The Strange Delivery of Mr Von Lipwig.
Disclaimer: 'Discworld' and its characters/institutions/milieu belong to the late Sir Terry
Pratchett and his heirs. This story is for entertainment only and I claim no commercial interest in
it.
Moist Von Lipwig encounters a supernatural entity intent on taking him to task for being a
naughty boy.
Chapter the First, in which Mr Von Lipwig receives an unwelcome awakening.
.
Moist Von Lipwig, Postmaster General, Master of the Royal Mint, effectively Chairman of the Royal Bank (1) should have been enjoying a good night's sleep in the Postmaster's Suite at the Ankh - Morpork Royal Mail Building. Adora Bell had agreed it would be a good idea if the boss was on site during the the run up to Hogswatch. He'd taken a moment (given the nature of his relationship with Spike) to realize she was talking about him. He was sleeping the sleep of (not the innocent, he was Vetinari's Rascal) but at least the 'Already Found Out Rascal for the Public Good' because Deputy Postmaster Groat had drawn the night shift this time.
Unfortunately Mr Groat's 'young lady' shared the opinion of Mr Lipwig's wife that important postal officers should be on site and available to their subordinates in the run – up to Hogswatch.(2)
The two men made the most of it and bunked together in the suite for the duration. Mr Groat was deferential to his leader, considering a sleeping bag on a brimstoned rubber airbed on the floor sheer luxury compared to the pile of blankets on the locker room floor that had been his wont before the Deliverance, his name for the renaissance of the Post Office brought about by Mr Lipwig. In spite of the old man's near worship of the Postmaster, it has to be said that Deputy Postmaster Tolliver Groat was far from being an ideal flatmate. It started with his home – made medicines for one thing.
There was a sulphurous smell. There was prodding. Moist hated prodding. Few people dared do it now since Spike had intimidated Vetinari's Palace Guard into waking her husband with fresh coffee and a bowl of warm water to shave with should their master decide Moist had an urgent nocturnal appointment with him.
'This had better be important Tolliver. I don't want a late running postie getting the jitters about your medicine drum in the yard again. You know you shouldn't let them put undelivered mail in it at the end of long shifts.'
Mr Groat's medicine drum had been a compromise. He didn't trust doctors so he made his own medicines from (sometimes unstable) alchemical ingredients. Even his boots smelled of sulphur (which was probably preferable to a postman's overworked feet.) The Deliverance had seen the recruitment of many new postmen, who had learned about the bottles the boss's deputy kept in the locker room. Which could explode without warning. They had been unhappy campers. Mr Groat had agreed to keep the bottles in the yard, in a lidded drum half full of sand. (3) This would have been ideal, but Mr Groat had seen in the drum a way to avoid some of the logjams of undelivered mail that had contributed to the Fall of the Post Office. Instead of allowing it to build up in corners, he had reasoned, let it be collected in a place where it could be assessed and allowed for.
He had discovered the hard way that a postman's delivery bag could fly.
Moist was still pushing for undelivered mail to be collated at the counters, no matter what Miss Maccalariat might say.
The prodding continued.
'All right Tolliver, I'll see to it just stop the prodding will you.'
'I think you need to pay attention and rouse yourself properly Mr Von Lipwig.'
That wasn't Tolliver speaking. And the voice had a faint Uberwaldean accent. It was unlikely to be an Assassin. These days the Gentlemen viewed his usefulness to the city as being on a par with that of the Patrician or Commander Vimes. Someone he'd swindled or cardsharped in his former life ? He discounted that immediately, none of the marks had been this good or even bore the potential to become so. A feral vampire ? Impossible, they needed your permission to enter your dwelling.
He assessed the odds as he awoke, so, Uberwaldean, capable of getting through a busy sorting and delivery office with a public counter, and doing so undetected. And whoever it was needed to talk to him. If they'd wanted him dead (and some of his marks had been very angry on realizing they'd been conned) it would have been more efficient to murder him in his sleep to avoid the risk of his calling for help. Cheerful thought. And if they needed to go to these lengths to get his attention it was bound to be a tricky matter. Things were looking up with a bit of risk – taking to anticipate and that was where Moist Von Lipwig lived. For just long enough he could make up the world as he went along, make glass look like diamond, deal the cards in just the right way to make other players think he was losing or even sell an old hack to an experienced horseman for a thoroughbred's price.
He awoke and sat up to be handed a steaming hot cup of Splot. (4) Things were looking up if someone from the Old Country was going to be this civil after the abrupt awakening.
Moist then caught sight of his visitor by the light of the lamp in the now scruffy bedroom that two busy men with little time for housework had been using for a week or so.
The visitor's appearance was...demonic...with a humanoid face bearing goat's horns, a darkly furry body (such of it as Moist could see) and goat hooves for feet.
'I never expected to see you outside of Uberwald, and if you are here on business then that jester's motley is in poor taste.' Moist now knew who his visitor was. What was coming would be unpleasant but it wouldn't kill him. Probably.
(1) Mr Fusspot might disagree. With slobbering. See Sir Terry's Making Money.
(2) So the ladies weren't disturbed writing cards and wrapping presents.
(3)There is a Roundworld post office name for this : Bomb Bin.
(4)An Uberwaldean pick - me – up. But then you'd have to come down from the rafters.
