And any midwife, out in isolated cottages on bloody nights, would know all the other little secrets...

Never to be told...

She'd been a witch here all her life. And one of the things a witch did was stand right on the edge, where the decisions had to be made. You made them so that others didn't have to, so that others could even pretend to themselves that there were no decisions to be made, no little secrets, that things just happened. You never said what you knew. And you didn't ask for anything in return.

The castle was brightly lit, she saw. She could even make out figures around the bonfire.

Something else caught her eye, because she was going to look everywhere but at the castle now, and it jolted her out of her mood. Mist was pouring over the mountains and sliding down the far valleys under the moonlight. One strand was flowing towards the castle and pouring, very slowly, into the Lancre Gorge.

Of course you got mists in the spring, when the weather was changing, but this mist was coming from Uberwald.

The door to Magrat's room was opened by Millie Chillum, the maid, who curtseyed to Agnes, or at least to her hat, and then left her alone with the Queen, who was at her dressing table.

Agnes wasn't sure of the protocol, but tried a sort of republican curtsey. This caused considerable movement in outlying regions.

Queen Magrat of Lancre blew her nose and stuffed the hankie up the sleeve of her dressing gown.

'Oh, hello, Agnes,' she said. 'Take a seat, do. You don't have to bob up and down like that.

Millie does it all the time and I get seasick. Anyway, strictly speaking, witches bow.'

'Er...' Agnes began. She glanced at the crib in the corner. It had more loops and lace than any piece of furniture should.

'She's asleep,' said Magrat. 'Oh, the crib? Verence ordered it all the way from Ankh-Morpork. I said the old one they'd always used was fine, but he's very, you know... modern. Please sit down.'.

'You wanted me, your maj-' Agnes began, still uncertain. It was turning out to be a very complicated evening, and she wasn't sure even now how she felt about Magrat. The woman had left echoes of herself in the cottage — an old bangle lost under the bed, rather soppy notes in some of the ancient notebooks, vases full of desiccated flowers... You can build up a very strange view of someone via the things they leave behind the dresser.

'I just wanted a little talk,' said Magrat. 'It's a bit... look, I'm really very happy, but... well, Millie's nice but she agrees with me all the time and Nanny and Granny still treat me as if I wasn't, well, you know, Queen and everything... not that I want to be treated as Queen all the time but, well, you know, I want them to know I'm Queen but not treat me as one, if you see what I mean...'

'I think so,' said Agnes carefully.

Magrat waved her hands in an effort to describe the indescribable. Used handkerchiefs cascaded out of her sleeves.

'I mean... I get dizzy with people bobbing up and down all the time, so when they see me I like them to think, "Oh, there's Magrat, she's Queen now but I shall treat her in a perfectly normal way-"'

'But perhaps just a little bit more politely because she is Queen, after all,' Agnes suggested.

'Well, yes... exactly. Actually, Nanny's not too bad, at least she treats everyone the same all the time, but when Granny looks at me you can see her thinking, "Oh, there's Magrat. Make the tea, Magrat." One day I swear I'll make a very cutting remark. It's as if they think I'm doing this as a hobby!'

'I do know what you mean.'

'It's as if they think I'm going to get it out of my system and go back to witching again. They wouldn't say that, of course, but that's what they think. They really don't believe there's any other sort of life.'

'That's true.'

'How's the old cottage?'

'There's a lot of mice,' said Agnes.

'I know. I used to feed them. Don't tell Granny. She's here, isn't she?'

'Haven't seen her yet,' said Agnes.

'Ah, she'll be waiting for a dramatic moment,' said Magrat. 'And you know what? I've never caught her actually waiting for a dramatic moment, not in all the, well, things we've been involved in. I mean, if it was you or me, we'd be hanging around in the hall or something, but she just walks in and it's the right time.'

'She says you make your own right time,' said Agnes.

'Yes,' said Magrat.

'Yes,' said Agnes.

'And you say she's not here yet? It was the first card we did!' Magrat leaned closer. 'Verence got them to put extra gold leaf on it. I'm amazed it doesn't go clang when she puts it down. How are you at making the tea?'

'They always complain,' said Agnes.

'They do, don't they? Three lumps of sugar for Nanny Ogg, right?'

'It's not as if they even give me tea money,' said Agnes. She sniffed. There was a slight mustiness to the air.

'It's not worth baking biscuits, I can tell you that,' said Magrat. 'I used to spend hours doing fancy ones with crescent moons and so on. You might just as well get them from the shop.'

She sniffed too. 'That's not the baby,' she said. 'I'm sure Shawn Ogg's been so busy arranging things he hasn't had time to dean up the privy pit the last two weeks. The smell comes right up the garderobe in the Gong Tower when the wind gusts. I've tried hanging up fragrant herbs but they sort of dissolve.'

She looked uncertain, as if a worse prospect than lax castle sani-tation had crossed her mind. 'Er... she must've got the invitation, mustn't she?'

'Shawn says he delivered it,' said Agnes. 'And she probably said,' and here her voice changed, becoming dipped and harsh, '"I can't be havin' with that at my time of life. I've never bin one to put meself forward, no one could ever say I'm one to put meself forward."'

Magrat's mouth was an O of amazement.

'That's so like her it's frightening!' she said.

'It's one of the few things I'm good at,' said Agnes, in her normal voice. 'Big hair, a wonderful personality, and an ear for sounds.' And two minds, Perdita added. 'She'll come anyway,' Agnes went on, ignoring the inner voice.

'But it's gone half eleven... Good grief, I'd better get dressed! Can you give me a hand?'

She hurried into the dressing room with Agnes tagging along behind.

'I even wrote a bit underneath asking her to be a godmother,' she said, sitting down in front of the mirror and scrabbling among the debris of makeup. 'She's always secretly wanted to be one.'

'That's something to wish on a child,' said Agnes, without thinking.

Magrat's hand stopped halfway to her face, in a little.cloud of powder, and Agnes saw her horrified look in the mirror. Then the jaw tightened, and for a moment the Queen had just the same expression that Granny sometimes employed.

'Well, if it was a choice of wishing a child health, wealth and happiness, or Granny Weatherwax being on her side, I know which I'd choose,' said Magrat. 'You must have seen her in action.'

'Once or twice, yes,' Agnes conceded.

'She'll never be beaten,' said Magrat. 'You wait till you see her when she's in a tight corner. She's

got that way of... putting part of herself somewhere safe. It's as if... as if she gives herself to someone else to keep hidden for a while. It's all part of that Borrowing stuff she does.'

Agnes nodded. Nanny had warned her about it but, even so, it was unnerving to turn up at Granny's cottage and find her stretched out on the floor as stiff as a stick and holding, in fingers that were almost blue, a card with the words: I ATE'NT DEAD.[5] It just meant that she was out in the world somewhere, seeing life through the eyes of a badger or a pigeon, riding as an unheeded passenger in its mind.

'And you know what?' Magrat went on. 'It's just like those magicians in Howondaland who keep their heart hidden in a jar somewhere, for safety, so they can't be killed. There's something about it in a book at the cottage.'