Carpe Jugulum

Chapter 14

'You did it to Granny!' said Agnes.
'Yes, but when it's against someone's will... well, they end up so... compliant. Little more than thinking food. But someone who embraces the night of their own volition... ah, that's another thing entirely, my dear Agnes. And you're far too interesting to be a slave.'
'Tell me,' said Agnes, as a mountaintop floated by, 'have you had many girlfriends?'
He shrugged. 'One or two. Village girls. Housemaids.'
'And what happened to them, may I ask?'
'Don't look at me like that. We still find employment for them in the castle.'
Agnes loathed him. Perdita merely hated him, which is the opposite pole to love and just as attractive.
... but Nanny said if the worst came to the worst... and then he'll trust you... and they've already got Granny...
'If I'm a vampire,' she said, 'I won't know good from evil.'
'That's a bit childish, isn't it? They're only ways of looking at the same thing. You don't always have to do what the rest of the world wants you to do.'
'Are you still toying with her?'
Lacrimosa was walking towards them on the air. Agnes saw the other vampires behind her.
'Bite her or let her go,' the girl went on. 'Good grief, she's so blobby. Come on, Father wants you. They're heading for our castle. Isn't that just too stupid?'
'This is my affair, Lacci,' said Vlad.
'Every boy should have a hobby, but... really,' said Lacrimosa, rolling her black-rimmed eyes.
Vlad grinned at Agnes.
'Come with us,' he said.
Granny did say you need to be with the others,
Perdita pointed out.
'Yes, but how will I find them when we're there?' said Agnes aloud.
'Oh, we'll find them,' said Vlad.
'I meant-'
'Do come. We don't intend to hurt your friends-'
'Much,' said Lacrimosa.
'Or... we could leave you here,' said Vlad, smiling.
Agnes looked around. They had touched down on the mountain peak, above the clouds. She felt warm and light, which was wrong. Even on a broomstick she'd never felt like this, she'd always been aware of gravity sucking her down, but with the vampire holding her arm every part of her felt that it could float for ever.
Besides, if she didn't go with them it was going to be either a very long or an extremely short journey down to the ground.
Besides, she would find the other two, and you couldn't do that when you were dying in some crevasse somewhere.
Besides, even if he did have small fangs and a terrible taste in waistcoats, Vlad actually seemed attracted to her. It wasn't even as if she had a very interesting neck.
She made up both minds.
'If you attached a piece of string to her I suppose we could tow her like some sort of balloon,' said Lacrimosa.
Besides, there was always the chance that, at some point, she might find herself in a room with Lacrimosa. When that happened, she wouldn't need garlic, or a stake, or an axe. Just a little talk about people who were too unpleasant, too malicious, too thin. Just five minutes alone.
And perhaps a pin, said Perdita.
Under the rabbit hole, down below the bank, was a wide, low-roofed chamber. Tree roots wound among the stones in the wall.
There were plenty of such things around Lancre. The kingdom had been there many years, ever since the ice withdrew. Tribes had pillaged, tilled, built and died. The clay walls and reed thatch of the living houses had long since rotted and been lost but, down under the moundy banks, the abodes of the dead survived. No one knew now who'd been buried there. Occasionally the spoil heap outside a badger sett would reveal a piece of bone or a scrap of corroded armour. The Lancrastians didn't go digging themselves, reckoning in their uncomplicated country way that it was bad luck to have your head torn off by a vengeful underground spirit.
One or two of the old barrows had been exposed over the years, their huge stones attracting their own folklore. If you left your unshod horse at one of them overnight and placed a sixpence on the stone, in the morning the sixpence would be gone and you'd never see your horse again, either...
Down on the earth floor under the bank a fire was burning darkly, filling the barrow with smoke which exited through various hidden crannies.
There was a pear-shaped rock beside it.
Verence tried to sit up, but his body didn't want to obey.
'Dinna scanna' whista,' said the rock.
It unfolded its legs. It was, he realized, a woman, or at least a female, blue like the other pixies but at least a foot high and so fat that it was almost spherical. It looked exactly like the little figurines back in the days of ice and mammoths, when what men really looked for in a woman was quantity. For the sake of modesty, or merely to mark the equator, it wore what Verence could only think of as a tutu. The whole effect reminded him of a spinning top he'd had when he was a child.
'The Kelda says,' said a cracked voice by his ear, 'that ye... must get... ready.'
Verence turned his head the other way and tried to focus on a small wizened pixie right in front of his nose. Its skin was faded. It had a long white beard. It walked with two sticks.
'Ready? For what?'
'Good.' The old pixie banged its sticks on the ground. 'Craik'n shaden ach, Feegle!'
The blue men rushed at Verence from the shadows. Hundreds of hands grabbed him. Their bodies formed a human pyramid, pulling him upright against the wall. Some clung to the tree roots that looped across the ceiling, tugging on his nightshirt to keep him vertical.
A crowd of others ran across the floor with a full-sized crossbow and propped it on a stone close to him.
'Er... I say...' Verence murmured.
The Kelda waddled into the shadows and returned with her pudgy fists clenched. She went to the fire and held them over the flames.
'Yin!' said the old pixie.
'I say, that's aimed right at my-'
'Yin!' shouted the Nac mac Feegle.
'... ton!'
'Ton!'
'Um, it's, er, right...'
'Tetra!'
The Kelda dropped something on the fire. A white flame roared up, etching the room in black and white. Verence blinked.
When he managed to see again there was a crossbow bolt sticking in the wall just by his ear.
The Kelda growled some order, while white light still danced around the walls. The bearded pixie rattled his sticks again.
'Now ye must walk awa'. Noo!'
The Feegle let Verence go. He took a few tottering steps and collapsed on the floor, but the pixies weren't watching him.
He looked up.
His shadow twisted on the wall where it had been pinned. It writhed for a moment, trying to dutch at the arrow with insubstantial hands, and then faded.
Verence raised his hand. There seemed to be a shadow there, too, but at least this one looked as if it was the regular kind.
The old pixie hobbled over to him.
'All fine now,' he said.
'You shot my shadow?' said Verence.
'Aye, ye could call it a shade,' said the pixie. 'It's the 'fluence they put on ye. But ye'll be up and aboot in no time.'
'A boot?'
'Aboot the place,' said the pixie evenly. 'All hail, your kingy. I'm Big Aggie's Man. Ye'd call me the prime minister, I'm hazardin'. Will ye no' have a huge dram and a burned bannock while yer waitin'?'
Verence rubbed his face. He did feel better already. The fog was drifting away.
'How can I ever repay you?' he said.
The pixie's eyes gleamed happily.
'Oh, there's a wee bitty thing the carlin' Ogg said you could be givin' us, hardly important at all,' he said.
'Anything,' said Verence.
A couple of pixies came up staggering under a rolled-up parchment, which was unfolded in front of Verence. The old pixie was suddenly holding a quill pen.
'It's called a signature,' he said, as Verence stared at the tiny handwriting. 'An' make sure ye initial all the subclauses and codicils. We of the Nac mac Feegle are a simple folk,' he added, 'but we write verra comp-lic-ated documents.'
Mightily oats blinked at Granny over the top of his praying hands. She saw his gaze slide sideways to the axe, and then back to her.
'You wouldn't reach it in time,' said Granny, without moving. 'Should've got hold of it already if you were goin' to use it. Prayer's all very well. I can see where it can help you get your mind right. But an axe is an axe no matter what you believes.'
Oats relaxed a little. He'd expected a leap for the throat.
'If Hodgesaargh's made any tea, I'm parched,' said Granny. She leaned against the anvil, panting. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his hand move slowly.
'I'll get- I'll ask- I'll-'
'Man with his head screwed on properly, that falconer. A biscuit wouldn't come amiss.'
Oats's hand reached the axe handle.
'Still not quick enough,' said Granny. 'Keep hold of it, though. Axe first, pray later. You look like a priest. What's your god?'
'Er... Om.'
'That a he god or a she god?'
'A he. Yes. A he. Definitely a he.' It was one thing the Church hadn't schismed over, strangely. 'Er... you don't mind, do you?'
'Why should I mind?'
'Well... your colleagues keep telling me the Omnians used to burn witches...'
'They never did,' said Granny.
'I'm afraid I have to admit that the records show-'
'They never burned witches,' said Granny. 'Probably they burned some old ladies who spoke up or couldn't run away. I wouldn't look for witches bein' burned,' she added, shifting position. 'I might look for witches doin' the burning, though. We ain't all nice.'
Oats remembered the Count talking about contributing to the Arca Instrumentorum...
Those books were ancient! But so were vampires, weren't they? And they were practically canonical! The freezing knife of doubt wedged itself deeper in his brain. Who knew who really wrote anything? What could you trust? Where was the holy writ? Where was the truth?
Granny pulled herself to her feet and tottered over to the bench, where Hodgesaargh had left his jar of flame. She examined it carefully.
Oats tightened his grip on the axe. It was, he had to admit, slightly more comforting than prayer at that moment. Perhaps you could start with the small truths. Like: he had an axe in his hand.
'I wa- want to be certain,' he said. 'Are you... are you a vampire?'
Granny Weatherwax appeared not to hear the question.
'Where's Hodgesaargh with that tea?' she said.
The falconer came in with a tray.
'Nice to see you up and about, Mistress Weatherwax.'
'Not before time.'
The tea slopped as she took the proffered cup. Her hand was shaking.
'Hodgesaargh?'
'Yes, mistress?'
'So you've got a firebird here, have you?'
'No, mistress.'
'I saw you out huntin' it.'
'And I found it, miss. But it had been killed.
There was nothing but burnt ground, miss.'
'You'd better tell me all about it.'
'Is this the right time?' said Oats.
'Yes,' said Granny Weatherwax.
Oats sat and listened. Hodgesaargh was an original storyteller and quite good in a very specific way. If he'd had to recount the saga of the Tsortean War, for example, it would have been in terms of the birds observed, every cormorant noted, every pelican listed, every battlefield raven taxonomically placed, no tern unturned. Some men in armour would have been involved at some stage, but only because the ravens were perching on them.
'The phoenix doesn't lay eggs,' said Oats, at one point. This was a point a few points after the point where he asked the falconer if he'd been drinking.
'She's a bird,' said Hodgesaargh. 'That's what birds do. I've never seen a bird that doesn't lay eggs. I collected the eggshell.'
He scuttled off into the mews. Oats smiled nervously at Granny Weatherwax.
'Probably a bit of chicken shell,' he said. 'I've read about the phoenix. It's a mythical creature, a symbol, it-'
'Can't say for sure,' said Granny. 'I've never seen one that close to.'
The falconer returned, clutching a small box. It was full of tufts of fleece, in the middle of which was a pile of shell fragments. Oats picked up a couple. They were a silvery grey and very light.
'I found them in the ashes.'
'No one's ever claimed to have found phoenix eggshell before,' said Oats accusingly.
'Didn't know that, sir,' said Hodgesaargh innocently. 'Otherwise I wouldn't have looked.'
'Did anyone else ever look, I wonder?' said Granny. She poked at the fragments. 'Ah...' she said.
'I thought p'raps the phoenixes used to live somewhere very dangerous-' Hodgesaargh began.
'Everywhere's like that when you're newborn,' said Granny. 'I can see you've been thinking, Hodgesaargh.'
'Thank you, Mistress Weatherwax.'
'Shame you didn't think further,' Granny went on.
'Mistress?'
'There's the bits of more than one egg here.'
'Mistress?'
'Hodgesaargh,' said Granny patiently, 'this phoenix laid more than one egg.'
'What? But it can't! According to mythology-' Oats said.
'Oh, mythology,' said Granny. 'Mythology's just the folktales of people who won 'cos they had bigger swords. They're just the people to spot the finer points of ornithology, are they? Anyway, one of anything ain't going to last for very long, is it? Firebirds have got enemies, same as everything else. Give me a hand up, Mister Oats. How many birds in the mews, Hodgesaargh?'
The falconer looked at his fingers for a moment.
'Fifty.'
'Counted 'em lately?'
They stood and watched while he walked from post to post. Then they stood and watched while he walked back and counted them again. Then he spent some time looking at his fingers.
'Fifty-one?' said Granny helpfully.
'I don't understand it, mistress.'
'You'd better count them by types, then.'
This produced a count of nineteen lappet-faced worriers where there should have been eighteen.
'Perhaps one flew in because it saw the others,' said Oats. 'Like pigeons.'
'It doesn't work like that, sir,' said the falconer.
'One of 'em won't be tethered,' said Granny. 'Trust me.'
They found it at the back, slightly smaller than the other worriers, hanging meekly from its perch.
Fewer birds could sit more meekly than the Lancre wowhawk, or lappet-faced worrier, a carnivore permanently on the lookout for the vegetarian option. It spent most of its time asleep in any case, but when forced to find food it tended to sit on a branch out of the wind somewhere and wait for something to die. When in the mews the worriers would initially perch like other birds and then, talons damped around the pole, doze off peacefully upside down. Hodgesaargh bred them because they were found only in Lancre and he liked the plumage, but all reputable falconers agreed that for hunting purposes the only way you could reliably bring down prey with a wowhawk was by using it in a slingshot.
Granny reached out towards it.
'I'll fetch you a glove,' said Hodgesaargh, but she waved him away.
The bird hopped on to her wrist.
Granny gasped, and little threads of green and blue burned like marsh gas along her arm for a moment.
'Are you all right?' said Oats.
'Never been better. I'll need this bird, Hodgesaargh.'
'It's dark, mistress.'
'That won't matter. But it'll need to be hooded.'
'Oh, I never hood wowhawks, mistress. They're never any trouble.'
'This bird... this bird,' said Granny, 'is a bird I reckon no one's ever seen before. Hood it.'
Hodgesaargh hesitated. He recalled the circle of scorched earth and, before it, something looking for a shape in which it could survive...
'It is a wowhawk, isn't it, mistress?'
'And what makes you ask that?' said Granny slowly. 'After all, you're the falconer in these parts.'
'Because I found... in the woods... I saw...'
'What did you see, Hodgesaargh?'
Hodgesaargh gave up in the face of her stare. To think that he'd tried to capture a phoenix! At least the worst the other birds could do would be to draw blood. Supposing he'd been holding it... He was overcome by a very definite burning desire to get this bird out of here.
Strangely, though, the other birds weren't disturbed at all. Every hooded head was turned towards the little bird on Granny Weatherwax's wrist. Every blind, hooded head.
Hodgesaargh picked up another hood. As he fastened it over the bird's head he thought, for a moment, that there was a flash of gold from underneath.
He put that down as not his business. He'd survived quite happily in the castle for many years by knowing where his business was, and he was suddenly very clear that it wasn't here, thank goodness.
Granny took a few deep breaths.
'Right,' she said. 'Now we'll go up to the castle.'
'What for? Why?' said Oats.
'Good grief, man, why d'you think?'
'The vampires are gone,' said the priest. 'While you were... getting better. Mr Hodges... aargh found out. They've just left the soldiers and the, er, servants. There was a lot of noise and the coach went, too. There's guards all over the place.'
'How did the coach get out, then?'
'Well, it was the vampires' coach and their servant was driving it, but Jason Ogg said he saw Mrs Ogg, too.'
Granny steadied herself against the wall.
'Where did they go?'
'I thought you could read their minds or something,' said Oats.
'Young man, right now I don't think I can read my own mind.'
'Look, Granny Weatherwax, it's obvious to me you're still weak from loss of blood-'
'Don't you dare tell me what I am,' said Granny. 'Don't you dare. Now, where would Gytha Ogg've taken them?'
'I think-'
'Uberwald,' said Granny. 'That'll be it.'
'What? How can you know that?'
'Because nowhere in the village'd be safe, she wouldn't go up to the gnarly ground on a night like this and with a baby to carry as well, and heading down on to the plains'd be downright daft 'cos there's no cover and I wouldn't be surprised if the road is washed out by now.'
'But that'll be right into danger!'
'More dangerous than here?' said Granny. 'They know about vampires in Uberwald. They're used to 'em. There's safe places. Pretty strong inns all along the coach road, for a start. Nanny's practical. She'll think of that, I'm betting.' She winced, and added, 'But they'll end up in the vampires' castle.'
'Oh, surely not!'
'I can feel it in my blood,' said Granny. 'That's the trouble with Gytha Ogg. Far too practical.' She paused. 'You mentioned guards?'
'They've locked themselves in the keep, mistress,' said a voice in the doorway. It was Shawn Ogg, with the rest of the mob behind him. He advanced awkwardly, one hand held in front of him.
'That's a blessing, then,' said Granny.
'But we can't get in, mistress,' said Shawn.
'So? Can they get out?'
'Well... no, not really. But the armoury's in there. All our weaponsl And they're boozing!'
'What's that you're holding?'.
Shawn looked down. 'It's the Lancrastian Army Knife,' he said. 'Er... I left my sword in the armoury, too.'
'Has it got a tool for extracting soldiers from castles?'
'Er... no.'
Granny peered closer. 'What's the curly thing?' she said.
'Oh, that's the Adjustable Device for Winning Ontological Arguments,' said Shawn. 'The King asked for it.'
'Works, does it?'
'Er... if you twiddle it properly.'
'And this?'
'That's the Tool for Extracting the Essential Truth from a Given Statement,' said Shawn.
'Verence asked for that one too, did he?'
'Yes, Granny.'
'Useful to a soldier, is it?' said Oats. He glanced at Granny. She'd changed as soon as the others had entered. Before, she'd been bowed and tired. Now she was standing tall and haughty, supported by a scaffolding of pride.
'Oh, yes, sir, 'cos of when the other side are yelling, "We're gonna cut yer tonk- yer tongue off,"' Shawn blushed and corrected himself, 'and things like that...'
'Yes?'
'Well, you can tell if they're going to be right,' said Shawn.
'I need a horse,' said Granny.
'There's old Poorchick's plough horse-' Shawn began.
'Too slow.'
'I... er..., I've got a mule,' said Oats. 'The King was kind enough to let me put it in the stables.'
'Neither one thing nor t'other, eh?' said Granny. 'It suits you. That'll do for me, then. Fetch it up here and I'll be off to get the girls back.'
'What? I thought you wanted it to take you up to your cottagel Into Uberwald? Alone? I couldn't let you do that!'
'I ain't asking you to let me do anything. Now off you go and fetch it, otherwise Om will be angry, I expect.'
'But you can hardly stand up!'
'Certainly I can! Off you go.'
Oats turned to the assembled Lancrastians for support.
'You wouldn't let a poor old lady go off to confront monsters on a wild night like this, would you?'
They watched him owlishly for a while just in case something interestingly nasty was going to happen to him.
Then someone near the back said, 'So why should we care what happens to monsters?'
And Shawn Ogg said, 'That's Granny Weatherwax, that is.'
'But she's an old lady!' Oats insisted.
The crowd took a few steps back. Oats was clearly a dangerous man to be around.
'Would you go out alone on a night like this?' he said.
The voice at the back said, 'Depends if I knew where Granny Weatherwax was.'
'Don't think I didn't hear that, Bestiality Carter,' said Granny, but there was just a hint of satisfaction in her voice. 'Now, are we fetchin' your mule, Mr Oats?'
'Are you sure you can walk?'
'Of course I cant'
Oats gave up. Granny smirked triumphantly at the crowd and strode through them and towards the stables, with him trotting after her.
When he hurried around the corner he almost collided with her, standing as stiff as a rod.
'Is there anyone watchin' me?' she said.
'What? No, I don't think so. Apart from me, of course.'
'You don't count,' said Granny.
She sagged, and almost collapsed. He caught her, and she pummelled him on the arm. The wowhawk flapped its wings desperately.
'Let go! I just lost my footin', that's all!'
'Yes, yes, of course. You just lost your footing,' he said soothingly.
'And don't try to humour me, either.'
'Yes, yes, all right.'
'It's just that it don't do to let things slide, if you must know.'
'Like your foot did just then...'
'Exactly.'
'So perhaps I'll take your arm, because it's very muddy.'
He could just make out her face. It was a picture, but not one you'd hang over the fireplace. Some sort of inner debate was raging.
'Well, if you think you're going to fall over...' she said.
'That's right, that's right,' said Oats gratefully. 'I nearly hurt my ankle back there as it is.'
'I've always said young people today don't have the stamina,' said Granny, as if testing out an idea.
'That's right, we don't have the stamina.'