Equal Rites

Esk was perched in the fork of the apple tree, an expression of dreamy contemplation on her face. Cern was hiding behind the tree, his face a mere rim around a red, tonsil-vibrating bawl.

Gulta was sitting rather bewildered in a pile of clothing that no longer fitted him, wrinkling his snout.

Granny strode up to the tree until her hooked nose was level with Esk’s.

“Turning people into pigs is not allowed,” she hissed. “Even brothers.”

“I didn’t do it, it just happened. Anyway, you must admit it’s a better shape for him,” said Esk evenly.

“What’s going on?” said Smith. “Where’s Gulta? What’s this pig doing here?”

“This pig,” said Granny Weatherwax, “is your son.”

There was a sigh from Esk’s mother as she collapsed gently backwards, but Smith was slightly less unprepared. He looked sharply from Gulta, who had managed to untangle himself from his clothing and was now rooting enthusiastically among the early windfalls, to his only daughter.

“She did this?”

“Yes. Or it was done through her,” said Granny, looking suspiciously at the staff.

“Oh.” Smith looked at his fifth son. He had to admit that the shape suited him. He reached out without looking and fetched the screaming Cern a thump on the back of his head.

“Can you turn him back again?” he asked. Granny spun around and glared the question at Esk, who shrugged.

“He didn’t believe I could do magic,” she said calmly.

“Yes, well, I think you’ve made the point,” said Granny. “And now you will turn him back, madam. This instant. Do you hear?”

“Don’t want to. He was rude.”

“I see.”

Esk gazed down defiantly. Granny glared up sternly. Their wills clanged like cymbals and the air between them thickened. But Granny had spent a lifetime bending recalcitrant creatures to her bidding and, while Esk was a surprisingly strong opponent, it was obvious that she would give in before the end of the paragraph.

“Oh, all right,” she whined. “I don’t know why anyone would bother turning him into a pig when he was doing such a good job of it all by himself.”

She didn’t know where the magic had come from, but she mentally faced that way and made a suggestion. Gulta reappeared, naked, with an apple in his mouth.

“Awts aughtning?” he said.

Granny spun around on Smith.

“Now will you believe me?” she snapped. “Do you really think she’s supposed to settle down here and forget all about magic? Can you imagine her poor husband if she marries?”

“But you always said it was impossible for women to be wizards,” said Smith. He was actually rather impressed. Granny Weatherwax had never been known to turn anyone into anything.

“Never mind that now,” said Granny, calming down a bit. “She needs training. She needs to know how to control. For pity’s sake put some clothes on that child.”

“Gulta, get dressed and stop grizzling,” said his father, and turned back to Granny. “You said there was some sort of teaching place?” he hazarded.

“The Unseen University, yes. It’s for training wizards.”

“And you know where it is?”

“Yes,” lied Granny, whose grasp of geography was slightly worse than her knowledge of subatomic physics.

Smith looked from her to his daughter, who was sulking.

“And they’ll make a wizard of her?” he said.

Granny sighed.

“I don’t know what they’ll make of her,” she said.

* * *

And so it was that, a week later, Granny locked the cottage door and hung the key on its nail in the privy. The goats had been sent to stay with a sister witch further along the hills, who had also promised to keep an Eye on the cottage. Bad Ass would just have to manage without a witch for a while.

Granny was vaguely aware that you didn’t find the Unseen University unless it wanted you to, and the only place to start looking was the town of Ohulan Cutash, a sprawl of a hundred or so houses about fifteen miles away. It was where you went to once or twice a year if you were a really cosmopolitan Bad Assian: Granny had only been once before in her entire life and hadn’t approved of it at all. It had smelt all wrong, she’d got lost, and she distrusted city folk with their flashy ways.

They got a lift on the cart that came out periodically with metal for the smithy. It was gritty, but better than walking, especially since Granny had packed their few possessions in a large sack. She sat on it for safety.

Esk sat cradling the staff and watching the woods go by. When they were several miles outside the village she said, “I thought you told me plants were different in forn parts.”

“So they are.”

“These trees look just the same.”

Granny regarded them disdainfully.

“Nothing like as good,” she said.

In fact she was already feeling slightly panicky. Her promise to accompany Esk to Unseen University had been made without thinking, and Granny, who picked up what little she knew of the rest of the Disc from rumour and the pages of her Almanack, was convinced that they were heading into earthquakes, tidal waves, plagues and massacres, many of them diuerse or even worse. But she was determined to see it through. A witch relied too much on words ever to go back on them.

She was wearing serviceable black, and concealed about her person were a number of hatpins and a breadknife. She had hidden their small store of money, grudgingly advanced by Smith, in the mysterious strata of her underwear. Her skirt pockets jingled with lucky charms, and a freshly forged horseshoe, always a potent preventative in time of trouble, weighed down her handbag. She felt about as ready as she ever would be to face the world.

The track wound down between the mountains. For once the sky was clear, the high Ramtops standing out crisp and white like the brides of the sky (with their trousseaux stuffed with thunderstorms) and the many little streams that bordered or crossed the path flowed sluggishly through strands of meadowsweet and go-faster- root.

By lunchtime they reached the suburb of Ohulan (it was too small to have more than one, which was just an inn and a handful of cottages belonging to people who couldn’t stand the pressures of urban life) and a few minutes later the cart deposited them in the town’s main, indeed its only, square.

It turned out to be market day.

Granny Weatherwax stood uncertainly on the cobbles, holding tightly to Esk’s shoulder as the crowd swirled around them. She had heard that lewd things could happen to country women who were freshly arrived in big cities, and she gripped her handbag until her knuckles whitened. If any male stranger had happened to so much as nod at her it would have gone very hard indeed for him.

Esk’s eyes were sparkling. The square was a jigsaw of noise and colour and smell. On one side of it were the temples of the Disc’s more demanding deities, and weird perfumes drifted out to join with the reeks of commerce in a complex ragrug of fragrances. There were stalls filled with enticing curiosities that she itched to investigate.

Granny let the both of them drift with the crowd. The stalls were puzzling her as well. She peered among them, although never for one minute relaxing her vigilance against pickpockets, earthquakes and traffickers in the erotic, until she spied something vaguely familiar.

There was a small covered stall, black draped and musty, that had been wedged into a narrow space between two houses. Inconspicuous though it was, it nevertheless seemed to be doing a very busy trade. Its customers were mainly women, of all ages, although she did notice a few men. They all had one thing in common, though. No one approached it directly. They all sort of strolled almost past it, then suddenly ducked under its shady canopy. A moment later and they would be back again, hand just darting away from bag or pocket, competing for the world’s Most Nonchalant Walk title so effectively that a watcher might actually doubt what he or she had just seen.