Maskerade d-18

by Terry David John Pratchett

  “Have another good blow,” said Nanny.

  “…and now there's people dropping like flies out of the flies… they say it's him, but I know he never meant any harm…”

  “ 'Course not,” said Nanny, soothingly.

  “…many's the time I've seen 'em look up at the Box. They always felt the better for it if they saw him… and then poor Mr Pounder was strangulated. I looked around and there was his hat, just like that…”

  “It's terrible when that happens,” said Nanny Ogg. “What's your name, dear?”

  “Mrs Plinge,” sniffed Mrs Plinge. “It came right down in front of me. I'd have recognized it anywhere…”

  “I think it would be a good idea if we took you home, Mrs Plinge,” said Granny.

  “Oh, dear! I've got all these ladies and gentlemen to see to! And anyway it's dangerous going home this time of night… Walter walks me home but he's got to stay late tonight… oh dear…”

  “Have another good blow,” said Nanny. “Find a bit that isn't too soggy.”

  There was a series of sharp pops. Granny Weatherwax had interlocked her fingers and extended her hands at arm's length, so that her knuckles cracked.

  “Dangerous, eh?” she said. “Well, we can't see you all upset like this. I'll walk you home and Mrs Ogg will see to things here.”

  “…only I've got to attend to the Boxes… I've got all these drinks to serve… could've sworn I had them a moment ago…”

  “Mrs Ogg knows all about drinks,” said Granny, glaring at her friend.

  “There's nothing I don't know about drinks,” agreed Nanny, shamelessly emptying the last glass. “Especially these.”

  “…and what about our Walter? He'll worry himself silly…”

  “Walter's your son?” said Granny. “Wears a beret?”

  The old woman nodded.

  “Only I always comes back for him if he's working late…” she began.

  “You come back for him… but he sees you home?” said Granny.

  “It's… he's… he's…” Mrs Plinge rallied. “He's a good boy,” she said defiantly.

  “I'm sure he is, Mrs Plinge,” said Granny.

  She carefully lifted the little white bonnet off Mrs Plinge's head and handed it to Nanny, who put it on, and also took the little white apron. That was the good thing about black. You could be nearly anything, wearing black. Mother Superior or Madam, it was really just a matter of the style. It just depended on the details.

  There was a click. Box Eight had bolted itself. And then there was the very faint scrape of a chair being wedged under the doorhandle.

  Granny smiled, and took Mrs Plinge's arm. “I'll be back as soon as I can,” she said.

  Nanny nodded, and watched them go.

  There was a little cupboard at the end of the corridor. It contained a stool, Mrs Plinge's knitting, and a small but very well stocked bar. There were also, on a polished mahogany plank, a number of bells on big coiled springs.

  Several of them were bouncing up and down angrily.

  Nanny poured herself a gin and gin with a dash of gin and inspected the rows of bottles with considerable interest.

  Another bell started to ring.

  There was a huge jar of stuffed olives. Nanny helped herself to a handful and blew the dust off a bottle of port.

  A bell fell off its spring.

  Somewhere out in the corridor a door opened and a young man's voice bellowed, “Where are those drinks, woman!”

  Nanny tried the port.

  Nanny Ogg was used to the idea of domestic service. As a girl, she'd been a maid at Lancre Castle, where the king was inclined to press his intentions and anything else he could get hold of. Young Gytha Ogg had already lost her innocence[7] but she had some clear ideas about unwelcome intentions, and when he jumped out at her in the scullery she had technically committed treason with a large leg of lamb swung in both hands. That had ended her life below stairs and put a lengthy crimp in the king's activities above them.

  The brief experience had given her certain views which weren't anything so definite as political but were very firmly Oggish. And Mrs Plinge had looked as if she didn't get very much to eat and not a lot of time to sleep, either. Her hands had been thin and red. Nanny had a lot of time for the Plinges of the world.

  Did port go with sherry? Oh, well, no harm in trying…

  All the bells were ringing now. It must be coming up to the interval.

  She methodically unscrewed the top off ajar of cocktail onions, and thoughtfully crunched a couple.

  Then, as other people started to poke their heads around the doors and make angry demands, she went to the champagne shelf and took down a couple of magnums. She gave them a damn good shake, tucked one under each arm with a thumb on the corks, and stepped out into the corridor.

  Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.

  The curtains closed. The audience was still on its feet, applauding.

  “What happens now?” whispered Agnes to the next gypsy.

  He pulled off his bandanna. “Well, dear, we generally nip out to— Oh, no, they're going for a curtain call!”

  The curtains opened again. The light caught Christine, who curtsied and waved and sparkled.

  Her fellow‑gypsy nudged Agnes. “Look at Dame Timpani,” he said. “There's a nose in a sling if ever I saw one.”

  Agnes stared at the prima donna.

  “She's smiling,” she said.

  “So does a tiger, dear.”

  The curtains shut once more, with a finality that said the stage manager was going to strike the set and would scream at someone if they dared to touch those ropes again..

  Agnes ran off with the others. There wasn't too much to do in the next act. She'd tried to memorize the plot earlier — although other members of the chorus had done their best to dissuade her, on the basis that you could either sing them or understand them, but not both.

  Nevertheless, Agnes was conscientious.

  “… so Peccadillo (ten.), the son of Duke Tagliatella (bass), has secretly disguised himself as a swineherd to woo Quizella, not knowing that Doctor Bufola (bar.) has sold the elixir to Ludi the servant, without realizing he is really the maid Iodine (sop.) dressed up as a boy because Count Artaud (bar.) claims that…”

  A deputy stage manager pulled her out of the way and waved at someone in the wings.

  “Lose the countryside, Ron.”

  There was a series of whistles from offstage, answered by another from above.

  The backcloth rose. From the gloom above, the sandbag counterweights began to descend.

  “… then Artaud reveals, er, that Zibeline must marry Fideli, I mean Fiabe, not knowing, er, that the family fortunes…”

  The sandbags came down. On one side of the stage, at least. On the other side, Agnes was interrupted in her impossible task by the screaming, and looked around into the upside‑down and not at all well features of the late Dr Undershaft.

  Nanny skipped through a handy door, shut it behind her, and leaned on it. After a few moments the sound of running feet clattered past.

  Well, that had been fun.

  She removed the lace bonnet and apron and, because there was a basic honesty in Nanny, she tucked them in a pocket to give back to Mrs Plinge later. Then she pulled out a flat, round black shape and banged it against her arm. The point shot out. After a few adjustments her official hat was almost as good as new.

  She looked around. A certain absence of light and carpeting, together with a very presence of dust, suggested that this was a part of the place the public weren't supposed to see.

  Oh, damn. She supposed she had better find another door. Of course, that'd mean she'd have to leave Greebo, wherever he was, but he'd turn up. He always did when he wanted feeding.

  There was a flight of steps leading down. She followed them to a corridor which was slightly better lit and ambled along it for quite a
way. And then all she had to do was follow the screams.

  She emerged among the flats and jumbled props backstage.

  No one bothered about her. The appearance of a small, amiable old lady was not about to cause comment at this point.

  People were running backwards and forwards, shouting. More impressionable people were just standing in one place and screaming. A large lady was sprawled over two chairs having hysterics, while some distracted stage‑hands tried to fan her with a script.

  Nanny Ogg was not certain whether something important had happened or whether this was just a continuation of opera by other means.

  “I should loosen her corsets, if I was you,” she said as she ambled past.

  “Good heavens, madam, there's enough panic in here as it is!”

  Nanny moved on to an interesting crowd of gypsies, noblemen and stage‑hands.

  Witches are curious by definition and inquisitive by nature. She moved in.

  “Let me through. I'm a nosy person,” she said, employing both elbows. It worked, as this sort of approach generally does.

  There was a dead person lying on the floor. Nanny had seen death in a wide variety of guises, and certainly knew strangulation when it presented itself. It wasn't the nicest end, although it could be quite colourful.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “Poor man. What happened to him?”

  “Mr Bucket says he must have got caught up in the—” someone began.

  “He didn't get caught in anything! This is the Ghost's work!” said someone else. “He could still be up there!”

  All eyes turned upwards.

  “Mr Salzella's sent some stage‑hands to flush him out.”

  “Have they got flaming torches?” said Nanny.

  Several of them looked at her as if wondering, for the first time, who she was.

  “What?”

  “Got to have flaming torches when you're tracking down evil monsters,” said Nanny. “Well‑known fact.”

  There was a moment while this sunk in, and then:

  “That's true.”

  “She's right, you know.”

  “Well‑known fact, dear.”

  “Did they have flaming torches?”

  “Don't think so. Just ordinary lanterns.”

  “Oh, they're no good,” said Nanny. “That's for smugglers, lanterns. For evil monsters you need flaming—”

  “Excuse me, boys and girls!”

  The stage manager had stood on a box.

  “Now,” he said, a little pale around the face, “I know you're all familiar with the phrase "the show must go on"…”

  There was a chorus of groans from the chorus.

  “It's very hard to sing a jolly song about eating hedgehogs when you're waiting for an accident to happen to you,” shouted a gypsy king.

  “Funny thing, if we're talking about songs about hedgehogs, I myself—” Nanny began, but no one was paying her any attention.

  “Now, we don't actually know what happened—”

  “Really? Shall we guess?” said a gypsy.

  “‑but we have men up in the fly loft now—”

  “Oh? In case of more accidents?”

  “‑and Mr Bucket has authorized me to say that there will be an additional two dollars' bonus tonight in recognition of your bravely agreeing to continue with the show—”

  “Money? After a shock like this? Money? He thinks he can offer us a couple of dollars and we'll agree to stay on this cursed stage?”

  “Shame!”

  “Heartless!

  “Unthinkable!”

  “Should be at least four!”

  “Right! Right!”

  “For shame, my friends! To talk about a few dollars when there is a dead man lying there… Have you no respect for his memory?”

  “Exactly! A few dollars is disrespectful. Five dollars or nothing!”

  Nanny Ogg nodded to herself, and wandered off and found a sufficiently big piece of cloth to cover the late Dr Undershaft.

  Nanny rather liked the theatrical world. It was its own kind of magic. That was why Esme disliked it, she reckoned. It was the magic of illusions and misdirection and foolery, and that was fine by Nanny Ogg, because you couldn't be married three times without a little fooling. But it was just close enough to Granny's own kind of magic to make Granny uneasy. Which meant she couldn't leave it alone. It was like scratching an itch.

  People didn't take any notice of little old ladies who looked as though they fitted in, and Nanny Ogg could fit in faster than a dead chicken in a maggot factory.

  Besides, Nanny had one additional little talent, which was a mind like a buzzsaw behind a face like an elderly apple.

  Someone was crying.

  A strange figure was kneeling beside the late chorus master. It looked like a puppet with the strings cut.

  “Can you give me a hand with this sheet, mister?” said Nanny quietly.

  The face looked up. Two watery eyes, running with tears, blinked at Nanny. “He won't wake up!”

  Nanny mentally changed gear. “That's right, luv,” she said. “You're Walter, ain't you?”

  “He was always very good to me and our mum! He never gave me a kick!”

  It was obvious to Nanny that there was no help here. She knelt down and began to do her best with the departed.

  “Miss they say it were the Ghost miss! It weren't the Ghost miss! He'd never do a thing like that! He was always good to me and our mum!”

  Nanny changed gear again. You had to slow down a bit for Walter Plinge.

  “My mum'd know what to do!”

  “Yes, well… she's gone home early, Walter.”

  Walter's waxy face started to contort into an expression of terminal horror.

  “She mustn't walk home without Walter to look after her!” he shouted.

  “I bet she always says that,” said Nanny. “I bet she always makes sure her Walter's with her when she goes home. But I expect that right now she'd want her Walter to just get on with things so's she can be proud of him. Show's not half over yet.”

  “ 'S dangerous for our mum!”

  Nanny patted his hand and absent‑mindedly wiped her own hand on her dress.

  “That's a good boy,” she said. “Now, I've got to go off—”

  “The Ghost wouldn't harm no one!”

  “Yes, Walter, only I've got to go but I'll find someone to help you and you must put poor Dr Undershaft somewhere safe until after the show. Understand? And I'm Mrs Ogg.”

  Walter gawped at her, and then nodded sharply.

  “Good boy.”

  Nanny left him still looking at the body and headed further backstage.

  A young man hurrying past found that he'd suddenly acquired an Ogg.

  “ 'Scuse me, young man,” said Nanny, still holding his arm, “but d'you know anyone around here called Agnes? Agnes Nitt?”

  “Can't say I do, ma'am. What does she do?” He made to hurry on as politely as possible, but Nanny's grip was steel.

  “She sings a bit. Big girl. Voice with double joints in it. Wears black.”

  “You don't mean Perdita?”

  “Perdita? Oh, yes. That'd be her all right.”

  “I think she's seeing to Christine. They're in Mr Salzella's office.”

  “Would Christine be the thin girl in white?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “And I expect you're going to show me where this Mr Salzella's office is?”

  “Er, am I‑ Er, yes. It's just along the stage there, first door on the right.”

  “What a good boy to help an old lady,” said Nanny. Her grip increased to a few ounces short of cutting off circulation. “And wouldn't it be a good idea if you helped young Walter back there do something respectful for the poor dead man?”

  “Back where?”

  Nanny turned around. The late Dr Undershaft had gone nowhere, but Walter had vanished.

  “Poor chap was a bit upset, I shouldn't wonder,” said Nanny. “Only to be expected. So… h
ow about if you got another strapping young lad to help you out instead?”

  “Er… yes.”

  “What a good boy,” Nanny repeated.

  It was mid‑evening. Granny and Mrs Plinge pushed their way through the crowds towards the Shades, a part of the city that was as thronged as a rookery, fragrant as a cesspit, and vice versa.

  “So,” said Granny, as they entered the network of foetid alleys, “your boy Walter usually sees you home, does he?”

  “He's a good boy, Mistress Weatherwax,” said Mrs Plinge defensively.

  “I'm sure you're grateful for a strong lad to lean on,” said Granny.

  Mrs Plinge looked up. Looking into Granny's eyes was like looking into a mirror. What you saw looking back at you was yourself, and there was no hiding‑place.

  “They torment him so,” she mumbled. “They poke at him and hide his broom. They're not bad boys round here, but they will torment him.”

  “He brings his broom home, does he?”

  “He looks after his things,” said Mrs Plinge. “I've always brought him up to look after his things and not be a trouble. But they will poke the poor soul and call him such names…”

  The alleyway opened into a yard, like a well between the high buildings. Washing‑lines crisscrossed the rectangle of moonlit sky.

  “I'm just in here,” said Mrs Plinge. “Much obliged to you.”

  “How does Walter get home without you?” said Granny.

  “Oh, there's plenty of places to sleep in the Opera House. He knows that if I don't come for him he's to stop there for the night. He does what he's told, Mistress Weatherwax. He's never any trouble.”

  “I never said he was.”

  Mrs Plinge fumbled in her purse, as much to escape Granny's stare as to look for the key.

  “I expect your Walter sees most of what goes on in the Opera House,” said Granny, taking one of Mrs Plinge's wrists in her hand. “I wonder what your Walter… saw?”

  The pulse jumped at the same time as the thieves did. Shadows unfolded themselves. There was the scrape of metal.

  A low voice said, “There's two of you, ladies, and there's six of us. There's no use in screaming.”