Night Watch - Terry Pratchett [131]
The audience watched, their smiles frozen. When it became clear that the cake was solid and unoccupied, the food taster was sent for. Most of the guests recognized him. His name was Spymould, he was said to have eaten so much poison in his time that he was proof against anything, and that he ate a toad every day to keep in condition. It was also rumored that he could turn silver black by breathing on it.
He selected a piece of cake and chewed it thoughtfully, staring intently upward while he did so.
“Hmm,” he said, after a while.
“Well?” said Winder.
“Sorry, milord,” said Spymould. “Nuffin’. I thought there was a touch of cyanide there, but no luck, it’s just the almonds.”
“No poison at all?” said the Patrician. “You mean it’s edible?”
“Well, yes. It’d be all the better for some toad, o’course, but that’s just one man’s opinion.”
“Perhaps the servants can serve it now, my lord?” said Madam.
“Don’t trust servants serving food,” said Winder. “Sneakin’ about. Could slip somethin’ in.”
“Do you mind if I do it then, my lord?”
“Yeah, all right,” said Lord Winder, watching the cake carefully. “I’ll have the ninth piece they cut.” But, in fact, he snatched the fifth piece, triumphantly, as if saving something precious from the wreckage.
The cake was disassembled. Lord Winder’s objection to servants handling food withered once the food was headed for other people, and so the party spread out a little as the guests pondered the ancient question of how to hold a plate and a glass and eat at the same time without using one of those little glass-holding things that clip on the side of the plate and make the user look as though they’re four years old. This takes a lot of concentration, and that might have been why everyone was so curiously self-absorbed.
The door opened. A figure walked into the room. Winder looked up, over the top of his plate.
It was a slim figure, hooded and masked, all in black.
Winder stared. Around him, the conversation rose, and a watcher above might have noticed that the drift of the party tides was such that they were leaving a wide empty path, stretching from the door all the way to Winder, whose legs didn’t want to move.
As it strolled toward him, the figure reached both hands behind it. They came back each holding a small pistol bow. There were a couple of small tic noises, and the bodyguards collapsed gently to the floor. It tossed the bows behind it, and kept coming. Its footfalls made no sound.
“Brw?” said Winder, staring. His mouth was open and stuffed with cake. People chattered on. Somewhere, someone had told a joke. There was laughter, perhaps a shade shriller than might normally be the case. The noise level rose again.
Winder blinked. Assassins didn’t do this. They snuck around. They used the shadows. This didn’t happen in real life. This was how it happened in dreams.
And now the thing was in front of him. He dropped his spoon, and there was a sudden silence after it tinkled on the ground.
There was another rule. Whenever possible, the inhumed-to-be should be told who had sent the Assassin, and who the Assassin was. It was felt by the Guild that this was only fair. Winder did not know this, and it was not widely advertised, but nevertheless, in the midst of terror, eyes wide, he asked the questions.
“Who sent yer?”
“I come from the city,” said the figure, drawing a thin, silvery sword.
“Who are yer?”
“Think of me as…your future.”
The figure drew the sword back, but it was too late. Terror’s own, more subtle knife had done its work. Winder’s face was crimson, his eyes were staring at nothing, and coming up from the throat, through the crumbs of the cake, was a sound that merged a creak with a sigh.
The dark figure lowered its sword, watched for a moment in the echoing silence, and then said: “Boo.”
It reached out one gloved hand and gave the Patrician a push. Winder went over backward, his plate dropping from his hand and shattering on the tiles.
The Assassin held his bloodless sword at arm’s length and let it drop on the floor beside the figure. Then he turned and walked