Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

'All the go, ain't it?' she said. 'Made by Mr Vernissage over in Slice. It's got willow reinforcing all the way up to the point and eighteen pockets inside. Can stop a blow with a hammer, this hat. And how about these?'

Nanny raised the hem of her skirt. She was wearing new boots. As boots, Granny Weatherwax could find nothing to complain of in them. They were of proper witch construction, which is to say that a loaded cart could have run over them without causing a dent in the dense leather. As boots, the only thing wrong with them was the colour.

'Red?' said Granny. 'That's no colour for a witch's boots!'

'I likes 'em,' said Nanny.

Granny sniffed. 'You can please yourself, I'm sure,' she said. 'I'm sure in foreign parts they goes in for all sorts of outlandish things. But you know what they say about women who wear red boots.'

'Just so long as they also say they've got dry feet,' said Nanny cheerfully. She put her door key into Jason's hand.

'I'll write you letters if you promise to find someone to read them to you,' she said.

'Yes, mum. What about the cat, mum?' said Jason.

'Oh, Greebo's coming with us,' said Nanny Ogg.

'What? But he's a cat!' snapped Granny Weatherwax. 'You can't take cats with you! I'm not going travellin' with no cat! It's bad enough travellin' with trousers and provocative boots!'

'He'll miss his mummy if he's left behind, won't he,' crooned Nanny Ogg, picking up Greebo. He hung limply, like a bag of water gripped around the middle.

To Nanny Ogg Greebo was still the cute little kitten that chased balls of wool around the floor.

To the rest of the world he was an enormous tomcat, a parcel of incredibly indestructible life forces in a skin that looked less like a fur than a piece of bread that had been left in a damp place for a fortnight. Strangers often took pity on him because his ears were non-existent and his face looked as though a bear had camped on it. They could not know that this was because Greebo, as a matter of feline pride, would attempt to fight or rape absolutely anything, up to and including a four-horse logging wagon. Ferocious dogs would whine and hide under the stairs when Greebo sauntered down the street. Foxes kept away from the village. Wolves made a detour.

'He's an old softy really,' said Nanny.

Greebo turned upon Granny Weatherwax a yellow-eyed stare of self-satisfied malevolence, such as cats always reserve for people who don't like them, and purred. Greebo was possibly the only cat who could snigger in purr.

'Anyway,' said Nanny, 'witches are supposed to like cats.'

'Not cats like him, they're not.'

'You're just not a cat person, Esme,' said Nanny, cuddling Greebo tightly.

Jason Ogg pulled Magrat aside.

'Our Scan read to me in the almanac where there's all these fearsome wild beasts in foreign parts,' he whispered.

'Huge hairy things that leap out on travellers, it said. I'd hate to think what'd happen if they leapt out on mum and Granny.'

Magrat looked up into his big red face.

'You will see no harm comes to them, won't you,' said Jason.

'Don't you worry,' she said, hoping that he needn't. 'I'll do my best.'

Jason nodded. 'Only it said in the almanac that some of them were nearly extinct anyway,' he said.

The sun was well up when the three witches spiralled into the sky. They had been delayed for a while because of the intractability of Granny Weatherwax's broomstick, the starting of which always required a great deal of galloping up and down. It never seemed to get the message until it was being shoved through the air at a frantic running speed. Dwarf engineers everywhere had confessed themselves totally mystified by it. They had replaced the stick and the bristles dozens of times.

When it rose, eventually, it was to a chorus of cheers.

The tiny kingdom of Lancre occupied little more than a wide ledge cut into the side of the Ramtop mountains. Behind it, knife-edge peaks and dark winding valleys climbed into the massive backbone of the central ranges.

In front, the land dropped abruptly to the Sto plains, a blue haze of woodlands, a broader expanse of ocean and, somewhere in the middle of it all, a brown smudge known as Ankh-Morpork.

A skylark sang, or at least started to sing. The rising point of Granny Weatherwax's hat right underneath it completely put it off the rhythm.