Wyrd Sisters (Discworld 6)

She turned back to her notes, her heart fluttering. What was next? Ah, yes – gathering fern seed in a silk handkerchief at dawn. Goodie Whemper's tiny handwriting went on for two pages of detailed botanical instructions which, if carefully followed, resulted in the kind of love potion that had to be kept in a tightly-stoppered jar at the bottom of a bucket of iced water.

Magrat pulled open her back door. The thunder had passed, but now the first grey light of the new day was drowned in a steady drizzle. But it still qualified as dawn, and Magrat was determined.

Brambles tugging at her dress, her hair plastered against her head by the rain, she set out into the dripping forest.

The trees shook, even without a breeze.

Nanny Ogg was also out early. She hadn't been able to get any sleep anyway, and besides, she was worried about Greebo. Greebo was one of her few blind spots. While intellectually she would concede that he was indeed a fat, cunning, evil-smelling multiple rapist, she nevertheless instinctively pictured him as the small fluffy kitten he had been decades before. The fact that he had once chased a female wolf up a tree and seriously surprised a she-bear who had been innocently digging for roots didn't stop her worrying that something bad might happen to him. It was generally considered by everyone else in the kingdom that the only thing that might slow Greebo down was a direct meteorite strike. Now she was using a bit of elementary magic to follow his trail, although anyone with a sense of smell could have managed it. It had led her through the damp streets and to the open gates of the castle.

She gave the guards a nod as she went through. It didn't occur to either of them to stop her because witches, like beekeepers and big gorillas, went where they liked. In any case, an elderly lady banging a bowl with a spoon was probably not the spearhead of an invasion force.

Life as a castle guard in Lancre was extremely boring. One of them, leaning on his spear as Nanny went past, wished there could be some excitement in his job. He will shortly learn the error of his ways. The other guard pulled himself together, and saluted.

'Mornin', Mum.'

'Mornin', our Shawn,' said Nanny, and set off across the inner courtyard.

Like all witches Nanny Ogg had an aversion to front doors. She went around the back and entered the keep via the kitchens. A couple of maids curtsied to her. So did the head housekeeper, whom Nanny Ogg vaguely recognised as a daughter-in-law, although she couldn't remember her name.

And so it was that when Lord Felmet came out of his bedroom he saw, coming along the passage towards him, a witch. There was no doubt about it. From the tip of her pointed hat to her boots, she was a witch. And she was coming for him.

Magrat slid helplessly down a bank. She was soaked to the skin and covered in mud. Somehow, she thought bitterly, when you read these spells you always think of it being a fine sunny morning in late spring. And she had forgotten to check what bloody kind of bloody fern it bloody was.

A tree tipped a load of raindrops on to her. Magrat pushed her sodden hair out of her eyes and sat down heavily on a fallen log, from which grew great clusters of pale and embarrassing fungus.

It had seemed such a lovely idea. She'd had great hopes of the coven. She was sure it wasn't right to be a witch alone, you could get funny ideas. She'd dreamed of wise discussions of natural energies while a huge moon hung in the sky, and then possibly they'd try a few of the old dances described in some of Goodie Whemper's books. Not actually naked, or sky clad as it was rather delightfully called, because Magrat had no illusions about the shape of her own body and the older witches seemed solid across the hems, and anyway that wasn't absolutely necessary. The books said that the old-time witches had sometimes danced in their shifts. Magrat had wondered about how you danced in shifts. Perhaps there wasn't room for them all to dance at once, she'd thought.

What she hadn't expected was a couple of crochety old women who were barely civil at the best of times and simply didn't enter into the spirit of things. Oh, they'd been kind to the baby, in their own way, but she couldn't help feeling that if a witch was kind to someone it was entirely for deeply selfish reasons.

And when they did magic, they made it look as ordinary as housekeeping. They didn't wear any occult jewellery. Magrat was a great believer in occult jewellery.

It was all going wrong. And she was going home.

She stood up, wrapped her damp dress around her, and set off through the misty woods . . .

. . . and heard the running feet. Someone was coming through them at high speed, without caring who heard him. and over the top of the sound of breaking twigs was a curious dull jingling. Magrat sidled behind a dripping holly bush and peered cautiously through the leaves.

It was Shawn, the youngest of Nanny Ogg's sons, and the metal noise was caused by his suit of chain mail, which was several sizes too big for him. Lancre is a poor kingdom, and over the centuries the chain mail of the palace guards has had to be handed down from one generation to another, often on the end of a long stick. This one made him look like a bulletproof bloodhound.

She stepped out in front of him.

'Is that you, Mss Magrat?' said Shawn, raising the flap of mail that covered his eyes. 'It's mam!'

'What's happened to her?'

'He's locked her up! Said she was coming to poison him! And I can't get down to the dungeons to see because there's all new guards! They say she's been put in chains—' Shawn frowned – 'and that means something horrible's going to happen. You know what she's like when she loses her temper. We'll never hear the last of it, miz.'

'Where were you going?' demanded Magrat.

To fetch our Jason and our Wane and our Darron and our—'

'Wait a moment.'

'Oh, Mss Magrat, suppose they try to torture her? You know what a tongue she's got on her when she gets angry—'

'I'm thinking,' said Magrat.

'He's put his own bodyguards on the gates and everything—'