Witches Abroad

gaze.

    The crowds parted. Lily Weatherwax glided through, in a rustle of silk.
    She looked Granny up and down, without any expression of surprise.
    “All in white, too,” she said, dryly. “My word, aren’t you the nice one.”
    “But I’ve stopped you,” said Granny, still panting with the effort. “I’ve broken it.”
    Lily Weatherwax looked past her. The snake sisters were coming up the steps, holding a limp Magrat between them.
    “Save us all from people who think literally,” said Lily. “The damn things come in pairs, you know.”
    She crossed to Magrat and snatched the second slipper out of her hand.
    “The clock was interesting,” she said, turning back to Granny. “I was impressed with the clock. But it’s no good, you know. You can’t stop this sort of thing. It has the momentum of inevitability. You can’t spoil a good story. I should know.”
    She handed the slipper to the Prince, but without taking her eyes off Granny.
    “It’ll fit her,” she said.
    Two of the courtiers held Magrat’s leg as the Prince wrestled the slipper past her protesting toes.
    “There,” said Lily, still without looking down. “And do stop trying that hedge-witch hypnotism on me, Esme.”
    “It fits,” said the Prince, but in a doubtful tone of voice.
    “Yes, anything would fit,” said a cheerful voice from somewhere toward the back of the crowd, “if you were allowed to put two pairs of hairy socks on first.”
    Lily looked down. Then she looked at Magrat’s mask. She reached out and pulled it off.
    “Ow!”
    “Wrong girl,” said Lily. “But it still doesn’t matter, Esme, because it is the right slipper. So all we have to do is find the girl whose foot it fits—”
    There was a commotion at the back of the crowd. Courtiers parted, revealing Nanny Ogg, oil-covered and hung with spider webs.
    “If it’s a five-and-a-half narrow fit, I’m your man,” she said. “Just let me get these boots off…”
    “I wasn’t referring to you, old woman,” said Lily coldly.
    “Oh, yes you was,” said Nanny. “We know how this bit goes, see. The Prince goes all around the city with the slipper, trying to find the girl whose foot fits. That’s what you was plannin’. So I can save you a bit of trouble, how about it?”
    There was a flicker of uncertainty in Lily’s expression.
    “A girl ,” she said, “of marriageable age.”
    “No problem there,” said Nanny cheerfully.
    The dwarf Casanunda nudged a courtier proudly in the knees.
    “She’s a very close personal friend of mine,” he said proudly.
    Lily looked at her sister.
    “ You’re doing this. Don’t think I don’t know,” she said.
    “I ain’t doing a thing,” said Granny. “It’s real life happening all by itself.”
    Nanny grabbed the slipper out of the Prince’s hands and, before anyone else could move, slid it onto her foot.
    Then she waggled the foot in the air.
    It was a perfect fit.
    “There!” she said. “See? You could have wasted the whole day.”
    “Especially because there must be hundreds of five-and-a-half—”
    “—narrow fit—”
    “—narrow fit wearers in a city this size,” Granny went on, “Unless, of course, you happened to sort of go to the right house right at the start. If you had, you know, a lucky guess?”
    “But that’d be cheatin ’,” said Nanny.
    She nudged the Prince.
    “I’d just like to add,” she said, “that I don’t mind doin’ all the waving and opening things and other royal stuff, but I draw the line at sleepin’ in the same bed as sunny jim here.”
    “Because he doesn’t sleep in a bed,” said Granny.
    “No, he sleeps in a pond,” said Nanny. “We had a look. Just a great big indoor pond.”
    “Because he’s a frog,” said Granny.
    “With flies all over the place in case he wakes up in the night and fancies a snack,” said Nanny.
    “I thought so!” said Magrat, pulling herself out of the grip of the guards. “He had clammy hands!”
    “Lots of men have clammy hands,” said Nanny. “But this one’s got ’em because he’s a frog.”
    “I’m a prince of blood royal!” said the Prince.
    “And a frog,” said Granny.
    “I don’t mind,” said Casanunda, from somewhere down below. “I enjoy open relationships. If you want to go out with a frog, that’s fine by me…”
    Lily looked around at the crowd. Then she snapped her fingers.
    Granny Weatherwax was aware of a sudden silence.
    Nanny Ogg looked up at the people on either side of her.