Hogfather (24 page)

“It doesn’t sound too unreal to me,” said the oh god. “Sky. Trees. Flowers. Dead fish.”

“
Brown
tree trunks? Really they’re mostly a sort of grayish mossy color. You only ever see brown tree trunks in one place,” said Susan. “And it’s the same place where the sky is only ever overhead. The blue never comes down to the ground.”

She looked up. At the far end of the corridor was one of the very tall, very thin windows. It looked out onto the black gardens. Black bushes, black grass, black trees. Skeletal fish cruising in the black waters of a pool, under black water lilies.

There was color, in a sense, but it was the kind of color you’d get if you could shine a beam of black through a prism. There were hints of tints, here and there a black you might persuade yourself was a very deep purple or a midnight blue. But it was basically black, under a black sky, because this was the world belonging to Death and that was all there was to it.

The shape of Death was the shape people had created for him, over the centuries. Why bony? Because bones were associated with death. He’d got a scythe because agricultural people could spot a decent metaphor. And he lived in a somber land because the human imagination would be rather stretched to let him live somewhere nice with flowers.

People like Death lived in the human imagination, and got their shape there, too. He wasn’t the only one…

…but he didn’t like the script, did he? He’d started to take an interest in people. Was that a thought, or just a memory of something that hadn’t happened yet?

The oh god followed her gaze.

“Can we go after her?” said the oh god. “I say
we
, I think I’ve just got drafted in because I was in the wrong place.”

“She’s alive. That means she is mortal,” said Susan. “That means I can find her, too.” She turned and started to walk out of the library.

“If she says the sky is just blue overhead, what’s between it and the horizon?” said the oh god, running to keep up.

“You don’t
have
to come,” said Susan. “It’s not your problem.”

“Yes, but given that my problem is that my whole purpose in life is to feel rotten, anything’s an improvement.”

“It could be dangerous. I don’t think she’s there of her own free will. Would you be any good in a fight?”

“Yes. I could be sick on people.”

It was a shack, somewhere out on the outskirts of the Plains town of Scrote. Scrote had a lot of outskirts, spread so widely—a busted cart here, a dead dog there—that often people went through it without even knowing it was there, and really it only appeared on the maps because cartographers get embarrassed about big empty spaces.

Hogswatch came after the excitement of the cabbage harvest when it was pretty quiet in Scrote and there was nothing much to look forward to until the fun of the sprout festival.

This shack had an iron stove, with a pipe that went up through the thick cabbage-leaf thatch.

Voices echoed faintly within the pipe.

T
HIS IS REALLY, REALLY STUPID
.

“I think the tradition got started when everyone had them big chimneys, master.”
This
voice sounded as though it was coming from someone standing on the roof and shouting down the pipe.

I
NDEED
? I
T’S ONLY A MERCY IT’S UNLIT
.

There was some muffled scratching and banging, and then a thump from within the potbelly of the stove.

D
AMN
.

“What’s up, master?”

T
HE DOOR HAS NO HANDLE ON THE INSIDE
. I
CALL THAT INCONSIDERATE
.

There were some more bumps, and then a scrape as the stove lid was lifted up and pushed sideways. An arm came out and felt around the front of the stove until it found the handle.

It played with it for a while, but it was obvious that the hand did not belong to a person used to opening things.

In short, Death came out of the stove. Exactly how would be difficult to describe without folding the page. Time and space were, from Death’s point of view, merely things that he’d heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not.

“Let us in, master,” a pitiful voice echoed down from the roof. “It’s brass monkeys out here.”

Death went over to the door. Snow was blowing underneath it. He peered nervously at the woodwork. There was a thump outside and Albert’s voice sounded a lot closer.

“What’s up, master?”

Death stuck his head through the wood of the door.

T
HERE’S THESE METAL THINGS
—

“Bolts, master. You slide them,” said Albert, sticking his hands under his armpits to keep them warm.

A
H
.

Death’s head disappeared. Albert stamped his feet and watched his breath cloud in the air while he listened to the pathetic scrabbling on the other side of the door.

Death’s head appeared again.

E
R
…

“It’s the latch, master,” said Albert wearily.

R
IGHT
. R
IGHT
.

“You put your thumb on it and push it down.”

R
IGHT
.

The head disappeared. Albert jumped up and down a bit, and waited.

The head appeared.

E
R
…I
WAS WITH YOU UP TO THE THUMB
…

Albert sighed. “And then you press down and pull, master.”

A
H
. R
IGHT
. G
OT YOU
.

The head disappeared.

Oh dear, thought Albert. He just can’t get the hang of them, can he…?

The door jerked open. Death stood behind it, beaming proudly, as Albert staggered in, snow blowing in with him.

“Blimey, it’s getting really parky,” said Albert. “Any sherry?” he added hopefully.

I
T APPEARS NOT
.

Death looked at the sock hooked onto the side of the stove. It had a hole in it.

A letter, in erratic handwriting, was attached to it. Death picked it up.

T
HE BOY WANTS A PAIR OF TROUSERS THAT HE DOESN’T HAVE TO SHARE, A HUGE MEAT PIE, A SUGAR MOUSE, “A LOT OF TOYS” AND A PUPPY CALLED
S
CRUFF
.

“Ah, sweet,” said Albert. “I shall wipe away a tear, ’cos what he’s
gettin
’, see, is this little wooden toy and an apple.” He held them out.

B
UT THE LETTER CLEARLY
—

“Yes, well, it’s socio-economic factors again, right?” said Albert. “The world’d be in a right mess if everyone got what they asked for, eh?”

I
GAVE THEM WHAT THEY WANTED IN THE STORE
…

“Yeah, and that’s gonna cause a
lot
of trouble, master. All them ‘toy pigs that really work.’ I didn’t say nothing ’cos it was getting the job done but you can’t go on like that. What good’s a god who gives you everything you want?”

Y
OU HAVE ME THERE
.

“It’s the
hope
that’s important. Big part of belief, hope. Give people jam today and they’ll just sit and eat it. Jam tomorrow, now—that’ll keep them going forever.”

A
ND YOU MEAN THAT BECAUSE OF THIS THE POOR GET POOR THINGS AND THE RICH GET RICH THINGS
?

“’s right,” said Albert. “That’s the meaning of Hogswatch.”

Death nearly wailed.

B
UT
I’
M THE
H
OGFATHER
! He looked embarrassed. A
T THE MOMENT
, I
MEAN
.

“Makes no difference,” said Albert, shrugging. “I remember when I was a nipper, one Hogswatch I had my heart set on this huge model horse they had in the shop…” His face creased for a moment in a grim smile of recollection. “I remember I spent
hours
one day, cold as charity the weather was, I spent
hours
with my nose pressed up against the window…until they heard me callin’, and unfroze me. I saw them take it out of the window, someone was in there buying it, and, y’know, just for a second I thought it really was going to be for me…Oh, I
dreamed
of that toy horse. It were red and white with a real saddle and everything. And rockers. I’d’ve
killed
for that horse.” He shrugged again. “Not a chance, of course, ’cos we didn’t have a pot to piss in and we even ’ad to spit on the bread to make it soft enough to eat—”

P
LEASE ENLIGHTEN ME
. W
HAT IS SO IMPORTANT ABOUT HAVING A POT TO PISS IN
?

“It’s…it’s more like a figure of speech, master. It means you’re as poor as a church mouse.”

A
RE THEY POOR
?

“Well…yeah.”

B
UT SURELY NOT MORE POOR THAN ANY OTHER MOUSE
? A
ND, AFTER ALL, THERE TEND TO BE LOTS OF CANDLES AND THINGS THEY COULD EAT
.

“Figure of speech again, master. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

O
H
. I
SEE
. D
O CARRY ON
.

“O’ course, I still hung up my stocking on Hogswatch Eve, and in the morning, you know, you know what? Our dad had put in this little horse he’d carved his very own self…”

A
H
, said Death. A
ND THAT WAS WORTH MORE THAN ALL THE EXPENSIVE TOY HORSES IN THE WORLD, EH
?

Albert gave him a beady look. “No!” he said. “It
weren’t
. All I could think of was it wasn’t the big horse in the window.”

Death looked shocked.

B
UT HOW MUCH BETTER TO HAVE A TOY CARVED WITH
—

“No. Only grown-ups think like that,” said Albert. “You’re a selfish little bugger when you’re seven. Anyway, Dad got ratted after lunch and trod on it.”

L
UNCH
?

“All right, mebbe we had a bit of pork dripping for the bread…”

E
VEN SO, THE SPIRIT OF
H
OGSWATCH
—

Albert sighed. “If you like, master. If you like.”

Death looked perturbed.

B
UT SUPPOSING THE
H
OGFATHER HAD BROUGHT YOU THE WONDERFUL HORSE
—

“Oh, Dad would’ve flogged it for a couple of bottles,” said Albert.

B
UT WE HAVE BEEN INTO HOUSES WHERE THE CHILDREN HAD MANY TOYS AND BROUGHT THEM EVEN
MORE
TOYS, AND IN HOUSES LIKE THIS THE CHILDREN GET PRACTICALLY NOTHING
.

“Huh, we’d have given
anything
to get
practically
nothing when I were a lad,” said Albert.

B
E HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT, IS THAT THE IDEA
?

“That’s about the size of it, master. A good god line, that. Don’t give ’em too much and tell ’em to be happy with it. Jam tomorrow, see.”

T
HIS IS WRONG
. Death hesitated. I
MEAN…IT’S
RIGHT
TO BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT
. B
UT YOU’VE GOT TO HAVE SOMETHING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT HAVING
. T
HERE’S NO POINT IN BEING HAPPY ABOUT HAVING NOTHING
.

Albert felt a bit out of his depth in this new tide of social philosophy.

“Dunno,” he said. “I suppose people’d say they’ve got the moon and the stars and such like.”

I’
M SURE THEY WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO PRODUCE THE PAPERWORK
.

“All I know is, if Dad’d caught
us
with a big bag of pricey toys we’d just have got a ding round the ear hole for nicking ’em.”

I
T IS…UNFAIR
.

“That’s life, master.”

B
UT
I’
M NOT
.

“I meant, this is how it’s supposed to go, master,” said Albert.

N
O
. Y
OU MEAN THIS IS HOW IT GOES
.

Albert leaned against the stove and rolled himself one of his horrible thin cigarettes. It was best to let the master work his own way through these things. He got over them eventually. It was like that business with the violin. For three days there was nothing but twangs and broken strings, and then he’d never touched the thing again. That was the trouble, really. Everything the master did
was
a bit like that. When things got into his head you just had to wait until they leaked out again.

He’d thought that Hogswatch was all…plum pudding and brandy and ho ho ho, and he didn’t have the kind of mind that could ignore all the other stuff. And so it hurt him.

I
T IS
H
OGSWATCH
, said Death,
AND PEOPLE DIE ON THE STREETS
. P
EOPLE FEAST BEHIND LIGHTED WINDOWS AND OTHER PEOPLE HAVE NO HOMES
. I
S THIS FAIR
?

“Well, of course, that’s the big issue—” Albert began.

T
HE PEASANT HAD A HANDFUL OF BEANS AND THE KING HAD SO MUCH HE WOULD NOT EVEN NOTICE THAT WHICH HE GAVE AWAY
. I
S THIS FAIR
?

“Yeah, but if you gave it all to the peasant then in a year or two he’d be just as snooty as the king—” began Albert, jaundiced observer of human nature.

N
AUGHTY AND NICE
? said Death. B
UT IT’S
EASY
TO BE NICE IF YOU’RE RICH
. I
S THIS FAIR
?

Albert wanted to argue. He wanted to say, Really? In that case, how come so many of the rich buggers is bastards? And being poor don’t mean being naughty, neither. We was poor when I were a kid, but we was honest. Well, more stupid than honest, to tell the truth. But basically honest.

He didn’t argue, though. The master wasn’t in any mood for it. He always did what needed to be done.

“You
did
say we just had to do this so’s people’d believe—” he began, and then stopped and started again. “When it comes to
fair
, master, you yourself—”

I
AM EVENHANDED TO RICH AND POOR ALIKE
, snapped Death. B
UT THIS SHOULD NOT BE A SAD TIME
. T
HIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY
. He wrapped his red robe around him. A
ND OTHER THINGS ENDING IN OLLY
, he added.