'A man came to see me last week to ask if I wanted to pay any taxes,' said Magrat. 'I told him no.'
'He came to see me, too,' said Nanny Ogg. 'But our Jason and our Wane went out and tole him we didn't want to join.'
'Small man, bald, black cloak?' said Granny thoughtfully.
'Yes,' said the other two.
'He was hanging about in my raspberry bushes,' said Granny. 'Only, when I went out to see what he wanted, he ran away.'
'Actually, I gave him tuppence,' said Magrat. 'He said he was going to be tortured, you see, if he didn't get witches to pay their taxes . . .'
Lord Felmet looked carefully at the two coins in his lap.
Then he looked at his tax gatherer.
'Well?' he said.
The tax gatherer cleared his throat. 'Well, sir, you see. I explained about the need to employ a standing army, ekcetra, and they said why, and I said because of bandits, ekcetra, and they said bandits never bothered them.'
'And civil works?'
'Ah. Yes. Well, I pointed out the need to build and maintain bridges, ekcetra.'
'And?'
'They said they didn't use them.'
'Ah,' said the duke knowledgeably. 'They can't cross running water.'
'Not sure about that, sir. I think witches cross anything they like.'
'Did they say anything else?' said the duke.
The tax gatherer twisted the hem of his robe distractedly.
'Well, sir. I mentioned how taxes help to maintain the King's Peace, sir . . . '
'And?'
'They said the king should maintain his own peace, sir. And then they gave me a look.'
'What sort of look?'
The duke sat with his thin face cupped in one hand. He was fascinated.
'It's sort of hard to describe,' said the taxman. He tried to avoid Lord Felmet's gaze, which was giving him the distinct impression that the tiled floor was fleeing away in all directions and had already covered several acres. Lord Felmet's fascination was to him what a pin is to a Purple Emperor.
'Try,' the duke invited.
The taxman blushed.
'Well,' he said. 'It . . . wasn't nice.'
Which demonstrates that the tax gatherer was much better at figures than words. What he would have said, if embarrassment, fear, poor memory and a complete lack of any kind of imagination hadn't conspired against it, was:
'When I was a little boy, and staying with my aunt, and she had told me not to touch the cream, ekcetra, and she had put it on a high shelf in the pantry, and I got a stool and went after it when she was out anyway, and she'd come back and I didn't know, and I couldn't reach the bowl properly and it smashed on the floor, and she opened the door and glared at me: it was that look. But the worst thing was, they knew it.'
'Not nice,' said the duke.