Guards! Guards! (2 page)

A bulky robed figure lowered its hand. “Are you talking about when we had kings?”

“Well done, Brother,” said the Supreme Grand Master, slightly annoyed at this unusual evidence of intelligence. “And—”

“But that was all sorted out hundreds of years ago,” said Brother Watchtower. “Wasn’t there this great battle, or something? And since then we’ve just had the ruling lords, like the Patrician.”

“Yes, very good, Brother Watchtower.”

“There aren’t any more kings, is the point I’m trying to make,” said Brother Watchtower helpfully.

“As Brother Watchtower says, the line of—”

“It was you talking about chivalry that give me the clue,” said Brother Watchtower.

“Quite so, and—”

“You get that with kings, chivalry,” said Brother Watchtower happily. “And knights. And they used to have these—”

“
However
,” said the Supreme Grand Master sharply, “it may well be that the line of the kings of Ankh is not as defunct as hitherto imagined, and that progeny of the line exists even now. Thus my researches among the ancient scrolls do indicate.”

He stood back expectantly. There didn’t seem to be the effect he’d expected, however. Probably they can manage “defunct,” he thought, but I ought to have drawn the line at “progeny.”

Brother Watchtower had his hand up again.

“Yes?”

“You saying there’s some sort of heir to the throne hanging around somewhere?” said Brother Watchtower.

“This may be the case, yes.”

“Yeah. They do that, you know,” said Brother Watchtower knowledgeably. “Happens all the time. You read about it. Skions, they’re called. They go lurking around in the distant wildernesses for ages, handing down the secret sword and birthmark and so forth from generation to generation. Then just when the old kingdom needs them, they turn up and turf out any usurpers that happen to be around. And then there’s general rejoicing.”

The Supreme Grand Master felt his own mouth drop open. He hadn’t expected it to be as easy as this.

“Yes, all right,” said a figure the Supreme Grand Master knew to be Brother Plasterer. “But so what? Let’s say a skion turns up, walks up to the Patrician, says ‘What ho, I’m king, here’s the birthmark as per spec, now bugger off.’ What’s he got then? Life expectancy of maybe two minutes, that’s what.”

“You don’t
listen
,” said Brother Watchtower. “The thing is, the skion has to arrive when the kingdom is threatened, doesn’t he? Then everyone can see, right? Then he gets carried off to the palace, cures a few people, announces a half-holiday, hands around a bit of treasure, and Bob’s your uncle.”

“He has to marry a princess, too,” said Brother Doorkeeper. “On account of him being a swineherd.”

They looked at him.

“Who said anything about him being a swineherd?” said Brother Watchtower. “I never said he was a swineherd. What’s this about swineherds?”

“He’s got a point, though,” said Brother Plasterer. “He’s generally a swineherd or a forester or similar, your basic skion. It’s to do with being in wossname. Cognito. They’ve got to appear to be of, you know, humble origins.”

“Nothing special about humble origins,” said a very small Brother, who seemed to consist entirely of a little perambulatory black robe with halitosis. “I’ve got lots of humble origins. In my family we thought swineherding was a posh job.”

“But your family doesn’t have the blood of kings, Brother Dunnykin,” said Brother Plasterer.

“We might of,” said Brother Dunnykin sulkily.

“Right, then,” said Brother Watchtower grudgingly. “Fair enough. But at the essential moment, see, your genuine kings throw back their cloak and say ‘Lo!’ and their essential kingnessness shines through.”

“How, exactly?” said Brother Doorkeeper.

“—might of got the blood of kings,”
muttered Brother Dunnykin.
“Got no right saying I might not have got the blood of—”

“Look, it just does, okay? You just know it when you see it.”

“But before that they’ve got to save the kingdom,” said Brother Plasterer.

“Oh, yes,” said Brother Watchtower heavily. “That’s the main thing, is that.”

“What from, then?”

“—got as much right as anyone to might have the blood of kings—”

“The Patrician?” said Brother Doorkeeper.

Brother Watchtower, as the sudden authority on the ways of royalty, shook his head.

“I dunno that the Patrician is a threat, exactly,” he said. “He’s not your actual tyrant, as such. Not as bad as some we’ve had. I mean, he doesn’t actually
oppress
.”

“I get oppressed all the time,” said Brother Doorkeeper. “Master Critchley, where I work, he oppresses me morning, noon and night, shouting at me and everything. And the woman in the vegetable shop, she oppresses me all the time.”

“That’s right,” said Brother Plasterer. “My landlord oppresses me something wicked. Banging on the door and going on and on about all the rent I allegedly owe, which is a total lie. And the people next door oppress me all night long. I tell them, I work all day, a man’s got to have some time to learn to play the tuba. That’s oppression, that is. If I’m not under the heel of the oppressor, I don’t know who is.”

“Put like that—” said Brother Watchtower slowly—“I reckon my brother-in-law is oppressing me all the time with having this new horse and buggy he’s been and bought.
I
haven’t got one. I mean, where’s the justice in that? I bet a king wouldn’t let that sort of oppression go on, people’s wives oppressing ’em with why haven’t they got a new coach like our Rodney and that.”

The Supreme Grand Master listened to this with a slightly lightheaded feeling. It was as if he’d known that there were such things as avalanches, but had never dreamed when he dropped the little snowball on top of the mountain that it could lead to such astonishing results. He was hardly having to egg them on at all.

“I bet a king’d have something to say about landlords,” said Brother Plasterer.

“And he’d outlaw people with showy coaches,” said Brother Watchtower. “Probably bought with stolen money, too, I reckon.”

“I think,” said the Supreme Grand Master, tweaking things a little, “that a wise king would only, as it were, outlaw showy coaches for the
undeserving
.”

There was a thoughtful pause in the conversation as the assembled Brethren mentally divided the universe into the deserving and the undeserving, and put themselves on the appropriate side.

“It’d be only fair,” said Brother Watchtower slowly. “But Brother Plasterer was right, really. I can’t see a skion manifesting his destiny just because Brother Doorkeeper thinks the woman in the vegetable shop keeps giving him funny looks. No offense.”

“
And
bloody short weight,” said Brother Doorkeeper. “And she—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said the Supreme Grand Master. “Truly the right-thinking folk of Ankh-Morpork are beneath the heel of the oppressors. However, a king generally reveals himself in rather more dramatic circumstances. Like a war, for example.”

Things were going well. Surely, for all their self-centered stupidity, one of them would be bright enough to make the suggestion?

“There used to be some old prophecy or something,” said Brother Plasterer. “My grandad told me.” His eyes glazed with the effort of dramatic recall. “‘Yea, the king will come bringing Law and Justice, and know nothing but the Truth, and Protect and Serve the People with his Sword.’ You don’t all have to look at me like that, I didn’t make it up.”

“Oh, we
all
know
that
one. And a fat lot of good that’d be,” said Brother Watchtower. “I mean, what does he do, ride in with Law and Truth and so on like the Four Horse-men of the Apocralypse? Hallo everyone,” he squeaked, “I’m the king, and that’s Truth over there, watering his horse. Not very practical, is it? Nah. You can’t trust old legends.”

“Why not?” said Brother Dunnykin, in a peeved voice.

“’Cos they’re legendary. That’s how you can tell,” said Brother Watchtower.

“Sleeping princesses is a good one,” said Brother Plasterer. “Only a king can wake ’em up.”

“Don’t be daft,” said Brother Watchtower severely. “We haven’t got a king, so we can’t have princesses. Stands to reason.”

“Of course, in the
old
days it was easy,” said Brother Doorkeeper happily.

“Why?”

“He just had to kill a dragon.”

The Supreme Grand Master clapped his hands together and offered a silent prayer to any god who happened to be listening. He’d been right about these people. Sooner or later their rambling little minds took them where you wanted them to go.

“What an interesting idea,” he trilled.

“Wouldn’t work,” said Brother Watchtower dourly. “There ain’t no big dragons now.”

“There could be.”

The Supreme Grand Master cracked his knuckles.

“Come again?” said Brother Watchtower.

“I said there could be.”

There was a nervous laugh from the depths of Brother Watchtower’s cowl.

“What, the real thing? Great big scales and wings?”

“Yes.”

“Breath like a blast furnace?”

“Yes.”

“Them big claw things on its feet?”

“Talons? Oh, yes. As many as you want.”

“What do you mean, as many as I want?”

“I would hope it’s self-explanatory, Brother Watchtower. If you want dragons, you can have dragons.
You
can bring a dragon here. Now. Into the city.”

“Me?”

“All of you. I mean us,” said the Supreme Grand Master.

Brother Watchtower hesitated. “Well, I don’t know if that’s a very good—”

“And it would obey your every command.”

That stopped them. That pulled them up. That dropped in front of their weaselly little minds like a lump of meat in a dog pound.

“Can you just repeat that?” said Brother Plasterer slowly.

“You can control it. You can make it do whatever you want.”

“What? A real dragon?”

The Supreme Grand Master’s eyes rolled in the privacy of his hood.

“Yes, a real one. Not a little pet swamp dragon. The genuine article.”

“But I thought they were, you know…miffs.”

The Supreme Grand Master leaned forward.

“They were myths and they were real,” he said loudly. “Both a wave and a particle.”

“You’ve lost me there,” said Brother Plasterer.

“I will demonstrate, then. The book please, Brother Fingers. Thank you. Brethren, I must tell you that when I was undergoing my tuition by the Secret Masters—”

“The what, Supreme Grand Master?” said Brother Plasterer.

“Why don’t you listen? You never
listen
. He said the Secret Masters!” said Brother Watchtower. “You know, the venerable sages what live on some mountain and secretly run everything and taught him all this lore and that, and can walk on fires and that. He told us last week. He’s going to teach us, aren’t you, Supreme Grand Master,” he finished obsequiously.

“Oh, the
Secret
Masters,” said Brother Plasterer. “Sorry. It’s these mystic hoods. Sorry. Secret. I remember.”

But when I rule the city, the Supreme Grand Master said to himself, there is going to be none of this. I shall form a new secret society of keen-minded and intelligent men, although not too intelligent of course, not
too
intelligent. And we will overthrow the cold tyrant and we will usher in a new age of enlightenment and fraternity and humanism and Ankh-Morpork will become a Utopia and people like Brother Plasterer will be roasted over slow fires if I have any say in the matter, which I will.
And
his figgin.
¹

“When I was, as I said, undergoing my tuition by the Secret Masters—” he continued.

“That was where they told you you had to walk on rice-paper, wasn’t it,” said Brother Watchtower conversationally. “I always thought that was a good bit. I’ve been saving it off the bottom of my macaroons ever since. Amazing, really. I can walk on it no trouble. Shows what being in a proper secret society does for you, does that.”

When he is on the griddle, the Supreme Grand Master thought, Brother Plasterer will not be lonely.

“Your footfalls on the road of enlightenment are an example to us all, Brother Watchtower,” he said. “If I may continue, however—among the many secrets—”

“—from the Heart of Being—” said Brother Watchtower approvingly.

“—from the Heart, as Brother Watchtower says, of Being, was the current location of the noble dragons. The belief that they died out is quite wrong. They simply found a new evolutionary niche. And they can be summoned from it. This book—” he flourished it—“gives specific instructions.”

“It’s just in a book?” said Brother Plasterer.

“No ordinary book. This is the only copy. It has taken me years to track it down,” said the Supreme Grand Master. “It’s in the handwriting of Tubal de Malachite, a great student of dragon lore. His actual handwriting. He summoned dragons of all sizes. And so can you.”

There was another long, awkward silence.

“Um,” said Brother Doorkeeper.

“Sounds a bit like, you know…
magic
to me,” said Brother Watchtower, in the nervous tone of the man who has spotted which cup the pea is hidden under but doesn’t like to say. “I mean, not wishing to question your supreme wisdomship and that, but…well…you know…magic…”

His voice trailed off.

“Yeah,” said Brother Plasterer uncomfortably.

“It’s, er, the wizards, see,” said Brother Fingers. “You prob’ly dint know this, when you was banged up with them venerable herberts on their mountain, but the wizards around here come down on you like a ton of bricks if they catches you doin’ anything like that.”

“Demarcation, they call it,” said Brother Plasterer. “Like, I don’t go around fiddling with the mystic interleaved wossnames of causality, and they don’t do any plastering.”

“I fail to see the problem,” said the Supreme Grand Master. In fact, he saw it all too clearly. This was the last hurdle. Help their tiny little minds over this, and he held the world in the palm of his hand. Their stupefyingly unintelligent self-interest hadn’t let him down so far, surely it couldn’t fail him now…