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her hands.
    ‘Are you a servant?’ she said.
    Mort straightened up.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m an apprentice.’
    ‘That’s silly. Albert said you can’t be an apprentice.’
    Mort concentrated on hefting a shovelful into the wheelbarrow. Two more shovelfuls, call it three if it’s well pressed down, and that means four more barrows, all right, call it five, before I’ve done halfway to the . . .
    ‘He says,’ said Ysabell in a louder voice, ‘that apprentices become masters, and you can’t have more than one Death. So you’re just a servant and you have to do what I say.’
    . . . and then eight more barrows means it’s all done all the way to the door, which is nearly two-thirds of the whole thing, which means . . .
    ‘Did you hear what I said, boy?’
    Mort nodded. And then it’ll be fourteen more barrows, only call it fifteen because I haven’t swept up properly in the corner, and . . .
    ‘Have you lost your tongue?’
    ‘Mort,’ said Mort mildly.
    She looked at him furiously. ‘What?’
    ‘My name is Mort,’ said Mort. ‘Or Mortimer. Most people call me Mort. Did you want to talk to me about something?’
    She was speechless for a moment, staring from his face to the shovel and back again.
    ‘Only I’ve been told to get on with this,’ said Mort.
    She exploded.
    ‘Why are you here? Why did Father bring you here?’
    ‘He hired me at the hiring fair,’ said Mort. ‘All the boys got hired. And me.’
    ‘And you want to be hired?’ she snapped. ‘He’s Death, you know. The Grim Reaper. He’s very important. He’s not something you become , he’s something you are .’
    Mort gestured vaguely at the wheelbarrow.
    ‘I expect it’ll turn out for the best,’ he said. ‘My father always says things generally do.’
    He picked up the shovel and turned away, and grinned at the horse’s backside as he heard Ysabell snort and walk away.
    Mort worked steadily through the sixteenths, eighths, quarters and thirds, wheeling the wheelbarrow out through the yard to the heap by the apple tree.
    Death’s garden was big, neat and well-tended. It was also very, very black. The grass was black. The flowers were black. Black apples gleamed among the black leaves of a black apple tree. Even the air looked inky.
    After a while Mort thought he could see – no, he couldn’t possibly imagine he could see . . . different colours of black.
    That’s to say, not simply very dark tones of red and green and whatever, but real shades of black. A whole spectrum of colours, all different and all – well, black. He tipped out the last load, put the barrow away, and went back to the house.
    E NTER .
    Death was standing behind a lectern, poring over a map. He looked at Mort as if he wasn’t entirely there.
    Y OU HAVEN’T HEARD OF THE BAY OF MANTE, HAVE YOU ? he said.
    ‘No, sir,’ said Mort.
    F AMOUS SHIPWRECK THERE .
    ‘Was there?’
    T HERE WILL BE , said Death, IF I CAN FIND THE DAMN PLACE .
    Mort walked around the lectern and peered at the map.
    ‘You’re going to sink the ship?’ he said.
    Death looked horrified.
    C ERTAINLY NOT . T HERE WILL BE A COMBINATION OF BAD SEAMANSHIP, SHALLOW WATER AND A CONTRARY WIND .
    ‘That’s horrible,’ said Mort. ‘Will there be many drowned?’
    T HAT’S UP TO FATE , said Death, turning to the bookcase behind him and pulling out a heavy gazetteer. T HERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT . W HAT IS THAT SMELL ?
    ‘Me,’ said Mort, simply.
    A H . T HE STABLES . Death paused, his hand on the spine of the book. A ND WHY DO YOU THINK I DIRECTED YOU TO THE STABLES ? T HINK CAREFULLY, NOW .
    Mort hesitated. He had been thinking carefully, in between counting wheelbarrows. He’d wondered if it had been to coordinate his hand and eye, or teach him the habit of obedience, or bring home to him the importance, on the human scale, of small tasks, or make him realize that even great men must start at the bottom. None of these explanations seemed exactly