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Torches flared in the streets. In dozens of yards shadowy figures moved, pulling the covers off floats. In the darkness there was a flash of sequins and a jingle of bells.
All year the people of Genua were nice and quiet. But history has always allowed the downtrodden one night somewhere in any calendar to restore temporarily the balance of the world. It might be called the Feast of Fools, or the King of the Bean. Or even Samedi Nuit Mort, when even those with the most taxing and responsible of duties can kick back and have fun.
Most of them, anyway . . .
The coachmen and the footmen were sitting in their shed at one side of the stable yard, eating their dinner and complaining about having to work on Dead Night. They were also engaging in the time-honoured rituals that go therewith, which largely consist of finding out what their wives have packed for them today and envying the other men whose wives obviously cared more.
The head footman raised a crust cautiously.
'I've got chicken neck and pickle,' he said. 'Anyone got any cheese?'
The second coachman inspected his box. 'It's boiled bacon again,' he complained. 'She always gives me boiled bacon. She knows I don't like it. She don't even cut the fat off.'
'Is it thick white fat?' said the first coachman.
'Yeah. Horrible. Is this right for a holiday feast or what?'
'I'll swap you a lettuce and tomato.'
'Right. Whatnot/ got[?], Jimmy?'
The underfootman shyly opened his perfect package. There were four sandwiches, crusts cut off. There was a sprig of parsley. There was even a napkin.
'Smoked salmon and cream cheese,' he said.
'And still a bit of the wedding cake,' said the first coachman. 'Ain't you et that all up yet?'
'We have it every night,' said the underfootman.
The shed shook with the ensuing laughter. It is a universal fact that any innocent comment made by any recently-married young member of any workforce is an instant trigger for coarse merriment among his or her older and more cynical colleagues. This happens even if everyone concerned has nine legs and lives at the bottom of an ocean of ammonia on a huge cold planet. It's just one of those things.
'You make the most of it,' said the second coachman gloomily, when they'd settled down again. 'It starts off kisses and cake and them cutting the crusts off, and next thing you know it's down to tongue pie, cold bum and the copper stick.'
'The way I see it,' the first coachman began, 'it's all about the way you - '
There was a knocking at the door.
The underfootman, being the junior member, got up and opened it.
'It's an old crone,' he said. 'What do you want, old crone?'
'Fancy a drink?' said Nanny Ogg. She held up a jug over which hung a perceptible haze of evaporating alcohol, and blew a paper squeaker.
'What?' said the footman.
'Shame for you lads to be working. It's a holiday! Whoopee!'
'What's going on?' the senior coachman began, and then he entered the cloud of alcohol. 'Gods! What is that stuff?
'Smells like rum, Air Travis.'
The senior coachman hesitated. From the streets came music and laughter as the first of the processions got under way. Fireworks popped across the sky. It wasn't a night to be without just a sip of alcohol.
'What a nice old lady,' he said.
Nanny Ogg waved the jug again. 'Up your eye!' she said. 'Mud in your bottom!'
What might be called the classical witch comes in two basic varieties, the complicated and the simple, or, to put it another way, the ones that have a room full of regalia and the ones that don't. Magrat was by inclination one of the former sort. For example, take magical knives. She had a complete collection of magical knives, all with the appropriate coloured handles and complicated runes all over them.
