Terry Pratchett - Lords And Ladies

"I'm not going bald!"

A tic started to dance across the Bursar's face. The words started to come out by themselves, without the apparent intervention of his brain.

"-and then he got this device with a glass rod and, and, and you rubbed it with a silk cloth and-"

"I mean it's ridiculous! My family have never gone bald, except for one of my aunts!"

"-and, and, and then he'd collect morning dew and wash his head, and, and, and-"

Ridcully subsided. He was not an unkind man.

"What're you taking for it at the moment?" he murmured.

"Dried, dried, dried, dried," stuttered the Bursar.

"The old dried frog pills, right?"

"R-r-r-r."

"Left-hand pocket?"

"R-r-r-r."

"OK. . . right. . . swallow. . ."

They stared at one another for a moment.

The Bursar sagged.

"M-m-much better now, Archchancellor, thank you."

"Something's definitely happening. Bursar. I can feel it in my water."

"Anything you say, Archchancellor."

"Bursar?"

"Yes, Archchancellor?"

"You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you?"

"Me? No , Archchancellor."

"Then it'd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head."

"Know him?" said Granny Weatherwax.

Nanny Ogg knew everyone in Lancre, even the forlorn thing on the bracken.

"It's William Scrope, from over Slice way," she said. "One of three brothers. He married that Palliard girl, remember? The one with the air-cooled teeth?"

"I hope the poor woman's got some respectable black clothes," said Granny Weatherwax.

"Looks like he's been stabbed," said Nanny. She turned the body over, gently but firmly. Corpses as such didn't worry her. Witches generally act as layers-out of the dead as well as midwives; there were plenty of people in Lancre for whom Nanny Ogg's face had been the first and last thing they'd ever seen, which had probably made all the bit in the middle seem quite uneventful by comparison.

"Right through," she said. "Stabbed right through. Blimey who'd do a thing like that?"

Both the witches turned to look at the stones.

"I don't know what , but I knows where it come from," said Granny.

Now Nanny Ogg could see that the bracken all around the stones was indeed well trodden down, and quite brown.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this," said Granny.

"You'd better not go into-"

"I knows exactly where I should go, thank you."

There were eight stones in the Dancers. Three of them had names. Granny walked around the ring until she reached the one known as the Piper.

She removed a hatpin from among the many that riveted her pointy hat to her hair and held it about six inches from the stone. Then she let it go, and watched what happened.

She went back to Nanny.

"There's still power there," she said. "Not much, but the ring is holding."

"But who'd be daft enough to come up here and dance around the stones?" said Nanny Ogg, and then, as a treacherous thought drifted across her mind, she added, "Magrat's been away with us the whole time."

"We shall have to find out," said Granny, setting her face in a grim smile. "Now help me up with the poor man."

Nanny Ogg bent to the task.

"Coo, he's heavy. We could've done with young Magrat up here."

"No. Flighty," said Granny Weatherwax. "Head easily turned."

"Nice girl, though."

"But soppy. She thinks you can lead your life as if fairy stories work and folk songs are really true. Not that I don't wish her every happiness."

"Hope she does all right as queen," said Nanny.

"We taught her everything she knows," said Granny Weatherwax.

"Yeah," said Nanny Ogg, as they disappeared into the bracken. "D'you think. . . maybe. . . ?"

"What?"

"D'you think maybe we ought to have taught her everything we know?"

"It'd take too long."

"Yeah, right."

It took a while for letters to get as far as the Archchancellor. The post tended to be picked up from the University gates by anyone who happened to be passing, and then left lying on a shelf somewhere or used as a pipe lighter or a bookmark or, in the case of the Librarian, as bedding.

This one had only taken two days, and was quite intact apart from a couple of cup rings and a bananary fingerprint. It arrived on the table along with the other post while the faculty were at breakfast. The Dean opened it with a spoon.

"Anyone here know where Lancre is?" he said.

"Why?" said Ridcully, looking up sharply.

"Some king's getting married and wants us to come."

"Oh dear, oh dear," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "Some tinpot king gets wed and he wants us to come?"

"It's up in the mountains," said the Archchancellor, quietly "Good trout fishin' in those parts, as I recall. My word. Lancre. Good grief. Hadn't thought about the place in years. You know, there's glacier lakes up there where the fish've never seen a rod. Lancre. Yes."

"And it's far too far," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

Ridcully wasn't listening. "And there's deer. Thousands of head of deer. And elk. Wolves all over the place. Mountain lions too, I shouldn't wonder. I heard that Ice Eagles have been seen up there again, too."

His eyes gleamed.

"There's only half a dozen of 'em left," he said.

Mustrum Ridcully did a lot for rare species. For one thing, he kept them rare.

"It's the back of beyond," said the Dean. "Right off the edge of the map."

"Used to stay with my uncle up there, in the holidays," said Ridcully, his eyes misty with distance. "Great days I had up there. Great days. The summers up there . . . and the sky's a deeper blue than anywhere else, it's very . . . and the grass. . . and. . ."

He returned abruptly from the landscapes of memory.

"Got to go, then," he said. "Duty calls. Head of state gettin' married. Important occasion. Got to have a few wizards there. Look of the thing. Nobblyess obligay."

"Well, I'm not going," said the Dean. "It's not natural, the countryside. Far too many trees. Never could stand it."

"The Bursar could do with an outing," said Ridcully. "Seems a bit jumpy just lately, can't imagine why." He leaned forward to look along the High Table. "Bursaaar!"

The Bursar dropped his spoon into his oatmeal.

"See what I mean?" said Ridcully. "Bundle o' nerves the whole time. I WAS SAYING YOU COULD DO WITH SOME FRESH AIR, BURSAR." He nudged the Dean heavily. "Hope he's not going off his rocker, poor fella," he said, in what he chose to believe was a whisper. "Spends too much time indoors, if you get my drift."

The Dean, who went outdoors about once a month, shrugged his shoulders.

"I EXPECT YOU'D LIKE A LITTLE TIME AWAY FROM THE UNIVERSITY, EH?" said the Archchancellor, nodding and grimacing madly. "Peace and quiet? Healthy country livin'?"

"I, I, I, I should like that very much, Archchancellor," said the Bursar, hope rising in his face like an autumn mushroom.

"Good man. Good man. You shall come with me," said Ridcully, beaming.

The Bursar's expression froze.

"Got to be someone else, too," said Ridcully. "Volunteers, anyone?"

The wizards, townies to a man, bent industriously over their food. They always bent industriously over their food in any case, but this time they were doing it to avoid catching Ridcully's eye.

"What about the Librarian?" said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, throwing a random victim to the wolves.

There was a sudden babble of relieved agreement.

"Good choice," said the Dean. "Just the thing for him. Countryside. Trees. And. . . and. . . trees."

"Mountain air," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

"Yes, he's been looking peaky lately," said the Reader in Invisible Writings [7].

"It'd be a real treat for him," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.