'Oh, we've got to create the right magical ambience,' she explained. Granny shrugged, but said nothing, even in the face of the extreme provocation. All witches did their magic in their own way, and this was Magrat's house.
'What're we going to give him, then?' said Nanny.
'We was just discussing it,' said Granny.
'I know what he'll want,' said Nanny. She made a suggestion, which was received in frozen silence.
'I don't see what use that would be,' said Magrat, eventually. 'Wouldn't it be rather uncomfortable?'
'He'll thank us when he grows up, you mark my words,' said Nanny. 'My first husband, he always said—'
'Something a bit less physical is generally the style of things,' interrupted Granny, glaring at Nanny Ogg. 'There's no need to go and spoil everything, Gytha. Why do you always have to—'
'Well, at least I can say that I—' Nanny began.
Both voices faded to a mutter. There was a long edgy silence.
'I think,' said Magrat, with brittle brightness, 'that perhaps it would be a good idea if we all go back to our little cottages and do it in our own way. You know. Separately. It's been a long day and we're all rather tired.'
!' said the duchess.
'Indeed.'
'That was how your family used to run a kingdom, was it? You had a positive duty to kill your cousin. It was clearly in the interests of the species,' said the duchess. 'The weak don't deserve to survive.'
The duke shivered. She would keep on reminding him. He didn't, on the whole, object to killing people, or at least ordering them to be killed and then watching it happen. But killing a kinsman rather stuck in the throat or – he recalled – the liver.
'Quite so,' he managed. 'Of course, there would appear to be many witches, and it might be difficult to find the three that were on the moor.'
'That doesn't matter.'
'Of course not.'
'Put matters in hand.'
'Yes, my love.'
Matters in hand. He'd put matters in hand all right. If he closed his eyes he could see the body tumbling down the steps. Had there been a hiss of shocked breath, down in the darkness of the hall? He'd been certain they were alone. Matters in hand! He'd tried to wash the blood off his hand. If he could wash the blood off, he told himself, it wouldn't have happened. He'd scrubbed and scrubbed. Scrubbed till he screamed.
Granny wasn't at home in public houses. She sat stiffly to attention behind her port-and-lemon, as if it were a shield against the lures of the world.
Nanny Ogg, on the other hand, was enthusiastically downing her third drink and, Granny thought sourly, was well along that path which would probably end up with her usual dancing on the table, showing her petticoats and singing 'The Hedgehog Can Never be Buggered at All'.
The table was covered with copper coins. Vitoller and his wife sat at either end, counting. It was something of a race.
Granny considered Mrs Vitoller as she snatched farthings from under her husband's fingers. She was an intelligent-looking woman, who appeared to treat her husband much as a sheepdog treats a favourite lamb. The complexities of the marital relationship were known to Granny only from a distance, in the same way that an astronomer can view the surface of a remote and alien world, but it had already occurred to her that a wife to Vitoller would have to be a very special woman with bottomless reserves of patience and organisational ability and nimble fingers.
'Mrs Vitoller,' she said eventually, 'may I make so bold as to ask if your union has been blessed with fruit?'
The couple looked blank.
'She means—' Nanny Ogg began.
'No, I see,' said Mrs Vitoller, quietly. 'No. We had a little girl once.'
A small cloud hung over the table. For a second or two Vitoller looked merely human-sized, and much older. He stared at the small pile of cash in front of him.
'Only, you see, there is this child,' said Granny, indicating the baby in Nanny Ogg's arms. 'And he needs a home.'