Yn Faire Morporkia Where We Lae Our Syne

You take the bowl and serve yourself two spoonfuls before you remember that peasants and clerks and so on can't necessarily afford sugar— you're fairly sure, anyway— and carefully maneuver the third spoonful carefully and politely back into the bowl. You try the coffee again.

Well, it's still horrible, but now that you know it's like this, it's no worse than a shot of dodgy turnip schnapps, really. Burns on the way down about the same, too. Though it's distressingly gritty...

"Very nice," you say politely, when you can speak again. "Thank you."

 

"You have lovely manners," you say instead of pointing out that he doesn't have to pretend to like it if he doesn't. "When you're down to the grounds you can tell fortunes with 'em. Like this..." You take the last non-sludgy sip, and carefully invert your cup on its saucer. Give the grounds a moment to drain, then turn it back over and study the patterns. "Hm, looks I'm gonna have a visitor. Good job, coffee grounds. Never woulda guessed that one."

 

"You're a shopkeeper, surely you have a great many visitors," you point out. "I should imagine your cup says just the same thing every day of the week."

You drain the rest of your coffee down to the level Mr Makwaa had, then offer the cup and saucer back to him. "Here you are. Shall I have visitors too?"

 

You swirl and invert the cup, let it drain, and lift it. The loose grounds have fallen into a nice neat pile in the middle. "Oh, that's a good sign. It means money. Well, I'm about to pay you for de-mothing my shop, so that makes sense." You study the patterns in the cup. "Looking for a new place to stay? See, there's a house there. And you'll make a friend and an enemy." You frown. "And get pregnant. Reckon that one's a mistake. What do coffee grounds know, eh?"

 

You blink a few times. "Well, I suppose some of my bats might, they seem to have, er— there are lady bats. Though I'm not sure if that's a conversation for polite company." You grimace, then remember not to do that, then fuss with getting your sleeves neat again. A bat peers out when you're halfway through and you push it firmly back in.

"Anyway, I've got a sort of housing arrangement with the local chapter of black ribboners, but it's not supposed to be a permanent situation. If you know of anyone with rooms to let to— a— certain sort of gentleman, I'd be obliged for the tip."

 

Now there's an idea. You're not sure why you're considering it, so you begin cautiously: "Depends. What kinda place are you looking for? You said rooms plural?" And then part of what he said registers and you perk up. "Does that mean some of you is baby bats?"

There are not many things in the world cuter than baby bats.

 

"People can live in just one room, singular?" you ask, horrified. You thought even little huts and things had— had partitions, or something!

 

You tilt your head. "Well, you share the kitchen and whatnot."

 

"Oh." Of course the kitchens were... shared... at your castle. But it's not as if you'd needed to use them yourself. And now— "I don't think I need kitchens," you say, uncertainly. "So it's just the one room that people have, here? A— a bedroom?"

 

Poor thing, he's so hapless, you're just going to have to make the offer. You blame the bats. "Well, I've got a cozy little flat over the shop here, and I was thinking I could rent you my guest room maybe. I don't have guests over as often as I thought I was gonna when I bought the place."

 

"Really?" You brighten up. "What's it like? How much is it? Is it right upstairs? Do you mean it? I'd behave correctly around your guests, I promise!"

 

"I don't doubt it," you smile. He really does have nice manners. "Not sure how much to charge -- maybe just keep the shop moth-free, that'd save me a bundle in stock loss." You glance at the clock, and get up with a shrug, fishing out your key ring. "I don't think I'll lose any sales closing up half an hour early, it's too nice out for people to be thinking about wool." You lock the door and flip the sign to CLOSED, then beckon him toward the stair that leads to your apartment, hidden behind a needlepoint tapestry of mountains and cedar trees.

"See, look at this," you point out as you lift the hanging. "It's not like it's even in storage, I go through here at least twice every day, but the moths have still had a nibble. I need to do repairs one of these days."

 

You make appropriate tsking noises over the little holes, while trying to do some calculations. If you charge five dollars a night to sweep the place for insects, and Makwaa charges five dollars for renting the room— one room! barbaric!— that rather leaves you back at square number one, financially. But... you'll have a room. And he seems very kind, and not at all intimidated by your fangs, or disgusted by your bats. And you're still tremendously unsure of the actual value of an Ankh-morpork dollar, other than that it's made of cheap brass but still considered a better bet than gold by most people who're smarter than you. And what if you ask him to give you a dollar or two anyway and he says you should be giving him a dollar or two anyway?

Maybe you can go get another shop to sweep for insects, as well as this one. Nine stone of bats is a lot of them, you could practice splitting up.

You peer into the indicated guest room. "It's nice," you say, a little surprised.

 

"Thanks," you beam. "You can keep the furnishings if you want. Reckon you didn't bring much, Uberwald's a long trip, right?" You decorated it plainly when you first moved in, since you'd been planning to offer it for safehouse use to active dark clerks, but the longer you were out of that life the less you wanted it intruding on your new life, and so you've been adding a crocheted throw here, a needlepoint pillow there, until it ended up looking quite homey.

The rest of the small but pleasant flat is also colorful with woolen goods, and smells of coffee and pastries. The place was a bit run-down when you bought it, but you enjoy carpentry, and have fixed it up pretty nicely, if you do say so yourself. If some of the woodwork is a bit more colorful and carved than Ankh-Morpork is used to, well, you haven't gotten any complaints about your bright blue window frames or the red roof tiles you replaced the moldy old thatch with. You're thinking of doing a tile mosaic on the kitchen floor next time you get bored.

You climb up on the small writing desk in the guest room to show Aspera how the diamond-paned window's little transom opens separately from the rest. "Even when it's too cold to have the whole thing open you can leave this cracked a bit so your bats can come and go. I don't know how long it takes to de-bug a shop or how many you plan to take on, but I guess you'll be doing them overnight?"

 

"That's so clever!" you observe, opening and shutting the small window bit several times. Your castle had been built several centuries prior to your birth— even your father's birth, or his father's— and clever little hingedy bits on the windowpanes were not a feature. Several centuries ago, glass panes themselves were considered pretty cutting edge.

"I don't know how long it'll take, actually. You'd be my first— job. But it would be overnight, yes. I should think they'd interfere with customers, and I'm not keen on anyone getting squashed or snatched or what have you. I hear you don't have owls here?"

 

"Not in the city, no. Peregrine falcons are the only raptors that nest on buildings, I think, but they're diurnal. Might want to stay away from the palace gardens and University campus, though. Could be owls there." You lead him along the hallway to continue the tour. "This is my room, and here's the bath, the tap's here for water from the roof cistern, and this is the kettle for fetching hot from the kitchen. Please don't use the tea kettle for bath water." You're very proud of the gleaming copper tub, and a little challenging too -- many Morporkians consider bathing in hot water a decadent foreign luxury at best. They also seem to disapprove of combing their hair, let alone shaving it off. But Aspera seems quite clean for a Hubward type, so you hope he'll appreciate the work you've done modernizing the bathroom.

 

You haven't had a hot bath since you ran out of servants. Some Uberwaldian territories have hot springs-- yours had lovely seaside views and very, very refreshing snowmelt streams.

But. You look at the kettle. It doesn't seem very big. Certainly nowhere near the volume of a washtub. "Do you pour it over yourself?" you wonder.

 

"No!" The idea alarms you. "Vampires aren't immune to boiling water, are they?" You shake your head, revising your estimate of how long he's been on his own from 'possibly a month or two' to 'a handful of days'. "You fill the tub with cold from the tap, and boil the kettle in the kitchen. Pour the boiling water into the cold water and it ends up comfortably warm. You might want two kettles' worth of hot in the winter. And here's the plug -- don't drop any rings down the plug hole, it empties right down the gutter out back. There was no plumbing at all when I bought the place."

 

"Boiling?" You frown at the kettle. Then, "Oh! Oh, I see, you fill the tub up with cold and then pour in a smaller amount of hot? That's clever. I thought the whole tub was supposed to be heated up, like over a fire or something. I only really used to scrub down when my father thought I smelled too much of horse and dead pig. Hunting, you know." You realize your accent's gotten thicker, and you may have said horse and dead pig in your father's commanding, formal Uberwaldian. You clear your throat awkwardly. "I used to be a bit of a sportsman, I suppose. So, you know, I'm certain those moths won't know what's hit them."

 

You laugh and thump his back amiably. "Some of them are pretty agile, you might have a challenge!" Your thump wobbles him more than you expected. You wonder when he last ate.

"I'm thinking you could give the shop a good batting once a week, maybe?" you suggest as you lead him to the kitchen and put the kettle on. You gesture him to the small but cheerfully painted table, flanked by mismatched chairs with embroidered seat cushions. The kitchen window looks out on the backs of the next street's shops, but you've enlivened the view a bit with a window box full of cooking herbs, and there's a glass bowl of plums on the sill.

A more experienced guest might be putting together, at this point, that you have more money than such a humble trade can supply, and be wondering where it came from and why you're selling yarn now. You don't think Aspera, however, is going to be having those thoughts for quite some time.

Fetching your dinner from the cupboard -- leftover spinach pie and a nice bit of homemade yogurt -- you join him at the table. "I'm about due for an inventory. Reckon it'd make your job easier if I did that at the same time? Shake up their little hidey holes, get 'em flying so you can pick 'em off."