Carpe Jugulum

mum’s name and her dad’s name, mumbling a bit over the latter if the mum ain’t sure—”
    “Nanny! This is royalty !”
    “Hah, I could tell you stories, gel…and then, see, you give her to me and I tell her, too, and then I give her back and you tell the people what her name is, an’ then you give her to me, and then I give her to her dad, and he takes her out through the doors and shows her to everyone, everyone throws their hats in the air and shouts ‘hoorah!’ and then it’s all over bar the drinks and horses’ doovers and findin’ your own hat. Start extemporizin’ on the subject of sin and it’ll go hard with you.”
    “What is, um, your role, madam?”
    “I’m the godmother!”
    “Which, um, god?” The young man was trembling slightly.
    “It’s from Old Lancre,” said Agnes hurriedly. “It’s means something like ‘goodmother.’ It’s all right…as witches we believe in religious toleration…”
    “That’s right,” said Nanny Ogg. “But only for the right religions, so you watch your step!”
    The royal parents had reached the thrones. Magrat took her seat and, to Agnes’s amazement, gave her a sly wink.
    Verence didn’t wink. He stood there and coughed loudly.
    “Ahem!”
    “I’ve got a pastille somewhere,” said Nanny, her hand reaching toward her knicker leg.
    “Ahem!” Verence’s eyes darted toward his throne.
    What had appeared to be a gray cushion rolled over, yawned, gave the King a brief glance, and started to wash itself.
    “Oh, Greebo!” said Nanny. “I was wonderin’ where you’d got to…”
    “Could you please remove him, Mrs. Ogg?” said the King.
    Agnes glanced at Magrat. The Queen had half turned away, with her elbow on the arm of the throne and her hand covering her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking.
    Nanny grabbed her cat off the throne.
    “A cat can look at a king,” she said.
    “Not with that expression, I believe,” said Verence. He waved graciously at the assembled company, just as the castle’s clock began to strike midnight.
    “Please begin, Reverend.”
    “I, um, did have a small suitable homily on the subject of, um, hope for the—” the Quite Reverend Oats began, but there was a grunt from Nanny and he suddenly seemed to jerk forward slightly. He blinked once or twice and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “But alas I fear we have no time,” he concluded quickly.
    Magrat leaned over and whispered something in her husband’s ear. Agnes heard him say, “Well, dear, I think we have to, whether she’s here or not…”
    Shawn scurried up, slightly out of breath and with his wig on sideways. He was carrying a cushion. On the faded velvet was the big iron key of the castle.
    Millie Chillum carefully handed the baby to the priest, who held it gingerly.
    It seemed to the royal couple that he suddenly started to speak very hesitantly. Behind him, Nanny Ogg’s was an expression of extreme interest that was nevertheless made up of one hundred percent artificial additives. They also had the impression that the poor man was suffering from frequent attacks of cramp.
    “—we are gathered here together in the sight of…um…one another…”
    “Are you all right, Reverend?” said the King, leaning forward.
    “Never better, sir, um, I assure you,” said Oats miserably, “…and I therefore name thee…that is, you…”
    There was a deep, horrible pause.
    Glassy faced, the priest handed the baby to Millie. Then he removed his hat, took a small scrap of paper from the lining, read it, moved his lips a few times as he said the words to himself, and then replaced the hat on his sweating forehead and took the baby again.
    “I name you…Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre!”
    The shocked silence was suddenly filled.
    “Note Spelling?” said Magrat and Agnes together.
    “Esmerelda?” said Nanny.
    The baby opened her eyes.
    And the doors swung back.

Choices. It was always choices…
    There’d been that man down in Spackle, the one that’d killed those little kids. The people’d sent for her and she’d looked at him and seen the guilt writhing in his head like a red worm, and then she’d taken them to his farm and showed them where to dig, and he’d thrown himself down and asked her for mercy, because he said he’d been drunk and it’d all been done in alcohol.
    Her words came back to her. She’d said, in sobriety: end it in hemp.
    And they’d dragged him off and hanged him in a hempen rope and she’d