Unseen Academicals (17 page)

Ridcully looked down the table at the Council and noted a certain moistness of eye. Wizards were, largely, of that generation from which grandfathers are carved. They were also, largely, large, and awash with cynical crabbiness and the barnacles of the years, but…the smell of cheap overcoats in the rain, which always had a tint and taste of soot in it, and your father, or maybe your grandfather, lifting you on to his shoulders, and there you were, above all those cheap hats and scarves, and you could feel the warmth of the Shove, watch its tides, feel its heartbeat, and then, certainly, a pie would be handed up, or maybe half a pie if times were hard, and if they were really bad it might be a handful of fat greasy pease which were to be eaten one at a time to make them last longer…or when times were flush there might be a real treat, like a hot dog you didn’t have to share, or a plate of scouse, with
yellow fat beading on the top and lumps of gristle you could chew at on the way home, meat which now you would not give to a dog but which was sacred lotus eaten with the gods, in the rain, in the cheering, in the bosom of the Shove…

The Archchancellor blinked. No time seemed to have passed, unless you count seventy years which had gone past like that. ‘Er, very graphically argued,’ he said, and pulled himself together. ‘Interesting points well made. But, you see, we have a responsibility here. After all, this city was just a handful of villages before my university was built. We are concerned about the fighting in the streets yesterday. We heard a rumour that someone was killed because he supported the wrong team. We can’t stand by and let this sort of thing happen.’

‘So you’ll be shutting down the Assassins’ Guild, will you, sir?’

There was a gasp from every mouth, including her own. The only rational thought that didn’t flee from her mind was:
I wonder if that job is still going in the Fools’ Guild? The pay wasn’t much, but they do know how to appreciate a pie.

When she dared look, the Archchancellor was staring at the ceiling, while his fingers drummed on the table.
I should have been more careful
, Glenda whined in her own ear.
Don’t get chatty with nobs. You forget what you are, but they don’t.

The drumming stopped. ‘Good point, well put,’ said Ridcully, ‘and I shall marshal my responses thusly.’ He flicked a finger and, with a smell of gooseberries and a
pop
, a small red globe appeared in the air over the table.

‘One: the Assassins, while deadly, are not random, and indeed are mostly a danger to one another. Assassination is only to be feared, generally speaking, by those powerful enough to have a stab, as it were, at defending themselves.’

Another little globe appeared.

‘Two: it is an article of faith with them that property is undamaged. They are invariably courteous and considerate and notoriously silent, and would never dream of inhuming their target in a public street.’

A third globe appeared.

‘Three: they are organized and therefore amenable to civic influence. Lord Vetinari is very keen on that sort of thing.’

And another globe popped into life.

‘And four: Lord Vetinari is himself a trained Assassin, majoring in stealth and poisons. I am not sure he would share your opinion. And he is a Tyrant even if he has developed tyranny to such a point of metaphysical perfection that it is a dream rather than a force. He does not have to listen to you, you see. He doesn’t even have to listen to me. He listens to the city. I don’t know how he does, but he does. And he plays it like a violin’–Ridcully paused, then went on–‘or like the most complicated game you can imagine. The city works, not perfectly, but better than it has ever done. I think it’s time for football to change too.’ He smiled at her expression. ‘What is your job, young lady? Because you are wasted in it.’

It was probably meant as a compliment, but Glenda, her head so bewilderingly full of the Archchancellor’s words that they were trickling out of her ears, heard herself say, ‘I’m certainly not wasted, sir! You’ve never eaten better pies than mine! I run the Night Kitchen!’

The metaphysics of real politics were not a subject of interest to most of those present, but they knew where they were with pies. She was the centre of attention already, but now it blazed with interest.

‘You do?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘We thought it was the pretty girl.’

‘Really?’ said Glenda brightly. ‘Well, I run it.’

‘So who does that wonderful pie you send up here sometimes, with the cheese pastry and the hot pickle layer?’

‘The Ploughman’s Pie? Me, sir. My own recipe.’

‘Really? How do you manage to get the pickled onions to stay so hard and crispy in the baking? It’s just amazing!’

‘My own recipe, sir,’ said Glenda firmly. ‘It wouldn’t be mine if I told anyone else.’

‘Well said,’ said Ridcully gleefully. ‘You can’t go around asking craftsmen the secrets of their trade, old chap. It’s a thing you just don’t do. Now, I am concluding this meeting, although what it has in fact
concluded I shall decide later.’ He turned back to Glenda. ‘Thank you for coming here today, Miss Glenda, and I shall not enquire why a young lady who works in the Night Kitchen is pouring tea up here at nearly noon. Do you have any further advice for us?’

‘Well,’ said Glenda, ‘since you ask…No, I really shouldn’t say…’

‘This is hardly the moment for bashfulness, do you think?’

‘Well, it’s about your strip, sir. That means your team colours. Nothing wrong with red and yellow, no one else uses those two, but, well, you want two big U’s on the front, right? Like UU?’ She waved her hands in the air.

‘Yes, that is exactly right. After all, it’s what we are.’ Ridcully nodded.

‘Are you sure? I mean, I know you gentlemen are bachelors and all, but…well, you’ll look like you’ve got bosoms. Honestly.’

‘Oh gods, sir, she’s right,’ said Ponder. ‘It will make a rather unfortunate shape…’

‘What kind of mind would see something like that in a pair of innocent letters?’ the Lecturer in Recent Runes demanded angrily.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Glenda, ‘but every man watching the football has got one. And they would make up nicknames. They love doing that.’

‘I suspect you may be right,’ said Ridcully, ‘but we never had any trouble when I was rowing in the old days.’

‘Football followers are rather more robust in their language, sir,’ said Ponder.

‘Yes, and in those days we were pretty careless when it came to throwing fireballs, as I recall,’ Ridcully mused. ‘Oh dear, what a shame. I was looking forward to giving the old rag a bit of an airing again. Still, I’m sure we can change the design a little to save embarrassment all round. Thank you once again, Miss Glenda. Bosoms, eh? Narrow escape there, all round. Good day to you.’ He shut the door after the trolley, which Glenda was pushing as if in a race…

Molly, the head maid in the Day Kitchen, was fretting at the end of the corridor beyond. She sagged with relief when Glenda came round the corner, teacups rattling.

‘Was it all right? Did anything go wrong? I’ll get into so
much trouble if anything went wrong. Tell me nothing went wrong!’

‘It was all fine,’ said Glenda. That got her a suspicious look.

‘Are you sure? You owe me for this!’

The laws of favours are amongst the most fundamental in the multiverse. The first law is: nobody asks for just one favour; the second request (after the granting of the first favour), prefaced by ‘and can I be really cheeky…?’ is the asking of the second favour. If the aforesaid second request is not granted, the second law ensures that the need for any gratitude for the first favour is nullified, and in accordance with the third law the favour giver has not done any favours at all, and the favour field collapses.

But Glenda reckoned she’d won a lot of favours over the years, and was owed a few herself. Besides, she had reason to believe that Molly had been spending the welcome break in dalliance with her boyfriend, who worked in the bakery.

‘Can you get me in to the banquet on Wednesday night?’

‘Sorry, the butler chooses who gets those jobs,’ said Molly.

Ah yes, the tall, thin girls, Glenda thought.

‘Why in the world would you want to get in, anyway?’ Molly said. ‘It’s a lot of running around and not much pay, when all’s said and done. I mean, we get some decent leftovers after a big affair, but what’s that to you? Everyone knows that you’re the leftover queen!’ She paused, too awkwardly. ‘I mean, we all know you’re really good at making wonderful food with always a little something left over,’ she gabbled. ‘That’s all I meant!’

‘I didn’t think you meant anything else,’ said Glenda, keeping her voice level. But she raised it again to add, as Molly scurried off: ‘I can pay back the favour right now! You’ve got two floury handprints on your arse!’

The glare that came back was a small victory, but you have to take what you can get.

Still, that strange interlude, which she was sure she would regret, had taken up a lot of time. She had to get the Night Kitchen organized.

When the door had closed behind the rather forthright maid, Ridcully nodded meaningfully at Ponder. ‘All right, Mister Stibbons. You were glancing at your thaumometer the whole time I was talking to her. Out with it.’

‘Some kind of entanglement,’ said Ponder.

‘And there was me thinking that Vetinari was behind the business with the urn,’ said Ridcully gloomily. ‘I should have realized he’s never that unsubtle.’

‘Oh, I assumed it was going to be something like that right at the start,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘Indeed,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘It crossed my mind as soon as I saw it in the paper.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Ridcully. ‘I am humbled that as soon as I have an idea about what something is, it turns out that you all knew what it was. I am amazed.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Dr Hix, ‘but I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’

‘You are out of touch! You’ve been spending too long underground, sir!’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes sternly.

‘You don’t often let me out, that’s why! And can I remind you that I have to maintain a vital line of cosmic defence in this establishment here with a staff of exactly one? And he’s dead!’

‘You mean Charlie? I remember old Charlie, keen worker nevertheless,’ said Ridcully.

‘Yes, but I have to keep rewiring him all the time,’ sighed Hix. ‘I do try to keep you abreast of things in my monthly reports. I hope you read them…?’

‘Tell me, Doctor Hix,’ said Ponder, ‘did you experience anything unusual when that young lady was speaking so eloquently?’

‘Well, yes, I had a pleasant moment of happy recollection about my father.’

‘So did we all, I am sure,’ said Ponder. There was sombre nodding around the table. ‘I never knew my father. I was brought up by my aunts. I had déjà vu
without the original vu.
’

‘And it wasn’t magic?’ suggested the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘No. Religion, I suspect,’ said Ridcully. ‘A god invoked, that sort of thing.’

‘Not invoked, Mustrum,’ said Dr Hix. ‘Summoned by bloodshed!’

‘Oh, I hope not,’ said Ridcully, getting to his feet. ‘I would like to try a little experiment this afternoon, gentlemen. We will not talk about football, we will not speculate about football, we will not worry about football—’

‘You are going to make us play it, aren’t you?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes glumly.

‘Yes,’ said Ridcully, more than somewhat miffed at the spoiling of a perfectly good peroration. ‘Just a little kick-about to help us get some hands-on experience of the game as it is played.’

‘Er. Strictly, under the new rules, by which I mean the ancient rules we are taking as our model, hands-on experience means no hands,’ said Ponder.

‘Well pointed out, that man. Put the word out, will you? Football practice on the lawn after lunch!’

One thing you had to remember when dealing with dwarfs was that while they shared the same world as you did, metaphorically they thought about it as if it were upside down. Only the richest and most influential of dwarfs lived in the deepest caverns. For a dwarf, a penthouse in the centre of the city would be some kind of slum. Dwarfs liked it dark and cool.

It didn’t stop there. A dwarf on the up and up was really on his uppers, and upper-class dwarfs were lower class. A dwarf who was rich, healthy and had respect and his own rat farm justifiably felt at rock bottom and was held in low esteem. When you talked to dwarfs, you turned your mind upside down. The city, too. Of course, when you dug down in Ankh-Morpork you just found more Ankh-Morpork. Thousands of years of it, ready to be dug out and shored up and walled in with the shiny dwarf brick.

It was Lord Vetinari’s ‘Grand Undertaking’. The city’s walls corseted
it like a fetishist’s happiest dream. Gravity offered only a limited supply of up, but the deep loam of the plain had a limitless supply of down.

Glenda was surprised, therefore, to find Shatta right at the surface in the Maul, alongside the really posh dress shops that were for human ladies. That made sense, however; if you were going to make a scandalous profit selling clothes, it made sense to camouflage yourself amongst other shops doing the same thing. She wasn’t sure about the name, but apparently
shatta
meant ‘a wonderful surprise’ in Dwarfish, and if you started to laugh about that sort of thing then you would never have time to pause for breath.

She approached the door with the apprehension of one who is certain that the moment she sets foot inside she will be charged five dollars a minute for breathing and then be held upside down and have all her wealth removed with a hook.

And it was, indeed, classy. But it was dwarf classy. That meant an awful lot of chain mail, and enough weaponry to take over a city-but if you paid attention, you realized it was female chain mail and weaponry. That was how things were happening, apparently. Dwarf women had got fed up with looking like dwarf men all the time and were metaphorically melting down their breastplates in order to make something a little lighter and with adjustable straps.