Wyrd Sisters

'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 began to settle down to enjoy the play. But not, as it turned out, for very long. Her willing suspension of disbelief was interrupted by a voice saying:

'What's this bit?'

Magrat sighed. 'Well,' she hazarded, 'he thinks that he is the prince, but he's really the other king's daughter, dressed up as a man.'

Granny subjected the actor to a long analytical stare.

'He is a man,' she said. 'In a straw wig. Making his voice squeaky.'

Magrat shuddered. She knew a little about the conventions of the theatre. She had been dreading this bit. Granny Weatherwax had Views.

'Yes, but,' she said wretchedly, 'it's the Theatre, see. All the women are played by men.'

'Why?'

'They don't allow no women on the stage,' said Magrat in a small voice. She shut her eyes.

In fact, there was no outburst from the seat on her left. She risked a quick glance.

Granny was quietly chewing the same bit of apple over and over again, her eyes never leaving the action.

'Don't make a fuss, Esme,' said Nanny, who also knew about Granny's Views. 'This is a good bit. I reckon I'm getting the hang of it.'