Equal Rites

very large laundry book—it was still open in front of her—but was currently inspecting a large stained vest.
    “Have you tried bleaching?” she asked.
    “Yes, m’m,” said the maid beside her.
    “What about tincture of myrryt?”
    “Yes, m’m. It just turned it blue, m’m.”
    “Well, it’s a new one on me,” said the laundry woman. “And Ay’ve seen brimstone and soot and dragon blood and demon blood and Aye don’t know what else.” She turned the vest over and read the nametape carefully sewn inside. “Hmm. Granpone the White. He’s going to be Granpone the Gray if he doesn’t take better care of his laundry. Aye tell you, girl, a white magician is just a black magician with a good housekeeper. Take it—”
    She caught sight of Granny, and stopped.
    “Ee ocked hat hee oor,” said Granny’s guide, dropping a hurried curtsy. “Oo ed hat—”
    “Yes, yes, thank you, Ksandra, you may go,” said the fat woman. She stood up and beamed at Granny, and with an almost perceptible click wound her voice up several social classes.
    “Pray hexcuse us,” she said. “You find us hall at sixes and sevens, it being washing day and heverything. His this a courtesy call or may I make so bold as to ask—” she lowered her voice—“his there a message from the Hother Sade?”
    Granny looked blank, but only a fraction of a second. The witchmarks on the doorpost had said that the housekeeper welcomed witches and was particularly anxious for news of her four husbands; she was also in random pursuit of a fifth, hence the ginger wig and, if Granny’s ears weren’t deceiving her, the creak of enough whalebone to infuriate an entire ecology movement. Gullible and foolish, the signs had said. Granny withheld judgment, because city witches didn’t seem that bright themselves.
    The housekeeper must have mistaken her expression.
    “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “May staff have distinct instructions to welcome witches, although of course they upstairs don’t approve. No doubt you would like a cup of tea and something to eat?”
    Granny bowed solemnly.
    “And Aye will see if we can’t find a nice bundle of old clothes for you, too,” the housekeeper beamed.
    “Old clothes? Oh. Yes. Thank you, m’m.”
    The housekeeper swept forward with a sound like an elderly tea clipper in a gale, and beckoned Granny to follow her.
    “Aye’ll have the tea brought to my flat. Tea with a lot of tea-leaves.”
    Granny stumped along after her. Old clothes? Did this fat woman really mean it? The nerve! Of course, if they were good quality…
    There seemed to be a whole world under the University. It was a maze of cellars, coldrooms, stillrooms, kitchens and sculleries, and every inhabitant was either carrying something, pumping something, pushing something or just standing around and shouting. Granny caught glimpses of rooms full of ice, and others glowing with the heat from red-hot cooking stoves, wall-sized. Bakeries smelled of new bread and taprooms smelled of old beer. Everything smelled of sweat and wood-smoke.
    The housekeeper led her up an old spiral staircase and unlocked the door with one of the large number of keys that hung from her belt.
    The room inside was pink and frilly. There were frills on things that no one in their right mind would frill. It was like being inside candyfloss.
    “Very nice,” said Granny. And, because she felt it was expected of her, “Tasteful.” She looked around for something unfrilly to sit on, and gave up.
    “Whatever am Aye thinking of?” the housekeeper trilled. “Aye’m Mrs. Whitlow but I expect you know, of course. And Aye have the honor to be addressing—?”
    “Eh? Oh, Granny Weatherwax,” said Granny. The frills were getting to her. They gave pink a bad name.
    “Ay’m psychic myself, of course,” said Mrs. Whitlow.

    Granny had nothing against fortune-telling provided it was done badly by people with no talent for it. It was a different matter if people who ought to know better did it, though. She considered that the future was a frail enough thing at best, and if people looked at it hard they changed it. Granny had some quite complex theories about space and time and why they shouldn’t be tinkered with, but fortunately good fortune-tellers were rare and anyway people preferred bad fortune-tellers, who could be relied upon for the correct dose of uplift and optimism.
    Granny knew all about bad fortune-telling. It was harder than the real thing. You