Lords And Ladies

But you could tell a lot from just watching bees. The activity, the direction, the way the guard bees acted. . .

They were acting extremely worried.

So she went for a lie down, as only Gra

Na

She sat for a while in her spotless kitchen, drinking rum and smoking her foul pipe and staring at the paintings on the wall. They had been done by her youngest grandchildren in a dozen shades of mud, most of them of blobby stick figures with the word GRAN blobbily blobbed in underneath in muddy blobby letters.

In front of her the cat Greebo, glad to be home again, lay on his back with all four paws in the air, doing his celebrated something-found-in-the-gutter impersonation.

Finally Na

A smithy always occupied an important position in the villages, doing the duty of town hall, meeting room, and general clearing house for gossip. Several men were lounging around in it now, filling in time between the normal Lancre occupations of poaching and watching the women do the work.

"Jason Ogg, I wants a word with you."

The smithy emptied like magic. It was probably something in Na

"I'm glad I've run into you, Mr. Quarney," she said. "Don't rush off. Store doing all right, is it?"

Lancre's only storekeeper gave her the look a threelegged mouse gives an athletic cat. Nevertheless, he tried.

"Oh, terrible bad, terrible bad business is right now, Mrs. Ogg."

"Same as normal, eh?"

Mr. Quarney's expression was pleading. He knew he wasn't going to get out without something, he just wanted to know what it was.

"Well, now," said Na

Quarney's mouth opened.

"She's not a widow," he said. "She-"

"Bet you half a dollar?" said Na

Quarney's mouth stayed open, and around it the rest of his face recomposed itself in an expression of fascinated horror.

"So she's to be allowed credit, right, until she gets the farm on its feet," said Na

"That goes for the rest of you men listening outside the door," said Na

They ran for it, leaving Na

Jason Ogg looked at her hopelessly, a fifteen-stone man reduced to a four-year-old boy.

"Jason?"

"I got to do this bit of brazing for old-"

"So," said Na

Jason poked at the fire distractedly with an iron bar.

"Oh, well, us had a big whirlwind on Hogswatchnight and one of Mother Peason's hens laid the same egg three times, and old Poorchick's cow gave birth to a seven-headed snake, and there was a rain of frogs over in Slice-"

"Been pretty normal, then," said Na

"All very quiet, really," said Jason. He pulled the bar out of the fire, laid it on the anvil, and raised his hammer.

"I'll find out sooner or later, you know," said Na

Jason didn't turn his head, but his hammer stopped in mid-air.

"I always does, you know," said Na

The iron cooled from the colour of fresh straw to bright red.

"You knows you always feels better for telling your old mum," said Na

The iron cooled from red to spitting black. But Jason, ' used all day to the searing heat of a forge, seemed to be uncomfortably warm.

"I should beat it up before it gets cold," said Na

"Weren't my fault. Mum! How could I stop 'em?"

Na

"What them would these be, my son?"

"That young Diamanda and that Perdita and that girl with the red hair from over in Bad Ass and them others. I says to old Peason, I says you'd have something to say, I tole'em Mistress Weatherwax'd get her knic – would definitely be sarcastic when she found out," said Jason. "But they just laughs. They said they could teach 'emselves witching."

Na

"Diamanda?" she said. "Don't recall the name."

"Really she's Lucy Tockley," said Jason. "She says Diamanda is more. . . more witchy."

"Ah. The one that wears the big floppy felt hat?"

"Yes, Mum."

"She's the one that paints her nails black, too?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Old Tockley sent her off to school, didn't he?"

"Yes, Mum. She came back while you was gone."

"Ah."

Na

"How many of these gels are there, then?" she said.

"Bout half a dozen. But they'm good at it. Mum."

"Yeah?"

"And it ain't as if they've been doing anything bad."

Na

There was a bottomless quality to Na

He always fell for it. He tried to fill it up.

"And that Diamanda's been properly educated," he said. "She knows some lovely words."

Silence.

"And I knows you've always said there weren't enough young girls interested in learnin' witching these days," said Jason. He removed the iron bar and hit it a few times, for the look of the thing.

More silence flowed in Jason's direction.

"They goes and dances up in the mountains every full moon."

Na

"People do say," said Jason, lowering his voice, "that they dances in the altogether."

"Altogether what?" said Na

"You know. Mum. In the nudd."

"Cor. There's a thing. Anyone see where they go?"

"Nah. Weaver the thatcher says they always gives him the slip."

"Jason?"

"Yes, Mum?"

"They bin dancin' around the stones."

Jason hit his thumb.

There were a number of gods in the mountains and forests of Lancre. One of them was known as Heme the Hunted. He was a god of the chase and the hunt. More or less.

Most gods are created and sustained by belief and hope. Hunters danced in animal skins and created gods of the chase, who tended to be hearty and boisterous with the tact of a tidal wave. But they are not the only gods of hunting. The prey has an occult voice too, as the blood pounds and the hounds bay. Heme was the god of the chased and the hunted and all small animals whose ultimate destiny is to be an abrupt damp squeak.

He was about three feet high with rabbit ears and very small horns. But he did have an extremely good turn of speed, and was using it to the full as he tore madly through the woods.

"They're coming! They're coming! They're all coming back!"

"Who are?" said Jason Ogg. He was holding his thumb in the water trough.

Na

"Them." she said. "You know. Them. We ain't certain, but. . ."

"Who's Them?"

Na