Maskerade

“Got her fixed in your mind?” said Nanny.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Good. Now look at them tea?leaves.”

Granny looked down.

There was no particular drama, perhaps because of the way Nanny had built up expectations. But Granny did hiss between her teeth.

“Well, now. There's a thing,” she said.

“See it? See it?”

“Yep.”

“Like…a skull?”

“Yep.”

“And them eyes? I nearly pi? I was pretty damn' surprised by them eyes, I can tell you.”

Granny carefully replaced the cup.

“Her mam showed me her letters home,” said Nanny. “I brung 'em with me. It's worrying, Esme. She could be facing something bad. She's a Lancre girl. One of ours. Nothing's too much trouble when it's one of your own, I always say.”

“Tea?leaves can't tell the future,” said Granny quietly. “Everyone knows that.”

“Tea?leaves don't know.”

“Well, who'd be so daft as to tell anything to a bunch of dried leaves?”

Nanny Ogg looked down at Agnes's letters home. They were written in the careful rounded script of someone who'd been taught to write as a child by copying letters on a slate, and had never written enough as an adult to change their style. The person writing them had also very conscientiously drawn faint pencil lines on the paper before writing.

Dear Mam, I hope this finds you as it leaves me. Here I am in Ankh?Morpork and everything is all right, I have not been ravished yet!! I am staying at 4 Treacle Mine Road, it is alright and…

Granny tried another.

Dear Mum, I hope you are well. Everything is fine but, the money runs away like water here. I am doing some singing in taverns but I am not making much so I went to see the Guild of Seamstresses about getting a sewing job and I took along some stitching to show them and you'd be AMAZED, that's all I can say…

And another…

Dear Mother, Some good news at last. Next week they're holding auditions at the Opera House…

“What's opera?” said Granny Weatherwax. “It's like theatre, with singing,” said Nanny Ogg.

“Hah! Theatre,” said Granny darkly.

“Our Nev told me about it. It's all singing in foreign languages, he said. He couldn't understand any of it.”

Granny put down the letters.

“Yes, but your Nev can't understand a lot of things. What was he doing at this opera theatre, anyway?”

“Nicking the lead off the roof.” Nanny said this quite happily. It wasn't theft if an Ogg was doing it.

“Can't tell much from the letters, except that's she's picking up an education,” said Granny. “But it's a long way to—”

There was a hesitant knock on the door. It was Shawn Ogg, Nanny's youngest son and Lancre's entire civil and public service. Currently he had his postman's badge on; the Lancre postal service consisted of taking the mailbag off the nail where the coach left it and delivering it to the outlying homesteads when he had a moment, although many citizens were in the habit of going down to the sack and rummaging until they found some mail they liked.

He touched his helmet respectfully at Granny Weatherwax.

“Got a lot of letters, mum,” he said to Nanny Ogg. “Er. They're all addressed to, er, well… er… you'd better have a look, mum.”

Nanny Ogg took the proffered bundle.

“ 'The Lancre Witch',” she said aloud.

“That'd be me, then,” said Granny Weatherwax firmly, and took the letters.

“Ah. Well, I'd better be going…” said Nanny, backing towards the door.

“Can't imagine why peopled be writing to me,” said Granny, slitting an envelope. “Still, I suppose news gets around.” She focused on the words.

“ 'Dear Witch,' ” she read, “ 'I would just like to say how much I appreciated the Famous Carrot and Oyster Pie recipe. My husband—' ”

Nanny Ogg made it halfway down the path before her boots became, suddenly, too heavy to lift.

“Gytha Ogg, you come back here right now!”

Agnes tried again. She didn't really know anyone in Ankh-Morpork and she did need someone to talk to, even if they didn't listen.

“I suppose mainly I came because of the witches,” she said.

Christine turned, her eyes wide with fascination. So was her mouth. It was like looking at a rather pretty bowling ball.

“Witches?!” she breathed.

“Oh, yes,” said Agnes wearily. Yes. People were always fascinated by the idea of witches. They should try living around them, she thought.

“Do they do spells and ride around on broomsticks?!”

“Oh, yes.”

“No wonder you ran away!”

“What? Oh… no… it's not like that. I mean, they're not bad. It's much… worse than that.”

“Worse than bad?!”

“They think they know what's best for everybody.”

Christine's forehead wrinkled, as it tended to when she was contemplating a problem more complex than “What is your name?”

“That doesn't sound very ba—”

“They… mess people around. They think that just because they're right that's the same as good! It's not even as though they do any real magic. It's all fooling people and being clever! They think they can do what they like!”

The force of the words knocked even Christine back. “Oh, dear!! Did they want you to do something?!”

“They want me to be something. But I'm not going to!”

Christine stared at her. And then, automatically, forgot everything she'd just heard.

“Come on,” she said, “let's have a look around!!”

Nanny Ogg balanced on a chair and took down an oblong wrapped in paper.

Granny watched sternly with her arms folded.

“Thing is,” Nanny babbled, under the laser glare, “my late husband, I remember him once sayin' to me, after dinner, he said, 'You know, mother, it'd be a real shame if all the stuff you know just passed away when you did. Why don't you write some of it down?' So I scribbled the odd one, when I had a moment, and then I thought it'd be nice to have it all properly done so I sent it off to the Almanack people in