Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett [11]
“Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact,” said Granny. “But I don’t hold with encouraging it. What do they stroll about playing, then, in these crowns?”
“You don’t know about the theater?” said Magrat.
Granny Weatherwax, who never declared her ignorance of anything, didn’t hesitate. “Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s one of them style of things, then, is it?”
“Goodie Whemper said it held a mirror up to life,” said Magrat. “She said it always cheered her up.”
“I expect it would,” said Granny, striking out. “Played properly, at any rate. Good people, are they, these theater players?”
“I think so.”
“And they stroll around the country, you say?” said Granny thoughtfully, looking toward the scullery door.
“All over the place. There’s a troupe in Lancre now, I heard. I haven’t been because, you know.” Magrat looked down. “’Tis not right, a woman going into such places by herself.”
Granny nodded. She thoroughly approved of such sentiments so long as there was, of course, no suggestion that they applied to her.
She drummed her fingers on Magrat’s tablecloth.
“Right,” she said. “And why not? Go and tell Gytha to wrap the baby up well. It’s a long time since I heard a theater played properly.”
Magrat was entranced, as usual. The theater was no more than some lengths of painted sacking, a plank stage laid over a few barrels, and half a dozen benches set out in the village square. But at the same time it had also managed to become The Castle, Another Part of the Castle, The Same Part A Little Later, The Battlefield and now it was A Road Outside the City. The afternoon would have been perfect if it wasn’t for Granny Weatherwax.
After several piercing glares at the three-man orchestra to see if she could work out which instrument the theater was, the old witch had finally paid attention to the stage, and it was beginning to become apparent to Magrat that there were certain fundamental aspects of the theater that Granny had not yet grasped.
She was currently bouncing up and down on her stool with rage.
“He’s killed him,” she hissed. “Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? He’s killed him! And right up there in front of everyone!”
Magrat held on desperately to her colleague’s arm as she struggled to get to her feet.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “He’s not dead!”
“Are you calling me a liar, my girl?” snapped Granny. “I saw it all!”
“Look, Granny, it’s not really real, d’you see?”
Granny Weatherwax subsided a little, but still grumbled under her breath. She was beginning to feel that things were trying to make a fool of her.
Up on the stage a man in a sheet was giving a spirited monologue. Granny listened intently for some minutes, and then nudged Magrat in the ribs.
“What’s he on about now?” she demanded.
“He’s saying how sorry he was that the other man’s dead,” said Magrat, and in an attempt to change the subject added hurriedly, “There’s a lot of crowns, isn’t there?”
Granny was not to be distracted. “What’d he go and kill him for, then?” she said.
“Well, it’s a bit complicated—” said Magrat, weakly.
“It’s shameful!” snapped Granny. “And the poor dead thing still lying there!”
Magrat gave an imploring look to Nanny Ogg, who was masticating an apple and studying the stage with the glare of a research scientist.
“I reckon,” she said slowly, “I reckon it’s all just pretendin’. Look, he’s still breathing.”
The rest of the audience, who by now had already decided that this commentary was all part of the play, stared as one man at the corpse. It blushed.
“And look at his boots, too,” said Nanny critically. “A real king’d be ashamed of boots like that.”
The corpse tried to shuffle its feet behind a cardboard bush.
Granny, feeling in some obscure way that they had scored a minor triumph over the purveyors of untruth and artifice, helped herself to an apple from the bag and began to take a fresh interest. Magrat’s nerves started to unknot, and she