Mort

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 offense 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 absent-mindedly 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