Wonder what those two're doing now? he thought. Prob'ly eating caviar off of gold plates and lounging around up to their knees in velvet cushions, you bet.
'You look up to your knees in it, lad,' said the horseholder.
'I'm afraid I'm not getting the hang of this horseholding,' said Victor.
'Ah, 'tis a hard trade, horse-holding,' said the man. 'It's learning the proper grovellin' and the irreverent-but-not-too-impudent cheery 'oss'older's banter. People don't just want you to look after the'oss, see. They want a'oss-'olding hexperience.'
'They do?'
'They want an amusin' encounter and a soup-son of repartee,' said the little man. 'It's not just a matter of 'oldin' reins.'
Realization began to dawn on Victor.
'It's a performance,' he said.
The 'oss-'older tapped the side of his strawberry-shaped nose.
'That's right!' he said.
Torches flared in Holy Wood. Victor struggled through the crowds in the main street. Every bar, every tavern, every shop had its doors thrown open. A sea of people ebbed and flowed between them. Victor tried jumping up and down to search the mob of faces.
He was lonely and lost and hungry. He needed someone to talk to, and she wasn't there.
'Victor!'
He spun around. Rock bore down on him like an avalanche.
'Victor! My friend!' A fist the size and hardness of a foundation stone pounded him playfully on the shoulder.
'Oh, hi,' said Victor weakly. 'Er. How's it going, Rock?'
'Great! Great! Tomorrow we shoot Bad Menace of Troll Valley!'
'I'm very happy for you,' said Victor.
'You my lucky human!' Rock boomed. 'Rock! What a name! Come and have a drink!'
Victor accepted. He really didn't have much of a choice, because Rock gripped his arm and, ploughing through the crowds like an icebreaker, half-led, half-dragged him towards the nearest door.
A blue light illuminated a sign. Most Morporkians could read Troll, it was hardly a difficult language. The sharp runes spelled out The Blue Lias.
It was a troll bar.
The smoky glow from the furnaces beyond the slab counter was the only light. It illuminated three trolls playing well, something percussive, but Victor couldn't quite make out what because the decibel level was in realms where the sound was a solid force, and it made his eyeballs vibrate. The furnace smoke hid the ceiling.
'What you havin'?' roared Rock.
'I don't have to drink molten metal, do I?' Victor quavered. He had to quaver at the top of his voice in order to be heard.'We got all typer human drink!' shouted the female troll behind the bar. It had to be a female. There was no doubt about it. She looked slightly like the statues cavemen used to carve of fertility goddesses thousands of years ago, but mostly like a foothill.
'We very cosmopolitan.' 'I'll have a beer, then!'
'Ana flowers-of-sulphur onna rocks, Ruby!' added Rock.
Victor took the opportunity to look around the bar, now that he was getting accustomed to the gloom and his eardrums had mercifully gone numb.
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