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"He didn't ought to have said it," Jason Ogg said. His bass voice shook. "He didn't--"
"You're right, Mr. Ogg," said Geoffrey Swivel in his light tenor. "It was a very unkind thing to say. Now, I was wondering if you could help me home, Mr. Ogg. I can't hold my drink and I fear I'm a bit legless."
"What?" The huge blacksmith blinked. "Oh. 'Course, lad."
In the dead silence of the pub, the barman and his patrons all remembered to breathe.
Geoffrey clicked his tongue. His little billy goat, Mephistopheles, trotted to his side from where it’d been holding someone at bay in the corner. Someone Jason had been aiming to kill.
***
A few crowded minutes earlier, that same someone had cracked a loud joke about Jason, whose wife had left him earlier that very day for a traveling fertilizer salesman from Ohulan. It was already the talk of Lancre, where gossip travels fast.*
* Usually at the speed of a witch's broom, although not in this case. Not if they wanted to avoid the wrath of Nanny Ogg in full mum mode.
“I bought me a bull today,” said the man in the slow, ripe tones of someone who thought he was a wit but was only half of one, “but I ort to ask for my money back.”
“Why’s that, Abner?” his friend -- or at least, a small man trapped at the same table with him -- asked dutifully.
“Why, 'coz his horns ain’t as big as Jason Ogg’s.” *
If phonographs had existed on the Disc, the next sound would have been a needle scraping across a vinyl record. Every conversation in the Goat & Bush stopped dead. The friend’s gargling-frog laugh stuttered to a halt. The very next sound was a chair scraping backwards. Jason Ogg rose to his feet like … well, like a very large and angry man.
* Go look up Shakespearean cuckold jokes from Much Ado About Nothing. Horns. Lots of horns. It probably made sense in 1598.
Perhaps, the barman reflected with the clarity of absolute terror, Jason's missus had finally snapped after years of terrified domestic servitude at the beck and call of her fearsome mother-in-law, Nanny Ogg. Perhaps her new salesman friend just had a way with words. It didn’t matter now, especially not to the patrons, who were busy diving for the floor or the exits.
The barman didn't know what to do. Jason was the one he always called in to break up fights. The big man would pick up the two combatants, tuck one under each muscled arm like so much cordwood, and carry them out into the night air. The drinkers inside would hear the clunk of two hard heads being knocked together as gently as possible, followed by an apologetic rumble from Jason. A few minutes later the two lightly concussed parties would stagger back inside to share an embarrassed smoko and stand Jason to a pint.
But who could stop the biggest, strongest man in the village?
Jason bore down on his target like a continent with a grudge. Abner raised his fists while the color drained from his face.*
"Och aye, it's murder's going to be done," muttered an old man from under a table.
* Something else drained too, judging by the steaming puddle at Abner's feet.
And then someone blocked Jason's path. A small man -- a boy, really. The boy who was training to be a witch. No one had seen him come in but there he stood. Geoffrey Swivel, whom the barman reckoned to be nearly a foot shorter than Jason Ogg and eight stone lighter, raised one small hand and placed it on the big man's sternum.
The bystanders braced themselves. Gentler souls turned away rather than watch what would happen to the little lad.
And what happened was … nothing. Jason’s bloodshot eyes tried to focus on this boy who by now should be a smear on the floor. Clear blue eyes gazed back at him.
Young Geoffrey wasn't the kind of witch they'd all grown up with, the barman thought, but a witch he was. Hadn't Mistress Aching herself said so? And everyone knew you didn't cross a witch.
Everyone, that is, except the same idiot who thought it was a good idea to have a laugh at the expense of a sixteen-stone blacksmith.
"Out of the way, you little poofter," Abner sneered at the witch. “This is between men.”
Jason growled and moved to brush past Geoffrey. But two things happened. Suddenly Abner found himself crotch-to-horns with a billy goat. The goat didn't butt him* but no matter where Abner moved the goat was blocking his way, and steering him backwards.
And Geoffrey, hand still resting on Jason’s heaving chest, said, “No.”
* Fortunately for the man’s ability to father children.
The barman was surprised to see tears running down Geoffrey's cheeks. So was Jason, apparently. Shock made its way across his big face, followed by concern. Huge hands gently cupped the boy’s face, like an earthmover picking up an egg. "What's the matter, lad? Did I 'urt you?"
"No, Mr. Ogg. You would never do that. But it hurts to see a good man hurting." The hand stayed in its place on the blacksmith's barrel chest.
The sound of Jason’s breathing filled the quiet room, like the huffing of one of those new steam engines.
"He didn't ought to have said it…”
And then Geoffrey, who in the barman’s expert opinion was sober as a judge, claimed to be staggering drunk, took Jason by the hand, and led him out. The goat followed.
The silent crowd heard a gentle murmur outside in a light tenor voice, followed by a bass rumble. Another murmur. A pause. And then an inarticulate bellow that rattled the windows, followed by wrenching sobs that made every one of them wince.
"I reckon we should go check--" someone began, just as the door creaked open and the goat stuck its head in. After a long and meaningful Look at the men inside, the goat withdrew.
"--or not."
The light tenor murmur came back, low and soothing. The sobs lessened, and the bass rumble seemed to ask a question that the murmur answered warmly. Before long the two voices outside grew distant, accompanied by a goaty clip-clop that dopplered away into the twilight.
"All right then," the barman croaked. “Show’s over.” Slowly, with many a glance back at the door, conversations started up again.
"You." The barman pointed at the source of the trouble. Everyone, including his erstwhile friend, was giving Abner a wide berth. "Out. Now. He might come back."
"So? I ain't scared!" said Abner in the face of the liquid evidence at his feet.
'His old mum stops in for a pint most nights too," the barman said. He looked for any sign of recognition on Abner's gormless face. "You know. Mrs. Ogg? The witch?"
"Oh bugger!" The man legged it, leaving a trail behind him. The barman sighed and fetched a mop.
A half-hour or so later, Nanny Ogg ambled into the Goat & Bush and occupied her preferred stool.*
*Someone else was occupying it at the time, but not for long.
"Pint of the usual, Mrs. Ogg?" asked the barman in a voice that aimed for casual cheeriness but got lost on the way.
"Yes indeed, I'm parched." Nanny Ogg looked about but no one met her eyes. She cocked her head and seemed to sniff the air.
"Calm-weaver's been and gone, I see," she said.
"Calm-weaver, Mrs. Ogg?"
"You know, young Geoffrey what stays at Granny's old place. Ain't you noticed? Wherever he goes, calm follows. Lad has a gift."
"Aye, that he does." The barman, still surfing a wave of fervent relief, made a mental note to leave a bottle of best brandy at the calm-weaver's door.
"'Course his billy goat follows too, which ain't always calm, but ol' Mephistopheles has a good heart. A mean kick too."
And a bucket of the nicer sort of kitchen scraps for the lad's goat wouldn't go amiss. The barman added it to his mental note.
Nanny had another look round, and he wondered what a witch could see. "Our Jason's been here too," she said in a quiet voice that still managed to carry to every corner of the room.
The patrons engaged in a quick round of Let's All Stare at Our Drinks.
"Couldn't say, Mrs. Ogg," the barman murmured. He served up her pint.
She eyed him over the rim of her glass, giving the distinct impression that she could read the contents of his mind right down to the footnotes. "Hmm," she said to her ale.
The barman wiped the sudden cold sweat from his brow. "Now that you mention it, Mrs. Ogg, I do believe I may have seen him earlier. A bit upset, he was, but --"
"But he left with Geoffrey," she said with a glance at the door. "So that's all right then. The little lad will see him home." She took another contemplative quaff. "He'll be good for our Jason."
From the whole fleet of questions sailing around in his mind, the barman picked one. “But how did the lad know?”
“Like I said, he has a gift. All witches do, of one kind or another."
She finished her pint* and reached down. The barman heard a twang that sounded suspiciously like knicker elastic, followed by another twang that sounded suspiciously like – oh dear. How in the seven hells, he thought, could she fit that in her –
"Who's up for a good old-fashioned sing-along?" Nanny asked, straightening back up. She tuned her banjo from a sour boing to a slightly less grating pang. The barman heard something shatter behind him. Oh well, he thought, those wine glasses didn't get much use anyway.
His patrons perked up. A bit of temporary hearing loss was worth it, they felt, in exchange for a jug of Nanny's scumble that would no doubt be making the rounds in a few minutes.**
"Come on! You all know the words: Ohhh, you can bugger a bear if you do it with care…"
The barman viewed all this with equanimity, once he’d donned the thick earmuffs his missus had knitted for him after last time. He couldn't charge for the scumble, and it might eat through the floorboards a bit (and subsequently through the stones in the cellar), but it certainly got his clientele in a happy and free-spending mood. And what could it hurt, he thought; it was just apples.***
"... A moose is amusing, a squid quite confusing, or roger a rhino if you’re ready for bruising… "
And just like that, she had put Jason and young Geoffrey out of everyone's minds. All witches have a gift indeed, the barman thought.
He wondered about the odd, and oddly sweet, pairing of the huge blacksmith and the small witch, and decided they both deserved a bit of happiness just now. He eyed the shattered wine glasses and went to fetch his dustpan.
"...You can fondle the fleas at the flea-market stall, but the hedgehog can never be buggered at all!"
***
* Her first pint, that is.
** After the first few verses, the jug would somehow appear from the mysterious depths of Nanny's knicker leg, which was also rumored to hold a king's ransom in gold coins, a string of flags of all nations, a small pocket universe, and a big bag of sweets.
*** Well, mainly apples.