The Exit Interview
A short inspired by the relevant article of the L-Space Pratchett Wiki, which reads
Ksandra:-
An unfortunate maid working at Unseen University who appears to be first in line for any risks over and above the job description.
She is first encountered in Equal Rites as the luckless person who answers a knock at the back door and who has to escort Granny Weatherwax to the presence of Mrs Whitlow.
As if this is not enough of a life-changing encounter, in Moving Pictures she is the one who first realises the vase in the corridor is spitting out lead pellets at a life-threatening velocity, and who is dragged in front of Mustrum Ridcully by Mrs Whitlow to explain what has happened.
Annotation
The original Cassandra was the prophetess of doom in ancient Troy. She was doubly cursèd by the Gods in a manner reminiscent of Agnes Nutter. The nature of the divine curse was that (i) she would always get it right and be an infallible prophetess; and that (ii) nobody would listen. The net result was that when she started tuning in to the idea that the Greeks had worked out a method of getting inside the walls of Troy, nobody listened to her warning - "oh, it's just that loony woman again" - and the city duly fell.
"Well, my dear, I'm so sorry that you're leaving!" Mrs Whitlow exclaimed, as she closed the thick staff file on her desk. The University's Head Housekeeper looked on personnel work as another form of potential untidiness that required firm handling lest it get out of control and accumulate dust and dirt. Consequently her staff files, an imposition forced upon her by Arch-Chancellor Ridcully, who she privately suspected had had his arm twisted by Lord Vetinari, were as immaculate as her laundry and her university. Although she privately missed the good old days when you just hired any likely-looking girl who turned up at the back door, set her to work, handled any little disciplinary crises informally as they happened, and you didn't need to ask damn silly questions like Where do you see yourself in five years time? and log the result on paper. You just needed cleaners and bedders and launderers, that was all, and if any gel showed a bit more go about her, you made her up to a supervisor and gave her her own corridor or floor to look after. But there can only ever be one Head Housekeeper. And I'm not having any of them get ideas about taking over MY job in five years time, thank you very much.
Mrs Whitlow sighed and looked at the pale, mousy woman in front of her.
A damn fine worker. Such a shame she catches all the difficult things. Mr Ridcully thinks she's a bad-luck magnet and he's worried she might not survive the next one. Bad press, compensation to next-of-kin, and so on. And young Professor Stibbons, such a nice young man, he believes she needs a more restful job somewhere else after…
"How long have you been working here now…oh yes, seventeen years, I believe. Well, Arch-Chancellor Ridcully has approved a quite unprecedented exit bonus of two hundred dollars in thanks for the work you have done here." Cheaper than paying for hospitalisation at the Lady Sybil, or for your funeral, or compensation to your family for death in a magical accident, she thought to herself. And you attract magical accidents and other misfortunes like a magnet. Consequential damage to the gentlemen who have to put things right afterwards. A treasonous inner voice whispered Or who made things wrong in the first place. Being Mrs Whitlow and firm in her Place in the scheme of things, she suppressed this and added
"Perhaps it is all just as well. I will be quite sorry to lose you!"
The maid, clad in respectable below-stairs black with white pinnafore, shuffled slightly on her chair and looked at her employer. Ksandra had seen many worrying, strange and frightening things at the University – in her case, more than most – but in common with all below-the-salt members of the University community, the single most scary thing was sitting on the opposite side of the desk from her.
For the Arch-Chancellor and the Faculty were remote, rarely-glimpsed, things to her, moving like gaudily dressed circus marquees in the distance. But Mrs Whitlow was nearer, and capable of appearing from nowhere to run her gloved white fingertip along a hitherto disregarded architrave, then to examine the grey smear of dust with disapproval and then to brandish the accusing finger, with reproach and rebuke, under the errant cleaner's nose. And right now, the woman who had once been a comfortably shaped matron in her presumed late fifties had the shape and look of a much younger woman, at the turn of her thirties, perhaps, three stone lighter and shaped in a most Bissonomous fashion.(1) But the eyes of a sixty-year-old woman who was, in her way, worldly-wise, stared out of a young face. This was even more disconcerting for the backstairs staff to deal with.
It had apparently been a magical accident – of the sort that never happens to me, Ksandra thought, bitterly – which had rejuvenated Mrs Whitlow's body by thirty years, and for which she strenuously refused and evaded all wizardly offers to "put things right" .(2), (3) Several men were vying to be the next Mr Whitlow, as a consequence, including the Lecturer in Recent Runes. (4) Ksandra also knew the wizards were trying like Hell to work out what had happened and how they could safely replicate it, as academic thinking was inclined to the hypothesis that if the University could replicate this "hypertemporal rejuvenation thaumaturgy", H.R.T. for short, and market it to women of a certain age and vanity, they'd make an absolute bloody fortune.
"Now let's recap."
Mrs Whitlow frowned. Although the University had sent her on a course – and one day she might forgive Arch-Chancellor Ridcully for that – she never could get the hang of the jargon that went with being a modern manager of human resources.
"As well as having been the primary point of contact for visiting Lancre witches, you were first to witness a magical accident concerning Mr Riktor's rather alarming and dangerous vase.
"While sweeping the floor in Mr Stibbons' High-Energy Magic Building, you were inadvertently caught up in a magical flux that put you on the other side in Roundworld."
Ksandra nodded, mutely. She had not really noticed any great change, as she had landed in a stately home in England where the layout and corridors suggested nothing more than a different wing of the University. Looking round for a mop or broom to continue cleaning with, she had then been disconcerted to discover a newfound ability to walk through things, her body suddenly light and insubstantial. Some very shocked-looking people had been in a room on the other side, to see a maidservant walking through the wall. Recognising quality, Ksandra had tried to offer apologies, but her lips opened and no sound came out. And then, as she crossed the room looking for a door, her body had started dissolving, beginning with the head…
Ponder Stibbons had apologised profusely, as HEX returned her essence to her own body in the Discworld. Apparently she'd stepped into a Here-but-Not-Here field in the HEM, and HEX had taken her for a field agent who had been dressed to blend in to nineteenth century England so as to look in on Hampton Court….
"At least they'll put it down to Anne Boleyn's ghost." Stibbons had said, amiably. "She was a Queen of England, by the way. Her husband, the King, had her executed."
Ksanda winced at the memory.
"I shall see to it that you get a very good reference." Mrs Whitlow said, grandly. "A young woman of your ability should not be out of a job for very long. Have you received any offers?"
"Yes, ma'am." Ksandra said. "The Guild of Assassins are always in need of bedders and launderers. Professor Stibbons introduced me to Miss Smith-Rhodes, who was very sympathetic. Apparently there is a vacancy for a cleaner and housekeeper to service the lady Assassins' private rooms. It should be more restful and less demanding!"
"Hmmm." said Mrs Whitlow, thinking about the hazards of even opening a door at the Guild of Assassins, a place where the teaching faculty were said to routinely booby-trap their rooms when left unattended, in case of unauthorised pupil intrusion. A place where collecting their clothes for laundry might involve braving forgotten poisoned blowpipe darts and other things with inconvenient sharp edges. She, Mrs Whitlow, preferred purely magical hazards – she knew where she was with those.
"And Miss Tripp at the Place is looking for a specially experienced cleaner to assist in doing for Leonard of Quirm."
Mrs Whitlow nodded. Miss Tripp at the Palace was her professional equal there. She knew from social sherries with the other Head Housekeepers around the City that to even reach Leonard's rooms meant braving pitfalls and booby traps that would inconvenience even the most skilled Thief or Assassin.
"Well, I wish you luck, my dear." she eventually said, with complete sincerity. They shook hands.
"Here's your reference. You may pick up the two hundred dollar exit bonus from the Bursar on your way out. If he is… indisposed…. Ask for Professor Stibbons."
"Thank you, ma'am." said Ksandra.
(1) On Roundworld we would call a well-shaped mature woman Junoesque, after Juno, wife of Jupiter, Lord of the Gods. On the Discworld, the only thing remembered with any certainty about forgotten Goddess and Grace Bissonomy (over and above her being turned into an oyster) is that she was once the wife of Blind Io, Lord of the Gods, and had children with him. Well, a kid (2),anyway.
(2) Almeg, the Goat of the Gods, son of Blind Io and Bissonomy, who donated one of his horns to be the Cornucopia of the Summer Lady.
I'm not making this up. See Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith.
(3) See Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent for details.
(4) Runes argued that if they were going to relax the Lore on wizards getting married just to accommodate young Stibbons, then he, Runes, was therefore entitled to a crack at Mrs Whitlow by the same reasoning. For tales of Ponder's romance with an otherwise lethal Assassin, see some other of me fanfic, like Nature Studies and others.