Unseen Academicals

Which, in a way, was exciting. She had to analyse that feeling for several moments because excitement was not a regular feature of her life. Pies, on the whole, do not excite. She got up and wandered unheeded through the crowds, with the vague idea of seeing what the kitchens were like, but found her path blocked by someone whose sweating face, flustered air and rotund body suggested he was the innkeeper. ‘If you could just wait a moment, ma’am,’ he said to her and then addressed a woman who was emerging from what looked like a private dining room. ‘So nice to see you again, your ladyship,’ he said, bobbing up and down a little. ‘It’s always an honour to have you grace our humble establishment.’

Ladyship.

Glenda looked up at the woman who was everything she had pictured when Nutt had first talked about her. Tall, thin, dark, forbidding, to be feared. Her expression was stern and she said, in what to Glenda were posh tones, ‘Far too noisy in here.’

‘But the beef was superb,’ said another voice and Glenda realized that Ladyship had almost eclipsed a smaller woman, quite pleasant, not particularly tall and with a slightly fussy air about her.

‘Are you Lady Margolotta?’ said Glenda.

The tall lady gave her a look of brief disdain and swept on towards the main doors, but her companion stopped and said, ‘Do you have business with her ladyship?’

‘Is she coming to Ankh-Morpork?’ Glenda asked. ‘Everybody knows she’s Lord Vetinari’s squeeze.’ She felt instantly embarrassed as she said the word; it conjured up images that simply could not fit into the available space in her brain.

‘Really?’ said the woman. ‘They are certainly very close friends.’

‘Well, I want to talk to her about Mister Nutt,’ said Glenda.

The woman gave her a worried look and pulled her over to an empty bench. ‘There has been a problem?’ she said, sitting down and patting the wood beside her.

‘She told him he was worthless,’ said Glenda. ‘And sometimes I think all he worries about is being worthy.’

‘Are you worthy?’ said the woman.

‘What sort of question is that to ask a stranger?’

‘An interesting and possibly revealing one. Do you think the world is a better place with you in it, and would you do me the courtesy of actually thinking about your answer rather than pulling one off the “affronted” rack? I’m afraid there’s far too much of that these days. People believe that acting and thinking are the same thing.’

Faced with that, Glenda settled for, ‘Yes.’

‘You’ve made it better, have you?’

‘Yes. I’ve helped lots of people and I invented the Ploughman’s Pie.’

‘Did the people you helped want to be helped?’

‘What? Yes, they came and asked.’

‘Good. And the Ploughman’s Pie?’

Glenda told her.

‘Ah, you must be the cook at Unseen University,’ said the woman. ‘Which means that you have access to rather more than the average cook and, therefore, I would deduce that to keep the pickled onions crisp in the pie you put them in a cold room at very nearly freezing point for some time immediately before baking, possibly wrapping them in cheese for the sake of temporary insulation, and, if you have assembled your pie correctly and paid attention to temperatures, I think that would do the trick.’ She paused. ‘Hello?’

‘Are you a cook?’ said Glenda.

‘Good grief, no!’

‘So you worked it out, just like that? Mister Nutt told me her ladyship employs very clever people.’

‘Well, I’m embarrassed to say it, but that is true.’

‘But she shouldn’t have told Mister Nutt that he’s worthless. She shouldn’t say that to people.’

‘But he was worthless, yes? He couldn’t even talk properly when he was found. Surely what she has done has helped him?’

‘But he frets all the time and it’s got out now that he’s an orc. What’s that all about?’

‘And is he, in your mind, doing anything particularly orcish?’

Reluctantly, Glenda said, ‘Sometimes his fingernails turn into claws.’

The woman looked suddenly concerned. ‘And what does he do then?’

‘Well, nothing,’ said Glenda. ‘They just sort of … go back in again. But he makes wonderful candles,’ she added quickly. ‘He’s always making things. It’s as if … worth is something that drains away all the time so you have to keep topping it up.’

‘Possibly, now you put it that way, she has been a little too brisk with him.’

‘Does she love him?’ asked Glenda.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I mean, has anyone ever loved him?’

‘Oh, I think she does, in her way,’ said the woman. ‘Although she’s a vampire, you know. They tend to see the world rather differently.’

‘Well, if I met her I’d give her a piece of my mind,’ said Glenda. ‘Muddling him about. Setting those wretched flying ladies on him. I wouldn’t let her do that sort of thing.’

‘She’s immensely strong, I’m led to believe,’ said the woman.

‘That doesn’t give her the right,’ said Glenda. ‘And shall I tell you something? Mister Nutt is right here. Oh yes, out in the yard, shoeing one of the horses for the Lancre Flyer. He really is amazing.’

‘It sounds like it,’ said the woman with a faint little smile. ‘You certainly seem to be a vehement supporter.’