Mort (15 page)

Y
OU HAD TROUBLE
? said Death, snipping off a few scraps of feather.

‘Well, you see, the witch wouldn’t come away and the monk, well, he started out all over again.’

T
HERE’S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT THERE, LAD
—

‘—Mort—’

—Y
OU SHOULD HAVE WORKED OUT BY NOW THAT EVERYONE GETS WHAT THEY THINK IS COMING TO THEM
. I
T’S SO MUCH NEATER THAT WAY
.

‘I know, sir. But that means bad people who think they’re going to some sort of paradise actually do get there. And good people who fear they’re going to some kind of horrible place really suffer. It doesn’t seem like justice.’

W
HAT IS IT
I’
VE SAID YOU MUST REMEMBER, WHEN YOU’RE OUT ON THE DUTY
?

‘Well, you—’

H
MM
?

Mort stuttered into silence.

T
HERE’S NO JUSTICE
. T
HERE’S JUST YOU
.

‘Well, I—’

Y
OU MUST REMEMBER THAT
.

‘Yes, but—’

I
EXPECT IT ALL WORKS OUT PROPERLY IN THE END
. I
HAVE NEVER MET THE
C
REATOR, BUT
I’
M TOLD
H
E’S QUITE KINDLY DISPOSED TO PEOPLE
. Death snapped the thread and started to unwind the vice.

P
UT SUCH THOUGHTS OUT OF YOUR MIND
, he added. A
T LEAST THE THIRD ONE SHOULDN’T HAVE GIVEN YOU ANY TROUBLE
.

This was the moment. Mort had thought about it for a long time. There was no sense in concealing it. He’d upset the whole future course of history. Such things tend to draw themselves to people’s attention. Best to get it off his chest. Own up like a man. Take his medicine. Cards on table. Beating about bush, none of. Mercy, throw himself on.

The piercing blue eyes glittered at him.

He looked back like a nocturnal rabbit trying to outstare the headlights of a sixteen-wheeled artic whose driver is a twelve-hour caffeine freak outrunning the tachometers of hell.

He failed.

‘No, sir,’ he said.

G
OOD
. W
ELL DONE
. N
OW THEN, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS
?

Anglers reckon that a good dry fly should cunningly mimic the real thing. There are the right flies for morning. There are different flies for the evening rise. And so on.

But the thing between Death’s triumphant digits was a fly from the dawn of time. It was the fly in the primordial soup. It had bred on mammoth turds. It wasn’t a fly that bangs on window panes, it was a fly that drills through walls. It was an insect that would crawl out from between the slats of the heaviest swat dripping venom and seeking revenge. Strange wings and dangling bits stuck out all over it. It seemed to have a lot of teeth.

‘What’s it called?’ said Mort.

I
SHALL CALL IT
– D
EATH’S
G
LORY
. Death gave the thing a final admiring glance and stuck it into the hood of his robe. I
FEEL INCLINED TO SEE A LITTLE BIT OF LIFE THIS EVENING
, he said. Y
OU CAN TAKE THE DUTY
,
NOW THAT YOU’VE GOT THE HANG OF IT
. A
S IT WERE
.

‘Yes. Sir,’ said Mort, mournfully. He saw his life stretching out in front of him like a nasty black tunnel with no light at the end of it.

Death drummed his finger on the desk, muttering to himself.

A
H YES
, he said. A
LBERT TELLS ME SOMEONE’S BEEN MEDDLING IN THE LIBRARY
.

‘Pardon, sir?’

T
AKING BOOKS OUT, LEAVING THEM LYING AROUND
. B
OOKS ABOUT YOUNG WOMEN
. H
E SEEMS TO THINK IT IS AMUSING
.

As has already been revealed, the Holy Listeners have such well developed hearing that they can be deafened by a good sunset. Just for a few seconds it seemed to Mort that the skin on the back of his neck was developing similar strange powers, because he could see Ysabell freeze in mid-stitch. He also heard the little intake of breath that he’d heard before, among the shelves. He remembered the lace handkerchief.

He said, ‘Yes, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.’

The skin on the back of his neck started to itch like fury.

S
PLENDID
. N
OW, YOU TWO CAN RUN ALONG
. G
ET
A
LBERT TO DO YOU A PICNIC LUNCH OR SOMETHING
. G
ET SOME FRESH AIR
. I’
VE NOTICED THE WAY YOU TWO ALWAYS AVOID EACH OTHER
. He gave Mort a conspiratorial nudge – it was like being poked with a stick – and added, A
LBERT’S TOLD ME WHAT THAT MEANS
.

‘Has he?’ said Mort gloomily. He’d been wrong, there
was
a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.

Death gave him another of his supernova winks.

Mort didn’t return it. Instead he turned and plodded towards the door, at a general speed and gait that made Great A’Tuin look like a spring lamb.

He was halfway along the corridor before he heard the soft rush of footsteps behind him and a hand caught his arm.

‘Mort?’

He turned and gazed at Ysabell through a fog of depression.

‘Why did you let him think it was you in the library?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘It was . . . very . . . kind of you,’ she said cautiously.

‘Was it? I can’t think what came over me.’ He felt in his pocket and produced the handkerchief. ‘This belongs to you, I think.’

‘Thank you.’ She blew her nose noisily.

Mort was already well down the corridor, his shoulders hunched like vulture’s wings. She ran after him.

‘I say,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I wanted to say thank you.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he muttered. ‘It’d just be best if you don’t take books away again. It upsets them, or something.’ He gave what he considered to be a mirthless laugh. ‘Ha!’

‘Ha what?’

‘Just ha!’

He’d reached the end of the corridor. There was the door into the kitchen, where Albert would be leering knowingly, and Mort decided he couldn’t face that. He stopped.

‘But I only took the books for a bit of company,’ she said behind him.

He gave in.

‘We could have a walk in the garden,’ he said in despair, and then managed to harden his heart a little and added, ‘Without obligation, that is.’

‘You mean you’re not going to marry me?’ she said. Mort was horrified.

‘Marry?’

‘Isn’t that what Father brought you here for?’ she said. ‘He doesn’t need an apprentice, after all.’

‘You mean all those nudges and winks and little comments about some day my son all this will be yours?’ said Mort. ‘I tried to ignore them. I don’t want to get married to anyone yet,’ he added, suppressing a fleeting mental picture of the princess. ‘And certainly not to you, no offence meant.’

‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on the Disc,’ she said sweetly.

Mort was hurt by this. It was one thing not to want to marry someone, but quite another to be told they didn’t want to marry
you
.

‘At least I don’t look like I’ve been eating doughnuts in a wardrobe for years,’ he said, as they stepped out on to Death’s black lawn.

‘At least I walk as if my legs only had one knee each,’ she said.

‘
My
eyes aren’t two juugly poached eggs.’

Ysabell nodded. ‘On the other hand,
my
ears don’t look like something growing on a dead tree. What does juugly mean?’

‘You know, eggs like Albert does them.’

‘With the white all sticky and runny and full of slimy bits.’

‘Yes.’

‘A good word,’ she conceded thoughtfully. ‘But
my
hair, I put it to you, doesn’t look like something you clean a privy with.’

‘Certainly, but neither does mine look like a wet hedgehog.’

‘Pray note that my chest does not appear to be a toast rack in a wet paper bag.’

Mort glanced sideways at the top of Ysabell’s dress, which contained enough puppy fat for two litters of Rottweilers, and forbore to comment.

‘
My
eyebrows don’t look like a pair of mating caterpillars,’ he hazarded.

‘True. But
my
legs, I suggest, could at least stop a pig in a passageway.’

‘Sorry—?’

‘They’re not bandy,’ she explained.

‘Ah.’

They strolled through the lily beds, temporarily lost for words. Eventually Ysabell confronted Mort and stuck out her hand. He shook it in thankful silence.

‘Enough?’ she said.

‘Just about.’

‘Good. Obviously we shouldn’t get married, if only for the sake of the children.’

Mort nodded.

They sat down on a stone seat between some neatly clipped box hedges. Death had made a pond in this corner of the garden, fed by an icy spring that appeared to be vomited into the pool by a stone lion. Fat white carp lurked in the depths, or nosed on the surface among the velvety black water lilies.

‘We should have brought some breadcrumbs,’ said Mort gallantly, opting for a totally noncontroversial subject.

‘He never comes out here, you know,’ said Ysabell, watching the fish. ‘He made it to keep me amused.’

‘It didn’t work?’

‘It’s not real,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s real here. Not really real. He just likes to act like a human being. He’s trying really hard at the moment; have you noticed? I think you’re having an effect on him. Did you know he tried to learn the banjo once?’

‘I see him as more the organ type.’

‘He couldn’t get the hang of it,’ said Ysabell, ignoring him. ‘He can’t create, you see.’

‘You said he created this pool.’

‘It’s a copy of one he saw somewhere. Everything’s a copy.’

Mort shifted uneasily. Some small insect had crawled up his leg.

‘It’s rather sad,’ he said, hoping that this was approximately the right tone to adopt.

‘Yes.’

She scooped a handful of gravel from the path and began to flick it absentmindedly into the pool.

‘Are my eyebrows that bad?’ she said.

‘Um,’ said Mort, ‘afraid so.’

‘Oh.’ Flick, flick. The carp were watching her disdainfully.

‘And my legs?’ he said.

‘Yes. Sorry.’

Mort shuffled anxiously through his limited repertoire of small talk, and gave up.

‘Never mind,’ he said gallantly. ‘At least you can use tweezers.’

‘He’s very kind,’ said Ysabell, ignoring him, ‘in a sort of absent-minded way.’

‘He’s not exactly your real father, is he?’

‘My parents were killed crossing the Great Nef years ago. There was a storm, I think. He found me and brought me here. I don’t know why he did it.’

‘Perhaps he felt sorry for you?’

‘He never feels anything. I don’t mean that nastily, you understand. It’s just that he’s got nothing to feel with, no whatd’youcallits, no glands. He probably
thought
sorry for me.’

She turned her pale round face towards Mort.

‘I won’t hear a word against him. He tries to do his best. It’s just that he’s always got so much to think about.’

‘My father was a bit like that. Is, I mean.’

‘I expect he’s got glands, though.’

‘I imagine he has,’ said Mort, shifting uneasily. ‘It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about, glands.’

They stared side by side at the trout. The trout stared back.

‘I’ve just upset the entire history of the future,’ said Mort.

‘Yes?’

‘You see, when he tried to kill her I killed him, but the thing is, according to the history she should have died and the duke would be king, but the
worst
bit, the worst bit is that although he’s absolutely rotten to the core he’d unite the cities and eventually they’ll be a federation and the books say there’ll be a hundred years of peace and plenty. I mean, you’d think there’d be a reign of terror or something, but apparently history needs this kind of person sometimes and the princess would just be another monarch. I mean, not
bad,
quite good really, but just not right and now it’s not going to happen and history is flapping around loose and it’s all my fault.’

He subsided, anxiously awaiting her reply.

‘You were right, you know.’

‘I was?’

‘We ought to have brought some breadcrumbs,’ she said. ‘I suppose they find things to eat in the water. Beetles and so on.’

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘What about?’

‘Oh. Nothing. Nothing much, really. Sorry.’

Ysabell sighed and stood up.

‘I expect you’ll be wanting to get off,’ she said. ‘I’m glad we got this marriage business sorted out. It was quite nice talking to you.’

‘We could have a sort of hate–hate relationship,’ said Mort.

‘I don’t normally get to talk with the people Father works with.’ She appeared to be unable to draw herself away, as though she was waiting for Mort to say something else.

‘Well, you wouldn’t,’ was all he could think of.

‘I expect you’ve got to go off to work now.’

‘More or less.’ Mort hesitated, aware that in some indefinable way the conversation had drifted out of the shallows and was now floating over some deep bits he didn’t quite understand.

There was a noise like—

It made Mort recall the old yard at home, with a pang of homesickness. During the harsh Ramtop winters the family kept hardy mountain
tharga
beasts in the yard, chucking in straw as necessary. After the spring thaw the yard was several feet deep and had quite a solid crust on it. You could walk across it if you were careful. If you weren’t, and sank knee deep in the concentrated gyppo, then the sound your boot made as it came out, green and steaming, was as much the sound of the turning year as birdsong and beebuzz.