Unseen Academicals (32 page)

That rule and a few others stood out as remnants of a vanished glory in the list of Lord Vetinari’s new regulations. A few nods at the old game had been left in as a kind of sop to public opinion. He should not be allowed to get away with it. Just because he was a tyrant and capable of having just about anybody killed on a whim, people acted as if they were scared of him. Someone ought to tell him off. The world had turned upside down several times. She hadn’t quite got her bearings, but making sure that Lord Vetinari did not get away with it was suddenly very important. It was up to the people to decide when they were being stupid and old-fashioned; it wasn’t up to nobs to tell them what to do.

With great determination she put on her coat over her apron and, after a moment’s thought, took two freshly made Jammy Devils from her cupboard. Where a battering ram cannot work, really good shortcrust pastry can often break through.

In the Oblong Office, the Patrician’s personal secretary looked at the stopwatch.

‘Fifty seconds slower than your personal best, I’m afraid, my lord.’

‘Proof indeed that strong drink is a mocker, Drumknott,’ said Vetinari severely.

‘I suspect that no further proof is needed,’ said Drumknott, with his little secretarial smile.

‘Although I would, in fairness, point out that Charlotte of the
Times
is emerging as the most fearsome crossword compiler of all time, and they are a pretty fearsome lot. But her? Initialisms, odds and evens,
hidden words, container reverses, and now diagonals! How does she do it?’

‘Well, you did it, sir.’

‘I undid it. That is much easier.’ Vetinari raised a finger. ‘It is that woman who runs the pet shop in Pellicool Steps, depend upon it. She hasn’t been mentioned as a winner recently. She must be compiling the things.’

‘The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord.’

Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. ‘Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one. I think—’

There was a gentle tap at one of the doors. The Patrician turned back to the
Times
while Drumknott slipped out of the room. After some whispered exchanges, the secretary returned.

‘It would appear that a young woman has got in via the back gate by bribing the guards, sir. They accepted the bribes, as per your standing orders, and she has been shown into the anteroom, which she will soon find is locked. She wishes to see you because, she says, she has a complaint. She is a maid.’

Lord Vetinari looked over the top of the paper. ‘Tell her I can’t help her with that. Perhaps, oh, I don’t know, a different perfume would help?’

‘I mean she is a member of the serving classes, sir. Her name is Glenda Sugarbean.’

‘Tell her—’ Vetinari hesitated, and then smiled. ‘Ah, yes, Sugarbean. Did she bribe the guards with food? Something baked, perhaps?’

‘Well done, sir! A large Jammy Devil apiece. May I ask how—?’

‘She is a cook, Drumknott, not a maid. Show her in, by all means.’

The secretary looked a little resentful. ‘Are you sure this is wise, sir? I have already told the guards to throw the foodstuffs away.’

‘Food cooked by a Sugarbean? You may have committed a crime against high art, Drumknott. I shall see her now.’

‘I must point out that you have a full schedule this morning, my lord.’

‘Quite so. It is your job to point this out, and I respect that. But I did
not return until half past four this morning and I distinctly remember stubbing my toe on the stairs. I am as drunk as a skunk, Drumknott, which of course means skunks are just as drunk as I. I must say the term is unfamiliar to me, and I had not thought hitherto of skunks in this context, but Mustrum Ridcully was kind enough to enlighten me. Allow me, then, a moment of indulgence.’

‘Well, you are the Patrician, sir,’ said Drumknott. ‘You can do as you please.’

‘That is kind of you to say so, but I did not, in fact, need reminding,’ said Vetinari, with what was almost certainly a smile.

When the severe thin man opened the door, it was too late to flee. When he said, ‘His lordship will see you now, Miss Sugarbean,’ it was too late to faint. What had she been thinking of? Had she been thinking at all?

Glenda followed the man into the next room, which was oak panelled and sombre and the most uncluttered office she had ever seen. The room of the average wizard was so stuffed with miscellaneous things that the walls were invisible. Here, even the desk was clear, apart from a pot of quill pens, an inkwell, an open copy of the
Ankh-Morpork Times
and–her eye stayed fixed on this one, unable to draw itself away–a mug with the slogan ‘To the world’s Greatest Boss’. It was so out of place it might have been an intrusion from another universe.

A chair was quietly placed behind her. This was just as well, because when the man at the desk looked up she sat down abruptly.

Vetinari pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. ‘Miss…Sugarbean, there are whole rooms in this palace full of people who want to see me, and they are powerful and important people, or at least they think they are. Yet Mister Drumknott has kindly inserted in my schedule, ahead of the Postmaster General and the Mayor of Sto Lat, a meeting with a young cook with her coat on over her apron and an intent, it says here, of “having it out with me”. And this is because I take notice of incongruity, and you, Miss Sugarbean, are incongruous. What is it you want?’

‘Who says I want anything?’

‘Everyone wants something when they are in front of me, Miss Sugarbean, even if it is only to be somewhere else.’

‘All right! You made all the captains drunk last night and got them to sign that letter in the paper!’

The stare did not flicker. That was much worse than, well, anything.

‘Young lady, drink levels all mankind. It is the ultimate democrat, if you like that sort of thing. A drunk beggar is as drunk as a lord, and so is a lord. And have you ever noticed that all drunks can understand one another, no matter how drunk they are and how different their native tongues? I take it for a certainty that you are a relation to Augusta Sugarbean?’ The question, tagged on to the praises of inebriation, hit her between the eyes, scattering her thoughts.

‘What? Oh. Well, yes. That’s right. She was my grandmother.’

‘And she was a cook at the Guild of Assassins when she was younger?’

‘That’s right. She always made a joke about how she wouldn’t let them use any—’ She stopped quickly, but Vetinari finished the sentence for her.

‘—of her cakes to poison people. And we always obeyed, too, because as you surely know, miss, no one likes to upset a good cook. Is she still with us?’

‘She passed on two years ago, sir.’

‘But since you are a Sugarbean, I assume you have acquired a few more grandmothers as a replacement? Your grandmother was always a stalwart in the community and you must take all those little dainties for someone?’

‘You can’t know that, you’re only guessing. But all right, they’re for all the old ladies that don’t get out much. Anyway, it’s a perk.’

‘Oh, but of course. Every job has its little perks. Why, I don’t expect Drumknott here has bought a paperclip in his life, eh, Drumknott?’

The secretary, tidying papers in the background, gave a wan little smile.

‘Look, I only take leftovers—’ Glenda began, but this was waved away.

‘You are here about the football,’ said Vetinari. ‘You were at the
dinner last night, but the university likes its serving girls to be tall and I have an eye for such things. Therefore, I assume you made it your business to be there without bothering your superiors. Why?’

‘You’re taking their football away from them!’

The Patrician steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them while he looked at her.

He’s trying to make me nervous, she thought. It’s working, oh, it’s working.

Vetinari filled in the silence. ‘Your grandmother used to do people’s thinking for them. That trait runs in families, always on the female side. Capable women, scurrying about in a world where everyone else seems to be seven years old and keeps on falling over in the playground, picking them up and watching them run right out there again. I imagine you run the Night Kitchen? Too many people in the big one. You want spaces you can control, beyond the immediate reach of fools.’

If he’d added ‘Am I right?’ like some windbag seeking applause, she would have hated him. But he was reading her from the inside of her head, in a calm, matter-of-fact way. She had to suppress a shiver, because it was all true.

‘I’m taking nothing from anybody, Miss Sugarbean. I am simply changing the playground,’ the man went on. ‘What skill is there in the mob pushing and shoving? It is nothing more than a way of bringing on a sweat. No, we must move with the times. I know the
Times
moves with me. The captains will moan, no doubt, but they are getting old. Dying in the game is a romantic idea when you are young, but when you are older the boot is in the other ear. They know this, even if they won’t admit it, and while they will protest, they will take care not to be taken seriously. In fact, far from taking, I am giving much. Acceptance, recognition, a certain standing, a gold-ish cup and the chance to keep what remains of their teeth.’

All she could manage after this was, ‘All right, but you tricked them!’

‘Really? They did not have to drink to excess, did they?’

‘You knew they would!’

‘No. I
suspected
they might. They could have been more cautious.
They
should
have been more cautious. I’d prefer to say that I led them along the correct path with a little guile rather than drove them along it with sticks. I possess many types of stick, Miss Sugarbean.’

‘And you’ve been spying on me! You knew about the dainties.’

‘Spying? Madam, it was once said of a great prince that his every thought was of his people. Like him, I watch over my people. I am just better at it, that’s all. As for the dainties business, that was a simple deduction from the known facts of human nature.’

There was a lot that Glenda wanted to say, but in some very definite way she sensed that the interview–or at least the part of it that involved her opening her mouth–was over. Nevertheless, she said, ‘Why aren’t you drunk?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You must weigh about half of what they do and all of ’em went home in wheelbarrows. You drank as much as them and you look fresh as a daisy. What is the trick? Did you get the wizards to magic the beer out of your stomach?’

She had stopped pushing her luck a long time ago. Now it was out of control, like a startled carthorse that can’t stop because of the huge load bouncing and rumbling along behind it.

Vetinari frowned. ‘My dear lady, anyone drunk enough to let wizards, who themselves had just been partaking copiously of the fruit of the vine, I might add, take anything out of him would already be so drunk as to be dead. To forestall your next comment, the hop is also, technically, a vine. I am, in fact, drunk. Is this not so, Drumknott?’

‘You did indeed consume some twelve pints of very strong malted beverage, sir. Technically, you must be drunk.’

‘Idiosyncratically put, Drumknott. Thank you.’

‘You don’t act drunk!’

‘No, but I do act sober quite well, don’t you think? And I must confess that this morning’s crossword was something of a tussle. Procatalepsis and pleonasm in one day? I had to use the dictionary! The woman is a fiend! Nevertheless, thank you for coming, Miss Sugarbean. I recall your grandmother’s bubble and squeak with great fondness. If
she had been a sculptress, it would have been an exquisite statue, with no arms and an enigmatic smile. It is such a shame that some masterpieces are so transitory.’

The proud cook in Glenda rose unstoppably. ‘But she passed the recipe on to me.’

‘A legacy better than jewels,’ said Vetinari, nodding.

Actually a few jewels would not have gone amiss, Glenda reflected. But there was a secret of Bubble and Squeak, of course, right out there in the open where everyone could miss it. And as for the Truth of Salmagundi…

‘I believe this audience is at an end, Miss Sugarbean,’ said Vetinari. ‘I have so much to do and so have you, I am sure.’ He picked up his pen and turned his attention to the documents in front of him. ‘Goodbye, Miss Sugarbean.’

And that was it. Somehow, she was at the door, and it had almost closed behind her when a voice said, ‘And thank you for your kindnesses to Nutt.’

The door clicked shut, nearly hitting her in the face as she spun round.

‘Was that a wise thing for me to have said, do you think?’ said Vetinari, when she had gone.

‘Possibly not, sir, but she will merely assume it is her that we are watching,’ said Drumknott smoothly.

‘Possibly we should. That’s a Sugarbean woman for you, Drumknott, little domestic slaves until they think someone has been wronged and then they go to war like Queen Ynci of Lancre, with chariot wheels spinning and arms and legs all over the place.’

‘And no father,’ observed Drumknott. ‘Not very good for a child in those days.’

‘Only served to make her tougher. One can only hope she doesn’t take it into her head to enter politics.’

‘Is that not what she is doing now, sir?’

‘Well noted, Drumknott. Do I
appear
drunk?’

‘In my opinion no, sir, but you seem unusually…talkative.’

‘Coherently?’

‘To the minutest scruple, sir. The Postmaster is waiting, sir, and some of the guild leaders want to talk to you urgently.’

‘I suspect they want to play football?’

‘Yes, sir. They intend to form teams. I cannot for the life of me understand why.’

Vetinari put down his pen. ‘Drumknott, if you saw a ball lying invitingly on the ground, would you kick it?’

The secretary’s forehead wrinkled. ‘How would the invitation be couched, sir?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Would it be, for example, a written note attached to the ball by person or persons unknown?’

‘I was rather inclining to the idea that you might perhaps feel simply that the whole world was silently willing you to give said ball a hearty kick?’