‘Aha,’ he said. ‘Innocently taken from the overgrown ruins of a
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megalithic stone circle, this stone is redolent with the blood of thousands, I have no doubt, who will emerge to seek revenge, you may depend upon it.’
‘It was cut specially for me by my brother,’ said Gunilla. ‘And I don’t have to take that kind of talk, mister. Who do you think you are, coming in here and talking daft like that?’
William stepped forward at a healthy fraction of the speed of terror.
‘I wonder if I might just take Mr Goodmountain aside and explain one or two things to him?’ he said quickly.
The Patrician’s bright, enquiring smile did not so much as flicker.
‘What a good idea,’ he said, as William frogmarched the dwarf to a corner. ‘He will be sure to thank you for it later.’
Lord Vetinari stood leaning on his stick and looking at the press with an air of benevolent interest, while behind him William de Worde explained the political realities of Ankh-Morpork, especially those relating to sudden death. With gestures.
After thirty seconds of this, Goodmountain came back and stood foursquare in front of the Patrician, with his thumbs in his belt.
‘I speak as I find, me,’ he said. ‘Always have done, always will–‘
‘And what is it that you call a spade?’ said Lord Vetinari.
‘What? Never use spades,’ said the glowering dwarf. ‘Farmers use spades. But I call a shovel a shovel.’
‘Yes, I thought you would,’ said Lord Vetinari.
‘Young William here says you’re a ruthless despot who doesn’t like printing. But I say you’re a fair-minded man who won’t stand in the way of an honest dwarf making a bit of a living, am I right?’
Once again Lord Vetinari’s smile remained in place.
‘Mr de Worde, a moment, please . . .’
The Patrician put his arm companionably around William’s shoulders and walked him gently away from the watching dwarfs.
‘I only said that some people call you–‘ William began.
‘Now, sir,’ said the Patrician, waving this away. ‘I think I might just be persuaded, against all experience, that we have here a little endeavour that might just be pursued without filling my streets with inconvenient occult rubbish. It is hard to imagine such a thing
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in Ankh-Morpork, but I could just about accept it as a possibility. And it so happens that I feel the question of “printing” is one that might, with care, be re-opened.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes. So I am minded to allow your friends to proceed with their folly.’
‘Er, they’re not exactly–‘ William began.
‘Of course, I should add that, in the event of there being any problems of a tentacular nature, you would be held personally responsible.’
‘Me? But I–‘
‘Ah. You feel that I am being unfair? Ruthlessly despotic, perhaps?’
‘Well, I, er–‘
‘Apart from anything else, the dwarfs are a very hard-working and valuable ethnic grouping in the city,’ said the Patrician. ‘On the whole, I wish to avoid any low-level difficulties at this time, what with the unsettled situation in Uberwald and the whole Muntab question.’
‘Where’s Muntab?’ said William.
‘Exactly. How is Lord de Worde, by the way? You should write to him more often, you know.’
William said nothing.
‘I always think it is a very sad thing when families fall out,’ said Lord Vetinari. There is far too much mutton-headed ill-feeling in the world.’ He gave William a companionable pat. ‘I’m sure you will see to it that the printing enterprise stays firmly in the realms, of the cult, the canny and the scrutable. Do I make myself clear?’
‘But I don’t have any control ov–‘
‘Hmm?’
‘Yes, Lord Vetinari,’ said William.
‘Good. Good!’ The Patrician straightened up, turned, and beamed at the dwarfs.
‘Jolly good,’ he said. ‘My word. Lots of little letters, all screwed together. Possibly an idea whose time has come. I may even have an occasional job for you myself.’
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William waved frantically at Gunilla from behind the Patrician’s back.
‘Special rate for government jobs,’ the dwarf muttered.
‘Oh, but I wouldn’t dream of paying any less than other customers,’ said the Patrician.
‘I wasn’t going to charge you less than–‘
‘Well, I’m sure we’ve all been very pleased to see you here, your lordship,’ said William brightly, swivelling the Patrician in the direction of the door. ‘We look forward to the pleasure of your custom.’
‘Are you quite sure Mr Dibbler isn’t involved in this concern?’
‘I think he’s having some things printed, but that’s all,’ said William.
‘Astonishing. Astonishing,’ said Lord Vetinari, getting into his coach. ‘I do hope he isn’t ill.’
Two figures watched his departure from the rooftop opposite.
One of them said, very, very quietly, ‘–!’
The other said, ‘You have a point of view, Mr Tulip?’
‘And he’s the man who runs the city?’
‘Yeah,’
‘So where’s his –ing bodyguards?’
‘If we wanted to scrag him, here and now, how useful would, say, four bodyguards be?’
‘As a –ing chocolate kettle, Mr Pin.’
‘There you are, then,’
‘But I could knock him over from here with a –ing brick!’
‘I gather there are many organizations who hold Views on that, Mr Tulip. People tell me this dump is thriving. The man at the top has a lot of friends when everything is going well. You would soon run out of bricks,’
Mr Tulip looked down at the departing coach. ‘From what I hear he mostly doesn’t do a –ing thing!’ he complained.
‘Yeah,’ said Mr Pin smoothly. ‘One of the hardest things to do properly, in politics.’
Mr Tulip and Mr Pin brought different things to their partnership, and in this instance what Mr Pin brought was political savvy. Mr Tulip respected this, even if he didn’t understand it. He
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contented himself with muttering, ‘It’d be simpler to –ing kill him,’
‘Oh, for a –ing simple world,’ said Mr Pin. ‘Look, lay off the honk, eh? That stuff’s for trolls. It’s worse than slab. And they cut it with ground glass,’
‘ ‘s chemical,’ said Mr Tulip sullenly.
Mr Pin sighed. ‘Shall I try again?’ he said. ‘Listen carefully. Drugs equals chemicals, but, and please do listen to this part, sheesh, chemicals do not equal drugs. Remember all that trouble with the calcium carbonate? When you paid the man five dollars?’
‘Made me feel good,’ muttered Mr Tulip.
‘Calcium carbonate?’ said Mr Pin. ‘Even for you, I mean . . . Look, you put up your actual nose enough chalk that someone could probably cut your head off and write on a blackboard with your neck?’
That was the major problem with Mr Tulip, he thought, as they made their way to the ground. It wasn’t that he had a drugs habit. He wanted to have a drugs habit. What he had was a stupidity habit, which cut in whenever he found anything being sold in little bags, and this had resulted in Mr Tulip seeking heaven in flour, salt, baking powder and pickled beef sandwiches. In a street where furtive people were selling Clang, Slip, Chop, Rhino, Skunk, Triplin, Floats, Honk, Double Honk, Congers and Slack, Mr Tulip had an unerring way of finding the man who was retailing curry powder at what worked out as six hundred dollars a pound. It was so –ing embarrassing.
Currently he was experimenting with the whole range of recreational chemicals available to Ankh-Morpork’s troll population, because at least when dealing with trolls Mr Tulip had a moderate chance of outsmarting somebody. In theory Slab and Honk shouldn’t have any effect on the human brain, apart from maybe dissolving it. Mr Tulip was hanging in there. He’d tried normality once and hadn’t liked it.
Mr Pin sighed again. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s feed the geek,’
In Ankh-Morpork it is very hard to watch without being watched in turn, and the two furtive watchers were indeed under careful observation.
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They were being watched by a small dog, variously coloured but mainly a rusty grey. Occasionally it scratched itself, with a noise like someone trying to shave a wire brush.
There was a piece of string around its neck. This was attached to another piece of string or, rather, to a length made up of pieces of string inexpertly knotted together.
The string was being held in the hand of a man. At least, such might be deduced from the fact that it disappeared into the same pocket of the grubby coat as one sleeve, which presumably had an arm in it, and theoretically therefore a hand on the end.
It was a strange coat. It stretched from the pavement almost to the brim of the hat above it, which was shaped rather like a sugar loaf. There was a suggestion of grey hair around the join. One arm burrowed in the suspicious depths of a pocket and produced a cold sausage.
‘Two men spyin’ on the Patrician,’ said the dog. ‘An interestin’ fing.’