'Just a few minutes . . .'
Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else. Currently she had arrived in the kitchens again, precipitating a breakdown in the cook, who was trying to roast some celery. The fact that several people had tried to buy apples from her wasn't improving her temper.
Magrat found her way to the Great Hall, empty and deserted at this time of day except for a couple of guards who were playing dice. They wore the tabards of Felmet's own personal bodyguard, and stopped their game as soon as she appeared.
'Well, well,' said one, leering. 'Come to keep us company have you, my pretty.[12]'
'I was looking for the dungeons,' said Magrat, to whom the words 'sexual harassment' were a mere collection of syllables.
'Just fancy,' said one of the guards, winking at the other. 'I reckon we can help you there.' They got up and stood either side of her; she was aware of two chins you could strike matches on and an overpowering smell of stale beer. Frantic signals from outlying portions of her mind began to break down her iron-hard conviction that bad things only happened to bad people.
They escorted her down several flights of steps into a maze of dank, arched passageways as she sought hurriedly for some polite way of disengaging herself.
'I should warn you,' she said, 'I am not, as I may appear, a simple apple seller.'
'Fancy that.'
'I am, in fact, a witch.'
This did not make the impression she had hoped. The guards exchanged glances.
'Fair enough,' said one. 'I've always wondered what it was like to kiss a witch. Around here they do say you gets turned into a frog.'
The other guard nudged him. 'I reckon, then,' he said, in the slow, ripe tones of one who thinks that what he is about to say next is going to be incredibly funny, 'you kissed one years ago.'
The brief guffaw was suddenly interrupted when Magrat was flung against the wall and treated to a close up view of the guard's nostrils.
'Now listen to me, sweetheart,' he said. 'You ain't the first witch we've had down here, if witch you be, but you could be lucky and walk out again. If you are nice to us, d'you see?'
There was a shrill, short scream from somewhere nearby.
'That, you see,' said the guard, 'was a witch having it the hard way. You could do us all a favour, see? Lucky you met us, really.'
His questing hand stopped its wandering. 'What's this?' he said to Magrat's pale face. 'A knife? A knife? I reckon we've got to take that very seriously, don't you, Hron?'
'You got to tie her hands and gag her,' said Hron hurriedly.
'They can't do no magic if they can't speak or wave their hands about . . .'
'You can take your hands off her!'
All three stared down the passage at the Fool. He was jingling with rage.
'Let her go this minute!' he shouted. 'Or I'll report you!'
'Oh, you'll report us, will you?' said Hron. 'And will anyone listen to you, you earwax-coloured little twerp?'
'This is a witch we have here,' said the other guard. 'So you can go and tinkle somewhere else.' He turned back to Magrat. 'I like a girl with spirit,' he said, incorrectly as it turned out.
The Fool advanced with the bravery of the terminally angry.
'I told you to let her go,' he repeated.
Hron drew his sword and winked at his companion.
Magrat struck. It was an unplanned, instinctive blow, its stopping power considerably enhanced by the weight of rings and bangles; her arm whirred around in an arc that connected with her captor's jaw and spun him twice before he folded up in a heap with a quiet little sigh, and incidentally with several symbols of occult significance embossed on his cheek.
Hron gaped at him, and then looked at Magrat. He raised his sword at about the same moment that the Fool cannoned into him, and the two men went down in a struggling heap Like most small men the Fool relied on the initial mad rush to secure an advantage and was at a loss for a follow-through and it would probably have gone hard with him if Hron hadn't suddenly become aware that a breadknife was pressed to his neck.