It wasn’t raining in Ankh-Morpork. This had come as a big surprise to Imp.
What had also come as a surprise was how fast money went. So far he’d lost three dollars and twenty-seven pence.
He’d lost it because he’d put it in a bowl in front of him while he played, in the same way that a hunter puts out decoys to get ducks. The next time he’d looked down it had gone.
People came to Ankh-Morpork to seek their fortune. Unfortunately, other people sought it too.
And people didn’t seem to want bards, even ones who’d won the mistletoe award and centennial harp in the big Eisteddfod in Llamedos.
He’d found a place in one of the main squares, tuned up, and played. No one had taken any notice, except sometimes to push him out of the way as they hurried past and, apparently, to nick his bowl. Eventually, just when he was beginning to doubt that he’d made the right decision in coming here at all, a couple of watchmen had wandered up.
“That’s a harp he’s playing, Nobby,” said one of them, after watching Imp for a while.
“Lyre.”
“No, it’s the honest truth, I’m—” The fat guard frowned and looked down.
“You’ve just been waiting all your life to say that, ain’t you, Nobby,” he said. “I bet you was born hoping that one day someone’d say ‘That’s a harp’ so you could say ‘lyre,’ on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har.”
Imp stopped playing. It was impossible to continue, in the circumstances.
“It is a harp, actualllly,” he said. “I won it in—”
“Ah, you’re from Llamedos, right?” said the fat guard. “I can tell by your accent. Very musical people, the Llamedese.”
“Sounds like garglin’ with gravel to me,” said the one identified as Nobby. “You got a license, mate?”
“Llicense?” said Imp.
“Very hot on licenses, the Guild of Musicians,” said Nobby. “They catch you playing music without a license, they take your instrument and they shove—”
“Now, now,” said the other watchman, “Don’t go scaring the boy.”
“Let’s just say it’s not much fun if you’re a piccolo player,” said Nobby.
“But surelly music is as free as the air and the sky, see,” said Imp.
“Not round here it’s not. Just a word to the wise, friend,” said Nobby.
“I never ever heard of a Guilld of Musicians,” said Imp.
“It’s in Tin Lid Alley,” said Nobby. “You want to be a musician, you got to join the Guild.”
Imp had been brought up to obey the rules. The Llamedese were very law-abiding.
“I shallll go there directlly,” he said.
The guards watched him go.
“He’s wearing a nightdress,” said Corporal Nobbs.
“Bardic robe, Nobby,” said Sergeant Colon. The guards strolled onward. “Very bardic, the Llamedese.”
“How long d’you give him, Sarge?”
Colon waved a hand in the flat rocking motion of someone hazarding an informed guess.
“Two, three days,” he said.
They rounded the bulk of Unseen University and ambled along The Backs, a dusty little street that saw little traffic or passing trade and was therefore much favored by the Watch as a place to lurk and have a smoke and explore the realms of the mind.
“You know salmon, Sarge,” said Nobby.
“It is a fish of which I am aware, yes.”
“You know they sell kind of slices of it in tins…”
“So I am given to understand, yes.”
“Weell…how come all the tins are the same size? Salmon gets thinner at both ends.”
“Interesting point, Nobby. I think—”
The watchman stopped, and stared across the street. Corporal Nobbs followed his gaze.
“That shop,” said Sergeant Colon. “That shop there…was it there yesterday?”
Nobby looked at the peeling paint, the little grime encrusted window, the rickety door.
“’Course,” he said. “It’s always been there. Been there years.”
Colon crossed the street and rubbed at the grime. There were dark shapes vaguely visible in the gloom.
“Yeah, right,” he mumbled. “It’s just that…I mean…was it there for years yesterday?”
“You all right, Sarge?”
“Let’s go, Nobby,” said the sergeant, walking away as fast as he could.
“Where, Sarge?”
“Anywhere not here.”
In the dark mounds of merchan…
