Maskerade

the hills, a buzzard screamed and wheeled.
    The coach stood by the side of the road, despite the fact that it should have been speeding along at least twenty miles away.
    At last Granny grew bored, and sidled toward a clump of gorse bushes.
    “How’re you doing, Gytha?”
    “Fine, fine,” said a muffled voice.
    “Only I reckon the coach driver is getting a bit impatient.”
    “You can’t hurry Nature,” said Nanny Ogg.
    “Well, don’t blame me. You was the one who said it was too draughty on the broomsticks.”
    “You make yourself useful, Esme Weatherwax,” said the voice from the bushes, “by obligin’ me and findin’ any dock or burdock plants that might happen to be around out there, thank you very much.”
    “Herbs? What’re you plannin’ with them?”
    “I’m plannin’ to say, ‘Thank goodness, big leaves, just what I need.’”

    Some distance from the bushes where Nanny Ogg was communing with Nature there was, placid under the autumn sky, a lake.
    In the reeds, a swan was dying. Or was due to die.
    There was, however, an unforeseen snag.
    Death sat down on the bank.
    N OW LOOK , he said, I KNOW HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO GO . S WANS SING JUST ONCE, BEAUTIFULLY, BEFORE THEY DIE . T HAT’S WHERE THE WORD “SWANSONG” ORIGINATES . I T IS VERY MOVING . N OW, LET US TRY THIS AGAIN …
    He produced a tuning fork from the shadowy recesses of his robe and twanged it on the side of his scythe.
    T HERE’S YOUR NOTE …
    “Uh-uh,” said the swan, shaking its head.
    W HY MAKE IT DIFFICULT ?
    “I like it here,” said the swan.
    T HAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT .
    “Did you know I can break a man’s arm with a blow of my wing?”
    H OW ABOUT IF I GET YOU STARTED ? D O YOU KNOW “M OONLIGHT B AY ”?
    “That’s no more than a barbershop ditty! I happen to be a swan!”
    “L ITTLE B ROWN J UG ”? Death cleared his throat. H A HA HA , H EE HEE HEE , L ITTLE —
    “That’s a song?” The swan hissed angrily and swayed from one crabbed foot to the other. “I don’t know who you are, sirrah, but where I come from we’ve got better taste in music.”
    R EALLY ? W OULD YOU CARE TO SHOW ME AN EXAMPLE ?
    “Uh-uh!”
    D AMN .
    “Thought you’d got me there, didn’t you,” said the swan. “Thought you’d tricked me, eh? Thought I might unthinkingly give you a couple of bars of the Pedlar’s Song from L OHEN-SHAAK , eh?”
    I DON’T KNOW THAT ONE .
    The swan took a deep, labored breath.
    “That’s the one that goes ‘S CHNEIDE MEINEN EIGENEN H ALS —’”
    T HANK YOU , said Death. The scythe moved.
    “Bugger!”
    A moment later the swan stepped out of its body and ruffled fresh but slightly transparent wings.
    “Now what?” it said.
    T HAT’S UP TO YOU . I T’S ALWAYS UP TO YOU .

    Mr. Bucket leaned back in his creaky leather chair with his eyes shut until his director of music had finished.
    “So,” Bucket said. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. There’s this Ghost. Every time anyone loses a hammer in this place, it’s been stolen by the Ghost. Every time someone cracks a note, it’s because of the Ghost. But also , every time someone finds a lost object, it’s because of the Ghost. Every time someone has a very good scene, it must be because of the Ghost. He sort of comes with the building, like the rats. Every so often someone sees him, but not for long because he comes and goes like a…well, a Ghost. Apparently we let him use Box Eight for free on every first-night performance. And you say people like him?”
    “‘Like’ isn’t quite the right word,” said Salzella. “It would be more correct to say that…well, it’s pure superstition, of course, but they think he’s lucky. Thought he was, anyway.”
    And you wouldn’t understand a thing about that, would you, you coarse little cheesemonger , he added to himself. Cheese is cheese. Milk goes rotten naturally. You don’t have to make it happen by having several hundred people wound up until their nerves go twang…
    “Lucky,” said Bucket flatly.
    “Luck is very important,” said Salzella, in a voice in which pained patience floated like ice cubes. “I imagine that temperament is not an important factor in the cheese business?”
    “We rely on rennet,” said Bucket.
    Salzella sighed. “Anyway, the company feel that the Ghost is…lucky. He used to send people little notes of encouragement. After a really good performance, sopranos would find a box of chocolates in their dressing room, that sort of