Lords And Ladies

anyone. They were just mountains. The castle rambled everywhere. No one even knew how far the cellars went.

These days everyone lived in the turrets and halls near the gate.

'I mean, look at the crenellations,' said Magrat.

'What, m'm?'

'The cut-out bits on top of the walls. You could hold off an army here.'

'That's what a castle's for, isn't it, m'm?'

Magrat sighed. 'Can we stop the 'm'm', please? It makes you sound uncertain.'

'Mm, m'm?'

'I mean, who is there to fight up here? Not even trolls could come over the mountains, and anyone coming up the road is asking for a rock on the head. Besides, you only have to cut down Lancre bridge.'

'Dunno, m'm. Kings've got to have castles, I s'pose.'

'Don't you ever wonder about anything, you stupid girl?'

'What good does that do, m'm?'

I called her a stupid girl, thought Magrat. Royalty is rubbing off on me.

'Oh, well,' she said, 'where've we got to?'

'We're going to need two thousand yards of the blue chintz material with the little white flowers,' said Millie.

'And we haven't even measured half the windows yet,' said Magrat, rolling up the tape measure.

She looked down the length of the Long Gallery. The thing about it, the thing that made it so noticeable, the first thing anyone noticed about it, was that it was very long. It shared certain distinctive traits with the Great Hall and the Deep Dungeons. Its name was a perfectly accurate description. And it would be, as Nanny Ogg would say, a bugger to carpet.

'Why? Why a castle in Lancre?' she said, mainly to herself, because talking to Millie was like talking to yourself. 'We've never fought anyone. Apart from outside the tavern on a Saturday night.'

'Couldn't say, I'm sure, m'm,' said Millie.

Magrat sighed.

'Where's the king today?'

'He's opening Parliament, m'm.'

'Hah! Parliament!'

Which had been another of Verence's ideas. He'd tried to introduce Ephebian democracy to Lancre, giving the vote to everyone, or at least everyone 'who be of good report and who be male and hath forty years and owneth a house[16] worth more than three and a half goats a year,' because there's no sense in being stupid about things and giving the vote to people who were poor or criminal or insane or female, who'd only use it irresponsibly. It worked, more or less, although the Members of Parliament only turned up when they felt like it and in any case no one ever wrote anything down and, besides, no one ever disagreed with whatever Verence said because he was King. What's the point of having a king, they thought, if you have to rule yourself? He should do his job, even if he couldn't spell properly. No one was asking him to thatch roofs or milk cows, were they?

'I'm bored, Millie. Bored, bored, bored. I'm going for a walk in the gardens.'

'Shall I fetch Shawn with the trumpet?'

'Not if you want to live.'

Not all the gardens had been dug up for agricultural experiments. There was, for example, the herb garden. To Magrat's expert eye it was a pretty poor herb garden, since it just contained plants that flavoured food. And at that Mrs. Scorbic's repertoire stopped short at mint and sage. There wasn't a sprig of vervain or yarrow or Old Man's Trousers anywhere in it.

And there was the famous maze or, at least, it would be a famous maze. Verence had planted it because he'd heard that stately castles should have a maze and everyone agreed that, once the bushes were a bit higher than their current height of about one foot, it would indeed be a very famous maze and people would be able to get lost in it without having to shut their eyes and bend down.

Magrat drifted disconsolately along the gravel path, her huge wide dress leaving a smooth trail.

There was a scream from the other side of the hedge, but Magrat recognized the voice. There were certain traditions in Lancre castle which she had learned.

'Good morning, Hodgesaargh,' she said.

The castle falconer appeared around the comer, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. On his other arm, claws gripping like a torture instrument, was a bird. Evil red eyes glared at Magrat over a razor-sharp beak.

'I've got a new hawk,' said Hodgesaargh proudly. 'It's a Lancre crowhawk. They've never been tamed before. I'm taming it. I've already stopped it pecking myooooow-'

He flailed the hawk madly against the wall until it let go of his nose.

Strictly speaking, Hodgesaargh wasn't his real name. On the other hand, on the basis that someone's real name is the name they introduce themselves to you by, he was definitely Hodgesaargh.

This was because the hawks and falcons in the castle mews were all Lancre birds and therefore naturally possessed of a certain 'sod you' independence of mind. After much patient breeding and training Hodgesaargh had managed to get them to let go of someone's wrist, and now he was working on stopping them viciously attacking the person who had just been holding them, i.e., invariably Hodgesaargh. He was nevertheless a remarkably optimistic and good-natured man who lived for the day when his hawks would be the finest in the world. The hawks lived for the day when they could eat his other ear.

'I can see you're doing very well,' said Magrat. 'You don't think, do you, that they might respond better to cruelty?'

'Oh, no, miss,' said Hodgesaargh, 'you have to be kind. You have to build up a bond, you see. If they don't trust you theyaaaagh-'

'I'll just leave you to get on with it then, shall I?' said Magrat, as feathers filled the air.

Magrat had been gloomily unsurprised to learn that there was a precise class and gender distinction in falconry — Verence, being king, was allowed a gyrfalcon, whatever the hell that was, any earls in the vicinity could fly a peregrine, and priests were allowed sparrowhawks. Commoners were just about allowed a stick to throw[17]. Magrat found herself wondering what Nanny Ogg would be allowed — a small chicken on a spring, probably.

There was no specific falcon for a witch but, as a queen, the Lancre rules of falconry allowed her to fly the wowhawk or Lappet-faced Worrier. It was small and short sighted and preferred to walk everywhere. It fainted at the sight of blood. And about twenty wowhawks could kill a pigeon, if it was a sick pigeon. She'd spent an hour with one on her wrist. It had wheezed at her, and eventually it had dozed off upside down.

But at least Hodgesaargh had a job to do. The castle was full of people doing jobs. Everyone had something useful to do except Magrat. She just had to exist. Of course, everyone would talk to her, provided she talked to them first. But she was always interrupting something important. Apart from ensuring the royal succession, which Verence had sent off for a book about, she—

'You just keep back there, girl. You don't want to come no further,' said a voice. Magrat bridled.

'Girl? One happens to be very nearly of the royal blood by marriage!'

'Maybe, but the bees don't know that,' said the voice. Magrat stopped.

She'd stepped out beyond what were the gardens from the point of view of the royal family and into what were the gardens from the point of view of everyone else — beyond the world of hedges and topiary and herb gardens and into the world of old sheds, piles of flowerpots, compost and, just here, beehives.

One of the hives had the lid off. Beside it, in the middle of a brown cloud, smoking his special bee pipe, was Mr. Brooks.

'Oh,' she said, 'it's you, Mr. Brooks.' Technically, Mr. Brooks was the Royal Beekeeper. But the relationship was a careful one. For one thing, although most of the staff were called by their last names Mr. Brooks shared with the cook and the butler the privilege of an honorific. Because Mr. Brooks had secret powers. He knew all about honey flows and the mating of queens. He knew about swarms, and how to destroy wasps' nests. He got