting's what they like best."
"Whist, yon fellaight fra' aquesbore!"
"Drinkin's what they like best," Nanny corrected herself.
"Nae, hoon a scullen!"
"Drinkin' and fightin's what they like best," said Nanny.
"An' snaflin' coobeastie."
"And stealing cows," said Nanny. "Drinkin', fightin' and stealin' cows is what they like best."
* * *
Magrat: "Don't get angry, but you don't think Granny's doing this on purpose, do you? Keeping back, I mean, so that we have to form a three and work together?"
Nanny Ogg: "Why'd she do that?"
Magrat: "So we develop insights and pull together and learn valuable lessons."
Nanny Ogg: "No, I don't reckon Granny'd be thinking like that, because that's soppy garbage."
* * *
"You don't organize a mob, Nanny," said Agnes. "A mob is something that happens spontaneously."
Nanny Ogg's eyes gleamed.
"There's seventy-nine Oggs in these parts," she said. "Spontaneous it is, then."
* * *
"The Nac mac Feegle always take their babies into battle, too. Mind you, for use as a weapon if it comes to it."
* * *
They were dressed something like the young opera-goers she'd seen in Ankh-Morpork, except that their fancy waistcoats would have been considered too fast by the staider members of the community, and they wore their hair long like a poet who hopes that romatically flowing locks will makeup for a wretched inability to find a rhyme for "daffodil."
* * *
Agnes: "You mean vampirism is like ... pyramid selling?"
Vlad: "I'm sorry? Who sells pyramids?"
Agnes: "No, I mean ... you bite five necks, and in two months' time you get a lake of blood of your very own?"
Vlad: "I can see we will have a lot to learn. I understood every word in that sentence, but not the sentence itself."
* * *
"She was said to bathe in the blood of up to two hundred virgins at a time," Vlad said. "I don't believe that. Use more than eighty virgins and even quite a large bath will overflow, Lacrimosa tells me."
* * *
"My father thinks stupidity is somehow built into vampirism, as if the desire for fresh blood is linked to being as thick as a plank."
* * *
"Little traces of garlic were put into our food to get us used to it. He tried early exposure to various religious symbols - oh dear, we must have had the oddest nursery wallpaper in the world, never mind the jolly frieze of Gertie the Dancing Garlic..."
* * *
"That's brandy, Nanny!" said Magrat. "Do you want to face the vampires drunk?"
"Sounds a whole lot better than facin' them sober."
* * *
...he'd hoped that, just once, Om would make himself known in some obvious and unequivocal way that couldn't be mistaken for wind or a guilty conscience. Just once he'd like the clouds to part for the space of ten seconds and a voice to cry out, "YES, MIGHTILY-PRAISE-WORTHY-ARE-YE-WHO-EXALTETH-OM OATS! IT'S ALL COMPLETELY TRUE! INCIDENTALLY, THAT WAS A VERY THOUGHTFUL PAPER YOU WROTE ON THE CRISIS OF RELIGION IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY!"
* * *
It was because he was so very good at old languages that he'd been allowed to study in the new libraries that were springing up around the Citadel, and this had been fresh ground for worry, because the seeker after truth had found truth instead. The Third Journey of the Prophet Cena, for example, seemed remarkably like a retranslation of the Testament of Sand in the Laotan Book of the Whole. On one shelf alone he found forty-three remarkably similar accounts of a great flood, and in every single one of them a man very much like Bishop Horn had saved the elect of mankind by building a magical boat. ... Of course these stories in the chronicles of other religions were mere folktales and myth, while the voyage detailed in the Book of Cena was holy truth. But nevertheless...
* * *
He did not gird his loins, because he wasn't certain how you did that and had never dared ask...
* * *
The castle gates swung open and Count Magpyr stepped out, blanked by his soldiers.
This was not according to the proper narrative tradition. Although the people of Lancre were technically new to all this, down at the genetic level they knew that when the mob is at the gate the mobee should be screaming defiance in a burning laboratory or engaged in a cliffhanger struggle with some hero on the battlements.
* * *
"An' then we'll gut yer like a clam and stuff yer with straw," said Corporal Svitz.
"Ah. This is technical military language of which I know little," said the Count. "I do so hope there is no unpleasantness."
"I don't," said Sergeant Kraput.
* * *
"What happened to us harnessing the power of all three of us together?" hissed Magrat.
"That rather depended on him standing still!" said Nanny.
* * *
It was a thick door and they were big bolts; the builders of Lancre Castle hadn't understood the concept of planks less than three inches thick or locks that couldn't withstand a battering ram.
* * *
Mightily Oats: "I've let everyone down, haven't I? I should have stayed in college and taken that translating post. ... But I'm ... ready to have another go."
Agnes: "You are? Why?"
Mightily Oats: "Did not Kazrin return three times into the valley of Mahag, and wrest the cup of Hiread from the soldiers of the Oolites while they slept?"
Agnes: "Did he?"
Mightily Oats: "Yes. I'm ... I'm sure of it. And did not Om say to the Prophet Brutha, 'I will be with you in dark places'?"
Agnes: "I imagine he did."
Mightily Oats: "Yes, he did. He must have done."
Agnes: "And on that basis you'd go back in?"
Mightily Oats: "Yes."
Agnes: "Why?"
Mightily Oats: "Because if I don't, what use am I?"
* * *
"Er ... Hodgesaargh, you do know vampires suck people's blood, don't you?"
"Yes, miss? They'll have to queue up behind the birds for mine, then."
* * *
Provided they didn't touch his birds, Hodgesaargh didn't much mind who ran the castle. For hundreds of years the falconers had simply gotten on with the important things, like falconry, which needed a lot of training, and left the kinging to amateurs.
* * *
"Up you go, Mr. Igor. And if you're thinking of anything clever, my colleague over there is holdin' a pitchfork and she ain't much good at aiming so who knows what part of you she might hit?"
"Ith that a baby thee'th carrying?"
"We're very modern," said Nanny.
* * *
"An Igor liketh to know where he thtandth."
"Slightly lopsidedly?" said Magrat.
* * *
"Ta' can onlie be one t'ousan!"
* * *
Mightily Oats: "The Prophet Brutha said that Om helps those who help one another."
Agnes: "And does he?"
Mightily Oats: "To be honest, there are a number of opinions of what was meant."
Agnes: "How many?"
Mightily Oats: "About one hundred and sixty, since the Schism of 10:30 a.m., February 23. That was when the Re-United Free Chelonianists (Hubward Convocation) schismed from the Re-United Free Chelonianists (Rimwards Convocation). It was rather serious."
Agnes: "Blood spilled?"
Mightily Oats: "No, but there were fisticuffs and a deacon had ink spilled on him."
* * *
"There are a hundred pathways to Om. Unfortunately I sometimes think someone left a rake lying across a lot of them."
* * *
"And how are you, Miss Weatherwax?" said Mightily Oats, in a cheerful voice.
"She was bitten by a vampire! What sort of question is that?" Agnes hissed.
"One that's better than 'What are you?'" Oats whispered.
* * *
"Go where the others ... are," Granny Weatherwax croaked. "It'll need three ... witches if this goes ... wrong ... you'll ... have to face ... something terrible..."
"What terrible thing?"
"Me."
* * *
Hodgesaargh: "Mistress Weatherwax a bit poorly, is she?"
Mightily Oats: "I think you could certainly say that, yes."
Hodgesaargh: "Oh dear. Want some tea?"
Mightily Oats: "What?"
Hodgesaargh: "It's a nasty night. If we're stopping up I'll put the kettle on."
Mightily Oats: "Do you realize, man, that she might get up from there a bloodthirsty vampire?"
Hodgesaargh: "Oh. Good idea to face her with a cup of tea inside you, then."
* * *
He gave her a toothy grin, and on a vampire this was not pleasant.
* * *
Granny Weatherwax: "Am I dyin'?"
Death: YES.
Granny Weatherwax: "Will I die?"
Death: YES.
Granny Weatherwax: "But from your point of view, everyone is dying and everyone will die, right?"
Death: YES.
Granny Weatherwax: "So you aren't actually bein' a lot of help, strictly speakin'."
* * *
[Granny] saw herself, kneeling in front of the anvil. She admired the dramatic effect. She'd always had a streak of theatrics, although she'd never admit it, and she appreciated in a disembodied way the strength with which she had thrust her pain into the iron. Someone had slightly spoiled the effect by putting a kettle on one end.
* * *
Death: CHOOSE. YOU ARE GOOD AT CHOOSING, I BELIEVE.
Granny Weatherwax: "Is there any advice you could be givin' me?"
Death: CHOOSE RIGHT.
* * *
It was, indeed, beautiful, but Agnes felt that beauty was even more likely to be in the eye of the beholder if the feet of the beholder were on something solid. At ten thousand feet up, the eye of the beholder tends to water.
* * *
The Lancrastrians didn't go digging [around old tombs] themselves, reckoning in their uncomplicated country way that it was bad luck to have your head torn off by a vengeful underground spirit.
* * *
One or two of the old barrows had been exposed over the years, their huge stones attracting their own folklore. If you left your unshod horse at one of them overnight and placed sixpence on the stone, in the morning the sixpence would be gone and you'd never see your horse again, either...
* * *
It was, he realized, a woman, or at least a female, blue like the other pixies but at least a foot high and so fat that it was almost spherical. It looked exactly like the little figurines back in the days of ice and mammoths, when what men really looked for in a woman was quantity.
* * *
Verence: "How can I ever repay you?"
Big Aggie's Man: "Oh, there's a wee bitty thing the carlin' Ogg said you could be givin' us, hardly important at all."
Verence: "Anything."
Big Aggie's Man: [producing a contract] "It's called a signature. An' make sure ye initial all the sub-clauses and codicils. We of the Nac mac Feegle are a simple folk, but we write verra comp-lic-ated documents."
* * *
Hodgesaargh was an original storyteller and quite good in a very specific way. If he'd had to recount the saga of the Tsortean War, for example, it would have been in terms of the birds observed, every cormorant noted, every pelican listed, every battlefield raven taxonomically placed, no tern unturned. Some men in armour would have been involved at some stage, but only because the ravens were perching on them.
* * *
"No one's ever claimed to have found phoenix eggshell before," said Oats accusingly.
"Didn't know that, sir," said Hodgesaargh innocently. "Otherwise I wouldn't have looked."
* * *
"Hodgesaargh," said Granny patiently, "this phoenix laid more than one egg."
"What? But it can't! According to mythology--" Oats said.
"Oh, mythology," said Granny. "Mythology's just the folktales of people who won 'cos they had bigger swords. They're just the people to spot the finer points of ornithology, are they?"
* * *
Fewer birds could sit more meekly than the Lancre wowhawk, or lappet-faced worrier, a carnivore permanently on the lookout for the vegetarian option. It spent most of its time asleep in any case, but when forced to find food it tended to sit on a branch out of the wind somewhere and wait for something to die. ...Hodgesaargh bred them because they were found only in Lancre and he liked the plumage, but all reputable falconers agreed that for hunting purposes the only way you could reliably bring down prey with a wowhawk was by using it in a slingshot.
* * *
Granny Weatherwax: "What's that you're holding?"
Shawn Ogg: "It's the Lancrastian Army Knife. Er... I left my sword in the armoury, too."
Granny Weatherwax: "Has it got a tool for extracting soldiers from castles?"
Shawn Ogg: "Er... no."
Granny Weatherwax: "What's the curly thing?"
Shawn Ogg: "Oh, that's the Adjustable Device for Winning Ontological Arguments. The King asked for it."
Granny Weatherwax: "Works, does it?"
Shawn Ogg: "Er... if you twiddle it properly."
* * *
"You wouldn't let [Granny Weatherwax] go off to confront monsters on a night like this, would you?"
They watched him owlishly for a while just in case something interestingly nasty was going to happen to him.
Then someone near the back said, "So why should we care what happens to monsters?"
* * *
"Would you go out alone on a night like this?" he said.
The voice at the back said, "Depends if I knew where Granny Weatherwax was."
* * *
She seemed drunk, at that stage when hitherto unconsidered things seem a good idea, like another drink.
* * *
"I still think it's a bit early to start the poor little mite on education," said Nanny, as much to take Magrat's mind off the current dangers as from a desire to strike a blow for ignorance.
* * *
The [baby's] small blue eyes focused on Nanny Ogg. The pink face on the small lolling head gave her a speculative look, working out whether she'd do as a drink or a toilet.
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "People like to see a bit of bellowing in a king. The odd belch is always popular, too. Even a bit of carousing'd help, if he could manage it. You know, quaffing and stuff."
Magrat: "I think he thinks that isn't what people want. He's very conscious of the needs of today's citizen."
Nanny Ogg:"Ah, well, I can see where there's a problem, then. People need something today but they generally need something else tomorrow. Just tell him to concentrate on bellowing and carousing."
Magrat:"And belching?"
Nanny Ogg:"That's optional."
* * *
Nanny Ogg: "It's like that chess stuff, see? Let the Queen do the fightin', 'cos if you lose the King you've lost everything."
Magrat: "And us?"
Nanny Ogg: "Oh, we're always all right. You remember that. We happen to other people."
* * *
"Born sicky, imhoe!"
* * *
Verence was technically an absolute ruler and would continue to be so provided he didn't make the mistake of repeatedly asking Lancrestrians to do anything they didn't want to do.
* * *
I bet she's not a natural brunette, said Perdita. And if I used that much mascara I'd at least try not to look like Harry the Happy Panda.
* * *
"This is Morbidia," said Vlad. "Although she's been calling herself Tracy lately, to be cool. Mor-- Tracy, this is Agnes."
"What a good name!' said Morbidia. "How clever of you to come up with it!"
* * *
"Once people find out you're a vampire they act as if you're some kind of monster."
* * *
Mightily Oats: "I shouldn't be singing [the hymm] at all, to be honest. The Convocation of Ee struck it from the soungbook as being incompatable with the ideals of modern Omnianism."
Granny Weatherwax: "That line about crushing infidels?"
Mightily Oats: "That's the one, yes."
Granny Weatherwax: "You sung it anyway, though."
Mightily Oats: "It's the version my grandmother taught me."
Granny Weatherwax: "She was keen on crushing infidels?"
Mightily Oats: "Well, mainly I think she was in favour of crushing Mrs. Ahrim next door, but you've got the right idea, yes. She thought the world would be a better place with a bit more crushing and smiting."
Granny Weatherwax: "Prob'ly true."
* * *
"Bein' human means judgin' all the time," said the voice behind him. "This and that, good and bad, making choices every day. ... That's human."
"And are you so sure you make the right choices?"
"No. But I do the best I can."
* * *
Mightily Oats: "There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example."
Granny Weatherwax: "And what do they think? Against it, are they?"
Mightily Oats: "It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey."
Granny Weatherwax: "Nope."
Mightily Oats: "Pardon?"
Granny Weatherwax: "There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
Mightily Oats: "It's a lot more complicated than that--"
Granny Weatherwax: "No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."
Mightily Oats: "Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes--"
Granny Weatherwax: "But they starts with thinking about people as things..."
* * *
"But you read a lot of books, I'm thinking. Hard to have faith, ain't it, when you've read too many books?"
* * *
Mightily Oats: "Many people find faith a great solace."
Granny Weatherwax: "Good."
Mightily Oats: "Really? Somehow I thought you'd argue."
Granny Weatherwax: "It's not my place to tell 'em what to believe, if they act decent."
Mightily Oats: "But it's not something that you feel drawn to, perhaps, in the darker hours?"
Granny Weatherwax: "No. I've already got a hot water bottle."
* * *
"I think [Igor's] a bit of a romantic, actually," said Magrat.
"Oh, I don't know, I really don't," said Nanny. "I mean, it's flattering and everything, but I really don't think I could be goin' out with a man with a limp."
"Limp what?"
Nanny Ogg had always considered herself unshockable, but there's no such thing. Shocks can come from unexpected directions.
"I am a married woman," said Magrat, smiling at her expression.
* * *
"But now I understand what your jokes were about."
"What, all of them?" said Nanny, like someone who'd found all the aces removed from their favourite pack of cards.
"Well, not the one about the priest, the old woman and the rhinoceros."
"I should just about hope so!" said Nanny. "I didn't understand that one until I was forty!"
* * *
"You've got -- bits of people stored on ice?" said Nanny, horrified. "Bits of strange people? Chopped up? I'm not taking another step!"
Now Igor looked horrified.
"Not thtrangerth," he said. "Family."
"You chopped up your family?" Nanny backed away.
Igor waved his hands frantically.
"It's a tradithion!" he said. "Every Igor leaveth hith body to the family! Why wathte good organth? Look at my Uncle Igor, he died of buffaloeth, tho there wath a perfectly good heart and thome kidneyth going begging, pluth he'd thtill got Grandad'th handth and they were damn good handth, let me tell you."
-- Organ donor program, Discworld style
* * *
"'scuse me," said Nanny. "What did you say your uncle died of?"
"Buffaloth," said Igor, unlocking another door.
"He broke out in them?"
"A herd fell on him. A freak acthident."
* * *
"Sorry, are you telling us you do surgery on yourself?" said Magrat.
"It'th not hard when you know what you're doing. Thometimeth you need a mirror, of courth, and it helpth if thomeone can put a finger on the knotth."
"Isn't it painful?"
"Oh, no. I alwayth tell them to take it away jutht before I pull the thtring tight."
* * *
There was a woof from the darkness and something leaped at Igor, knocking him off his feet.
"Get off, you big thoppy!"
It was a dog. Or several dogs rolled, as it were, into one. There were four legs, and they were nearly all the same length although not, Magrat noted, all the same colour. There was one head, although the left ear was black and pointed while the right ear was brown and white and flopped. It was a very enthusiastic animal in the department of slobber.
"Thith ith Thcrapth," said Igor, fighting to get to his feet in a hail of excited paws. "He'th a thilly old thing."
"Scraps ... yes," said Nanny. "Good name."
* * *
"Oh, I put a metal plate in my head," said Igor. "And a wire down my neck all the way to my bootth. I got fed up with all thothe lightning thtriketh."
* * *
Scraps tried to lick Igor. He was a dog with a lot of lick to spare.
* * *
"What about weapons?" she said. "I shouldn't think there'd be any anti-vampire stuff in a vampire's castle, would there?"
"Why, thertainly," said Igor.
"There is?"
"Ath much ath you want. The old marthter wath very keen on that. When we had vithitorth ecthpected, he alwayth thed, 'Igor, make thertain the windowth are clean and there'th lotth of lemonth and bitth of ornamentth that can be turned into religiouth thymbolth around the place.' He enjoyed it when people played by the ruleth."
* * *
Another cupboard revealed a rack of stakes, along with a mallet and a simple anatomical diagram with an X over the heart area.
"The chart wath my idea, Mithith Ogg," said Igor proudly. "The old marthter got fed up with people just hammering the thtaketh in any old where. He thed he didn't mind the dying, that wath quite rethtful, but he did object to looking like a colander."
* * *
...the old chieftans of Lancre reckoned to be buried with their weapons in order to fight their enemies in the next world, and since you didn't become a chieftan of ancient Lancre without sending a great many enemies to the next world, they liked to take weapons that could be relied upon to last.
* * *
"'Return Of The Bride Of The Revenge Of The Son Of Count Magpyr'"
* * *
Agnes: "Vampires have a lot of cash, do they?"
Vlad: "Well, the family has always owned land. The money mounts up, you know. Over the centuries. And obviously we've not enjoyed a particularly active social life."
Agnes: "Or spent much on food."
* * *
As the mayor turned back, he met Agnes' stare. She looked away, not wanting to see that expression. People were good at imagining hells, and some they occupied while they were alive.
* * *
"Oh," said the Countess, "you know so much about wisdom all of a sudden and you're barely two hundred?"
* * *
"Why don't you just crawl back into your coffin and rot, you slimy little maggot," Agnes said. It wasn't that good, but impromptu insults are seldom well crafted.
* * *
[The church] had replaced swords with sermons, which at least caused fewer deaths except in the case of the really very long ones...
* * *
"My god, Mistress Weatherwax, you try me sorely."
"Your god, Mister Oats, tries everyone. That's what gods generally does, and that's why I don't truck with 'em."
* * *
"There have to be rules, Mistress Weatherwax."
"And what's the first one that your Om requires, then?"
"That believers should worship n other god but Om," said Oats promptly.
"Oh yes? That's gods for you. Very self-centred, as a rule."
* * *
"You say that you people don't burn folk and sacrifice people any more, but that's what true faith would mean, y'see? Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathin' the soul of it. That's religion. Anything else is just ... is just bein' nice. And a way of keeping in touch with the neighbors."
* * *
"We don't mind the werewolves," he went on, to general agreement. "They leave us alone most of the time because we don't run fast enough to be interesting."
* * *
He was trying to find some help in the ancient military journals of General Tacticus, whose intelligent campaigning had been so successful that he'd lent his very name to the detailed prosecution of martial endeavour, and had actually found a section headed What to Do If One Army Occupies a Well-fortified and Superior Ground and the Other Does Not, but since the first sentence read "Endeavour to be the one inside" he'd rather lost heart.
* * *
He stopped as a sound rolled out across the countryside. It had a hoarse, primal quality, the sound of an animal who is in pain but also intends to pass it on as soon as possible.
* * *
After a few seconds the main doors burst open and the soldiers ran out. The first one was smacked between the eyes by a ballistic king.
* * *
They're going to kill the vampires, [Perdita] said, and the children will watch.
Good, thought Agnes, that's exactly right.
Perdita was horrified. It'll give them nightmares!
No, thought Agnes. It'll take the nightmares away. Sometimes everyone has to know the monster is dead, and remember, so that they can tell their grandchildren.
* * *
It shattered on the bridge, and most of the contents hit a vampire, who burst into flame as if hit by burning oil.
"Now really, Cryptopher, here's no call for that sort of thing," said the Count, as the blazing figure screamed and spun around in a circle. "It's all in your mind, you know."
* * *
"I've never been one to put myself forward," said the Countess, "but I strongly suggest a new plan, dear. One which works, perhaps?"
* * *
Igor had two thumbs on his right hand. If something was useful, he always said, you may as well add another.
* * *
Igor: "...I gave him a thpare arm after the acthe acthident a few yearth ago and when old Mr. Thwenitth'th liver gave out I let him have the one Mr. Kochak left to me for giving Mithith Kochak a new eye."
Nanny Ogg: "People round here don't so much die as pass on."
Igor: "What goeth around cometh around."
* * *
Lacrimosa: "And your new plan is...?"
Count Magpyr: "We'll kill everyone. Not an original plan, I know, but tried and tested."
Lacrimosa: "What, everyone? All at once?"
Count Magpyr: "Oh, you can save some for later if you must."
* * *
The second casualty in the battle for the castle was Vargo, a lank young man who actually became a vampire because he thought he'd meet interesting girls, or any girls at all, and had been told he looked good in black. And then he'd found that a vampire's interests always centre, sooner or later, on the next meal, and hitherto he'd never really thought of the neck as the most interesting organ a girl could have.
* * *
"It's not a magic amulet, Mistress Weatherwax! Please! a magic amulet is a symbol of primitive and mechanistic superstition, whereas the Turtle of Om is ... is ... is ... Well, it's not, do you understand?"
* * *
Mightily Oats: "What? You want me to knock on the door? Of a vampire's castle?"
Granny Weatherwax: "We're not going to sneak in, are we? Anyway, You Omnians are good at knocking on doors."
Mightily Oats: "Well, yes, but normally just for a shared prayer and to interest people in our pamphlets, not to have my throat ripped out!"
Granny Weatherwax: "Think of this as a particularly difficult street."
* * *
"Give me a couple more stakes."
"Run out of thtaketh, Nanny."
"Okay, then, pass me a bottle of holy water ... Hurry up..."
"None left, Nanny."
"We've got nothing?"
"Got'n orange, Nanny."
"What for?"
"Run out of lemonth."
"What good will an orange do if I hit a vampire in the mouth with it?" said Nanny, eyeing the approaching creatures.
Igor scratched his head. "Well, I thuppothe they won't catch coldth tho eathily..."
* * *
"And to think I thought [the phoenix] was an allegorical creature," said the priest.
"Well? Even allegories have to live," said Granny Weatherwax.
* * *
Vampires are not naturally co-operative creatures. It's not in their nature. Every other vampire is a rival for the next meal. In fact, the ideal situation for a vampire is a world in which every other vampire has been killed off and no one seriously believes in vampires any more. They are by nature as co-operative as sharks.
Vampyres are just the same, the only real difference being that they can't spell correctly.
* * *
There's no point in having underlings if you don't let them be the first to go through suspicious doors.
* * *
"Be resolute, my dear," said the Count. "Remember -- that which does not kill us can only make us stronger."
"And that which does kill us leaves us dead!" snarled Lacrimosa.
* * *
"Oh, this is Igor," said Nanny. "A man of many parts."
* * *
Magrat grabbed the baby and stepped backwards, her other hand raised.
"You come near me and I'll stab you with this!" she shouted.
"It's a teddybear," said the Count. "I'm afraid it wouldn't work, even if you sharpened it."
* * *
The door was so hard that the wood was like stone with a grain. Someone had once thought hard about the maximum amount of force a really determined mob would be able to apply, and had then overdesigned.
* * *
"They've killed Thcrapth! The bathtardth!"
* * *
"Don't you go smarming me!" snapped Nanny, pushing her way through the bewildered crowd. "I'm fed up with you smarming at me smarmily as if you were Mister Smarm!"
* * *
"Oh, don't blame yourself, Mrs. Ogg. I'm sure others will do that for you--"
* * *
"...threatening little babieth now ... you never done that ... only adventurouth femaleth overthe age of theventeen and looking good in a nightie, you alwayth thed..."
* * *
"You'd like a vampire queen one day, would you?" said Lacrimosa.
"Had one once, in Lancre," said Granny conversationally. "Poor woman got bitten by one of you people. Got by on blue steak and such. Never laid a tooth on anyone, the way I heard it. Griminir the Impaler, she was."
"The Impaler?"
"Oh, I just said she wasn't a bloodsucker. I never said she was a nice person."
* * *
"I ain't been vampired. You've been Weatherwaxed."
* * *
"Another bloody vampire?" said Nanny.
"Not any old vampire," said Igor, hopping from one foot to the other. "It'th the old mathter! Old Red Eyeth ith back!"
* * *
"We are vampires. We cannot help what we are."
"Only animals can't help what they are," said Granny.
* * *
"That's a familiar voice," said the vampire. "Are you a Veyzen?"
"Yessir."
"Related to Arno Veyzen?"
"Great-granddaddy, sir."
"Good man. Killed me stone dead seventy-five years ago. Stake right through the heart from twenty paces. You should be proud."
The man in the crowd beamed with ancestral pride.
"We've still got the stake hung up over the fireplace, yer honour," he said.
"Well done. Good man."
* * *
Oats held his axe before him ax if it was made of some rare and delicate metal.
"Begone, foul fiend--" he began.
"Oh, dear me," said the Count, thrusting the axe aside. "And don't you learn anything, you stupid man? Little stupid man who has a little stupid faith in a little stupid god?"
"But it ... lets me see things as they are," Oats managed.
"Really? And you think you can stand in my way? An axe isn't even a holy symbol!"
"Oh." Oats looked crestfallen. Agnes saw his shoulders sag as he lowered the blade.
Then he looked up, smiled brightly and said, "Let's make it so."
* * *
"People need vampires," she said. "They helps 'em remember what stakes and garlic are for."
* * *
"I do apologize for my nephew's behaviour. Quite out of keeping from a vampire. Would you people from Escrow like to kill these two? It's the least I could do."
* * *
"And what do three hundred magpies mean?"
"They means it's time to put covers on all the furniture," said Nanny.
* * *
"Why didn't she just let us wipe them out?" hissed Piotr by Agnes's ear. "Death's too good for them!"
"Yes," said Agnes. "I suppose that's why she didn't let them have it."
* * *
"That'll be the King," said Granny. "Big Aggie's given him some of her brose, by the sound of it. He'll save the day."
"Er ... hasn't the day been saved?"
"Oh, he's the King. It looks like it might be a nice day, so let him save it. You've got to give kings something to do."
* * *
Jason Ogg was very big and very strong and, therefore, not a violent man, because he did not need to be. Sometimes he was summoned down to the pub to sort out the more serious fights, which he usually did by picking up both contestants and holding them apart until they stopped struggling. If that didn't work, he'd bang them together a few times, in as friendly a way as possible.
* * *
Granny Weatherwax had a primal snore. It had never been tamed. No one had ever had to sleep next to it, to curb its wilder excesses by means of a kick, a prod in the small of the back or a pillow used as a bludgeon. It had had years in a lonely bedroom to perfect the knark, the graaah and the gnoc, gnoc, gnoc unimpeded by the nudges, jabs and occasional attempts at murder that usually moderate the snore impulse over time.
* * *
"Well, be seeing you, Igor. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do."
* * *
The [sermon] singing wasn't very enthusiastic, though, until Oats tossed aside the noisome songbook and taught them some of the songs he remembered from his grandmother, full of fire and thunder and death and justice and tunes you could actually whistle ... Lancre people weren't too concerned about religion, but they knew what it ought to sound like.
* * *
The collection plate produced two pennies, some carrots, a large onion, a small loaf, a pound of mutton, a jug of milk and a pickled pig's trotter.
"We're not really a cash economy," said King Verence, stepping forward.
* * *
He was interested in how annoyed you could make Nanny by speaking calmly to her, and wondered if Granny Weatherwax had tried it.
* * *
[Death] wasn't used to this. It wasn't that people weren't sometimes glad to see him, because the penultimate moments of life were often crowded and complex and a cool figure in black came as something of a relief. But he'd never encountered quite this amount of enthusiasm, or, if it came to it, this amount of flying mucus.