Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett [77]
“Er…I didn’t say anything about making the tea—”
“No, sorry, that was someone else. What is it she wants me to do?”
Especially since now you think you know where she’s hiding, said Perdita.
There was a creak, and they heard the hall doors open. Light spilled out, shadows danced in the mist raised by the driving rain, there was a splash and the doors shut again. As they closed, there was the sound of laughter.
Agnes hurried to the bottom of the steps, with the priest squelching along beside her.
There was already a wide and muddy puddle at this end of the courtyard. Granny Weatherwax lay in it, her dress torn, her hair uncoiling from its rock-hard bun.
There was blood on her neck.
“They didn’t even lock her in a cell or something,” said Agnes, steaming with rage. “They just threw her like…like a meat bone!”
“I suppose they think she is locked up now, the poor soul,” said Oats. “Let’s get her undercover, at least…”
“Oh…yes…of course.”
Agnes took hold of Granny’s legs, and was amazed that someone so thin could be so heavy.
“Perhaps there’d be someone in the village?” said Oats, staggering under his end of the load.
“Not a good idea,” said Agnes.
“Oh, but surely—”
“What would you say to them? ‘This is Granny, can we leave her here, oh, and when she wakes up she’ll be a vampire’?”
“Ah.”
“It’s not as though people are that happy to see her anyway, unless they’re ill…”
Agnes peered around through the rain.
“Come on, let’s go around to the stables and the mews, there’s sheds and things…”
King Verence opened his eyes. Water was pouring down the window of his bedroom. There was no light but that which crept in under the door, and he could just make out the shapes of his two guards, nodding in their seats.
A windowpane tinkled. One of the Uberwaldians went and opened the window, looked out into the wild night, found nothing of interest and shuffled back to his seat.
Everything felt very…pleasant. It seemed to Verence that he was lying in a nice warm bath, which was very relaxing and comfortable. The cares of the world belonged to someone else. He bobbed like happy flotsam on the warm sea of life.
He could hear very faint voices, apparently coming from somewhere below his pillow.
“Rikt, gi’ tae yon helan bigjobs?”
“Ach, fashit keel!”
“Hyup?”
“Nach oona whiel ta’ tethra…yin, tan, TETRA!”
“Hyup! Hyup!”
Something rustled on the floor. The chair of one man jerked up into the air and bobbed at speed to the window.
“Hyup!” The chair and its occupant crashed through the glass.
The other guard managed to get to his feet, but something was growing in the air in front of him. To Verence, an alumnus of the Fools’ Guild, it looked very much like a very tall human pyramid made up of very small acrobats.
“Hup! Hup!”
“Hyup!”
“Hup!”
It grew level with the guard’s face. The single figure at the top yelled: “What ya lookin’ a’, chymie? Ha’ a wee tastie!” and launched itself directly at a point between the man’s eyes. There was a little cracking noise, and the man keeled over backward.
“Hup! Hup!”
“Hyup!”
The living pyramid dissolved to floor level. Verence heard tiny pattering feet and suddenly there was a small heavily tattooed man, in a blue pointy hat, standing on his chin.
“Seyou, kingie! Awa’ echt ta’ branoch, eh?”
“Well done,” Verence murmured. “How long have you been a hallucination? Jolly good.”
“Ken ye na’ saggie, ye spargit?”
“That’s the way,” said Verence dreamily.
“Auchtahelweit!”
“Hyup! Hyup!”
Verence felt himself lifted off the bed. Hundreds of little hands passed him from one to the other and he was glided through the window and out into the void.
It was a sheer wall and, he told himself dreamily, he had no business drifting down it so slowly, to cries of “Ta ya! Ta me! Hyup!” Tiny hands caught his collar, his nightshirt, his bed-socks…
“Good show,” he murmured, as he slid gently to the ground and then, six inches above ground level, was carried off into the night.
There was a light burning in the rain. Agnes hammered on the door, and the wet