Millie put her hand in front of her mouth and gave a nervous little cough. She glanced wretchedly towards Magrat, who was making frantic hand signals.
‘Only, well, the Queen says we’d better not hold things up, so, er, would you be godmother, Mrs Ogg?’
The wrinkles doubled on Nanny’s face as she smiled.
‘Tell you what,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ll come and sort of stand in until Granny gets here, shall I?’
Once again, Granny Weatherwax paced up and down in the spartan greyness of her kitchen. Occasionally she’d glance at the floor. There was quite a gap under the door, and sometimes things could be blown anywhere. But she’d already searched a dozen times. She must’ve got the cleanest floor in the country by now. Anyway, it was too late.
Even so … Uberwald …[8]
She strode up and down a few more times.
‘I’ll be blowed if I’ll give ’em the satisfaction,’ she muttered.
She sat down in her rocking chair, stood up again so quickly that the chair almost fell over, and went back to the pacing.
‘I mean, I’ve never been the kind of person to put myself forward,’ she said to the air. ‘I’m not the sort to go where I’m not welcome, I’m sure.’
She went to make a cup of tea, fumbling with the kettle with shaking hands, and dropped the lid of her sugar bowl, breaking it.
A light caught her eye. The half moon was visible over the lawn.
‘Anyway, it’s not as if I’ve not got other things to do,’ she said. ‘Can’t all be rushing off to parties the whole time … wouldn’t have gone anyway.’
She found herself flouncing around the corners of the floor again and thought: if I’d found it, the Wattley boy would have knocked at an empty cottage. I’d have gone and enjoyed meself. And John Ivy’d be sitting alone now …
‘Drat!’
That was the worst part about being good — it caught you coming and going.
She landed in the rocking chair again and pulled her shawl around her against the chill. She hadn’t kept the fire in. She hadn’t expected to be at home tonight.
Shadows filled the corners of the room, but she couldn’t be bothered to light the lamp. The candle would have to do.
As she rocked, glaring at the wall, the shadows lengthened.
Agnes followed Nanny down into the hall. She probably wasn’t meant to, but very few people will argue with a hat of authority.
Small countries were normal along this part of the Ramtops. Every glacial valley, separated from its neighbours by a route that required a scramble or, at worst, a ladder, more or less ruled itself. There seemed to Agnes to be any number of kings, even if some of them did their ruling in the evenings after they’d milked the cows. A lot of them were here, because a free meal is not to be sneezed at. There were also some senior dwarfs from Copperhead and, standing well away from them, a group of trolls. They weren’t carrying weapons, so Agnes assumed they were politicians. Trolls weren’t strictly subjects of King Verence, but they were there to say, in official body language, that playing football with human heads was something no one did any more, much. Hardly at all, really. Not roun’ here, certainly. Dere’s practic’ly a law against it.
The witches were ushered to the area in front of the thrones, and then Millie scurried away.
The Omnian priest nodded at them.
‘Good, um, evening,’ he said, and completely failed to set fire to anyone. He wasn’t very old and had a rather ripe boil beside his nose. Inside Agnes, Perdita made a face at him.
Nanny Ogg grunted. Agnes risked a brief smile. The priest blew his nose noisily.
‘You must be some of these, um, witches I’ve heard so much about,’ he said. He had an amazing smile. It appeared on his face as if someone had operated a shutter. One moment it wasn’t there, the next moment it was. And then it was gone.
‘Um, yes,’ said Agnes.
‘Hah,’ said Nanny Ogg, who could haughtily turn her back on people while looking them in the eye.
‘And I am, I am, aaaa …’ said the priest. He stopped, and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Oh, I am sorry. The mountain air doesn’t agree with me. I am the Quite Reverend Mightily Oats.’
‘You are?’ said Agnes. To her amazement, the man began to redden. The more she looked at him, the more she realized that he wasn’t much older than she was.
‘That is, Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats,’ he said. ‘It’s much shorter in Omnian, of course. Have you by any chance heard the Word of Om?’
‘Which one? “Fire”?’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Hah!’
The nascent religious war was abruptly cut short by the first official royal fanfare to end with a few bars from the ‘Hedgehog Cakewalk’. The royal couple began to descend the stairs.
‘And we’ll have none of your heathen ways, thank you very much,’ muttered Nanny Ogg behind the pastor. ‘No sloshing water or oil or sand around or cutting any bits off and if I hears a single word I understand, well, I’m standing behind you with a pointy stick.’[9]
From the other side he heard, ‘He’s not some kind of horrible inquisitor, Nanny!’
‘But my pointy stick’s still a pointy stick, my girl!’
What’s got into her? Agnes thought, watching the pastor’s ears turn red. That’s the way Granny would act. Perdita added: Perhaps she thinks she’s got to carry on like that because that old bat’s not here yet.
Agnes was quite shocked at hearing herself think that.
‘You do things our way here, all right?’ said Nanny.
‘The, um, King did explain it all to me, um,’ said the pastor. ‘Er, do you have anything for a headache. I’m afraid I—’
‘You put the key in one hand and let her grip the crown with the other,’ Nanny Ogg went on.
‘Yes, um, he did—’
‘Then you tell her what her name is and her mum’s name and her dad’s name, mumbling a bit over the latter if the mum ain’t sure—’
‘Nanny! This is royalty!’
‘Hah, I could tell you stories, gel … and then, see, you give her to me and I tell her, too, and then I give her back and you tell the people what her name is, an’ then you give her to me, and then I give her to her dad, and he takes her out through the doors and shows her to everyone, everyone throws their hats in the air and shouts “Hoorah!” and then it’s all over bar the drinks and horses’ doovers and findin’ your own hat. Start extemporizin’ on the subject of sin and it’ll go hard with you.’
‘What is, um, your role, madam?’
‘I’m the godmother!’
‘Which, um, god?’ The young man was trembling slightly.
‘It’s from Old Lancre,’ said Agnes hurriedly. ‘It means something like “goodmother”. It’s all right … as witches we believe in religious toleration …’
‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘But only for the right religions, so you watch your step!’
The royal parents had reached the thrones. Magrat took her seat and, to Agnes’s amazement, gave her a sly wink.
Verence didn’t wink. He stood there and coughed loudly.
‘Ahem!’
‘I’ve got a pastille somewhere,’ said Nanny, her hand reaching towards her knickerleg.
‘Ahem!’ Verence’s eyes darted towards his throne.
What had appeared to be a grey cushion rolled over, yawned, gave the King a brief glance, and started to wash itself.
‘Oh, Greebo!’ said Nanny. ‘I was wonderin’ where you’d got to …’
8
On the rare maps of the Ramtops that existed, it was spelled Überwald. But Lancre people had never got the hang of accents and certainly didn’t agree with trying to balance two dots on another letter, where they’d only roll off and cause unnecessary punctuation.
9
Lancre people considered that anything religious that wasn’t said in some ancient and incomprehensible speech probably wasn’t the genuine article.