Lords And Ladies

'Damn things turning up everywhere this year,' said the Archchancellor. He hadn't taken his hat off to eat the meal. This was because it was holding down a poultice of honey and horse manure and a small mouse-powered electrostatic generator he'd got those clever young fellas in the High Energy Magic research building to knock together for him, clever fellas they were, one day he might even understand half of what they were always gabblin' on about. . .

In the meantime, he'd keep his hat on.

'Particularly strong, too,' said the Dean. 'The gardener told me yesterday they're playing merry hell with the cabbages.'

'I thought them things only turned up out in fields and things,' said Ridcully. 'Perfectly normal natural phenomenon.'

'If there is a suitably high flux level, the inter-continuum pressure can probably overcome quite a high base reality quotient,' said the Reader in Invisible Writings.

The conversation stopped. Everyone turned to look at this most wretched and least senior member of the staff.

The Archchancellor glowered.

'I don't even want you to begin to start explainin' that,' he said. 'You're probably goin' to go on about the universe bein' a rubber sheet with weights on it again, right?'

'Not exactly a-'

'And the word 'quantum' is hurryin' toward your lips again,' said Ridcully.

'Well, the-'

'And 'continuinuinuum' too, I expect,' said Ridcully.

The Reader in Invisible Writings, a young wizard whose name was Ponder Stibbons, sighed deeply.

'No, Archchancellor, I was merely pointing out-'

'It's not wormholes again, is it?'

Stibbons gave up. Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a red rag to a bu-was like putting something very annoying in front of someone who was annoyed by it.

It was very hard, being a reader in Invisible Writings.

'I reckon you'd better come too,' said Ridcully.

'Me, Archchancellor?'

'Can't have you skulking around the place inventing millions of other universes that're too small to see and all the rest of that continuinuinuum stuff,' said Ridcully. 'Anyway, I shall need someone to carry my rods and crossbo — my stuff,' he corrected himself.

Stibbons stared at his plate. It was no good arguing. What he had really wanted out of life was to spend the next hundred years of it in the University, eating big meals and not moving much in between them. He was a plump young man with a complexion the colour of something that lives under a rock. People were always telling him to make something of his life, and that's what he wanted to do. He wanted to make a bed of it.

'But, Archchancellor,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, 'it's still too damn far.'

'Nonsense,' said Ridcully. 'They've got that new turnpike open all the way to Sto Helit now. Coaches every Wednesday, reg'lar. Bursaaar! Oh, give him a dried frog pill, someone . . . Mr. Stibbons, if you could happen to find yourself in this universe for five minutes, go and arrange some tickets. There. All sorted out, right?'

Magrat woke up.

And knew she wasn't a witch anymore. The feeling just crept over her, as part of the normal stock-taking that any body automatically does in the first seconds of emergence from the pit of dreams: arms: 2, legs: 2, existential dread: 58%, randomised guilt: 94%, witchcraft level: 00.00.

The point was, she couldn't remember ever being anything else. She'd always been a witch. Magrat Garlick, third witch, that was what she was. The soft one.

She knew she'd never been much good at it. Oh, she could do some spells and do them quite well, and she was good at herbs, but she wasn't a witch in the bone like the old ones. They made sure she knew it.

Well, she'd just have to learn queening. At least she was the only one in Lancre. No one'd be looking over her shoulder the whole time, saying things like 'You ain't holding that sceptre right'.'

Right. . .

Someone had stolen her clothes in the night.

She got up in her nightshirt and hopped over the cold flagstones to the door. She was halfway there when it opened of its own accord.

She recognised the small dark girl that came in, barely visible behind a stack of linen. Most people in Lancre knew everyone else.

'Millie Chillum?'

The linen bobbed a curtsy.

'Yes'm?'

Magrat lifted up part of the stack.

'It's me, Magrat,' she said. 'Hello.'

'Yes'm.' Another bob.

'What's up with you, Millie?'

'Yes'm.' Bob, bob.

'I said it's me. You don't have to look at me like that.'

'Yes'm.'

The nervous bobbing continued. Magrat found her own knees beginning to jerk in sympathy but as it were behind the beat, so that as she was bobbing down she overtook the girl bobbing up.

'If you say 'yes'm' again, it will go very hard with you,' she managed, as she went past.

'Y-right, your majesty, m'm.'

Faint light began to dawn.

'I'm not queen yet, Millie. And you've known me for twenty years,' panted Magrat, on the way up.

'Yes'm. But you're going to be queen. So me mam told me I was to be respectful,' said Millie, still curtsying nervously

'Oh. Well. All right, then. Where are my clothes?'

'Got 'em here, your pre-majesty.'

'They're not mine. And please stop going up and down all the time. I feel a bit sick.'

'The king ordered 'em from Sto Helit special, m'm.'

'Did he, eh? How long ago?'

'Dunno, m'm.'

He knew I was coming home, thought Magrat. How? What's going on here?

There was a good deal more lace than Magrat was used to, but that was, as it were, the icing on the cake. Magrat normally wore a simple dress with not much underneath it except Magrat. Ladies of quality couldn't get away with that kind of thing. Millie had been provided with a sort of technical diagram, but it wasn't much help.

They studied it for some time.

'This is a standard queen outfit, then?'

'Couldn't say, m'm. I think his majesty just sent 'em a lot of money and said to send you everything.' They spread out the bits on the floor.

'Is this the pantoffle?'

Outside, on the battlements, the guard changed. In fact he changed into his gardening apron and went off to hoe the beans. Inside, there was considerable sartorial discussion.

'I think you've got it up the wrong way, m'm. Which bit's the farthingale?'

'Says here Insert Tabbe A into Slotte B. Can't find slotte B.'

'These're like saddlebags. I'm not wearing these. And