Carpe Jugulum

The troll reached the coach and banged its knuckles on its helmet respectfully.

'Evenin',' it said. 'Dis is a bit embarrassin'. You know a pole?'

'Pole?' said Igor suspiciously.

'It are a long wooden fing-'

'Yeth? Well? What about it?'

'I'd like you to imagine, right, dat dere's a black an' yellow striped one across dis road, right? Only 'cos we've only got der one, an' it's bein' used up on der Copperhead road tonight.'

The hatch slid open.

'Get a move on, man! Run it down !'

'I could go an' get it if you like,' said the troll, shifting nervously from one huge foot to the other. 'Only it wouldn't be here till tomorrow, right? Or you could pretend it's here right now, an' then I could pretend to lift it up, and dat'd be okay, right?'

'Do it, then,' said Igor. He ignored the grumbling behind him. The old Count had always been polite to trolls even though you couldn't bite them, and that was real class in a vampire.

'Only firs' I gotta stamp somethin',' said the troll. It held up half a potato and a paint-soaked rag.

'Why?'

'Shows you've bin past me,' said the troll.

'Yeth, but we will have been parthed you,' Igor pointed out. 'I mean, everyone will know we've been parthed you becauthe we are.'

'But it'll show you done it officially,' said the troll.

'What'll happen if we jutht drive on?' said Igor.

'Er... den I won't lift der pole,' said the troll.

Locked in a metaphysical conundrum, they both looked at the patch of road where the virtual pole barred the way.

Normally, Igor wouldn't have wasted any time. But the family had been getting on his nerves, and he reacted in the traditional way of the put-upon servant by suddenly becoming very stupid. He leaned down and addressed the coach's occupants through the hatch.

'It'th a border check, marthter,' he said. 'We got to have thomething thtamped.'

There was more whispering inside the coach, and then a large white rectangle, edged in gold, was thrust ungraciously through the hatch. Igor passed it down.

'Seems a shame,' said the troll, stamping it inexpertly and handing it back.

'What'th thith?' Igor demanded.

'Pardon?'

'Thith... thtupid mark!'

'Well, the potato wasn't big enough for the official seal and I don't know what a seal look like in any case but I reckon dat's a good carvin' of a duck I done there,' said the troll cheerfully. 'Now... are you ready? 'Cos I'm liftin' der pole. Here it goes now. Look at it pointin' up in der air like dat. Dis means you can go.'

The coach rolled on a little way and stopped just before the bridge.

The troll, aware that he'd done his duty, wandered towards it and heard what he considered to be a perplexing conversation, although to Big Jim Beef most conversations involving polysyllabic words were shrouded in mystery.

'Now, I want you to all pay attention-'

'Father, we have done this before.'

'The point can't be hammered home far enough. That is the Lancre River down there. Running water. And we will cross it. It is as well to consider that your ancestors, although quite capable of undertaking journeys of hundreds of miles, nevertheless firmly believed that they couldn't cross a stream. Do I need to point out the contradiction?'

'No, Father.'

'Good. Cultural conditioning would be the death of us, if we are not careful. Drive on, Igor.'

The troll watched them go. Coldness seemed to follow them across the bridge.

Granny Weatherwax was airborne again, glad of the clean, crisp air. She was well above the trees and, to the benefit of all concerned, no one could see her face.

Isolated homesteads passed below, a few with lighted windows but most of them dark, because people would long ago have headed for the palace.

There was a story under every roof, she knew. She knew all about stories. But those down there were the stories that were never to be told, the little secret stories, enacted in little rooms...

They were about those times when medicines didn't help and headology was at a loss because a mind was a rage of pain in a body that had become its own enemy, when people were simply in a prison made of flesh, and at times like this she could let them go. There was no need for desperate stuff with a pillow, or deliberate mistakes with the medicine. You didn't push them out of the world, you just stopped the world pulling them back. You just reached in, and... showed them the way.

There was never anything said. Sometimes you saw in the face of the relatives the request they'd never, ever put words around, or maybe they'd say, 'Is there something you can do for him?' and this was, perhaps, the code. If you dared ask, they'd be shocked that you might have thought they meant anything other than, perhaps, a comfier pillow.

And any midwife, out in isolated cottages on bloody nights, would know all the other little secrets...

Never to be told...