Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett [8]
The castle leaned vertiginously over the racing white water of the Lancre river, which boomed darkly a thousand feet below. Every now and again a few bits fell in.
Small as it was, though, the castle contained a thousand places to hide a crown.
The duchess swept out to find someone else to berate, and left Lord Felmet looking gloomily at the landscape. It started to rain.
It was on this cue that there came a thunderous knocking at the castle door. It seriously disturbed the castle porter, who was playing Cripple Mister Onion with the castle cook and the castle’s Fool in the warmth of the kitchen.
He growled and stood up. “There is a knocking without,” he said.
“Without what?” said the Fool.
“Without the door, idiot.”
The Fool gave him a worried look. “A knocking without a door?” he said suspiciously. “This isn’t some kind of Zen, is it?”
When the porter had grumbled off in the direction of the gatehouse the cook pushed another farthing into the kitty and looked sharply over his cards at the Fool.
“What’s a Zen?” he said.
The Fool’s bells tinkled as he sorted through his cards. Without thinking, he said: “Oh, a sub-sect of the Turnwise Klatch philosophical system of Sumtin, noted for its simple austerity and the offer of personal tranquillity and wholeness achieved through meditation and breathing techniques; an interesting aspect is the asking of apparently nonsensical questions in order to widen the doors of perception.”
“How’s that again?” said the cook suspiciously. He was on edge. When he’d taken the breakfast up to the Great Hall he’d kept getting the feeling that something was trying to take the tray out of his hands. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, this new duke had sent him back for…He shuddered. Oatmeal! And a runny boiled egg! The cook was too old for this sort of thing. He was set in his ways. He was a cook in the real feudal tradition. If it didn’t have an apple in its mouth and you couldn’t roast it, he didn’t want to serve it.
The Fool hesitated with a card in his hand, suppressed his panic and thought quickly.
“I’faith, nuncle,” he squeaked, “thou’t more full of questions than a martlebury is of mizzensails.”
The cook relaxed.
“Well, OK,” he said, not entirely satisfied. The Fool lost the next three hands, just to be on the safe side.
The porter, meanwhile, unfastened the hatch in the wicket gate and peered out.
“Who dost knock without?” he growled.
The soldier, drenched and terrified though he was, hesitated.
“Without? Without what?” he said.
“If you’re going to bugger about, you can bloody well stay without all day,” said the porter calmly.
“No! I must see the duke upon the instant!” shouted the guard. “Witches are abroad!”
The porter was about to come back with, “Good time of year for it,” or “Wish I was, too,” but stopped when he saw the man’s face. It wasn’t the face of a man who would enter into the spirit of the thing. It was the look of someone who had seen things a decent man shouldn’t wot of…
“Witches?” said Lord Felmet.
“Witches!” said the duchess.
In the drafty corridors, a voice as faint as the wind in distant keyholes said, with a note of hope, “Witches!”
The psychically inclined…
“It’s meddling, that’s what it is,” said Granny Weatherwax. “And no good will come of it.”
“It’s very romantic,” said Magrat breathily, and heaved a sigh.
“Goochy goo,” said Nanny Ogg.
“Anyway,” said Magrat, “you killed that horrid man!”
“I never did. I just encouraged…things to take their course.” Granny Weatherwax frowned. “He didn’t have no respect. Once people lose their respect, it means trouble.”
“Izzy wizzy wazzy, den.”
“That other man brought him