Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett [63]
With nothing else to do, she scanned the rest of the crowd. Everyone, except the growing and, in fact, quite large number of humans, had a beard. All dwarfs had beards. It was part of being a dwarf. Here, though, the beards were a little finer than you usually saw around the city and there had been some experimentation with perms and ponytails. There were mining pickaxes on view, it was true, but carried in expensively tooled bags as if the owner might spot a likely-looking coal seam on the way to the shops and wouldn’t be able to help herself.
She shared this thought with Juliet, who pointed down at the feet of another well-heeled customer and said, ‘Wot? And spoil those gorgeous boots? They’re Snaky Cleavehelms, they are! Four hundred dollars a pop, an’ you’ve to wait for six months!’
Glenda couldn’t see the face of the boots’ owner, but she did see the change in her body language. The hint of preening, even from the rear. Well, she thought, I suppose if you’re going to spend all of a working family’s yearly income on a pair of boots it’s nice that someone notices.
When you watch people, you forget that people are watching you. Glenda was not very tall, which meant that from her point of view dwarfs were not very short. And she realized that they were being approached in a determined kind of way by two dwarfs, one of whom was extremely expansive around the waist and wearing a breastplate so beautifully hammered and ornamented that taking it into battle would be an act of artistic vandalism. He–and you had to remember that all dwarfs were he unless they asserted otherwise–had, when he spoke, a voice that sounded like the darkest and most expensive type of dark chocolate, possibly smoked. And the hand he offered had so many rings on each finger that you had to look with care to realize that he was not wearing a gauntlet. And she was a she, Glenda was sure of it: the chocolate was just too rich and fruity.
‘So glad you could come, my dears,’ she said, and the chocolate swirled. ‘I am Madame Sharn. I wondered if you could be of assistance to me? I really would not dream of asking, but I am, as you would put it, between a rock and a hard one.’
All this was, to Glenda’s annoyance, addressed to Juliet, who was eating rat fruit as if there was no tomorrow, which presumably there had not been for the rat. She giggled.
‘She’s with me,’ said Glenda, and, without meaning to, added, ‘Madame?’
Madame waved another hand and more rings glistened. ‘This salon is technically a mine and that means that under dwarf law I am the king of the mine and in my mine my rules go. And since I am King, I declare that I am Queen,’ she said. ‘Dwarf law bends and creaks but is not broken.’
‘Well,’ Glenda began, ‘we—Hey!’
This was to Madame’s smaller companion, who was actually holding a tape measure up against Juliet. ‘That is Pepe,’ said Madame.
‘Well, if he’s going to take liberties like that I hope he’s a woman,’ said Glenda.
‘Pepe is…Pepe,’ said Madame calmly. ‘And there is no changing him, as it were, or her. Labels are such unhelpful things, I feel.’
‘Especially yours, ’cos you don’t put the prices on them,’ said Glenda, out of sheer nervousness.
‘Ah yes, you notice these things,’ said Madame, with a wink that disarmed to the point of melting.
Pepe looked up excitedly at Madame, who went on, ‘I wonder if you, if she…if you both would mind joining me backstage? The matter is a little delicate.’
‘Ooh, yes,’ said Juliet immediately.
Out of nowhere, other human girls materialized among the crowd and carefully opened a path towards the back of the enormous room along which Madame progressed as though propelled by invisible forces.
Glenda felt that the situation had suddenly got away from her, but it had been a good measure of sherry and it whispered to her, ‘Why not let a situation get away from