Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

'Remember young Verence's coronation? We all got invited to the palace?' said Nanny. 'When I went to have a - to powder my nose I saw the door open, so I went in and had a bit of a bounce up and down.'

'That's treason. You can get put in prison for that,' said Granny severely, and added, 'What was it like?'

'Very comfy. Young Magrat doesn't know what she's missing. And it was a lot better than this, I don't mind saying,' said Nanny.

The basic colour was green. Green walls, green floor. There was a wardrobe and a bedside table. Even a bedside rug, which was green. The light filtered in through a window filled with greenish glass.

'Like being at the bottom of a pond,' said Granny. She swatted something. 'And there's flies everywhere!' She paused, as if thinking very hard, and said, 'Hmm ..."

'A Duc pond,' said Nanny.

There were flies everywhere. They buzzed on the window and zigzagged aimlessly back and forth across the ceiling.

'Duc pond,' Nanny repeated, because people who make that kind of joke never let well alone, 'like duck - '

'I heard,' said Granny. She flailed at a fat bluebottle.

'Anyway, you'd think there wouldn't be flies in a royal bedroom,' muttered Nanny.

'You'd think there'd be a bed, in fact,' said Granny.

Which there wasn't. What there was instead, and what was preying somewhat on their minds, was a big round wooden cover on the floor. It was about six feet across. There were convenient handles.

They walked around it. Flies rose up and hummed away.

'I'm thinking of a story,' said Granny.

'Me too,' said Nanny Ogg, her tone slightly shriller than usual. 'There was this girl who married this man and he said you can go anywhere you like in the palace but you mustn't open that door and she did and she found he'd murdered all his other ..."

Her voice trailed off.

Granny was staring hard at the cover, and scratching her chin.

'Put it like this,' said Nanny, trying to be reasonable against all odds. 'What could we possibly find under there dial's worse than we could imagine?'

They each took a handle.

Five minutes later Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg stepped outside the Duc's bedroom. Granny closed the door very quietly.

They stared at one another.

'Cor,' said Nanny, her face still pale.

'Yes,' said Granny. 'Stories!'

'I'd heard about . . . you know, people like him, but I never believed it. Yuk. I wonder what he looks like.'

'You can't tell just by lookin',' said Granny.

'It explains the flies, at any rate,' said Nanny Ogg.

She raised a hand to her mouth in horror.

'And our Magrat's down there with him!' she said. 'And you know what's going to happen. They're going to meet one another and - '

'But there's hundreds of other people,' said Granny. 'It's hardly what you'd call intimate.'

'Yes . . . but even the thought of him, you know, even touching her ... I mean, it'd be like holding a -*