Wyrd Sisters

confronted by importunate elderly women commenting on their intimately personal lives.
    The older witches brushed past. The Fool grabbed Magrat’s hand.
    “I know where we can get a good view,” he said.
    She hesitated.
    “It’s all right,” said the Fool urgently. “You’ll be perfectly safe with me.”
    “Yes, I will, won’t I,” said Magrat, trying to look around him to see where the others had gone.
    “They’re staging the play outside, in the big courtyard. We’ll get a lovely view from one of the gate towers, and no one else will be there. I put some wine up there for us, and everything.”
    When she still looked half-reluctant he added, “And there’s a cistern of water and a fireplace that the guards use sometimes. In case you want to wash your hair.”

    The castle was full of people standing around in that polite, sheepish way affected by people who see each other all day and are now seeing each other again in unusual social circumstances, like an office party. The witches passed quite unremarked among them and found seats in the rows of benches in the main courtyard, set up before a hastily assembled stage.
    Nanny Ogg waved her bag of walnuts at Granny.
    “Want one?” she said.
    An alderman of Lancre shuffled past her and pointed politely to the seat on her left.
    “Is anyone sitting here?” he said.
    “Yes,” said Nanny.
    The alderman looked distractedly at the rest of the benches, which were filling up fast, and then down at the clearly empty space in front of him. He hitched up his robes with a determined expression.
    “I think that since the play is commencing to start, your friends must find a seat elsewhere, when they arrive,” he said, and sat down.
    Within seconds his face went white. His teeth began to chatter. He clutched at his stomach and groaned. *
    “I told you,” said Nanny, as he lurched away. “What’s the good of asking if you’re not going to listen?” She leaned toward the empty seat. “Walnut?”
    “No, thank you,” said King Verence, waving a spectral hand. “They go right through me, you know.”
    “ Pray, gentles all, list to our tale …”
    “What’s this?” hissed Granny. “Who’s the fellow in the tights?”
    “He’s the Prologue,” said Nanny. “You have to have him at the beginning so everyone knows what the play’s about.”
    “Can’t understand a word of it,” muttered Granny. “What’s a gentle, anyway?”
    “Type of maggot,” said Nanny.
    “That’s nice, isn’t it? ‘Hallo maggots, welcome to the show.’ Puts people in a nice frame of mind, doesn’t it?”
    There was a chorus of “sshs.”
    “These walnuts are damn tough,” said Nanny, spitting one out into her hand. “I’m going to have to take my shoe off to this one.”
    Granny subsided into unaccustomed, troubled silence, and tried to listen to the prologue. The theater worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn’t belong to her, one that wasn’t in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn’t belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn’t know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better.
    The duke and duchess were sitting on their thrones right in front of the stage. As Granny glared at them the duke half turned, and she saw his smile.
    I want the world the way it is, she thought. I want the past the way it was. The past used to be a lost better than it is now.
    And the band struck up.
    Hwel peered around a pillar and signaled to Wimsloe and Brattsley, who hobbled out into the glare of the torches.
    O LD M AN (an Elder): “ What hath befell the land ?”
    O LD W OMAN (a Crone): “’ Tis a terror —”
    The dwarf watched them for a few seconds from the wings, his lips moving soundlessly. Then he scuttled back to the guardroom where the rest of the cast were still in the last hasty stages of dressing. He uttered the stage manager’s traditional scream of rage.
    “C’mon,” he ordered. “Soldiers of the king, at the double! And the witches— where are the blasted witches ?”
    Three junior apprentices presented themselves.
    “I’ve lost my wart!”
    “The cauldon’s all full of yuk!”
    “There’s something living in this wig!”
    “Calm down, calm down,” screamed Hwel. “It’ll all be all right on the night!”
    “This is the night, Hwel!”
    Hwel snatched a handful of putty from the