‘Yes?’
‘I reckon it was some kind of firework. They’re very big on fireworks here.’
‘You mean the sort of things where you light the blue touch paper and stick it up your nose?'[14]
‘They use ’em to drive evil spirits away. There’s a lot of evil spirits, see. Because of all the slaughtering.’
‘Slaughtering?’
Rincewind had always understood that the Agatean Empire was a peaceful place. It was civilized. They invented things. In fact, he recalled, he’d been instrumental in introducing a few of their devices to Ankh-Morpork. Simple, innocent things, like clocks worked by demons, and boxes that painted pictures, and extra glass eyes you could wear over the top of your own eyes to help you see better, even if it did mean you made a spectacle of yourself.
It was supposed to be dull.
‘Oh, yeah. Slaughtering,’ said Cohen. ‘Like, supposing the population is being a bit behind with its taxes. You pick some city where people are being troublesome and kill everyone and set fire to it and pull down the walls and plough up the ashes. That way you get rid of the trouble and all the other cities are suddenly really well behaved and polite and all your back taxes turn up in a big rush, which is handy for governments, I understand. Then if they ever give trouble you just have to say “Remember Nangnang?” or whatever, and they say “Where’s Nangnang?” and you say, “My point exactly.” ‘
‘Good grief! If that sort of thing was tried back home—’
‘Ah, but this place has been going a long time. People think that’s how a country is supposed to run. They do what they’re told. The people here are treated like slaves.’
Cohen scowled. ‘Now, I’ve got nothing against slaves, you know, as slaves. Owned a few in my time. Been a slave once or twice. But where there’s slaves, what’ll you expect to find?’
Rincewind thought about this. ‘Whips?’ he said at last.
‘Yeah. Got it in one. Whips. There’s something honest about slaves and whips. Well. . . they ain’t got whips here. They got something worse than whips.’
‘What?’ said Rncewind, looking slightly panicky.
‘You’ll find out.’
Rincewind found himself looking around at the half-dozen other prisoners, who had trailed after them and were watching in awe from a distance. He’d given them a bit of leopard, which they’d looked at initially as if it was poison and then eaten as if it was food.
‘They’re still following us,’ he said.
‘Yeah, well . . . you did give ’em meat,’ cackled Cohen, starting to roll a post-prandial cigarette. ‘Shouldn’t have done that. Should’ve let ’em have the whiskers and the claws and you’d’ve been amazed at what they’d cook up. You know their big dish down on the coast?’
‘No.’
‘Pig’s ear soup. Now, what’s that tell you about a place, eh?’
Rincewind shrugged. ‘Very provident people?’
‘Some other bugger pinches the pig.’
He turned in the saddle. The group of ex-prisoners shrank back.
‘Now, see here,’ he said. ‘I told you. You’re free. Understand?’
One of the braver men spoke up. ‘Yes, master.’
‘I ain’t your master. You’re free. You can go where-ever you like, excepting if you follow me I’ll kill the lot of you. And now – go away!’
‘Where, master?’
‘Anywhere! Somewhere not here!’
The men gave one another some worried looks and then the whole group, as one man, turned and trotted away along the path.
‘Probably go straight back to their village,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Worse than whips, I tell you.’
He waved a scrawny hand at the landscape as they rode on.
‘Strange bloody country,’ he said. ‘Did you know there’s a wall all round the Empire?’
‘That’s to keep . . . barbarian invaders . . . out . . .’
‘Oh, yes, very defensive,’ said Cohen sarcastically. ‘Like, oh my goodness, there’s a twenty-foot wall, dear me, I suppose we’d just better ride off back over a thousand miles of steppe and not, e.g., take a look at the ladder possibilities inherent in that pine wood over there. Nah. It’s to keep the people in. And rules? They’ve got rules for everything. No-one even goes to the privy without a piece of paper.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact I myself—’
‘A piece of paper saying they can go, is what I meant. Can’t leave your village without a chit. Can’t get married without a chit. Can’t even have a sh – Ah, we’re here.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Rincewind.
Cohen glared at him. ‘How did you know?’ he demanded.
Rincewind tried to think. It had been a long day. In fact it had, because of the thaumic equivalent of jetlag, been several hours longer than most other days he’d experienced and had contained two lunchtimes, neither of which had contained anything worth eating.
‘Er . . . I thought you were making a general philosophical point,’ he hazarded. ‘Er. Like, “We’d better make the best of it”?’
‘I meant we’re here at my hideout,’ said Cohen. Rincewind stared around them. There were scrubby bushes, a few rocks, and a sheer cliff face.
‘I can’t see anything,’ he said.
‘Yep. That’s how you can tell it’s mine.’
Art of War was the ultimate basis of diplomacy in the Empire.
Clearly war had to exist. It was a cornerstone of the processes of government. It was the way the Empire got its leaders. The competitive examination system was how it got its bureaucrats and public officials, and warfare was for its leaders, perhaps, only a different kind of competitive examination. Admittedly, if you lost you probably weren’t allowed to re-sit next year.
But there had to be rules. Otherwise it was just a barbaric scuffle.
So, hundreds of years ago, the Art of War had been formulated. It was a book of rules. Some were very specific: there was to be no fighting within the Forbidden City, the person of the Emperor was sacrosanct . . . and some were more general guidelines for the good and civilized conduct of warfare. There were the rules of position, of tactics, of the enforcement of discipline, of the correct organization of supply lines. The Art laid down the optimum course to take in every conceivable eventuality. It meant that warfare in the Empire had become far more sensible, and generally consisted of short periods of activity followed by long periods of people trying to find things in the index.
No-one remembered the author. Some said it was One Tzu Sung, some claimed it was Three Sun Sung. Possibly it was even some unsung genius who had penned, or rather painted, the very first principle: Know the enemy, and know yourself.
Lord Hong felt that he knew himself very well, and seldom had trouble knowing his enemies. And he made a point of keeping his enemies alive and healthy.
Take the Lords Sung, Fang, Tang and McSweeney. He cherished them. He cherished their adequacy. They had adequate military brains, which was to say that they had memorized the Five Rules and Nine Principles of the Art of War. They wrote adequate poetry, and were cunning enough to counter such coups as were attempted in their own ranks. They occasionally sent against him assassins who were sufficiently competent to keep Lord Hong interested and observant and entertained.
He even admired their adequate treachery. No-one could fail to realize that Lord Hong would be the next Emperor, but when it came to it they would nevertheless contest the throne. At least, officially. In fact, each warlord had privately pledged his personal support to Lord Hong, being adequately bright to know what was likely to happen if he didn’t. There would still have to be a battle, of course, for custom’s sake. But Lord Hong had a place in his heart for any leader who would sell his own men.
Know your enemy. Lord Hong had decided to find a worthwhile one. So Lord Hong had seen to it that he got books and news from Ankh-Morpork. There were ways. He had his spies. At the moment Ankh-Morpork didn’t know it was the enemy, and that was the best kind of enemy to have.
And he had been amazed, and then intrigued, and finally lost in admiration for what he saw . . .
I should have been born there, he thought as he watched the other members of the Serene Council. Oh, for a game of chess with someone like Lord Vetinari. No doubt he would carefully watch the board for three hours before he even made his first move . . .
Lord Hong turned to the Serene Council’s minutes eunuch.
‘Can we get on?’ he said.
The man licked his brush nervously. ‘Nearly finished, o lord,’ he said.
Lord Hong sighed.
Damn calligraphy! There would be changes! A written language of seven thousand letters and it took all day to write a thirteen-syllable poem about a white pony trotting through wild hyacinths. And that was fine and beautiful, he had to concede, and no-one did it better than Lord Hong. But Ankh-Morpork had an alphabet of twenty-six unexpressive, ugly, crude letters, suitable only for peasants and artisans . . . and had produced poems and plays that left white-hot trails across the soul. And you could also use it to write the bloody minutes of a five-minute meeting in less than a day.