Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum

Someone tried to knock on the damp canvas and then, after an interval of half a second, stepped into the tent.

‘Are you decent?’ said Nanny Ogg, looking him up and down. ‘We’re all out here waitin’, you know. Lost sheep waitin’ to be shorn, you might say,’ she added, her manner suggesting very clearly that she was doing something that she personally disapproved of, but doing it just the same.

Oats turned around.

‘Mrs Ogg, I know you don’t like me very much—’

‘Don’t see why I should like you at all,’ said Nanny. ‘What with you tagging after Esme and her havin’ to help you all that way across the mountains like that.’

The response was screaming up Oats’s throat before he noticed the faint knowing look in Nanny’s eyes, and he managed to turn it into a cough.

‘Er … yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. Silly of me, wasn’t it? Er … how many are out there, Mrs Ogg?’

‘Oh, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty.’

Levers, thought Oats, and had a fleeting vision of the pictures in Nanny’s parlour. She controls the levers of lots of people. But someone pulled her lever first, I’ll bet.

‘And what do they expect of me?’

‘Says Evensong on the poster,’ said Nanny simply. ‘Even beer would be better.’

So he went out and saw the watching faces of a large part of Lancre’s population lined up in the late-afternoon light. The King and Queen were in the front row. Verence nodded regally at Oats to signal that whatever it was that he intended ought to start around now.

It was clear from the body language of Nanny Ogg that any specifically Omnian prayers would not be tolerated, and Oats made do with a generic prayer of thanks to any god that might be listening and even to the ones that weren’t.

Then he pulled out the stricken harmonium and tried a few chords until Nanny elbowed him aside, rolled up her sleeves and coaxed notes out of the damp bellows that Oats never even knew were in there.

The singing wasn’t very enthusiastic, though, until Oats tossed aside the noisome songbook and taught them some of the songs he remembered from his grandmother, full of fire and thunder and death and justice and tunes you could actually whistle, with titles like ‘Om Shall Trample The Ungodly’ and ‘Lift Me To The Skies’ and ‘Light The Good Light’. {80} 80 Many modern churches have sanitised their official hymnbooks, leaving many of their worshippers complaining vigorously about the insipidness of the new hymns. ‘Light The Good Light’ is presumably the Omnian version of ‘Fight the Good Fight’; ‘Om Shall Trample The Ungodly’ is less clear, but it could scan to the tune of ‘The Battle-Hymn of the Republic.’ They went down well. Lancre people weren’t too concerned about religion, but they knew what it ought to sound like.

While he led the singing, with the aid of a long stick and the words of the hymns scrawled on the side of his tent, he scanned his … well, he decided to call it his congregation. It was his first real one. There were plenty of women, and a lot of very well scrubbed men, but one face was patently not there. Its absence dominated the scene.

But, as he raised his eyes upwards in mid-song, he did notice an eagle far overhead, a mere speck gyrating across the darkening sky, possibly hunting for lost lambs.

And then it was over and people left, quietly, with the look of those who’d done a job which had not been unpleasant but which was nevertheless over. The collection plate produced two pennies, some carrots, a large onion, a small loaf, a pound of mutton, a jug of milk and a pickled pig’s trotter.

‘We’re not really a cash economy,’ said King Verence, stepping forward. He had a bandage across his forehead.

‘Oh, it’ll make a good supper, sire,’ said Oats, in the madly cheerful voice that people use when addressing royalty.

‘Surely you’ll dine with us?’ said Magrat.

‘I … er … was planning to leave at first light, sire. So I really ought to spend the evening packing and setting fire to the camp bed.’

‘Leaving? But I thought you were staying here. I’ve taken … community soundings,’ said the King, ‘and I think I can say that popular opinion is with me on this.’

Oats looked at Magrat’s face, which said plainly, Granny doesn’t object.

‘Well, I, er … I expect I shall pass through again, sire,’ he said. ‘But … to tell you the truth, I was thinking of heading on to Uberwald.’

‘That’s a hellish place, Mr Oats.’

‘I’ve thought about it all day, sire, and I’m set on it.’

‘Oh.’ Verence looked nonplussed, but kings learn to swing back upright. ‘I’m sure you know your own mind best.’ He swayed slightly as Magrat’s elbow grazed his ribs. ‘Oh … yes … we heard you lost your, er, holy amulet and so this afternoon we, that is to say the Queen and Miss Nitt … got Shawn Ogg to make this in the mint …’

Oats unwrapped the black velvet scroll. Inside, on a golden chain, was a small golden double-headed axe.

He stared at it.

‘Shawn isn’t very good at turtles,’ said Magrat, to fill the gap.

‘I shall treasure it,’ said Oats, at last.

‘Of course, we appreciate it’s not very holy,’ said the King.

Oats waved a hand dismissively. ‘Who knows, sire? Holiness is where you find it,’ he said.

Behind the King, Jason and Darren Ogg were standing respectfully to attention. Both still had plasters stuck across their noses. They moved aside hurriedly to make way for the King, who didn’t seem to notice.

Nanny Ogg struck a chord on the harmonium when the royal couple had departed with their retinue.

‘If you drop in to our Jason’s forge first thing when you’re leavin’ I’ll see to it he fixes the bellows on this contraption,’ she said diffidently, and Oats realized that in the context of Nanny Ogg this was as close as he was going to get to three rousing cheers and the grateful thanks of the population.

‘I was so impressed that everyone turned up of their own free will,’ he said. ‘Spontaneously, as it were.’

‘Don’t push your luck, sonny boy,’ said Nanny, getting up.

‘Nice to have met you, Mrs Ogg.’

Nanny walked away a few steps, but Oggs never left anything unsaid.

‘I can’t say as I approve of you,’ she said, stiffly. ‘But should you ever come knockin’ on an Ogg door in these parts you’ll … get a hot meal. You’re too skinny. I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Not necessarily puddin’ as well, mark you.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Well, then …’ Nanny Ogg shrugged. ‘Best of luck in Uberwald, then.’

‘Om will go with me, I’m sure,’ said Oats. He was interested in how annoyed you could make Nanny by speaking calmly to her, and wondered if Granny Weatherwax had tried it.

‘I hope he does,’ said Nanny. ‘I person’ly don’t want him hanging around here.’

When she’d gone Oats lit a fire of the horrible bed and stuck the songbooks around it to dry out.

‘Hello …’

The thing about a witch in darkness is that all you see is her face, bobbing towards you, surrounded by black. Then a little contrast reasserted itself, and an area of shadow detached from the rest and became Agnes.

‘Oh, good evening,’ said Oats. ‘Thank you for coming. I’ve never heard anyone singing in harmony with themselves before.’

Agnes coughed nervously.

‘Are you really going on into Uberwald?’

‘There’s no reason to stay here, is there?’

Agnes’s left arm twitched a few times. She steadied it with her right hand.

‘S’pose not,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘No! Shut up! This is not the time!’