Wyrd Sisters (29 page)

‘But milk jugs don't just drop out of the sky,' said Tomjon, demonstrating the astonishing human art of denying the obvious.

‘I don't know about that. I've heard of fish and frogs and rocks,' said Hwel. ‘There's nothing against crockery.' He began to rally. ‘It's just one of these uncommon phenomenons. They happen all the time in this part of the world, there's nothing unusual about it.'

They got back on to the carts and rode on in unaccustomed silence. Young Wimsloe collected every bit of jug he could find and stored them carefully in the props box, and spent the rest of the day watching the sky, hoping for a sugar basin.

The lattys toiled up the dusty slopes of the Ramtops, mere motes in the foggy glass of the crystal.

‘Are they all right?' said Magrat.

‘They're wandering all over the place,' said Granny. ‘They may be good at the acting, but they've got something to learn about the travelling.'

‘It was a nice jug,' said Magrat. ‘You can't get them like that any more. I mean, if you'd have said what was on your mind, there was a flatiron on the shelf.'

‘There's more to life than milk jugs.'

‘It had a daisy pattern round the top.'

Granny ignored her.

‘I think,' she said, ‘it's time we had a look at this new king. Close up.' She cackled.

‘You cackled, Granny,' said Magrat darkly.

‘I did not! It was,' Granny fumbled for a word, ‘a chuckle.'

‘I bet Black Aliss used to cackle.'

‘You want to watch out you don't end up the same way as she did,' said Nanny, from her seat by the fire. ‘She went a bit funny at the finish, you know. Poisoned apples and suchlike.'

‘Just because I might have chuckled a . . . a bit roughly,' sniffed Granny. She felt that she was being unduly defensive. ‘Anyway, there's nothing wrong with cackling. In moderation.'

‘I think,' said Tomjon, ‘that we're lost.'

Hwel looked at the baking purple moorland around them, which stretched up to the towering spires of the Ramtops themselves. Even in the height of summer there were pennants of snow flying from the highest peaks. It was a landscape of describable beauty.

Bees were busy, or at least endeavouring to look and sound busy, in the thyme by the trackside. Cloud shadows flickered over the alpine meadows. There was the kind of big, empty silence made by an environment that not only doesn't have any people in it, but doesn't need them either.

Or signposts.

‘We were lost ten miles ago,' said Hwel. ‘There's got to be a new word for what we are now.'

‘You said the mountains were honeycombed with dwarf mines,' said Tomjon. ‘You said a dwarf could tell wherever he was in the mountains.'

‘
Underground
, I said. It's all a matter of strata and rock formations. Not on the surface. All the landscape gets in the way.'

‘We could dig you a hole,' said Tomjon.

But it was a nice day and, as the road meandered through clumps of hemlock and pine, outposts of the forest, it was pleasant enough to let the mules go at their own pace. The road, Hwel felt, had to go somewhere.

This geographical fiction has been the death of many people. Roads don't necessarily have to go anywhere, they just have to have somewhere to start.

‘We
are
lost, aren't we?' said Tomjon, after a while.

‘Certainly not.'

‘Where are we, then?'

‘The mountains. Perfectly clear on any atlas.'

‘We ought to stop and ask someone.'

Tomjon gazed around at the rolling countryside. Somewhere a lonely curlew howled, or possibly it was a badger – Hwel was a little hazy about rural matters, at least those that took place higher than about the limestone layer. There wasn't another human being within miles.

‘Who did you have in mind?' he said sarcastically.

‘That old woman in the funny hat,' said Tomjon, pointing. ‘I've been watching her. She keeps ducking down behind a bush when she thinks I've seen her.'

Hwel turned and looked down at a bramble bush, which wobbled.

‘Ho there, good mother,' he said.

The bush sprouted an indignant head.

‘Whose mother?' it said.

Hwel hesitated. ‘Just a figure of speech, Mrs . . . Miss . . .'

‘Mistress,' snapped Granny Weatherwax. ‘And I'm a poor old woman gathering wood,' she added defiantly.

She cleared her throat. ‘Lawks,' she went on. ‘You did give me a fright, young master. My poor old heart.'

There was silence from the carts. Then Tomjon said, ‘I'm sorry?'

‘What?' said Granny.

‘Your poor old heart what?'

‘What about my poor old heart?' said Granny, who wasn't used to acting like an old woman and had a very limited repertoire in this area. But it's traditional that young heirs seeking their destiny get help from mysterious old women gathering wood, and she wasn't about to buck tradition.

‘It's just that you mentioned it,' said Hwel.

‘Well, it isn't important. Lawks. I expect you're looking for Lancre,' said Granny testily, in a hurry to get to the point.

‘Well, yes,' said Tomjon. ‘All day.'

‘You've come too far,' said Granny. ‘Go back about two miles, and take the track on the right, past the stand of pines.'

Wimsloe tugged at Tomjon's shirt.

‘When you m-meet a m-mysterious old lady in the road,' he said, ‘you've got to offer to s-share your lunch. Or help her across the r-river.'

‘You have?'

‘It's t-terribly b-bad luck not to.'

Tomjon gave Granny a polite smile.

‘Would you care to share our lunch, good mo – old wo – ma'am?'

Granny looked doubtful.

‘What is it?'

‘Salt pork.'

She shook her head. ‘Thanks all the same,' she said graciously. ‘But it gives me wind.'

She turned on her heel and set off through the bushes.

‘We could help you across the river if you like,' shouted Tomjon after her.

‘What river?' said Hwel. ‘We're on the moor, there can't be a river in miles.'

‘Y-you've got to get them on y-your side,' said Wimsloe. ‘Then t-they help you.'

‘Perhaps we should have asked her to wait while we went and looked for one,' said Hwel sourly.

They found the turning. It led into a forest crisscrossed with as many tracks as a marshalling yard, the sort of forest where the back of your head tells you the trees are turning around to watch you as you go past and the sky seems to be very high up and a long way off. Despite the heat of the day a dank, impenetrable gloom hovered among the tree trunks, which crowded up to the track as if intending to obliterate it completely.

They were soon lost again, and decided that being lost somewhere where you didn't know where you were was even worse than being lost in the open.

‘She could have given more explicit instructions,' said Hwel.

‘Like ask at the next crone,' said Tomjon. ‘Look over there.'

He stood up in the seat.

‘Ho there, old . . . good . . .' he hazarded.

Magrat pushed back her shawl.

‘Just a humble wood gatherer,' she snapped. She held up a twig for proof. Several hours waiting with nothing but trees to talk to hadn't improved her temper.

Wimsloe nudged Tomjon, who nodded and fixed his face in an ingratiating smile.

‘Would you care to share our lunch, old . . . good wo . . . miss?' he said. ‘It's only salt pork, I'm afraid.'

‘Meat is extremely bad for the digestive system,' said Magrat. ‘If you could see inside your colon you'd be horrified.'

‘I think I would,' muttered Hwel.

‘Did you know that an adult male carries up to five pounds of undigested red meat in his intestines at all times?' said Magrat, whose informative lectures on nutrition had been known to cause whole families to hide in the cellar until she went away. ‘Whereas pine kernels and sunflower seeds—'

‘There aren't any rivers around that you need helping over, are there?' said Tomjon desperately.

‘Don't be silly,' said Magrat. ‘I'm just a humble wood gatherer, lawks, collecting a few sticks and mayhap directing lost travellers on the road to Lancre.'

‘Ah,' said Hwel, ‘I thought we'd get to that.'

‘You fork left up ahead and turn right at the big stone with the crack in it, you can't miss it,' said Magrat.

‘Fine,' growled Hwel. ‘Well, we won't keep you. I'm sure you've got a lot of wood to collect and so forth.'

He whistled the mules into a plod again, grumbling to himself.

When, an hour later, the track ran out among a landscape of house-sized boulders, Hwel laid down the reins carefully and folded his arms. Tomjon stared at him.

‘What do you think you're doing?' he said.

‘Waiting,' said the dwarf grimly.

‘It'll be getting dark soon.'

‘We won't be here long,' said Hwel.

Eventually Nanny Ogg gave up and came out from behind her rock.

‘It's salt pork, understand?' said Hwel sharply. ‘Take it or leave it, OK? Now – which way's Lancre?'

‘Keep on, left at the ravine, then you pick up the track that leads to a bridge, you can't miss it,' said Nanny promptly.

Hwel grabbed the reins. ‘You forgot about the lawks.'

‘Bugger. Sorry. Lawks.'

‘And you're a humble old wood gatherer, I expect,' Hwel went on.

‘Spot on, lad,' said Nanny cheerfully. ‘Just about to make a start, as a matter of fact.'

Tomjon nudged the dwarf.

‘You forgot about the river,' he said. Hwel glared at him.

‘Oh yes,' he muttered, ‘and can you wait here while we go and find a river.'

‘To help you across,' said Tomjon carefully.

Nanny Ogg gave him a bright smile. ‘There's a perfectly good bridge,' she said. ‘But I wouldn't say no to a lift. Move over.'

To Hwel's irritation Nanny Ogg hitched up her skirts and scrambled on to the board, inserting herself between Tomjon and the dwarf and then twisting like an oyster knife until she occupied half the seat.

‘You mentioned salt pork,' she said. ‘There wouldn't be any mustard, would there?'

‘No,' said Hwel sullenly.

‘Can't abide salt pork without condiments,' said Nanny conversationally. ‘But pass it over, anyway.' Wimsloe wordlessly handed over the basket holding the troupe's supper. Nanny lifted the lid and gave it a critical assessment.

‘That cheese in there is a bit off,' she said. ‘It needs eating up quick. What's in the leather bottle?'

‘Beer,' said Tomjon, a fraction of a second before Hwel had the presence of mind to say, ‘Water.'

‘Pretty weak stuff,' said Nanny, eventually. She fumbled in her apron pocket for her tobacco pouch.

‘Has anyone got a light?' she enquired.

A couple of actors produced bundles of matches. Nanny nodded, and put the pouch away.

‘Good,' she said. ‘Now, has anyone got any tobacco?'

Half an hour later the lattys rattled over the Lancre Bridge, across some of the outlying farmlands, and through the forests that made up most of the kingdom.

‘This is it?' said Tomjon.

‘Well, not all of it,' said Nanny, who had been expecting rather more enthusiasm. ‘There's lots more of it behind the mountains over there. But this is the flat bit.'

‘You call this flat?'

‘Flattish,' Nanny conceded. ‘But the air's good. That's the palace up there, offering outstanding views of the surrounding countryside.'

‘You mean forests.'

‘You'll like it here,' said Nanny encouragingly.

‘It's a bit small.'

Nanny thought about this. She'd spent nearly all her life inside the boundaries of Lancre. It had always seemed about the right size to her.

‘Bijou,' she said. ‘Handy for everywhere.'

‘Everywhere
where
?'

Nanny gave up. ‘Everywhere close,' she said.

Hwel said nothing. The air
was
good, rolling down the unclimbable slopes of the Ramtops like a sinus wash, tinted with turpentine from the high forests. They passed through a gateway into what was, up here, probably called a town; the cosmopolitan he had become decided that, down on the plains, it would just about have qualified as an open space.

‘There's an inn,' said Tomjon doubtfully.

Hwel followed his gaze. ‘Yes,' he said, eventually. ‘Yes, it probably is.'

‘When are we going to do the play?'

‘I don't know. I think we just send up to the castle and say we're here.' Hwel scratched his chin. ‘Fool said the king or whoever would want to see the script.'

Tomjon looked around Lancre town. It seemed peaceful enough. It didn't look like the kind of place likely to turn actors out at nightfall. It needed the population.

‘This is the capital city of the kingdom,' said Nanny Ogg. ‘Well-designed streets, you'll notice.'

‘Streets?' said Tomjon.

‘Street,' corrected Granny. ‘Also houses in quite good repair, stone's throw from river—'

‘Throw?'

‘Drop,' Nanny conceded. ‘Neat middens, look, and extensive—'

‘Madam, we've come to entertain the town, not buy it,' said Hwel.

Nanny Ogg looked sidelong at Tomjon.

‘Just wanted you to see how attractive it is,' she said.

‘Your civic pride does you credit,' said Hwel. ‘And now, please, leave the cart. I'm sure you've got some wood to gather. Lawks.'

‘Much obliged for the snack,' said Nanny, climbing down.

‘Meals,' corrected Hwel.

Tomjon nudged him. ‘You ought to be more polite,' he said. ‘You never know.' He turned to Nanny. ‘Thank you, good – oh, she's gone.'