And yet the weird thing was that the cooks in Genua had nothing edible to cook; at least, not what Nanny would have thought of as food. To her mind, food went around on four legs, or possibly one pair of legs and one pair of wings. Or at least it had fins on. The idea of food with more than four legs was an entirely new kettle of fi— of miscellaneous swimming things.

They didn’t have much to cook in Genua. So they cooked everything. Nanny had never heard of prawns or crawfish or lobsters; it just looked to her as though the citizens of Genua dredged the river bottom and boiled whatever came up.

The point was that a good Genuan cook could more or less take the squeezings of a handful of mud, a few dead leaves and a pinch or two of some unpronounceable herbs and produce a meal to make a gourmet burst into tears of gratitude and swear to be a better person for the rest of their entire life if they could just have one more plateful.

Nanny Ogg ambled along as Mrs Pleasant led her through the market. She peered at cages of snakes, and racks of mysteriously tendrilled herbs. She prodded trays of bivalves. She stopped for a chat to the Nanny Ogg-shaped ladies who ran the little stalls that, for a couple of pennies, dispensed strange chowders and shellfish in a bun. She sampled everything. She was enjoying herself immensely. Genua, city of cooks, had found the appetite it deserved.

She finished a plate of fish and exchanged a nod and a grin with the little old woman who ran the fish stall.

‘Well, all this is —’ she began, turning to Mrs Pleasant.

Mrs Pleasant had gone.

Some people would have bustled off to look for her in the crowds, but Nanny Ogg just stood and thought.

I asked about magic, she thought, and she brought me here and left me. Because of them walls with ears in, I expect. So maybe I got to do the rest myself.

She looked around her. There was a very rough tent a little way from the stalls, right by the river. There was no sign outside it, but there was a pot bubbling gently over a fire. Rough clay bowls were stacked beside the pot. Occasionally someone would step out of the crowd, help themselves to a bowlful of whatever was in the pot, and then throw a handful of coins into the plate in front of the tent.

Nanny wandered over and looked into the pot. Things came to the surface and sank again. The general colour was brown. Bubbles formed, grew, and burst stickily with an organic ‘blop’. Anything could be happening in that pot. Life could be spontaneously creating.

Nanny Ogg would try anything once. Some things she’d try several thousand times.

She unhooked the ladle, picked up a bowl, and helped herself.

A moment later she pushed aside the tent flap and looked into the blackness of the interior.

A figure was seated cross-legged in the gloom, smoking a pipe.

‘Mind if I step inside?’ said Nanny.

The figure nodded.

Nanny sat down. After a decent interval she pulled out her own pipe.

‘Mrs Pleasant’s a friend of yours, I expect.’

‘She knows me.’

‘Ah.’

From outside, there was the occasional clink as customers helped themselves.

Blue smoke coiled from Nanny Ogg’s pipe.

‘I don’t reckon,’ she said, ‘that many people goes away without paying.’

‘No.’

After another pause Nanny Ogg said: ‘I ’spects some of ’em tries to pay with gold and jewels and scented ungulants and stuff like that?’

‘No.’

‘Amazin’.’

Nanny Ogg sat in silence for a while, listening to the distant noises of the market and summoning her powers.

‘What’s it called?’

‘Gumbo.’

‘It’s good.’

‘I know.’

‘I reckon anyone who could cook like that could do anything’ — Nanny Ogg concentrated — ‘Mrs … Gogol.’

She waited.

‘Pretty near, Mrs Ogg.’

The two women stared at one another’s shadowy outline, like plotters who had given the sign and countersign and were waiting to see what would happen next.

‘Where I come from, we call it witchcraft,’ said Nanny, under her breath.

‘Where I come from, we call it voodoo,’ said Mrs Gogol.

Nanny’s wrinkled forehead wrinkled still further.

‘Ain’t that all messin’ with dolls and dead people and stuff?’ she said.

‘Ain’t witchcraft all runnin’ around with no clothes on and stickin’ pins in people?’ said Mrs Gogol levelly.

‘Ah,’ said Nanny. ‘I sees what you mean.’

She shifted uneasily. She was a fundamentally honest woman.

‘I got to admit, though …’ she added, ‘sometimes … maybe just one pin …’

Mrs Gogol nodded gravely. ‘Okay. Sometimes … maybe just one zombie,’ she said.

‘But only when there ain’t no alternative.’

‘Sure. When there ain’t no alternative.’

‘When … you know … people ain’t showing respect, like.’

‘When the house needs paintin’.’

Nanny grinned, toothily. Mrs Gogol grinned, outnumbering her in teeth by a factor of thirty.

‘My full name’s Gytha Ogg,’ she said. ‘People calls me Nanny.’

‘My full name’s Erzulie Gogol,’ said Mrs Gogol. ‘People call me Mrs Gogol.’^{45}

‘The way I saw it,’ said Nanny, ‘this is foreign parts, so maybe there’s a different kind of magic. Stands to reason. The trees is different, the people is different, the drinks is different and has got banana in ’em, so the magic’d be different too. Then I thought … Gytha, my girl, you’re never too old to learn.’

‘Sure thing.’

‘There’s something wrong with this city. Felt it as soon as we set foot here.’

Mrs Gogol nodded.

There was no sound for a while but the occasional puffing of a pipe.

Then there was a clink from outside, followed by a thoughtful pause.

A voice said, ‘Gytha Ogg? I know you’re in there.’

The outline of Mrs Gogol took its pipe out of its mouth.

‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘Good sense of taste there.’

The tent flap opened.

‘Hallo, Esme,’ said Nanny Ogg.

‘Blessings be on this … tent,’ said Granny Weatherwax, peering into the gloom.

‘This here’s Mrs Gogol,’ said Nanny. ‘She’s by way of bein’ a voodoo lady. That’s what witches are in these parts.’

‘They ain’t the only witches in these parts,’ said Granny.

‘Mrs Gogol was very impressed at you detecting me in here,’ said Nanny.

‘It wasn’t hard,’ said Granny. ‘Once I’d spotted that Greebo washing himself outside, the rest was all deduction.’

In the gloom of the tent Nanny had formed a mental picture of Mrs Gogol as being old. What she hadn’t expected, when the voodoo lady stepped out into the open air, was a handsome middle-aged woman taller than Granny. Mrs Gogol wore heavy gold earrings, a white blouse and a full red skirt with flounces. Nanny could feel Granny Weatherwax’s disapproval. What they said about women with red skirts was even worse than whatever they said about women with red shoes, whatever that was.

Mrs Gogol stopped and raised an arm. There was a flurry of wings.

Greebo, who had been rubbing obsequiously against Nanny’s leg, looked up and hissed. The largest and blackest cockerel Nanny had ever seen had settled on Mrs Gogol’s shoulder. It turned on her the most intelligent stare she had ever seen on a bird.

‘My word,’ she said, taken aback. ‘That’s the biggest cock I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few in my time.’

Mrs Gogol raised one disapproving eyebrow.

‘She never had no proper upbringing,’ said Granny.

‘What with living next to a chicken farm and all, is what I was going to say next,’ said Nanny.

‘This is Legba, a dark and dangerous spirit,’^{46} said Mrs Gogol. She leaned closer and spoke out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Between you and me, he just a big black cockerel. But you know how it is.’

‘It pays to advertise,’ Nanny agreed. ‘This is Greebo. Between you and me, he’s a fiend from hell.’

‘Well, he’s a cat,’ said Mrs Gogol, generously. ‘It’s only to be expected.’

Dear Jason and everyone,

Isn’t it amazing the things what happen when you dont expect it, for example we met Mrs Gogol who works as a coke by day but is a Voodoo witch, you mustnt beleive all the stuff about black magic, exetra, this is a Blind, shes just like us only different. Its true about the zombies though but its not what you think …

Genua was a strange city, Nanny decided. You got off the main streets, walked along a side road, went through a little gate and suddenly there were trees everywhere, with moss and them Ilamas hanging from them, and the ground began to wobble underfoot and become swamp. On either side of the track there were dark pools in which, here and there, among the lilies, were the kind of logs the witches had never seen before.

‘Them’s bloody big newts,’ she said.

‘They’re alligators.’

‘By gods. They must get good grub.’

‘Yeah!’

Mrs Gogol’s house itself looked a simple affair of driftwood from the river, roofed with moss and built out over the swamp itself on four stout poles. It was close enough to the centre of the city that Nanny could hear street cries and the clip-clop of hooves, but the shack in its little swamp was wreathed in silence.

‘Don’t people bother you here?’ said Nanny.

‘Not them as I don’t want to meet.’ The lily pads moved. A v-shaped ripple drifted across the nearest pool.

‘Self-reliance,’ said Granny approvingly. ‘That’s always very important.’

Nanny regarded the reptiles with a calculating stare. They tried to match it, and gave up when their eyes started watering.

‘I reckon I could just do with a couple of them at home,’ she said thoughtfully, as they slid away again. ‘Our Jason could dig another pond, no problem. What was it you said they et?’

‘Anything they want to.’

‘I knows a joke about alligators,’ said Granny, in the tones of one announcing a great and solemn truth.

‘You never!’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘I never heard you tell a joke in your whole life!’

‘Just because I don’t tell ’em don’t mean I don’t know ’em,’ said Granny haughtily. ‘It’s about this man —’

‘What man?’ said Nanny.

‘This man went into an inn. Yes. It was an inn. And he saw a sign. The sign said. “We serve every kind of sandwich.” So he said “Get me an alligator sandwich — and make it quick!”’^{47}

They looked at her.

Nanny Ogg turned to Mrs Gogol.

‘So … you live alone here, then?’ she said brightly. ‘Not a living soul around?’

‘In a manner of speakin’,’ said Mrs Gogol.

‘You see, the point is, alligators are —’ Granny began, in a loud voice, and then stopped.

The shack’s door had opened.

This was another big kitchen.^[22] Once upon a time it had provided employment for half a dozen cooks. Now it was a cave, its far corners shadowy, its hanging saucepans and tureens dulled by dust. The big tables had been pushed to one side and stacked almost ceiling high with ancient crockery; the stoves, which looked big enough to take whole cows and cook for an army, stood cold.

In the middle of the grey desolation someone had set up a small table by the fireplace. It was on a square of bright carpet. A jam-jar contained flowers that had been arranged by the simple method of grabbing a handful of them and ramming them in. The effect was a little area of slightly soppy brightness in the general gloom.

Ella shuffled a few things around desperately and then stood looking at Magrat with a sort of defensively shy smile.

‘Silly of me, really. I expect you’re used to this sort of thing,’ she said.

‘Um. Yes. Oh, yes. All the time,’ said Magrat.

‘It was just that I expected you to be a bit … older? Apparently you were at my christening?’

‘Ah. Yes?’ said Magrat. ‘Well, you see, the thing is—’

‘Still, I expect you can look like whatever you want,’ said Ella helpfully.

‘Ah. Yes. Er.’

Ella looked slightly puzzled for a moment, as if trying to work out why — if Magrat could look like whatever she wanted — she’d chosen to look like Magrat.

‘Well, now,’ she said. ‘What do we do next?’

‘You mentioned tea,’ said Magrat, buying time.

‘Oh, sure.’ Ella turned to the fireplace, where a blackened kettle hung over what Granny Weatherwax always called an optimist’s fire.^[23]

‘What’s your name?’ she said over her shoulder.

‘Magrat,’ said Magrat, sitting.

‘That’s a … nice name,’ said Ella, politely. ‘Of course, you know mine. Mind you, I spend so much time cooking over this wretched thing now that Mrs Pleasant calls me Embers. Silly, isn’t it.’

Emberella,^{48} thought Magrat. I’m fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like something you put up in the rain.

‘It could use a little work,’ she conceded.

‘I haven’t the heart to tell her off, she thinks it sounds jolly,’ she said. ‘I think it sounds like something you put up in the rain.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ said Magrat. ‘Uh. Who’s Mrs Pleasant?’

‘She’s the cook at the palace. She comes around to cheer me up when they’re out …’

Ella spun around, holding the blackened kettle like a weapon.

‘I’m not going to that ball!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not going to marry the prince! Do you understand?’

The words came out like steel ingots.

‘Right! Right!’ said Magrat, taken aback by their force.

‘He looks slimy. He makes my flesh crawl,’ said Embers darkly. ‘They say he’s got funny eyes. And everyone knows what he does at night!’

Everyone bar one, Magrat thought. No-one ever tells me things like that.

Aloud, she said: ‘Well, it shouldn’t be too much to arrange. I mean, normally it’s marrying princes that’s the hard bit.’

‘Not for me it isn’t,’ said Embers. ‘It’s all been arranged. My other godmother says I’ve got to do it. She says it’s my destiny.’

‘Other godmother?’ said Magrat.

‘Everyone gets two,’ said Ella. ‘The good one and the bad one. You know that. Which one are you?’

Magrat’s mind raced.

‘Oh, the good one,’ she said. ‘Definitely.’

‘Funny thing,’ said Ella. ‘That’s just what the other one said, too.’

Granny Weatherwax sat in her special knees-clenched, elbows-in way that put as little as possible of herself in contact with the outside world.

‘By gor’, this is good stuff,’ said Nanny Ogg, polishing her plate with what Granny could only hope was bread. ‘You ought to try a drop, Esme.’

‘Another helping, Mrs Ogg?’ said Mrs Gogol.

‘Don’t mind if I do, Mrs Gogol.’ Nanny nudged Granny in the ribs. ‘It’s really good, Esme. Just like stew.’

Mrs Gogol looked at Granny with her head on one side.

‘I think perhaps Mistress Weatherwax isn’t worried about the food,’ she said. ‘I think Mistress Weatherwax is worried about the service.’

A shadow loomed over Nanny Ogg. A grey hand took her plate away.

Granny Weatherwax gave a little cough.

‘I’ve got nothing against dead people,’ she said. ‘Some of my best friends are dead. It just don’t seem right, though, dead people walking about.’

Nanny Ogg looked up at the figure even now ladling a third helping of mysterious liquid on to her plate.