Witches Abroad

'Whoops,' said Granny.

Magrat peered through the window into the saloon. 'What's she doin' now?' hissed Nanny Ogg.

'She's grinning again,' said Magrat.

Nanny Ogg shook her head. 'Eggo,' she said.

Granny Weatherwax had that method of play that has reduced professional gamblers to incoherent rage throughout the multiverse.

She held her cards tightly cupped in her hands a few inches from her face, allowing the merest fraction of each one to protrude. She glared at them as if daring them to offend her. And she never seemed to take her eyes off them, except to watch the dealing.

And she took far too long. And she never, ever, took risks.

After twenty-five minutes she was down one dollar and Mister Frank was sweating. Granny had already helpfully pointed out three times that he'd accidentally dealt cards off the bottom of the deck, and she'd asked for another pack 'because, look, this one's got all little marks on the back.'

It was her eyes, that was what it was. Twice he'd folded on a perfectly good three-card Onion only to find that she'd been holding a lousy double Bagel. Then the third time, thinking he'd worked out her play, he'd called her out and run a decent flush right into the maw of a five-card Onion that the old bag must have been patiently constructing for ages. And then - his knuckles went white - and then the dreadful, terrible hag had said, 'Have I won? With all these little cards? Gorsh - aren't I the lucky one!'

And then she started humming when she looked at her cards. Normally, the three of them would have welcomed this sort of thing. The teeth tappers, the eyebrow raisers, the ear rubbers - they were as good as money in the sock under the mattress, to a man who knew how to read such things. But the appalling old crone was as transparent as a lump of coal. And the humming was . . . insistent. You found yourself trying to follow the tune. It made your teeth tingle. Next thing you were glumly watching while she laid down a measly Broken Flush in front of your even more measly two-card Onion and said, 'What, is it me again?'

Mister Frank was desperately trying to remember how to play cards without his sleeve device, a handy mirror and a marked deck. In the teeth of a hum like a fingernail down a blackboard.

It wasn't as if the ghastly old creature even knew how to play properly.

After an hour she was four dollars ahead and when she said, 'I am a lucky girl!' Mister Frank bit through his tongue.

And then he got a natural Great Onion. There was no realistic way to beat a Great Onion. It was something that happened to you once or twice in a lifetime.

She folded! The old bitch folded! She abandoned one blasted dollar and she folded!

Magrat peered through the window again.

'What's happening?' said Nanny.

'They all look very angry.'

Nanny took off her hat and removed her pipe. She lit it and tossed the match overboard. 'Ah. She'll be humming, you mark my words. She's got a very annoying hum, has Esme.' Nanny looked satisfied. 'Has she started cleaning out her ear yet?'

'Don't think so.'

'No-one cleans out her ear like Esme.'

She was cleaning out her ear!

It was done in a very ladylike way, and the daft old baggage probably wasn't even aware she was doing it. She just kept inserting her little finger in her ear and swivelling it around. It made a noise like a small pool cue being chalked.

It was displacement activity, that's what it was. They all cracked in the end . . .

She folded again! And it had taken him bloody five bloody minutes to put together a bloody double Onion!

'I remember,' said Nanny Ogg, 'when she come over our house for the party when King Verence got crowned and we played Chase My Neighbour Up the Passage with the kiddies for ha'pennies. She accused Jason's youngest of cheating and sulked for a week afterwards.'

'Was he cheating?'

'I expect so,' said Nanny proudly. 'The trouble with Esme is that she don't know how to lose. She's never had much practice.'

'Lobsang Dibbler says sometimes you have to lose in order to win,' said Magrat.

'Sounds daft to me,' said Nanny. 'That's Yen Buddhism, is it?'

'No. They're the ones who say you have to have lots of money to win,' said Magrat.* 'In the Path of the Scorpion, the way to win is to lose every fight except the last one. You use the enemy's strength against himself.'

'What, you get him to hit himself, sort of thing?' said Nanny. 'Sounds daft.'

Magrat glowered.

'What do you know about it?' she said, with uncharacteristic sharpness.

'What?'

'Well, I'm fed up!' said Magrat. 'At least I'm making an effort to learn things! I don't go around just bullying people and acting bad-tempered all the time!'

Nanny took her pipe out of her mouth.

'I'm not bad-tempered,' she said mildly.

* The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.

'I wasn't talking about you!'

'Well, Esme's always been bad-tempered,' said Nanny. 'It comes natural to her.'

'And she hardly ever does real magic. What good is being a witch if you don't do magic? Why doesn't she use it to help people?'

Nanny peered at her through the pipe smoke.

' 'Cos she knows how good she'd be at it, I suppose,' she said. 'Anyway, I've known her a long time. Known the whole family. All the Weatherwaxes is good at magic, even the men. They've got this magical streak in 'em. Kind of a curse. Anyway . . . she thinks you can't help people with magic. Not properly. It's true, too.'

'Then what good - ?'

Nanny prodded at the pipe with a match.

'I seem to recall she come over and helped you out when you had that spot of plague in your village,' she said. 'Worked the clock around, I recall. Never known her not treat someone ill who needed it, even when they, you know, were pretty oozy. And when the big ole troll that lives under Broken Mountain came down for help because his wife was sick and everyone threw rocks at him, I remember it was Esme that went back with him and delivered the baby. Hah . . . then when old Chickenwire Hopkins threw a rock at Esme a little while afterwards all his barns was mysteriously trampled flat in the night. She always said you can't help people with magic, but you can help them with skin. By doin' real things, she meant.'

'I'm not saying she's not basically a nice person -' Magrat began.

'Hah! 7 am. You'd have to go a long day's journey to find someone basically nastier than Esme,' said Nanny Ogg, 'and this is me sayin' it. She knows exactly what she is. She was born to be good and she don't like it.'

Nanny tapped her pipe out on the rail and turned back to the saloon.

'What you got to understand about Esme, my girl,' she said, 'is that she's got a psycholology as well as a big eggo. I'm damn glad I ain't.'

Granny was twelve dollars ahead. Everything else in the saloon had stopped. You could hear the distant splash of the paddles and the cry of the leadman.

Granny won another five dollars with a three-card Onion.

'What do you mean, a psycholology?' said Magrat. 'Have you been reading books?'

Nanny ignored her.

'The thing to watch out for now,' she said, 'is when she goes “tch, tch, tch” under her breath. That comes after the ear-cleanin'. It gen'rally means she's plannin' somethin'.'

Mister Frank drummed his fingers on the table, realized to his horror that he was doing it, and bought three new cards to cover his confusion. The old baggage didn't appear to notice.

He stared at the new hand.

He ventured two dollars and bought one more card.

He stared again.

What were the odds, he thought, against getting a Great Onion twice in one day?

The important thing was not to panic.

'I think,' he heard himself say, 'that I may hazard another two dollars.'

He glanced at his companions. They obediently folded, one after another.

'Well, I don't know,' said Granny, apparently talking to her cards. She cleaned her ear again. 'Tch, tch, tch. What d'you call it when, you know, you want to put more money in, sort of thing?'

'It's called raising,' said Mister Frank, his knuckles going white.

'I'll do one of them raisins, then. Five dollars, I think.'

Mister Frank's knees ground together.

'I'll see you and raise you ten dollars,' he snapped.

'I'll do that too,' said Granny.

'I can go another twenty dollars.'

'I - ' Granny looked down, suddenly crestfallen. 'I've . . . got a broomstick.'

A tiny alarm bell rang somewhere at the back of Mister Frank's mind, but now he was galloping headlong to victory.

'Right!'

He spread the cards on the table.

The crowd sighed.

He began to pull the pot towards him.

Granny's hand closed over his wrist.

'I ain't put my cards down yet,' she said archly.

'You don't need to,' snapped Mister Frank. 'There's no chance you could beat that, madam.'

'I can if I can Cripple it,' said Granny. 'That's why it's called Cripple Mister Onion, ain't it?'

He hesitated.

'But - but - you could only do that if you had a perfect nine-card run,' he burbled, staring into the depths of her eyes.

Granny sat back. >

'You know,' she said calmly, 'I thought I had rather a lot of these black pointy ones. That's good, is it?'

She spread the hand. The collective audience made a sort of little gasping noise, in unison.

Mister Frank looked around wildly.

'Oh, very well done, madam,' said an elderly gentleman. There was a round of polite applause from the crowd. The big, inconvenient crowd.

'Er. . . yes,' said Mister Frank. 'Yes. Well done. You're a very quick learner, aren't you.'

'Quicker'n you. You owe me fifty-five dollars and a broomstick,' said Granny.

no

Magrat and Nanny Ogg were waiting for her as she swept out.

'Here's your broom,' she snapped. 'And I hopes you've got all your stuff together, 'cos we're leaving.'

'Why?' said Magrat.

'Because as soon as it gets quiet, some men are going to come looking for us.'

They scurried after her towards their tiny cabin.

'You weren't using magic?" said Magrat.

'No.'

'And not cheating?' said Nanny Ogg.

'No. Just headology,' said Granny.

'Where did you learn to play like that?' Nanny demanded.

Granny stopped. They cannoned into her.

'Remember last winter, when Old Mother Dismass was taken really bad and I went and sat up with her every night for almost a month?'

'Yes?'

'You sit up every night dealing Cripple Mister Onion with someone who's got a detached retina in her second sight and you soon learn how to play,' said Granny.

Dear Jason and everyone,

What you get more of in foreign parts is smells, I am getting good at them. Esme is shouting at everyone, I think she thinks they're beinforeinjust to Spite her, don't know when I last saw her enjoi herselfe so much. Mind you they need a good Shakin up if you ask me, for lunch we stopped somehwere and they did Steak Tartere and they acted VERY snooty just becos I wanted myne well done. All the best, MUM

The moon was closer here.

The orbit of the Discworld's moon meant that it was quite high when it passed over the high Ramtops. Here, nearer to the Rim, it was bigger And more orange.

'Like a pumpkin,' said Nanny Ogg.

'I thought we said we weren't going to mention

in

pumpkins,' said Magrat.

'Well, we didn't have any supper,' said Nanny.

And there was another thing. Except during the height of summer the witches weren't used to warm nights. It didn't seem right, gliding along under a big orange moon over dark foliage that clicked and buzzed and whirred with insects.