“I shall need some help,” said Magrat.
“Nanny'll do it.”
“That's me,” said Nanny indistinctly, spraying crumbs.
“What are you eating?”
“Fried egg and ketchup sandwich,” said Nanny happily.
“You better get the cook to boil you, too,” said Magrat, rolling up her sleeves. “Go and see her.” She looked at the wound. “And see if she's got any mouldy bread . . .”
The basic unit of wizardry is the Order or the College or, of course, the University.
The basic unit of witchcraft is the witch, but the basic continuous unit, as has already been indicated, is the cottage.
A witch's cottage is a very specific architectural item. It is not exactly built, but put together over the years as the areas of repair join up, like a sock made entirely of dams. The chimney twists like a corkscrew. The roof is thatch so old that small but flourishing trees are growing in it, the floors are switchbacks, it creaks at night like a tea clipper in a gale. If at least two walls aren't shored up with balks of timber then it's not a true witch's cottage at all, but merely the home of some daft old bat who reads tea leaves and talks to her cat.
Cottages tend to attract similar kinds of witches. It's natural. Every witch trains up one or two young witches in their life, and when in the course of mortal time the cottage becomes vacant it's only sense for one of them to move in.
Magrat's cottage traditionally housed thoughtful witches who noticed things and wrote things down. Which herbs were better than others for headaches, fragments of old stories, odds and ends like that.
There were a dozen books of tiny handwriting and drawings, the occasional interesting flower or unusual frog pressed carefully between the pages.
It was a cottage of questioning witches, research witches. Eye of what newt? What species of ravined salt-sea shark? It's all very well a potion calling for Love-in-idleness, but which of the thirty-seven common plants called by that name in various parts of the continent was actually meant?
The reason that Granny Weatherwax was a better witch than Magrat was that she knew that in witchcraft it didn't matter a damn which one it was, or even if it was a piece of grass.
The reason that Magrat was a better doctor than Granny was that she thought it did.
The coach slowed to a halt in front of the barricade across the road.
The bandit chieftain adjusted his eyepatch. He had two good eyes, but people respect uniforms. Then he strolled toward the coach.
“Morning, Jim. What've we got today, then?”
“Uh. This could be difficult,” said the coachman. “Uh, there's a handful of wizards. And a dwarf. And an ape.” He rubbed his head, and winced. “Yes. Definitely an ape. Not, and I think I should make this clear, any other kind of manshaped thing with hair on.”
“You all right, Jim?”
“I've had this lot ever since Ankh-Morpork. Don't talk to me about dried frog pills.”
The bandit chief raised his eyebrows.
“All right. I won't.”
He knocked on the coach door. The window slid down.
“I wouldn't like you to think of this as a robbery,” he said. “I'd like you to think of it more as a colourful anecdote you might enjoy telling your grandchildren about.”
A voice from within said, “That's him! He stole my horse!”
A wizard's staff poked out. The chieftain saw the knob on the end.
“Now, then,” he said, pleasantly. “I know the rules. Wizards aren't allowed to use magic against civilians except in genuine life-threatening situa-”
There was a burst of octarine light.
“Actually, it's not a rule,” said Ridcully. “It's more a guideline.” He turned to Ponder Stibbons. “Interestin' use of Stacklady's Morphic Resonator here, I hope you noticed.”