He wrinkled his nose. Why was there the stink of lamp oil in the air?
‘Hello?’ he said again.
Something dropped out of the dark, bounced off his shoulder and landed on the floor with a wet thud. Stanley reached down, felt around and found a pigeon. At least, he found about half a pigeon. It was still warm, and very sticky.
Mr Gryle sat on a beam high above the hall. His stomach was on fire. It was no good, old habits died too hard. They were bred in the bone. Something warm and feathery fluttered up in front of you and of course you snapped at it. Ankh-Morpork had pigeons roosting on every gutter, cornice and statue. Not even the resident gargoyles could keep them down. He’d had six before he sailed in through the broken dome, and then another huge warm feathery cloud had risen up and a red haze had simply dropped in front of his eyes.
They were so tasty. You couldn’t stop at one! And five minutes later you remembered why you should have done.
These were feral, urban birds, that lived on what they could find on the streets. Ankh-Morpork streets, at that. They were bobbing, cooing plague pits. You might as well eat a dog turd burger and wash it down with a jumbo cup of septic tank.
Mr Gryle groaned. Best to finish the job, get out of here and go and throw up over a busy street. He dropped his oil bottle into the dark and fumbled for his matches. His species had come to fire late, because nests burned too easily, but it did have its uses . . .
Flame blossomed, high up at the far end of the hall. It dropped from the beams and landed on the stacks of letters. There was a whoomph as the oil caught fire; blue runnels of flame began to climb the walls.
Stanley looked down. A few feet away, lit by the fire crawling across the letters, was a figure curled up on the floor. The golden hat with wings lay next to it.
Stanley looked up, eyes glowing red in the firelight, as a figure swooped from the rafters and sped towards him, mouth open.
And that’s when it all went wrong for Mr Gryle, because Stanley had one of his Little Moments.
Attitude was everything. Moist had studied attitude. Some of the old nobility had it. It was the total lack of any doubt that things would go the way they expected them to go.
The maitre d’ ushered them to their table without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Can you really afford this on a government salary, Mr Lipwig?’ said Miss Dearheart as they sat down. ‘Or are we going to exit via the kitchens?’
‘I believe I have adequate funds,’ said Moist.
He probably hadn’t, he knew. A restaurant that has a waiter even for the mustard stacks up the prices. But right now Moist wasn’t worrying about the bill. There were ways to deal with bills, and it was best to deal with them on a full stomach.
They ordered starters that probably cost more than the weekly food bill for an average man. There was no point in looking for the cheapest thing on the menu. The cheapest thing theoretically existed but somehow, no matter how hard you stared, didn’t quite manage to be there. On the other hand, there were a lot of most expensive things.
‘Are the boys settling in okay?’ said Miss Dearheart.
The boys, Moist thought. ‘Oh, yes. Anghammarad has really taken to it. A natural postman,’ he said.
‘Well, he’s had practice.’
‘What’s that box he’s got riveted to his arm?’
‘That? A message he’s got to deliver. Not the original baked clay tablet, I gather. He’s had to make copies two or three times and the bronze lasts hardly any time at all, to a golem. It’s a message to King Het of Thut from his astrologers on their holy mountain, telling him that the Goddess of the Sea was angry and what ceremonies he’d have to do to placate her.’
‘Didn’t Thut slide into the sea anyway? I thought he said—’
‘Yeah, yeah, Anghammarad got there too late and was swept away by the ferocious tidal wave and the island sank.’
‘So . . . ?’ said Moist.
‘So what?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘So . . . he doesn’t think that delivering it now might be a bit on the tardy side?’
‘No. He doesn’t. You’re not seeing it like a golem. They believe the universe is doughnut-shaped.’
‘Would that be a ring doughnut or a jam doughnut?’ said Moist.
‘Ring, definitely, but don’t push for further culinary details, because I can see you’ll try to make a joke of it. They think it has no start or finish. We just keep going round and round, but we don’t have to make the same decisions every time.’
‘Like getting an angel the hard way,’ said Moist.
‘What do you mean?’ said Miss Dearheart.
‘Er . . . he’s waiting until the whole tidal wave business comes around again and this time he’ll get there earlier and do it right?’
‘Yes. Don’t point out all the flaws in the idea. It works for him.’
‘He’s going to wait for millions and millions of years?’ said Moist.
‘That’s not a flaw, not to a golem. That’s only a matter of time. They don’t get bored. They repair themselves and they’re very hard to shatter. They survive under the sea or in red-hot lava. He might be able to do it, who knows? In the meantime, he keeps himself busy. Just like you, Mr Lipwig. You’ve been very busy—’
She froze, staring over his shoulder. He saw her right hand scrabble frantically among the cutlery and grab a knife.
‘That bastard has just walked into the place!’ she hissed. ‘Readier Gilt! I’ll just kill him and join you for the pudding . . .’
‘You can’t do that!’ hissed Moist.
‘Oh? Why not?’
‘You’re using the wrong knife! That’s for the fish! You’ll get into trouble!’
She glared at him, but her hand relaxed and something like a smile appeared.
‘They don’t have a knife for stabbing rich murdering bastards?’ she said.
‘They bring it to the table when you order one,’ said Moist urgently. ‘Look, this isn’t the Drum, they don’t just throw the body on to the river! They’ll call the Watch! Get a grip. Not on the knife! And get ready to run.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I forged his signature on Grand Trunk notepaper to get us in here, that’s why.’
Moist turned round to look at the great man in the flesh for the first time. He was great, a bear-shaped man, in a frock coat big enough for two and a gold-braid waistcoat. And he had a cockatoo on his shoulder, although a waiter was hurrying forward with a shiny brass perch and, presumably, the seed-and-nut menu.
There was a party of well-dressed people with Gilt, and as they progressed across the room the whole place began to revolve around the big man, gold being very dense and having a gravity all of its own. Waiters bustled and grovelled and did unimportant things with an air of great importance, and it was probably only a matter of minutes before one of them told Gilt that his other guests had been seated. But Moist was scanning the rest of the room for the— Ah, there they were, two of them. What was it about hired muscle that made it impossible to get a suit to fit?
One was watching the door, one was watching the room, and without a shadow of a doubt there was at least one in the kitchen.
—and, yes, the maitre d’ was earning his tip by assuring the great man that his friends had been duly looked after—
—the big head, with its leonine mane, turned to stare at Moist’s table—
—Miss Dearheart murmured, ‘Oh gods, he’s coming over!’—
—and Moist stood up. The hired fists had shifted position. They wouldn’t actually do anything in here, but nor would anyone else be worried if he was escorted out with speed and firmness for a little discussion in some alley somewhere. Gilt was advancing between the tables, leaving his puzzled guests behind.
This was a job for people skills, or diving through the window. But Gilt would have to be at least marginally polite. People were listening.
‘Mr Reacher Gilt?’ said Moist.
‘Indeed, sir,’ said Gilt, grinning without a trace of humour. ‘But you appear to have me at a disadvantage.’
T do hope not, sir,’ said Moist.
‘It appears that I asked the restaurant to retain a table for you, Mr . . . Lipwig?’
‘Did you, Mr Gilt?’ said Moist, with what he knew was remarkably persuasive innocence. ‘We arrived in the hope that there might be a spare table and were astonished to find there was!’