Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online Page A

visible behind a stack of linen. Most people in Lancre knew everyone else.
    “Millie Chillum?”
    The linen bobbed a curtsy.
    “Yes’m?”
    Magrat lifted up part of the stack.
    “It’s me, Magrat,” she said. “Hello.”
    “Yes’m.” Another bob.
    “What’s up with you, Millie?”
    “Yes’m.” Bob, bob.
    “I said it’s me. You don’t have to look at me like that.”
    “Yes’m.”
    The nervous bobbing continued. Magrat found her own knees beginning to jerk in sympathy but as it were behind the beat, so that as she was bobbing down she overtook the girl bobbing up.
    “If you say ‘yes’m’ again, it will go very hard with you,” she managed, as she went past.
    “Y—right, your majesty, m’m.”
    Faint light began to dawn.
    “I’m not queen yet, Millie. And you’ve known me for twenty years,” panted Magrat, on the way up.
    “Yes’m. But you’re going to be queen. So me mam told me I was to be respectful,” said Millie, still curtsying nervously.
    “Oh. Well. All right, then. Where are my clothes?”
    “Got ’em here, your pre-majesty.”
    “They’re not mine. And please stop going up and down all the time. I feel a bit sick.”
    “The king ordered ’em from Sto Helit special, m’m.”
    “Did he, eh? How long ago?”
    “Dunno, m’m.”
    He knew I was coming home, thought Magrat. How? What’s going on here?
    There was a good deal more lace than Magrat was used to, but that was, as it were, the icing on the cake. Magrat normally wore a simple dress with not much underneath it except Magrat. Ladies of quality couldn’t get away with that kind of thing. Millie had been provided with a sort of technical diagram, but it wasn’t much help.
    They studied it for some time.
    “This is a standard queen outfit, then?”
    “Couldn’t say, m’m. I think his majesty just sent ’em a lot of money and said to send you everything.”
    They spread out the bits on the floor.
    “Is this the pantoffle?”
    Outside, on the battlements, the guard changed. In fact he changed into his gardening apron and went off to hoe the beans. Inside, there was considerable sartorial discussion.
    “I think you’ve got it up the wrong way, m’m. Which bit’s the farthingale?”
    “Says here Insert Tabbe A into Slotte B. Can’t find Slotte B.”
    “These’re like saddlebags . I’m not wearing these . And this thing?”
    “A ruff, m’m. Um. They’re all the rage in Sto Helit, my brother says.”
    “You mean they make people angry? And what’s this?”
    “Brocade, I think.”
    “It’s like cardboard . Do I have to wear this sort of thing everyday ?”
    “Don’t know, I’m sure, m’m.”
    “But Verence just trots around in leather gaiters and an old jacket!”
    “Ah, but you’re queen. Queens can’t do that sort of thing. Everyone knows that, m’m. It’s all right for kings to go wandering around with their arse half out their trous—”
    She rammed her hand over her mouth.
    “It’s all right,” said Magrat. “I’m sure even kings have…tops to their legs just like everyone else. Just go on with what you were saying.”
    Millie had gone bright red.
    “I mean, I mean, I mean, queens has got to be ladylike,” she managed. “The king got books about it. Ettiquetty and stuff.”
    Magrat surveyed herself critically in the mirror.
    “It really suits you, your soon-going-to-be-majesty,” said Millie.
    Magrat turned this way and that.
    “My hair’s a mess,” she said, after a while.
    “Please m’m, the king said he’s having a hairdresser come all the way from Ankh-Morpork, m’m. For the wedding.”
    Magrat patted a tress into place. It was beginning to dawn on her that being a queen was a whole new life.
    “My word,” she said. “And what happens now?”
    “Dunno, m’m.”
    “What’s the king doing?”
    “Oh, he had breakfast early and buggered off over to Slice to show old Muckloe how to breed his pigs out of a book.”
    “So what do I do? What’s my job ?”
    Millie