'How's the old cottage?'
'There's a lot of mice,' said Agnes.
'I know. I used to feed them. Don't tell Granny. She's here, isn't she?'
'Haven't seen her yet,' said Agnes.
'Ah, she'll be waiting for a dramatic moment,' said Magrat. 'And you know what? I've never caught her actually waiting for a dramatic moment, not in all the, well, things we've been involved in. I mean, if it was you or me, we'd be hanging around in the hall or something, but she just walks in and it's the right time.'
'She says you make your own right time,' said Agnes.
'Yes,' said Magrat.
'Yes,' said Agnes.
'And you say she's not here yet? It was the first card we did!' Magrat leaned closer. 'Verence got them to put extra gold leaf on it. I'm amazed it doesn't go clang when she puts it down. How are you at making the tea?'
'They always complain,' said Agnes.
'They do, don't they? Three lumps of sugar for Nanny Ogg, right?'
'It's not as if they even give me tea money,' said Agnes. She sniffed. There was a slight mustiness to the air.
'It's not worth baking biscuits, I can tell you that,' said Magrat. 'I used to spend hours doing fancy ones with crescent moons and so on. You might just as well get them from the shop.'
She sniffed too. 'That's not the baby,' she said. 'I'm sure Shawn Ogg's been so busy arranging things he hasn't had time to dean up the privy pit the last two weeks. The smell comes right up the garderobe in the Gong Tower when the wind gusts. I've tried hanging up fragrant herbs but they sort of dissolve.'
She looked uncertain, as if a worse prospect than lax castle sani-tation had crossed her mind. 'Er... she must've got the invitation, mustn't she?'
'Shawn says he delivered it,' said Agnes. 'And she probably said,' and here her voice changed, becoming dipped and harsh, '"I can't be havin' with that at my time of life. I've never bin one to put meself forward, no one could ever say I'm one to put meself forward."'
Magrat's mouth was an O of amazement.
'That's so like her it's frightening!' she said.
'It's one of the few things I'm good at,' said Agnes, in her normal voice. 'Big hair, a wonderful personality, and an ear for sounds.' And two minds, Perdita added. 'She'll come anyway,' Agnes went on, ignoring the inner voice.
'But it's gone half eleven... Good grief, I'd better get dressed! Can you give me a hand?'
She hurried into the dressing room with Agnes tagging along behind.
'I even wrote a bit underneath asking her to be a godmother,' she said, sitting down in front of the mirror and scrabbling among the debris of makeup. 'She's always secretly wanted to be one.'
'That's something to wish on a child,' said Agnes, without thinking.
Magrat's hand stopped halfway to her face, in a little.cloud of powder, and Agnes saw her horrified look in the mirror. Then the jaw tightened, and for a moment the Queen had just the same expression that Granny sometimes employed.
'Well, if it was a choice of wishing a child health, wealth and happiness, or Granny Weatherwax being on her side, I know which I'd choose,' said Magrat. 'You must have seen her in action.'
'Once or twice, yes,' Agnes conceded.
'She'll never be beaten,' said Magrat. 'You wait till you see her when she's in a tight corner. She's
got that way of... putting part of herself somewhere safe. It's as if... as if she gives herself to someone else to keep hidden for a while. It's all part of that Borrowing stuff she does.'
Agnes nodded. Nanny had warned her about it but, even so, it was unnerving to turn up at Granny's cottage and find her stretched out on the floor as stiff as a stick and holding, in fingers that were almost blue, a card with the words: I ATE'NT DEAD.[5] It just meant that she was out in the world somewhere, seeing life through the eyes of a badger or a pigeon, riding as an unheeded passenger in its mind.
'And you know what?' Magrat went on. 'It's just like those magicians in Howondaland who keep their heart hidden in a jar somewhere, for safety, so they can't be killed. There's something about it in a book at the cottage.'