'Look, just shut up a minute, will you, Shawn?'
'When our Jason finds out, he's going to give the duke a real seeing-to, miz. He says it's about time someone did.'
Nanny Ogg's Jason was a young man with the build and, Magrat had always thought, the brains of a herd of oxen. Thick-skinned though he was, she doubted whether he could survive a hail of arrows.
'Don't tell him yet,' she said thoughtfully. 'There could be another way . . .'
'I'll go and find Granny Weatherwax, shall I, miz?' said Shawn, hopping from one leg to another. 'She'll know what to do, she's a witch.'
Magrat stood absolutely still. She had thought she was angry before, but now she was furious. She was wet and cold and hungry and this person – once upon a time, she heard herself thinking, she would have burst into tears at this point.
'Oops,' said Shawn. 'Um. I didn't mean. Whoops. Um . . .' He backed away.
'If you happen to see Granny Weatherwax,' said Magrat slowly, in tones that should have etched her words into glass, 'you can tell her that I will sort it all out. Now go away before I turn you into a frog. You look like one anyway.'
She turned, hitched up her skirts, and ran like hell towards her cottage.
Lord Felmet was one of nature's gloaters. He was good at it.
'Quite comfortable, are we?' he said.
Nanny Ogg considered this. 'Apart from these stocks, you mean?' she said.
'I am impervious to your foul blandishments,' said the duke. 'I scorn your devious wiles. You are to be tortured, I'll have you know.'
This didn't appear to have the required effect. Nanny was staring around the dungeon with the vaguely interested gaze of a sightseer.
'And then you will be burned,' said the duchess.
'Okay,' said Nanny.
'Okay?'
'Well, it's bloody freezing down here. What's that big wardrobe thing with the spikes?'
The duke was trembling. 'Aha,' he said. 'Now you realise, eh? That, my dear lady, is an Iron Maiden. It's the latest thing. Well may you—'
'Can I have a go in it?'
'Your pleas fall on deaf . . . ' The duke's voice trailed off. His twitch started up.
The duchess leaned forward until her big red face was inches away from Nanny's nose.
'This insouciance gives you pleasure,' she hissed, 'but soon you will laugh on the other side of your face!'
'It's only got this side,' said Nanny.
The duchess fingered a tray of implements lovingly. 'We shall see,' she said, picking up a pair of pliers.
'And you need not think any others of your people will come to your aid,' said the duke, who was sweating despite the chill. 'We alone hold the keys to this dungeon. Ha ha. You will be an example to all those who have been spreading malicious rumours about me. Do not protest your innocence! I hear the voices all the time, lying . . . '
The duchess gripped him ferociously by the arm. 'Enough,' she rasped. 'Come, Leonal. We will let her reflect on her fate for a while.'
'. . .the faces . . . wicked lies . . . I wasn't there, and anyway he fell . . . my porridge, all salty . . .' murmured the duke, swaying.
The door slammed behind them. There was a click of locks and a thudding of bolts.
Nanny was left alone in the gloom. A flickering torch high on the wall only made the surrounding darkness more forbidding. Strange metal shapes, designed for no more exalted purpose than the destruct-testing of the human body, cast unpleasant shadows. Nanny Ogg stirred in her chains.