The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

washing her hands. Mrs Patternoster nodded again, mournfully.
    ‘Well, I reckon you should take him into the cottage, Mrs Patternoster, and make him a cup of tea,’ Granny commanded. ‘You can tell him I’m doing all I can.’
    This time the midwife nodded gratefully.
    When she had fled, Granny laid a hand on Mrs Ivy’s damp forehead.
    ‘Well now, Florence Ivy,’ she said, ‘let us see what might be done. But first of all … no pain …’
    I NDEED.
    Granny didn’t bother to turn round.
    ‘I thought you’d be here,’ she said, as she knelt down in the straw.
    W HERE ELSE? said Death.
    ‘Do you know who you’re here for?’
    T HAT IS NOT MY CHOICE . O N THE VERY EDGE YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND SOME UNCERTAINTY.
    Granny felt the words in her head for several seconds, like little melting cubes of ice. On the very, very edge, then, there had to be … judgement.
    ‘There’s too much damage here,’ she said, at last. ‘Too much.’
    A few minutes later she felt the life stream past her. Death had the decency to leave without a word.
    When Mrs Patternoster tremulously knocked on the door and pushed it open, Granny was in the cow’s stall. The midwife saw her stand up, holding a piece of thorn.
    ‘Been in the beast’s leg all day’ she said. ‘No wonder it was fretful. Try and make sure he doesn’t kill the cow, you understand? They’ll need it.’
    Mrs Patternoster glanced down at the rolled-up blanket in the straw. Granny had tactfully placed it out of sight of Mrs Ivy, who was sleeping now.
    ‘I’ll tell him,’ said Granny, brushing off her dress. ‘As for her, well, she’s strong and young and you know what to do. You keep an eye on her, and me or Nanny Ogg will drop in when we can.’
    It was doubtful that anyone in Slice would defy Granny Weatherwax, but Granny saw the faintest grey shadow of disapproval in the midwife’s expression.
    ‘You still reckon I should’ve asked Mr Ivy?’ she said.
    ‘That’s what I would have done …’ the woman mumbled.
    ‘You don’t like him? You think he’s a bad man?’ said Granny, adjusting her hatpins.
    ‘No!’
    ‘Then what’s he ever done to me, that I should hurt him so?’
    *
    The people of Lancre wouldn’t dream of living in anything other than amonarchy. They’d done so for thousands of years and knew that it worked. But they’d also found that it didn’t do to pay too much attention to what the King wanted, because there was bound to be another king along in forty years or so and he’d be certain to want something different and so they’d have gone to all that trouble for nothing. In the meantime, his job as they saw it was to mostly stay in the palace, practise the waving, have enough sense to face the right way on coins and let them get on with the ploughing, sowing, growing and harvesting. It was, as they saw it, a social contract. They did what they always did, and he let them.
    *
    ‘I used to know an Igor from Uberwald,’ said Nanny. ‘Walked with a limp. One eye a bit higher than the other. Had the same manner of … speaking. Very good at brain juggling, too.’
    ‘That thoundth like my Uncle Igor,’ said Igor. ‘He worked for the mad doctor at Blinz. Ha, an’ he wath a proper mad doctor, too, not like the mad doctorth you get thethe dayth. And the thervantth? Even worthe. No pride thethe dayth.’ He tapped the brandy flask for emphasis. ‘When Uncle Igor wath thent out for a ge-niuth’th brain, that’th what you damn well got. There wath none of thith fumble-finger thtuff and then pinching a brain out of the “Really Inthane” jar and hopin’ no one’d notithe. They alwayth do, anyway’
    Nanny took a step back. The only sensible way to hold a conversation with an Igor was when you had an umbrella.
    *
    Not many people ever tasted Nanny Ogg’s home-made brandy; it was technically impossible. Once it encountered the warmth of the human mouth it immediately turned into fumes. You drank it via your sinuses.
    *
    ‘The trouble is that people always think of vampires in terms of their diet,’ said the Count, as Nanny hurried away. ‘It’s really rather insulting. You eat animal flesh and vegetables, but it hardly defines you, does it?’
    *
    ‘How does Perdita work, then?’ said Nanny.
    Agnes sighed. ‘Look, you know the part of you that wants to do all the things you don’t dare do, and thinks the thoughts you don’t dare think?’
    Nanny’s face stayed blank. Agnes floundered. ‘Like … maybe … rip