Lords And Ladies

shall give you a right ding around the ear.'

'Sorry, Esme,' said Nanny.

'Good.'

'I expect you want to talk about old times,' Nanny volunteered.

'Maybe old times. Maybe other times.' The unicorn reached the forest, and galloped onward.

The waters of the Lancre gushed below. No one crossed the same water twice, even on a bridge.

Ridcully dropped a pebble. It went plunk.

'It all works out,' said Granny Weatherwax, 'somewhere. Your young wizard knows that, he just puts daft words around it. He'd be quite bright, if only he'd look at what's in front of him.'

'He wants to stay here for a while,' said Ridcully

gloomily. He flicked another pebble into the depths. 'Seems fascinated by the stones. I can't say no, can I? The king's all for it. He says other kings have always had fools, so he'll try having a wise man around, just in case that works better.'

Granny laughed. 'And there's young Diamanda going to be up and about any day now,' she said. 'What do you mean?'

'Oh, nothing. That's the thing about the future. It could turn out to be anything. And everything.'

She picked up a pebble. It hit the water at the same time as one of Ridcully's own, making a double plunk.

'Do you think,' said Ridcully, 'that . . . somewhere . . .

it all went right?'

'Yes. Here!' Granny softened at the sight of his sagging shoulders.

'But there, too,' she said.

'What?'

'I mean that somewhere Mustrum Ridcully married Esmerelda Weatherwax and they lived-' Granny gritted her teeth '-lived happily ever after. More or less. As much as anyone does.'

'How d'you know?'

'I've been picking up bits of her memories. She seemed happy enough. And I ain't easily pleased.'

'How can you do that?'

'I try to be good at everything I do.'

'Did she say anything about-'

'She didn't say nothing! She don't know we exist! Don't ask questions! It's enough to know that everything happens somewhere, isn't it?'

Ridcully tried to grin.

'Is that the best you can tell me?' he said.

'It's the best there is. Or the next best thing.'

* * *

Where does it end[45]?

On a summer night, with couples going their own ways, and silky purple twilight growing between the trees. From the castle, long after the celebrations had ended, faint laughter and the ringing of little silver bells. And from the empty hillside, only the silence of the elves.

,

Notes

1

Probably at the first pawn.

2

Gods like a joke as much as anyone else.

3

Which is another country.

4

Which, no matter how carefully coiled, will always uncoil overnight and tie the lawnmower to the bicycles.

5

This happens all the time, everywhere in the multiverse, even on cold planets awash with liquid methane. No one knows why it is, but in any group of employed individuals the only naturally early riser is always the office manager, who will always leave reproachful little notes (or, as it might be, engraved helium crystals) on the desks of their subordinates. In fact the only place this does not happen very often is the world Zyrix, and this is only because Zyrix has eighteen suns and it is only possible to be an early riser there once every 1,789.6 years, but even then, once every 1,789.6 years, resonating to some strange universal signal, smallminded employers slither down to the office with a tentacle full of small reproachful etched frimpt shells at the ready.