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'I ain't blaming you,' she said, 'but I know you'll have a King in there, so just you go and tell him Granny Weatherwax is here, will you?'
'He's very busy,' said the voice. 'We've just had a bit of trouble.'
'Then I'm sure he don't want any more,' said Granny.
The invisible speaker appeared to give this some consideration.
'We put writing on the door,' it said sulkily. 'In invisible runes. It's really expensive, getting proper invisible runes done.'
'I don't go around readin' doors,' said Granny.
The speaker hesitated.
'Weatherwax, did you say?'
'Yes. With a W. As in “witch”.'
The door slammed. When it was shut, there was barely a visible crack in the rock.
The snow was falling fast now. Granny Weatherwax jiggled up and down a bit to keep warm.
'That's foreigners for you,' she said, to the frozen world in general.
'I don't think you can call dwarfs foreigners,' said Nanny Ogg.
'Don't see why not,' said Granny. 'A dwarf who lives a long way off has got to be foreign. That's what foreign means.'
'Yeah? Funny to think of it like that,' said Nanny.
They watched the door, their breath forming three little clouds in the darkening air. Magrat peered at the stone door.
'I didn't see any invisible runes,' she said.
' 'Corse not,' said Nanny. 'That's 'cos they're invisible.'
'Yeah,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'Don't be daft.'
The door swung open again.
'I spoke to the King,' said the voice.
'And what did he say?' said Granny expectantly.
'He said, “Oh, no! Not on top of everything else!”'
Granny beamed. 'I knew 'e would have heard of me,' she said.
In the same way that there are a thousand Kings of the Gypsies, so there are a thousand Kings of the Dwarfs. The term means something like 'senior engineer'. There aren't
any Queens of the Dwarfs. Dwarfs are very reticent about revealing their sex, which most of them don't consider to be very important compared to things like metallurgy and hydraulics.
This king was standing in the middle of a crowd of shouting miners. He* looked up at the witches with the expression of a drowning man looking at a drink of water.
'Are you really any good?' he said.
Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax looked at one another.
'I think 'e's talking to you, Magrat,' said Granny.
