Wyrd Sisters

witch serves her time, you know how it is. We had it tougher, too. Look at her. Doesn’t even wear the pointy hat. How’s anyone going to know ?”
    “You got something on your mind, Esme?” said Nanny.
    Granny nodded gloomily.
    “Had a visit yesterday,” she said.
    “Me too.”
    Despite her worries, Granny was slightly annoyed at this. “Who from?” she said.
    “The mayor of Lancre and a bunch of burghers. They’re not happy about the king. They want a king they can trust.”
    “I wouldn’t trust any king a burgher could trust,” said Granny.
    “Yes, but it’s not good for anyone, all this taxing and killing folk. The new sergeant they’ve got is a keen man when it comes to setting fire to cottages, too. Old Verence used to do it too, mind, but…well…”
    “I know, I know. It was more personal,” said Granny. “You felt he meant it. People like to feel they’re valued.”
    “This Felmet hates the kingdom,” Nanny went on. “They all say it. They say when they go to talk to him he just stares at them and giggles and rubs his hand and twitches a bit.”
    Granny scratched her chin. “The old king used to shout at them and kick them out of the castle, mind. He used to say he didn’t have time for shopkeepers and such,” she added, with a note of personal approval.
    “But he was always very gracious about it,” said Nanny Ogg. “And he—”
    “The kingdom is worried,” said Granny.
    “Yes, I already said.”
    “I didn’t mean the people, I meant the kingdom.”
    Granny explained. Nanny interrupted a few times with brief questions. It didn’t occur to her to doubt anything she heard. Granny Weatherwax never made things up.
    At the end of it she said, “Well.”
    “My feelings exactly.”
    “Fancy that.”
    “Quite so.”
    “And what did the animals do then?”
    “Went away. It had brought them there, it let them go.”
    “No one et anyone else?”
    “Not where I saw.”
    “Funny thing.”
    “Right enough.”
    Nanny Ogg stared at the setting sun.
    “I don’t reckon a lot of kingdoms do that sort of thing,” she said. “You saw the theater. Kings and such are killing one another the whole time. Their kingdoms just make the best of it. How come this one takes offense all of a sudden?”
    “It’s been here a long time,” said Granny.
    “So’s everywhere,” said Nanny, and added, with the air of a lifetime student, “Everywhere’s been where it is ever since it was first put there. It’s called geography.”
    “That’s just about land,” said Granny. “It’s not the same as a kingdom. A kingdom is made up of all sorts of things. Ideas. Loyalties. Memories. It all sort of exists together. And then all these things create some kind of life. Not a body kind of life, more like a living idea. Made up of everything that’s alive and what they’re thinking. And what the people before them thought.”
    Magrat reappeared and began to lay the fire with the air of one in a trance.

“I can see you’ve been thinking about this a lot,” said Nanny, speaking very slowly and carefully. “And this kingdom wants a better king, is that it?”
    “No! That is, yes. Look—” she leaned forward—“it doesn’t have the same kind of likes and dislikes as people, right?”
    Nanny Ogg leaned back. “Well, it wouldn’t, would it,” she ventured.
    “It doesn’t care if people are good or bad. I don’t think it could even tell , anymore than you could tell if an ant was a good ant. But it expects the king to care for it.”
    “Yes, but,” said Nanny wretchedly. She was becoming a bit afraid of the gleam in Granny’s eye. “Lots of people have killed each other to become king of Lancre. They’ve done all kinds of murder.”
    “Don’t matter! Don’t matter!” said Granny, waving her arms. She started counting on her fingers. “For why,” she said. “One, kings go around killing each other because it’s all part of destiny and such and doesn’t count as murder, and two, they killed for the kingdom. That’s the important bit. But this new man just wants the power. He hates the kingdom.”
    “It’s a bit like a dog, really,” said Magrat. Granny looked at her with her mouth open to frame some suitable retort, and then her face softened.
    “Very much like,” she said. “A dog doesn’t care if its master’s good or bad, just so long as it likes the dog.”
    “Well, then,” said Nanny. “No one and nothing likes Felmet. What are we going to do about