Maskerade

and Verence could hardly fail to… No, they must have worked it out, even though Nanny had heard that Verence had been seen enquiring of people where he might buy a couple of false moustaches. It'd not be long before Magrat was eligible for the second category, even if they were both slow readers.

Of course, Granny Weatherwax made a great play of her independence and self?reliance. But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self?reliant at. People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.

It was like hermits? There was no point freezing your nadgers off on top of some mountain while communing with the Infinite unless you could rely on a lot of impressionable young women to come along occasionally and say 'Gosh'.

…They needed to be three again. Things got exciting, when there were three of you. There were rows, and adventures, and things for Granny to get angry about, and she was only happy when she was angry. In fact, it seemed to Nanny, she was only Granny Weatherwax when she was angry.

Yes. They needed to be three.

Or else… it was going to be grey wings in the night, or the clang of the oven door…

The manuscript fell apart as soon as Mr Goatberger picked it up.

It wasn't even on proper paper. It had been written on old sugar bags, and the backs of envelopes, and bits of out?of-date calendar.

He grunted, and grabbed a handful of the musty pages to throw them on the fire.

A word caught his eye.

He read it, and his eye was dragged to the end of the sentence.

Then he read to the end of the page, doubling back a few times because he hadn't quite believed what he'd just read.

He turned the page. And then he turned back. And then he read on. At one point he took a ruler out of his drawer and looked at it thoughtfully.

He opened his drinks cabinet. The bottle tinkled cheerfully on the edge of the glass as he tried to pour himself a drink.

Then he stared out of the window at the Opera House on the other side of the road. A small figure was brushing the steps.

And then he said, “Oh, my.”

Finally he went to the door and said, “Could you come in here, Mr Cropper?”

His chief printer entered, clutching a sheaf of proofs. “We're going to have to get Mr Cripslock to engrave page 11 again,” he said mournfully. “He's spelled 'famine' with seven letters—”

“Read this,” said Goatberger.

“I was just off to lunch—”

“Read this.”

“Guild agreement says—”

“Read this and see if you still have an appetite.”

Mr Cropper sat down with bad grace and glanced at the first page.

Then he turned to the second page.

After a while he opened the desk drawer and pulled out a ruler, which he looked at thoughtfully.

“You've just read about Bananana Soup Surprise?” said Goatberger.

“Yes!”

“You wait till you get to Spotted Dick.”

“Well, my old granny used to make Spotted Dick—”

“Not to this recipe,” said Goatberger, with absolute certainty.

Cropper fumbled through the pages. “Blimey! Do you think any of this stuff works?”

“Who cares? Go down to the Guild right now and hire all the engravers that're free. Preferably elderly ones.”

“But I've still got the Grune, June, August and Spune predictions for next year's Almanack to—”

“Forget them. Use some old ones.”

“People'll notice.”

“They've never noticed before,” said Mr Goatberger. “You know the drill. Astounding Rains of Curry in Klatch, Amazing Death of the Seriph of Ee, Plague of Wasps in Howondaland. This is a lot more important.”

He stared unseeing out of the window again.

“Considerably more important.”

And he dreamed the dream of all those who publish books, which was to have so much gold in your pockets that you would have to employ two people just to hold your trousers up.

The huge, be?columned, gargoyle?haunted face of Ankh-Morpork's Opera House was there, in front of Agnes Nitt.

She stopped. At least, most of Agnes stopped. There was a lot of Agnes. It took some time for outlying regions to come to rest.

Well, this was it. At last. She could go in, or she could go away. It was what they called a life choice. She'd never had one of those before.

Finally, after standing still for long enough for a pigeon to consider the perching possibilities of her huge and rather sad black floppy hat, she climbed the steps.

A man was theoretically sweeping them. What he was in fact doing was moving the dirt around with a broom, to give it a change of scenery and a chance to make new friends. He was dressed in a long coat that was slightly too small for him, and had a black beret perched incongruously on spiky black hair.

“Excuse me,” said Agnes.

The effect was electric. He turned around, tangled one foot with the other, and collapsed on to his broom.

Agnes's hand flew to her mouth, and then she reached down.

“Oh, I'm so sorry!”

The hand had that clammy feel that makes a holder think longingly of soap. He pulled it away quickly, pushed his greasy hair out of his eyes and gave her a terrified smile; he had what Nanny Ogg called an underdone face, its features rubbery and pale.

“No trouble miss!”

“Are you all right?”

He scrambled up, got the broom somehow tangled between his knees, and sat down again sharply.

“Er… shall I hold the broom?” said Agnes helpfully.

She pulled it out of the tangle. He got up again, after a couple of false starts.

“Do you work for the Opera House?” said Agnes.

“Yes miss!”

“Er, can you tell me where I have to go for the auditions?”

He looked around wildly. “Stage?door!” he said. “I'll show you!” The words came out in a rush, as if he had to line them up and fire them all in one go before they had time to wander off.

He snatched the broom out of her hands and set off down the steps and towards the corner of the building. He had a unique stride: it looked as though his body were being dragged forward and his legs had to flail around underneath it, landing wherever they could find room. It wasn't so much a walk as a collapse, indefinitely postponed.

His erratic footsteps led towards a door in the side wall. Agnes followed them in. Just inside was a sort of shed, with one open wall and a counter positioned so that someone standing there could watch the door. The person behind it must have been a human being because walruses don't wear coats. The strange man had disappeared somewhere in the gloom beyond.