Lords And Ladies

"Bursaaar!"

–until the Bursar appeared.

In fact it happened so often that the Bursar, a natural neurovore[6], frequently found that he'd got up and dressed himself in his sleep several minutes before the bellow. On this occasion he was upright and fully clothed and halfway to the door before his eyes snapped open.

Ridcully never wasted time on small talk. It was always large talk or nothing.

"Yes, Archchancellor?" said the Bursar, glumly.

The Archchancellor removed his hat.

"What about this, then?" he demanded.

"Um, um, um . . . what, Archchancellor?"

"This, man! This!"

Close to panic, the Bursar stared desperately at the top of Ridcully's head.

"The what? Oh. The bald spot?"

"I have not got a bald spot!"

"Um, then-"

"I mean it wasn't there yesterday!"

"Ah. Well. Um." At a certain point something always snapped inside the Bursar, and he couldn't stop himself. "Of course these things do happen and my grandfather always swore by a mixture of honey and horse manure, he rubbed it on every day-"

"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 Gra

Na

"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 Gra

"Looks like he's been stabbed," said Na

"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 Gra

Now Na

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

"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. Gra

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 Na

"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 Na

"We shall have to find out," said Gra

Na

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

"No. Flighty," said Gra

"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 Na

"We taught her everything she knows," said Gra

"Yeah," said Na

"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."

6

He lived on hisnerves.