Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

Magrat peered through the window into the saloon. 'What's she doin' now?' hissed Nanny Ogg.

'She's grinning again,' said Magrat.

Nanny Ogg shook her head. 'Eggo,' she said.

Granny Weatherwax had that method of play that has reduced professional gamblers to incoherent rage throughout the multiverse.

She held her cards tightly cupped in her hands a few inches from her face, allowing the merest fraction of each one to protrude. She glared at them as if daring them to offend her. And she never seemed to take her eyes off them, except to watch the dealing.

And she took far too long. And she never, ever, took risks.

After twenty-five minutes she was down one dollar and Mister Frank was sweating. Granny had already helpfully pointed out three times that he'd accidentally dealt cards off the bottom of the deck, and she'd asked for another pack 'because, look, this one's got all little marks on the back.'

It was her eyes, that was what it was. Twice he'd folded on a perfectly good three-card Onion only to find that she'd been holding a lousy double Bagel. Then the third time, thinking he'd worked out her play, he'd called her out and run a decent flush right into the maw of a five-card Onion that the old bag must have been patiently constructing for ages. And then - his knuckles went white - and then the dreadful, terrible hag had said, 'Have I won? With all these little cards? Gorsh - aren't I the lucky one!'

And then she started humming when she looked at her cards. Normally, the three of them would have welcomed this sort of thing. The teeth tappers, the eyebrow raisers, the ear rubbers - they were as good as money in the sock under the mattress, to a man who knew how to read such things. But the appalling old crone was as transparent as a lump of coal. And the humming was . . . insistent. You found yourself trying to follow the tune. It made your teeth tingle. Next thing you were glumly watching while she laid down a measly Broken Flush in front of your even more measly two-card Onion and said, 'What, is it me again?'

Mister Frank was desperately trying to remember how to play cards without his sleeve device, a handy mirror and a marked deck. In the teeth of a hum like a fingernail down a blackboard.

It wasn't as if the ghastly old creature even knew how to play properly.

After an hour she was four dollars ahead and when she said, 'I am a lucky girl!' Mister Frank bit through his tongue.

And then he got a natural Great Onion. There was no realistic way to beat a Great Onion. It was something that happened to you once or twice in a lifetime.

She folded! The old bitch folded! She abandoned one blasted dollar and she folded!

Magrat peered through the window again.

'What's happening?' said Nanny.

'They all look very angry.'

Nanny took off her hat and removed her pipe. She lit it and tossed the match overboard. 'Ah. She'll be humming, you mark my words. She's got a very annoying hum, has Esme.' Nanny looked satisfied. 'Has she started cleaning out her ear yet?'

'Don't think so.'

'No-one cleans out her ear like Esme.'

She was cleaning out her ear!

It was done in a very ladylike way, and the daft old baggage probably wasn't even aware she was doing it. She just kept inserting her little finger in her ear and swivelling it around. It made a noise like a small pool cue being chalked.

It was displacement activity, that's what it was. They all cracked in the end . . .

She folded again! And it had taken him bloody five bloody minutes to put together a bloody double Onion!

'I remember,' said Nanny Ogg, 'when she come over our house for the party when King Verence got crowned and we played Chase My Neighbour Up the Passage with the kiddies for ha'pennies. She accused Jason's youngest of cheating and sulked for a week afterwards.'

'Was he cheating?'

'I expect so,' said Nanny proudly. 'The trouble with Esme is that she don't know how to lose. She's never had much practice.'

'Lobsang Dibbler says sometimes you have to lose in order to win,' said Magrat.

'Sounds daft to me,' said Nanny. 'That's Yen Buddhism, is it?'

'No. They're the ones who say you have to have lots of money to win,' said Magrat.* 'In the Path of the Scorpion, the way to win is to lose every fight except the last one. You use the enemy's strength against himself.'