Wyrd Sisters

bottomless reserves of patience and organizational ability and nimble fingers.
    “Mrs. Vitoller,” she said eventually, “may I make so bold as to ask if your union has been blessed with fruit?”
    The couple looked blank.
    “She means—” Nanny Ogg began.
    “No, I see,” said Mrs. Vitoller, quietly. “No. We had a little girl once.”
    A small cloud hung over the table. For a second or two Vitoller looked merely human-sized, and much older. He stared at the small pile of cash in front of him.
    “Only, you see, there is this child,” said Granny, indicating the baby in Nanny Ogg’s arms. “And he needs a home.”
    The Vitollers stared. Then the man sighed.
    “It is no life for a child,” he said. “Always moving. Always a new town. And no room for schooling. They say that’s very important these days.” But his eyes didn’t look away.
    Mrs. Vitoller said, “Why does he need a home?”
    “He hasn’t got one,” said Granny. “At least, not one where he would be welcome.”
    The silence continued. Then Mrs. Vitoller said, “And you, who ask this, you are by way of being his—?”
    “Godmothers,” said Nanny Ogg promptly. Granny was slightly taken aback. It never would have occurred to her.
    Vitoller played abstractly with the coins in front of him. His wife reached out across the table and touched his hand, and there was a moment of unspoken communion. Granny looked away. She had grown expert at reading faces, but there were times when she preferred not to.
    “Money is, alas, tight—” Vitoller began.
    “But it will stretch,” said his wife firmly.
    “Yes. I think it will. We should be happy to take care of him.”
    Granny nodded, and fished in the deepest recesses of her cloak. At last she produced a small leather bag, which she tipped out onto the table. There was a lot of silver, and even a few tiny gold coins.
    “This should take care of—” she groped—“nappies and suchlike. Clothes and things. Whatever.”
    “A hundred times over, I should think,” said Vitoller weakly. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
    “If I’d had to buy you, you wouldn’t be worth the price.”
    “But you don’t know anything about us!” said Mrs. Vitoller.
    “We don’t, do we?” said Granny, calmly. “Naturally we’d like to hear how he gets along. You could send us letters and suchlike. But it would not be a good idea to talk about all this after you’ve left, do you see? For the sake of the child.”
    Mrs. Vitoller looked at the two old women.
    “There’s something else here, isn’t there?” she said. “Something big behind all this?”
    Granny hesitated, and then nodded.
    “But it would do us no good at all to know it?”
    Another nod.
    Granny stood up as several actors came in, breaking the spell. Actors had a habit of filling all the space around them.
    “I have other things to see to,” she said. “Please excuse me.”
    “What’s his name?” said Vitoller.
    “Tom,” said Granny, hardly hesitating.
    “John,” said Nanny. The two witches exchanged glances. Granny won.
    “Tom John,” she said firmly, and swept out.
    She met a breathless Magrat outside the door.
    “I found a box,” she said. “It had all the crowns and things in. So I put it in, like you said, right underneath everything.”
    “Good,” said Granny.
    “Our crown looked really tatty compared to the others!”
    “It just goes to show, doesn’t it,” said Granny. “Did anyone see you?”
    “No, everyone was too busy, but—” Magrat hesitated, and blushed.
    “Out with it, girl.”
    “Just after that a man came up and pinched my bottom.” Magrat went a deep crimson and slapped her hand over her mouth.
    “Did he?” said Granny. “And then what?”
    “And then, and then—”
    “Yes?”
    “He said, he said—”
    “What did he say?”
    “He said, ‘Hallo, my lovely, what are you doing tonight?’”
    Granny ruminated on this for a while and then she said, “Old Goodie Whemper, she didn’t get out and about much, did she?”
    “It was her leg, you know,” said Magrat.
    “But she taught you all the midwifery and everything?”
    “Oh, yes, that ,” said Magrat. “I done lots.”
    “But—” Granny hesitated, groping her way across unfamiliar territory—“she never talked about what you might call the previous .”
    “Sorry?”
    “You know,” said Granny, with an edge of desperation in her voice. “Men and such.”
    Magrat looked as if she was about to panic.