'That's modern witchcraft for you, is it?' she said.
'It's part of it, Granny. There's a lot more.'
Granny Weatherwax sighed. 'Each to her own, I suppose. I'm blowed if I'll let a ball of shiny rock tell me what to do.'
'Yes, bugger all that,' said Nanny. 'Let's curse somebody.'
The Fool crept cautiously along the nighttime corridors. He wasn't taking any chances either. Magrat had given him a graphic account of Greebo's general disposition, and the Fool had borrowed a couple of gloves and a sort of metal wimple from the castle's store of hereditary chain mail.
He reached the lumber room, lifted the latch cautiously, pushed the door and then flung himself against the wall.
The corridor became slightly darker as the more intense darkness inside the room spilled out and mingled with the rather lighter darkness already there.
Apart from that, nothing. The number of spitting, enraged balls of murderous fur pouring through the door was zero. The Fool relaxed, and slipped inside.
Greebo dropped on his head.
It had been a long day. The room did not offer the kind of full life that Greebo had come to expect and demand. The only point of interest had been the discovery, around mid-morning, of a colony of mice who had spent generations eating their way through a priceless tapestry history of Lancre and had just got as far as King Murune (709-745), who met a terrible fate[14], when they did, too. He had sharpened his claws on a bust of Lancre's only royal vampire, Queen Grimnir the Impaler (1514-1553, 1553-1557, 1557-1562, 1562-1567 and 1568-1573). He had performed his morning ablutions on a portrait of an unknown monarch, which was beginning to dissolve. Now he was bored, and also angry.
He raked his claws across the place where the Fool's ears should have been, and was rewarded with nothing more than a metallic scraping noise.
'Who's a good boy, den?' said the Fool. 'Wowsa wowsa whoosh.'
This intrigued Greebo. The only other person who had ever spoken to him like this was Nanny Ogg; everyone else addressed him as 'Yarrgeroffoutofityahbarstard'. He leaned down very carefully, intrigued by the new experience.
From the Fool's point of view an upside-down cat face lowered itself slowly into his field of vision, wearing an expression of evil-eyed interest.
'Does oo want to go home, den?' said the Fool hopefully. 'Look, Mr Door is open.'
Greebo increased his grip. He had found a friend.
The Fool shrugged, very carefully, turned, and walked back into the passage. He made his way down through the hall, out into the courtyard, around the side of the guardroom and out through the main gate, nodding – carefully – to the guards.
'Man just went past with a cat on his head,' one of them remarked, after a minute or two's reflection.
'See who it was?'
'The Fool, I think.'
There was a thoughtful pause. The second guard shifted his grip on his halberd.
'It's a rotten job,' he said. 'But I suppose someone's got to do it.'
'We ain't going to curse anyone,' said Granny firmly. 'It hardly ever works if they don't know you've done it.'
'What you do is, you send him a doll of himself with pins in.'
'No, Gytha.'
'All you have to do is get hold of some of his toenails,' Nanny persisted, enthusiastically.
'No.'
'Or some of his hair or anything. I've got some pins.'
'No.'
'Cursing people is morally unsound and extremely bad for your karma,' said Magrat.