‘Evangelical nonsense,’ said Hughnon. ‘You should have banned them long ago,’
Once again the stare went on a good deal too long.
‘Ban a religion, your reverence?’
‘Well, when I say ban, I mean–‘
‘I’m sure no one could call me a despot, your reverence,’ said Lord Vetinari severely.
Hughnon Ridcully made a misjudged attempt to lighten the mood. ‘Not twice at any rate, ahaha,’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I said . . . not twice at any rate . . . ahaha.’
‘I do apologize, but you seem to have lost me there.’
‘It was, uh, a minor witticism, Hav– my lord.’
‘Oh. Yes. Ahah,’ said Vetinari, and the words withered in the air. ‘No, I’m afraid you will find that the Omnians are quite free to distribute their good news about Om. But take heart! Surely you have some good news about Io?’
‘What? Oh. Yes, of course. He had a bit of a cold last month, but he’s up and about again.’
‘Capital. That is good news. No doubt these printers will happily spread the word on your behalf. I’m sure they will work to your exacting requirements.’
‘And these are your reasons, my lord?’
‘Do you think I have others?’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent.’
Hughnon reflected that ‘entirely transparent’ meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn’t see them at all.
Lord Vetinari shuffled through a file of paper. ‘However, the Guild of Engravers has put its rates up three times in the past year.’
‘Ah. I see,’ said Hughnon.
‘A civilization runs on words, your reverence. Civilization is words. Which, on the whole, should not be too expensive. The world turns, your reverence, and we must spin with it.’ He smiled. ‘Once upon a time nations fought like great grunting beasts in a swamp. Ankh-Morpork ruled a large part of that swamp because it had the best claws. But today gold has taken the place of steel and, my goodness, the Ankh-Morpork dollar seems to be the currency of choice. Tomorrow . . . perhaps the weaponry will be just words. The most words, the quickest words, the last words. Look out of the window. Tell me what you see.’
‘Fog,’ said the Chief Priest.
Vetinari sighed. Sometimes the weather had no sense of narrative convenience.
‘If it was a fine day,’ he said sharply, ‘you would see the big semaphore tower on the other side of the river. Words flying back and forth from every corner of the continent. Not long ago it would take me the better part of a month to exchange letters with our ambassador in Genua. Now I can have a reply tomorrow. Certain things become easier, but this makes them harder in other ways. We have to change the way we think. We have to move with the times. Have you heard of c-commerce?’
‘Certainly. The merchant ships are always–‘
‘I mean that you may now send a clacks all the way to Genua to order a . . . a pint of prawns, if you like. Is that not a notable thing?’
They would be pretty high when they got here, my lord!’
‘Certainly. That was just an example. But now think of a prawn as merely an assemblage of information!’ said Lord Vetinari, his eyes sparkling.
‘Are you suggesting that prawns could travel by semaphore?’ said the Chief Priest. I suppose that you might be able to flick them from–‘
‘I was endeavouring to point out the fact that information is also bought and sold,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘And also that what was once considered impossible is now quite easily achieved. Kings and lords come and go and leave nothing but statues in a desert, while a couple of young men tinkering in a workshop change the way the world works.’
He walked over to a table on which was spread out a map of the world. It was a workman’s map; this is to say, it was a map used by someone who needed to refer to it a lot. It was covered with notes and markers.
‘We’ve always looked beyond the walls for the invaders,’ he said. ‘We always thought change came from outside, usually on the point of a sword. And then we look around and find that it comes from the inside of the head of someone you wouldn’t notice in the street. In certain circumstances it may be convenient to remove the head, but there seem to be such a lot of them these days.’
He gestured towards the busy map.
‘A thousand years ago we thought the world was a bowl,’ he said. ‘Five hundred years ago we knew it was a globe. Today we know it is flat and round and carried through space on the back of a turtle.’ He turned and gave the High Priest another smile. ‘Don’t you wonder what shape it will turn out to be tomorrow?’
But a family trait of all the Ridcullys was not to let go of a thread until you’ve unravelled the whole garment.
‘Besides, they have these little pincer things, you know, and would probably hang on like–‘
‘What do?’
‘Prawns. They’d hang on to–‘
‘You are taking me rather too literally, your reverence,’ said Vetinari sharply.
‘Oh.’
‘I was merely endeavouring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat.’
It’ll end in trouble, my lord,’ said Ridcully. He’d found it a good general comment in practically any debate. Besides, it was so often true.
Lord Vetinari sighed. In my experience, practically everything does,’ he said. That is the nature of things. All we can do is sing as we go,’
He stood up. ‘However, I will pay a personal visit to the dwarfs in question,’ He reached out to ring a bell on his desk, stopped, and with a smile at the priest moved his hand instead to a brass and leather tube that hung from two brass hooks. The mouthpiece was in the shape of a dragon.
He whistled into it, and then said, ‘Mr Drumknott? My coach, please,’
‘Is it me,’ said Ridcully, giving the new-fangled speaking tube a nervous glance, ‘or is there a terrible smell in here?’
Lord Vetinari gave him a quizzical look and glanced down.
There was a basket just underneath his desk. In it was what appeared to be, at first glance and certainly at first smell, a dead dog. It lay with all four legs in the air. Only the occasional gentle expulsion of wind suggested that some living process was going on.
‘It’s his teeth,’ he said coldly. The dog Wuffles turned over and regarded the priest with one baleful black eye.
‘He’s doing very well for a dog of his age,’ said Hughnon, in a desperate attempt to climb a suddenly tilting slope. ‘How old would he be now?’
‘Sixteen,’ said the Patrician. ‘That’s over a hundred in dog years.’
Wuffles dragged himself into a sitting position and growled, releasing a gust of stale odours from the depths of his basket.
‘He’s very healthy,’ said Hughnon while trying not to breathe. ‘For his age, I mean. I expect you get used to the smell.’
‘What smell?’ said Lord Vetinari.
‘Ah. Yes. Indeed,’ said Hughnon.
As Lord Vetinari’s coach rattled off through the slush towards Gleam Street it may have surprised its occupant to know that, in a cellar quite near by, someone looking very much like him was chained to the wall.
It was quite a long chain, giving him access to a table and chair, a bed, and a hole in the floor.
Currently he was at the table. On the other side of it was Mr Pin. Mr Tulip was leaning menacingly against the wall. It would be clear to any experienced person that what was going on here was ‘good cop, bad cop’ with the peculiar drawback that there were no cops. There was just an apparently endless supply of Mr Tulip.
‘So . . . Charlie,’ said Mr Pin, ‘how about it?’
‘It’s not illegal, is it?’ said the man addressed as Charlie.
Mr Pin spread his hands. ‘What’s legality, Charlie? Just words on paper. But you won’t be doing anything wrong.’
Charlie nodded uncertainly. ‘But ten thousand dollars doesn’t sound like the kind of money you get for doing something right,’ he said. ‘Not for just saying a few words,’
‘Mr Tulip here once got even more money than that for saying just a few words, Charlie,’ said Mr Pin soothingly.
‘Yeah, I said, “Give me all the –ing cash or the girl gets it,”‘ said Mr Tulip.
‘Was that right?’ said Charlie, who seemed to Mr Pin to have a highly developed death wish.
‘Absolutely right for that occasion, yes,’ he said.
‘Yes, but it’s not often people make money like that,’ said the suicidal Charlie. His eyes kept straying to the monstrous bulk of Mr Tulip, who was holding a paper bag in one hand and, in the other hand, a spoon. He was using the spoon to ferry a fine white powder to his nose, his mouth and once, Charlie would have sworn, his ear.