." Nick is one of the very few people to have ever seen the great space turtle A'Tuin, he actually flew in space with A'Tuin. Ever since he actually got to see A'Tuin and save the entire world from being eaten, Nick has been a "space nut" and he looks for any news regarding his giant friend.
"That's nice, dear, now hang the almanac in the privy, we have Hogswatch to get ready for."
"Yes, dear..." Nick shouldn't complain. They have a magically heated outhouse, the only one in the Ramtop mountains. The snow swirled around outside as he hung the Almanac on the nail on the privy then he watched the snow fall on his farm before going back into the cottage. It's Hogswatch time in the mountains!
Hogswatch! That merry, mystical time of joy and happiness celebrated in the cabbage covered Sto Plains, the craggy Ramtop Mountains, mysterious Überwald and all places in between. It's even celebrated on the lost continent of XXXX. The joy of the approaching holiday encompassed the mountain communities of the tiny kingdom of Lancre and adding to the joy of the Duke and Duchess of Wægn, a son! He will turn one month old when the Hogfather comes down the chimney on Hogswatch Eve. When the word got out that the Duke and Duchess returned from foreign parts with a baby, everyone had to go to their cottage to see the baby and hear the tales.
Gifts and food baskets filled the house and very often visitors arrived with garland or other Hogswatch decorations to brighten up the holiday. The mountain people opened their hearts to Nick and Octavia, their generosity brought tears of gratitude to the new parents. The people of Tallywiffle County listened over and over to their stories of how Marlon was born, never tiring of the story and not believing a single word. Tales of foreign parts, dragons, pirates, searching armies, escaping from dangerous creatures, it was so preposterous! But why would their duke and duchess lie to them? Then they laid the most unbelievable tale on the people of Lancre. They said that they knew practically nothing of Hogswatch.
How is such a thing possible? Hogswatch is a nearly universal holiday for over half of the people who live on the discworld. For Octavia she knew a little about it but not every foster family she lived with celebrated it. She usually spent the holiday with her stepfather, an orangutan (due to a magical accident) and they spent the holiday at the Unseen University library eating bananas and banana cream pie.
Pommeraie de la Montesquieu "Nick" Worblehat-Stein, Duke of Wægn, is royalty, but he's not posh. He was born in the gutter, and it went downhill from there. For young Pommy Stein, Hogswatch was the day the pennies stop. He grew up a street urchin, and he begged for pennies and picked through garbage to survive. During the Hogswatch holiday shopping season, the people of Ankh-Morpork were generous with their pennies, but on Hogswatch Day the pennies stopped. People didn't go out that day, then after that they were their normal grouchy, miserly selves for another year. It was confusing to a motherless six-year-old boy who was abandoned by his father, and the only thing that kept him alive through those wet, miserable Ankh-Morpork winters was an old wool blanket and his best friend, a talking dog.
Queen Magrat heard those stories from Nick and Octavia themselves and decided that she would not allow that in her royal court. The Duke and Duchess of Wægn must revel in the holiday joy. In fact, she enlisted the help of a talking dog. Gaspode, Nick's best friend, became a spy for the queen, telling her what Nick and Octavia needed most for Hogswatch. "Yer highness, the only complaint other than the baby interrupting their mating pattern, is that they don't want to go to official functions because they don't know what to wear."
"Thank you doggy, you were a great help," and the queen handed Gaspode his pay, a raw steak.
Not long after the birth of Marlon and their return to Creel Springs, Queen Magrat had a Royal Baby shower for the next Duke of Wægn. The men and women of the court gathered, the women in the Queen's chambers, the men in the castle drawing room, which looked remarkably like a corner pub. Gaspode was welcome in both celebrations. The men were throwing darts and tossing back ale when Nick stood up to the line to throw. He's already scored 475 points, he just needs 26 to win. "Are you ready for the holidays in your little cottage, yer grace?" asked Lord Harcourt, the exchequer of the kingdom. Lord Harcourt may be in his 80s but he can still add, subtract and hold his pint.
"We have a tree and a dozen fairies and Octavia is decorating the living room to mimic the great hall and throne room with pine boughs and glitter." Then he threw a five, a one, and a double ten to win. Darts was Nick's top skill, he fed himself for a couple of years through his play.
"And what else, my boy?" asked Lord Baltimore, head of intelligence for the king and the only other duke in the kingdom. He governed the Duchy of Pellingham on the rimward side of Lancre. Like Wægn, the Duchy of Pellingham was long and narrow, a buffer-zone between Lancre and the rest of the discworld. Nick liked Lord Baltimore, their duchies were nearly identical and, like Nick, Lord Baltimore actively encouraged the witches in his duchy and he even financed their coven gatherings.
Nick looked surprised. "There's more?"
"There's more?" echoed a small wire-haired terrier curled up in front of the fireplace.
"My dear lad, there is so much more!" chuckled Lord Cadence, Baron of Thrash and Prime Minister. Thrash is the Barony widdershins of Wægn that contains the now all important train station in Hot Dang.
"You act like you've never seen a Hogswatch before," said Lord Laird, lead lord in the house of lords and the Count of Glasnost.
"Not in our neighborhood," growled Gaspode, now getting up and stretching.
"To be honest, no. We didn't celebrate Hogswatch in the Shades," said Nick. He wasn't sure if the dignified gentlemen of the court knew that the Shades were the darkest slums on the disk. Nick never said much about his life before meeting Octavia. He's not ashamed of growing up an orphan in the streets of Ankh-Morpork. In that school of hard knocks, he earned the highest honors; he lived. These powdered, pompous lords who grew up eating from China with silver utensils would never understand eating from trash cans with your fingers, homelessness, begging for pennies, and watching childhood friends die in the gutter.
"There's so much more," said Lord Slipspring, viscount of Stormchester and head of security. "The household decorations simply set the stage!" Nick didn't like Slipspring, he's always pushing the king to build up a larger standing army to protect the borders. He was always claiming that foreign agents were aching to invade Lancre for its natural resources. The primary natural resource in Lancre is lumber. There is one small iron mine, two coal mines, a salt mine, and several exploratory mines up on Copperhead Mountain. Other than that, there are potatoes and steep roadways. Just to raise the ire of Lord Slipspring, Nick would always counter his arguments with a cry to spend the security money on local police, based on Ankh-Morpork's Night Watch, to end the thieves and bandits that line up on dark roads waiting for travelers. While Lord Slipspring envisions enemy battalions at the border, there are actual bandits in the forests preying on innocent farmers and other travelers.
"We only have three rooms in our cottage, living room, nursery, and bedroom," said Nick, still confused at the lords' call for more. "Are we to decorate the outhouse also?"
They were not laughing at the idea of decorating the outhouse; they were laughing at the thought of living in a three-room cottage, and the only people not laughing at that remark were Nick and King Verance II. The king was raised here in this castle but he and Queen Magrat have been guests at Nick's cottage and found it to be filled with love, laughter and fellowship and he much preferred spending a night on the couch in Nick and Octavia's cottage instead of a moment in any of the cold, stone mansions of the rest of his court. In fact, most of the members of his court owned a second house in Lancre, Nick instead would run (or fly) the twenty miles to the castle when summoned.
"The Wednesday before Hogswatch is Woodpile Wednesday. That's when you share the extra wood from your woodpile with those in need," said the King. "But don't look so crestfallen. I know you, Sir Nick, you'd share your wood pile until your family freezes. This year you need to monitor how much wood your family uses in a winter, so you know what you can afford to share next year."
"Wise advice," said Nick, who was upset with himself that he missed the opportunity to share with his people.
"There are the Hogswatch cards," said Lord Baltimore, "The idea is to hand out gaily decorated postcards to your neighbors and friends. It would give you a chance to check up on your people in need. How did you not know this?"
"I grew up in Ankh-Morpork," said Nick.
"There is no excuse for ignorance, m'boy," said Lord Cadence, the Prime Minister, as he puffed himself up.
"But in this case, we'll make an exception," said Lord Harcourt, the exchequer, the kingdom's treasurer. Nick liked him because he worked actively with Nick to straighten out the mess that previous holders of his title had made of the Wægn accounts. Through hard work, they discovered that the Duchy had a substantial sum of money in its account and Nick has some ideas of how to improve the Duchy in particular, the center of the duchy, Tallywiffle county. "Let's start with the King's dinner," continued Lord Harcourt, "are you planning to wear the same denim and flannel outfit that you grace us with normally?"
