Nanny Ogg sat back. There were thirty-two of crowing age, she knew. She knew because she'd worked it out last night – tonight - and had given Jason his instructions. She had fifteen grown-up children and innumerable grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they'd had most of the evening to get into position. It should be enough.
'Did you hear that?' said Granny. 'Over Razorback way?'
Nanny looked innocently across the misty landscape. Sound travelled very clearly in these early hours.
'What?' she said.
'Sort of an “urk” noise?'
'No.'
Granny spun around.
'Over there,' she said. 'I definitely heard it this time. Something like “cock-a-doo-arrgh”.'
'Can't say I did, Esme,' said Nanny, smiling at the sky. 'Lancre Bridge up ahead.'
'And over there! Right down there! It was a definite squawk!'
'Dawn chorus, Esme, I expect. Look, only half a mile to go.'
Granny glared at the back of her colleague's head.
'There's something going on here,' she said.
'Search me, Esme.'
'Your shoulders are shaking!'
'Lost my shawl back there. I'm a bit chilly. Look, we're nearly there.'
Granny glared ahead, her mind a maze of suspicions. She was going to get to the bottom of this. When she had time.
The damp logs of Lancre's main link to the outside world drifted gently underneath them. From the chicken farm half a mile away came a chorus of strangled squawks and a thud.
'And that? What was that, then?' demanded Granny.
'Fowl pest. Careful, I'm bringing us down.'
'Are you laughing at me?'
'Just pleased for you, Esme. You'll go down in history for this, you know.'
They drifted between the timbers of the bridge. Granny Weatherwax alighted cautiously on the greasy planking and adjusted her dress.
'Yes. Well,' she added, nonchalantly.
'Better than Black Aliss, everyone'll say,' Nanny Ogg went on.
'Some people will say anything,' said Granny. She peered over the parapet at the foaming torrent far below, and then up at the distant outcrop on which stood Lancre Castle.
'Do you think they will?' she added, nonchalantly.
'Mark my words.'
ct all sorts of sounds managed to breach the high grim windowless walls, and from keen questioning of servants the younger Fools picked up a vision of the city beyond. There were taverns out there, and parks. There was a whole bustling world, in which the students and apprentices of the various Guilds and Colleges took a full ripe part, either by playing tricks on it, running through it shouting, or throwing parts of it up. There was laughter which paid no attention to the Five Cadences or Twelve Inflections. And – although the students debated this news in the dormitories at night – there was apparently unauthorised humour, delivered freestyle, with no reference to the Monster Fun Book or the Council or anyone.
Out there, beyond the stained stonework, people were telling jokes without reference to the Lords of Misrule.