Hogfather (Discworld #20)

Hogfather (Discworld #20) Page 25

'And I expect you're pathetically thankful,' said the page. 'I expect we've brought a ray of light into your dark tunnel of a life, hmm?'

'---yes, well, o' course, only I'd been savin'

'em for weeks, see, and there's some bakin' potatoes under the fire, I found 'em in the cellar 'n' the mice'd hardly touched 'em.' The old man never raised his eyes from knee level. 'W our dad brought me up never to ask for--'

'Listen,' said the king, raising his voice a little, 'I've walked miles tonight and I bet you've never seen food like this in your whole life, eh?' Tears of humiliated embarrassment were rolling down the old man's face. '-well, I'm sure it's very kind of you fine gennelmen but I ain't sure I knows how to eat swans and suchlike, but if you want a bit o' my beans you've only got to say--'

'Let me make myself absolutely clear,' said the king sharply. 'This is some genuine Hogswatch charity, d'you understand? And we're going to sit here and watch the smile on your grubby but honest face, is that understood?'

'And what do you say to the good king?' the page prompted.

The peasant hung his head. '

'nk you.'

'Right,' said the king, sitting back. 'Now, pick up your fork---' The door burst open. An indistinct figure strode into the room, snow swirling around it in a cloud. WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? The page started to stand up, drawing his sword. He never worked out how the other figure could have got behind him, but there it was, pressing him gently down again. 'Hello, son, my name is Albert,' said a voice by his ear. 'Why don't you put that sword back very slowly? People might get hurt.' A finger prodded the king, who had been too shocked to move. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, SIRE? The king tried to focus on the figure. There was an impression of red and white, but black, too. To Albert's secret amazement, the man managed to get to his feet and draw himself up as regally as he could. 'What is going on here, whoever you are, is some fine old Hogswatch charity! And who---' NO, IT'S NOT. 'What? How dare you-' WERE YOU HERE LAST MONTH? WILL YOU BE HERE NEXT WEEK? NO. BUT TONIGHT YOU WANTED TO FEEL ALL WARM INSIDE. TONIGHT YOU WILL WANT THEM TO SAY: WHAT A GOOD KING HE IS. 'Oh, no, he's going too far again-' muttered Albert under his breath. He pushed the page down again. "No, you stay still, sonny. Else you'll just be a paragraph.'

'Whatever it is, it's more than he's got!' snapped the king. 'And all we've had from him is ingratitude---' YES, THAT DOES SPOIL IT, DOESN'T IT? Death leaned forward. GO AWAY. To the kings's own surprise his body took over and marched him out of the door. Albert patted the page on the shoulder. 'And you can run along too,' he said. '-I didn't mean to go upsetting anyone, its just that I never asked no one for nothing---' mumbled the old man, in a small humble world of his own, his hands tangling themselves together out of nervousness. 'Best if you leave this one to me, master, if you don't mind,' said Albert. 'I'll be back in just a tick.' Loose ends, he thought, that's my job. Tying up loose ends. The master never thinks things through. He caught up with the king outside. 'Ah, there you are, your sire,' he said. 'Just before you go, won't keep you a minute, just a minor point---' Albert leaned dose to the stunned monarch. 'If anyone was thinking about making a mistake, you know, like maybe sending the guards down here tomorrow, tipping the old man out of his hovel, chuckin' him in prison, anything like that ... werrlll ... that's the kind of mistake he ought to treasure on account of it being the last mistake he'll ever make. A word to the wise men, right?' He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. 'Happy Hogswatch.' Then he hurried back into the hovel. The feast had vanished. The old man was looking blearily at the bare table. HALF-EATEN LEAVINGS, said Death. WE COULD CERTAINLY DO BETTER THAN THIS. He reached into the sack. Albert grabbed his arm before he could withdraw his hand. 'Mind taking a bit of advice, master? I was brung up in a place like this.' DOES IT BRING TEARS TO YOUR EYES?

'A box of matches to me hand, more like. Listen The old man was only dimly aware of some whispering. He sat hunched up, staring at nothing. WELL, IF YOU ARE SURE ... 'Been there, done that, chewed the bones,' said Albert. 'Charity ain't giving people what you wants to give, it's giving people what they need to get.' VERY WELL. Death reached into the sack again. HAPPY HOGSWATCH. HO. HO. HO. There was a string of sausages. There was a side of bacon. And a small tub of salt pork. And a mass of chitterlings wrapped up in greased paper. There was a black pudding. There were several other tubs of disgusting yet savoury porkadjacent items highly prized in any pig-based economy. And, laid on the table with a soft thump, there was 'A pig's head,' breathed the old man. 'A whole one! Ain't had brawn in years! And a basin of pig knuckles! And a bowl of pork dripping!' HO. HO. HO. 'Amazing,' said Albert. 'How did you get the head's expression to look like the king?' I THINK THAT's ACCIDENTAL. Albert patted the old man on the back. 'Have yourself a ball,' he said. 'In fact, have two. Now I think we ought to be going, master.' They left the old man staring at the laden board. WASN'T THAT NICE? said Death, as the hogs accelerated. 'Oh, yes,' said Albert, shaking his head. 'Poor old devil. Beans at Hogswatch? Unlucky, that. Not a night for a man to find a bean in his bowl.' I FEEL I WAS CUT OUT FOR THIS SORT OF THING, YOU KNOW. 'Really, master?' IT'S NICE TO DO A JOB WHERE PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU. 'Ah,' said Albert glumly. THEY DON'T NORMALLY LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING ME. 'Yes, I expect so.' EXCEPT IN SPECIAL AND RATHER UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES. 'Right, right.' AND THEY SELDOM LEAVE A GLASS OF SHERRY OUT. 'I expect they don't, no.' I COULD GET INTO THE HABIT OF DOING THIS, IN FACT. 'But you won't need to, will you, master?' said Albert hurriedly, with the horrible prospect of being a permanent Pixie Albert looming in his mind again. 'Because we'll get the Hogfather back.. right? That's what you said we were going to do, right? And young Susan's probably bustling around ... YES. OF COURSE. 'Not that you asked her to, of course.' Albert's jittery ears didn't detect any enthusiasm. Oh dear, he thought. I HAVE ALWAYS CHOSEN THE PATH OF DUTY. 'Right, master.' The sleigh sped on. I AM THOROUGHLY IN CONTROL AND FIRM OF PURPOSE. 'No problem there, then, master.' said Albert. NO NEED TO WORRY AT ALL.

'Pleased to hear it, master.' IF I HAD A FIRST NAME, 'DUTY' WOULD BE MY MIDDLE NAME. 'Good.' NEVERTHELESS ... Albert strained his ears and thought he heard, just on the edge of hearing, a voice whisper sadly. HO. HO. HO. There was a party going on. It seemed to occupy the entire building. 'Certainly very energetic young men,' said the oh god carefully, stepping over a wet towel. 'Are women allowed in here?'

'No,' said Susan. She stepped through a wall into the superintendent's office. A group of young men went past, manhandling a barrel of beer. 'You'll feel bad about it in the morning,' said Bilious. 'Strong drink is a mocker, you know.' They set it up on a table and knocked out the bung. 'Someone's going to have to be sick after all that,' he said, raising his voice above the hubbub. 'I hope you realize that. You think it's clever, do you, reducing yourself to the level of the beasts of the field ... er ... or the level they'd sink to if they drank, I mean.' They moved away, leaving one mug of beer by the barrel. The oh god glanced at it, and picked it up and sniffed at it. 'Ugh.' Susan stepped out of the wall. 'He hasn't been back for- What're you doing?'

'I thought Id see what beer tastes like,' said the oh god guiltily. 'You don't know what beer tastes like?'

'Not on the way down, no. It's ... quite different by the time it gets to me,' he said sourly. He took another sip, and then a longer one. 'I can't see what all the fuss is about,' he added. He tipped up the empty pot. 'I suppose it comes out of this tap here,' he said. 'You know, for once in my existence I'd like to get drunk.'

'Aren't you always?' said Susan, who wasn't really paying attention. 'No. I've always been drunk. I'm sure I explained.'

'He's been gone a couple of days,' said Susan. 'That's odd. And he didn't say where he was going. The last night he was here was the night he was on Violet's list. But he paid for his room for the week, and I've got the number.'

'And the key?' said the oh god. 'What a strange idea.' Mr Lilywhite's room was small. That wasn't surprising. What was surprising was how neat it was, how carefully the little bed had been made, how well the floor had been swept. It was hard to imagine anyone living in it, but there were a few signs. On the simple table by the bed was a small, rather crude portrait of a bulldog in a wig, although on closer inspection it might have been a woman. This tentative hypothesis was borne out by the inscription 'To a Good Boy, from his Mother' on the back. A book lay next to it. Susan wondered what kind of reading someone with Mr Banjo's background would buy. It turned out to be a book of six pages, one of those that were supposed to enthral children with the magic of the printed word by pointing out that they could See Spot Run. There were no more than ten words on each page and yet, carefully placed between pages four and five, was a bookmark.

She turned back to the cover. The book was called Happy Tales. There was a blue sky and trees and a couple of impossibly pink children playing with a jollylooking dog. It looked as though it had been read frequently, if slowly. And that was it. A dead end. No. Perhaps not ... On the floor by the bed, as if it had been accidentally dropped, was a small, silvery halfdollar piece. Susan picked it up and tossed it idly. She looked the oh god up and down. He was swilling a mouthful of beer from cheek to cheek and looking thoughtfully at the ceiling. She wondered about his likelihood of survival incarnate in Ankh-Morpork at Hogswatch, especially if the cure wore off. After all, the only purpose of his existence was to have a headache and throw up. There were not a great many postgraduate jobs for which these were the main qualifications. 'Tell me,' she said. 'Have you ever ridden a horse?'

'I don't know. What's a horse?' In the depths of the library of Death, a squeaking noise. It was not loud, but it appeared louder than mere decibels would suggest in the furtive, scribbling hush of the books. Everyone, it is said, has a book inside them. In this library, everyone was inside a book. The squeaking got louder. It had a rhythmical, circular quality. Book on book, shelf on shelf ... and in every one, at the page of the ever-moving now, a scribble of handwriting following the narrative of every life ... The squeaking came round the corner. It was issuing from what looked like a very rickety edifice, several storeys high. It looked rather like a siege tower, open at the sides. At the base, between the wheels, was a pair of geared treadles which moved the whole thing. Susan dung to the railing of the topmost platform. 'Can't you hurry up?' she said. 'We're only at the Bi's at the moment.'

'I've been pedalling for ages!' panted the oh god. 'Well, “A” is a very popular letter.' Susan stared up at the shelves. A was for Anon, among other things. All those people who, for one reason or another, never officially got a name. They tended to be short books. 'M ... Bo ... Bod ... Bog ... turn left . . The library tower squeaked ponderously around the next corner. 'Ah, Bo ... blast, the Bots are at least twenty shelves up.'

'Oh, how nice,' said the oh god grimly. He heaved on the lever that moved the drive chain from one sprocket to another, and started to pedal again. Very ponderously, the creaking tower began to telescope upwards. 'Right, we're there,' Susan shouted down, after a few minutes of slow rise. 'Here's ... let's see ... Aabana Bottler. . .'

'I expect Violet will be a lot further,' said the oh god, trying out irony. 'Onwards!' Swaying a little, the tower headed down the Bs until. 'Stop!’ It rocked as the oh god kicked the brake block against a wheel.