‘Come along, gentlemen. This is my friend Ernie. He’s going to be our driver for
tonight.’
Ernie saw half a dozen figures emerge from the fog and climb into the cart behind
him. He didn’t turn to look at them. By the pricking of his kidneys he knew this would
not be an exemplary career move. But it seemed that one of the figures, a huge
shambling mound of a creature, was carrying a long bundle over its shoulder. The
bundle moved and made muffled noises.
‘Do stop shaking, Ernie. We just need a lift said Teatime, as the cart rumbled over
the cobbles.
‘Where to, mister?’
‘Oh, we don’t mind. But first, I’d like you to stop in Sator Square, near the second
fountain.’
The knife was withdrawn. Ernie stopped trying to breathe through his ears.
‘Er . . .’
‘What is it? You do seem tense, Ernie. I always find a neck massage helps.’
‘I ain’t rightly al owed to carry passengers, see Charlie’l give me a right tel ing-off . . .’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that,’ said Tea time, slapping him on the back. ‘We’re al
friends here!’
‘What’re we bringing the girl for?’ said a voice behind them.
‘ s not right, hittin’ girls,’ said a deep voice. ‘Our mam said no hittin’ girls. Only bad
boys do that, our mam said!
‘You be quiet, Banjo.’
‘Our mam said-‘
‘Shssh! Emie here doesn’t want to listen to our troubles,’ said Teatime, not taking his gaze off the driver.
‘Me? Deaf as a post, me,’ burbled Ernie, who in some ways was a very quick learner.
‘Can’t hardly see more’n a few feet, neither. Cot no recol ection for them faces that I do
see, come to that. Bad memory? Hah! Talk about bad memory. Cor, sometimes I can
be like as it were on the cart, talking to people, hah, just like I’m talking gone, hah,
remember anything about them or how many they were or what they were carrying or
anything about any
to you now, and then when they’re try as I might, do you think I car
girl or anything?’ By this time his voice was a highpitched wheeze. ‘Hah! Sometimes I
forget me own name!’
‘It’s Ernie, isn’t it?’ said Teatime, giving him a happy smile. ‘Ah, and here we are. Oh
dear. There seems to be some excitement.’
There was the sound of fighting somewhere ahead, and then a couple of masked
trol s ran past with three Watchmen after them. They al ignored the cart.
‘I heard the De Bris gang were going to have a go at Packley’s strongroom tonight,’
said a voice behind Ernie.
‘ Looks like Mr Brown won’t be joining us, then,’ said another voice. There was a
snigger.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Mr Lilywhite, I don’t know about that at al ,’ said a third
voice, and this one was from the direction of the fountain. ‘Could you take my bag
while I climb up, please? Do be careful, it’s a little heavy.’
It was a neat little voice. The owner of a voice like that kept his money in a shovel
purse and always counted his change careful y. Ernie thought al this, and then tried
very hard to forget that he had.
‘On you go, Ernie,’ said Teatime. ‘Round behind the University, I think.’
As the cart rol ed on, the neat little voice said, ‘You grab al the money and then you
get out very smartly. Am I right?’
There was a murmur of agreement.
‘Learned that on my mother’s knee, yeah.’
‘You learned a lot of stuff across your ma’s knee, Mr Lilywhite.’
‘Don’t you say nuffin’ about our mam!’ The voice was like an earthquake.
‘This is Mr Brown, Banjo. You smarten up.’
‘He dint ort to tork about our mam!’
‘Al right! Al right! Hel o, Banjo … I think I may have a sweet somewhere … Yes,
there you’ are. Yes, your ma knew the way al right. You go in quietly, you take your
time, you get what you came for and you leave smartly and in good order. You don’t
hang around at the scene to count it out and tel one another what brave lads you are,
am I right?’
‘You seem to have done al right, Mr Brown.’ The cart rattled towards the other side
of the square.
‘Just a little for expenses, Mr Catseye. A little Hogswatch present, you might say.
Never take the lot and run. Take a little and walk. Dress neat. That’s my motto. Dress
neat and walk away slowly. Never run. Never run. The Watch’Il always chase a
running man. They’re like terriers for giving chase. No, you walk out slow, you walk
round the corner, you wait til there’s a lot of excitement, then you turn around and walk
back. They can’t cope with that, see. Half the time they’l stand aside to let you walk
past. “Good evening, officers,” you say, and then you go home for your tea.’
‘Wheee! Gets you out of trouble, I can see that. If you’ve got the nerve.’
‘Oh, no, Mr Peachy. Doesn’t get you out of. Keeps You out of.’
It was like a very good schoolroom, Ernie thought (and immediately tried to forget).
Or a back-street gym when a champion prizefighter had just strol ed in.
‘What’s up with your mouth, Banjo?’
‘He lost a tooth, Mr Brown,’ said another voice, and sniggered.
‘Lost a toot, Mr Brown,’ said the thunder that was Banjo.
‘Keep your eyes on the road, Ernie,’ said Teatime beside him. ‘We don’t want an
accident, do we. . .’
The road here was deserted, despite the bustle of the city behind them and the bulk
of the University nearby. There were a few streets, but the buildings were abandoned.
And something was happening to the sound. The rest of AnkhMorpork seemed very far
away, the sounds arriving as if through quite a thick wal . They were entering that
scorned little corner of AnkhMorpork that had long been the site of the University’s
rubbish pits and was now known as the Unreal Estate.
‘Bloody wizards,’ muttered Ernie, automatical y.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Teatime.
‘My great-grandpa said we used t’own prop’ty round here. Low levels of magic, my
arse! Hah, it’s al right for them wizards, they got al kindsa spel s to protect ’em. Bit of
magic here, bit of
magic there… Stands to reason it’s got to go somewhere, right?’
‘There used to be warning signs up,’ said the neat voice from behind.
‘Yeah, wel , warning signs in Ankh-Morpork might as wel have “Good firewood”
written on them,’ said someone else.
‘I mean, stands to reason, they chuck out an old spel for exploding this, and another
one for twiddlin’ that, and another one for making carrots grow, they finish up
interfering with one another, who knows what they’l end up doing?’ said Ernie. ‘Great-
grandpa said sometimes they’d wake up in the morning and the cel ar’d be higher than
the attic. And that weren’t the worst,’ he added darkly.
‘Yeah, I heard where it got so bad you could walk down the street and meet yourself
coming the other way,’ someone supplied. ‘It got so’s you didn’t know it was bum or
breakfast time, I heard.’
‘The dog used to bring home al kinds of stuff,’ said Ernie. ‘Great-grandpa said half
the time they used to dive behind the sofa if it came in with anything in its mouth.
Corroded fire spel s startin’ to fizz, broken wands with green smoke coming out of ’em
and I don’t know what else … and if you saw the cat playing with anything, it was best
not to try to find out what it was, I can tel you.’
He twitched the reins, his current predicament almost forgotten in the tide of
hereditary resentment.
‘I mean, they say al the old spel books and stuff was buried deep and they recycle
the used spel s now, but that don’t seem much comfort when your potatoes started
walkin’ about,’ he grumbled. ‘My great-grandpa went to see the head wizard about it,
and he said’ – he put on a strangled nasal voice which was his idea of how you talked
when you’d got an education – ‘ ” Oh, there might be some temp’ry inconvenience now,
my good man, but just you come back in fifty thousand years.” Bloody wizards.’
The horse turned a corner.
This was a dead-end street. Half-col apsed houses, windows smashed, doors stolen,
leaned against one another on either side.
‘I heard they said they were going to clean up this place,’ said someone.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Ernie, and spat. When it hit the ground it ran away. ‘And you know
what? You get loonies coming in al the time now, poking around, pul ing things about–
’ ‘Just at the wal up ahead,’ said Teatime conversationaly. ‘I think you generaly go