Equal Rites

Esk gravely gave the head goat a wisp of hay. Granny watched her thoughtfully. Goats did have names for themselves, she well knew: there was ‘goat who is my kid’, ‘goat who is my mother’, ‘goat who is herd leader’, and half a dozen other names not least of which was ‘goat who is this goat’. They had a complicated herd system and four stomachs and a digestive system that sounded very busy on still nights, and Granny had always felt that calling all this names like Buttercup was an insult to a noble animal.

‘Esk?’ she said, making up her mind.

‘Yes?’

‘What would you like to be when you grow up?’

Esk looked blank. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Well,’ said Granny, her hands still milking, ‘what do you think you will do when you are grown up?’

‘Don’t know. Get married, I suppose.’

‘Do you want to?’

Esk’s lips started to shape themselves around the D, but she caught Granny’s eye and stopped, and thought.

‘All the grown ups I know are married,’ she said at last, and thought some more. ‘Except you,’ she added, cautiously.

‘That’s true,’ said Granny.

‘Didn’t you want to get married?’

It was Granny’s turn to think.

‘Never got around to it,’ she said at last. ‘Too many other things to do, you see.’

‘Father says you’re a witch,’ said Esk, chancing her arm.

‘I am that.’

Esk nodded. In the Ramtops witches were accorded a status similar to that which other cultures gave to nuns, or tax collectors, or cesspit cleaners. That is to say, they were respected, sometimes admired, generally applauded for doing a job which logically had to be done, but people never felt quite comfortable in the same room with them.

Granny said, ‘Would you like to learn the witching?’

‘Magic, you mean?’ asked Esk, her eyes lighting up.

‘Yes, magic. But not firework magic. Real magic.’

‘Can you fly?’

‘There’s better things than flying.’

‘And I can learn them?’

‘If your parents say yes.’

Esk sighed. ‘My father won’t.’

‘Then I shall have a word with him,’ said Granny.

‘Now you just listen to me, Gordo Smith!’

Smith backed away across his forge, hands halfraised to ward off the old woman’s fury. She advanced on him, one finger stabbing the air righteously.

‘I brought you into the world, you stupid man, and you’ve got no more sense in you now than you had then—’

‘But—’ Smith tried, dodging around the anvil.

‘The magic’s found her! Wizard magic! Wrong magic, do you understand? It was never intended for her!’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Have you any idea of what it can do?’

Smith sagged. ‘No.’

Granny paused, and deflated a little.

‘No,’ she repeated, more softly. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

She sat down on the anvil and tried to think calm thoughts.

‘Look. Magic has a sort of — life of its own. That doesn’t matter, because — anyway, you see, wizard magic—’ she looked up at his big, blank expression and tried again. ‘Well, you know cider?’

Smith nodded. He felt he was on firmer ground here, but he wasn’t certain of where it was going to lead.

‘And then there’s the licker. Applejack,’ said the witch. The smith nodded. Everyone in Bad Ass made applejack in the winter, by leaving cider tubs outside overnight and taking out the ice until a tiny core of alcohol was left.

‘Well, you can drink lots of cider and you just feel better and that’s it, isn’t it?’

The smith nodded again.

‘But applejack, you drink that in little mugs and you don’t drink a lot and you don’t drink it often, because it goes right to your head?’

The smith nodded again and, aware that he wasn’t making a major contribution to the dialogue, added, ‘That’s right.’

‘That’s the difference,’ said Granny.

‘The difference from what?’

Granny sighed. ‘The difference between witch magic and wizard magic,’ she said. ‘And it’s found her, and if she doesn’t control it, then there are Those who will control her. Magic can be a sort of door, and there are unpleasant Things on the other side. Do you understand?’

The smith nodded. He didn’t really understand, but he correctly surmised that if he revealed this fact Granny would start going into horrible details.

‘She’s strong in her mind and it might take a while,’ said Granny. ‘But sooner or later they’ll challenge her.’

Smith picked up a hammer from his bench, looked at it as though he had never seen it before, and put it down again.

‘But,’ he said, ‘if it’s wizard magic she’s got, learning witchery won’t be any good, will it? You said they’re different.’

‘They’re both magic. If you can’t learn to ride an elephant, you can at least learn to ride a horse.’

‘What’s an elephant?’

‘A kind of badger,’ said Granny. She hadn’t maintained forest-credibility for forty years by ever admitting ignorance.

The blacksmith sighed. He knew he was beaten. His wife had made it clear that she favoured the idea and, now that he came to think about it, there were some advantages. After all, Granny wouldn’t last for ever, and being father to the area’s only witch might not be too bad, at that.

‘All right,’ he said.

And so, as the winter turned and started the long, reluctant climb towards spring, Esk spent days at a time with Granny Weatherwax, learning witch craft.