A Blink of the Screen

were silent for a moment.
    ‘I dare say that was a valuable comment,’ said Letice, ‘but I didn’t understand it.’
    ‘If there ain’t no water in the sea, it ain’t the sea,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘It’s just a damn great hole in the ground. Thing about Esme is …’ Nanny took another noisy pull at the pipe. ‘She’s all pride, see? She ain’t just a proud person.’
    ‘Then perhaps she should learn to be a bit more humble …’
    ‘What’s she got to be humble about?’ said Nanny sharply.
    But Letice, like a lot of people with marshmallow on the outside, had a hard core that was not easily compressed.
    ‘The woman clearly has a natural talent and, really, she should be grateful for—’
    Nanny Ogg stopped listening at this point.
    The woman, she thought. So that was how it was going.
    It was the same in just about every trade. Sooner or later someone decided it needed organizing, and the one thing you could be sure of was that the organizers weren’t going to be the people who, by general acknowledgement, were at the top of their craft. They were working too hard. To be fair, it generally wasn’t done by the worst, neither. They were working hard, too. They had to.
    No, it was done by the ones who had just enough time and inclination to scurry and bustle. And, to be fair again, the world needed people who scurried and bustled. You just didn’t have to like them very much.
    The lull told her that Letice had finished.
    ‘Really? Now, me,’ said Nanny, ‘I’m the one who’s nat’rally talented. Us Oggs’ve got witchcraft in our blood. I never really had to sweat at it. Esme, now … she’s got a bit, true enough, but it ain’t a lot. She just makes it work harder’n hell. And you’re going to tell her she’s not to?’
    ‘We were rather hoping you would,’ said Letice.
    Nanny opened her mouth to deliver one or two swearwords, and then stopped.
    ‘Tell you what,’ she said, ‘you can tell her tomorrow, and I’ll come with you to hold her back.’
    Granny Weatherwax was gathering Herbs when they came up the track.
    Everyday herbs of sickroom and kitchen are known as simples. Granny’s Herbs weren’t simples. They were complicateds or they were nothing. And there was none of the airy-fairy business with a pretty basket and a pair of dainty snippers. Granny used a knife. And a chair held in front of her. And a leather hat, gloves and apron as secondary lines of defence.
    Even she didn’t know where some of the Herbs came from. Roots and seeds were traded all over the world, and maybe farther. Some had flowers that turned as you passed by, some fired their thorns at passing birds, and several were staked, not so that they wouldn’t fall over, but so they’d still be there next day.
    Nanny Ogg, who never bothered to grow any herb you couldn’t smoke or stuff a chicken with, heard her mutter, ‘Right, you buggers—’
    ‘Good morning, Miss Weatherwax,’ said Letice Earwig loudly.
    Granny Weatherwax stiffened, and then lowered the chair very carefully and turned around.
    ‘It’s Mistress,’ she said.
    ‘Whatever,’ said Letice brightly. ‘I trust you are keeping well?’
    ‘Up till now,’ said Granny. She nodded almost imperceptibly at the other three witches.
    There was a thrumming silence, which appalled Nanny Ogg. They should have been invited in for a cup of something. That was how the ritual went. It was gross bad manners to keep people standing around. Nearly, but not quite, as bad as calling an elderly unmarried witch ‘Miss’.
    ‘You’ve come about the Trials,’ said Granny. Letice almost fainted.
    ‘Er, how did—’
    ‘’Cos you look like a committee. It don’t take much reasoning,’ said Granny, pulling off her gloves. ‘We didn’t use to need a committee. The news just got around and we all turned up. Now suddenly there’s folk arrangin’ things.’ For a moment Granny looked as though she was fighting some serious internal battle, and then she added in throwaway tones, ‘Kettle’s on. You’d better come in.’
    Nanny relaxed. Maybe there were some customs even Granny Weatherwax wouldn’t defy, after all. Even if someone was your worst enemy, you invited them in and gave them tea and biscuits. In fact, the worser your enemy, the better the crockery you got out and the higher the quality of the biscuits. You might wish black hell on ’em later, but while they were under your roof you’d feed ’em till they choked.
    Her dark little eyes