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Chapter XXI
It was the same old thing: Moo and Margs were two little girls off playing in exciting and, no doubt, dangerous ways, while Tiffany and Agnes –in spite of their appearance- were two little girls being told what to do by their Nanny.
"Now, this isn't going to be easy, my chicks but it is going to be dangerous, and more than just a bit."
"But Nanny," said Tiffany, "can't you just tell us what's going on?"
"No, pet, I can't," said Nanny, "the reason being as I don't know myself, not for sure. Rumours is all get from my friends and places," this was Nanny's way of referring to the huge network that stretched out from this cottage to cover half the Disc, "that and the odd hints I gets from the Tall Man, plus me own feelings, what's never let me down before." This ought to have been enough for anyone. It was certainly enough for Agnes and Tiffany.
"What can you tell us, Nanny?" asked Agnes.
"Just what I said afore: something bad is happening and it's getting worse, getting worse every day, and it's going to keep getting worser until somebody puts a stop to it."
"And you think Moo can do that?" asked Tiffany.
"Not on her own, no, but she's the key; that's why you have to get her to the Big City, that's the heart of it all."
"If you say so, Nanny," they said in unison.
"Good girls," said Nanny. "Now, down to business. You're to leave tomorrow, that way, as I reckons it, you should get there not long after the Wee Free Men. They'll be looking out to take care of you and they're not the only ones. Mind you, there's other ones that'll be looking out for you that doesn't want to help."
"What do you mean?" asked Tiffany, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
"I'm not the only one with tentacles is what I mean," said Nanny, ominously. "You're going in disguise, nobody is to know you're witches, you're just three girls off to visit family in the Big Onion."
Tiffany wasn't daft on this idea. A witch was what she was, from the tips of her toes to the split ends of her hair. She couldn't remember the last time anyone –apart from Moo, Margs and Agnes- had seen her without her hat, or dressed in anything other than black.
"I think the brooms might just give it away," she suggested.
"No brooms!" said Nanny. They both looked shocked. "Ok, you can fly as far as Rump but you have to leave them there. They'll find their own way home."
"Then what?" Agnes wanted to know.
"You takes the coach as far as Ditchwater, the tickets is in the top drawer of the dresser," she said, pointing. Tiffany went and fetched them. Nanny had clearly been planning this for some time. "And bring me that heavy bag too," she added."
"And after that?" Agnes prompted.
"And then you gets a boat all the way to the city."
"No tickets for that?" laughed Tiffany,
"No," said Nanny, with no mirth in her voice, "because they'll be looking for you by then and you'll have to make up your own minds what boat to take."
"Who are they that'll be looking for us?" Tiffany asked, no longer flippant.
"Them!" hissed Nanny. "Them could be anybody, don't trust nobody that's not on the list."
"What list?" wondered Agnes, aloud.
"This one," said Nanny, producing a piece of parchment from one of her dress's innumerable pockets and handing it to her.
"Lucky thirteen," said Agnes after counting and showing the list to Tiffany who, with a shake of her head, confirmed that she didn't recognise any of the names either.
"And be careful of anybody who's just vouched for, even by people on the list."
"And what happens when we get to the city?" Tiffany asked.
"You goes here," she said, producing another piece of parchment from a different pocket. She handed this to Agnes too.
"Agnes has been to the city and you haven't," she explained.
"Do you know where that is?" Tiffany asked Agnes.
"Sort of," Agnes nodded. "And then what?" she asked.
"That'll be up to you pet, there's only so much I can do and only so far I can see."
"And you can't come with us?" asked Tiffany.
"Nope, too old. And I won't be here when you gets back neither."
The young witches both looked rather glum at this.
"Oh, don't you worry about me, my chicks," laughed Nanny, "I've had a good life and a long un. I ain't afeared o' what's coming and Esme's looking forward to seeing me too."
"How do you know?" asked Tiffany, ever sceptical.
"Because the Dark Fella told me what she said."
"What was is it?" asked Agnes, agog.
"TELL THE OLD BAGGAGE TO GET A MOVE ON!"
Tiffany and Agnes both laughed out loud.
"Now," she continued, "get yourselves home and get ready. Be back here early tomorrow and I'll see you off."
"Ok, Nanny," they said together.
"But before you go, get the little ones in and we'll have a bite to eat."
"Great," said Agnes, "what're we having?"
"The kitchen's that way," said Nanny, pointing.
When they arrived at Nanny's cottage the next morning the sun hadn't been up for long. They were all three of them wearing their travelling clothes: stout shoes, plain dress and cape. In addition they each carried a small knapsack containing some spare clothes and a sponge-bag. Nanny greeted them at the door, with a very sleepy looking Margs, and ushered them inside. Agnes was pleasantly surprised to smell a fry-up frying up and exchanged puzzled looks with Tiffany.
"Nanny, are you making breakfast?" she asked. She had never seen Nanny cook and hadn't realised she knew how.
"That I am pet, sausages, bacon and eggs. And tomatoes for Tiffany here," she said with a shudder.
"We're honoured," said Tiffany, giggling.
"You watch it, young Aching," scolded Nanny. "The kettle's just boiled so you can make the tea and toast some rolls for your cheek."
"When they'd eaten and the girls had washed up they gathered round the table for the final briefing.
"Have you got any money?" asked Nanny.
"A little bit," Tiffany said.
"Me too," said Agnes.
"But not much, I'll warrant."
They both shook their heads.
"Quite right," said Nanny, "a witch doesn't have much use for money, not round these parts leastways."
She produced the small velvet bag from the previous evening and handed it to Tiffany. For its size it was surprisingly heavy and, when she looked inside Tiffany discovered why. There were pennies and florins, but there was also a large number of dollars. It was more money than she's ever seen in her life.
"Nanny, we can't take this!" she exclaimed.
"Of course you can, pet. I don't have any use for it anymore and Margs here doesn't even know what money is."
This was true, Margs had never owned so much as a penny in her whole life and nor had Moo.
"But it's a fortune," she protested, holding the open towards Agnes, whose eyes went wide.
"Is it," cackled Nanny, "well, I wouldn't have time to spend it then."
The two young witches looked suddenly serious but this only made Nanny laugh all the harder, so hard in fact that she began to choke and Agnes had to slap her on the back while Tiffany poured her a glass of medicine.
"Now don't you go hurrying me on my way," said Nanny when she'd recovered and drunk a little of her apple juice. "whatever old Esme has to say."
This made the other two laugh, almost in spite of themselves.
"Right," she said to Moo and Margs, "you two go and say your goodbyes and you two," this addressed to Agnes and Tiffany, "I want to talk to you two outside."
While Tiffany stored the heavy bag very carefully in her knapsack, Agnes helped Nanny up and the girls disappeared into the back room. Once they were out by the brooms Nanny suddenly turned serious.
"Right, listen," she said in a stony voice, "I won't be here when you get back, but if you come back without that little carrothead then I'll come back and haunt you, and so will Granny. Got it?"
"Got it," said Agnes.
"I shall come back with my shield or on it," said Tiffany.
"What's that mean?" demanded Nanny.
"I think it's Ephebeian," she replied, slightly flustered, "it means if I don't come back with her it's because I'm dead."
"Good girl," said Nanny, "that's the spirit. Too clever by half that one," she said as an aside to Agnes, "I've always maintained it."
Agnes didn't know what to say. Luckily at that point the girls emerged from the cottage and after a few more hugs they were up on their brooms and flying towards their destiny.
Rump was big enough to have back alleys, if only just, and they landed in one surreptitiously. They each leant their brooms against a fence and while Agnes and Moo were sorting themselves out Tiffany clapped her hands and all three brooms jumped into the air and shot off towards Lancre. Agnes almost felt jealous as she watched them go.
"Well," said Tiffany, smiling, "now we're on our own."
Agnes and Moo both smiled back. Of the three of them, only Moo's smile wasn't fake.
As they began to make their way towards what constituted the centre of town –as far as they'd been able to tell from the air- Agnes bought up a subject that had been bothering her.
"Tiff, you know, I think I should be in charge of the money pouch."
"But Nanny entrusted it to me," said Tiffany, slightly offended.
"And you don't think that was a test?"
"Well, possibly," Tiffany conceded.
"You don't even know how much money we have, do you?"
"Of course I do: fourteen dollars, sixteen florins and twelvepence ha'penny," she said, "exactly."
"But you don't know how much that is."
"Seventeen florins equals one dollar and twenty three pennies equals one florin," she said, triumphantly.
"What can you buy for a dollar?"
"Um…" Tiffany sort of admitted. In truth she couldn't remember actually having seen a dollar before."
"Listen, Tiff," Agnes explained, as if to a child, which in this case Tiffany was, "I've been to the Big City and you haven't. A famous conman in Ankh-Morpork called Alf Dothemall once explained it to me very succinctly: absolutely everyone is out to steal your money."
"That's not true," said Tiffany, appalled, "and how did you become friends with conmen?"
"He was an opera-lover," said Agnes. "Ok, I'll grant that Moo isn't out to steal our money and nor is Nanny, especially as she gave it to us in the first place, but everyone who runs a business is out to rob you."
"Weeeeell," Tiffany was forced to concede, as this had largely been her experience.
"He was from Borogravia, where the currency is the Mark, and he put it like this: 'you can always make a Mark or two by treating everybody like a mark, kid'." Apparently it's called marksism.
"Well, thank you for the lesson," sniffed Tiffany, "but I'm sure I can learn. And I'll keep change of the money-pouch for the moment, thank you very much."
"Suit yourself," said Agnes, still fairly sure she was right. When they reached the town rectangle, however, she knew she was right.
Lancre town was very small and Rump really wasn't that much bigger, but it was bigger enough: it lay on a major road and this was market day. Moo was understandably wide-eyed and open-mouthed but, Agnes noticed, so was Tiffany.
"Come along, girls," she said, "that's quite enough excitement for now."
The Big Wahoonie really was going to come as a shock to these two hicks from the sticks.
They managed to reach the coach house without incident. Tiffany produced their tickets and they were shown to a corner table to wait. They were told that the coach might arrive in an hour but that it could easily be two.
"Well, we definitely have time to eat then," said Tiffany. The other two smiled at this and this time Agnes' smile definitely wasn't faked. The landlady bustled over, as only landladies of a certain age can.
"Well dearies, what can we gets you today?"
"What's the lunch offer today, ma'am?" asked Agnes before either of the others could say anything daft.
"Meat pie, chips 'n' peas," she replied.
"Yipee!" cried Moo.
"That'll be one of them, I think," laughed the landlady.
"Oh, I think three of those," said Agnes, laughing back.
"Drinks?"
"Small ale, small wine, large milk."
"Righto." The landlady turned away and called out to one of the serving wenches, "Ere, Maggie, take this."
Agnes turned to Tiffany and whispered:
"How much do you think this'll cost?"
"Erm…" was all Tiffany could manage as she estimated and calculated.
"Right," said the landlady, turning back to them, "that'll be sixpence ha'penny ladies."
Agnes paid for the feast out of her own little pouch. The landlady wrote a number on a little piece of paper and stuck it on the spike in the middle of their table.
"You enjoy yourselves now," she said, "the coach'll be a while yet."
When she'd gone Agnes turned to Tiffany.
"An honest landlady, eh? Wonders will never cease."
Tiffany gave her an apologetic smile, took the money-pouch from her knapsack and handed it over.
"I know when I'm beaten," she'd concluded.