Carpe Jugulum

at her to pay attention. She listened.
    Threes…
    Three spoons. Three knives. Three cups.
    The broken cup thrown away.
    She stood still, afraid that if she moved or breathed something awful would happen.
    The clock had stopped…
    “Nanny?”
    Nanny Ogg was wise enough to recognize that something was happening and didn’t waste time on daft questions.
    “Yes?” she said.
    “Go in and tell me what time the clock stopped at, will you?”
    Nanny nodded and trotted off.
    The tension in Agnes’s head stretched out thin and made a noise like a plucked string. She was amazed that the whine from it couldn’t be heard all round the garden. If she moved, if she tried to force things, it’d snap.
    Nanny returned.
    “Three o’clock?” said Agnes, before she opened her mouth.
    “Just after.”
    “How much after?”
    “Two or three minutes…”
    “Two or three?”
    “Three, then.”
    The three magpies landed together in another tree and chased one another through the branches, chattering loudly.
    “Three minutes after three,” said Agnes, and felt the tension ease and the words form. “Threes, Nanny. She was thinking in threes. There was another candlestick out in the goat shed, and some cutlery too. But she only put out threes.”
    “Some things were in ones and twos,” said Nanny, but her voice was edged with doubt.
    “Then she’d only got one or two of them,” said Agnes. “There were more spoons and things out in the scullery that she’d missed. I mean that for some reason she wasn’t putting out more than three.”
    “I know for a fact she’s got four cups,” said Nanny.
    “Three,” said Agnes. “She must’ve broken one. The bits are in the slop bucket.”
    Nanny Ogg stared at her. “She’s not clumsy, as a rule,” she mumbled. She looked to Agnes as though she was trying to avoid some huge and horrible thought.
    A gust shook the trees. A few drops of rain spattered across the garden.
    “Let’s get inside,” Agnes suggested.
    Nanny shook her head. “It’s chillier in there than out here,” she said. Something skimmed across the leaves and landed on the lawn. It was a fourth magpie. “‘Four for a birth,’” she added, apparently to herself. “That’d be it, sure enough. I hoped she wouldn’t realize, but you can’t get anything past Esme. I’ll tan young Shawn’s hide for him when I get home! He swore he’d delivered that invite!”
    “Perhaps she took it away with her?”
    “No! If she’d got it she’d have been there last night, you can bet on it!” snapped Nanny.
    “ What wouldn’t she realize?” said Agnes.
    “Magrat’s daughter!”
    “What? Well, I should think she would realize! You can’t hide a baby! Everyone in the kingdom knows about it.”
    “I mean Magrat’s got a daughter ! She’s a mother !” said Nanny
    “Well, yes! That’s how it works! So?”
    They were shouting at one another, and they both realized it at the same time.
    It was raining harder now. Drips were flying off Agnes’s hat every time she moved her head.
    Nanny recovered a little. “All right, I s’pose between us we’ve got enough sense to get in out of the rain.”
    “And at least we can light the fire,” said Agnes, as they stepped into the chill of the kitchen. “She’s left it all laid—”
    “No!”
    “There’s no need to shout again!”
    “Look, don’t light the fire, right?” said Nanny. “Don’t touch anything more than you have to!”
    “I could easily get more kindling in, and—”
    “Be told! That fire wasn’t laid for you to light! And leave that door alone!”
    Agnes stopped in the act of pushing away the stone.
    “Be sensible, Nanny, the rain and leaves are blowing in!”
    “Let ’em!”
    Nanny flopped into the rocking chair, pulled up her skirt and fumbled in the depths of a lengthy knicker leg until she came up with the spirit flask. She took a long pull. Her hands were shaking.
    “I can’t start being a hag at my time of life,” she muttered. “None of my bras’ll fit.”
    “Nanny?”
    “Yes?”
    “What the hell are you going on about? Daughter? Not lighting fires? Hags?”
    Nanny replaced the flask and felt around in the other leg, coming up eventually with her pipe and tobacco pouch.
    “Not sure if I ought to tell you,” she said.

Now Granny Weatherwax was well beyond the local woods and high in the forests, following a track used by the charcoal burners and the occasional dwarf.
    Already Lancre was dying away. She could