“Are you saying,” said Ridcully, “that getting robbed is included in the price?”
“Bandits' Guild,” said the coachman. “Forty dollars per head, see. It's a kind of flat rate.”
“What happens if we don't pay it?” said Ridcully.
“You end up flat.”
The wizards went into a huddle.
“We've got a hundred and fifty dollars,” said Ridcully. “We can't get any more out of the safe because the Bursar ate the key yesterday”
“Can I try an idea, sir?” said Ponder.
“All right.”
Ponder gave the coachman a bright smile.
“Pets travel free?” he suggested.
“Oook?”
Nanny Ogg's broomstick skimmed a few feet above the forest paths, cornering so fast that her boots scraped through the leaves. She leapt off at Granny Weather-wax's cottage so quickly that she didn't switch it off, and it kept going until it stuck in the privy.
o;Jason Ogg, I wants a word with you.”
The smithy emptied like magic. It was probably something in Nanny Ogg's tone of voice. But Nanny reached out and grabbed one man by the arm as he tried to go past at a sort of stumbling crouch.
“I'm glad I've run into you, Mr. Quarney,” she said. “Don't rush off. Store doing all right, is it?”
Lancre's only storekeeper gave her the look a threelegged mouse gives an athletic cat. Nevertheless, he tried.
“Oh, terrible bad, terrible bad business is right now, Mrs. Ogg.”
“Same as normal, eh?”
Mr. Quarney's expression was pleading. He knew he wasn't going to get out without something, he just wanted to know what it was.
“Well, now,” said Nanny, “you know the widow Scrope, lives over in Slice?”
Quarney's mouth opened.
“She's not a widow,” he said. “She-”
“Bet you half a dollar?” said Nanny.
Quarney's mouth stayed open, and around it the rest of his face recomposed itself in an expression of fascinated horror.
“So she's to be allowed credit, right, until she gets the farm on its feet,” said Nanny, in the silence. Quarney nodded mutely.
“That goes for the rest of you men listening outside the door,” said Nanny, raising her voice. “Dropping a cut of meat on her doorstep once a week wouldn't come amiss, eh? And she'll probably want extra help come harvest. I knows I can depend on you all. Now, off you go. . .”
They ran for it, leaving Nanny Ogg standing triumphantly in the doorway.
Jason Ogg looked at her hopelessly, a fifteen-stone man reduced to a four-year-old boy.
“Jason?”
“I got to do this bit of brazing for old-”