Page 10 of 10
Chapter XIV
He had thought of it as a test. Of course, everything was a test of some sort or other when it came down to it. This one had been designed as a test of how compatible he and Bliss were, but also of whether or not his new face could fool even people who had known him. He had dined at the Guild of Cuisiniers –motto: Cum grano salis- often in the past, but he had never before taken a woman there. Not only did chefs not seem to approve of women cooking or being in the kitchen; they didn't seem to approve of women at all. But Patrick always knew to whom he should be particularly polite in order to get his way. Assassins never bribed any more than they ever murdered.
So here they were enjoying the fifteen course tasting-menu, each course accompanied a complementary drink: wine, beer, vodka…even water! Though no chernobil, he noted, for gods knew what that stuff would ever complement, apart from major psychological derangement. Over the snail's liver pâté he decided to go for broke:
"Bliss," he said, "how much do you like me?"
"I think you are the most wonderful man I have ever met, or ever hope to meet," she said, "This is delicious, isn't it?"
And here, across this table, was where the very first dumb was struck. He stared at her, open-mouthed, and then she laughed.
"You're not serious, are you?" he said, smiling.
"Of course not, silly," she said smiling back.
He didn't know whether to be relieved or heartbroken.
"Phew," he finally managed. She laughed her lovely, tinkly laugh:
"I'm actually hopelessly in love with you; I was just practicing my Ankh-Morpork sense of humour."
Smacked in the gob, again.
"Bliss!" he exclaimed, "you're confusing the hells out of me!"
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, sounding genuinely contrite, "it's just that some of the other nurses said that's what girls are supposed to do."
Yes, he thought, at least in Ankh-Morpork, he supposed they were.
"So what would you say if I asked you to marry me?"
"I'd say: thank you, my lord, I'd be honoured to be your wife."
"Are you being serious now?"
"No, I'd really say: where's the ring?"
"The engagement ring?"
"Naturally, and would you want me to wear it on my toe or through my nose?"
"Erm, on the ring-finger is more usual. The clue is in the name."
"Really? You're such strange people."
"Bliss, please," he said, exasperated, "would you be serious just for a second?"
"Oh, alright then. I knew the moment I first saw you that I wanted to be your wife, bear your children and spend the rest of my life with you. Is that clear enough?"
Well, he had to say that that was indeed clear enough, even for someone as evidently stupid as he was. So here was the moment.
"Blister the Eyes of the Doubters with the Brilliance of thy Faith Shivarananom, will you marry me?"
"With all my heart, my love."
"You are being serious this time, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes."
"I mean really serious?"
"Any more of this and I might go off you."
"Do I need to ask your father's permission?"
"You already have."
"Really!? What did he say?"
"Patrick," said Blister, frowning, "we've been engaged for about thirty seconds, do you really want to get chucked this early?"
From the soup made from eagles' nests and dolphins' fins to the songbirds drowned in brandy that you had to eat with a napkin over your head, the rest of the meal passed in a blur. When they finally left Patrick was euphoric, while Blister was in a state that his previous girlfriends might have called merry or even squiffy but that Bliss called pished. He didn't know where she'd picked that up as he was fairly sure it was a Nac-Mac-Feegle word.
And so they walked along, hand in hand, giggling and kissing, and occasionally lurching violently sideways as if trying to avoid some large, invisible object. They'd decided to take the long-cut back to the Nurses' Home down various little alleys which is how they came to run into the lads.
Bliss noticed them first, for a variety of reasons, one of which was that Patrick seldom paid attention to people in the street until one of them was stupid enough to try and hit him. He felt her grip tighten and then vaguely detected her trying to yank him backwards. Nurses are notoriously strong, nature of the job, but that rather depended on who you were comparing them to.
"Patrick, run!" she hissed.
"Why, darling?"
"Them!" she tried to yell through clenched teeth and pointed.
"Oh, that's just kids having fun," he said, nonchalantly.
It was a phrase he'd picked up from Bruise, the new barmen at The Duck. Bruise was from Fourecks and had a talent for understating acts of violence that appealed to Patrick. "I just tickled his chin" meant "I broke his jaw", for example. Because these were as far from kids having fun as the Hub was from the Rim; what they were were nine large, ugly, drunken men whose evenings ended in them doing something horrible to a complete stranger or else they'd go home disappointed. And beat-up their wives.
"Oi, what you doin wif one o' them?" asked The Leader of this Sack who, it turned out, was called Alf.
With one hand Patrick drew Bliss behind him and with the other produced a small book from one of his many pockets.
"Ah, this," he said, brandishing it, "It's called a BOOOOOK and what people do is that they REEEEEAD them. You should try it; you can get ones with lots of pictures in them, it can be fun."
"Are you tryin'a be clever?" said Alf, not quite sure if he was being insulted.
"Hmmm," said Patrick, "well, I wouldn't have to try very hard to be cleverer than you."
The Assassins Code stated quite clearly: "you must never play with your food; it is unprofessional". However, as with virtually all of The Code, exceptions could be made in exceptional circumstances such as: if you really wanted to. At this point even Alf knew he was being insulted.
"Yeah, is that right, well maybe I'll just 'ave a bit of fun with that little thing you've got behind you," he said and lunged at Patrick, but all he got was an uppercut that knocked him spark out. His mates Bert and Fred caught him as fell backwards unconscious, and got a fist in the mouth and an elbow in the eye for their trouble. Steve-o got a forehead on the bridge of his nose and the rest just got what was coming to them; which in this case was Patrick. The whole thing took less than thirty seconds, after which he eased them into a moaning, bleeding, semi-conscious pile with his boot.
"Now listen carefully," he began, "I shall say this only twice, as you are clearly incredibly stupid people: I represent the Ankh-Morpork Watch, and if we find any of you trying anything like this ever again then the experience you've just had will feel like being given a warm bath by a particularly talented Seamstress. So, just to be clear…"
At this point he turned to make sure his audience was appreciating his performance, only to find it looking absolutely appalled. And then she bolted. Once again all his pluses were non-ed, and that brief hesitation gave her the edge in the race.
"Bliss, what's wrong?" he called after her, "where are you going?"
"Go away and leave me alone!" she yelled back, "and don't call me Bliss."
"But what have I done!?"
"Don't ever try to see me again!"
And then she was gone. He was quicker than her, but she knew these streets better than he did. There were only two places she might have been headed and the Nurses' Home was closer. He knew, with an Assassin's sense of place, exactly where it was, but he didn't know the quickest way to get there, and he knew she did. There was no way he was going to catch her up.
When he got to the Nurses' Home Bauxite from Troll Security was barring the door.
"Good, evening," said Patrick, putting on his charming voice, "I'd really like to speak briefly with Nurse Blister."
He might as well have tried to charm a wall. Actually, if you thought about it, he was trying to charm a wall.
"No un comes in," rumbled Bauxite, with great finality.
"I just need a few words," Patrick explained.
"No un comes in."
"I don't have to come in; you could just give her a message."
"No un comes in."
"Or perhaps I could speak with one of her colleagues."
"No un comes in."
"Can you say anything apart from 'No un comes in'?"
"Nah." Bauxite affirmed.
Great, now he was being patronised by a troll. Even with all his strength and skills there was no way he was getting through this door. With his Assassins training he could obviously climb up to her window, but he wasn't sure which one that was, and wasn't sure that in this situation it was the right approach…and then there was Shame peeking between Bauxite's legs:
"Patrick, please, you have to leave," she said.
"I just want to speak to her," he pleaded.
"But she doesn't want to speak to you, ever again, and it's breaking her heart. If you actually love her leave her alone."
"What!? Why!?"
"You know why," said Shame, and was gone.
Now, Patrick had heard this many times in the past. In answer to such questions as: why won't you sign over all your assets to me? Why don't you want to involve your best friend in our lovemaking? And on and on, but on those occasions he had, most definitely, known why. This time he didn't have a clue.
Miserably he began to drag his feet back towards The Duck, he might not always like his customers, but he mostly understood them, even the mad ones and the weird ones… but somehow not the girl to whom he'd been engaged not a half-an-hour before and who now never wanted to speak to him again. He had no idea what was going on.
"I have no idea what's going on!" he announced to Kate and Bruise, who were having a nightcap when he got back to the bar.
"What's the problem, mate?" asked Bruise, "you look like shit."
"My fiancée has just called off the wedding and chucked me," said Patrick, morosely.
"I didn't know you were engaged," said Kate, "how long has that been going on?"
"A couple of hours," he replied, offhandedly.
"Strewth, mate," exclaimed Bruise, "that's gotta be a record!"
"What the hells did you do?!" asked Kate.
"Nothing," said Patrick, "that's the problem. At least when I got chucked in the past I knew it was my fault."
"Trust me sweetheart," she said "I am an old head on young shoulders and I know you did something." Then she glared at Bruise as he looked like he was going to laugh. "Tell me what happened?"
"OK," he said, though he wasn't sure he wanted Bruise to hear this, "we were out having a lovely meal. I proposed and she accepted."
"Did you give her a ring?" asked Bruise.
"No, I wasn't expecting to propose to her."
"There you go then, that explains it. You should always carry a ring, just in case."
"Do you often propose to a girl on the spur of the moment?"
"All the time, mate, famous for it."
"And do any of them ever…?"
"I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation, but that wasn't the problem," said Kate.
"No, it wasn't," Patrick agreed.
"So, then what happened?" she asked.
"I was walking her home when we were attacked."
"By whom?"
"I don't know, just a bunch of thugs."
"How many?" asked Bruise.
"Nine."
"And what did you do?" asked Kate
"I beat them up."
"Good one!" exclaimed Bruise, "fair play to you, mate."
"Then that is the whole problem," said Kate.
"Eh!?" said Patrick and Bruise simultaneously.
"Let me quote unto you the Book of Brutha, chapter eighty-nine, verse sixty-five: It is better by far to suffer infinite hurts than inflict a single one on another. I have a few Omnian friends."
"Oh," said Patrick, making a rude hand gesture at Bruise's smirking face, "you have got to be forking joking!"