Witches Abroad

regally through the waters of Time, but in fact there was a hell of a lot of activity going on underneath. There’d be a maze of pantries and kitchens and laundries and stables and breweries—she liked the idea of breweries—and people never noticed another old biddy around the place, eating any spare grub that was lying around.
    Besides, you got gossip. Nanny Ogg liked gossip, too.

    Granny Weatherwax wandered disconsolately along the clean streets. She wasn’t looking for the other two. She was quite certain of that. Of course, she might just happen to bump into them, sort of accidentally, and give them a meaningful look. But she certainly wasn’t looking for them.
    There was a crowd at the end of the street. Working on the reasonable assumption that Nanny Ogg might be in the middle of it, Granny Weatherwax drifted over.
    Nanny wasn’t there. But there was a raised platform. And a small man in chains. And some bright-uniformed guards. One of them was holding an axe.
    You did not have to be a great world traveler to understand that the purpose of this tableau was not to give the chained man a signed testimonial and a collection from everyone at the office.
    Granny nudged a bystander.
    “What’s happening?”
    The man looked sideways at her.
    “The guards caught him thieving,” he said.
    “Ah. Well, he looks guilty enough,” said Granny. People in chains had a tendency to look guilty. “So what’re they going to do to him?”
    “Teach him a lesson.”
    “How d’they do that, then?”
    “See the axe?”
    Granny’s eyes hadn’t left it the whole time. But now she let her attention rove over the crowd, picking up scraps of thought.
    An ant has an easy mind to read. There’s just one stream of big simple thoughts: Carry, Carry, Bite, Get Into The Sandwiches, Carry, Eat. Something like a dog is more complicated—a dog can be thinking several thoughts at the same time. But a human mind is a great sullen lightning-filled cloud of thoughts, all of them occupying a finite amount of brain processing time. Finding whatever the owner thinks they’re thinking in the middle of the smog of prejudices, memories, worries, hopes and fears is almost impossible.
    But enough people thinking much the same thing can be heard, and Granny Weatherwax was aware of the fear.
    “Looks like it’ll be a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry,” she murmured.
    “I reckon he’ll forget it quite quickly,” said the watcher, and then shuffled away from Granny, in the same way that people move away from lightning rods during a thunderstorm.
    And at this point Granny picked up the discordant note in the orchestra of thought. In the middle of it were two minds that were not human.
    Their shape was as simple, clean and purposeful as a naked blade. She’d felt minds like that before, and had never cherished the experience.
    She scanned the crowd and found the minds’ owners. They were staring unblinkingly at the figures on the platform.
    The watchers were women, or at least currently the same shape as women; taller than she was, slender as sticks, and wearing broad hats with veils that covered their faces. Their dresses shimmered in the sunlight—possibly blue, possibly yellow, possibly green. Possibly patterned. It was impossible to tell. The merest movement changed the colors.
    She couldn’t make out their faces.
    There were witches in Genua all right. One witch, anyway.
    A sound from the platform made her turn.
    And she knew why people in Genua were quiet and nice.
    There were countries in foreign parts, Granny had heard, where they chopped off the hands of thieves so that they wouldn’t steal again. And she’d never been happy with that idea.
    They didn’t do that in Genua. They cut their heads off so they wouldn’t think of stealing again.
    Granny knew exactly where the witches were in Genua now.
    They were in charge.

    Magrat reached the house’s back door. It was ajar.
    She pulled herself together again.
    She knocked, in a polite, diffident sort of way.
    “Er—” she said.
    A bowlful of dirty water hit her full in the face. Through the tidal roaring of a pair of ears full of suds, she heard a voice say, “Gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was standing there.”
    Magrat wiped the water out of her eyes, and tried to focus on the dim figure in front of her. A kind of narrative certainty rose in her mind.
    “Is your name Ella?” she said.
    “That’s right. Who’re you?”
    Magrat looked her new-found