‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What was Mr Dibbler’s reaction to all this?’
‘What, yerronner?’
‘A simple enough question, I should have thought.’
Cumbling Michael found the words ‘But how did you know ole Dibbler was there? I never said’ arranging themselves for the attention of his larynx, and then had second, third and fourth thoughts about saying them.
‘He just sat and stared, yerronner. With his mouth open. And then he rushed right out.’
‘I see. Oh, dear. Thank you, Cumbling Michael. Feel free to leave.’
The beggar hesitated.
‘Foul Ole Ron said as yerronner sometimes pays for information,’ he said.
‘Did he? Really? He said that, did he? Well, that is interesting.’ Vetinari scribbled a note in the margin of a report. ‘Thank you.’
‘Er-‘
‘Don’t let me detain you.’
‘Er. No. Gods bless yerronner,’ said Cumbling Michael, and ran for it.
When the sound of the beggar’s boots had died away the Patrician strolled over to the window, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and sighed.
There were probably city states, he reasoned, where the rulers only had to worry about the little things . . . barbarian invasions, the balance of payments, assassination, the local volcano erupting. There weren’t people busily opening the door of reality and metaphorically saying, ‘Hi, come on in, pleased to see you, what a nice axe you have there, incidentally, can I make some money out of you since you’re here?’
Sometimes Lord Vetinari wondered what had happened to Mr Hong. Everyone knew, of course. In general terms. But not exactly what.
What a city. In the spring, the river caught fire. About once a month, the Alchemists’ Guild exploded.
He walked back to his desk and made another brief note. He was rather afraid that he was going to have to have someone killed.
Then he picked up the third movement of Fondel’s Prelude in G Major and settled back to read.
Susan walked back to the alley where she’d left Binky. There were half a dozen men lying around on the cobbles, clutching parts of themselves and moaning. Susan ignored them. Anyone trying to steal Death’s horse soon understood the expression ‘a world of hurts’. Binky had a good aim. It would be a very small, very private world.
‘The music was playing him, not the other way round,’ she said. ‘You could see. I’m not sure his fingers even touched the strings.’
SQUEAK.
Susan rubbed her hand. Satchelmouth had turned out to have quite a hard head.
‘Can I kill it without killing him?’
SQUEAK.
‘Not a hope,’ the raven translated. ‘It’s all that’s keeping him alive.’
‘But Granda . . . but he said it’ll end up killing him anyway!’
‘It’s a big wide wonderful universe all right,’ said the raven.
SQUEAK.
‘But . . . look, if it’s a . . . a parasite, or something like that,’ said Susan, as Binky trotted skywards, ‘what’s the good of it killing its host?’
SQUEAK.
‘He says you’ve got him there,’ said the raven. ‘Drop me off over Quirm, will you?’
‘What does it want him for?’ said Susan. ‘It’s using him, but what for?’
‘Twenty-seven dollars!’ said Ridcully. ‘Twenty-seven dollars .to get you out! And the sergeant kept grinning all the time! Wizards arrested!’
He walked along the row of crestfallen figures.
‘I mean, how often does the Watch get called in to the Drum?’ said Ridcully. ‘I mean, what did you think you were doing?’
‘mumblemumblemumble,’ said the Dean, looking at the floor.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘mumblemumbledancingmumble.’
‘Dancing,’ said Ridcully levelly, walking back along the row. ‘That’s dancing, is it? Banging into people? Throwin’ one another over yer shoulders? Twirling around all over the place? Not even trolls act like that (not that I’ve got anything against trolls mind you marvellous people marvellous people) and you’re supposed to be wizards. People are supposed to look up to you and that’s not because you’re somersaulting over their heads, Runes, don’t think I didn’t notice that little display, I was frankly disgusted. The poor Bursar has had to have a lie down. Dancing is . . . round in circles, don’tcherknow, Maypoles and suchlike, healthy reels, perhaps a little light ballroom . . . not swinging people round like a dwarf with a battleaxe (mind you salt of the earth dwarfs I’ve always said so). Do I make myself clear?’
‘mumblemumblemumbleeveryonewasdoingitmumble,’ said the Dean, still looking at the floor.
‘I never thought I’d say this to any wizard over the age of eighteen, but you’re all gated until further notice!’ shouted Ridcully.
Being confined to the campus was not much of a punishment. The wizards usually distrusted any air that hadn’t hung around indoors for a while, and mostly lived in a kind of groove between their rooms and the dining table. But they were feeling strange.
‘mumblemumbledon’tseewhymumble,’ mumbled the Dean.
He said, much later on, on the day when the music died, that it must have been because he’d never been really young, or at least young while just being old enough to know he was young. Like most wizards, he’d begun his training while still so small that the official pointy hat came down over his ears. And after that he’d just been, well, a wizard.
He had the feeling, once again, that he’d missed out on something somewhere. He’d never really realized it until the last couple of days. He didn’t know what it was. He just wanted to do things. He didn’t know what they were. But he wanted to do them soon. He wanted . . . he felt like a lifelong tundra dweller when he wakes up one morning with a deep urge to go water-skiing. He certainly wasn’t going to stay indoors when there was music in the air . . .
‘mumblemumblemumblenotgonnastayindoorsmumble.’
Unaccustomed feelings surged through him. He wanted to disobey! Disobey everything! Including the law of gravity. He was definitely not going to fold his clothes before going to bed! Ridcully was going to say, oh, you’re a rebel, are you, what are you rebelling against, and he’d say . . . he’d say something pretty damn memorable, that’s what he’d do! He was
But the Archchancellor had stalked off.
‘mumblemumblemumble,’ said the Dean defiantly, a rebel without a pause.
There was a knock at the door, barely audible above the din. Cliff opened it a cautious fraction.
‘It’s me, Hibiscus. Here’s your beers. Drink ’em up and get out!’
‘How can we get out?’ said Glod. ‘Every time they see us they force us to play some more!’
Hibiscus shrugged. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘But you owe me a dollar for the beer and twenty-five dollars for the broken furniture-‘
Cliff shut the door.
‘I could negotiate with him,’ said Glod.
‘No, we can’t afford it,’ said Buddy.
They looked at one another.
‘Well, the crowd loved us,’ said Buddy. ‘I think we were a big success. Er.’
In the silence Cliff bit the end off a beer bottle and poured the contents over his head.[18]
‘What we all want to know is,’ said Glod, ‘what you thought you were doing out there?’
‘Gook.’
‘And how come,’ said Cliff, crunching up the rest of the bottle, ‘we all knew what to play?’
‘Gook.’
‘And also,’ said Glod, ‘what you were singing.’
‘Er…
‘”Don’t Tread On My New Blue Boots”?’ said Cliff. ‘Gook.’
‘”Good Gracious Miss Polly”?’ said Glod.
‘Er…’
‘”Sto Helit Lace”?’ said Cliff.
‘Gook?’
‘It’s a kind of very fine lace they make iii the city of Sto Helit,’ said Glod.
Glod gave Buddy a lopsided look.
‘That bit where you said “hello, baby”,’ he said. ‘Why’d you do that?’
‘Er…’
‘I mean, it’s not as if they even allow small children into the Drum.’
‘I don’t know. The words were just there,’ said Buddy. ‘They were sort of part of the music . . .’
‘And you were . . . moving about in a funny way. Like you were having trouble with your trousers,’ said Glod. ‘I’m not expert on humans, of course, but I saw some ladies in the audience looking at you like a dwarf looks at a girl when he knows her father’s got a big shaft and several rich seams.’
‘Yeah,’ said Cliff, ‘and like when a troll is thinking: hey, will you look at der strata on dat one . . .’
‘You’re certain you’ve got no elvish in you, are you?’ said Glod. ‘Once or twice I thought you were acting a bit . . . elvish.’
‘I don’t know what’s happening!’ said Buddy.
The guitar whined.
They looked at it.
‘What we do is,’ said Cliff, ‘we take dat and throw it in de river. All those in favour say “Aye”. Or Oook, as the case may be.’
There was another silence. No-one rushed to pick up the instrument.
‘But the thing is,’ said Glod, ‘the thing is . . . they did love us out there.’
They thought about this.