Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online

Magrat went on. “It’s just like those magicians in Howondaland who keep their heart hidden in a jar somewhere, for safety, so they can’t be killed. There’s something about it in a book at the cottage.”
    “Wouldn’t have to be a big jar,” said Agnes.
    “That wasn’t fair,” said Magrat. She paused. “Well…not fair for most of the time. Often, anyway. Sometimes, at least. Can you help me with this bloody ruff?”
    There was a gurgle from the cradle.
    “What name are you giving her?” said Agnes.
    “You’ll have to wait,” said Magrat.
    That made a sort of sense, Agnes admitted, as she followed Magrat and the maids to the hall. In Lancre, you named children at midnight, so that they started a day with a new name. She didn’t know why it made sense. It just felt as though, once, someone had found that it worked. Lancrastrians never threw away anything that worked. The trouble was, they seldom changed anything that worked, either.
    She’d heard that this was depressing King Verence, who was teaching himself kinging out of books. His plans for better irrigation and agriculture were warmly applauded by the people of Lancre, who then did nothing about them. Nor did they take any notice of his scheme for sanitation, i.e., that there should be some, since the Lancrastrian idea of posh sanitation was a non-slippery path to the privy and a mail-order catalogue with really soft pages. They’d agreed to the idea of a Royal Society for the Betterment of Mankind, but since this largely consisted of as much time as Shawn Ogg had to spare onThursday afternoons Mankind was safe from too much Betterment for a while, although Shawn had invented draft excluders for some of the windier parts of the castle, for which the King had awarded him a small medal.
    The people of Lancre wouldn’t dream of living in anything other than a monarchy. They’d done so for thousands of years and knew that it worked. But they’d also found that it didn’t do to pay too much attention to what the King wanted, because there was bound to be another king along in forty years or so and he’d be certain to want something different and so they’d have gone to all that trouble for nothing. In the meantime, his job as they saw it was to mostly stay in the palace, practice the waving, have enough sense to face the right way on coins and let them get on with the plowing, sowing, growing and harvesting. It was, as they saw it, a social contract. They did what they always did, and he let them.
    But sometimes, he kinged…
    In Lancre Castle, King Verence looked at himself in the mirror, and sighed.
    “Mrs. Ogg,” he said, adjusting his crown, “I have, as you know, a great respect for the witches of Lancre but this is, with respect, broadly a matter of general policy which, I respectfully submit, is a matter for the King.” He adjusted the crown again, while Spriggins the butler brushed his robe. “We must be tolerant. Really, Mrs. Ogg, I haven’t seen you in a state like this before—”
    “They go round setting fire to people!” said Nanny, annoyed at all the respect.
    “ Used to , I believe,” said Verence.
    “And it was witches they burned!”
    Verence removed his crown and polished it withhis sleeve in an infuriatingly reasonable manner.
    “I’ve always understood they set fire to practically everybody,” he said, “but that was some time ago, wasn’t it?”
    “Our Jason heard ’em preaching once down in Ohulan and they was saying some very nasty things about witches,” said Nanny.
    “Sadly, not everyone knows witches like we do,” said Verence, with what Nanny on her overheated state thought was unnecessary diplomacy.
    “And our Wayne said they tries to turn folk against other religions,” she went on. “Since they opened up that mission of theirs even the Offlerians have upped sticks and gone. I mean, it’s one thing saying you’ve got the best god, but sayin’ it’s the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my