Lords and Ladies (Discworld 14)

These days everyone lived in the turrets and halls near the gate.

“I mean, look at the crenellations,” said Magrat.

“What, m'm?”

“The cut-out bits on top of the walls. You could hold off an army here.”

“That's what a castle's for, isn't it, m'm?”

Magrat sighed. “Can we stop the 'm'm', please? It makes you sound uncertain.”

“Mm, m'm?”

“I mean, who is there to fight up here? Not even trolls could come over the mountains, and anyone coming up the road is asking for a rock on the head. Besides, you only have to cut down Lancre bridge.”

“Dunno, m'm. Kings've got to have castles, I s'pose.”

“Don't you ever wonder about anything, you stupid girl?”

“What good does that do, m'm?”

I called her a stupid girl, thought Magrat. Royalty is rubbing off on me.

“Oh, well,” she said, “where've we got to?”

“We're going to need two thousand yards of the blue chintz material with the little white flowers,” said Millie.

“And we haven't even measured half the windows yet,” said Magrat, rolling up the tape measure.

She looked down the length of the Long Gallery. The thing about it, the thing that made it so noticeable, the first thing anyone noticed about it, was that it was very long. It shared certain distinctive traits with the Great Hall and the Deep Dungeons. Its name was a perfectly accurate description. And it would be, as Nanny Ogg would say, a bugger to carpet.

“Why? Why a castle in Lancre?” she said, mainly to herself, because talking to Millie was like talking to yourself. “We've never fought anyone. Apart from outside the tavern on a Saturday night.”

“Couldn't say, I'm sure, m'm,” said Millie.

Magrat sighed.

“Where's the king today?”

“He's opening Parliament, m'm.”

“Hah! Parliament!”

Which had been another of Verence's ideas. He'd tried to introduce Ephebian democracy to Lancre, giving the vote to everyone, or at least everyone “who be of good report and who be male and hath forty years and owneth a house[16] worth more than three and a half goats a year,” because there's no sense in being stupid about things and giving the vote to people who were poor or criminal or insane or female, who'd only use it irresponsibly. It worked, more or less, although the Members of Parliament only turned up when they felt like it and in any case no one ever wrote anything down and, besides, no one ever disagreed with whatever Verence said because he was King. What's the point of having a king, they thought, if you have to rule yourself? He should do his job, even if he couldn't spell properly. No one was asking him to thatch roofs or milk cows, were they?

“I'm bored, Millie. Bored, bored, bored. I'm going for a walk in the gardens.”

“Shall I fetch Shawn with the trumpet?”

“Not if you want to live.”

Not all the gardens had been dug up for agricultural experiments. There was, for example, the herb garden. To Magrat's expert eye it was a pretty poor herb garden, since it just contained plants that flavoured food. And at that Mrs. Scorbic's repertoire stopped short at mint and sage. There wasn't a sprig of vervain or yarrow or Old Man's Trousers anywhere in it.

And there was the famous maze or, at least, it would be a famous maze. Verence had planted it because he'd heard that stately castles should have a maze and everyone agreed that, once the bushes were a bit higher than their current height of about one foot, it would indeed be a very famous maze and people would be able to get lost in it without having to shut their eyes and bend down.

Magrat drifted disconsolately along the gravel path, her huge wide dress leaving a smooth trail.

There was a scream from the other side of the hedge, but Magrat recognized the voice. There were certain traditions in Lancre castle which she had learned.