Maskerade

Whatever lay in the increasingly shadowy depths was probably something she ought not to find.
    Perdita continued downward. Agnes went along for the ride.

    The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr. Bucket thought. Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been killed up to the present moment.
    And it had been very gratifying to see the tears of gratitude in Señor Basilica’s eyes when he was told that the cook was preparing a special Brindisian meal, just for him. He’d seemed quite overcome.
    It was reassuring that he knew Lady Esmerelda. There was something about the woman that left Mr. Bucket terribly perplexed. He was finding it a little difficult to converse with her. As a conversational gambit, “Hello, I understand you have a lot of money, can I have some please?” lacked, he felt, a certain subtlety.
    “So, er, madam,” he ventured, “what brings you to our, er, city?”
    “I thought perhaps I could come and spend some money,” said Granny. “Got rather a lot of it, you know. Keep havin’ to change banks ’cos they get filled up.”
    Somewhere in Bucket’s tortured brain, part of his mind went “whoopee” and clicked its heels.
    “I’m sure if there’s anything I can do—” he murmured.
    “As a matter of fact, there is,” said Granny. “I was thinking of—”
    A gong banged.
    “Ah,” said Mr. Bucket. “Luncheon is served.”
    He extended his arm to Granny, who gave it an odd look before remembering who she was and taking it.
    There was a small exclusive dining room off his office. It contained a table set for five and, looking rather fetching in a waitress’s lacy bonnet, Nanny Ogg.
    She bobbed a curtsy.
    Enrico Basilica made a tiny strangling noise at the back of his throat.
    “’Scuse me, there’s been a bit of a problem,” said Nanny.
    “Who’s dead?” said Bucket.
    “Oh, no one’s dead,” said Nanny. “It’s the dinner, it’s still alive and hangin’ on to the ceiling. And the pasta’s all gone black, see. I said to Mrs. Clamp, I said, it may be foreign but I don’t reckon it should be crunchy—”
    “This is terrible! What a way to treat an honored guest!” said Bucket. He turned to the interpreter. “Please assure Señor Basilica that we will send out for fresh pasta straight away. What were we having, Mrs. Ogg?”
    “Roast mutton with clootie dumplings,” said Nanny.
    Behind the face of Señor Basilica the throat of Henry Slugg made another little growling sound.
    “And there’s some nice slumpie with a knob of butter,” Nanny went on.
    Bucket looked around, puzzled. “Is there a dog somewhere in here?” he said.
    “Well, I for one don’t believe in pandering to singers,” said Granny Weatherwax. “Fancy food, indeed! I never heard the like! Why not give him mutton with the rest of us?”
    “Oh, Lady Esmerelda, that’s hardly a way to treat—” Bucket began.
    Enrico’s elbow nudged his interpreter, with the special nudge of a man who could see clootie dumplings vanishing into the long grass if he weren’t careful. He rumbled out a very pointed sentence.
    “Señor Basilica says he would be more than happy to taste the indigenous food of Ankh-Morpork,” said the interpreter.
    “No, we really can’t—” Bucket tried again.
    “In fact Señor Basilica insists that he tries the indigenous food of Ankh-Morpork,” said the interpreter.

“’S’right. Si,” said Basilica.
    “Good,” said Granny. “And give him some beer while you’re about it.” She gave the tenor’s stomach a playful poke, losing her finger down to the second joint. “Why, in a day or two I expect you could practically turn him into a native!”

    The wooden stairs gave way to stone.
    Perdita said: He’ll have a vast cave somewhere under the Opera House. There will be hundreds of candles, casting an exciting yet romantic light over the, yes, the lake, and there will be a dinner table shining with crystal glass and silverware, and of course he will have, yes, a huge organ—
    Agnes blushed hotly in the darkness.
    —on which, that is to say, he will play in a virtuoso style many operatic classics.
    Agnes said: It’ll be damp. There will be rats.

    “Another clootie dumpling, Senior?” said Nanny Ogg.
    “Mmfmmfmmf!”
    “Take two while you’re about it.”
    It was an education watching Enrico Basilica eat. It wasn’t as though he gobbled his food, but he did eat continuously, like a man who intends to go on doing it all