“The king said perhaps you could both ride around a bit. Maybe as far as Bad Ass, he said. With Shawn Ogg as a military escort. So people can wave and shout hooray. And then come back here.”
Magrat put on her dressing gown and crossed to the tower window. She could see down over the outer walls and into Lancre town square, which was already quite full of people. It would have been a market day in any case, but people were erecting benches as well and the Maypole was already up. There were even a few dwarfs and trolls, politely maintaining a distance from one another.
“I just saw a monkey walk across the square,” said
Magrat.
“The whole world's coming to Lancre!” said Millie, who had once been as far as Slice.
Magrat caught sight of the distant picture of herself and her fiance.
“This is stupid,” she said to herself, but Millie heard her and was shocked.
“What can you mean, ma'am?”
Magrat spun around.
“All this! For me!”
Millie backed away in sudden fright.
“I'm just Magrat Garlick! Kings ought to marry princesses and duchesses and people like that! People who are used to it! I don't want people shouting hooray just because I've gone by in a coach! And especially not people who've known me all my life! All this - this,” her frantic gesture took in the hated garderobe, the huge four-poster bed, and the dressing room full of stiff and expensive clothes, “this stuff . . . it's not for me! It's for some kind of idea. Didn't you ever get those cut-outs, those dolls, you know, when you were a girl . . . dolls you cut out, and there were cut-out clothes as well? And you could make her anything you wanted? That's me! It's . . . it's like the bees! I'm being turned into a queen whether I want to or not! That's what's happening to me!”
“I'm sure the king bought you all those nice clothes because-”
“I don't mean just clothes. I mean people'd be shouting hooray if - if anyone went past in the coach!”
“But you were the one who fell in love with the king, ma'am,” said Millie, bravely.
Magrat hesitated for a moment. She'd never quite analysed that emotion. Eventually she said, “No. He wasn't king then. No one knew he was going to be king. He was just a sad, nice little man in a cap and bells who everyone ignored.”
Millie backed away a bit more.
“I expect it's nerves, ma'am,” she gabbled. “Everyone feels nervous on the day before their wedding. Shall I . . . shall I see if I can make you some herbal-”
“I'm not nervous! And I can do my own herbal tea if I happen to want any!”
“Cook's very particular who goes into the herb garden, ma'am,” said Millie.
“I've seen that herb garden! It's all leggy sage and yellowy parsley! If you can't stuff it up a chicken's bum, she doesn't think it's an herb! Anyway . . . who's queen in this vicinity?”
“I thought you didn't want to be, ma'am?” said Millie.
Magrat stared at her. For a moment she looked as if she was arguing with herself.
Millie might not have been the best-informed girl in the world, but she wasn't stupid. She was at the door and through it just as the breakfast tray hit the wall.
Magrat sat down on the bed with her head in her hands.
She didn't want to be queen. Being a queen was like being an actor, and Magrat had never been any good at acting. She'd always felt she wasn't very good at being Magrat, if it came to that.
The bustle of the pre-nuptial activities rose up from the town. There'd be folk dancing, of course - there seemed to be no way of preventing it - and probably folk singing would be perpetrated. And there'd be dancing bears and comic jugglers and the greasy pole competition, which for some reason Nanny Ogg always won. And bowling-with-a-pig. And the bran tub, which Nanny Ogg usually ran; it was a brave man who plunged his hand into a bran tub stocked by a witch with a broad sense of humour. Magrat had always liked the fairs. Up until now.
Well, there were still some things she could do.
She dressed herself in her commoner's clothes for the ' last time, and let herself out and down the back stairs to the widdershins tower and the room where Diamanda lay
Magrat had instructed Shawn to keep a good fire going in the grate, and Diamanda was still sleeping, peacefully, the unwakeable sleep.