Discworld 30 - Monstrous Regiment (21 page)

 
 
  
‘Why should I believe you?’
I do, thought Polly. So Paul is either dead, wounded or captured. And it doesn’t help much
by thinking of it as two chances in three that he is alive.
De Worde threw his newspapers at the lieutenant’s feet. ‘It’s all there, sir. I didn’t make it
up. It’s the truth. It will remain true whether you believe it or not. There are more than six
countries ranged against you, including Genua and Mouldavia and Ankh-Morpork. There is
no one on your side. You are alone. The only reason you’re not beaten yet is because you
won’t admit it. I’ve seen your generals, sir! Great leaders, and your men fight like demons,
but they won’t surrender!’
‘Borogravia doesn’t know the meaning of the word “surrender”, Mr de Worde,’ said the
lieutenant.
‘Can I lend you a dictionary, sir?’ snapped de Worde, going red in the face. ‘It’s very
similar to the meaning of “making some kind of peace while you’ve got a chance”, sir! It’s
rather like “quitting while you’ve still got a head”, sir! Good heavens, sir, don’t you
understand? The reason that there still is an army in the Kneck valley is that the allies haven’t
decided what to do with it! They’re fed up with the slaughter!’
‘Ah, so we still fight back!’ said Blouse.
De Worde sighed. ‘You don’t understand, sir. They are fed up with slaughtering you.
They’ve got the keep now. There’s some big war engines up there. They . . . frankly, sir,
some of the alliance would just as soon wipe out the remains of your army. It’d be like
shooting rats in a barrel. They have you at their mercy. And yet you keep on attacking. You
attack the keep! It’s on sheer rock and it’s got walls a hundred feet high. You make salients
across the river. You’re bottled up and you’ve got nowhere to go and the allies could simply
massacre you any time they want, and you act as though you’re just facing some kind of
temporary setback. That’s what’s really happening, lieutenant! You are just a last little detail.’
‘Have a care, please,’ Blouse warned.
‘Excuse me, sir, but do you know anything about recent history? In the past thirty years
you have declared war on every single one of your neighbours at least once. All countries
fight, but you brawl. And then last year you invaded Zlobenia again!’
‘They invaded us, Mr de Worde.’
‘You have been misinformed, lieutenant. You invaded the Kneck province.’
‘That was confirmed as Borogravian by the Treaty of Lint, more than a hundred years
ago.’
‘Signed at swordpoint, sir. And no one cares now, in any case. It’s all got beyond your
stupid little royal scuffles. Because your men tore down the Grand Trunk, you see. The clacks
towers. And tore up the coach road. Ankh-Morpork regards that as bandit activity.’
‘Have a care, I said!’ said Blouse. ‘I note you are displaying the Ankh-Morpork flag with
evident pride on your wagon.’
‘Civis Morporkias sum, sir. I am an Ankh-Morpork citizen. You could say that Ankh-
Morpork shelters me under her wide and rather greasy wing, although I agree the metaphor
could use some work.’
‘Your Ankh-Morpork soldiers aren’t in a position to protect you, however.’

 
 
  
‘Sir, you are right. You could have me killed right now,’ said de Worde simply. ‘You
know that. I know that. But you won’t, for three reasons. The officers of Borogravia tend
towards honour. Everyone says that. That’s why they don’t surrender. And I bleed most
distressingly. And you don’t need to, because everyone is interested in you. Suddenly, it’s all
changed.’
‘Interested in us?’
‘Sir, in a sense you could help a lot right now. Apparently people back in Ankh-Morpork
were amazed when . . . look, have you heard about what we call “human interest”, sir?’
‘No.’
De Worde tried to explain. Blouse listened with his mouth open and, at the end, said:
‘Have I got this right? Although many people have been killed and wounded in this wretched
war, it’s not been of much “interest” to your readers? But it is now, just because of us?
Because of a little skirmish in a town they’ve never heard of? And because of it, we’re
suddenly a “plucky little country” and people are telling your newspaper that your great city
should be on our side?’
‘Yes, lieutenant. We put out a second edition last night, you see. After I’d found out that
“Captain Horentz” was really Prince Heinrich. Did you know this at the time, sir?’
‘Of course not!’ snapped Blouse.
‘And you, Private, er, Perks, would you have kicked him in the . . . would you have kicked
him had you known?’
Polly dropped a mug in her nervousness, and looked at Blouse.
‘You may answer, of course, Perks,’ said the lieutenant.
‘Well, yes, sir. I would have kicked him. Harder, probably. I was defending myself, sir,’
Polly said, carefully avoiding further details. You couldn’t be sure what someone like de
Worde would do with them.
‘Right, good, yes,’ said de Worde. ‘Then you might be pleased with this. Our cartoonist
Fizz drew this for the special edition. It was on the front page. We’ve sold a record number of
copies.’ He handed her a flimsy piece of paper, which by the look of the creases had been
folded many times.
It was a line drawing, with lots of shading. It showed a huge figure, with a large sword, a
monstrous monocle and a moustache as wide as a coathanger, menacing a much smaller
figure armed with nothing more than an instrument for lifting beets - in fact there was a beet
stuck on the end of it. At least, that was clearly what had been happening right up to the point
when the smaller figure, wearing a not bad attempt at an Ins-and-Outs shako and a face that
looked slightly like Polly’s, had kicked the other one squarely in the groinal regions. A sort of
balloon was coming out of Polly’s mouth, containing the words: ‘That for your Royal
Prerogative, you Blaggard!’ The balloon issuing from the mouth of the ogre, who could only
be Prince Heinrich, said: ‘Oh my Succession! That such A Small Thing could hurt so Much!’
And in the background a fat woman in a rumpled ballgown and a huge old-fashioned helmet
was clasping her hands to an unbelievably large bosom, staring at the fight with a mixture of
concern and admiration, and ballooning: ‘Oh my Swain! I fear our Liaison is Cut short!’
Since no one else was saying much, but was simply staring, de Worde said, rather
nervously: ‘Fizz is rather, er, direct in these matters, but amazingly popular. Ahem. You see,
the curious thing is that although Ankh-Morpork is probably the biggest bully around, in a

 
 
  
subtle kind of way, we nevertheless have a soft spot for people who stand up to bullies.
Especially royal ones. We tend to be on their side, provided it doesn’t cost us too much.’
Blouse cleared his throat. ‘It’s quite a good likeness of you, Perks,’ he said hoarsely.
‘I only used my knee, sir!’ Polly protested. ‘And that fat lady certainly wasn’t there!’
‘That’s Morporkia,’ said de Worde. ‘She’s a sort of representation of the city, except that
in her case she’s not covered in mud and soot.’
‘And I have to add, for my part,’ said Blouse, in his talking-to-a-meeting voice, ‘that
Borogravia is in fact larger than Zlobenia, although most of the country is little more than
barren mountainside—’
‘That doesn’t actually matter,’ said de Worde.
‘It doesn’t?’ said Blouse.
‘No, sir. It’s just a fact. It’s not politics. In politics, sir, pictures like this are powerful. Sir,
even the alliance commanders are talking about you, and the Zlobenians are angry and
bewildered. If you, the heroes of the hour, could make a plea for a little common sense—’
The lieutenant took a long, deep breath. ‘This is a foolish war, Mr de Worde. But I am a
soldier. I have “kissed the Duchess”, as we say. It’s an oath of loyalty. Don’t tempt me to
break it. I must fight for my country. We will repel all invaders. If there are deserters, we will
find them and rally them again. We know the country. While we are free, Borogravia will be
free. You have “had your say”. Thank you. Where is that tea, Perks?’
‘What? Oh, nearly done, sir!’ said Polly, turning back to the fire.
It had been a sudden strange fancy, but a stupid plan. Now, out here, all the drawbacks
were visible. How would she have got Paul home? Would he have wanted to come? Could
she have managed it? Even if he was still alive, how could she hope to get him out of a
prison?
‘So you’ll be guerilla fighters, eh?’ said Mr de Worde, behind her. ‘Madmen, all of you.’
‘No, we are not irregulars,’ said Blouse. ‘We kissed the Duchess. We are soldiers.’
‘Oh, well,’ said de Worde. ‘Then I admire your spirit, at least. Ah, Otto . . .’
The vampire iconographer ambled up, and gave them a shy smile. ‘Do not be afraid. I am a
Black Ribboner just like your corporal,’ he said. ‘Light is my passion now.’
‘Oh? Er . . . well done,’ said Blouse.
‘Take the pictures, Otto,’ said de Worde. These gentlemen have a war to fight.’
‘Out of interest, Mr de Worde,’ Blouse interrupted, ‘how did you get the pictures back to
your city so quickly? Magic, I assume?’
‘What?’ De Worde looked momentarily off balance. ‘Oh no, sir. Wizards are expensive
and Commander Vimes has said that there is going to be no first use of magic in this war. We
send things by pigeon to our office in the keep and then by clacks from the nearest trunk
tower.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Blouse, showing rather more animation than Polly had seen up until
now. ‘Using numbers to indicate a scale of grey shades, perhaps?’
‘Mein Gotts!’ said Otto.
‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact we do,’ said de Worde. ‘I’m very impressed that you—’

 
 
  
‘I have seen the clacks towers on the far bank of the Kneck,’ said Blouse, his eyes lighting
up. ‘Very clever idea, using big shuttered boxes rather than the old-fashioned semaphore
arms. And would I be right in my surmise that the box on the top, which opens its shutters
once a second, is a kind of system, er, clock that makes certain the whole clacks line keeps in
step? Oh, good. I thought so. One beat a second is probably the limit of the mechanisms, so
no doubt all your efforts now are concentrated on maximizing the information content per
shutter operation? Yes, I imagined that would be the case. As for sending pictures, well,
sooner or later all things are numbers, yes? Of course, you would use each of the two
columns of four boxes to send a grey code, but it must be very slow. Have you considered a
squeezing algorithm?’
De Worde and Chriek exchanged a glance. ‘Are you sure you haven’t been talking to
anyone about this, sir?’ said the writer.
‘Oh, it’s all very elementary,’ said Blouse, smiling happily. ‘I had thought about it in the
context of military maps which are, of course, mostly white space. So I wondered if it would
be possible to indicate a required shade on one column and, on the other side, indicate how
far along that rank that shade would persist. And a delightful bonus here is that if your map is
simply in black and white, then you have even more—’
‘You haven’t seen inside a clacks tower, have you?’ said de Worde.
‘Alas, no,’ said Blouse. ‘This is simply “thinking aloud” based on the de facto existence of
your picture. I believe I can see a number of other little mathematical, ahem, tricks to make
the passage of information even swifter, but I am sure these have already occurred to you. Of
course, a fairly minor modification could potentially double the information burden of the
whole system at a stroke. And that is without using coloured filters at night, which I’m sure
even with the overhead of extra mechanical effort would surely increase throughput by— I’m
sorry, did I say something wrong?’
The two men both wore a glazed expression. De Worde shook himself. ‘Oh . . . er, no.
Nothing,’ he said. ‘Er . . . you seem to have got the grasp of things quite . . . quickly.’
‘Oh, it was perfectly straightforward once I started thinking about it,’ said Blouse. ‘It was
exactly the same when I had to redesign the department’s filing system, you see. People build
something that works. Then circumstances change, and they have to tinker with it to make it
continue to work, and they are so busy tinkering that they cannot see that a much better idea
would be to build a whole new system to deal with the new circumstances. But to an outsider,
the idea is obvious.’
‘In politics as well as, er, filing systems and clackses, do you think?’ said de Worde.
Blouse’s brow wrinkled. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I follow . . .’ he said.
“Would you agree that sometimes a country’s system is so out of date that it’s only the
outsiders that can see the need for wholesale change?’ said de Worde. He smiled. Lieutenant
Blouse did not.
‘Just a point to ponder, maybe,’ said de Worde. ‘Er . . . since you wish to tell the world of
your defiance, would you object if my colleague takes your picture?’
Blouse shrugged. ‘If it gives you any satisfaction,’ he said. ‘It’s an Abomination, of course,
but these days it’s hard to find something that isn’t. You must tell the world, Mr de Worde,
that Borogravia won’t lie down. We will not give in. We will fight on. Write that down in
your little notebook, please. While we can stand, we will kick!’
‘Yes, but once again may I implore you to—’

 
 
  
‘Mr de Worde, you have I am sure heard the saying that the pen is mightier than the
sword?’
De Worde preened a little. ‘Of course, and I—’
‘Do you want to test it? Take your picture, sir, and then my men will escort you back to
your road.’
Otto Chriek stood up and bowed to Blouse. He unslung his picture box.
‘This vill only take vun minute,’ he said.
It never does. Polly watched in horrified fascination as Otto took picture after picture of
Lieutenant Blouse in a variety of what the lieutenant thought were heroic poses. It is a terrible
thing to see a man trying to jut out a chin he does not, in fact, have.
‘Very impressive,’ said de Worde. ‘I just hope you live to see it in my paper, sir.’
‘I shall look forward to it with the keenest anticipation,’ said Blouse. ‘And now, Perks,
please go along with the sergeant and put these two gentlemen back on their way.’
Otto sidled up to Polly as they walked back to the cart. ‘I need to tell you somezing about
your vampire,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘You are a friend of his?’ said Otto.
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Zere is a problem . . .’
‘He’s got twitchy because he has run out of coffee?’
‘Alas, if only it vas that simple.’ Otto looked awkward. ‘You have to understand that ven a
vampire forgoes . . . the b-vord, there is a process that ve call transference? Ve force
ourselves to desire something else? For me this vas not painful. I crave the perfection of light
and shade. Pictures are my life! But your friend chose . . . coffee. And now he has none.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘I vunder if you do. It probably seemed so sensible to him. It is a human craving, and no
one minds if you say, as it might be, “I am dying for a cup of coffee”, or “I’d kill for a cup of
coffee”. But without coffee, he vill, I am afraid . . . revert. You understand, this is very
difficult for me to talk about . . .’ Otto trailed off.
‘By revert you mean . . . ?’
‘First vill come mild delusions, I think. A psychic susceptibility to all kinds of influences
from who knows vhere, and vampires can hallucinate so stronkly zat zey can be contagious. I
zink zat is happening already. He vill become . . . erratic. This may last for several days. And
then his conditioning vill break and he vill be, vunce again, a true vampire. No more Mr Nice
Coffee Drinker Guy.’
‘Can’t I do anything to help him?’
Otto reverentially laid his picture box in the back of the cart, and turned to her. ‘You can
find him some coffee, or . . . you can keep a vooden stake and a big knife ready. You vould
be doink him a favour, believe me.’
‘I can’t do that!’
Otto shrugged. ‘Find someone who vill.’