The Girl from Goat's Knee

This is intended to be Discworld Fan Fiction (Based in some of the places and on some characters brought so vividly to life by Sir Terry Pratchett). No infringement or claim on any copyright is intended.

----------

An eagle soars in the skies above Lancre; it sees much and the passenger in its mind notices more. It sees a figure striding along a track in the direction it is also going. The presence guiding its flight plan, sees a young person, probably in their late-twenties clad in sensible clothes for travelling; with boots that will withstand carrying their owner many miles a day. A cloak drapes down its back obscuring the exact clothing from the eagle's gaze; but the rider in its mind notices sleeves to the wrist and a stout stick in hand. The consciousness guiding the eagle also approves of the hat; it is a good kind of hat for a travelling person; broad-brimmed, a protection from both rain and sun, with a low-ish crown. The guiding thought tells the eagle where it wants to be; the eagle gives a shriek and wheels towards the destination. The figure pauses, looks up seeing the eagle and then continues striding toward its destination.

----------

The figure turns a corner in the track it has been striding and gets its first sight of the cottage squatting behind a patch of oddly unkempt weeds that seem to rustle out of time with the fitful breeze. The traveller looks for the path to the rear of the property; knowing that front doors are for weddings and funerals, which neither the traveller nor the cottage's occupier are likely to be a part of, except as a guest. The path to the well-tended garden at the back of the cottage is obvious and evidently much used. As the traveller reaches the back of the cottage, it calls a hesitant 'Hello!?"

The rear door swings open with barely a creak and a voice within calls, "Come in, Miss Pushneedle. I've been expecting you. I'm just putting on the kettle, would you like a cup?"

Miss Pushneedle walks to the doorway and asks, "How long have you been expecting me? And, of course, I would like a cup of tea, Mistress Weatherwax."

The woman pouring water into the kettle looks up as if to check that the figure at the door is who she had expected. Her opening gambit to appear more knowledgeable than her visitor might expect had not given the visitor the least pause, in fact she had come back with a near perfect response. "Generally speaking, I've been anticipating that you will drop by some time for the last few years, but specifically I've only known that you would be here, now, for the last half hour. Tea will be few minutes. Take a seat; that chair there is free." The gesture with her elbow indicated a simple straight-backed wooden chair.

The visitor surveys the room and her eye lands on three chairs and a stool. The furthest one, beyond the kitchen table has arms and a thin cushion on the seat. The stool is child-sized. She has not come to be pushed around, but then she wants to know something and general advice says, 'Don't antagonise someone you want something from.' She crosses the floor to the indicated chair and tucks her apparel in such a way as to be maintain her plenteous modesty, but still supplementing the seat with an extra layer or two of fabric.

"Thank you, mistress, please call me Clara," she says as she lays her stick on the floor, so that the tall bough seems to takes up a minimal amount of space.

Clara waits while the Witch of Lancre fusses with kettle, pot and cups. Soon cups of tea are being poured and Mistress Weatherwax settles into the armed chair on the other side of the table. "I trust the tea is to your liking," she says as a re-opening gambit.

The visitor says, "Just perfect, thank you," without even looking, her travels having taught her that you drink anything offered, as long as it does not smell rancid or too strongly of apple brandy. The host makes a nod of approval.

"And what brings you to my door this fine day? Business or pleasure?"

Clara is startled by second part of the question; the idea of visiting a witch, particularly such a pre-eminent one, for pleasure is an astounding thought; one she puts away to examine later. "Do you know who I am?" she asks.

"Well, your name is Clara Pushneedle, but that's not what people call you." The hostess arches an eyebrow.

"No-one has called me that for the last three years. In fact, since I last went home; to attend my sister's wedding. Most people call me 'The Girl from Goat's Knee'."

"And I don't doubt that you'll be known as 'The Girl from Goat's Knee' until the day you are buried."

Clara wonders how long it will be before that day. She suspects that she will life to a great age tramping the roads of Lancre and the surrounding kingdoms. It seems incongruous to think of herself being referred to as a 'girl' possibly into her fifties and beyond, by people of her current age.

Her thinking is paused, by Mistress Weatherwax saying, "Who you are was not my question, but 'Why are you here?'"

"Indeed, I know who I am. I am Clara Pushneedle, 'The Girl from Goats Knee'. Why I am here is to find out what I am. Am I a witch?"

"Do you want to be a witch?"

"I don't know, but I don't think so. But if I am a witch and want to know I am a witch so that I can be the best witch I can be."

"Well," started Granny Weatherwax, "I can assure you that you are not a witch. A witch knows she's a witch and that's how everyone else knows she's a witch."

Clara displays all the signs of relief. She has not had much to do with witches, but reading between the lines of the tales the folk told of witches it was work she does not feel cut out for. But it does not answer her central question. "If I'm not a witch, what am I?"

"What made you suspect that you might be a witch, because most people are certain that they are not witches?"

"I see Death a couple of times a week, surely that's not normal."

"It sounds like it's normal to you; although most people see Him, at most, once in a lifetime. I've met Him a few times myself; He's always been amenable."

"He talks to me when he comes to collect the souls of the dying, that I sit with."

"What do you talk about with Death about? The times I've met Him, He seemed to be mostly business."

"Yes, it is mostly business. I tell him what I have learnt about the person I am sitting with, because the people around a dying person always seem to want to tell me stories about what they were like before they were ill or injured or just too old to carry on. I pass the stories on, usually without the excess of detail that people seem to add to these stories; like what the weather was like and the exact time in the afternoon. He listens politely, although I get the impression that he knows most of what I tell Him already. Sometimes, He will ask a question; sometimes I can answer Him, other times He might as well be speaking in Klatchian."

"And then what?" the witch prompts.

"Nothing much. He goes away and the person that was dying is dead. I say a few words over the deceased, because it's expected, then I go and tell the family, or whoever, that the person is dead and if they said anything of note I'll pass on the person's last words; people seem to appreciate that. Although sometimes I'll pass on their next-to-last words, because a person does not want to be remembered as complaining about chest pains or lumpy mattresses and people don't want to remember the person like that either."

"Sounds sensible and compassionate to me," comments Mistress Weatherwax.

"I once asked Death what he thought about it. He seemed to think that it made little difference in the long run, so does little or no harm."

"Death does seem to take a longer view than most people. So then what happens?"

"Usually they find me a nice place to sleep and give me a good breakfast before I leave in the morning."

There is a silence in the cottage kitchen that the buzzing of the bees and the bleating of the goats in the garden does not disturb. It is punctuated by the slurping of tea from Granny Weatherwax's finest cups.

"Well," says Granny Weatherwax, "I don't say this very often; rarer still in someone's hearing. You've got me stumped. I don't know what you are. I can't think of anyone else who would know either. Well, actually I can think of one person that might, but you don't exactly send for Him, or under normal circumstances go visiting."

Clara's face holds some optimism, until she notices the capital on the word 'Him'. "I couldn't ask Him."

"Why not? You said you see Him a couple of times a week."

"Erm, well, somehow it would seem impolite to ask Him what I am."

The witch crooks an eyebrow and says, "And yet you ask me?"

Clara seems a bit flustered. She realises that she has just implied to the most powerful witch in the land that she came to insult her; not usually a great way of ensuring you survival (well, not in the shape you arrived in).  "Umm, Err, no insult intended." Her mind is suddenly whirling trying to concoct a plausible excuse.

Mistress Weatherwax decides to take pity on the young woman. "No insult taken. I take it as a compliment take you would travel so far to ask me, in the confidence (or at least hope) that I might know something that really is only for Death to know."

Clara relaxes visibly. "So, I will probably never know what I am and my proper role in this world then?"

"Unless you can find the courage to ask Him to His face or perhaps find a way of asking that does not seem rude, I fear you are right." The witch pauses noticing a change in the tone of the small noises filtering in from the garden. "Then again something may happen that will tell you purpose in life."

The quiet sounds are intruded upon by a scratching sound at the closed door, which Clara was sure she had not closed and no-one else had been near.

"Would you mind answering that? You are closer."

The young woman rises to open the door. Once opened the doorway initially seems empty until the viewers allow their gaze to descend.

On the threshold is a large rat. It appears to be waiting to be invited in. It gives the impression that this is the only time in its life that it has ever waited for an invitation to enter anywhere.

Clara looks down at the rat and knows what she needs to do, but because it not her place to be inviting rats into someone else's home, she looks across to Granny Weatherwax for some indication of what she should do.

"Do what you need to," says Granny. "I hope you don't mind if I watch; I feel sure we will both learn something."

Clara nods a combined thank you and permission to observe. Addressing the rat she says, "Please come in, ma'am." The rat has contrived to project that she is a queen rat; perhaps it is the thicket of hair that stands up on the rat's head, giving the impression of a crown, but Clara gets the feeling that this rat would give off queenliness, even if it were shaved bald.

The rat nods respectfully to the witch the other side of the table before crossing the threshold. She moves in a queenly manner despite the arthritic limp. The movement seems to be a strain.

Clara has a feeling that she needs to do something to make this rat more comfortable. A quick look round does not reveal what she is looking for. "Excuse me, Miss Weatherwax, do you have a box with some straw I could use?"

"I'll go and find something appropriate," says the witch and without complaint moves through the door to the scullery.

While Granny Weatherwax is away on her errand, a one-eyed feline head looks through the partially closed door. Greebo assesses the situation before him; a plump, but arthritic, rat halfway across the kitchen floor and the only person a robust slip of a girl. Normally, Greebo, a cat who would cause the most needy of bears to make a detour in the woods, would grab the rat and be gone, but something about this rat makes him pause. It crosses his mind that taking this rat would lead to a battle with more rats than even he could handle.

The girl, draws herself up to her full height and says, "Cat, Shoo!" An act that in most other circumstances would have resulted in claw-marks that would have lasted a life-time.

Greebo withdraws.

As Greebo slinks off, Mistress Weatherwax returns with a cardboard box bearing the name of a well-respected bootmaker of the city of Ankh-Morpork; in the box is stuffed a handful of clean straw that contrives to smell of goat. Clara accepts this and offers it as a place of rest to the queen rat. She nods a nod of gratitude and crawls into the box. As she settles on the straw, Clara lifts the box to place it respectfully on the table.

"Now what happens?" asks Granny Weatherwax.

"Nothing, until something happens. This not how it usually happens; usually, I go somewhere and get invited to attend a dying person. I don't get 'people?' coming to me." The rat queen eyes Clara with a little reproof at questioning her personhood. "In the normal run of things I'll talk with the person and tend to their lasts needs; like mopping a brow or plumping a pillow. Just normal stuff, then after a while He comes and I talk to Him for a bit and then the person is dead. And, come to think of it, I've never done this kind of thing for a royal person."

"Trust me, royalty are not much different from the rest of us, except for having some power to make life difficult, if they take a dislike to you; I knew Queen Magrat before she was a queen and she has not changed all that much since," observed the witch.

"In that case all we can do is wait for The Inevitable."

As they wait there seems to be a growing contrast between the brightness of the afternoon outside and the dimming interior of the witch's kitchen. For a short while Clara has an impulse to tickle the rat under the chin as she might a small friendly dog, but feels that it is not something you can do with a person of such royal-ness.

Granny Weatherwax is beginning to fidget; she is not used to waiting long for things (either things should happen at their appointed time or they can be brought forward for her convenience). They were waiting for something that did not seem to have an appointed time and she was not in a position to bring it forward.

There is a scratching in a dark corner of the room and out strolls a figure; a small figure clad entirely in a black-cowled robe and carrying a scythe. The figure's only features outside the robe are its skeletal paws holding the scythe and the tip of a rat's skull peeking out from the hood. The figure walks across the floor until it comes close to the chair on which Clara sits. It looks up to the table and then significantly at Clara and then back to the table.

Clara takes the hint and bends double to lay the back of her hand on the floor. As she does so, she says, "I'm sorry, I've never been in this exact situation. Where is He? I was, kind of, expecting Him."

The tiny figure steps onto Clara's palm and does not flinch when Clara lifts him. As he comes up to eye-level, he turns to face Clara and for a moment they are eye to vacant hood. "SQUEAK," it says. Without knowing how, both Clara and Mistress Weatherwax understand this to mean, 'I am DEATH of rats. It feels as I'm new to this exact kind of thing too. Thank you for your help.'

Clara gently moves her hand, so as to not dislodge the rat-figure, until it is positioned where the rat can step off onto the table, which it does.

DEATH of rats approaches the boot box and looks in. He steps back. The cowled figure seems embarrassed. In a move that might have seemed comic in another situation, he stows his scythe inside the robe and withdraws a sword with a blade the thickness of a shadow. He seems a little ill-at-ease with the sword and waves it about as if trying it for balance.

"I not sure how this is supposed to go," ventures The Girl from Goat's Knee, "but I, usually, am able to tell Him some anecdote or something about the person. But she is completely unknown to me. May I ask you a question?"

"SQUEAK," says the rat. This acknowledges Clara's quandary and indicates that a question will be acceptable, but possibly go unanswered. DEATH of rats continues to wave the sword, but appears to be getting more comfortable with it.

"Erm. What is my role in life? Or should that perhaps be, what is my role in death?"

"SQUEAK," says the rat. He returns to the queen-rat and makes a move with the sword, before returning it to under the cloak. From the box rises the shade of a rat; it radiates a royalty, but also a joy at no longer being trapped in a failing body. It is no longer a queen rat; it is the shade of a princess of rats and scuttles round the table top before fading into nothingness.

DEATH of rats bows to Mistress Weatherwax and then to Clara Pushneedle. He then takes a leap from the table, landing on Clara's lap and sliding down her skirts to the floor. He takes a moment to retrieve the scythe from under the robe before walking into the shadows and disappearing from sight.

There is a minute of silence, emphasised by the penetration of the sounds from outside the kitchen door.

Clara looks up and feels the need to do something normal, which in her case is to say a blessing of the corpse of the queen rat.

"Well, that was interesting," commented Granny. "You'll find the lid for that box in the scullery and I'll have a fresh cup brewed when you've finished burying her. (You'll find a shovel in the shed)."

----------

When the tasks are done and the two women are sipping tea again, "Well, what do you make of that?" asks Clara.

"Like I said, something happened to tell you your purpose in life. You are 'DEATH's Witness', but I think you are better advised to keep that quiet and continue introducing yourself as 'The Girl from Goat's Knee'."