'Let go of him,' said Magrat, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
He stiffened. 'You're wondering whether I really would cut your throat,' panted Magrat. 'I don't know either. Think of the fun we could have together, finding out.'
She reached down with her other hand and hauled the Few to his feet by his collar.
'Where did that scream come from?' she said, without taking her eyes off the guard.
'It was down this way. They've got her in the torture dungeon and I don't like it, it's going too far, and I couldn't get in and I came to look for someone—'
'Well, you've found me,' said Magrat.
'You,' she said to Hron, 'will stay here. Or run away, for all I care. But you won't follow us.'
He nodded, and stared after them as they hurried down the passage. 'The door's locked,' said the Fool. 'There's all sorts of noises, but the door's locked.'
'Well, it's a dungeon, isn't it?'
'They're not supposed to lock from the inside!'
It was, indeed, unbudgeable. Silence came from the other side – a busy, thick silence that crawled through the cracks and spilled out into the passage, a kind of silence that is worse than screams.
The Fool hopped from one foot to the other as Magrat explored the door's rough surface.
'Are you really a witch?' he said. 'They said you were a witch, are you really? You don't look like a witch, you look very . . . that is . . .'He blushed. 'Not like a, you know, crone at all, but absolutely beautiful . . .' His voice trailed into silence . . .
I am totally in control of the situation, Magrat told herself. I never thought I would be, but I am thinking absolutely clearly.
And she realised, in an absolutely clear way, that her padding had slipped down to her waist, her head felt as though a family of unhygienic birds had been nesting in it, and her eyeshadow had not so much run as sprinted. Her dress was torn in several places, her legs were scratched, her arms were bruised, and for some reason she felt on top of the world.
'I think you'd better stand back, Verence,' she said. 'I'm not sure how this is going to work.'
There was a sharp intake of breath.
'How did you know my name?'
Magrat sized up the door. The oak was old, centuries old, but she could sense just a little sap under a surface varnished by the years into something that was nearly as tough as stone. Normally what she had in mind would require a day's planning and a bagful of exotic ingredients. At least, so she'd always believed. Now she was prepared to doubt it.
If you could conjure demons out of washtubs, you could do anything.
She became aware that the Fool had spoken.
'Oh, I expect I heard it somewhere,' she said vaguely.
'I shouldn't think so, I never use it,' said the Fool. 'I mean, it's not a popular name with the duke. It was me mam, you see. They like to name you after kings, I suppose. My grandad said I had no business having a name like that and he said I shouldn't go around—'
Magrat nodded. She was looking around the dank tunnel with a professional's eye.
It wasn't a promising place. The old oak planks had been down here in the darkness all these years, away from the clock of the seasons . . .
On the other hand . . . Granny had said that somehow all trees were one tree, or something like that. Magrat thought she understood it, although she didn't know exactly what it meant. And it was springtime up there. The ghost of life that still lived in the wood must know that. Or if it had forgotten, it must be told.
She put her palms flat on the door again and shut her eyes, tried to think her way out through the stone, out of the castle, and into the thin, black soil of the mountains, into the air, into the sunlight . . .
The Fool was merely aware that Magrat was standing very still. Then her hair stood out from her head, gently, and there was a smell of leafmould.
And then, without warning, the hammer that can drive a marshmallow-soft toadstool through six inches of solid pavement or an eel across a thousand miles of hostile ocean to a particular pond in an upland field, struck up through her and into the door.
She stepped back carefully, her mind stunned, fighting against a desperate urge to bury her toes into the rock and put forth leaves. The Fool caught her, and the shock nearly knocked him over.