Maskerade

'Someone's been smashing things, Mr Salzella,' he said mournfully. 'The pallet springs and the backfalls and everything. Completely ruined. I'm sure I won't be able to get a tune out of it. And it's priceless.'

Salzella sighed. 'All right. I'll tell Mister Bucket,' he said. 'Thank you, everyone.'

He gave Agnes a gloomy nod, and strode off:

'You shouldn't ort to do that to people,' said Nanny Ogg in a vague sort of way, as the coach began to get up speed.

She looked around with a wide, friendly grin at the now rather dishevelled occupants of the coach.

'Morning,' she said, delving into the sack. 'I'm Gytha Ogg, I've got fifteen children, this is my friend Esme Weatherwax, we're going to Ankh‑Morpork, would anyone like an egg sandwich? I've brung plenty. The cat's been sleepin' on them but they're fine, look, they bend back all right. No? Please yourself, I'm sure. Let's see what else we've got... ah, has anybody got an opener for a bottle of beer?'

A man in the corner indicated that he might have such a thing.

'Fine,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Anyone got something to drink a bottle of beer out of?'

Another man nodded hopefully.

'Good,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Now, has anybody got a bottle of beer?'

Granny, for once not the centre of attention as all horrified eyes were on Nanny and her sack, surveyed the other occupants of the coach.

The express stage went right over the Ramtops and all the way through the patchwork of little countries beyond. If it cost forty dollars just from Lancre, then it must have cost these people a lot more. What sort of folk spent the best part of two months' wages just to travel fast and uncomfortably?

The thin man who sat clutching his bag was probably a spy, she decided. The fat man who'd volunteered the glass looked as if he sold things; he had the unpleasant complexion of someone who'd hit too many bottles but missed too many meals.

They were huddled together on their seat because the rest of it was occupied by a man of almost wizardly proportions. He didn't appear to have woken up when the coach stopped. There was a handkerchief over his face. He was snoring with the regularity of a geyser, and looked as though the only worries he might have in the world were a tendency for small objects to gravitate towards him and the occasional tide.

Nanny Ogg continued to rummage around in her bag and, as was the case when she was preoccupied, her mouth had wired itself to her eyeballs without her brain intervening.

She was used to travelling by broomstick. Longdistance ground travel was a novelty to her, so she'd prepared with some care.

'...lessee now... book of puzzles for long journeys ... cushion ... foot powder ... mosquito trap... phrase book... bag to be sick into... oh dear...'

The audience, which against all probability had managed to squeeze itself further away from Nanny during the litany, waited with horrified interest.

'What?' said Granny.

'How often d'you reckon this coach stops?'

'What's the matter?'

'I should've gone before we left. Sorry. It's the jolting. Anyone know if there's a privy on this thing?' she added brightly.

'Er,' said the probable spy, 'we generally wait until the next stop, or–' He stopped. He had been about to add 'there's always the window', which was a manly option on the bumpier rural stretches, but he stopped himself in the horrible apprehension that this ghastly old woman might seriously consider the possibility.

'There's Ohulan just a bit further on the road,' said Granny, who was trying to doze. 'You just wait.'

'This coach doesn't stop at Ohulan,' said the spy helpfully.

Granny Weatherwax raised her head.

'Up until now, that is,' said the spy.

Mr Bucket was sitting in his office trying to make sense of the Opera House's books.

They didn't make any kind of sense. He reckoned he was as good as the next man at reading a balance‑sheet, but these were to book‑keeping what grit was to clockwork.

Seldom Bucket had always enjoyed opera. He didn't understand it and never had, but he didn't understand the ocean either and he enjoyed that, too. He'd looked upon the purchase as, well, something to do, a sort of working retirement. The offer had been too good to pass up. Things had been getting pretty tough in the wholesale cheese‑and‑milk-derivatives business, and he'd been looking forward to the quieter climes of the world of art.

The previous owners had put on some good operas. It was only a shame that their genius hadn't run to book­keeping as well. Money seemed to have been taken out of the accounts when anyone needed it. The financial‑record system largely consisted of notes on torn bits of paper saying: 'I've taken $30 to pay Q. See you Monday. R.' Who was R? Who was Q? What was the money for? You wouldn't get away with this sort of thing in the world of cheese.

He looked up as the door opened.

'Ah, Salzella,' he said. 'Thank you for coming. You don't know who Q is, by any chance?'

'No, Mr Bucket.'

'Or R?'

'I'm afraid not.' Salzella pulled up a chair.