Going Postal

was, fortunately, no reply, but there was some scrabbling up near the roof.
    “We’re closed, you know,” he quavered. “But we’re open again at seven in the morning for a range of stamps and a wonderful deal on mail to Pseudopolis.” His voice slowed and his brow creased as he tried to remember everything Mr. Lipwig had told them earlier. “Remember, we may not be the fastest but we always get there. Why not write to your old granny?”
    “I ate my grandmother,” growled a voice from high in the darkness. “I gnawed her bones.”
    Stanley coughed. He had not been trained in the art of salesmanship.
    “Ah,” he said. “Er…perhaps an aunt, then?”
    He wrinkled his nose. Why was there the stink of lamp oil in the air?
    “Hello?” he said again.
    Something dropped out of the dark, bounced off his shoulder, and landed on the floor with a wet thud. Stanley reached down, felt around, and found a pigeon. At least, he found about half a pigeon. It was still warm, and very sticky.

    M R . G RYLE sat on a beam high above the hall. His stomach was on fire.
    It was no good, old habits died too hard. They were bred in the bone. Something warm and feathery fluttered up in front of you and of course you snapped at it. Ankh-Morpork had pigeons roosting on every gutter, cornice, and statue. Not even the resident gargoyles could keep them down. He’d had six before he sailed in through the broken dome, and then another huge, warm, feathery cloud had risen up, and a red haze had simply dropped in front of his eyes.
    They were so tasty . You couldn’t stop at one! And, five minutes later, you remembered why you should have.
    These were feral, urban birds that lived on what they could find on the streets—Ankh-Morpork streets, at that. They were bobbing, cooing plague pits. You might as well eat a dog-turd burger and wash it down with a jumbo cup of septic tank.
    Mr. Gryle groaned. Best to finish the job, get out of here, and go and throw up over a busy street. He dropped his oil bottle into the dark and fumbled for his matches. His species had come to fire late, because nests burned too easily, but it did have its uses…

    F LAME BLOSSOMED , high up at the far end of the hall. It dropped from the beams and landed on the stacks of letters. There was a whoomph as the oil caught fire; blue runnels of flame began to climb the walls.
    Stanley looked down. A few feet away, lit by the fire crawling across the letters, was a figure curled up on the floor. The golden hat with wings lay next to it.
    Stanley looked up, eyes glowing red in the firelight, as a figure swooped from the rafters and sped toward him, mouth open.
    And that’s when it all went wrong for Mr. Gryle, because Stanley had one of his Little Moments.

    A TTITUDE WAS EVERYTHING . Moist had studied attitude. Some of the old nobility had it. It was the total lack of any doubt that things would go the way they expected them to go.
    The maître d’ ushered them to their table without a moment’s hesitation.
    “Can you really afford this on a government salary, Mr. Lipwig?” said Miss Dearheart as they sat down. “Or are we going to exit via the kitchens?”
    “I believe I have adequate funds,” said Moist.
    He probably hadn’t, he knew. A restaurant that has a waiter even for the mustard stacks up the prices. But right now Moist wasn’t worrying about the bill. There were ways to deal with bills, and it was best to deal with them on a full stomach.
    They ordered appetizers that probably cost more than the weekly food bill for an average man. There was no point in looking for the cheapest thing on the menu. The cheapest thing theoretically existed but somehow, no matter how hard you stared, didn’t quite manage to be there. On the other hand, there were a lot of most expensive things.
    “Are the boys settling in okay?” said Miss Dearheart.
    The boys , Moist thought. “Oh, yes. Anghammarad has really taken to it. A natural postman,” he said.
    “Well, he’s had practice.”
    “What’s that box he’s got riveted to his arm?”
    “That? A message he’s got to deliver. Not the original baked-clay tablet, I gather. He’s had to make copies two or three times and the bronze lasts hardly any time at all, to a golem. It’s a message to King Het of Thut from his astrologers on their holy mountain, telling him that the Goddess of the Sea was angry and what ceremonies he’d have to do to placate her.”
    “Didn’t that slide into the sea anyway?