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"What? You mean Heaven and Hell against humanity?"
Crowley shrugged. "Of course, if he did change everything, then maybe he changed himself, too. Got rid of his powers, perhaps. Decided to stay human."
"Oh, I do hope so," said Aziraphale. "Anyway, I'm sure the alter native wouldn't be allowed. Er. Would it?"
"I don't know. You can never be certain about what's really intended. Plans within plans."
"Sorry" said Aziraphale.
"Well," said Crowley, who'd been thinking about this until his head ached, "haven't you ever wondered about it all? You know‑your people and my people. Heaven and Hell, good and evil, all that sort of thing? I mean, why?"
"As I recall," said the angel, stiffly, "there was the rebellion and‑"
"Ah, yes. And why did it happen, eh? I mean, it didn't have to, did it?" said Crowley, a manic look in his eye. "Anyone who could build a universe in six days isn't going to let a little thing like that happen. Unless they want it to, of course."
"Oh, come on. Be sensible," said Aziraphale, doubtfully.
"That's not good advice," said Crowley. "That's not good advice at all. If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very fu
"I don't remember any neon."
"Metaphorically, I mean. I mean, why do that if you really don't want them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it's all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you've built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can't be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire. And don't bother to answer. If we could understand, we wouldn't be us. Because it's all‑all‑"
INEFFABLE, said the figure feeding the ducks.
"Yeah. Right. Thanks."
They watched the tall stranger carefully dispose of the empty bag in a litter bin, and stalk away across the grass. Then Crowley shook his head.
"What was I saying?" he said.
"Don't know," said Aziraphale. "Nothing very important, I think."
Crowley nodded gloomily. "Let me tempt you to some lunch," he hissed.
They went to the Ritz again, where a table was mysteriously vacant. And perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout in the nature of reality because, while they were eating, for the first time ever, a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
No one heard it over the noise of the traffic, but it was there, right enough.
– – -
It was one o'clock on Sunday.
For the last decade Sunday lunch in Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell's world had followed an invariable routine. He would sit at the rickety, cigarette‑burned table in his room, thumbing through an elderly copy of one of the Witchfinder Army library's[56] books on magic and Demonology‑the Necrotelecomnicon or the Liber Fulvarum Paginarum, or his old favorite, the Malleus Malleficarum.[57]
Then there would be a knock on the door, and Madame Tracy would call out, "Lunch, Mr. Shadwell," and Shadwell would mutter, "Shameless hussy," and wait sixty seconds, to allow the shameless hussy time to get back into her room; then he'd open the door, and pick up the plate of liver, which was usually carefully covered by another plate to keep it warm. And he'd take it in, and he'd eat it, taking moderate care not to spill any gravy on the pages he was reading[58].
That was what always happened.
Except on that Sunday, it didn't.
For a start, he wasn't reading. He was just sitting.
And when the knock came on the door he got up immediately, and opened it. He needn't have hurried.
There was no plate. There was just Madame Tracy, wearing a cameo brooch, and an unfamiliar shade of lipstick. She was also standing in the center of a perfume zone.
"Aye, Jezebel?"
Madame Tracy's voice was bright and fast and brittle with uncertainty. "Hullo, Mister S, I was just thinking, after all we've been through in the last two days, seems silly for me to leave a plate out for you, so I've set a place for you. Come on . . ."
Mister S?
Shadwell followed, warily.
He'd had another dream, last night. He didn't remember it properly, just one phrase, that still echoed in his head and disturbed him. The dream had vanished into a haze, like the events of the previous night.
It was this. "Nothin' wrong with witchfinding. I'd like to be a witchfinder. It's just, weld you've got to take it in turns. Today we'll go out witchfinding, an' tomorrow we could hide, an it'd be the witches' turn to find US..."
For the second time in twenty‑four hours‑for the second time in his life‑he entered Madame Tracy's rooms.
"Sit down there," she told him, pointing to an armchair. It had an antimacassar on the headrest, a plumped‑up pillow on the seat, and a small footstool.
He sat down.
She placed a tray on his lap, and watched him eat, and removed his plate when he had finished. Then she opened a bottle of Gui
"I've got a tidy bit put away," she said, apropos of nothing. "And you know, I sometimes think it would be a nice thing to get a little bungalow, in the country somewhere. Move out of London. I'd call it The Laurels, or Dunroamin, or, or . . ."
"Shangri‑La," suggested Shadwell, and for the life of him could not think why.
"Exactly, Mister S. Exactly. Shangri‑La." She smiled at him. "Are you comfy, love?"
Shadwell realized with dawning horror that he was comfortable. Horribly, terrifyingly comfortable. "Aye," he said, warily. He had never been so comfortable.
Madame Tracy opened another bottle of Gui
"Only trouble with having a little bungalow, called‑what was your clever idea, Mister S?"
"Uh. Shangri‑La."
"Shangri‑La, exactly, is that it's not right for one, is it? I mean, two people, they say two can live as cheaply as one."
(Or five hundred and eighteen, thought Shadwell, remembering the massed ranks of the Witchfinder Army.)
She giggled. "I just wonder where I could find someone to settle down with . . ."
Shadwell realized that she was talking about him.
He wasn't sure about this. He had a distinct feeling that leaving Witchfinder Private Pulsifer with the young lady in Tadfield had been a bad move, as far as the Witchfinder Army Booke of Rules and Reggulations was concerned. And this seemed even more dangerous.
Still, at his age, when you're getting too old to go crawling about in the long grass, when the chill morning dew gets into your bones . . .
56
Witchfinder Corporal Carpet, librarian, 11 pence per a
57
"A relentlefs blockbufter of a boke; heartily recommended" ‑ Pope I
58
To the right collector, the Witchfinder Army's library would have been worth millions. The right collector would have to have been very rich, and not have minded gravy stains, cigarette burns, marginal notations, or the late Witchfinder Lance Corporal Wotling's passion for drawing mustaches and spectacles on all woodcut illustrations of witches and demons.