Strandpiel 17: Verdedig: Defending
How dual nationality works out for one proud user.
Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort, now easing, are a bugger, but at least I can do this.
A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to.
Bekki is settling in in Lancre. We catch up with her a month or two further in.
The informal coven of Witches in Training had gathered together at a very significant spot. The word had gone out for them to be in this spot at a certain time on a certain date. Petulia Gristle had said she'd cover the necessary work in Pork Scratching, as it was important for Bekki to be there. She had then explained why. She had then explained the flight plan to her apprentice and told her what landmarks to look out for from above.
Bekki had dressed appropriately for the afternoon and had set out on the flight to Lancre town. It hadn't been too difficult; other witches were in the air. She just had to follow them. She had also realised her own high-performance Watch-standard broom could out-fly anything else in the air, and had had to throttle back a lot to stay in touch with the others.
Spotting for other air-users was something Irena and Olga had drummed into her. The airways over the city were not exactly crowded. But Olga had once had a mid-air collision with a negligently flown magic carpet and had had to bale out(1).
Irena had also drummed it into her that El… they… could appear in the sky at any time. Their yarrow stalks could out-manoevre almost anything. So keep watching. Spot other air users before they spot you.
They'd even practiced ground attacks from the air, with crossbows. Mum had approved. Bekki had found it fun provided, you know, she didn't actually have to kill anyone. Irena had tutted.
"Elves are not people, devyushka." she had said. "You had no problems killing Dungeon Dimension things? Well, then, Treat elves as if they were Dungeon Dimension creatures. Or Parsifal Venturi."
Irena had touched the metal tip of a crossbow bolt every time she said the word. This was prudent, apparently. Bekki had applied herself to the intricacies of firing a crossbow from a moving broomstick. It was an interesting exercise in relative speeds, angles and heights. Like geometry. So long as she didn't have to, you know, actually hit anybody.
She'd also had training in using a parachute if she had to bail out of a stricken broomstick. Olga had insisted. That had been scary. Olga had made her do it eight times, one memorable Saturday, learning to repack the parachute properly in between flights.(2) She had told her mother. Mum had then looked at her with an expression of perfect envy and said she'd really like a go at that. Mum was like that, Bekki thought. Show her something with an element of exciting danger and excitement to it and then hold her back. If you could. Olga had generously said, well, if you want a go, Johanna…
Bekki had then watched from the ground, heart in mouth, while her mother, her actual mother, who must be getting far too old for this sort of thing by now, had happily thrown herself off the back of a broomstick and deployed a parachute. Olga, her pilot, had spiralled down nearby and watched her come in to land, just as she'd done with Bekki.
"I like this!" Mum had said, with a really happy grin on her face. "I wonder if this is a trade skill the Guild could use? Stealthy insertion by night…"
Well, it's kind of nice to see your mother enjoying herself…
Bekki shook her head as she realised the other witches in the sky were completely unaware of her presence. They were not even looking. If she was that way inclined, she could have come up behind them with a crossbow, as Irena and Olga had taught her in lessons on how to deal with airborne Elves, and then…
Bekki realised she was thinking like an Assassin. Probably inevitable, she thought. She saw the other Witch, who seemed younger than she was, visibly jump in the air as she introduced herself. Her broomstick lurched upwards by ten feet then dropped again.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." she apologised.
They flew on together to the meeting place, the Moot Point.
Her appearance provoked a slight stir among the others. She assessed them. A dozen or so girls. Aged between twelve and fifteen. Almost all of them seemed younger than her. All of them dressed in serviceable black, some in pointy hats that seemed too big for them. Bekki's bush-khaki stood out like a sore thumb. The only thing visibly identifying her as a witch was her own black pointy hat. She shrugged. That was enough. But the other things about Bekki were attracting attention. She shrugged. Can't help that.
She examined the circle of standing stones. She felt a hum of muted power in the air. There was, if she focused, a noticeable aura of octarine in the air. The undergrowth around the stones was cropped down. She spotted glimmerings and sparklings in the grass around her feet. She examined this.
Nothing magical. Looks like metal shavings and filings. A lot of it is old and going to rust. The earth is taking on a red colour. Reminds me of the soil in Howondaland. On my grandparents' plaas. The earth is orange-brown-red there. Somebody has been adding iron and steel to this soil. They renew it with new metal periodically. The new metal still glimmers and glints. The old is going into the soil as rust. I think I can guess why…
Bekki introduced herself to the other girls. They were all witches in training, assigned to other Steadings around Lancre. They all seemed excited and nervous. And very new. She realised how fortunate she'd been to have arrived here with several years of training and experience. This was rounding her out. A lot of the others were just beginning.
"Err… you're the new one. Who's with Mrs Gristle. The pig-witch?" one said, diffidently.
Bekki nodded. She really hoped she wasn't carrying the all-pervading smell of pig with her. She'd bathed thoroughly – Petulia Gristle had a very well-kept bathroom, by necessity – and had taken care to change into clean clothes.
She wondered why the other girls were staring at her. Then one, a petite girl who twitched a little, said
"Do you usually carry that many weapons?"
Bekki realised all the other girls were pretty much un-armed. Maybe a short working knife here and there, but that was it. She sighed and adjusted the set of the crossbow on her shoulder. It was a good crossbow. Assassin standard. Over and under. Her mother had selected it for her. Mum picked good weapons. Then trained her to use them They'd got through a lot of life-sized iconographs of Parsifal Venturi.
"Better safe than sorry…" Bekki had begun. She eyed the standing stones again. Nottie had described them. And said to look for things that don't match. Don't met up at the edges. That cloud formation. Hard to tell with clouds. But where it apparently passes behind the tall stone there. It looks odd. To the left of the stone it's solid. To the right it's breaking up into wisps. But you expect that to be sort of gradual over maybe an hour or so. Like halves of two different iconographs taken a couple of hours apart and tacked together.
"The, err, sword?" the nervous girl pointed out, diffidently, as if she expected a Bekki-shaped explosion at any time. "The whip? Those knives tucked into your boot-tops?" Other girls were watching too, some wary, some in open-eyed nervousness.
Bekki sighed and decided not to mention the pistol crossbows she'd discovered her mother had packed for her. And all the extra throwing knives. After reflection, she'd decided to leave those at home.
"Howondalandian bush mechete." she explained, pulling it partway from its scabbard. "We use these et home for all kinds of things. Stubborn bush. Chopping wood. Clearing a peth, if you're trekking in the deep jungle bush."
Bekki had never been to a jungle. She'd heard enough, from relatives who had, to consider the whole exciting area of jungle exploration was not for her. Aunt Mariella and her cousins could have the jungle all to themselves, as far as she, Bekki, was concerned. Jungles were for staying out of. Then she frowned. She'd starting pronouncing words like path as peth. Her r's were getting distinctly rhotic, too. Her iccent – accent - and even her intonation had changed too, as if under a weight of unspoken expectations from the other girls.
I'm starting to talk like Mum, Bekki realised. Like the way Shauna gets all Hergenian even though she was born in Dimwell. People expect it.
She looked around. Two older witches had arrived. She recognised the small round grinning figure of Nanny Ogg, who by common consent was Head Witch in Lancre. The second witch with her was slim, dark-haired, early or middle thirties. She had an unsmiling serious look about her. Not hostile. Just serious. She was the only other witch present who wasn't in black. She affected green. And carried it well. Something silver glistened at her neck. It shimmered as the light caught it. And this new witch was looking at Bekki, as indeed was everyone else. Searchingly. Exploringly. Bekki had an uneasy feeling she was somehow being read.
"Nice to have you all here!" Nanny Ogg called out, in a voice that carried. She did appear genuinely pleased to see everybody. Nanny was like that.
"We also got us a new girl. Met her when she was tiny and her dad brung her to Lancre. Could see it in her then that she had potential. Told her she'd be back, and sure enough, she is! Nice to have you with us, Bekki, love. This is Rebecka Smith-Rhodes. From Ankh-Morpork by way of Howondaland. And by the looks of her she's expecting a fight with somebody. Hope it's not us!"
The other senior Witch, who had not been introduced, nodded at Bekki. Bekki had the feeling that introductions weren't thought necessary, as everybody seemed to know who the Witch in Green was. Except her. She also wondered. How old is Gytha Ogg? She looks no older than when I first met her. When I was five. It's ten years on from that. She seems to have frozen somewhere between sixty and seventy. But surely she's much older than that? She's already out-lived one best friend who she grew up with and must have been nearly eighty when she died. I know witches tend to age slowly and live longer, but still…
Bekki heard the whispered voices from behind her.
"Oh! I've heard about her mother! That explains all the weapons!"
"So… she's an Assassin and she's also a witch?"
"Vetinari doesn't like that sort of thing…"
And then Nanny Ogg had called everybody to order. She cracked a few jokes, then became very sober and serious indeed. She explained about the standing stones, the Dancers, which had stood standing here since time immoral. What they were, what they represented, and what they guarded.
They were a gateway. To the world of Them. Them buggers. Who had at least three times in living memory tried to break through. And who had needed to be fought. And guess who does the fightin', girls? We does. Witches. We guards. We defends. We protects.
Bekki had heard this from Nottie Garlick, in sober late-night conversations when they had Touched Iron and spoken about Elves. Nottie's mother, the Queen of Lancre, had fought them. Twice. Nottie had spoken about both fights. They'd gone to the wire.
Bekki was taking no chances. She had come armed. Just in case. She didn't want to fight. But something primal was calling to her. It was in her blood, for different reasons.
Sy skadu val 'n donker wolk;
Oor die toekoms van ons volk;
En veg ons nie sal ons verdwyn…
Bekki saw the silent dark-haired witch in green regarding her thoughtfully. She felt that while her actual thoughts were not being read as such, the Green Witch was discerning the general underlying impressions.
Die dag van rekenskap is hier!
Die Vyand jaag nou oor ons velde,
Staan jou man….
Bekki reflected that donker volk could cover a lot of pitiless enemies who cast a dark shadow over our fields. Not just human ones. Which indeed called for Holding Your Ground on a Day of Reckoning. If and when the Day arrived. The Green Witch suddenly gave her a half-smile and the barest of approving nods, then looked away.
They assembled young witches then heard about the wars with the elves which on two occasions had broken out of these stone circles. Bekki found her fingers closing around the hilt of her machete. It was a nice reassuring weight made largely of iron alloy with an even more reassuring sharp edge. She'd once used something like this on Dungeon Dimension things. She thought she could use the same sort of principle on Elves if it called for it. A witch standing next to her glanced down, then shuffled away nervously.
Godsmother Alice, when she gave me the special knives, showed me the iconographs she took. Somewhere around here, too, might even have been on this spot. When she inhumed two Elves and realised what they really look like.(3) When the glamour goes. Which it had, on the very logical basis that they were both dead. So hold that thought. You can kill things that look like that. Easily.
"That's about all I've got to say. Any questions? Anybody"? Nanny Ogg invited them. There was a general stunned silence. The young witches appeared to be generally realising it wasn't all about doing the right thing for people. Even if the people didn't want the right thing to be done for them. And most of them had been clamouring to find out more about the actual, you know, Magic, and when we get to use it. Now they were finding out about the Magic and one thing they were being trained to use it for. It wasn't, judging by the generally stunned expressions, what they'd anticipated at all.
Nanny Ogg grinned genially.
"I sees I've given you loads to think about." she said. "Now Mistress Aching's going to give you loads more to think about."
Bekki now belatedly realised who the Green Witch was. Tiffany Aching, by common consent the most powerful Witch on the Disc. Stories were told about her. Irena and Olga had trained with her, in the first Training Coven many years before. She'd stood back, silently watching and assessing, while Nanny had explained about elves and how to deal with them.
Now it was her turn to lead the group.
Tiffany stepped forward and assessed Bekki.
"Miss Smith-Rhodes." she said.
Bekki bowed, in the accepted manner. Tiffany Aching returned a lesser bow.
"Let's say a group of the people who we are very carefully refraining from naming appeared right now and stepped out of the circle. And one pulls a bow on you." she said. "How would you deal with that?"
Bekki swallowed. But she smoothly unshouldered and levelled her crossbow, aiming at a point in between two of the standing stones. Trainee witches stepped quickly out of the way.
"I would shoot the bliksem." Bekki said, channelling her mother's training and the spirit of her deceased ancestors. "Before he had a chance to fire."
Tiffany Aching half-smiled again.
"But let's say two of them have bows?"
Bekki indicated the crossbow.
"This is an over-end-under crossbow, Mistress Aching." she said. "I have a second shot."
But there are four or five. And now they're charging you. Can you reload that quickly?"
Bekki activated the catch next to the trigger. Ten inches of sharpened steel poinnggged into place, the last-resort bayonet that made a crossbow into a close-quarter weapon. One of the trainee witches yelped.
"I reckon I'd steb the bliksem." Bekki said. She was uneasily aware that the word reckon had come out sounding like rrricken. I'm dressed like Mum. I'm handling weapons. And I'm hearing about last-ditch fights that sound like Lawkes' Drain…I'm getting Howondalandian.
Bekki let the crossbow drop to the grass. The bayonet slid easily into the earth and it stood upright, quivering slightly, for fast retrieval later. She swiftly drew the machete, praying it wouldn't jam halfway in the scabbard. It drew in one fast motion.
"End the bayonet got stuck in his ribs." She said. "Shame. But I still have this."
Mistress Aching nodded. She seemed thoughtful.
"So your first thought is to rely on weapons. And not on magic?"
This felt like a test. Bekki thought before replying.
"Magic is good. I could have used a fireball. My father and my grandfather taught me. But weapons are better. More reliable in a fight. As my mother taught me. A fireball might fail. Just when you don't want it to."
This time Mistress Aching smiled broadly.
"Well done, Miss Smith-Rhodes. You've learnt a lesson about magic. Useful when it works. But a sharp edge is even better in the right circumstances. The trick is knowing when to use magic."
Nanny Ogg grinned broadly.
"Well done, Bekki, love." she said. "And one thing you din't point out is that this is a magic place. Chuckin' a fireball in the direction of the Dancers ain't a bright thing to do. Them stones might throw it straight back into your face. Which would be both a drawback and a bugger. What the foot-the-ball lads call a bit of an own goal."
Nanny patted Bekki on the shoulder. She grinned, then it turned into a thoughtful frown.
"Bekki. I feels and hears you is jinglin' a little?"
Bekki sheathed her machete. Then she raised and lifted the hem of the tunic she was wearing. Mistress Aching, Nanny and the other witches looked closely at her.
"Errr… light-weight chain-mail. Partly iron. Just steel enough for it to be important. I knew from talking to people like Olga Romanoff and Nottie Garlic that el… what my mother's people call the donker kabouters van die gifappeltjielaand…. mess with your head. Wearing iron guards against that. And this is really light mail."
Nanny Ogg shook her head and shared a look with Mistress Aching.
"You really come prepared, don't you?" Nanny said. "Still, your mum being what she is. Nice girl. Good with animals, your mum. Very thorough in her preparations. Methodical. Which is why she's still alive, I reckon."
The Assassin-grade chain mail shirt had been another gift from Mum that she'd found in her travelling trunk. No wonder Petulia's husband, Gouther Mossock, had found it heavy when getting it up the stairs to her room. Bekki tended to wear it under her tunic when dealing with difficult animals.
"You don't want to take chances, Mrs Ogg." Bekki said, seriously.
Nanny grinned.
"Listen to this young woman." she said to the other girls. "Knows what she's about. She got useful skills. Reckon she could teach a few things. And she won't be too proud about learnin' from you, neither. Cuts both ways."
Tiffany Aching nodded. It seemed almost appreciative.
"I think they learnt after the last big fight." she said. "I think, anyway. The word is from people who… well, cross both ways… is that a new Queen's rising. We don't know much about her yet, but we're keeping an eye open. Watching."
Bekki had been around Assassins all her life. She knew a little of how these games were played, having seen enough to infer how the Dark Council stayed so frighteningly well informed. So Lancre witches had a sort of intelligence-gathering network in the world of magic. Agents. Spies. And Unseen University watched the other worlds and dimensions too. Dad had said it was a deeper duty of Wizardry. He'd had quiet late-night chats with Olga and Irena where Things Were Discussed. At the higher level, Wizards and Witches could work together for a recognised Greater Good. Grandfather Mustrum had arrived at his own quiet understanding with the fabled Mistress Weatherwax, she had heard.
The young witches were issued protective gloves and motioned towards several large sacks.
"Job for you." Nanny Ogg said, genially. "Collected all this form various workshops and things about the place. The goblin lads at the Rail Ways helped get it together. They know the need. While we're up here, we can renew the Defences. Get crackin', then we can have a bite to eat."
The girls then spent an hour or so distributing the contents of the sacks evenly around the Dancers: Bekki realised where all the bits of metal had come from. Factory and engineering waste, metal shavings, filings and fragments, mainly iron and steel, methodically swept up and collected. Spread evenly round the Stones, so that any Elf trying to cross a field of metal would get very sore feet indeed. They'd mind that field.
Bekki had seen a stack of long Rail Way sleepers, very long metal rails, parked for ready use next to the track on her journey up. She wondered out loud if some of these could be buried in the ground round the Dancers, say in a sort of regular octagonal pattern, a sort of magic circle. Nanny Ogg considered this.
"Our Neville could pick them up." she said. "Take a cart down by night. Do some salvage. Not a bad idea, our Bekki!"
Bekki grinned. The Watch had a big file on Neville Ogg, who indeed, among other things, salvaged scrap metal. Generally unattended lead on peoples' roofs. Olga had shown her once.
And afterwards, she had talked with Tiffany Aching, who seemed interested in her. Bekki had talked about her family in Howondaland and about the stories her grandparents told, and that she'd been interested about how the things emigrants had taken from Sto Kerrig and the Sto Plains had met the legend and stories of the Howondalandian natives, and a sort of consensus folklore had begun to emerge.
The way the bogeyman, die Boeman to Sto Kerrigians, had met the native thing about the tokoloshe, a dark spirit that frightened by night, for instance. Something else had emerged, a mixing of the two. The impondulu, the native Howondalandian vampire. About were-leopards, where the Central Continent had werewolves. Her mother had fought them once.
And according to Mum, and behind her, Oupa and Ouma, Howondaland had elves, or a sort of elf-like entity. Both witches carefully touched iron.
"I'm not sure, but I think people from Sto Kerrig took the idea or the memory of things like Pukke, Staalkaren, Styffen, Kabouters and…" Bekki touched iron, "the Dwaalichten with them. We just refer to kabouters, anyway. Who can be good or bad. There's an old legend of the good people living in Bloemmielaand, where everything is really fertile and lots of flowers grow. And next door is Gifappeltjielaand, where… nothing grows. Permanent winter. The people living there are… not nice. The legend says the good witch guards the border to stop things crossing. It must be a legend, as her people guard her and love her and cherish her."
Tiffany nodded.
"Lots of truth in legends. Although I agree a bit more love and being cherished and looked after would be nice." she said. "Poisoned Apple Country is your name for… that place?"
"Nice and poetic? Anyway, the natives have lots of stories about things living in the deep jungles and the dark places. A Zulu I know told me about her people's legend of the Emere and the Bisimbe. They come out of a dark winter place in the mountains or come into the jungle to make it barren. They play with peoples' heads and like killing them in sadistic and inventive ways. Our geelekabouters, the yellow-elves, and their Emere. Imagine those getting together?"
Tiffany considered this.
"Maybe that's some sort of justification for apartheid." she said. "I can see it would be a problem if those two sorts of Elf ganged up. Better keep them separate! Now. Fancy a stay on the Chalk sometime? No hurry. You're just doing fantastically well here. Petulia's really pleased with you. I'd like to see you in my country sometime."
They sat back, enjoyed a quiet drink, and endured Nanny Ogg regaling the main bar of the Goat and Compass with the song about the wizard's staff having a great big knob on the end.
To be continued.
(1) Happens in Slipping Between Worlds. And yes, I know…
(2) one of those theoretical ideas from the fertile brain of Leonard of Quirm. The Air Police had found the notes and asked how they could make it really work. They found it useful. And fun. It had saved Olga's life after the mid-air collision with the Magic Carpet. Eight jumps, with increasing degrees of complexity and hazard, are the minimum for getting your jump pay from the British Parachute Regiment.
(3) Alice Band's first run-in with Elves is described in my tale The Lancre Caper, in which she realises why nobody ever seriously tries to perpetrate Archaeology in Lancre. Nobody can be that Stealthy. Alice is tempted by the Elf-Queen who tries to get in where she is weakest and can be most easily tempted… The Guild of Assassins employed her iconographic evidence of what elves really look like, and her strategy for inhuming them, as a part of some very specialised tuition.
Notes Dump:
Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.
Extract from a PM to reader Freyalyn:
Alan Garner is overlooked a lot as this is a shame - he's yet another influence on the Discworld and when you know what to look for, the clues are there. He wrote about Alderley Edge, Cheshire, as it was half a century ago - before the rich and tasteless moved in and destroyed its character. Back then, a remote farmhouse in the hills populated by people straight out of Lancre who get embroiled in the other world that co-exists with theirs... got to be incorporated onto the Disc somewhere. And unless I'm wrong (will re-read) Petulia Gristle's husband isn't named... I want to give him a name almost like Gowther Mossock (wonderfully Lancre) to see if anyone notices. And Petulia, I think, will get the middle name Elizabeth - which shortens to Bess. Making her non-witch married name Petulia Bess Mossock...
Take a close look at the Hiver, btw. Then re-read the description of the Brollochan. And in Garner's "Boneland"... there's a description of life coming out of stone eggs with the sound of flint-knapping being represented as "Tak, tak, tak..." so homage cuts both ways!
Extract from PM reply to reader CarrieVS, who pointed out a little issue:
slipped up on that one.. the four-chambered stomach of a ruminant is not a direct equivalent to human... yup. Veterinary science on the Discworld is really a matter of trial and error and is probably still in its infancy, like the situation that prevailed before James Herriot went to the Glasgow training college in the early 1930's. Herriot vividly describes a rather hit-and-miss process based on a combination of intuition, some scientific remedies, a satchel of approximate remedies based on centuries of haphazard practice and practical experience, combined with crossed fingers and hope. He says he was lucky to graduate and start practice in the 1930's when all of a sudden it all came together with massive leaps forward in terms of the pharmaceutical and the scientific.
Elsewhere I have Johanna slipping up in an encounter with a unicorn and who has Doughnut Jimmy Folsom standing on the sidelines drily saying everyone who deals with animals has to learn the Herriot Manouevre at some point in their career - ie, when to cut their losses and run for safety, however inelegant and embarrassing it is. (Shortly afterwards, although it isn't covered in the story except as an aside, she gets to play catch-up with a group of invading Elves, and to explain how pissed off she is about the unicorn they let loose in Ankh-Morpork to distract everybody while they moved in. She's still here. The Elves presumably aren't.)
Vet practice on the Disc, I think I related, involves groups of overlapping practitioners who each have a species affinity - Doughnut Jimmy with horsey things, Petulia Gristle with all things porcine, the Aching women with sheep, Sybil Ramkin with dragons. Each is an expert in their own field and gets a lot of broadly transferable skills. Johanna I see as one with a general knowledge of farm animals due to her early experience at Home, combined with practical observation of native Howondalandian fauna she's seen on the Veldt and elsewhere. Add in her experience with those species the Guild of Assassins cultivates for its own specific purpose (the Animal Management Unit) and skilled pupils such as Arachne Webber who specialises in one sort of animal to the exclusion of all else. And then she gets a Zoo of her very own and an unparelleled opportunity to build on this and become a generalist. Knowing Matron Igorina, who plays the Bones role to her Captain Kirk, is a help: and what the Guild teaches in terms of human anatomy, and how it all fits together (and may be dismantled or otherwise). Her sister Mariella even gets to show off a bit - the incident where she identifies the reason why a horse is lame and follows diagnosis with the correct remedy. Straight out of Herriot too - that's the incident that convinced Siegfried Farnon to offer him a job. (Herriot diagnosed a lame horse with laminitis and bored a hole into its hoof to explode the abscess underneath; messy but direct. As I recall, iodine plus turps to disinfect the wound site made a spectacular purple cloud).
By the time of these stories she's probably in her early forties and the Zoo has been there for at least eighteen years. Time enough for a woman with a passion for animals to become a largely self-taught veterinarian. And with an oldest daughter who shows talent and learns quickly (assisted by Witch skills her mother does not have).
You are right, though - better find a better analogy for transferable skills than a cow's stomach!