'Oh, I never said it wasn't a nice name,' said the baker, belatedly using his loaf. 'But I would never have figured you for an Alphonse. It just goes to show that you never can tell.'
'I am an orc,' said Nutt quietly.
'Actually, Alphonse is quite a nice name,' the baker went on. 'The phonse spoils it a bit, but the Alf I quite like.' He paused and turned to Nutt. 'What do you mean, "orc"?'
'An orc,' said Nutt again.
And away in the distant central heating pipes there was a scream of 'Awk! Awk!'
'Don't be daft, there's no such thing as orcs any more. They all got killed off hundreds of years ago. Bloody hard to kill, too, I read somewhere,' said a butler.
'In the latter part of your statement you are substantially correct,' said Nutt, still chained to the couch. 'However, nevertheless, I am an orc.'
Glenda looked down. 'You told me you're a goblin, Mister Nutt. You told me you're a goblin.'
'I was misinformed,' said Nutt. 'I know I am an orc. I think I have always known that I am an orc. I have opened the door and read the book and I know the truth of my soul and I am an orc, and for some reason I am an orc with a terrible urge to smoke a cigar.'
'But they were like these big horrible monsters that wouldn't stop fighting and were quite happy to tear off their own arm to use as a weapon,' said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation). 'There was an article about them in Bows & Ammo.'
Every eye turned to Nutt's arms. 'Certainly that is the judgement of history,' said Nutt. He looked up at Glenda. 'I am so sorry,' he said. 'I disobeyed, everybody does it, you see. Schnouzentintle says as much in his book The Obedience of Disobedience. So I wondered what was in the cupboard. And I already had some expertise with lockpicks. I opened the cupboard, I read the book and... 'His chains clinked as he shifted position. 'I disobeyed. I think everybody does it. We are very good at hiding from ourselves what we do not want to know. Believe me; I was very good at keeping that from myself. But it leaks out, you see, in dreams and things when you have dropped your guard. I am an orc. There is no doubt about that.'
'Okay, right, if you are an orc, right, then why are you not tearing my head off?' said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation).
'Would you like me to?' said Nutt.
'Well, as it happens, no!'
'Who cares?' said Trev. 'It's all ancient history anyway. These days you see vampires hangin' around all over the place. An' we've got trolls and golems and zombies and all kinds of people just graftin' away. Who cares what 'appened 'undreds of years ago?'
'Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute,' said the butler. 'He's not tearing your head off 'cos he's chained down.'
'So, why did you get us to chain you down?' said Glenda.
'So I wouldn't tear off anybody's head. I suspected the truth, although I didn't know what it was that I suspected. At least, I think it works like that.'
'So that means you can't escape and tear us all limb from limb,' said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation). 'No offence meant, but does this mean you won't be training us?'
'I am sorry,' said Nutt, 'but as you can see, I'm rather inconvenienced.'
'Have you all gone loony?' Astonishingly, this came from Juliet, standing in the corridor. 'He's Nutt. He potters around making candles and stuff. I see 'im around all the time and 'e's never 'olding someone else's leg or head. And 'e likes his football, too!'
Glenda thought she could actually hear Trev's heartbeat. She hurried over to the girl. 'I told you to go,' she hissed.
'I've come back to tell Trev about everythin'. After all, he did write such a lovely poem.' 'She's got a point,' said a man in a butcher's apron. 'I've seen him running around everywhere and I've never seen him carrying any limbs.'
'That's true,' said the baker. 'And anyway, didn't he do all those lovely candles at the banquet last night? That doesn't sound very orc-like to me.'
'And,' said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation), 'he was training us yesterday and he never once said, "Get in there, lads, and tear their 'eads off".'
'Oh, yes,' said the butler, who was making no friends as far as Glenda was concerned. 'Humans don't tear off heads, not like orcs.'
An 'Awk! Awk!' echoed in the distance.
'He's been teaching us kinds of stuff you'd never think about,' said the bledlow, 'like playing the game with a blindfold on. Amazing stuff. More like filosopy than football, but damn good stuff.'
'Tactical thinking and combat analysis is part of the orc make-up,' said Nutt.
'See! No one who uses make-up is going to tear your head off, right?'