Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

He walked back to the door.

'Sorry to have bothered you,' he said, and left.

Zorgo's patient watched him go with interest.

'Didn't he have a crossbow?' he said. 'Bit odd, going after interesting rare butterflies with a crossbow.'

Zorgo readjusted the fit of the grid on his patient's bald head.

'Dunno,' he said, 'I suppose it stops them creating all these damn thunderstorms.' He picked up the mallet again. 'Now, what were we going for today? Decisiveness, yes?'

'Yes. Well, no. Maybe.'

'Right.' Zorgo took aim. 'This,' he said with absolute truth, 'won't hurt a bit.'

It was more than just a delicatessen. It was a sort of dwarf community centre and meeting place. The babble of voices stopped when Angua entered, bending almost double, but started up again with slightly more volume and a few laughs when Carrot followed. He waved cheerfully at the other customers.

Then he carefully removed two chairs. It was just possible to sit upright if you sat on the floor.

'Very . . . nice,' said Angua. 'Ethnic.'

'I come in here quite a lot,' said Carrot. 'The food's good and, of course, it pays to keep your ear to the ground.'

'That'd certainly be easy here,' said Angua, and laughed.

'Pardon?'

1S6

'Well, I mean, the ground is . . . so much . . . closer . . .'

She felt a pit opening wider with every word. The noise level had suddenly dropped again.

'Er,' said Carrot, staring fixedly at her. 'How can I put this? People are talking in Dwarfish . . . but they're listening in Human.'

'Sorry.'

Carrot smiled, and then nodded at the cook behind the counter and cleared his throat noisily.

'I think I might have a throat sweet somewhere —' Angua began.

'I was ordering breakfast,' said Carrot.

'You know the menu off by heart?'

'Oh, yes. But it's written on the wall as well.'

Angua turned and looked again at what she'd thought were merely random scratches.

'It's Oggham,' said Carrot. 'An ancient and poetic runic script whose origins are lost in the mists of time but it's thought to have been invented even before the Gods.'

'Gosh. What does it say?'

Carrot really cleared his throat this time.

'Soss, egg, beans and rat 12p Soss, rat and fried slice l0p Cream-cheese rat 9p Rat and beans 8p Rat and ketchup 7p Rat 4p'

'Why does ketchup cost almost as much as the rat?' said Angua.