Wyrd Sisters

Handed…he came down heavily on the importunate thought.
    “You must have him executed,” she said promptly. “To make an example to the others.”
    “A course of action, my dear, which ultimately results in us ordering the last soldier to cut his own throat as an example to himself. By the way,” he added mildly, “there would appear to be somewhat fewer servants around the place. You know I would not normally interfere—”
    “Then don’t,” she snapped. “Housekeeping is under my control. I cannot abide slackness .”
    “I’m sure you know best, but—”
    “What of these witches? Will you stand idly by and let trouble seed for the future? Will you let these witches defy you? What of the crown?”
    The duke shrugged. “No doubt it ended in the river,” he said.
    “And the child? He was given to the witches? Do they do human sacrifice?”
    “It would appear not,” said the duke. The duchess looked vaguely disappointed.
    “These witches,” said the duke. “Apparently, they seem to cast a spell on people.”
    “Well, obviously—”
    “Not like a magic spell. They seem to be respected. They do medicine and so on. It’s rather strange. The mountain people seem to be afraid of them and proud of them at the same time. It might be a little difficult to move against them.”
    “I could come to believe,” said the duchess darkly, “that they have cast a glamor over you as well.”
    In fact the duke was intrigued. Power was always darkly fascinating, which was why he had married the duchess in the first place. He stared fixedly at the fire.
    “In fact,” said the duchess, who recognized the malign smile, “you like it, don’t you? The thought of the danger. I remember when we were married; all that business with the knotted rope—”
    She snapped her fingers in front of the duke’s glazed eyes. He sat up.
    “Not at all!” he shouted.
    “Then what will you do?”
    “Wait.”
    “ Wait ?”
    “Wait, and consider. Patience is a virtue.”
    The duke sat back. The smile he smiled could have spent a million years sitting on a rock. And then, just below one eye, he started to twitch.
    Blood was oozing between the bandages on his hand.

    Once again the full moon rode the clouds.
    Granny Weatherwax milked and fed the goats, banked the fire, put a cloth over the mirror and pulled her broomstick out from behind the door. She went out, locked the back door behind her, and hung the key on its nail in the privy.
    This was quite sufficient. Only once, in the entire history of witchery in the Ramtops, had a thief broken into a witch’s cottage. The witch concerned visited the most terrible punishment on him. *
    Granny sat on the broom and muttered a few words, but without much conviction. After a further couple of tries she got off, fiddled with the binding, and had another go. There was a suspicion of glitter from one end of the stick, which quickly died away.
    “Drat,” she said, under her breath.
    She looked around carefully, in case anyone was watching. In fact it was only a hunting badger who, hearing the thumping of running feet, poked its head out from the bushes and saw Granny hurtling down the path with the broomstick held stiff-armed beside her. At last the magic caught, and she managed to vault clumsily onto it before it trundled into the night sky as gracefully as a duck with one wing missing.
    From above the trees came a muffled curse against all dwarfish mechanics.
    Most witches preferred to live in isolated cottages with the traditional curly chimneys and weed-grown thatch. Granny Weatherwax approved of this; it was no good being a witch unless you let people know .
    Nanny Ogg didn’t care much about what people knew and even less for what they thought, and lived in a new, knick-knack crammed cottage in the middle of Lancre town itself and at the heart of her own private empire. Various daughters and daughters-in-law came in to cook and clean on a sort of rota. Every flat surface was stuffed with ornaments brought back by far-traveling members of the family. Sons and grandsons kept the logpile stacked, the roof shingled, the chimney swept; the drinks cupboard was always full, the pouch by her rocking chair always stuffed with tobacco. Above the hearth was a huge pokerwork sign saying “Mother.” No tyrant in the whole history of the world had ever achieved a domination so complete.
    Nanny Ogg also kept a cat, a huge one-eyed gray tom called Greebo who divided his time between