Reclining on the couch was an incredibly old woman wearing a quaint costume of a bygone era—long scarlet silk skirt, yellow blouse, great golden hoops swinging in her ears. She was sipping something out of a teacup, but it didn't smell like tea, at least not like tea alone. The ancient reek of gin pervaded and overpowered the general mustiness.
"Hello, son!" the old woman said, waving the cup at Gervase. "'Bout time you came to pay your old mother a visit." She cackled. "I kind of thought something like this would stir you up!"
"Mother," Gervase said reproachfully, "you know you shouldn't have done it."
"What did I do?" she asked, assuming a ludicrous posture of innocence.
"You fixed the Prognostications, that's what you did. Although why you had to pick on me—"
"Aah, I got tired of supporting you! You're a big boy—it's about time you earned your own living. Besides, I thought it'd be a good idea to elect a sympathetic administration. Sympathetic to me, that is. Palace needs a new ventilating system. Air in here's terrible. Smells as if something'd died and they were too stingy to give it a decent burial."
"But why didn't you use the Prognosticator to get new ventilation put in?" Gervase asked. "Seems to me you could have foretold everyone in the Palace would suffocate or something if it wasn't done."
"They'd have got around it, same way you got around killing Kipp."