She'd go all the way down to the far border and swim the river there, or maybe build a raft. By morning she'd be too far away for them ever to find her, and she doubted very much that they'd ever come looking.

Weak!

She moved through the forest with surprising speed. There were tracks, after all, wide enough for carts, and she had a pretty good sense of direction. Besides, all she needed to do was go downhill. If she found the gorge then she just had to follow the flow.

And then there seemed to be too many trees. There was still a track, and it went more or less in the right direction, but the trees on either side of it were planted rather more thickly than one might expect and, when she tried to turn back, there was no track at all behind her. She took to turning suddenly, half expecting to see the trees moving, but they were always standing stoically and firmly rooted in the moss.

She couldn't feel a wind, but there was a sighing in the treetops.

'All right,' she said, under her breath. 'All right. I'm going anyway. I want to go. But I will be back.'

It was at this point that the track opened out into a clearing that hadn't been there the day before and wouldn't be there tomorrow, a clearing in which the moonlight glittered off assembled antlers and fangs and serried ranks of glowing eyes.

The weak banded together can be pretty despicable, but it dawned on the duchess that an alliance of the strong can be more of an immediate problem.

There was total silence for a few seconds, broken only by a faint panting, and then the duchess grinned, raised her knife, and charged the lot of them.

The front ranks of the massed creatures opened to let her pass, and then closed in again. Even the rabbits.

The kingdom exhaled.

On the moors under the very shadow of the peaks the mighty nocturnal chorus of nature had fallen silent. The crickets had ceased their chirping, the owls had hooted themselves into silence, and the wolves had other matters to attend to.

There was a song that echoed and boomed from cliff to cliff, and resounded up the high hidden valleys, causing miniature avalanches. It funnelled along the secret tunnels under glaciers, losing all meaning as it rang between the walls of ice.

To find out what was actually being sung you would have to go all the way back down to the dying fire by the standing stone, where the cross-resonances and waves of conflicting echoes focused on a small, elderly woman who was waving an empty bottle.

'—with a snail if you slow to a crawl, but the hedgehog—'

'It tastes better at the bottom of the bottle, doesn't it,' Magrat said, trying to drown out the chorus.

'That's right,' said Granny, draining her cup.

'Is there any more?'

'I think Gytha finished it, by the sound of it.'

They sat on the fragrant heather and stared up at the moon.

'Well, we've got a king,' said Granny. 'And there's an end of it.'

'It's thanks to you and Nanny, really,' said Magrat, and hiccupped.

'Why?'

'None of them would have believed me if you hadn't spoken up.'

'Only because we was asked,' said Granny.

'Yes, but everyone knows witches don't lie, that's the important thing. I mean, everyone could see they looked so alike, but that could have been coincidence. You see,' Magrat blushed, 'I looked up droit de seigneur. Goodie Whemper had a dictionary.'

Nanny Ogg stopped singing.

'Yes,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'Well.'

Magrat became aware of an uncomfortable atmosphere.

'You did tell the truth, didn't you?' she said. 'They really are brothers, aren't they?'

'Oh yes,' said Gytha Ogg. 'Definitely. I saw to his mother when your – when the new king was born. And to the queen when young Tomjon was born, and she told me who his father was.'

'Gytha!'

'Sorry.'

The wine was going to her head, but the wheels in Magrat's mind still managed to turn.

'Just a minute,' she said.

'I remember the Fool's father,' said Nanny Ogg, speaking slowly and deliberately. 'Very personable young man, he was. He didn't get on with his dad, you know, but he used to visit sometimes. To see old friends.'

'He made friends easily,' said Granny.

'Among the ladies,' agreed Nanny. 'Very athletic, wasn't he? Could climb walls like nobody's business, I remember hearing.'

'He was very popular at court,' said Granny. 'I know that much.'

'Oh, yes. With the queen, at any rate.'

'The king used to go out hunting such a lot,' said Granny.

'It was that droit of his,' said Nanny. 'Always out and about with it, he was. Hardly ever home o'nights.'

'Just a minute,' Magrat repeated.

They looked at her.

'Yes?' said Granny.

'You told everyone they were brothers and that Verence was the older!'

'That's right.'

'And you let everyone believe that—'

Granny Weatherwax pulled her shawl around her.

'We're bound to be truthful,' she said. 'But there's no call to be honest.'

'No, no, what you're saying is that the King of Lancre isn't really—'

'What I'm saying is,' said Granny firmly, 'that we've got a king who is no worse than most and better than many and who's got his head screwed on right—'

'Even if it is against the thread,' said Nanny.

'—and the old king's ghost has been laid to rest happy, there's been an enjoyable coronation and some of us got mugs we weren't entitled to, them being only for the kiddies and, all in all, things are a lot more satisfactory than they might be. That's what I'm saying. Never mind what should be or what might be or what ought to be. It's what things are that's important.'

'But he's not really a king!'

'He might be,' said Nanny.

'But you just said—'

'Who knows? The late queen wasn't very good at counting. Anyway, he doesn't know he isn't royalty.'

'And you're not going to tell him, are you?' said Granny Weatherwax.

Magrat stared at the moon, which had a few clouds across it.

'No,' she said.

'Right, then,' said Granny. 'Anyway, look at it like this. Royalty has to start somewhere. It might as well start with him. It looks as though he means to take it seriously, which is a lot further than most of them take it. He'll do.'

Magrat knew she had lost. You always lost against Granny Weatherwax, the only interest was in seeing exactly how. 'But I'm surprised at the two of you, I really am,' she said. 'You're witches. That means you have to care about things like truth and tradition and destiny, don't you?'

'That's where you've been getting it all wrong,' said Granny, 'Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.'

'Bugger destiny,' agreed Nanny.

Granny glared at her.

'After all, you never thought being a witch was going to be easy, did you?'

'I'm learning,' said Magrat. She looked across the moor, where a thin rind of dawn glowed on the horizon.

'I think I'd better be off,' she said. 'It's getting early.'

'Me too,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Our Shirl frets if I'm not home when she comes to get my breakfast.'

Granny carefully scuffed over the remains of the fire.

'When shall we three meet again?' she said. 'Hmm?'

The witches looked at one another sheepishly.

'I'm a bit busy next month,' said Nanny. 'Birthdays and such. Er. And the work has really been piling up with all this hurly-burly. You know. And there's all the ghosts to think about.'

'I thought you sent them back to the castle,' said Granny.

'Well, they didn't want to go,' said Nanny vaguely. 'To be honest, I've got used to them around the place. They're company of an evening. They hardly scream at all, now.'

'That's nice,' said Granny. 'What about you, Magrat?'

'There always seems to be such a lot to do at this time of year, don't you find?' said Magrat.

'Quite,' said Granny Weatherwax, pleasantly. 'It's no good getting yourself tied down to appointments all the time, is it? Let's just leave the whole question open, shall we?'

They nodded. And, as the new day wound across the landscape, each one busy with her own thoughts, each one a witch alone, they went home.[23]

The End