Witches Abroad

dancing, Granny Weatherwax told herself. It’s just moving around to music.
    It helped to be able to read her partner’s mind. Dancing is instinctive, after you’ve got past that stage of looking down to see what your feet are doing, and witches are good at reading resonating instincts. There was a slight struggle as the colonel tried to lead, but he soon gave in, partly in the face of Granny Weatherwax’s sheer refusal to compromise but mainly because of her boots.
    Lady D’ Arrangement’s shoes hadn’t fitted. Besides, Granny was attached to her boots. They had complicated iron fixtures, and toecaps like battering rams. When it came to dancing, Granny’s boots went exactly wherever they wanted to go.
    She steered her helpless and slightly crippled partner toward Nanny Ogg, who had already cleared quite a space around her. What Granny could achieve with two pounds of hobnailed syncopation Nanny Ogg could achieve merely with her bosom.
    It was a large and experienced bosom, and not one that was subject to restraint. As Nanny Ogg bounced down, it went up; when she gyrated right, it hadn’t finished twirling left. In addition, Nanny’s feet moved in a complicated jig step regardless of the actual tempo, so that while her body actually progressed at the speed of a waltz her feet were doing something a bit nearer to a hornpipe. The total effect obliged her partner to dance several feet away, and many surrounding couples to stop dancing just to watch in fascination, in case the build-up of harmonic vibrations dropped her into the chandeliers.
    Granny and her helpless partner whirled past.
    “Stop showin’ off,” Granny hissed, and disappeared into the throng again.
    “Who’s your friend?” said Casanunda.
    “She’s—” Nanny began.
    There was a blast of trumpets.
    “That was a bit off the beat,” she said.
    “No, that means the Duc is arriving,” said Casanunda.
    The band stopped playing. The couples, as one, turned and faced the main staircase.
    There were two figures descending in stately fashion.
    My word, he’s a sleek and handsome devil, Nanny told herself. It just goes to show. Esme’s right. You can never tell by lookin’.
    And her…
    …that’s Lily Weatherwax?
    The woman wasn’t masked.
    Give or take the odd laughter line and wrinkle, it was Granny Weatherwax to the life.
    Almost…
    Nanny found she was turning to find the white eagle head in the crowd. All heads were turned to the staircase, but there was one staring as if her gaze was a steel rod.
    Lily Weatherwax wore white. Until that point it had never occurred to Nanny Ogg that there could be different colors of white. Now she knew better. The white of Lily Weatherwax’s dress seemed to radiate; if all the lights went out, she felt, Lily’s dress would glow. It had style. It gleamed, and had puffed sleeves and was edged with lace.
    And Lily Weatherwax looked—Nanny Ogg had to admit it—younger. There was the same bone structure and fine Weatherwax complexion, but it looked…less worn.
    If that’s what bein’ bad does to you, Nanny thought, I could of done with some of that years ago. The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.
    The eyes were the same, though. Somewhere in the genetics of the Weatherwaxes was a piece of sapphire. Maybe generations of them.
    The Duc was unbelievably handsome. But that was understandable. He was wearing black. Even his eyes wore black.
    Nanny surfaced, and pushed her way through the throng to Granny Weatherwax.
    “Esme?”
    She grabbed Granny’s arm.
    “Esme?”
    “Hmm?”
    Nanny was aware that the crowd was moving, parting like a sea, between the staircase and the chaise-longue at the far end of the hall.
    Granny Weatherwax’s knuckles were as white as her dress.
    “Esme? What’s happening? What are you doing ?” said Nanny.
    “Trying…to…stop…the story,” said Granny.
    “What’s she doing, then?”
    “Letting…things…happen!”
    The crowd were pulling back past them. It didn’t seem to be a conscious thing. It was just happening that a sort of corridor was forming.
    The Prince walked slowly along it. Behind Lily, faint images hung in the air so that she appeared to be followed by a succession of fading ghosts.
    Magrat stood up.
    Nanny was aware of a rainbow hue in the air. Possibly there was the tweeting of bluebirds.
    The Prince took Magrat by the hand.
    Nanny glanced up at Lily Weatherwax, who had