“A ruff, m'm. Um. They're all the rage in Sto Helit, my brother says.”
“You mean they make people angry? And what's this?”
“Brocade, I think.”
“It's like cardboard. Do I have to wear this sort of thing every day?”
“Don't know, I'm sure, m'm.”
“But Verence just trots around in leather gaiters and an old jacket!”
“Ah, but you're queen. Queens can't do that sort of thing. Everyone knows that, m'm. It's all right for kings to go wandering around with their arse half out their trous-”
She rammed her hand over her mouth.
“It's all right,” said Magrat. “I'm sure even kings have . . . tops to their legs just like everyone else. Just go on with what you were saying.”
Millie had gone bright red.
“I mean, I mean, I mean, queens has got to be ladylike,” she managed. “The king got books about it. Etti-quetty and stuff.”
Magrat surveyed herself critically in the mirror.
“It really suits you, your soon-going-to-be-majesty,” said Millie.
Magrat turned this way and that.
“My hair's a mess,” she said, after a while.
“Please m'm, the king said he's having a hairdresser come all the way from Ankh-Morpork, m'm. For the wedding.”
Magrat patted a tress into place. It was beginning to dawn on her that being a queen was a whole new life.
“My word,” she said. “And what happens now?”
“Dunno, m'm.”
“What's the king doing?”
“Oh, he had breakfast early and buggered off over to Slice to show old Muckloe how to breed his pigs out of a book.”
“So what do I do? What's my job?”
Millie looked puzzled although this did not involve much of a change in her general expression.
“Dunno, m'm. Reigning, I suppose. Walking around in the garden. Holding court. Doin' tapestry. That's very popular among queens. And then. . . er. . . later on there's the royal succession. . .”
“At the moment,” said Magrat firmly, “we'll have a go at the tapestry.”
Ridcully was having difficulty with the Librarian.
“I happen to be your Archchancellor, sir!”
“Oook.”
“You'll like it up there! Fresh air! Bags of trees! More woods than you can shake a stick at!”
“Oook!”