'Lady Volentia D'Arrangement!'

She reached the top of the stairs. The butler who was announcing the arrivals looked her up and down and then, in the manner of one who had been coached carefully all afternoon for this very moment, bellowed:

'Er . . . Mysterious and beautiful stranger!'

Silence spread out from the bottom of the steps like spilled paint. Five hundred heads turned to look at Magrat.

A day before, even the mere thought of having five hundred people staring at her would have melted Magrat like butter in a furnace. But now she stared back, smiled, and raised her chin haughtily.

Her fan snapped open like a gunshot.

The mysterious and beautiful stranger, daughter of Simplicity Garlick, granddaughter of Araminta Garlick, her self-possession churning so strongly that it was crystallizing out on the sides of her personality . . .

. . . stepped out.

A moment later another guest stalked past the butler.

The butler hesitated. Something about the figure worried him. It kept going in and out of focus. He wasn't entirely certain if there was anyone else there at all.

Then his common sense, which had temporarily gone and hidden behind something, took over. After all, it was Samedi Nuit Mort - people were supposed to dress up and look weird. You were allowed to see people like that.

'Excuse me, er, sir,' he said. 'Who shall I say it is?'

I'M HERE INCOGNITO.

The butler was sure nothing had been said, but he was also certain that he had heard the words.

'Urn. . . fine ..." he mumbled. 'Go on in, then . . . urn.' He brightened. 'Damn good mask, sir.'

He watched the dark figure walk down the steps, and leaned against a pillar.

Well, that was about it. He pulled a handkerchief out from his pocket, removed his powdered wig, and wiped his brow. He felt as though he'd just had a narrow escape, and what was even worse was that he didn't know from what.

He looked cautiously around, and then sidled into the ante-room and took up a position behind a velvet curtain, where he could enjoy a quiet roll-up.

He nearly swallowed it when another figure loped silently up the red carpet. It was dressed like a pirate that had just raided a ship carrying black leather goods for the discerning customer. One eye had a patch over it. The other gleamed like a malevolent emerald. And no-one that big ought to be able to walk that quietly.

The butler stuck the dog-end behind his ear.

'Excuse me, milord,' he said, running after the man and touching him firmly yet respectfully on the arm. 'I shall need to see your tic ... your ... tic . . ,'

The man transferred his gaze to the hand on his arm. The butler let go hurriedly.

'Wrowwwl?'

'Your . . . ticket. . .'

The man opened his mouth and hissed.

'Of course,' said the butler, backing away with the efficient speed of someone who certainly isn't being paid enough to face a needle-toothed maniac in black leather, 'I expect you're one of the Duc's friends, yes?'

Wrowwl.'

'No problem ... no problem . . . but Sir has forgotten Sir's mask . . .'

'Wrowwl?'

The butler waved frantically to a side-table piled high with masks.

'The Duc requested that everyone here is masked,' said the butler. 'Er. I wonder if Sir would find something here to his liking?'

There's always a few of them, he thought to himself. It says 'Masque' in big curly letters on the invite, in gold yet, but there's always a few buggers who thinks it means it's from someone called Maskew. This one was quite likely looting towns when he should have been learning to read.

The greasy man stared at the masks. All the good ones had been taken by earlier arrivals, but that didn't seem to dismay him.

He pointed.

'Want that one,' he said.

'Er ... a ... very good choice, my lord. Allow me to help you on - '

'Wrowwl!'

The butler backed away, clutching at his own arm.

The man glared at him, then dropped the mask over his head and squinted out through an eyehole at a mirror.

Damn odd, the butler thought. I mean, it's not the kind of mask the men choose. They go for skulls and birds and bulls and stuff like that. Not cats.

The odd thing was that the mask had just been a pretty ginger cat head when it was on the table. On its wearer it was . . . still a cat head, only a lot more so, and somehow slightly more feline and a lot nastier than it should have been.

'Aaalwaaays waanted to bee ginger,' said the man.

'On you it looks good, sir,' trilled the butler.

The cat-headed man turned his head this way and that, clearly in love with what he was seeing.

Greebo yowled softly and happily to himself and ambled into the ball. He wanted something to eat, someone to fight, and then . . . well, he'd have to see.

For wolves and pigs and bears, thinking that they're human is a tragedy. For a cat, it's an experience.

Besides, this new shape was a lot more fun. No-one had thrown an old boot at him for over ten minutes.

The two witches looked around the room.

'Odd,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Not what I'd expect in, you know, a royal bedroom.'

'Is it a royal bedroom?'

'There's a crown on the door.'

'Oh.'

Granny looked around at the decor.

'What do you know about royal bedrooms?' she said, more or less for something to say. 'You've never been in a royal bedroom.'

'I might have been,' said Nanny.

'You never have!'

'Remember young Verence's coronation? We all got invited to the palace?' said Nanny. 'When I went to have a - to powder my nose I saw the door open, so I went in and had a bit of a bounce up and down.'

'That's treason. You can get put in prison for that,' said Granny severely, and added, 'What was it like?'

'Very comfy. Young Magrat doesn't know what she's missing. And it was a lot better than this, I don't mind saying,' said Nanny.

The basic colour was green. Green walls, green floor. There was a wardrobe and a bedside table. Even a bedside rug, which was green. The light filtered in through a window filled with greenish glass.

'Like being at the bottom of a pond,' said Granny. She swatted something. 'And there's flies everywhere!' She paused, as if thinking very hard, and said, 'Hmm ..."

'A Duc pond,' said Nanny.

There were flies everywhere. They buzzed on the window and zigzagged aimlessly back and forth across the ceiling.

'Duc pond,' Nanny repeated, because people who make that kind of joke never let well alone, 'like duck - '

'I heard,' said Granny. She flailed at a fat bluebottle.

'Anyway, you'd think there wouldn't be flies in a royal bedroom,' muttered Nanny.

'You'd think there'd be a bed, in fact,' said Granny.

Which there wasn't. What there was instead, and what was preying somewhat on their minds, was a big round wooden cover on the floor. It was about six feet across. There were convenient handles.

They walked around it. Flies rose up and hummed away.

'I'm thinking of a story,' said Granny.

'Me too,' said Nanny Ogg, her tone slightly shriller than usual. 'There was this girl who married this man and he said you can go anywhere you like in the palace but you mustn't open that door and she did and she found he'd murdered all his other ..."

Her voice trailed off.

Granny was staring hard at the cover, and scratching her chin.

'Put it like this,' said Nanny, trying to be reasonable against all odds. 'What could we possibly find under there dial's worse than we could imagine?'

They each took a handle.

Five minutes later Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg stepped outside the Duc's bedroom. Granny closed the door very quietly.

They stared at one another.

'Cor,' said Nanny, her face still pale.

'Yes,' said Granny. 'Stories!'

'I'd heard about . . . you know, people like him, but I never believed it. Yuk. I wonder what he looks like.'

'You can't tell just by lookin',' said Granny.

'It explains the flies, at any rate,' said Nanny Ogg.

She raised a hand to her mouth in horror.

'And our Magrat's down there with him!' she said. 'And you know what's going to happen. They're going to meet one another and - '

'But there's hundreds of other people,' said Granny. 'It's hardly what you'd call intimate.'

'Yes . . . but even the thought of him, you know, even touching her ... I mean, it'd be like holding a -*

'Does Ella count as a princess, d'you think?' said Granny.

'What? Oh. Yeah. Probably. For foreign parts. Why?'

'Then that means there's more than one story here. Lily's letting several happen all at the same time,' said Granny. 'Think about it. It's not touching that's the trick. It's kissing.'

'We've got to get down there!' said Nanny. 'We've got to stop it! I mean, you know me, I'm no prude, but . . . yuk . . .'

'I say! Old woman!'

They turned. A small fat woman in a red dress and a towering white wig was peering haughtily at them from behind a fox mask.

'Yes?' snapped Granny.

'Yes, my lady,' said the fat woman. 'Where are your manners? I demand that you direct me to the powder room this instant! And what do you think you're doing?'

This was to Nanny Ogg, who was walking around her and staring critically at her dress.

'You're a 20, maybe a 22?' said Nanny.

'What? What is this impertinence?'

Nanny Ogg rubbed her chin thoughtfully. 'Well, I dunno,' she said, 'red in a dress has never been me. You haven't got anything in blue, have you?'

The choleric woman turned to strike Nanny with her fan, but a skinny hand tapped her on the shoulder.

She looked up into Granny Weatherwax's face.

As she passed out dreamily she was aware of a voice, a long way off, saying, 'Well, that's me fitted. But she's never a size 20. And if I had a face like that I'd never wear red . . .'

Lady Volentia D'Arrangement relaxed in the inner sanctum of the ladies' rest room. She removed her mask and fished an errant beauty spot from the depths of her decolletage. Then she reached around and down to try and adjust her bustle, an exercise guaranteed to produce the most ridiculous female gymnastics on every world except those where the panty girdle had been invented.

Apart from being as well-adapted a parasite as the oak bracket fungus Lady Volentia D'Arrangement was, by and large, a blameless sort of person. She always attended events for the better class of charity, and made a point of knowing the first names of nearly all her servants - the cleaner ones, at least. And she was, on the whole, kind to animals and even to children if they had been washed and didn't make too much noise. All in all, she didn't deserve what was about to happen to her, which was the fate Mother Nature had in store for any woman in this room on this night who happened to have approximately the same measurements as Granny Weatherwax.

She was aware of someone coming up beside her.

'S'cuse me, missus.'

It turned out to be a small, repulsive lower-class woman with a big ingratiating smile.

'What do you want, old woman?' said Lady Volentia.

'S'cuse me,' said Nanny Ogg. 'My friend over there would like a word with you.'

Lady Volentia looked around haughtily into . . .

. . . icy, blue-eyed, hypnotic oblivion.

'What's this thing like an extra bu . . . hobo?'

'It's a bustle, Esme.'

'It's damn uncomfortable is what it is. I keep on feeling someone's following me around.'

'The white suits you, anyway.'

'No it don't. Black's the only colour for a proper witch. And this wig is too hot. Who wants a foot of hair on their heads?'

Granny donned her mask. It was an eagle's face in white feathers stuck with sequins.

Nanny adjusted some unmentionable underpinning somewhere beneath her crinoline and straightened up.