And today Moist had a list of people to see, oh yes, he always had a list. He knew that Quirm itself desperately needed the railway as it had lots of produce to sell or be left with heaps of stinking fish, and so Moist was expecting a happy week dealing with the lobsters,[40] but right now he was dealing with people far from the coast who considered their tiny patches of ground to be sacred. Yes, they wanted the railway, but if it went across their land they wouldn’t have any land left that wasn’t railway.
Moist was assisted in his negotiations in Quirm by Acting Captain Haddock of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, presently seconded to the Quirmian force, who had learned the lingo, in an Ankh-Morpork kind of way. Acting Captain Haddock explained the dilemma created by Quirmian traditions of landownership over a pint of very weak beer.
‘It’s all to do with something they call le patrimony. It means that all the kids have to get something when mum and dad pass over. A big farm might have to be split into two or even three or more so everyone can get their share. Even the government knows this is stupid, but no one in Quirm takes any notice of what the government says. So it’s up to you, Mister Lipwig, to get them to understand, but that’s it, I’m afraid.’
Well, Moist tried, he really did, and after a frustrating fortnight haggling over every handkerchief-sized plot, he was ready to give up and head back to Ankh-Morpork. Harry wasn’t going to like this, he thought, and, worse still, neither was Vetinari, but he could probably talk his way out of it, possibly.
His gloomy mood was lightened when he reached a small but prosperous estate belonging to the Marquis des Aix en Pains, a well-known wine grower. The Marquis was one of the last landowners on Moist’s list. He had married a girl from Ankh-Morpork and was apparently extremely keen to have his very fine wines conveyed to customers as soon as possible with a minimum of jolting, which had a deleterious effect on the wine. Currently the coach journey, littered with potholes, required the wines to lie down in a dark cool cellar to settle for months afterwards.
The Marquis had invited Moist for lunch, which turned out to be something he called fusion cuisine, with pâté devoid of avec, a main course of lobster and mash, followed by a most excellent spotted dick, a combination of dishes that you would expect to live long in the annals of gastronomic infamy but which wasn’t too bad, especially when consumed in conjunction with the remarkably good house wines.