A few guests had departed, but the castle had laid on a pretty good feast and Ramtop people at any social level were never ones to pass up a laden table.
Nanny glanced at the crowd and grabbed Shawn, who was passing with a tray.
'Where's the vampires?'
'What, Mum?'
'That Count... Magpie...'
'Magpyr,' said Agnes.
'Him,' said Nanny.
'He's not a... he's gone up to... the solar, Mum. They all have - What's that smell of garlic, Mum?'
'It's your brother. All right, let's keep going.'
The solar was right at the top of the keep. It was old, cold and draughty. Verence had put glass in the huge windows, at his queen's insistence, which just meant that now the huge room attracted the more cunning, insidious kind of draught. But it was the royal room - not as public as the great hall, but the place where the King received visitors when he was being formally informal.
The Nanny Ogg expeditionary force corkscrewed up the spiral staircase. She advanced across the good yet threadbare carpet to the group seated around the fire.
She took a deep breath.
'Ah, Mrs Ogg,' said Verence, desperately. 'Do join us.'
Agnes looked sideways at Nanny, and saw her face contort into a strange smile.
The Count was sitting in the big chair by the fire, with Vlad standing behind him. They both looked very handsome, she thought. Compared to them Verence, in his clothes that never seemed to fit right and permanently harassed expression, looked out of place.
'The Count was just explaining how Lancre will become a duchy of his lands in Uberwald,' said Verence. 'But we'll still be referred to as a kingdom, which I think is very reasonable of him, don't you agree?'
'Very handsome suggestion,' said Nanny.
'There will be taxes, of course,' said the Count. 'Not onerous. We don't want blood - figuratively speaking!' He beamed at the joke.
'Seems reasonable to me,' said Nanny.
'It is, isn't it?' said the Count. 'I knew it would work out so well. And I am so pleased, Verence, to see your essential modern attitude. People have quite the wrong idea about vampires, you see. Are we fiendish killers?' He beamed at them. 'Well, yes, of course we are. But only when necessary. Frankly, we could hardly hope to rule a country if we went around killing everyone all the time, could we? There'd be none left to rule, for one thing!' There was polite laughter, loudest of all from the Count.
It made perfect sense to Agnes. The Count was clearly a fair-minded man. Anyone who didn't think so deserved to die.
'And we are only human,' said the Countess. 'Well... in fact, not only human. But if you prick us do we not bleed? Which always seems such a waste.'
They've got you again, said a voice in her mind.
Vlad's head jerked up. Agnes felt him staring at her.
'We are, above all, up to date,' said the Count. 'And we do like what you've done to this castle, I must say.'
'Oh, those torches back home!' said the Countess, rolling her eyes. 'And some of the things in the dungeons, well, when I saw them I nearly died of shame. So... fifteen centuries ago. If one is a vampire then one is,' she gave a deprecating little laugh, 'a vampire. Coffins, yes, of course, but there's no point in skulking around as if you're ashamed of what you are, is there? We all have... needs.'
You're all standing around like rabbits in front of a fox! Perdita raged in the caverns of Agnes's brain.
'Oh!' said the Countess, clapping her hands together. 'I see you have a pianoforte!'
It stood under a shroud in a corner of the room where it had stood for four months now. Verence had ordered it because he'd heard they were very modern, but the only person in the kingdom who'd come close to mastering it was Nanny Ogg who would, as she put it, come up occasionally for a tinkle on the ivories.[11] Then it had been covered over on the orders of Magrat and the palace rumour was that Verence had got an earbashing for buying what was effectively a murdered elephant.
'Lacrimosa would so like to play for you,' the Countess commanded.