Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett [8]
There was just a nagging doubt. Presumably Desiderata would have got rid of it. Her sort were like that. Conscientious. And presumably it would be to that stupid girl with the watery eyes who sometimes visited the cottage, the one with all the cheap jewelry and the bad taste in clothes. She looked just the type.
But Lilith wanted to be sure. She hadn’t got where she was today without being sure.
In puddles and windows all over Lancre, the face of Lilith appeared momentarily and then moved on…
And now it was dawn in Lancre. Autumn mists rolled through the forest.
Granny Weatherwax pushed open the cottage door. It wasn’t locked. The only visitor Desiderata had been expecting wasn’t the sort to be put off by locks.
“She’s had herself buried around the back,” said a voice behind her. It was Nanny Ogg.
Granny considered her next move. To point out that Nanny had deliberately come early, so as to search the cottage by herself, then raised questions about Granny’s own presence. She could undoubtedly answer them, given enough time. On the whole, it was probably best just to get on with things.
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “Always very neat in her ways, was Desiderata.”
“Well, it was the job,” said Nanny Ogg, pushing past her and eyeing the room’s contents speculatively. “You got to be able to keep track of things, in a job like hers. By gor’, that’s a bloody enormous cat.”
“It’s a lion,” said Granny Weatherwax, looking at the stuffed head over the fireplace.
“Must’ve hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was,” said Nanny Ogg.
“Someone killed it,” said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.
“Should think so,” said Nanny. “If I’d seen something like that eatin’ its way through the wall I’d of hit it myself with the poker.”
There was of course no such thing as a typical witch’s cottage, but if there was such a thing as a nontypical witch’s cottage, then this was certainly it. Apart from various glassy-eyed animal heads, the walls were covered in bookshelves and watercolor pictures. There was a spear in the umbrella stand. Instead of the more usual earthenware and china on the dresser there were foreign-looking brass pots and fine blue porcelain. There wasn’t a dried herb anywhere in the place but there were a great many books, most of them filled with Desiderata’s small, neat handwriting. A whole table was covered with what were probably maps, meticulously drawn.
Granny Weatherwax didn’t like maps. She felt instinctively that they sold the landscape short.
“She certainly got about a bit,” said Nanny Ogg, picking up a carved ivory fan and flirting coquettishly.*
“Well, it was easy for her,” said Granny, opening a few drawers. She ran her fingers along the top of the mantelpiece and looked at them critically.
“She could have found time to go over the place with a duster,” she said vaguely. “I wouldn’t go and die and leave my place in this state.”
“I wonder where she left…you know…it?” said Nanny, opening the door of the grandfather clock and peering inside.
“Shame on you, Gytha Ogg,” said Granny. “We’re not here to look for that.”
“Of course not. I was just wondering…” Nanny Ogg tried to stand on tiptoe surreptitiously, in order to see on top of the dresser.
“Gytha! For shame! Go and make us a cup of tea!”
“Oh, all right.”
Nanny Ogg disappeared, muttering, into the scullery. After a few seconds there came the creaking of a pump handle.
Granny Weatherwax sidled toward a chair and felt quickly under the cushion.
There was a clatter from the next room. She straightened up hurriedly.
“I shouldn’t think it’d be under the sink, neither,” she shouted.
Nanny Ogg’s reply was inaudible.
Granny waited a moment, and then crept rapidly over to the big chimney. She reached up and felt cautiously around.
“Looking for something,