The Shepherd's Crown Read Online Free PDF Page A

floor in the bedroom. She hadmade some very good soap this year, fn1 and the jug and little wash basin by the bed were gleaming. The spiders in the corners, who had thought they had tenure unto Doomsday, were carefully shown the window, webs and all. Even the mattress looked clean and wholesome. Every so often You, her cat, appeared to see what was going on, and to lie on the patchwork quilt that was so flat it looked likesomeone had trodden on a huge tortoise.
    Then Granny cleaned the privy once again, just for good measure. Not an errand for a fine day, but Esmerelda Weatherwax was meticulous in these things and the privy yielded to her efforts and, yes, it shone. Amazingly so.
    Watching her, the intensity that showed on her cat’s face was remarkable. This was a different day, You sensed. A day not yet experienced.A day that bustled as if there would never be another day, and with the inside of the cottage up to scratch, You now followed Granny into the scullery.
    A bucket of water, filled from the pump by the well, did the trick there. Granny smiled. She had always liked the scullery. It smelled of hard work being done properly. Here there were also spiders, mostly hiding around the bottles and jars onthe shelves, but she thought scullery spiders didn’t really count. Live and let live.
    She went outside next, to the walled paddock at the back of the cottage, to check on her goats. The itinerary of her thinking was declaring that once again all things were in their rightful place.
    Satisfied, or as satisfied as a witch ever could be, Granny Weatherwax went to her beehives.
    ‘You are my bees,’she said to them. ‘Thank you. You’ve given me all my honey for years, and please don’t be upset when someone new comes. I hope that you will give her as much honey as you have given me. And now, for the last time, I will dance with you.’ But the bees hummed softly and danced for her instead, gently pushing her mind out of their hive. And Granny Weatherwax said, ‘I was younger when I last dancedwith you. But I am old now. There will be no more dances for me.’
    You kept away from the bees, but stalked through the garden, following Granny as she moved through the herbs, touching a frond or a leaf as she passed, and the whole garden seemed to answer her, the plants almost nodding their heads in respect.
    You narrowed her eyes and looked sideways at the plants with what might be called felinedisfavour. An onlooker might swear Granny’s herbs were sapient, as they often moved without the wind blowing. On at least one occasion, to the cat’s horror, they had actually turned round to watch her as she sneaked past on a hunting expedition. She preferred plants that did what they were told, which was mostly to stay dead still so that she could go back to sleep.
    At the far end of the herbs,Granny came to the apple tree old Mr Parsons had given her only last year, planting it roughly where anyone else would have a fence around their garden – for no witch’s cottage ever needed an actual fence or wall. Who would cross a witch? The wicked old witch in the woods? Sometimes stories can be useful for a witch without, it must be said, any fence-building skills. Granny eyed the tiny applesappearing on the bough – they had only just begun to grow and, well, time was waiting. And so she walked again back to her cottage door, acknowledging every root, stem and fruit she passed.
    She fed the goats, who looked at her askance with their slotted eyes. Their gaze followed her as she turned to the chickens, who always squabbled over their feed. Today, however, they didn’t squabble, butlooked at the old witch as if she wasn’t there.
    With the animals fed, Granny Weatherwax went into the scullery and came back with a switch of willows. She got to work, teasing every piece of resilient willow into the right place. Then, when the thing she had made was clearly excellent and fit for purpose, Granny Weatherwax left it near the foot of the