Maskerade

hand of poker? Five cards each, no draws? Sudden death, as they say.”
    Death thought about this, too.
    Y OU KNOW THIS FAMILY ?
    “No.”
    T HEN WHY ?
    “Are we talking or are we playing?”
    O H, VERY WELL .
    Granny picked up the pack of cards and shuffled it, not looking at her hands, and smiling at Death all the time. She dealt five cards each, and reached down…
    A bony hand grasped hers.
    B UT FIRST , M ISTRESS W EATHERWAX—WE WILL EXCHANGE CARDS .
    He picked up the two piles and transposed them, and then nodded at Granny.
    M ADAM ?
    Granny looked at her cards, and threw them down.
    F OUR Q UEENS . H MM . T HAT IS VERY HIGH .
    Death looked down at his cards, and then up into Granny’s steady, blue-eyed gaze.
    Neither moved for some time.
    Then Death laid the hand on the table.
    I LOSE , he said. A LL I HAVE IS FOUR O NES .
    He looked back into Granny’s eyes for a moment. There was a blue glow in the depth of his eye-sockets. Maybe, for the merest fraction of a second, barely noticeable even to the closest observation, one winked off.
    Granny nodded, and extended a hand.
    She prided herself on the ability to judge people by their gaze and their handshake, which in this case was a rather chilly one.
    “Take the cow,” she said.
    I T IS A VALUABLE CREATURE .
    “Who knows what the child will become?”
    Death stood up, and reached for his scythe.
    He said, Ow.
    “Ah, yes. I couldn’t help noticing,” said Granny Weatherwax, as the tension drained out of the atmosphere, “that you seem to be sparing that arm.”
    O H, YOU KNOW HOW IT IS . R EPETITIVE ACTIONS AND SO ON …
    “It could get serious if you left it.”
    H OW SERIOUS ?
    “Want me to have a look?”
    W OULD YOU MIND ? I T CERTAINLY ACHES ON COLD NIGHTS .
    Granny stood up and reached out, but her hands went straight through.
    “Look, you’re going to have to make yourself a bit more solid if I’m to do anything—”
    P OSSIBLY A BOTTLE OF SUCKROSE AND AKWA ?
    “Sugar and water? I expect you know that’s only for the hard of thinking. Come on, roll up that sleeve. Don’t be a big baby. What’s the worst I can do to you?”
    Granny’s hands touched smooth bone. She’d felt worse. At least these had never had flesh on them.
    She felt, thought, gripped, twisted…
    There was a click.
    Ow.
    “Now try it above the shoulder.”
    E R . H MM . Y ES . I T DOES SEEM CONSIDERABLY MORE FREE . Y ES, INDEED . M Y WORD, YES . T HANK YOU VERY MUCH .
    “If it gives you trouble again, you know where I live.”
    T HANK YOU . T HANK YOU VERY MUCH .
    “You know where everyone lives. Tuesday mornings is a good time. I’m generally in.”
    I SHALL REMEMBER . T HANK YOU .
    “By appointment, in your case. No offense meant.”
    T HANK YOU .
    Death walked away. A moment later there was a faint gasp from the cow. That and a slight sagging of the skin were all that apparently marked the transition from living animal to cooling meat.
    Granny picked up the baby and laid a hand on its forehead.
    “Fever’s gone,” she said.
    M ISTRESS W EATHERWAX ? said Death from the doorway.
    “Yes, sir?”
    I HAVE TO KNOW . W HAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD NOT…LOST ?
    “At the cards, you mean?”
    Y ES . W HAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE ?
    Granny laid the baby down carefully on the straw, and smiled.
    “Well,” she said, “for a start…I’d have broken your bloody arm.”

    Agnes stayed up late, simply because of the novelty. Most people in Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with the cows. * But she watched the evening’s performance, and watched the set being struck afterwards, and watched the actors leave or, in the case of younger chorus members, head off for their lodgings in odd corners of the building. And then there was no one else, except Walter Plinge and his mother sweeping up.
    She headed for the staircase. There didn’t seem to be a candle anywhere back here, but the few left burning in the auditorium were just enough to give the darkness a few shades.
    The stairs went up the wall at the rear of the stage, with nothing but a rickety handrail between them and the drop. Besides leading to the attics and storeroom on the upper floors, they were also one route to the fly loft and the other secret platforms where men in flat hats and gray overalls worked the magic of the theater, usually by means of pulleys—
    There was a figure on one of the gantries over the stage. Agnes saw it only because it moved slightly. It was