Obligatory Nan appearance

“Children,” Nan interrupted us politely in Csoglaran after I’d finished explaining to Curry’s satisfaction what Watch Guard recall policy said must be done for a week-old body found in the harbor. “Not that your graphic talk of rancid corpses isn’t delightful, but—” she motioned to the slice of black pudding on her plate. “It does rather dull the appetite.”

Curry and I, who had both plowed obliviously through our own breakfasts while quizzing each other back and forth on various points about **** guard practices, looked at her in surprise.

“But you were a nurse, Nan,” he said with vague puzzlement, at the same time that I opened my mouth to apologize for insensitive talk at the table.

“Yes, Magnus, a nurse to live people, not a nurse to people who spent the last week bloating in the harbor and getting nibbled on by gulls and fishes,” she pointed out dryly, then seemed to decide this wasn’t worth pursuing. Nan shoved her chair back and, picking up her plate, moved back into the kitchen proper. “All right, I might be old, but I do remember how it is with examinations,” she told us with faint exasperation. “Just get through it and then promise I can have me a respite from all this obsession with dead bodies. Fourthday night, we’re all sitting down for a family dinner on account of that triumph, even if neither one of you passes a single exam. There will be iced cream, in celebration of the fact that not one of us will speak a single word about corpses at the table for at least another week.”

“All right, Nan,” I said, for both of us, because Curry’s mouth was full of the last bite of his black pudding.

“You had better wind things up, my dears,” she advised us. “Better to be early than on time, today. And if it seems you’re being rushed out,” she continued pleasantly, “don’t dismiss the notion out of hand.” Nan scraped her plate into the garbage pail and pulled open the door to the mudroom. “I’ll be out in the garden. You can leave your plates. Good luck today.”

“Is she pissed?” I whispered once Nan had pulled on her gardening gloves and let herself out the door to the kitchen garden. “Like proper pissed?” The old orcish woman’s sense of humor was so dry I sometimes struggled to work out whether she was being serious or not.

He shook his head, half standing as he finished shoveling in the last of his plate, and took a last gulp of coffee. “If you ever see her proper pissed there won’t be any room for doubt. It happens maybe once a decade. This is just her telling us please get out, she’s really fucking six of the dead body talk.”

“Ugh,” I told him. “That’s not as funny as you think it is.”

“No,” he agreed, “but your reaction to it is a bit funny.”

Curry ducked my pretend swat at him, stretching up to his full height, then scooped up both our plates and bused them, giving them a quick rinse in the sink before drying his hands on a kitchen towel and turning back to me.

I handed him his bag, then picked up my own and slung it over my shoulder. Curry held the door open for me.

“Would you mind—” I began.

“—beat you to it,” Curry told me, pulling the wrinkled study sheet out of his bag and consulting it. “Strangulation victim, estimated sixteen years of age, found in home. Date of **** uncertain. Describe appropriate procedures concerning situation.”

“You know,” I said instead of answering, “maybe Nan had sort of a point.”