Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett [29]
In the Long Gallery were huge tapestries of ancient battles, done by previous bored regal incumbents; it was amazing how all the fighters had been persuaded to stay still long enough. And she’d looked at the many, many paintings of the queens themselves, all of them pretty, all of them well-dressed according to the fashion of their times, and all of them bored out of their tiny well-shaped skulls.
Finally she went back to the solar. This was the big room on top of the main tower. In theory, it was there to catch the sun. It did. It also caught the wind and the rain. It was a sort of drift net for anything the sky happened to throw.
She yanked on the bellpull that in theory summoned a servant. Nothing happened. After a couple of further pulls, and secretly glad of the exercise, she went down to the kitchen. She would have liked to spend more time there. It was always warm and there was generally someone to talk to. But nobblyess obligay—queens had to live Above Stairs.
Below Stairs there was only Shawn Ogg, who was cleaning the oven of the huge iron stove and reflecting that this was no job for a military man.
“Where’s everyone gone?”
Shawn leapt up, banging his head on the stove.
“Ow! Sorry, miss! Um! Everyone’s…everyone’s down in the square, miss. I’m only here because Mrs. Scorbic said she’d have my hide if I didn’t get all the yuk off.”
“What’s happening in the square, then?”
“They say there’s a couple of witches having a real set-to, miss.”
“What? Not your mother and Granny Weatherwax!”
“Oh no, miss. Some new witch.”
“In Lancre? A new witch?”
“I think that’s what Mum said.”
“I’m going to have a look.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’d be a good idea, miss,” said Shawn.
Magrat drew herself up regally.
“We happen to be Queen,” she said. “Nearly. So you don’t tell one one can’t do things, or one’ll have you cleaning the privies!”
“But I does clean the privies,” said Shawn, in a reasonable voice. “Even the garderobe—”
“And that’s going to go, for a start,” said Magrat, shuddering. “One’s seen it.”
“Doesn’t bother me, miss, it’ll give me Wednesday afternoons free,” said Shawn, “but what I meant was, you’ll have to wait till I’ve gone down to the armory to fetch my horn for the fanfare.”
“One won’t need a fanfare, thank you very much.”
“But you got to have a fanfare, miss.”
“One can blow my own trumpet, thank you.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Miss what?”
“Miss Queen.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
Magrat arrived at as near to a run as was possible in the queen outfit, which ought to have had castors.
She found a circle of several hundred people and, near the edge, a very pensive Nanny Ogg.
“What’s happening, Nanny?”
Nanny turned.
“Oops, sorry. Didn’t hear no fanfare,” she said. “I’d curtsy, only it’s my legs.”
Magrat looked past her at the two seated figures in the circle.
“What’re they doing?”
“Staring contest.”
“But they’re looking at the sky.”
“Bugger that Diamanda girl! She’s got Esme trying to outstare the sun,” said Nanny Ogg. “No looking away, no blinking…”
“How long have they been doing it?”
“About an hour,” said Nanny gloomily.
“That’s terrible!”
“It’s bloody stupid is what it is,” said Nanny. “Can’t think what’s got into Esme. As if power’s all there is to witching! She knows that. Witching’s not power, it’s how you harness it.”
There was a pale gold haze over the circle, from magical fallout.
“They’ll have to stop at sunset,” said Magrat.
“Esme won’t last until sunset,” said Nanny. “Look at her. All slumped up.”
“I suppose you couldn’t use some magic to—” Magrat began.
“Talk sense,” said Nanny. “If Esme found out, she’d kick me round the kingdom. Anyway, the others’d spot it.”
“Perhaps we could create a small cloud or something?” said Magrat.
“No! That’s cheating!”
“Well, you always cheat.”
“I cheat for myself. You can’t cheat for other people.”
Granny Weatherwax slumped again.
“I could have it stopped,” said Magrat.
“You’d make an enemy for life.”
“I thought Granny was my enemy for life.”
“If you think that, my girl, you’ve got no understanding,” said Nanny.