Wyrd Sisters

'Whereas what?'

'Eh?'

'Aren't you even listening?'

'I knew it was wrong when I wrote it, I knew it was the wrong way round . . .

What?

Oh, yes. Be a king. It's a good job. It seems there's a lot of competition, at any rate. I'm very happy for you. Once you're a king, you can do anything you want.'

Tomjon looked at the faces of the Lancre worthies around the table. They had a keen, calculating look, like the audience at a fatstock show. They were weighing him up. It crept upon him in a cold and clammy way that once he was king, he could do anything he wanted. Provided that what he wanted to do was be king.

'You could build your own theatre,' said Hwel, his eyes lighting up for a moment. 'With as many trapdoors as you wanted, and magnificent costumes. You could act in a new play every night. I mean, it would make the Dysk look like a shed.'

'Who would come to see me?' said Tomjon, sagging in his seat.

'Everyone.'

'What, every night?'

'You could order them to,' said Hwel, without looking up.

I knew he was going to say that, Tomjon thought. He can't really mean it, he added charitably. He's got his play. He doesn't really exist in this world, not right now at the moment.

He took off the crown and turned it over and over in his hands. There wasn't much metal in it, but it felt heavy. He wondered how heavy it would get if you wore it all the time.

At the head of the table was an empty chair containing, he had been assured, the ghost of his real father. It would have been nice to report that he had experienced anything more, when being introduced to it, than an icy sensation and a buzzing in the ears.

'I suppose I could help father pay off on the Dysk,' he said.

'That would be nice, yes,' said Hwel.

He spun the crown in his fingers and listened glumly to the talk flowing back and forth over his head.

'Fifteen years?' said the Mayor of Lancre.

'We had to,' said Granny Weatherwax.

'I thought the baker was a bit early last week.'

'No, no,' said the witch impatiently. 'It doesn't work like that. No-one's lost anything.'

'According to my figuring,' said the man who doubled as Lancre's beadle, town clerk and gravedigger, 'we've all lost fifteen years.'

'No, we've all gained them,' said the mayor. 'It stands to reason. Time's like this sort of wiggly road, see, but we took a short cut across the fields.'

'Not at all,' said the clerk, sliding a sheet of paper across the table. 'Look here . . .'

Tomjon let the waters of debate close over him again.

Everyone wanted him to be king. No-one thought twice about what he wanted. His views didn't count.

Yes, that was it. No-one wanted him to be king, not precisely him. He just happened to be convenient.

Gold does not tarnish, at least physically, but Tomjon felt that the thin band of metal in his hands had an unpleasant depth to its lustre. It had sat on too many troubled heads. If you held it to your ear, you could hear the screams.