Free Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett Page A

candles?”
    “I spend ageth gettin them properly dribbly. Not that anyone careth.”
    “You got to get the details right, I always say,” said Nanny. “Well, well, well…so our king invited vampires, eh?”
    There was a thump as Igor slumped backward and a tinny sound as the flask landed on the cobbles. Nanny picked it up and secreted it about her person.
    “Good head for his drink,” she remarked. Not many people ever tasted Nanny Ogg’s homemade brandy; it was technically impossible. Once it encountered the warmth of the human mouth it immediately turned into fumes. You drank it via your sinuses.
    “What’re we going to do ?” said Agnes.
    “Do? He invited ’em. They’re guests,” said Nanny. “I bet if I asked him, Verence’d tell me to mind my own business. O’ course, he wouldn’t put it quite like that ,” she added, since she knew the King had no suicidal tendencies. “He’d prob’ly use the word ‘respect’ two or three times at least. But it’d mean the same thing in the end.”
    “But vampires …what’s Granny going to say?”
    “Listen, my girl, they’ll be gone tomorrow…well, today, really. We’ll just keep an eye on ’em and wave ’em goodbye when they go.”
    “We don’t even know what they look like!”
    Nanny looked at the recumbent Igor.
    “On reflection, maybe, I should’ve asked him,” she said. She brightened up. “Still, there’s one way to find them. That’s something everyone knows about vampires…”
    In fact there are many things everyone knows about vampires, without really taking into account that perhaps the vampires know them by now, too.

The castle hall was a din. There was a mob around the buffet table. Nanny and Agnes helped out.
    “Can o’ pee, anyone?” said Nanny, shoving a tray toward a likely looking group.
    “I beg your pardon?” said someone. “Oh…canapés…”
    He took a vol-au-vent and bit into it as he turned back to the group.
    “…so I said to his lordship what the hell is this? ”
    He turned to find himself under close scrutiny by the wrinkled old lady in a pointy hat.
    “Sorry?” she said.
    “This…this…this is just mashed garlic!”
    “Don’t like garlic flavor, eh?” said Nanny, sternly.
    “I love garlic, but it doesn’t like me ! This isn’t just garlic flavored, woman, it’s all garlic!”
    Nanny peered at her tray with theatrical shortsightedness.
    “No, there’s some…there’s a bit of…you’re right, perhaps we overdid it a gnat’s…I’ll just go and…just get some…I’ll just go…”
    She collided with Agnes at the entrance to the kitchen. Two trays slid to the floor, spilling garlic vol-au-vents, garlic dip, garlic stuffed with garlic and tiny cubes of garlic on a stick, stuck into a garlic.
    “Either there’s a lot of vampires in these parts or we’re doing something wrong,” said Agnes flatly.
    “ I’ve always said you can’t have too much garlic,” said Nanny.
    “Everyone else disagrees, Nanny.”
    “All right, then. What else…ah! All vampires wear evening dress in the evenings.”
    “ Everyone here is wearing some kind of evening dress, Nanny. Except us.”
    Nanny Ogg looked down. “This is the dress I always wear in the evenin’.”
    “Vampires aren’t supposed to show up in a mirror, are they?” said Agnes.
    Nanny snapped her fingers. “Good thinking!” she said. “There’s one in the lavvie. I’ll kind of hover in there. Everyone’s got to go sooner or later.”
    “But what if a man comes in?”
    “Oh, I won’t mind,” said Nanny dismissively. “I won’t be embarrassed.”
    “I think there may be objections,” said Agnes, trying to ignore the mental picture just conjured up. Nanny had a pleasant grin, but there had to be times when you didn’t want it looking at you.
    “We’ve got to do something . Supposing Granny were to turn up now, what would she think?” said Nanny.
    “We could just ask,” said Agnes.
    “What? ‘Hands up all