Maskerade. Part 10

"It's worth fifty dollars a night!"

"There will be trouble if you sell it," said Salzella.

"Good grief, Salzella, you're an educated man! How can you sit there so calmly and accept this sort of madness? Some creature in a mask has the run of the place, gets a prime Box all to himself, kills people, and you sit there saying there will be trouble?"

"I told you: the show must go on."

"Why? We never said 'the cheese must go on'! What's so special about the show going on?" We never said 'the cheese must go on'! What's so special about the show going on?"

Salzella smiled. "As far as I understand it," he said, "the...power behind the show, the soul of the show, all the effort that's gone into it, call it what you will...it leaks out and spills everywhere. That's why they burble about 'the show must go on.' It must must go on. But most of the company wouldn't even understand why anyone should ask the question." go on. But most of the company wouldn't even understand why anyone should ask the question."

Bucket glared at the pile of what pa.s.sed for the Opera House's financial records.

"They certainly don't understand bookkeeping! Who does the accounts?"

"All of us, really," said Salzella.

"All of you?" of you?"

"Money gets put in, money gets taken out..." said Salzella vaguely. "Is it important?"

Bucket's jaw dropped. "Is it important important?"

"Because," Salzella went on, smoothly, "opera doesn't make money. Opera never makes money."

"Good grief, man! Important Important? What'd I ever have achieved in the cheese business, I'd like to know, if I'd said that money wasn't important?"

Salzella smiled humorlessly. "There are people out on the stage right now, sir," he said, "who'd say that you would probably have made better cheeses." He sighed, and leaned over the desk. "You see," he said, "cheese does does make money. And opera make money. And opera doesn't doesn't. Opera's what you spend money on on."

"But...what do you get out of it?"

"You get opera. You put money in, you see, and opera comes out," said Salzella wearily.

"There's no profit profit?"

"Profit...profit," murmured the director of music, scratching his forehead. "No, I don't believe I've come across the word."

"Then how do we manage?"

"We seem to rub along."

Bucket put his head in his hands. "I mean," he muttered, half to himself, "I knew the place wasn't making much, but I thought that was just because it was run badly. We have big audiences! We charge a mint for tickets! Now I'm told that a Ghost runs around killing people and we don't even make any money!"

Salzella beamed. "Ah, opera opera," he said.

Greebo stalked over the inn's rooftops.

Most cats are nervous and ill at ease when taken out of their territory, which is why cat books go on about putting b.u.t.ter on their paws and so on, presumably because constantly skidding into the walls will take the animal's mind off where the walls actually are are.

But Greebo traveled well, purely because he took it for granted that the whole world was his dirt box.

He dropped heavily onto an outhouse roof and padded toward a small open window.

Greebo also had a cat's approach to possessions, which was simply that nothing edible had a right to belong to other people.

From the window came a variety of smells which included pork pies and cream. He squeezed through and dropped onto the pantry shelf.

Of course, sometimes he got caught. At least, sometimes he got discovered... discovered...

There was was cream. He settled down. cream. He settled down.

He was halfway down the bowl when the door opened.

Greebo's ears flattened. His one good eye sought desperately for an escape route. The window was too high, the person opening the door was wearing a long dress that militated against the old "through the legs" routine and...and...and...there was no escape...

His claws scrabbled on the floor...

Oh no...here it came...

Something flipped in his body's morphogenic field. Here was a problem a cat shape couldn't deal with. Oh, well, we know another one. Sometimes Greebo could be almost...human.

Crockery crashed around him. Shelves erupted as his head rose. A bag of flour exploded outward to make room for his broadening shoulders.

The cook stared up at him. Then she looked down. And then up. And then, her gaze dragged as though it were on a winch, down again.

She screamed.

Greebo screamed.

He grabbed desperately at a bowl to cover that part which, as a cat, he never had to worry about exposing.

He screamed again, this time because he'd just poured lukewarm pork dripping all over himself.

His groping fingers found a large copper jelly mold. Clasping it to his groinal areas, he barreled forward and fled out of the pantry and out of the kitchen and out of the dining room and out of the inn and into the night.

The spy, who was dining with the traveling salesman, put down his knife.

"That's something you don't often see," he said.

"What?" said the salesman, who'd had his back to the excitement.

"One of those old copper jelly molds. They're worth quite a lot now. My aunt had a very good one."

The hysterical cook was given a big drink and several members of staff went out into the darkness to investigate.

All they found was a jelly mold, lying forlornly in the yard.

At home Granny Weatherwax slept with open windows and an unlocked door, secure in the knowledge that the Ramtops' various creatures of the night would rather eat their own ears than break in. In dangerously civilized lands, however, she took a different view.

"I really don't think we need need to shove the bed in front of the door, Esme," said Nanny Ogg, heaving on her end. to shove the bed in front of the door, Esme," said Nanny Ogg, heaving on her end.

"You can't be too careful," said Granny. "Supposing some man started rattlin' the k.n.o.b in the middle of the night?"

"Not at our time of life," said Nanny sadly.

"Gytha Ogg, you are the most-"

Granny was interrupted by a watery sound. It came from behind the wall and went on for some time.

It stopped, and then started again-a steady splas.h.i.+ng that gradually became a trickle. Nanny started to grin.

"Someone fillin' a bath?" said Granny.

"...or I suppose it could be someone fillin' a bath," Nanny conceded.

There was the sound of a third jug being emptied. Footsteps left the room. A few seconds later a door opened and there was a rather heavier tread, followed after a brief interval by a few splashes and a grunt.

"Yes, a man gettin' into a bath," said Granny. "What're you doin', Gytha?"

"Seein' if there's a knothole in this wood somewhere," said Nanny. "Ah, here's one-"

"Come back here!"

"Sorry, Esme."

And then the singing started. It was a very pleasant tenor voice, given added timbre by the bath itself.

"Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed-"

"Someone's enjoyin' themselves, anyway," said Nanny.

"-wherever I may roam-"

There was a knock at the distant bathroom door, upon which the singer slipped smoothly into another language: "-per via di terra, mare o schiuma-"

The witches looked at one another.

A m.u.f.fled voice said, "I've brought you your hot-water bottle, sir."

"Thank you verr' mucha," said the bather, his voice dripping with accent.

Footsteps went away in the distance.

"-Indicame la strada... to go home." Splash, splash. "Good eeeeevening, frieeeends..." to go home." Splash, splash. "Good eeeeevening, frieeeends..."

"Well, well, well," said Granny, more or less to herself. "It seems once again that our Mr. Slugg is a secret polyglot."

"Fancy! And you haven't even looked through the knothole," said Nanny.

"Gytha, is there anything in the whole world you can't make sound grubby?"

"Not found it yet, Esme," said Nanny brightly.

"I meant meant that when he mutters in his sleep and sings in his bath he talks just like us, but when he thinks people are listening he comes over all foreign." that when he mutters in his sleep and sings in his bath he talks just like us, but when he thinks people are listening he comes over all foreign."

"That's probably to throw that Basilica person off the scent," Nanny said.

"Oh, I reckon Mr. Basilica is very close to Henry Slugg," said Granny. "In fact, I reckon that they're one and-"

There was a gentle knock at the door.

"Who's there?" Granny demanded.

"It's me, ma'am. Mr. Slot. This is my tavern."

The witches pushed the bed aside and Granny opened the door a fraction.

"Yes?" she said suspiciously.

"Er...the coachman said you were...witches?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe you could...help us?"

"What's wrong?"

"It's my boy..."

Granny opened the door farther and saw the woman standing behind Mr. Slot. One look at her face was enough. There was a bundle in her arms.

Granny stepped back. "Bring him in and let me have a look at him."

She took the baby from the woman, sat down on the room's one chair, and pulled back the blanket. Nanny Ogg peered over her shoulder.

"Hmm," said Granny, after a while. She glanced at Nanny, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

"There's a curse on this house, that's what it is," said Slot. "My best cow's been taken mortally sick, too."

"Oh? You have a cowshed?" said Granny. "Very good place for a sickroom, a cowshed. It's the warmth. You better show me where it is."