Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett [95]
“You attacked Granny Weatherwax! You bit her.”
“Symbolically. To welcome her into the family.”
“Oh really? Oh, that makes it all better, does it? And she’ll be a vampire?”
“Certainly. A good one, I suspect. But that’s only horrifying if you think being a vampire is a bad thing. We don’t. You’ll come to see that we’re right, in time,” said Vlad. “Yes, Escrow would be good for you. For us. We shall see what can be done…”
Agnes stared.
He does smile nicely… He’s a vampire! All right, but apart from that— Oh, apart from that, eh? Nanny would tell you to make the most of it. That might work for Nanny, but can you imagine kissing that? Yes, I can. I will admit, he does smile nicely, and he looks good in those waistcoats, but look at what he is—Do you notice? Notice what? There’s something different about him. He’s just trying to get around us, that’s all. No…there’s something…new…
“Father says Escrow is a model community,” said Vlad. “It shows what happens if ancient enmity is put aside and humans and vampires learn to live in peace. Yes. It’s not far now. Escrow is the future.”
A low ground mist drifted between the trees, curling up in little tongues as the mule’s hooves disturbed it. Rain dripped off the twigs. There was even a bit of sullen thunder now, not the outgoing sort that cracks the sky but the other sort, which hangs around the horizons and gossips nastily with other storms.
Mightily Oats had tried a conversation with himself a few times, but the problem with a conversation was that the other person had to join in. Occasionally he heard a snore from behind him. When he looked around, the wowhawk on her shoulder flapped its wings in his face.
Sometimes the snoring would stop with a grunt, and a hand would tap him on a shoulder and point out a direction which looked like every other direction.
It did so now.
“What’s that you’re singing?” Granny demanded.
“I wasn’t singing very loudly.”
“What’s it called?”
“It’s called ‘Om Is in His Holy Temple.’”
“Nice tune,” said Granny.
“It keeps my spirits up,” Oats admitted. A wet twig slapped his face. After all, he thought, I may have a vampire behind me, however good she is.
“You take comfort from it, do you?”
“I suppose so.”
“Even that bit about ‘smiting evil with thy sword’? That’d worry me, if I was an Omnian. Do you get just a little sort of tap for a white lie but minced up for murder? That’s the sort of thing that’d keep me awake o’ nights.”
“Well, actually…I shouldn’t be singing it at all, to be honest. The Convocation of Ee struck it from the songbook as being incompatible with the ideals of modern Omnianism.”
“That line about crushing infidels?”
“That’s the one, yes.”
“You sung it anyway, though.”
“It’s the version my grandmother taught me,” said Oats.
“She was keen on crushing infidels?”
“Well, mainly I think she was in favor of crushing Mrs. Ahrim next door, but you’ve got the right idea, yes. She thought the world would be a better place with a bit more crushing and smiting.”
“Prob’ly true.”
“Not as much smiting and crushing as she’d like, though, I think,” said Oats. “A bit judgmental, my grandmother.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Judging is human.”
“We prefer to leave it ultimately to Om,” said Oats and, out here in the dark, that statement sounded lost and all alone.
“Bein’ human means judgin’ all the time,” said the voice behind him. “This and that, good and bad, making choices every day…that’s human.”
“And are you so sure you make the right decisions?”
“No. But I do the best I can.”
“And hope for mercy, eh?”
The bony finger prodded him in the back.
“Mercy’s a fine thing, but judgin’ comes first. Otherwise you don’t know what you’re bein’ merciful about. Anyway, I always heard you Omnians were keen on smitin’ and crushin’.”
“Those were…different days. We use crushing arguments now.”
“And long pointed debates, I suppose?”
“Well, there are two sides to every question…”
“What do you do when one of ’em’s wrong?” The reply came back like an arrow.
“I meant that we are enjoined to see things from the other