He ducked slightly.
‘A man?’ said Granny.
‘For protection,’ said Bucket in a little voice.
‘Although who’d protect him we really couldn’t say,’ said Salzella under his breath.
‘We thought perhaps one of the staff. . .’ Bucket mumbled.
‘Ai am quate capable of finding my own man should the need arise,’ said Granny, in a voice with snow on it.
Bucket’s polite reply died in his throat when he saw, just behind Lady Esmerelda, Mrs Ogg grinning like a full moon.
‘Anyone for pudding?’ she said.
She held a big bowl on a tray. There seemed to be a heat haze over it.
‘My word,’ he said, ‘that looks delicious!’
Enrico Basilica looked over the top of his food with the expression of a man who has had the amazing privilege of going to heaven while still alive.
‘Mmmf!’
It was damp. And, with the demise of Mr Pounder, there were indeed rats.
The stone looked old, too. Of course, all stone was old, Agnes told herself, but this had grown old as masonry. Ankh-Morpork had been here for thousands of years. Where other cities were built on clay or rock or loam, Ankh-Morpork was built on Ankh-Morpork. People constructed new buildings on the remains of earlier ones, knocking out a few doorways here and there to turn ancient bedrooms into cellars.
The stairs petered out on damp flagstones, in almost total darkness.
Perdita thought it looked romantic and gothic.
Agnes thought it looked gloomy.
If someone used this place they’d need lights, wouldn’t they? And a fumbling search confirmed it. She found a candle and some matches tucked into a niche in the wall.
That was sobering for Agnes and Perdita together. Someone used this prosaic book of matches with a picture of a grinning troll on the cover, and this piece of perfectly ordinary candle. Perdita would have preferred a flaming torch. Agnes didn’t know what she would have preferred. It was just that, if a mysterious person came and sang in the walls, and moved around the place like a ghost, and possibly killed people. . . well, you’d prefer a bit more style than a box of matches with a picture of a grinning troll on it. That was the sort of thing a murderer would use.
She lit the candle and, in two minds about it all, went on into the dark.
Chocolate Delight with Special Secret Sauce was a great success and heading down the little red lane as though hotwired.
‘More, Mr Salzella?’ said Bucket. ‘This really is first-class stuff; isn’t it? I must congratulate Mrs Clamp.’
‘There is a certain piquancy, I must say,’ said the director of music. ‘How about you, Senor Basilica?’
‘Mmmf.’
‘Lady Esmerelda?’
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ said Granny, passing her plate across.
‘I’m sure I detect a hint of cinnamon,’ said the interpreter, a brown ring around his mouth.
‘Indeed, and possibly just a trace of nutmeg,’ said Mr Bucket.
‘I thought. . . cardamom?’ said Salzella.
‘Creamy yet spicy,’ said Bucket. His eyes unfocused slightly. ‘And curiously. . . warming.’
Granny stopped chewing, and looked down suspiciously at her plate.
Then she sniffed at her spoon.
‘Is it, er. . .is it just me, or is it a trifle. . . warm in here?’ said Bucket.
Salzella had gripped the arms of his chair. His forehead glistened. ‘Do you think we could open a window?’ he said. ‘I feel a little. . . strange.’
‘Yes, by all means,’ said Bucket.
Salzella half-rose, and then a preoccupied expression suffused his features. He sat down suddenly.
‘No, I rather believe I’ll just sit quietly for a moment,’ he said.
‘Oh, dear,’ said the interpreter. There was a hint of vapour around his collar.
Basilica tapped him politely on the shoulder, grunted hopefully, and made pass-it-here motions in the direction of the half-finished dish of chocolate pudding.
‘Mmmf?’ he said.
‘Oh, dear,’ said the interpreter.
Mr Bucket ran a finger around his collar. Sweat was beginning to roll down his face.
Basilica gave up on his stricken colleague and reached across in a businesslike way to hook the dish with his fork.
‘Er. . . Yes,’ said Bucket, trying to keep his eyes away from Granny.
‘Yes. . . indeed,’ said Salzella, his voice coming from a long way away.
‘Oh, dear,’ said the interpreter, his eyes watering.
‘Ai! Meu Deus! Dio Mio! O Goden! D’zuk f’t! Aagorahaa!’
Senor Basilica upended the rest of the Special Secret Sauce on to his plate and carefully scraped out the dish with his spoon, holding it upside-down to reach the last little bit.
‘The weather has been a little. . . cool of late,’ Bucket managed. ‘Very cold, in fact.’
Enrico held the sauce-dish up to the light and regarded it critically in case there was any drop hiding in a corner.
‘Snow, ice, frost. . . that sort of thing,’ said Salzella. ‘Yes, indeed! Coldness of all descriptions, in fact.’
‘Yes! Yes!’ said Bucket gratefully. ‘And at a time like this I think it is very important to try to remember the names of, say, any number of boring and hopefully chilly things!’
‘Wind, glaciers, icicles-‘
‘Not icicles!’
‘Oh,’ said the interpreter, and slumped forward into his plate. His head hit a spoon, which cartwheeled into the air and bounced off Enrico’s head.
Salzella started to whistle under his breath and pound the arm of his chair.
Bucket blinked. In front of him was the water jug. The cold water jug. He reached out. . .
‘Oh, oh, oh, dear me, what can I say, I seem to have spilled it all over myself,’ he said, through the rising clouds of steam. ‘What a butterfingers I am, to be sure. I shall ring for Mrs Ogg to bring us another one.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Salzella. ‘And perhaps you would care to do it soon? I am also feeling very. . . accident-prone.’
Basilica, still chewing, lifted his interpreter’s head off the table and carefully tipped the man’s unfinished pudding into his own plate.
‘In fact, in fact, in fact,’ said Salzella, ‘I think I shall just. . . have a brisk. . . have a nice cold. . .if you would excuse me a minute. . .’
He pushed back his chair and fled the room in a kind of crouching gait.
Mr Bucket glistened. ‘I’ll just, I’ll just, I’ll just. . . be back quite shortly,’ he said, and scurried away.
There was silence, broken only by the scrape of Senor Basilica’s spoon and a sizzling noise from the interpreter.
Then the tenor belched baritone. ‘Whoops, pardon my Klatchian,’ he said. ‘Oh. . . damn.’
He appeared to notice the depleted table for the first time. He shrugged, and smiled hopefully at Granny. ‘Is there a cheeseboard, do you think?’ he said.
The door flew open and Nanny Ogg burst in, holding a bucket of water in both hands.
‘All right, all right, that’s-‘ she began, and then stopped.
Granny dabbed primly at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ogg?’ she said.
Nanny looked at the empty dish in front of Basilica.
‘Or perhaps some fruit?’ said the tenor. ‘A few nuts?’
‘How much has he had?’ she whispered.
‘Best part of half,’ said Granny. ‘But I don’t reckon it’s having any effect on account of not touching the sides.’
Nanny turned her attention to Granny’s plate. ‘How about you?’ she said.
‘Two helpings,’ said Granny. ‘With extra sauce, Gytha Ogg, may you be forgiven.’
Nanny looked at her with something like admiration in her eyes. ‘You ain’t even sweating!’ she said.
Granny picked up her water glass and held it at arm’s length.
After a few seconds, the water began to boil.
‘All right, you’re getting really good, I’ve got to admit it,’ said Nanny. ‘I reckon I should have to get up real early to put one over on you.’
‘I reckon you should never go to sleep,’ said Granny.
‘Sorry, Esme.’
Senor Basilica, at a loss to follow the conversation, realized with reluctance that the meal was probably over.
‘Absolutely superb,’ he said. ‘I just loved that pudding, Mrs Ogg.’
‘I should just jolly well expect you did, Henry Slugg,’ said Nanny.
Henry carefully removed a clean handkerchief from his pocket, put it over his face, and leaned back in his chair. The first snore occurred a few seconds later.
‘He’s easy to have around, isn’t he?’ said Nanny. ‘Eat, sleep and sing. You certainly know where you are with him. I’ve found Greebo, by the way. He’s still following Walter Plinge around.’ Her expression became a little defiant. ‘Say what you like, young Walter’s all right by me if Greebo likes him.’
Granny sighed. ‘Gytha, Greebo would like Norris the Eyeball-Eating Maniac of Quirm if he knew how to put food in a bowl.’
And now she was lost. She’d done her best not to be. As Agnes had walked through each dank room she’d thoughtfully taken note of details. She’d carefully remembered right and left turns. And yet she was lost.