Wyrd Sisters

His questing hand stopped its wandering. ‘What’s this?’ he said to Magrat’s pale face. ‘A knife? A knife? I reckon we’ve got to take that very seriously, don’t you, Hron?’

‘You got to tie her hands and gag her,’ said Hron hurriedly. ‘They can’t do no magic if they can’t speak or wave their hands about …’

‘You can take your hands off her!’

All three stared down the passage at the Fool. He was jingling with rage.

‘Let her go this minute!’ he shouted. ‘Or I’ll report you!’

‘Oh, you’ll report us, will you?’ said Hron. ‘And will anyone listen to you, you earwax-coloured little twerp?’

‘This is a witch we have here,’ said the other guard. ‘So you can go and tinkle somewhere else.’ He turned back to Magrat. ‘I like a girl with spirit,’ he said, incorrectly as it turned out.

The Fool advanced with the bravery of the terminally angry.

‘I told you to let her go,’ he repeated.

Hron drew his sword and winked at his companion.

Magrat struck. It was an unplanned, instinctive blow, its stopping power considerably enhanced by the weight of rings and bangles; her arm whirred around in an arc that connected with her captor’s jaw and spun him twice before he folded up in a heap with a quiet little sigh, and incidentally with several symbols of occult significance enbossed on his cheek.

Hron gaped at him, and then looked at Magrat. He raised his sword at about the same moment that the Fool cannoned into him, and the two men went down in a struggling heap. Like most small men the Fool relied on the initial mad rush to secure an advantage and was at a loss for a follow-through, and it would probably have gone hard with him if Hron hadn’t suddenly become aware that a breadknife was pressed to his neck.

‘Let go of him,’ said Magrat, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

He stiffened. ‘You’re wondering whether I really would cut your throat,’ panted Magrat. ‘I don’t know either. Think of the fun we could have together, finding out.’

She reached down with her other hand and hauled the Fool to his feet by his collar.

‘Where did that scream come from?’ she said, without taking her eyes off the guard.

‘It was down this way. They’ve got her in the torture dungeon and I don’t like it, it’s going too far, and I couldn’t get in and I came to look for someone—’

‘Well, you’ve found me,’ said Magrat.

‘You,’ she said to Hron, ‘will stay here. Or run away, for all I care. But you won’t follow us.’

He nodded, and stared after them as they hurried down the passage. ‘The door’s locked,’ said the Fool. ‘There’s all sorts of noises, but the door’s locked.’

‘Well, it’s a dungeon, isn’t it?’

‘They’re not supposed to lock from the inside!’

It was, indeed, unbudgeable. Silence came from the other side—a busy, thick silence that crawled through the cracks and spilled out into the passage, a kind of silence that is worse than screams.

The Fool hopped from one foot to the other as Magrat explored the door’s rough surface.

‘Are you really a witch?’ he said. ‘They said you were a witch, are you really? You don’t look like a witch, you look very, that is …’ He blushed. ‘Not like a, you know, crone at all, but absolutely beautiful …’ His voice trailed into silence …

I am totally in control of the situation, Magrat told herself. I never thought I would be, but I am thinking absolutely clearly.

And she realized, in an absolutely clear way, that her padding had slipped down to her waist, her head felt as though a family of unhygienic birds had been nesting in it, and her eyeshadow had not so much run as sprinted. Her dress was torn in several places, her legs were scratched, her arms were bruised, and for some reason she felt on top of the world.

‘I think you’d better stand back, Verence,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure how this is going to work.’

There was a sharp intake of breath.

‘How did you know my name?’

Magrat sized up the door. The oak was old, centuries old, but she could sense just a little sap under a surface varnished by the years into something that was nearly as tough as stone. Normally what she had in mind would require a day’s planning and a bagful of exotic ingredients. At least, so she’d always believed. Now she was prepared to doubt it. If you could conjure demons out of washtubs, you could do anything.

She became aware that the Fool had spoken.

‘Oh, I expect I heard it somewhere,’ she said vaguely.

‘I shouldn’t think so, I never use it,’ said the Fool. ‘I mean, it’s not a popular name with the duke. It was me mam, you see. They like to name you after kings, I suppose. My grandad said I had no business having a name like that and he said I shouldn’t go around—’

Magrat nodded. She was looking around the dank tunnel with a professional’s eye.

It wasn’t a promising place. The old oak planks had been down here in the darkness all these years, away from the clock of the seasons …