‘Er . . . yes,’ Agnes managed. The blush rounded the curve of her bosom, red hot and rising. A ponytail on a man was unheard of in Lancre, and the cut of his clothes also suggested that he’d spent time somewhere where fashion changed more than once a lifetime. No one in Lancre had ever worn a waistcoat embroidered with peacocks.
Say something to him! Perdita screamed within.
‘Wstfgl?’ said Agnes. Behind her, Mightily Oats had got up and was inspecting the food suspiciously.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Agnes swallowed, partly because Perdita was trying to shake her by the throat.
‘He does look as if he’s about to flap away, doesn’t he?’ she said. Oh, please, don’t let me giggle . . .
The man snapped his fingers. A waiter hurrying past with a tray of drinks turned through ninety degrees.
‘Can I get you a drink, Miss Nitt?’
‘Er . . . white wine?’ Agnes whispered.
‘No, you don’t want white wine, the red is much more . . . colourful,’ he said, taking a glass and handing it to her. ‘What is our quarry doing now . . . Ah, applying himself to a biscuit with a very small amount of pate on it, I see. . .’
Ask him his name! Perdita yelled. No, that’d be forward of me, Agnes thought. Perdita screamed, You were built forward, you stupid lump-
‘Please let me introduce myself. I’m Vlad,’ he said kindly. ‘Oh, now he’s . . . yes, he’s about to pounce on . . . yes, a prawn vol-au-vent. Prawns up here, eh? King Verence has spared no expense, has he?’
‘He had them brought up on ice all the way from Genua,’ Agnes mumbled.
‘They do very good seafood there, I believe.’
‘Never been,’ Agnes mumbled. Inside her head Perdita lay down and cried.
‘Maybe we could visit it one day, Agnes,’ said Vlad.
The blush was at Agnes’s neck.
‘It’s very hot in here, don’t you think?’ said Vlad.
‘It’s the fire,’ said Agnes gratefully. ‘It’s over there,’ she added, nodding to where quite a large amount of a tree was burning in the hall’s enormous fireplace and could only have been missed by a man with a bucket on his head.
‘My sister and I have-‘ Vlad began.
‘Excuse me, Miss Nitt?’
‘What is it, Shawn?’ Drop dead, Shawn Ogg, said Perdita.
‘Mum says you’re to come at once, miss. She’s down in the yard. She says it’s important.’
‘It always is,’ said Agnes. She gave Vlad a quick smile. ‘Excuse me, I have to go and help an old lady.’
‘I’m sure we’ll meet again, Agnes,’ said Vlad.
‘Oh, er . . . thank you.’
She hurried out and was halfway down the steps before she remembered she hadn’t told him her name.
Two steps further she thought: well, he could have asked someone.
Two steps after that Perdita said: Why would he ask anyone your name?
Agnes cursed the fact that she had grown up with an invisible enemy.
‘Come and look at this!’ hissed Nanny, grabbing her by the arm as she reached the courtyard. She was dragged out to the carriages parked near the stables. Nanny waved a finger to the door of the nearest one.
‘See that?’ she said.
‘It looks very impressive,’ said Agnes.
‘See the crest?’
‘Looks like . . . a couple of black and white
birds. Magpies, aren’t they?’
‘Yeah, but look at the writin’,’ said Nanny Ogg, with that dark relish old ladies reserve for nastily portentous things.
‘Carpe Jugulum,’ read Agnes aloud. ‘That’s . . . well, Carpe Diem is “Seize the Day”, so this means-‘
“‘Go for the Throat”,’ said Nanny. ‘You know what our king has done, so we can play our part in this new changin’ world order thing and get money for hedges because Klatch gets a nosebleed when Ankh-Morpork stubs its toe? He’s gone an’ invited some bigwigs from Uberwald, that’s what he’s done. Oh, deary deary me. Vampires and werewolves, werewolves and vampires. We’ll all be murdered in one another’s beds.’ She walked up to the front of the coach and tapped on the wood near the driver, who was sitting hunched up in an enormous cloak. ‘Where’re you from, Igor?’
The shadowy figure turned.
‘What maketh you think my name ith . . . Igor?’
‘Lucky guess?’ said Nanny.
‘You think everyone from Uberwald ith called Igor, do you? I could have any one of a thouthand different nameth, woman.’
‘Look, I’m Nanny Ogg and thith, excuse me, this is Agnes Nitt. And you are . . .?’
‘My name ith . . . well, it’th Igor, ath a matter of facththth,’ said Igor. He raised a hasty finger. ‘But it might not have been!’
‘It’s a chilly night. Can we get you something?’ said Nanny cheerfully.
‘Perhaps a towel?’ said Agnes.
Nanny nudged her in the ribs to be silent. ‘A glass of wine, p’raps?’ she said.
‘I do not drink . . . wine,’ said Igor haughtily.
‘I’ve got some brandy,’ said Nanny, hitching up her skirt.
‘Oh, right. I drink brandy like thtink.’
Knickerleg elastic twanged in the gloom.
‘So,’ said Nanny, passing up the flask, ‘what’re you doing this far from home, Igor?’
‘Why’th there a thtupid troll down there on the . . . bridge?’ said Igor, taking the flask in one large hand which, Agnes noticed, was a mass of scars and stitches.
‘Oh, that’s Big Jim Beef. The King lets him live under there provided he looks official when we’ve got comp’ny comin’.’
‘Beef ith an odd name for a troll.’
‘He likes the sound of it,’ said Nanny. ‘It’s like a man calling himself Rocky, I suppose. So . . . I used to know an Igor from Uberwald. Walked with a limp. One eye a bit higher than the other. Had the same manner of . . . speaking. Very good at brain juggling, too.’
‘That thoundth like my Uncle Igor,’ said Igor. ‘He worked for the mad doctor at Blinz. Ha, an’ he wath a proper mad doctor, too, not like the mad doctorth you get thethe dayth. And the thervantth? Even worthe. No pride thethe dayth.’ He tapped the brandy flask for emphasis. ‘When Uncle Igor wath thent out for a geniuth’th brain, that’th what you damn well got. There wath none of thith fumblefinger thtuff and then pinching a brain out of the “Really Inthane” jar and hopin’ no one’d notithe. They alwayth do, anyway.’
Nanny took a step back. The only sensible way to hold a conversation with Igor was when you had an umbrella.
‘I think I’ve heard of that chap,’ she said. ‘Didn’t he stitch folk together out of dead parts?’
‘No! Really?’ said Agnes, shocked. ‘Ow!’
‘That’th right. Ith there a problem?’
‘No, I call it prudent,’ said Nanny, taking her foot off Agnes’s toe. ‘My mum was a dab hand at sewing a new sheet from bits of old ones, and people’re worth more than linen. So he’s your master now, is he?’
‘No, my Uncle Igor thtill workth for him. Been thtruck by lightning three hundred timeth and thtill putth in a full night’th work.’
‘Have a drop more of that brandy, it’s very cold out here,’ said Nanny. ‘So who is your master, Igor?’
‘Call them marthterth?’ said Igor, with sudden venom and a light shower. ‘Huh! Now the old Count, he wath a gentleman of the old thchool. He knew how it all workth. Proper evening dreth at all timeth, that’th the rule!’
‘Evenin’ dress, eh?’ said Nanny.
‘Meth! Thith lot only wear it in the evening, can you imagine that? The retht of the time it’th all thwanning around in fanthy waithtcoatth and lacy thkirtth! Hah! D’you know what thith lot have done?’
‘Do tell. . .’
‘They’ve oiled the hingeth!’ Igor took a hefty pull of Nanny’s special brandy. ‘Thome of thothe thqueakth took bloody yearth to get right. But, oh no, now it’th “Igor, dean thothe thpiderth out of the dungeon” and “Igor, order up thome proper oil lampth, all thethe flickering torcheth are tho fifteen minuteth ago”! Tho the plathe lookth old? Being a vampire’th about continuity, ithn’t it? You get lotht in the mountainth and thee a light burnin’ in thome carthle, you got a right to expect proper thqueakin’ doorth and thome old-world courtethy, don’t you?’
‘Ah, right. An’ a bed in the room with a balcony outside,’ said Nanny.
‘My point egthactly!’
‘Proper billowing curtains, too?’
‘Damn right!’
‘Real gutterin’ candles?’
‘I thpend ageth gettin’ them properly dribbly. Not that anyone careth.’
‘You got to get the details right, I always say,’ said Nanny. ‘Well, well, well . . . so our king invited vampires, eh?’
There was a thump as Igor slumped backwards and a tinny sound as the flask landed on the cobbles. Nanny picked it up and secreted it about her person.
‘Good head for his drink,’ she remarked. Not many people ever tasted Nanny Ogg’s home-made brandy; it was technically impossible. Once it encountered the warmth of the human mouth it immediately turned into fumes. You drank it via your sinuses.