Teppic knew about the enmity between Ephebe and Tsort, of course. The Old Kingdom had profited mightily by it, by seeing that the merchants of both sides had somewhere discreet in which to trade with one another. He drummed his fingers on the table.

'You haven't fought each other for thousands of years,' he said. 'You were tiny countries in those days. It was just a scrap. Now you're huge. People could get hurt. Doesn't that worry you?'

'It's a matter of pride,' said Ibid, but his voice was tinged with uncertainty. 'I don't think there's much choice.'

'It was that bloody wooden cow or whatever,' said Xeno. 'They've never forgiven us for it.'

'If we don't attack them, they'll attack us first,' said Ibid.

''S'right,' said Xeno. 'So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike.'

The two philosophers stared uncomfortably at one another.

'On the other hand,' said Thid, 'war makes it very difficult to think straight.'

'There is that,' Xeno agreed. 'Especially for dead people.' There was an embarrassed silence, broken only by Ptraci's voice singing to the tortoise and the occasional squeak of stricken seagulls.

'What day is it?' said Ibid.

'Tuesday,' said Teppic.

'I think,' said Thid, 'that it might be a good idea if you came to the symposium. We have one every Tuesday,' he added. 'All the greatest minds in Ephebe will be there. All this needs thinking about.'

He glanced at Ptraci.

'However,' he said, 'your young woman cannot attend, naturally. Females are absolutely forbidden. Their brains overheat.'

King Teppicymon XXVII opened his eyes. It's bloody dark in here, he thought.

And he realised that he could hear his own heart beating, but muffled, and some way off.

And then he remembered.

He was alive. He was alive again. And, this time, he was in bits.

Somehow, he'd assumed that you got assembled again once you got to the netherworld, like one of Grinjer's kits.

Get a grip on yourself, man, he thought.

It's up to you to pull yourself together.

Right, he thought. There were at least six jars. So my eyes are in one of them. Getting the lid off would be favourite, so we can see what we're at.

That's going to involve arms and legs and fingers.

This is going to be really tricky.

He reached out, tentatively, with stiff joints, and located something heavy. It felt as though it might give, so he moved his other arm into position, with a great deal of awkwardness, and pushed.

There was a distant thump, and a definite feeling of openness above him. He sat up, creaking all the way.

The sides of the ceremonial casket still hemmed him in, but to his surprise he found that one slow arm movement brushed them out of the way like paper. Must be all the pickle and stuffing, he thought. Gives you a bit of weight.

He felt his way to the edge of the slab, lowered his heavy legs to the ground and, after a pause out of habit to wheeze a bit, took the first tottering lurch of the newly undead.

It is astonishingly difficult to walk with legs full of straw when the brain doing the directing is in a pot ten feet away, but he made it as far as the wall and felt his way along it until a crash indicated that he'd reached the shelf of jars. He fumbled the lids of the first one and dipped his hand gently inside.

It must be brains, he thought maniacally, because semolina doesn't squidge like that. I've collected my own thoughts, haha.

He tried one or two more jars until an explosion of daylight told him he'd found the one with his eyes in. He watched his own bandaged hand reach down, growing gigantic, and scoop them up carefully.

That seems to be the important bits, he thought. The rest can wait until later. Maybe when I need to eat something, and so forth.

He turned around, and realised that he was not alone. Dil and Gern were watching him. To squeeze any further into the far corner of the room, they would have needed triangular backbones.

'Ah. Ho there, good people,' said the king, aware that his voice was a little hollow. 'I know so much about you, I'd like to shake you by the hand.' He looked down. 'Only they're rather full at the moment,' he added.

'Gkkk,' said Gern.

'You couldn't do a bit of reassembly, could you?' said the king, turning to Dil. 'Your stitches seem to be holding up nicely, by the way. Well done, that man.'

Professional pride broke through the barrier of Dil's terror.

'You're alive?' he said.

'That was the general idea, wasn't it?' said the king.

Dil nodded. Certainly it was. He'd always believed it to be true. He'd just never expected it ever actually to happen. But it had, and the first words, well, nearly the first words that had been said were in praise of his needlework. His chest swelled. No— one else in the Guild had ever been congratulated on their work by a recipient.

'There,' he said to Gern, whose shoulderblades were making a spirited attempt to dig their way through the wall. 'Hear what has been said to your master.

The king paused. It was beginning to dawn on him that things weren't quite right here. Of course the netherworld was like this world, only better, and no doubt there were plenty of servants and so forth. But it seemed altogether far too much like this world. He was pretty sure that Dil and Gern shouldn't be in it yet. Anyway, he'd always understood that the common people had their own netherworld, where they would be more at ease and could mingle with their own kind and wouldn't feel awkward and socially out of place.

'I say,' he said. 'I may have missed a bit here. You're not dead, are you?'

Dil didn't answer immediately. Some of the things he'd seen so far today had made him a bit uncertain on the subject. In the end, though, he was forced to admit that he probably was alive.

'Then what's happening?' said the king.

'We don't know, O king,' said Dil. 'Really we don't. It's all come true, O fount of waters!'

'What has?'

'Everything!'

'Everything?'

'The sun, O lord. And the gods! Oh, the gods! They're everywhere, O master of heaven!'

'We come in through the back way,' said Gern, who had dropped to his knees. 'Forgive us, O lord of justice, who has come back to deliver his mighty wisdom and that. I am sorry about me and Glwenda, it was a moment of wossname, mad passion, we couldn't control ourselves. Also, it was me-'

Dil waved him into a devout silence.

'Excuse me,' he said to the king's mummy. 'But could we have a word away from the lad? Man to-'

'Corpse?' said the king, trying to make it easy for him. 'Certainly.'

They wandered over to the other side of the room.

'The fact is, O gracious king of-' Dil began, in a conspiratorial whisper.

'I think we can dispense with all that,' said the king briskly. 'The dead don't stand on ceremony. «King» will be quite sufficient.'

'The fact is, then — king,' said Dil, experiencing a slight thrill at this equitable treatment, 'young Gern thinks it's all his fault. I've told him over and over again that the gods wouldn't go to all this trouble just because of one growing lad with urges, if you catch my drift.' He paused, and added carefully, 'They wouldn't, would they?'

'Shouldn't think so for one minute,' said the king briskly. 'We'd never see the back of them, otherwise.'

'That's what I told him,' said Dil, immensely relieved. 'He's a good boy, sir, it's just that his mum is a bit funny about religion. We'd never see the back of them, those were my very words. I'd be very grateful if you could have a word with him, sir, you know, set his mind at rest-'

'Be happy to,' said the king graciously.

Dil sidled closer.

'The fact is, sir, these gods, sir, they aren't right. We've been watching, sir. At least, I have. I climbed on the roof. Gern didn't, he hid under the bench. They're not right, sir!'

'What's wrong with them?'

'Well, they're here, sir! That's not right, is it? I mean, not to be really here. And they're just striding around and fighting amongst themselves and shouting at people.' He looked both ways before continuing. 'Between you and me, sir,' he said, 'they don't seem too bright.'

The king nodded. 'What are the priests doing about this?' he said.

'I saw them throwing one another in the river, sir.'

The king nodded again. 'That sounds about right,' he said. 'They've come to their senses at last.'

'You know what I think, sir?' said Dil earnestly. 'Everything we believe is coming true. And I heard something else, sir. This morning, if it was this morning, you understand, because the sun's all over the place, sir, and it's not the right sort of sun, but this morning some of the soldiers tried to get out along the Ephebe road, sir, and do you know what they found?'

'What did they find?'

'The road out, sir, leads in!' Dil took a step backwards the better to illustrate the seriousness of the revelations. 'They got up into the rocks and then suddenly they were walking down the Tsort road. It all sort of curves back on itself. We're shut in, sir. Shut in with our gods.'

And I'm shut in my body, thought the king. Everything we believe is true? And what we believe isn't what we think we believe.

I mean, we think we believe that the gods are wise and just and powerful, but what we really believe is that they are like our father after a long day. And we think we believe the netherworld is a sort of paradise, but we really believe it's right here and you go to it in your body and I'm in it and I'm never going to get away. Never, ever.

'What's my son got to say about all this?' he said. Dil coughed. It was the ominous cough. The Spanish use an upside-down question mark to tell you what you're about to hear is a question; this was the kind of cough that tells you what you're about to hear is a dirge.

'Don't know how to tell you this, sir,' he said.

'Out with it, man.'

'Sir, they say he's dead, sir. They say he killed himself and ran away.

'Killed himself?'

'Sorry, sir.'

'And ran away afterwards?'

'On a camel, they say.'

'We lead an active afterlife in our family, don't we?' observed the king dryly.

'Beg pardon, sir?'

'I mean, the two statements could be held to be mutually exclusive.'

Dil's face became a well-meaning blank.

'That is to say, they can't both be true,' supplied the king, helpfully.

'Ahem,' said Dil.

'Yes, but I'm a special case,' said the king testily. 'In this kingdom we believe you live after death only if you've been mumm-'

He stopped.

It was too horrible to think about. He thought about it, nevertheless, for some time.

Then he said, 'We must do something about it.'

Dil said, 'Your son, sir?'

'Never mind about my son, he's not dead, I'd know about it,' snapped the king. 'He can look after himself, he's my son. It's my ancestors I'm worried about.'

'But they're dead-' Dil began.

It has already been remarked that Dil had a very poor imagination. In a job like his a poor imagination was essential. But his mind's eye opened on a panorama of pyramids, stretching along the river, and his mind's ear swooped and curved through solid doors that no thief could penetrate.

And it heard the scrabbling.

And it heard the hammering.

And it heard the muffled shouting.

The king put a bandaged arm over his trembling shoulders.

'I know you're a good man with a needle, Dil,' he said. 'Tell me — how are you with a sledgehammer?'

Copolymer, the greatest storyteller in the history of the world, sat back and beamed at the greatest minds in the world, assembled at the dining table.

Teppic had added another iota to his store of new knowledge. 'Symposium' meant a knife-and-fork tea.

'Well,' said Copolymer, and launched into the story of the Tsortean Wars.

'You see, what happened was, he'd taken her back home, and her father — this wasn't the old king, this was the one before, the one with the wossname, he married some girl from over Elharib way, she had a squint, what was her name now, began with a P. Or an L. One of them letters, anyway. Her father owned an island out on the bay there, Papylos I think it was. No, I tell a lie, it was Crinix. Anyway, the king, the other king, he raised an army and they . . . Elenor, that was her name. She had a squint, you know. But quite attractive, they say. When I say married, I trust I do not have to spell it out for you. I mean, it was a bit unofficial. Er. Anyway, there was this wooden horse and after they'd got in . . . Did I tell you about this horse? It was a horse. I'm pretty sure it was a horse. Or maybe it was a chicken. Forget my own name next! It was wossname's idea, the one with the limp. Yes. The limp in his leg, I mean. Did I mention him? There'd been this fight. No, that was the other one, I think. Yes. Anyway, this wooden pig, damn clever idea, they made it out of thing. Tip of my tongue. Wood. But that was later, you know. The fight! Nearly forgot the fight. Yes. Damn good fight. Everyone banging on their shields and yelling. Wossname's armour shone like shining armour. Fight and a half, that fight. Between thingy, not the one with the limp, the other one, wossname, had red hair. You know. Tall fellow, talked with a lisp. Hold on, just remembered, he was from some other island. Not him. The other one, with the limp. Didn't want to go, he said he was mad. Of course, he was bloody mad, definitely. I mean, a wooden cow! Like wossname said, the king, no, not that king, the other one, he saw the goat, he said, «I fear the Ephebians, especially when they're mad enough to leave bloody great wooden livestock on the doorstep, talk about nerve, they must think we was born yesterday, set fire to it,» and, of course, wossname had nipped in round the back and put everyone to the sword, talk about laugh. Did I say she had a squint? They said she was pretty, but it takes all sorts. Yes. Anyway, that's how it happened. Now, of course, wossname — I think he was called Melycanus, had a limp — he wanted to go home, well, you would, they'd been there for years, he wasn't getting any younger. That's why he dreamt up the thing about the wooden wossname. Yes. I tell a lie, Lavaelous was the one with the knee. Pretty good fight, that fight, take it from me.'

He lapsed into self-satisfied silence.

'Pretty good fight,' he mumbled and, smiling faintly, dropped off to sleep.

Teppic was aware that his own mouth was hanging open. He shut it. Along the table several of the diners were wiping their eyes.

'Magic,' said Xeno. 'Sheer magic. Every word a tassel on the canopy of Time.'

'It's the way he remembers every tiny detail. Pin-sharp,' murmured Ibid.

Teppic looked down the length of the table, and then nudged Xeno beside him. 'Who is everyone?' he said.

'Well, Ibid you already know. And Copolymer. Over there, that's Iesope, the greatest teller of fables in the world. And that's Antiphon, the greatest writer of comic plays in the world.'

'Where is Pthagonal?' said Teppic. Xeno pointed to the far end of the table, where a glum-looking, heavy-drinking man was trying to determine the angle between two bread rolls. 'I'll introduce you to him afterwards,' he said.

Teppic looked around at the bald heads and long white beards, which seemed to be a badge of office. If you had a bald head and a long white beard, they seemed to indicate, whatever lay between them must be bursting with wisdom. The only exception was Antiphon, who looked as though he was built of pork.

They are great minds, he told himself. These are men who are trying to work out how the world fits together, not by magic, not by religion, but just by inserting their brains in whatever crack they can find and trying to lever it apart.

Ibid rapped on the table for silence.

'The Tyrant has called for war on Tsort,' he said. 'Now, let us consider the place of war in the ideal republic,' he said. 'We would require-'

'Excuse me, could you just pass me the celery?' said Iesope. 'Thank you.'

'-the ideal republic, as I was saying, based on the fundamental laws that govern-'

'And the salt. It's just by your elbow.'

'-the fundamental laws, that is, which govern all men. Now, it is without doubt true that war. . . could you stop that, please?'

'It's celery,' said Iesope, crunching cheerfully. 'You can't help it with celery.'

Xeno peered suspiciously at what was on his fork.

'Here, this is squid,' he said. 'I didn't ask for squid. Who ordered squid?'

'-without doubt,' repeated Thid, raising his voice, 'without doubt, I put it to you— 'I think this is the lamb couscous,' said Antiphon.

'Was yours the squid?'

'I asked for marida and dolmades.'

'I ordered the lamb. Just pass it along, will you?'

'I don't remember anyone asking for all this garlic bread,' said Xeno.

'Look, some of us are trying to float a philosophical concept here,' said Ibid sarcastically. 'Don't let us interrupt you, will you?'

Someone threw a breadstick at him.

Teppic looked at what was on his fork. Seafood was unknown in the kingdom, and what was on his fork had too many valves and suckers to be reassuring. He lifted a boiled vine leaf with extreme care, and was sure he saw something scuttle behind an olive.

Ah. Something else to remember, then. The Ephebians made wine out of anything they could put in a bucket, and ate anything that couldn't climb out of one.

He pushed the food around on his plate. Some of it pushed back.

And philosophers didn't listen to one another. And they don't stick to the point. This probably is mocracy at work.

A bread roll bounced past him. Oh, and they get over-excited.

He noticed a skinny little man sitting opposite him, chewing primly on some anonymous tentacle. Apart from Pthagonal the geometrician, who was now gloomily calculating the radius of his plate, he was the only person not speaking his mind at the top of his voice. Sometimes he'd make little notes on a piece of parchment and slip it into his toga.

Teppic leaned across. Further down the table Iesope, encouraged by occasional olive stones and bread rolls, started a long fable about a fox, a turkey, a goose and a wolf, who had a wager to see who could stay longest underwater with heavy weights tied to their feet.

'Excuse me,' said Teppic, raising his voice above the din. 'Who are you?'

The little man gave him a shy look. He had extremely large ears. In a certain light, he could have been mistaken for a very thin jug.

'I'm Endos,' he said.

'Why aren't you philosophising?'

Endos sliced a strange mollusc.

'I'm not a philosopher, actually,' he said.

'Or a humorous playwright or something?' said Teppic.

'I'm afraid not. I'm a Listener. Endos the Listener, I'm known as.'

'That's fascinating,' said Teppic automatically. 'What does that involve?'

'Listening.'

'Just listening?'

'That's what they pay me for,' said Endos. 'Sometimes I nod. Or smile. Or nod and smile at the same time. Encouragingly, you know. They like that.'

Teppic felt he was called upon to comment at this point. 'Gosh,' he said.

Endos gave him an encouraging nod, and a smile that suggested that of all the things Endos could be doing in the world right at this minute there was nothing so basically riveting as listening to Teppic. It was something about his ears. They appeared to be a vast aural black hole, begging to be filled up with words. Teppic felt an overpowering urge to tell him all about his life and hopes and dreams…

'I bet,' he said, 'that they pay you an awful lot of money.

Endos gave him a heartening smile.

'Have you listened to Copolymer tell his story lots of times?'

Endos nodded and smiled, although there was a faint trace of pain right behind his eyes.

'I expect,' said Teppic, 'that your ears develop protective rough surfaces after a while?'

Endos nodded. 'Do go on,' he urged.

Teppic glanced across at Pthagonal, who was moodily drawing right angles in his taramasalata.

'I'd love to stay and listen to you listening to me all day,' he said. 'But there's a man over there I'd like to see.'

'That's amazing,' said Endos, making a short note and turning his attention to a conversation further along the table. A philosopher had averred that although truth was beauty, beauty was not necessarily truth, and a fight was breaking out. Endos listened carefully24. Teppic wandered along the table to where Pthagonal was sitting in unrelieved misery, and currently peering suspiciously over the crust of a pie.

Teppic looked over his shoulder.

'I think I saw something moving in there,' he said.

'Ah,' said the geometrician, taking the cork out of an amphora with his teeth. 'The mysterious young man in black from the lost kingdom.'

'I was hoping you could help me find it again?' said Teppic.

'I heard that you have some very unusual ideas in Ephebe.'

'It had to happen,' said Pthagonal. He pulled a pair of dividers from the folds of his robe and measured the pie thoughtfully. 'Is it a constant, do you think? It's a depressing concept.'

'Sorry?' said Teppic.

'The diameter divides into the circumference, you know. It ought to be three times. You'd think so, wouldn't you? But does it? No. Three point one four one and lots of other figures. There's no end to the buggers. Do you know how pissed off that makes me?'

'I expect it makes you extremely pissed off,' said Teppic politely.

'Right. It tells me that the Creator used the wrong kind of circles. It's not even a proper number! I mean, three point five, you could respect. Or three point three. That'd look right.' He stared morosely at the pie.

'Excuse me, you said something about it had to happen?'

'What?' said Pthagonal, from the depths of his gloom. 'Pie!' he added.

'What had to happen?' Teppic prompted.

'You can't mess with geometry, friend. Pyramids? Dangerous things. Asking for trouble. I mean,' Pthagonal reached unsteadily for his wine cup, 'how long did they think they could go on building bigger and bigger pyramids for? I mean, where did they think power comes from? I mean,' he hiccuped, 'you've been in that place, haven't you? Ever noticed how slow it all seems to be?'

'Oh, yes,' said Teppic flatly.

'That's because the time is sucked up, see? Pyramids. So they have to flare it off. Flarelight, they call it. They think it looks pretty! It's their time they're burning off!'

'All I know is the air feels as though it's been boiled in a sock,' said Teppic. 'And nothing actually changes, even if it doesn't stay the same.

'Right,' said Pthagonal. 'The reason being, it's past time. They use up past time, over and over again. The pyramids take all the new time. And if you don't let the pyramids flare, the power build up'll-'' he paused. 'I suppose,' he went on, 'that it'd escape along a wossname, a fracture. In space.'

'I was there before the kingdom, er, went,' said Teppic. 'I thought I saw the big pyramid move.'

'There you are then. It's probably moved the dimensions around by ninety degrees,' said Pthagonal, with the assurance of the truly drunk.

'You mean, so length is height and height is width?'

Pthagonal shook an unsteady finger.

'Nonono,' he said. 'So that length is height and height is breadth and breadth is width and width is a', he burped 'A 'time. S'nother dimessnon, see? Four of the bastards. Time's one of them. Ninety thingys to the other three. Degrees is what I mean. Only, only, it can't exist in this world like that, so the place had to sort of pop outside for a bit, see? Otherwise you'd have people getting older by walking sideways. He looked sadly into the depths of his cup. 'And every birthday you'd age another mile,' he added. Teppic looked at him aghast.

'That's time and space for you,' Pthagonal went on. 'You can twist them all over the place if you're not careful. Three point one four one. What sort of a number d'you call that?'

'It sounds horrible,' said Teppic.

'Damn right. Somewhere,' Pthagonal was beginning to sway on his bench, 'somewhere someone built a universe with a decent, respectable value of, of,' he peered blankly at the table, 'of pie. Not some damn number that never comes to an end, what kind of a'

'I meant, people getting older just by walking along!'

'I dunno, though. You could have a stroll back to where you were eighteen. Or wander up and see what you are going to look like when you're seventy. Travelling in width, though, that'd be the real trick.'

Pthagonal smiled vacantly and then, very slowly, keeled over into his dinner, some of which moved out of the way25. Teppic became aware that the philosophic din around him had subsided a bit. He stared along the line until he spotted Ibid.

'It won't work,' said Ibid. 'The Tyrant won't listen to us. Nor will the people. Anyway' he glanced at Antiphon — 'we're not all of one mind on the subject.'

'Damn Tsorteans need teaching a lesson,' said Antiphon sternly. 'Not room for two major powers on this continent. Damn bad sports, anyway, just because we stole their queen. Youthful high spirits, love will have its way'

Copolymer woke up.

'You've got it wrong,' he said mildly. 'The great war, that was because they stole our queen. What was her name now, face that launched a thousand camels, began with an A or a T or-'

'Did they?' shouted Antiphon. 'The bastards!'

'I'm reasonably certain,' said Copolymer.

Teppic sagged, and turned to Endos the Listener. He was still eating his dinner, with the air of one who is determined to preserve his digestion.

'Endos?'

The Listener laid his knife and fork carefully on either side of his plate.

'Yes?'

'They're really all mad, aren't they?' said Teppic wearily. 'That's extremely interesting,' said Endos. 'Do go on.' He reached shyly into his toga and brought forth a scrap of parchment, which he pushed gently towards Teppic.

'What's this?'

'My bill,' said Endos. 'Five minutes Attentive Listening. Most of my gentlemen have monthly accounts, but I understand you'll be leaving in the morning?'

Teppic gave up. He wandered away from the table and into the cold garden surrounding the citadel of Ephebe. White marble statues of ancient Ephebians doing heroic things with no clothes on protruded through the greenery and, here and there, there were statues of Ephebian gods. It was hard to tell the difference. Teppic knew that Dios had hard words to say about the Ephebians for having gods that looked just like people. If the gods looked just like everyone else, he used to say, how would people know how to treat them?

Teppic had rather liked the idea. According to legend the Ephebians' gods were just like humans, except that they used their godhood to get up to things humans didn't have the nerve to do. A favourite trick of Ephebian gods, he recalled, was turning into some animal in order to gain the favours of highly-placed Ephebian women. And one of them had reputedly turned himself into a golden shower in pursuit of his intended. All this raised interesting questions about everyday night life in sophisticated Ephebe.

He found Ptraci sitting on the grass under a poplar tree, feeding the tortoise. He gave it a suspicious look, in case it was a god trying it on. It did not look like a god. If it was a god, it was putting on an incredibly good act.

She was feeding it a lettuce leaf.

'Dear little ptortoise,' she said, and then looked up. 'Oh, it's you,' she said flatly.

'You didn't miss much,' said Teppic, sagging on to the grass. 'They're a bunch of maniacs. When I left they were smashing the plates.'

'That's ptraditional at the end of an Ephebian meal,' said Ptraci.

Teppic thought about this. 'Why not before?' he said.

'And then they probably dance to the sound of the bourzuki,' Ptraci added. 'I think it's a sort of dog.'

Teppic sat with his head in his hands.

'I must say you speak Ephebian well,' he said. 'Pthank you.'

'Just a trace of an accent, though.'

'Languages is part of the ptraining,' she said. 'And my grandmother told me that a ptrace of foreign accent is more fascinating.'

'We learned the same thing,' said Teppic. 'An assassin should always be slightly foreign, no matter where he is. I'm good at that part,' he added bitterly.

She began to massage his neck.

'I went down to the harbour,' she said. 'There's those things like big rafts, you know, camels of the sea'

'Ships,' said Teppic.

'And they go everywhere. We could go anywhere we want. The world is our pthing with pearls in it, if we like.'

Teppic told her about Pthagonal's theory. She didn't seem surprised.

'Like an old pond where no new water comes in,' she observed. 'So everyone goes round and round in the same old puddle. All the ptime you live has been lived already. It must be like other people's bathwater.'

'I'm going to go back.'

Her fingers stopped their skilled kneading of his muscles.

'We could go anywhere,' she repeated. 'We've got ptrades, we could sell that camel. You could show me that Ankh-Morpork place. It sounds interesting.'

Teppic wondered what effect Ankh-Morpork would have on the girl. Then he wondered what effect she would have on the city. She was definitely flowering. Back in the Old Kingdom she'd never apparently had any original thoughts beyond the choice of the next grape to peel, but since she was outside she seemed to have changed. Her jaw hadn't changed, it was still quite small and, he had to admit, very pretty. But somehow it was more noticeable. She used to look at the ground when she spoke to him. She still didn't always look at him when she spoke to him, but now it was because she was thinking about something else.