Mrs. Scorbic the cook folded her huge pink arms.
“Can't be done,” she said firmly.
“I thought perhaps just some salad and quiche and some light-” Magrat said, imploringly.
The cook's whiskery chin stuck out firmly.
“Them elves turned the whole kitchen upside down,” she said. “It's going to take me days to get it straight. Anyway, everyone knows raw vegetables are bad for you, and I can't be having with them eggy pies.”
Magrat looked beseechingly at Nanny Ogg; Granny Weatherwax had wandered off into the gardens, where she was getting a tendency to stick her nose in flowers right out of her system.
“Nothin' to do with me,” said Nanny. “It's not my kitchen, dear.”
“No, it's mine. I've been cook here for years,” said Mrs. Scorbic, “and I knows how things should be done, and I'm not going to be ordered around in my own kitchen by some chit of a girl.”
o;Well, there it is,” said Nanny. “Tempus fuggit.”
“Nanny?”
“Yes, love?”
“I don't understand. She was your friend but you don't seem . . . well. . . upset?”
“Well, I've buried a few husbands and one or two kiddies. You get the hang of it. Anyway, if she hasn't gone to a better place she'll damn well be setting out to improve it.”
“Nanny?”
“Yes, love?”
“Did you know anything about the letter?”
“What letter?”
“The letter to Verence.”
“Don't know anything about any letter to Verence.”
“He must have got it weeks before we got back. She must have sent it even before we got to Ankh-Morpork.”
Nanny Ogg looked, as far as Magrat could tell, genuinely blank.
“Oh, hell,” said Magrat. “I mean this letter.”
She fished it out of the breastplate.
“See?”
Nanny Ogg read:
“Dear sire. This is to inform youe that Magrate Garlick will bee retouning to Lancre on or aboute Blind Pig Tuesday. Shee is a Wet Hen but shee is clean and has got Good Teeth. If you wishes to marrie her, then starte arranging matters without delae, because if you just proposes and similar she will lede you a Dance because there is noone like Magrat for getting in the way of her own life. She does not Knoe her own Mind. You aere Kinge and you can doe what you like. You muste present her with a Fate Accompli. PS. I hear there is talk aboute making witches pay tax, no kinges of Lancre has tried this for many a Year, you could profit from their example. Yrs. in good health, at the moment. A FRIEND (MSS).”
The ticking of the clock stitched the blanket of silence.
Nanny Ogg turned to look at it.
“She arranged it all!” said Magrat. “You know what Verence is like. I mean, she hardly disguised who she was, did she? And I got back and it was all arranged-”
“What would you have done if nothing had been arranged?” said Nanny.