Terry Pratchett - I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany hurried back to the hall and looked around. Roland was the Baron now, in every respect. And it was in respect that people were clustering around him, saying things like, ‘He was a very good man,’ and ‘He’d had a good innings,’ and ‘At least he didn’t suffer,’ and all the other things people say after a funeral when they don’t know what to say.

And now Tiffany headed purposefully towards the Baron, and stopped when a hand landed on her shoulder. She followed the arm up to the face of Nanny Ogg, who had managed to obtain the biggest flagon of ale that Tiffany had ever seen. To be precise, she noticed it was a half-full flagon of ale.

‘Nice to see something like this done well,’ said Nanny. ‘Never knew the old boy, of course, but he sounds like a decent fellow. Nice to see you, Tiff. Managing all right?’

Tiffany looked into those innocent smiling eyes, and past them to the much sterner face of Granny Weatherwax, and the brim of her hat. Tiffany bowed.

Granny Weatherwax cleared her throat with a sound like gravel. ‘We ain’t here on business, my girl, we just wanted to help the king make a good entrance.’

‘We are not here about the Cunning Man neither,’ Nanny Ogg added cheerfully. It sounded like a simple and silly giveaway, and Tiffany heard a disapproving sniff from Granny. But, generally speaking, when Nanny Ogg came out with a silly, embarrassing comment by accident, it was because she had thought about it very carefully beforehand. Tiffany knew this, and Nanny certainly knew that Tiffany knew, and Tiffany knew that too. But it was often the kind of way that witches behaved, and it all worked perfectly if nobody picked up an axe.

‘I know this is my problem. I will sort it out,’ she said.

This was on the face of it a really stupid thing to say. The senior witches would be very useful to have at her side. But how would that look? This was a new steading, and she had to be proud.

You couldn’t say, ‘I have done difficult and dangerous things before,’ because that was understood. What did matter was what you did today. It was a matter of pride. It was a matter of style.

And it was also a matter of age. In twenty years’ time, perhaps, if she asked for help, people would think: Well, even an experienced witch can run up against something really unusual. And they would help as a matter of course. But now, if she asked for help, well … people would help. Witches always helped other witches. But everyone would think: Was she really any good? Can’t she last the distance? Is she strong enough for the long haul? No one would say anything, but everyone would think it.

All this was the thought of a second, and when she blinked, the witches were watching her.

‘Self-reliance is a witch’s best friend,’ said Granny Weatherwax, looking stern.

Nanny Ogg nodded in agreement, and added, ‘You can always rely on self-reliance, I’ve always said so.’ She laughed at Tiffany’s expression. ‘Do you think you are the only one to have to deal with the Cunning Man, love? Granny here had to deal with him when she was your age. She sent him back to where he came from in very short order, trust me on that.’

Knowing that it was useless, but attempting it anyway, Tiffany turned to Granny Weatherwax and said, ‘Can you give me any tips, Mistress Weatherwax?’

Granny, who was already drifting purposefully towards the buffet lunch, stopped for a moment and turned and said, ‘Trust yourself.’ She walked a few steps further and stood as if lost in thought and added, ‘And don’t lose.’

Nanny Ogg slapped Tiffany on the back. ‘Never met the bugger myself, but I hear he is pretty bad. Here, is the blushing bride having a hen night tonight?’ The old lady winked and poured the remaining contents of the flagon down her throat.

Tiffany tried to think quickly. Nanny Ogg got on with everyone. Tiffany had only a vague idea of what a hen night was, but some of Mrs Proust’s stock gave her a few clues, and if Nanny Ogg knew about them too, it was a certainty that alcohol was involved.

‘I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a party like that on a night after a funeral, do you, Nanny? Though I think Letitia might enjoy a little talk,’ she added.

‘She’s your chum, isn’t she? I would have thought you’d have had a little talk with her yourself.’

‘I did!’ Tiffany protested. ‘But I don’t think she believed me. And you’ve had at least three husbands, Nanny!’

Nanny Ogg stared at her for a moment and then said, ‘That’s quite a lot of conversation, I suppose. All right. But what about the young man? When’s his stag night going to be?’

‘Ah, I’ve heard of those! It’s where his friends get him drunk, take him a long way away, tie him to a tree and then … I think a bucket of paint and a brush is involved sometimes, but usually they throw him in the pigsty. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, the stag night is always much more interesting than the hen night,’ said Nanny, a look of mischief in her eye. ‘Has the lucky groom got any chums?’

‘Well, there are some nobby lads from other posh families, but the only people he really knows live here in the village. We all grew up together, you see? And none of them would dare throw the Baron in a pigsty!’

‘What about your young man over there?’ Nanny gestured towards Preston, who was standing nearby. He always seemed to be standing nearby.

‘Preston?’ said Tiffany. ‘I don’t think he knows the Baron very well. And in any case—’ She stopped and thought, Young man? She turned and looked at Nanny, who was standing with her hands behind her back and face turned towards the ceiling with the expression of an angel, although admittedly one who might have met a few demons in her time. And that was Nanny all over. When it came to affairs of the heart – or indeed, of any other parts – you couldn’t fool Nanny Ogg.

But he’s not my young man, she insisted to herself. He’s just a friend. Who is a boy.

Preston stepped forward and removed his helmet in front of Nanny. ‘I fear, madam, that it would be against the rules for me as a military man to lay a hand on my commanding officer,’ he said. ‘Were it not for that, I would do so with alacrity.’

Nanny nodded appreciatively at the polysyllabic response, and gave Tiffany a wink that made her blush to the soles of her boots. Nanny Ogg’s grin was now so wide you could fit it onto a pumpkin. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ she said. ‘I can see this place needs a little fun. Thank goodness I’m here!’

Nanny Ogg had a heart of gold, but if you were easily shocked then it was best to stick your fingers in your ears when she said anything. Yet there had to be common sense, didn’t there? ‘Nanny, we’re at a funeral !’

But her tone of voice would never make Nanny Ogg swerve. ‘Was he a good man?’

Tiffany hesitated only for a moment. ‘He grew into goodness.’

Nanny Ogg noticed everything. ‘Oh yes, your Granny Aching taught him his manners, I believe. But he died a good man, then? Good. Will he be remembered with fondness?’

Tiffany tried to ignore the lump in her throat, and managed to say, ‘Oh yes, by everybody.’

‘And you saw to it that he died well? Kept the pain away?’

‘Nanny, if I say it myself, he had a perfect death. The only better death would have been not to die.’

‘Well done,’ said Nanny. ‘Did he have a favourite song, do you know?’

‘Oh yes! It’s “The Larks They Sang Melodious”,’ said Tiffany.

‘Ah, I reckon that’s the one we call “Pleasant and Delightful” back home. Just follow me, will you, and we’ll soon get them in the right mood.’

And with that Nanny Ogg grabbed a passing waiter by the shoulder, took a full flagon from his tray, jumped up onto a table, as lively as a girl, and shouted for silence in a voice as brisk as a sergeant-major. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! To celebrate the good life and easeful passing of our late friend and Baron, I have been asked to sing his favourite song. Do join in with me if you’ve got the breath!’

Tiffany listened, enthralled. Nanny Ogg was a one-woman masterclass, or rather mistressclass, in people. She treated perfect strangers as if she had known them for years, and somehow they acted as if she really had. Dragged along, as it were, by an extremely good singing voice for one old woman with one tooth, perplexed people were raising their voices beyond a mumble by the second line, and by the end of the first verse were harmonizing like a choir, and she had them in her hand. Tiffany wept, and saw through the tears a little boy in his new tweed jacket that smelled of wee, walking with his father under different stars.

And then she saw the glisten of tears on the faces, including the faces of Pastor Egg and even the Duchess. The echoes were of loss and remembrance, and the hall itself breathed.

I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people. I should have learned how not to sing like a turkey …

The song had finished, and people were looking around sheepishly at one another, but Nanny Ogg’s boot was already making the table rock. ‘Dance, dance, the shaking of the sheets. Dance, dance, when you hear the piper playing,’ she sang.

Tiffany thought, Is this the right song for a funeral? And then she thought, Of course it is! It’s a wonderful tune and it tells us that one day all of us will die but – and this is the important thing – we are not dead yet.

And now Nanny Ogg had jumped off the table, grabbed a hold of Pastor Egg, and as she spun him round, she sang, ‘Be assured no preacher can keep death away from any man,’ and he had the grace to smile and dance with her.

People applauded – not something Tiffany would ever have expected at a funeral. She wished, oh how she wished, to be like Nanny Ogg who understood things and knew how to hammer silence into laughter.

And then, as the applause died away, a male voice sang, ‘Down in the valley, the valley so low, hang your head easy, hear the wind blow …’ And silence stood aside in the face of the unexpectedly silver voice of the sergeant.

Nanny Ogg drifted to where Tiffany was standing. ‘Well, it looks like I’ve warmed them up. Hear them clearing their throats? I reckon the pastor will be singing by the end of the evening! And I could do with another drink. It’s thirsty work, singing.’ There was a wink, then she said to Tiffany, ‘Human being first, witch second; hard to remember, easy to do.’

It was magic; magic had turned a hall full of people who mostly did not know very many of the other people there into human beings who knew they were among other human beings and, right now, that was all that needed to matter. At which point Preston tapped her on the shoulder. He had a curious kind of worried smile on his face.

‘Sorry, miss, but I’m on duty, worst luck, and I think you ought to know we have three more visitors.’

‘Can’t you just show them in?’ said Tiffany.

‘I would like to do that, miss, only they are stuck on the roof at the moment. The sound made by three witches is a lot of swearing, miss.’

* * *

If there had been swearing, the new arrivals had apparently run out of breath by the time Tiffany located the right window and crawled out onto the lead roof of the castle. There wasn’t very much to hold onto and it was pretty misty, but she carefully made her way out there on her hands and knees and headed towards the grumbling.

‘Are there any witches up here?’ she said.

And out of the gloom came the voice of somebody not even trying to keep their temper. ‘And what in the seven hells would you do if I said no, Miss Tiffany Aching?’

‘Mrs Proust? What are you doing here?’

‘Holding onto a gargoyle! Get us down right now, my dear, because these are not my stones and Mrs Happenstance needs the privy.’

Tiffany crawled a little further, well aware of the sheer drop an inch away from her hand. ‘Preston has gone to fetch a rope. Do you have a broomstick?’

‘A sheep crashed into it,’ said Mrs Proust.

Tiffany could just make her out now. ‘You crashed into a sheep in the air?’

‘Maybe it was a cow, or something. What are those things that go snuffle snuffle ?’

‘You ran into a flying hedgehog?’

‘No, as it happened. We were down low, looking for a bush for Mrs Happenstance.’ There was a sigh in the gloom. ‘It’s because of her trouble, poor soul. We’ve stopped at a lot of bushes on the way here, believe me! And do you know what? Inside every single one of them is something that stings, bites, kicks, screams, howls, squelches, farts enormously, goes all spiky, tries to knock you over or does an enormous pile of poo! Haven’t you people up here heard about porcelain?’

Tiffany was taken aback. ‘Well, yes, but not in fields!’

‘They would be all the better for it,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘I’ve ruined a decent pair of boots, I have.’

There was a clinking noise in the mist, and Tiffany was relieved to hear Preston say, ‘I have forced open the old trapdoor, ladies, if you would be kind enough to crawl this way?’

The trapdoor opened into a bedroom, clearly one that had been slept in last night by a woman. Tiffany bit her lip. ‘I think this is where the Duchess is staying. Please don’t touch anything, she’s bad enough as it is.’

‘Duchess? Sounds posh,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘What kind of a duchess, may I ask?’

Tiffany said, ‘The Duchess of Keepsake. You saw her when we had that bit of difficulty in the city. You know? At the King’s Head? They’ve got a huge property about thirty miles away.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Mrs Proust in a way that suggested that it probably wasn’t going to be very nice but would be very interesting, and probably embarrassing to somebody who wasn’t Mrs Proust. ‘I remember her, and I remember thinking when I got back from all that, Where have I seen you before, my lady? Do you know anything about her, my dear?’

‘Well, her daughter told me that a terrible fire took away her property and her whole family before she married the Duke.’

Mrs Proust brightened up, although it was the brightness on the edge of a knife. ‘Oh, really?’ she said, her voice all treacle. ‘Just fancy that. I look forward to meeting the lady again and offering my condolences …’

Tiffany decided that this was a puzzle she had no time to unravel, but there were other things to think about. ‘Er …?’ she began, looking at the very tall lady somehow trying to hide behind Mrs Proust, who turned round and said, ‘Oh dear me, where are my manners? I know, I never had any to start with. Tiffany Aching, this is Miss Cambric, better known as Long Tall Short Fat Sally. Miss Cambric is being trained by old Mrs Happenstance, who was the one you briefly saw hurrying down the stairs with one aim in mind. Sally suffers terribly from tides, poor thing. I had to bring them both because Sally had the only working broomstick I could find and she wouldn’t leave Mrs Happenstance behind. It was the devil, keeping the broomstick trim. Don’t worry, she’ll be back to about five foot six in a few hours. Of course, she’s a martyr to ceilings. And Sally, you’d better get after Mrs Happenstance right now.’