The Shepherd's Crown (Discworld 41)

Shrucker sat down heavily on a chest brimming with bristles.fn2 ‘It’s funny you should suggest obs,’ he said slowly. ‘My lumbago is giving me gyp. Comes with the job, you know. Can you do something about that?’

‘All right, then,’ said Tiffany. ‘Just stay there.’ And she walked behind him. He shifted around a bit, then sat up straight with a look of amazement on his face.

‘Oh my, how did you do that?’

‘I’ve taken away your pain,’ Tiffany explained. ‘So now it’s my pain. And I have to congratulate you for dealing with it, for it is, I must say, very bad. And now I’ve got it hovering in the air, like a dog on a leash.’ The dwarfs automatically looked over her head, just in case there was some kind of big bubble up there marked ‘pain’, but all that happened was that a big drop of some oily substance fell right into Dave’s beard.

‘Is there a stonemason in these arches?’ Tiffany asked, watching the dwarf whip off his helmet and rummage through the beard. ‘If he needs some rocks split, I can use this pain to break them up!’ She looked appreciatively at the helmet. ‘But that would do,’ she added, and as Dave put it down on the ground, she shot the pain into the iron, which to the dwarf’s horror actually buckled, steam shooting up to mingle with the steam from the railways above.

The obs were paid. So, his pain gone, Shrucker – a new, upright, lively Shrucker – was now whipping out his measures. He eyed up both Geoffrey and the old stick as he worked his own form of magic.

‘How do you dress, sir?’ he asked at one point.

Geoffrey was puzzled. ‘I usually dress looking out of the window,’ he said.

There was a little hiatus as the dwarfs told Geoffrey what ‘dressing’ meant in the circumstances.

‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘I never thought about it before.’

Shrucker laughed and said, ‘Well, that’s about it. All down to me now, but I daresay that if you come back sometime tomorrow, I will have it working a treat.’

They left the dwarfs and Tiffany told Geoffrey they would now be visiting Mrs Proust, a witch who loved living in the city. She headed for the elderly witch’s shop, Boffo’s Novelty and Joke Emporium on Tenth Egg Street. It would be an education for Geoffrey anyway, Tiffany thought. If he decided to follow the witching path, well, he might also need Boffo’s at some point – a lot of the younger witches liked Mrs Proust’s artificial skulls, cauldrons and warts to give them the right image for the job. To someone in need, someone punched so far down that it might seem there was no getting up again, well, a witch with the right look could make all the difference. It helped them to believe.

Mrs Proust – a witch who had no need to add nasty witch accessories to her everyday look, given that she had been naturally blessed with the right kind of hooked nose, messy hair and blackened teeth – heard the novelty graveyard groan of the door opening and came over to greet them.

Tiffany laughed. ‘That’s a new one,’ she said.

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘Can’t keep them on the shelves. Nice to see you, Mistress Aching, and who’s this young man, may I ask?’

‘This is Geoffrey, Mrs Proust, and we’re in the city to fit him up for a witch’s broomstick.’

‘Are you indeed? A boy? A witch? On a broomstick?’

‘Well,’ said Tiffany, ‘the Archchancellor uses a broomstick sometimes.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Proust, ‘but there might be trouble.’

‘Well, if there is,’ said Tiffany, ‘the trouble will come to me. I am the chosen successor to Granny Weatherwax, and I think it could be time for a few little changes.’

‘Well done,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘That’s the spirit!’ She looked at Geoffrey, who was engrossed in the display of naughty doggy-dos. And then and there she loomed close to him, put a clawed hand on his shoulder, and said to him, ‘So you want to be a witch, do you?’

Geoffrey stood his ground well, and Tiffany was impressed. So was Mrs Proust.

‘Well, mistress,’ he said, ‘I think I can help witches anyway.’

‘Do you?’ said Mrs Proust with a glint in her eye. ‘We shall see, young man, won’t we?’ She turned back to Tiffany. ‘I am sure there will be some witches who will hate the idea,’ she said, ‘but it is your way, Tiffany, your time. And Esme Weatherwax was no fool. She could see the future coming.’

‘We’re staying in Ankh-Morpork until the dwarfs have finished with Geoffrey’s stick,’ Tiffany said. ‘Can we stop here? We might need to stay overnight.’

Mrs Proust grinned. ‘Well, there is plenty of space in my spare room, and it would be good to have a chinwag while you are here.’ She looked at Geoffrey. ‘Have you been to the city before, young man?’

‘No, Mrs Proust,’ he replied quietly. ‘We lived in the Shires, and my father was the only one to travel.’

‘Well then, my son Derek will show you around,’ Mrs Proust said, sounding satisfied. She followed this up with a shout for the lad, and Derek – the sort of lad you wouldn’t notice in a crowd of two, meaning that he shared very little in common with his mother’s looks – came stumbling up the stairs from the workshop below.

Ankh-Morpork, Tiffany thought, would definitely be an education.

As the two lads left, Mrs Proust said, ‘So how are things going with your young man then, Tiffany?’