Carpe Jugulum (8 page)

“Not while you’re sober, dear.”

“I think…I’m owed a drink, then. Is there any brandy left?”

Nanny came in, uncorking the flask.

“I topped it up at the party. Of course, it’s only shop-bought stuff, you couldn’t—”

Agnes’s left hand snatched it and poured it down her throat. Then she coughed so hard that some of it went up her nose.

“Hang on, hang on, it’s not
that
weak,” said Nanny.

Agnes plonked the flask down on the kitchen table.

“Right,” she said, and her voice sounded quite different to Nanny, “My name is Perdita and I’m taking over this body right
now
.”

Hodgesaargh noticed the smell of burnt wood as he ambled back to the mews but put it down to the bonfire in the courtyard. He’d left the party early. No one had wanted to talk about hawks.

The smell was
very
strong when he looked in on the birds and saw the little flame in the middle of the floor. He stared at it for a second, then picked up a water bucket and threw it.

The flame continued to flicker gently on a bare stone that was awash with water.

Hodgesaargh looked at the birds. They were watching it with interest; normally they’d be frantic in the presence of fire.

Hodgesaargh was never one to panic. He watched it for a while, and then took a piece of wood and gently touched it to the flame. The fire leapt on to the wood and went on burning.

The wood didn’t even char.

He found another twig and brushed it against the flame, which slid easily from one to the other. There was one flame. It was clear there wasn’t going to be two.

Half the bars in the window had been burned away, and there was some scorched wood at the end of the mews, where the old nestboxes had been. Above it, a few stars shone through rags of mist over a charred hole in the roof.

Something had burned here, Hodgesaargh saw. Fiercely, by the look of it. But also in a curiously local way, as if all the heat had been somehow contained…

He reached toward the flame dancing on the end of the stick. It was warm, but…not as hot as it should be.

Now it was on his finger. It tingled. As he waved it around, the head of every bird turned to watch it.

By its light, he poked around in the charred remains of the nestboxes. In the ashes were bits of broken eggshell.

Hodgesaargh picked them up and carried them into the crowded little room at the end of the mews which served as workshop and bedroom. He balanced the flame on a saucer. In here, where it was quieter, he could hear it making a slight sizzling noise.

In the dim glow he looked along the one crowded bookshelf over his bed and pulled down a huge ragged volume on the cover of which someone had written, centuries ago, the word “Burds.”

The book was a huge ledger. The spine had been cut and widened inexpertly several times so that more pages could be pasted in.

The falconers of Lancre knew a lot about birds. The kingdom was on a main migratory route between the Hub and the Rim. The hawks had brought down many strange species over the centuries and the falconers had, very painstakingly, taken notes. The pages were thick with drawings and closely spaced writing, the entries copied and recopied and updated over the years. The occasional feather carefully glued to a page had added to the thickness of the thing.

No one had ever bothered with an index, but some past falconer had considerately arranged many of the entries into alphabetical order.

Hodgesaargh glanced again at the flame burning steadily in its saucer, and then, handing the crackling pages with care, turned to “F.”

After some browsing, he eventually found what he was looking for under “P.”

Back in the mews, in the deepest shadow, something cowered.

There were three shelves of books in Agnes’s cottage. By witch standards, that was a giant library.

Two very small blue figures lay on the top of the books, watching the scene with interest.

Nanny Ogg backed away, waving the poker.

“It’s
all right
,” said Agnes. “It’s me again, Agnes Nitt, but…She’s here but…I’m sort of holding on. Yes! Yes! All right! All right, just shut up, will y—Look, it’s
my
body, you’re just a figment of my imagina—Okay! Okay! Perhaps it’s not quite so clear c—Let me just talk to Nanny, will you?”

“Which one are you now?” said Nanny Ogg.

“I’m still Agnes, of course.” She rolled her eyes up. “All
right
! I’m Agnes currently being advised by Perdita, who is also me. In a way.
And I’m not too fat, thank you so very much!
”

“How many of you are there in there?” said Nanny.

“What do you mean, ‘room for ten’?” shouted Agnes. “Shut up! Listen, Perdita says there were vampires at the party. The Magpyr family, she says. She can’t understand how we acted. They were putting a kind of…’fluence over everyone. Including me, which is why she was able to break thr—Yes, all right, I’m telling it, thank you!”

“Why not her, then?” said Nanny.

“Because she’s got a mind of her own! Nanny, can you remember anything they actually
said
?”

“Now you come to mention it, no. But they seemed nice enough people.”

“And you remember talking to Igor?”

“Who’s Igor?”

The tiny blue figures watched, fascinated, for the next half hour.

Nanny sat back at the end of it and stared at the ceiling for a while.

“Why should we believe her?” she said eventually.

“Because she’s
me
.”

“They do say that inside every fat girl is a thin girl and—” Nanny began.

“Yes,” said Agnes bitterly. “I’ve heard it. Yes. She’s the thin girl. I’m the lot of chocolate.”

Nanny leaned toward Agnes’s ear and raised her voice. “How’re you gettin’ on in there? Everything all right, is it? Treatin’ you all right, is she?”

“Haha, Nanny. Very funny.”

“They were saying all this stuff about drinkin’ blood and killin’ people and everyone was just noddin’ and sayin’, ‘Well, well, how very fascinatin’?”

“Yes!”

“And eatin’ garlic?”

“Yes!”

“That can’t be right, can it?”

“I don’t know, perhaps we used the wrong sort of garlic!”

Nanny rubbed her chin, torn between the vampiric revelation and prurient curiosity about Perdita.

“How does Perdita work, then?” she said.

Agnes sighed. “Look, you know the part of you that wants to do all the things you don’t dare do, and thinks the thoughts you don’t dare think?”

Nanny’s face stayed blank. Agnes floundered. “Like…maybe…rip off all your clothes and run naked in the rain?” she hazarded.

“Oh
yes
. Right,” said Nanny.

“Well…I suppose Perdita is that part of me.”

“Really?
I’ve
always been that part of me,” said Nanny. “The important thing is to remember where you left your clothes.”

Agnes remembered too late that Nanny Ogg was in many ways a very
uncomplicated
personality.

“Mind you, I think I know what you mean,” Nanny went on in a more thoughtful voice. “There’s times when I’ve wanted to do things and stopped meself…” She shook her head. “But…vampires…Verence wouldn’t be so stupid as to send an invitation to vampires, would he?” She paused for thought. “Yes, he would. Prob’ly think of it as offering the hand of friendship.”

She stood up. “Right, they won’t have left yet. Let’s get straight to the jelly. You get
extra
garlic and a few stakes, I’ll round up Shawn and Jason and the lads.”

“It won’t work, Nanny. Perdita saw what they can do. The moment you get near them, you’ll forget all about it. They do something to your mind, Nanny.”

Nanny hesitated.

“Can’t say I know
that
much about vampires,” she said.

“Perdita thinks they can tell what you’re thinking too.”

“Then this is Esme’s type of stuff,” said Nanny. “Messing with minds and so on. It’s meat and drink to her.”

“Nanny, they were talking about
staying
! We have to
do
something!”

“Well, where is she?” Nanny almost wailed. “Esme ought to be sortin’ this out!”

“Maybe they’ve got to her first?”

“You don’t think so, do you?” said Nanny, now looking quite panicky. “I can’t think about a vampire getting his teeth into Esme.”

“Don’t worry, dog doesn’t eat dog.” It was Perdita who blurted it out, but it was Agnes who got the blow. It wasn’t a ladylike slap of disapproval. Nanny Ogg had reared some strapping sons; the Ogg forearm was a power in its own right.

When Agnes looked up from the hearthrug Nanny was rubbing some life back into her hand. She gave Agnes a solemn look.

“We’ll say no more about that, shall we?” she commanded. “I ain’t gen’rally given to physicality of that nature but it saves a lot of arguing. Now, we’re goin’ back to the castle. We’re going to sort this out right
now
.”

Hodgesaargh shut the book and looked at the flame. It was true, then. There’d even been a picture of one just like it in the book, painstakingly drawn by another royal falconer two hundred years before. He wrote that he’d found the thing up on the high meadows, one spring. It’d burned for three years, and then he’d lost it somewhere.

If you looked at it closely, you could even see the detail. It was not
exactly
a flame. It was more like a bright feather…

Well, Lancre
was
on one of the main migration routes, for birds of all sorts. It was only a matter of time.

So…the new hatchling was around. They needed time to grow, it said in the book. Odd that it should lay an egg here, because it said in the book that it was always hatched in the burning deserts of Klatch.

He went and looked at the birds in the mews. They were still very alert.

Yes, it all made sense. It had flown in here, among the comfort of other birds, and laid its egg, just like it said it did in the book, and then it had burned itself up to hatch the new bird.

If Hodgesaargh had a fault, it lay in his rather utilitarian view of the bird world. There were birds that you hunted, and there were birds you hunted
with
. Oh, there were other sorts, tweeting away in the bushes, but they didn’t really count. It occurred to him that if ever there was a bird you could hunt with, it’d be the phoenix.

Oh
yes.
It’d be weak, and young, and it wouldn’t have gone far.

Hmm…birds tended to think the same way, after all.

It would have helped if there was one picture in the book. In fact, there were several, all carefully drawn by ancient falconers who claimed it was a firebird they’d seen.

Apart from the fact that they all had wings and a beak, no two were remotely alike. One looked very much like a heron. Another looked like a goose. One, and he scratched his head about this, appeared to be a sparrow. Bit of a puzzle, he decided, and left it at that and selected a drawing that looked at least slightly foreign.

He glanced at the bird gloves hanging on their hooks. He was good at rearing young birds. He could get them eating out of his hand. Later on, of course, they just ate his hand.

Yes. Catch it young and train it to the wrist. It’d
have
to be a champion hunting bird.

Hodgesaargh couldn’t imagine a phoenix as
quarry
. For one thing, how could you cook it?

…and in darkest corner of the mews, something hopped onto a perch…

Once again Agnes had to run to keep up as Nanny Ogg strode into the courtyard, elbows pumping furiously. The old lady marched up to a group of men standing around one of the barrels and grabbed two of them, spilling their drinks. Had it not been Nanny Ogg, this would have been a challenge equal to throwing down a glove or, in slightly less exalted circles, smashing a bottle on the edge of a bar.

But the men looked sheepish and one or two of the others in the circle even scuffled their feet and made an attempt to hide their pints behind their backs.

“Jason? Darren? You come along of me,” Nanny commanded. “We’re after vampires, right? Any sharp stakes around here?”

“No, Mum,” said Jason, Lancre’s only blacksmith. Then he raised his hand. “But ten minutes ago the cook come out and said, did anyone want all these nibbly things that someone had mucked up with garlic and I et ’em, Mum.”

Nanny sniffed, and then took a step back, fanning her hand in front of her face. “Yeah, that should do it all right,” she said. “If I give you the signal, you’re to burp hugely, understand?”

“I don’t think it’ll work, Nanny,” said Agnes, as boldly as she dared.

“I don’t see why, it’s nearly knocking
me
down.”

“I
told
you, you won’t get close enough, even if it’ll work at all. Perdita could feel it. It’s like being drunk.”

“I’ll be ready for ’em this time,” said Nanny. “I’ve learned a thing or two from Esme.”

“Yes, but she’s—” Agnes was going to say “better at them than you,” but changed it to “not here…”

“That’s as may be, but I’d rather face ’em now than explain to Esme that I didn’t. Come on.”

Agnes followed the Oggs, but very uneasily. She wasn’t sure how far she trusted Perdita.

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 drafty. 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 draft. 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, beaming. “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.
*
Then it had been covered over on the orders of Magrat and the palace rumor was that Verence had got an ear-bashing for buying what was effectively a murdered elephant.

“Lacrimosa would
so
like to play for you,” the Countess commanded.

“Oh,
Mother
,” said Lacrimosa.

“I’m sure we should love it,” said Verence. Agnes wouldn’t have noticed the sweat running down his face if Perdita hadn’t pointed it out:
He’s trying to fight it,
she said.
Aren’t you glad you’ve got me?

There was some bustling while a wad of sheet music was pulled out of the piano stool and the young lady sat down to play. She glared at Agnes before beginning. There was some sort of chemistry there, although it was the sort that results in the entire building being evacuated.

It’s a racket,
said the Perdita within, after the first few bars.
Everyone’s looking as though it’s wonderful but it’s a din!

Agnes concentrated. The music was beautiful but if she really paid attention, with Perdita nudging her, it wasn’t really there at all. It sounded like someone playing scales, badly and angrily.

I can say that at any time, she thought. Any time I want, I can just wake up.

Everyone else applauded politely. Agnes tried to, but found that her left hand was suddenly on strike. Perdita was getting stronger in her left arm.

Vlad was beside her so quickly that she wasn’t even aware that he’d moved.

“You are a…fascinating woman, Miss Nitt,” he said. “Such lovely hair, may I say? But who is Perdita?”

“No one, really,” Agnes mumbled. She fought against the urge to bunch her left hand into a fist. Perdita was screaming at her again.

Vlad stroked a strand of her hair. It was, she knew, good hair. It wasn’t simply big hair, it was enormous hair, as if she was trying to counterbalance her body. It was glossy, it never split, and was extremely well behaved except for a tendency to eat combs.

“Eat combs?” said Vlad, coiling the hair around his finger.

“Yes, it—”

He can see what you’re thinking.

Vlad looked puzzled again, like someone trying to make out some faint noise.

“You…can resist, can’t you,” he said. “I was watching you when Lacci was playing the piano and losing. Do you have any vampire blood in you?”

“What? No!”

“It could be arranged, haha.” He grinned. It was the sort of grin that Agnes supposed was called infectious but, then, so was measles. It filled her immediate future. Something was pouring over her like a pink fluffy cloud saying: it’s all right, everything is fine, this is exactly right…

“Look at Mrs. Ogg there,” said Vlad. “Grinning like a pumpkin, ain’t she. And she is apparently one of the more powerful witches in the mountains. It’s almost distressing, don’t you think?”

Tell him you know he can read minds,
Perdita commanded.

And again, the puzzled, quizzical look.

“You can—” Agnes began.

“No, not exactly. Just people,” said Vlad. “One learns, one learns. One picks things up.” He flung himself down on a sofa, one leg over the arm, and stared thoughtfully at her.

“Things will be changing, Agnes Nitt,” he said. “My father is right. Why lurk in dark castles? Why be ashamed? We’re vampires. Or, rather, vamp
y
res. Father’s a bit keen on the new spelling. He says it indicates a clean break with a stupid and superstitious past. In any case, it’s not our fault. We were
born
vampires.”

“I thought you became—”

“—vampires by being bitten? Dear me, no. Oh, we can
turn
people into vampires, it’s an easy technique, but what would be the point? When you eat…now what is it you eat? Oh yes, chocolate…you don’t want to turn it into another Agnes Nitt, do you? Less chocolate to go around.” He sighed. “Oh dear, superstition, superstition everywhere we turn. Isn’t it true that we’ve been here at least ten minutes and your neck is quite free of anything except a small amount of soap you didn’t wash off?”

Agnes’s hand flew to her throat.

“We notice these things,” said Vlad. “And now we’re here to notice them. Oh, Father is powerful in his way, and quite an advanced thinker, but I don’t think even he is aware of the
possibilities
. I can’t tell you how
good
it is to be out of that place, Miss Nitt. The werewolves…oh dear, the werewolves…Marvelous people, it goes without saying, and of course the Baron has a certain rough style, but really…give them a good deer hunt, a warm spot in front of the fire and a nice big bone and the rest of the world can go hang. We have done our best, we really have. No one has done more than Father to bring our part of the country into the Century of the Fruitbat—”

“It’s nearly over—” Agnes began.

“Perhaps that’s why he’s so keen,” said Vlad. “The place is just full of…well, remnants. I mean…centaurs? Really! They’ve got no business surviving. They’re out of place. And frankly all the lower races are just as bad. The trolls are stupid, the dwarfs are devious, the pixies are evil and the gnomes stick in your teeth. Time they were gone. Driven out. We have great hopes of Lancre.” He looked around disdainfully. “After some redecoration.”

Agnes looked back at Nanny and her sons. They were listening quite contentedly to the worst music since Shawn Ogg’s bagpipes had been dropped down the stairs.

“And…you’re taking our country?” she said. “Just like that?”

Vlad gave her another smile, stood up, and walked toward her. “Oh yes. Bloodlessly. Well…metaphorically. You really
are
quite remarkable, Miss Nitt. The Uberwald girls are so sheep-like. But you…you’re concealing something from me. Everything I feel tells me you’re quite under my power—and yet you’re not.” He chuckled. “This is delightful…”

Agnes felt her mind unraveling. The pink fog was blowing through her head…

…and looming out of it, deadly and mostly concealed, was the iceberg of Perdita.

As Agnes withdrew into the pinkness she felt the tingle spread down her arms and legs. It was not pleasant. It was like sensing someone standing right behind you, and then feeling them take one step forward.

Agnes would have pushed him away. That is, Agnes would have dithered and tried to talk her way out of things, but if push had come to shove then she’d have pushed hard. But Perdita struck, and when her hand was halfway around she turned it palm out and curled her fingers to bring her nails into play…

He caught her wrist, his hand moving in a blur.

“Well
done
,” he said, laughing.

His other hand shot out and caught her other arm as it swung.

“I like a woman with spirit!”

However, he had run out of hands, and Perdita still had a knee in reserve. Vlad’s eyes crossed and he made that small sound best recorded as “ghni…”

“Magnificent!” he croaked as he folded up.

Perdita pulled herself away and ran over to Nanny Ogg, grabbing the woman’s arm.

“Nanny, we are
leaving
!”

“Are we, dear?” said Nanny calmly, not making a move.

“And Jason and Darren too!”

Perdita didn’t read as much as Agnes. She thought books were
boring
. But now she really needed to know: what
did
you use against vampires?

Holy symbols!
Agnes prompted from within.

Perdita looked around desperately. Nothing in the room looked particularly holy. Religion, apart from its use as a sort of cosmic registrar, had never caught on in Lancre.

“Daylight is always good, my dear,” said the Countess, who must have caught the edge of her thought. “Your uncle always had big windows and easily twitched aside curtains, didn’t he, Count.”

“Yes indeed,” said the Count.

“And when it came to running water, he always kept the moat flowing perfectly, didn’t he?”

“Fed from a mountain stream, I think,” said the Count.

“And, for a vampire, he always seemed to have so many ornamental items around the castle that could be bent or broken into the shape of some religious symbol, as I recall.”

“He certainly did. A vampire of the old school.”

“Yes.” The Countess gave her husband a smile. “The stupid school.” She turned to Perdita and looked her up and down. “So I think you will find we are here to stay, my dear. Although you do seem to have made an impression on my son. Come here, girl. Let me have a good look at you.”