Witches Abroad

off to the castle. Besides, it’d be sunrise soon.
    Its red eyes glinted as it looked up at Magrat’s open window. It tensed—
    A paw landed on it.
    The bat looked around.
    Greebo had not had a very good night. He had investigated the whole place with regard to female cats, and found none. He had prowled among the middens, and drawn a blank. People in this town didn’t throw the garbage away. They ate it.
    He’d trotted into the woods and found some wolves and had sat and grinned at them until they got uncomfortable and went away.
    Yes, it had been a very uneventful night. Until now.
    The bat squirmed under his claw. It seemed to Greebo’s small cat brain that it was trying to change its shape, and he wasn’t having any of that from a mouse with wings on.
    Especially now, when he had someone to play with.

    Genua was a fairytale city. People smiled and were joyful the livelong day. Especially if they wanted to see another livelong day.
    Lilith made certain of that. Of course, people had probably thought they were happy in the days before she’d seen to it that the Duc replaced the old Baron, but it was a random, untidy happiness, which was why it was so easy for her to move in.
    But it wasn’t a way of life. There was no pattern to it.
    One day they’d thank her.
    Of course, there were always a few difficult ones. Sometimes, people just didn’t know how to act. You did your best for them, you ruled their city properly, you ensured that their lives were worthwhile and full of happiness every hour of the day and then, for no reason at all, they turned on you.
    Guards lined the audience chamber. And there was an audience. Technically, of course, it was the ruler who gave the audience, but Lilith liked to see people watching. One pennyworth of example was worth a pound of punishment.
    There wasn’t a lot of crime in Genua these days. At least, not what would be considered crime elsewhere. Things like theft were easily dealt with and hardly required any kind of judicial process. Far more important, in Lilith’s book, were crimes against narrative expectation. People didn’t seem to know how they should behave.
    Lilith held a mirror up to Life, and chopped all the bits off Life that didn’t fit…
    The Duc lounged bonelessly on his throne, one leg dangling over the armrest. He’d never got the hang of chairs.
    “And what has this one done?” he said, and yawned. Opening his mouth wide was something he was good at, at least.
    A little old man cowered between two guards.
    There’s always someone willing to be a guard, even in places like Genua. Besides, you got a really smart uniform, with blue trousers and a red coat and a high black hat with a cockade in it.
    “But I…I can’t whistle,” quavered the old man.“I…I didn’t know it was compulsory…”
    “But you are a toymaker,” said the Duc. “Toymakers whistle and sing the whole day long.” He glanced at Lilith. She nodded.
    “I don’t know any…s-songs,” said the toymaker. “I never got taught s-songs. Just how to make toys. I was ’prenticed at making toys. Seven years before the little hammer, man and boy…”
    “It says here,” said the Duc, making a creditable impersonation of someone reading the charge sheet in front of him, “that you don’t tell the children stories.”
    “No one ever told me about telling…s-stories,” said the toymaker. “Look, I just make toys. Toys. That’s all I’m good at. Toys. I make good t-toys. I’m just a t-toymaker.”
    “You can’t be a good toymaker if you don’t tell stories to the children,” said Lilith, leaning forward.
    The toymaker looked up at the veiled face.
    “Don’t know any,” he said.
    “You don’t know any ?”
    “I could t-tell ’em how to make toys,” the old man quavered.
    Lilith sat back. It was impossible to see her expression under the veil.
    “I think it would be a good idea if the People’s Guards here took you away,” she said, “to a place where you will certainly learn to sing. And possibly, after a while, you might even whistle. Won’t that be nice?”
    The old Baron’s dungeons had been disgusting. Lilith had had them repainted and refurnished. With a lot of mirrors.

    When the audience was over one member of the crowd slipped out through the palace kitchens. The guards on the side gate didn’t try to stop her. She was a very important person in the small compass of their lives.
    “Hello, Mrs. Pleasant.”
    She stopped, reached into her