Carpe Jugulum

maggot!
    “I’ve got to go and…er…to go and…I’ve got to go and…help,” said Agnes, backing away. He nodded. As she left, he blew his nose again, produced a small black book from a pocket, sighed, and hurriedly opened it at a bookmark.
    She picked up a tray to add some weight to the alibi, stepped toward the food table, turned to look back at the hunched figure as out of place as a lost sheep, and walked into someone as solid as a tree.
    “Who is that strange person?” said a voice by her ear. Agnes heard Perdita curse her for jumping sideways, but she recovered and managed to smile awkwardly at the person who’d spoken.
    He was a young man and, it dawned on her, a very attractive one. Attractive men were not in plentiful supply in Lancre, where licking your hand and smoothing your hair down before taking a girl out was considered swanky.
    He’s got a ponytail! squeaked Perdita. Now that is cool!
    Agnes felt the blush start somewhere in the region of her knees and begin its inevitable acceleration upward.
    “Er…sorry?” she said.
    “You can practically smell him,” said the man. He inclined his head slightly toward the sad priest. “Looks rather like a scruffy little crow, don’t you think?”
    “Er…yes,” Agnes managed. The blush rounded the curve of her bosom, red hot and rising. A ponytail on a man was unheard of in Lancre, and the cut of his clothes also suggested that he’d spent time somewhere where fashion changed more than once a lifetime. No one in Lancre had ever worn a waistcoat embroidered with peacocks.
    Say something to him! Perdita screamed within.
    “Wstfgl?” said Agnes. Behind her, Mightily Oats had got up and was inspecting the food suspiciously.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Agnes swallowed, partly because Perdita was trying to shake her by the throat.
    “He does look as if he’s about to flap away, doesn’t he,” she said. Oh, please, don’t let me giggle…
    The man snapped his fingers. A waiter hurrying past with a tray of drinks turned through ninety degrees.
    “Can I get you a drink, Miss Nitt?”
    “Er…white wine?” Agnes whispered.
    “No, you don’t want white wine, the red is much more…colorful,” he said, taking a glass and handing it to her. “What is our quarry doing now…ah, applying himself to a biscuit with a very small amount of pâté on it, I see…”
    Ask him his name! Perdita yelled. No, that’d be forward of me, Agnes thought. Perdita screamed, You were built forward, you stupid lump—
    “Please let me introduce myself. I’m Vlad,” he said, kindly. “Oh, now he’s…yes, he’s about to pounce on…yes, a prawn vol-au-vent. Prawns up here, eh? King Verence has spared no expense, has he?”
    “He had them brought up on ice all the way from Genua,” Agnes mumbled.
    “They do very good seafood there, I believe.”
    “Never been,” Agnes mumbled. Inside her head Perdita laid down and cried.
    “Maybe we could visit it one day, Agnes,” said Vlad.
    The blush was at Agnes’s neck.
    “It’s very hot in here, don’t you think?” said Vlad.
    “It’s the fire,” said Agnes gratefully. “It’s over there,” she added, nodding to where quite a large amount of a tree was burning in the hall’s enormous fireplace and could only have been missed by a man with a bucket on his head.
    “My sister and I have—” Vlad began.
    “Excuse me, Miss Nitt?”
    “What is it, Shawn?” Drop dead, Shawn Ogg, said Perdita.
    “Mum says you’re to come at once, miss. She’s down in the yard. She says it’s important.”
    “It always is,” said Agnes. She gave Vlad a quick smile. “Excuse me, I have to go and help an old lady.”
    “I’m sure we’ll meet again, Agnes,” said Vlad.
    “Oh, er…thank you.”
    She hurried out and was halfway down the steps before she remembered she hadn’t told him her name.
    Two steps farther she thought: well, he could have asked someone.
    Two steps after that Perdita said: Why would he ask anyone your name?
    Agnes cursed the fact that she had grown up with an invisible enemy.
    “Come and look at this!” hissed Nanny, grabbing her by the arm as she reached the courtyard. She was dragged out to the carriages parked near the stables. Nanny waved a finger to the door of the nearest one.
    “See that?” she said.
    “It looks very impressive,” said Agnes.
    “See the crest?”
    “Looks like…a couple of black and white birds. Magpies, aren’t they?”
    “Yeah, but look at the