The Shepherd's Crown (Discworld #41)(18)
‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘All of it.’
‘My word,’ said Ridcully. ‘And now I feel certain that your future is going to be, let us say, very speckled. I can see the signs in you, Mistress Tiffany Aching – and I know many people of power, people who have so much power that they don’t have to wield it. You are hardly into your prime, yet I see this in you, and so I live in wonder about what you might do next.’ His face now fell and he continued, ‘Would you ladies now leave me alone with my feelings. I am sure I can find my way back to the cottage.’
Later on, the Archchancellor walked back to his broomstick and Tiffany and Nanny Ogg watched him disappear in the general direction of Ankh-Morpork. The broomstick itself was wobbling about as he rose over the woods in a final salute.
Nanny smiled. ‘He is a wizard. He can be sober when he likes, and if he ain’t, well, he can fly a broomstick well enough with a brandy or two inside him. After all, there’s not much to bump into up there!’
As the morning progressed, more and more people were coming to pay their respects at the little cottage. The news had spread, and it seemed like everybody wanted to leave a gift for Granny Weatherwax. For the witch who had always been there for them, even if they hadn’t actually liked her. Esme Weatherwax hadn’t done nice. She’d done what was needed. She’d been there for them when they called at the cottage, she’d come out at whatever time of day or night when asked (and sometimes when not, which hadn’t always been comfortable), and somehow she had made them feel . . . safer. They brought hams and cheeses, milk and pickles, jams and beer, bread and fruit . . .
It also seemed that broomsticks were coming through the trees from everywhere, and there was nothing a witch appreciated more than a bit of free food – Tiffany caught one elderly witch trying to stuff an entire chicken up her knickers. And as the witches turned up, the villagers began to melt away. It didn’t do to be around that many witches. Why risk it? Nobody wanted to be turned into a frog – after all, who would bring in the harvest then? They started to make their excuses and sidle off, with those who had partaken of Nanny Ogg’s famous cocktails sidling in a rather wobbly fashion.
None of the witches had been invited, but it seemed to Tiffany they had been drawn there, just like the Archchancellor. Even Mrs Earwig turned up. She came in a carriage and pair, complete with black plumes, and her arms jingled with bangles and charms – as if the percussion section of an orchestra had suddenly fallen off a cliff – while her hat was festooned in silver stars. Her husband was dragged along beside her. Tiffany felt sorry for the man.
‘Hail, sisters, and may the runes protect us on this momentous occasion,’ Mrs Earwig pronounced, just loud enough to be heard by the remaining villagers – she did like to advertise her witchiness. She gave Tiffany a long stare, which infuriated Nanny Ogg.
Nanny made the briefest possible bow, then turned and said, ‘Look, Tiffany, here’s Agnes Nitt. Wotcha, Agnes!’
Agnes – a witch with a waistline that suggested she had a similar attitude to eating as the Feegles’ kelda – was out of breath, saying, ‘I’ve been touring in Stackpole’s Much Ado About Everybody. I was in Quirm when I heard and I came as fast as I could.’
Tiffany hadn’t met Agnes before, but from one look at her sensible face and good-natured smile, she thought she would probably get along with her very well indeed. Then she was overcome with delight as a broomstick wobbled down to land and she heard the familiar ‘Um’ of her friend Petulia.
‘Um, Tiffany, I heard you were here. Um, do you want some help with making any sandwiches?’ Petulia offered, waving a big side of bacon as she landed. Petulia was married to a pig farmer and was acknowledged to be Lancre’s best pig-borer.fn1 She was also one of Tiffany’s very best friends. ‘Dimity is here too, and, um, Lucy Warbeck,’ Petulia continued – the ‘um’s always got worse when she was in the company of other witches; amazingly, she never used the word when pig-boring, which had to say something about Petulia and pigs.
Tiffany and Nanny Ogg’s grandsons had put up some makeshift tables. After all, everybody knows what a funeral is really for and most people like eating and drinking whatever the occasion. There was music, and over it all, Agnes’s heavenly voice. She sang the ‘Columbine Lament’, and as its soft tune wafted over the roof and into the forest beyond, Nanny said to Tiffany, ‘That voice could make the trees cry.’
And there was dancing, no doubt helped along by Nanny Ogg’s brews. Nanny Ogg could get any party singing and dancing. It was a gift, Tiffany thought. Nanny could jolly up a graveyard if she put her mind to it.
‘No long faces for Granny Weatherwax, please,’ Nanny proclaimed. ‘She’s had a good death at home, just as anyone might wish for. Witches know that people die; and if they manages to die after a long time, leavin’ the world better than they went an’ found it, well then, that’s surely a reason to be happy. All the rest of it is just tidyin’ up. Now, let’s dance! Dancin’ makes the world go round. And it goes round even faster with a drop o’ my home liquor inside you.’
Up in the roof of Granny’s cottage, swinging from the boughs of the little tree that grew out of the thatch, the Nac Mac Feegles – Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Yan and the gonnagle, Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin – were in agreement with the latter part of that statement, though they were keeping the dancing for later, mind. They stayed mostly out of sight, spotted only by one or two of the more observant witches, but now they came down to the scullery where Tiffany was starting on what the elderly, more senior witches always expected the younger girls to do – clearing up. The senior witches were beginning to gather together outside; it was time to discuss the appointment of a new incumbent to Granny Weatherwax’s steading, and Tiffany wanted to keep out of the way while she thought about what she might say.