The Shepherd's Crown (Discworld 41)

‘Ladies,’ said Magrat to the others, trying to prepare them. ‘To be a witch is to be full of yourself – and in charge of yourself as well. It would be a good idea to watch one another when the glamour starts to take hold.’

‘Tish and pish!’ said Mrs Earwig. ‘I am my own woman, and always will be. I am a witch, whatever you might think, and I don’t deal in fairy tales.’

In a syrupy voice, Nanny Ogg said, ‘You just write them, Mrs Earwig.’

‘But not as reality,’ said Mrs Earwig. ‘That’s allowed.’

Nanny Ogg looked at her face and thought: We will see.

‘Ladies,’ asked Tiffany, ‘are you all ready?’ There were some nods and yeses, so she said, ‘Nightshade, please show us your glamour.’ And she grasped the shepherd’s crown in her pocket – this was a moment when she knew she would need to keep a strong hold on her sense of her self. Yan tan tethera, she chanted softly to herself. Yan tan tethera.

Nightshade began slowly, her foxy little dairymaid’s face filling with a shining light, with beauty, with style, and then she was suddenly the most wonderful thing in the hall.

Fantastic.

Marvellous.

Enchanting.

Terrific.

The air was thick with glamour and Tiffany could almost hear the witches fighting it. The inexperienced ones – Annagramma, Petulia and Letitia, Dimity and Harrieta – suddenly seemed flaccid, their faces like dolls.

Petulia – like many of the other witches – felt a beguiling feeling that the world was all hers, all of it, with everything that was in it. And then, her dream – as did theirs – unravelled. Who did she think she was? No one liked her, no one wanted her. She wasn’t worthy of anything. No one wanted her. Everyone knew she didn’t have any skills. It would be so much better if she was dead. Maybe it would be better if she simply let the pigs stamp her down into the mire, and even that wouldn’t be bad enough. She screamed.

Tiffany moved towards Nightshade, and almost like a bubble bursting, the elf let go, and her glamour was all gone. But everyone in the hall looked shaken. Except, Tiffany noticed, Mrs Earwig.

‘So, what happened?’ the older witch snapped bossily. ‘What are you all doing?’

‘Mrs Earwig, did you not feel as though you were small, nasty and a waste of space? Totally without redemption?’

Letice Earwig’s face held nothing but puzzlement.

Nightshade looked at her, and back to Tiffany. ‘It was like hitting a rock,’ she said. ‘This one has something interesting . . . something missing.’ She turned to stare again at Mrs Earwig. ‘Are you sure you are not an elf?’ she queried.

‘How dare you! I am just Letice Earwig. No one can stop me being me!’

‘Perish the thought,’ said Tiffany. ‘But everyone else was affected. And that, ladies, was just one elf. Imagine what it will be like when we are facing a horde of them.’

‘It was like seeing my father,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I heard a voice telling me that I was no good and I never would be. A mouse, a maggot, no one worth crying for. He was never satisfied about anything.’

His words sang into the room, and the witches’ faces showed that each knew exactly what he was talking about.

With the demonstration finished and Nightshade back in her unassuming dairymaid guise, the bickering was almost over.

‘Well, fellow witches, there we have it,’ Tiffany said. ‘We know who we are after and what we have to do, which is to keep the elves away from this world. It’s very unlikely that we could kill them all.’ She hesitated. ‘What we have to do is make them see that dealing with us will not be easy, and it might be a very good idea to go back to where they came from.’

‘So,’ Queen Magrat said, ‘how long do we have to get ready?’

Tiffany sighed. ‘We don’t know,’ she said. ‘But they will come soon, I feel.’ She looked at Nightshade, who moved now into the centre of the room.

‘The when,’ said the elf, ‘will surely be at the full moon. A time of . . . endings.’

‘Tonight, then . . .’ Magrat whispered.

‘And if I know Peaseblossom,’ continued the elf, ‘the where will be on every front where the barriers may be weak.’

‘What do you think, Tiff?’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘They’ve been coming into the Chalk already, right? And they’ve been up here in Lancre – through the Dancers.’