Carpe Jugulum

“Put a pointy stake in your garter and our lad’ll be getting cold even before they’ve finished cutting up the wedding cake.”
    “Nanny!”
    “Or maybe you could just sort of…make him change his ways a bit,” Nanny went on. “It’s amazing what a wife can do if she knows her own mind, or minds in your case, o’course. Take King Verence the First, for one. He used to toss all his meat bones over his shoulder until he was married and the Queen made him leave them on the side of the plate. I’d only bin married to the first Mr. Ogg for a month before he was getting out of the bath if he needed to pee. You can refine a husband. Maybe you could point him in the direction of blutwurst and black puddings and underdone steak.”
    “You really haven’t got any scruples, have you, Nanny,” said Agnes.
    “No,” said Nanny, simply. “This is Lancre we’re talkin’ about. If we was men, we’d be talking about layin’ down our lives for the country. As women, we can talk about laying down.”
    “I just don’t want to hear this,” said Magrat.
    “I ain’t asking her to do what I wouldn’t do,” said Nanny.
    “Really? Then why—”
    “Because no one wants me to do it,” said Nanny. “But if I was fifty years younger I reckon I could have Sonny Jim bitin’ turnips by midsummer.”
    “You mean just because she’s a woman she should use sexual wiles on him?” said Magrat. “This is so…so…well, it’s so Nanny Ogg, that’s all I can say.”
    “She should use any wile she can lay her hands on,” said Nanny. “I don’t care what Granny said, there’s always a way. Like the hero in Tsort or wherever it was, who was completely invincible except for his heel and someone stuck a spear in it and killed him…”
    “What are you expecting her to do, prod him all over?”
    “I never understood that story, anyway,” said Nanny. “I mean, if I knew I’d got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I’d go into battle wearing very heavy boots—”
    “You don’t know what he’s like,” said Agnes, ignoring the diversion. “He looks at me as if he’s undressing me with his eyes.”
    “Eyes is allowed,” said Nanny.
    “And he’s laughing at me all the time! As if he knows I don’t like him and that adds to the fun!”
    “Now you get into that castle!” Nanny growled. “For Lancre! For the King! For everyone in the country! And if he gets too much, let Perdita take over, ’cos I reckon there’s some things she’s better at!”
    In the shocked silence, there was a faint clinking noise from Nanny’s sideboard.
    Magrat coughed. “J-just like a the old days,” she said. “Arguing all the time.”
    Nanny stood up and unhooked a cast iron saucepan from the beam over the kitchen range.
    “You can’t treat people like this,” said Agnes, sullenly.
    “I can,” said Nanny, tiptoeing in the direction of the sideboard. “I’m the other one now, see?”
    Ornaments flew and shattered as she brought the saucepan down hard, bottom upward.
    “Got you, you little blue devil!” she shouted. “Don’t think I didn’t see you!”
    The saucepan rose. Nanny leaned her weight on the handle but it still moved slowly along the dresser, rocking slightly from side to side, until it reached the edge.
    Something red and blue dropped onto the floor and started moving toward the closed door.
    At the same time Greebo shot past Agnes, accelerating. And then, just as he was about to spring, he changed his mind. All four feet extended their claws at the same time and bit into the floorboards. He rolled, sprang onto his feet, stopped, and started to wash himself.
    The red and blue blur hit the door and picked itself up, becoming a blue man, six inches tall, with red hair. He carried a sword about the same size as himself.
    “Ach, hins tak yer scaggie, yer dank yowl callyake!” he screamed.
    “Oh, it’s you ,” said Nanny, relaxing. “Do you want a drink?”
    The sword was lowered slightly, but with a definite hint that it could be raised again at a moment’s notice.
    “’tazit?”
    Nanny reached down to the crate by her chair and sorted through the bottles.
    “Scumble? My best. Vintage,” she said.
    The wee man’s tiny eyes lit up. “Las’ Tuesda ?”
    “Right. Agnes, open that sewing box and pass me a thimble, will you? Come away here, man,” said Nanny, uncorking the bottle well away from the fire and filling up the thimble. “Ladies, this here’s…let’s see