The MGC returns? C9

Civic unrest was breaking out in the City. Most specifically, a series of volatile factors were coming together in the Diplomatic Quarter of the City of Ankh, in much the same way that sweet spirits of nitre come together with cellulose and glycerine in an alchemist's fume cupboard to create a vigorous and equally evil-smelling exothermic reaction.

Most of the foreign Embassies and High Commissions in Ankh-Morpork are located in the Hubwards part of the City of Ankh, as far away from downtown Morpork and as close to the Patrician's Palace as they can get. (1)

A fairly typical overseas legation is the Embassy of the Union of Rimwards Howondaland, a former ducal mansion set in extensive gardens just off Scoone Avenue.

Ambassade van die Verenigde Republiek van Strandvarts Howondalaand

Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Rimwards Howondaland

The domestic policies of this nation have frequently aroused criticism and protest for their perceived repressive nature and arbitrary racial judgements. On most days there is likely to be a protest picket outside the gates, usually composed of politically-minded students from Unseen University and other educational establishments around Ankh-Morpork. No students from the Assassins' Guild attend – they are generally kept too busy for this, and anyway would be more temperamentally inclined to be inside the Embassy, having a gracious drink with the Ambassador, regardless of his nation's domestic politics. But the Thieves' Guild School has a reputation for breeding right-on politicised students, the Art College produces its crop of political idealists, and the university has always had a vocal minority of students who firmly believe Wizardry should be a non-hierarchical democracy where all have the same status. (2)

As Patrician Vetinari has commented, the Workers' Revolutionary Party founders on three claims: (one) there wasn't a single worker among its membership, only students; (two) it wasn't especially revolutionary, in that it advocated a course of action known to have been tried and failed across the Disc at several points during its history; and (three) he doubted any of them could unbend enough, nor indeed manifest the essential organisation skills, to be able to throw a party of any kind.

However, they had enough mental acuity to chant slogans and wave banners, which is what twenty or thirty of the Party faithful were doing outside the Howondalandian Embassy that morning. They were kept at bay by, and quite possibly outnumbered by, the suspicious and piggy-eyed guardsmen at the Embassy gates, and by others patrolling inside the grounds.

A little further out were Ankh-Morpork City Watch crowd control barriers, painted black and yellow, where six or seven Watchmen converged, pointedly, in such a way as to physically put themselves between the demonstrators and the Embassy guards. The barriers also kept at bay a group of idle-minded passers-by, who were watching the street theatre presented by the situation, in the hope that it was going to turn violent at any second. There was also a news crew from the Ankh-Morpork Times, present here for much the same reason.

Sam Vimes sighed, fully aware that the Howondalandian embassy guards had been selected for an overseas posting on the basis of their muscle and the visible deterrent they posed, rather than for their brains. He knew the real Embassy security was in the hands of other, more intelligent, largely plain-clothes people, whom Ankh-Morpork had been obliged to dignify with the word diplomat. As part of his job, Sam Vimes had to accept that it was perfectly legitimate for an overseas Embassy to bring in its own complement of Guards from home, so as to secure the Embassy premises against intrusion and carry out any policing tasks that needed to be done inside the Embassy grounds, which convention accepted was the sovereign soil of that state where its own native laws and customs applied.

Vimes generally didn't have a problem with this: he recruited and trained Watchmen and Palace Guards, some of whom, in the normal course of events, would be offered overseas postings as Embassy guards at Ankh-Morpork's diplomatic premises around the Disc. He also had the Diplomatic Protection and Liaison section of the Cable Street Particulars, whose job it was to keep tabs and friendly contact with foreign Watchmen and Guardsmen based at their nations' Embassies, High Commissions and Legations in Ankh-Morpork. Some of the Embassy guards in the City had even been trained by Vimes at the Watch barracks: they'd passed out as Watchmen, done a probationary term in Ankh-Morpork, and returned home to use their expertise in their native Watches. Then they'd got diplomatic protection postings, and returned.

This led to a lot of ad-hoc understandings and friendly agreements across national borders, which had done a lot for crimefighting in the City and mutual understanding of where both sides stood.

But the bloody Howondalandians, Vimes sighed. They seemed to want to go all-out to provoke trouble and wouldn't bend an inch. Oh, Van Der Graaf was basically OK – he was the classic example of a rational man far from Home whose superiors appeared to have no idea of his day-to-day difficulties, and who was consequently left to interpret their irrelevant, impossible and self-contradictory instructions as best he could. As a near-neighbour, Sybil had invited the Ambassador and his wife to dinner on several occasions, and after some initial misunderstandings – Vimes had made it abundantly clear that he would provide any Guards, should Guards be needed, thank you very much - had come to grudgingly like the clever and urbane diplomat. They'd also been able to thrash out a rough-and-ready Agreement concerning policing demonstrations at the Embassy.

Vimes had made it abundantly clear that Howondalandian law stopped at the Embassy gates. Outside those gates, he, Vimes, was the law. "You can post Guards in the street immediately outside those gates, and I accept they have a common-law right to prevent any uninvited persons from entering the premises. If attacked, they have a right to self-defence. But if any of them hits out unprovoked at an unarmed demonstrator, he's in my cells for assault. And use of words like "nigger" and "kaffir" at any Ankh-Morporkian citizen with a darker colour of skin will not be allowed to pass unremarked, Pieter. Do you hear me?"

Vimes had reluctantly agreed that inside the Embassy compound, he had no jurisdiction, and the security guards could freely apply Howondalandian law. It would then be for Vetinari to pursue allegations of lethal or unwarranted force, or illegal detention, used against Ankh-Morporkian citizens. He, Vimes, would ensure any demonstrator so ill-advised as to consider illegally entering the Embassy compound was made aware that they were putting themselves outside the reach of Ankh-Morporkian law, and only had themselves to blame if they were damaged in any way.

And then there was the other thing: Vimes lived on the same street as the Embassy. The residents of Scoone Avenue saw his living on the street as a bonus, and thought of him as their Neighbourhood Watch, despite his protestations that Neighbourhood Watching doesn't work that way. Willikins was by now adept at fielding protests from neighbours about those scruffy idle students demonstrating at the Embassy again, could Sir Samuel do anything about it, as soon as he can, please?

To keep his neighbours happy, even though policing this demo was perfectly within the competence of Sergeant Colon, Vimes had made a point of being seen to walk down the street, to put in some time with the Watch contingent there.

"Sorry, Fred" Sam apologised. "You know it doesn't need me, but I live on this street and it keeps the neighbours off my back if I'm seen to be here. It's still your command."

"Glad to have you here, Sam. There's hardly any real bother at these things, just a lot of standing around wasting time." Fred Colon remarked. Vimes nodded: standing around wasting time, with an implicit low risk of being killed or injured, was ninety per cent of Fred's definition of Watchmanship. He was good at it.

"They come along, shout their slogans, wave their placards. That mob in the Embassy stare back and make the odd threat. We stand in the middle and keep 'em apart. Then everyone goes home for tea, or those bloody students realise the pubs are open. We all do what we have to and everyone's happy". Fred said, summing it up.

"Looks like your relief's arriving." Sam said, nodding up the street. Sergeant Angua was walking up the street with six assorted Watchmen in her train, including Inspector Loudweather of the Particulars.

"On time, too. We can have a quick handover then I'll send these lads back to the Yard. What's the news on this new mass murderer, sir?"

Vimes sighed.

"The latest reports say the joint investigation's identified a very plausible suspect. But there's nothing absolute yet that pins it to this person beyond all doubt. I got dragged out of a civic reception last night to investigate a report some of the Watch were getting over-enthusiastic and were trying to search a suspect workplace without a warrant. Might have been embarrassing, but Downey's Assassins were getting over-enthusiastic too, about the same place.

"Put it bluntly: we're getting more and more sure of who we're looking for. I've got André on the case building up reports and profiles on the prime suspect. Her business is being discreetly watched night and day. We know she shuts up shop every evening with the tightest possible security, suggesting there's something to hide. Sally is positive somebody actually died in that shop not too long ago. But we got no official report of any disturbance or crime there. But we can't proceed until we've got hard evidence or unless she gets careless and gives herself away. All the usual frustrations, Fred."

"How did Vetinari get to find out, sir?"

Vimes grimaced.

"We posted a gargoyle to watch over that shop and see who went in and out. So did Vetinari. If he's taking an interest, Fred, it'll be like that business with the Sanderson-Reeves woman all over again. We do the work, we're just about to lift the prime suspect, and then Vetinari intervenes and gives her to the bloody Assassins."

"You have to admit, sir, while you wouldn't want to get too close to her, Miss Sanderson-Reeves has come on a long way since she was given parole. His Lordship might be right when he says some people are too valuable to hang!"

"Lipwig, for one". Vimes paused, and spat out a name, with feeling, Albert Spangler. And Miss Sanderson-Reeves. You might be right, Fred. At least a whole generation of noble daughters are realising food doesn't come out of servants, which is a good thing. I also hear she's strict about making sure young Venturi and Selachii and Rust girls wash up and clean up afterwards – to her satisfaction!"

Vimes and Colon permitted themselves a contented grin, then got into the minutae of the handover. This was interrupted by the sound of a clattering coach. Colon looked up.

"Oh, one of theirs." he said, with distaste. "Left-hand drive position for the coachman because they drive on the wrong side of the road out there. And bloody Corpse Diplomat-ee-queue plates. They're the bane of my bloody life in Traffic Control. Park where they like, go where they want, break the speed limits, and you can't get fines money off them! Arrest them and they complain to His Lordship, who gets all sarcastic about it!"

Fred Colon, an equitable man by nature, rarely got angry. But foreign diplomats using their CD plates to escape traffic fines was an issue that got him really intense. As head of the Traffic Division, he felt it was really taking the piss, and a personal affront.

Angua gave Fred's arm a reassuring pat.

"Thanks, miss" he said. "Hold on, something's happening… we've got a runner!"

The coach, belonging to the Howondalandian Embassy, was by custom crewed with black servants imported from Home. This had created a problem possibly unique in the experience of both cultures.

To White Howondalandians, black servants were taken for granted. They were cheap, freely available, and could be replaced swiftly if they failed to give satisfaction. Having a complement of domestic staff to do all the routine, boring, and dirty things in life, was so commonplace in White Howondalandian society that the first diplomatic missions sent out had really felt the privation at having to do menial work for themselves. Therefore, black servants were recruited at home, and carefully screened for loyalty, docility and reliability, before being shipped to overseas Embassies to continue serving their white masters.

This worked so long as they were carefully kept confined to the Embassy compound, where the various racial segregation acts and pass laws beloved of the apartheid state could be strictly enforced. And most of the time it worked: the servants sent over were too well conditioned, or cowed, or otherwise accustomed to their lot, to do anything other than faithfully serve as they always had. Such meagre wages as they received were carefully saved and sent back Home to support extended families in the townships and Bantustans. To the whites, it proved the system worked.

But some blacks, particularly those higher up the responsibility structure, had to be allowed outside passes to go out and buy food, drink, other goods and services, for the Embassy community. Maidservants had to accompany the baas-lady on shopping trips and carry her bags. This exposed Howondalandian blacks to dangerous influences in the city of Ankh-Morpork, where the pass laws could not reach, and petty apartheid had no writ. Here the black servants saw black people like themselves, perhaps receiving casual random racism, as no city is perfect, but on the whole acknowledged as equals and interacting with local whites as equals. Some of the more daring Bantus and Xhosis thought about this. And one day, Katerina de Mauritz, Embassy social secretary, snapped her fingers for her maidservant to pick up and carry the bag containing the clothing she'd just bought in Boggi's . There was no response. She looked again. Three or four unattended bags were sitting there on the carpet. But there was no maidservant. She had absconded, preferring to take her chances in an Ankh-Morpork where all races are more-or-less equal.

Katerina had tried to report the loss at a Watchhouse. A disinterested Watchman had taken the details.

"One kaffir. What's a kaffir, miss?"

"You know. The same es a nigger!"

It hadn't helped that a brown-skinned constable had asked to take over the inquiry. A bleddy coloured auxiliary! She'd complain!

"Let's start again, miss. You report that your maidservant has run away from your employment whilst accompanying you on a shopping trip. Your maid is a person of colour, yes? Good. How old? Physical shape? Any distinguishing features? What's her name?"

"How should I know all thet?" Katerina demanded, indignantly. "She was just a ni…"

Constable Visit waved a finger, warningly.

"A bleck servant. You don't esk their names!"

"So we have an illegal immigrant of Howondalandian origin, an IC3, (3), possibly between fifteen and fifty, who has run away from her employment at the Howondalandian Embassy, preferring the uncertainty of living rough in our fair city, to a roof over her head and three meals a day at the Embassy."

Visit shook his head, as if in disbelief.

"I don't know. Some people are just ungrateful, aren't they?"


The un-named maid was the first runner from the Embassy's indentured staff. She was not by any means the last.

This had caused diplomatic ructions, with the Embassy complaining to Vetinari that Vimes' Watch seemed positively disinterested in recapturing escaped black servants.

Vimes had pointed out that illegal entry into the City was an offence, yes, but it had to jostle for priority with a thousand other things that the Watch considered to be equal or greater candidates for its attention. If we catch any of your runaways, and it can be proven beyond all doubt that they are Howondalandian citizens who have illegally entered this city, then you can by all means claim them back. But don't hold your breath. And by the way, do not send your goons out looking for them either. Haven't I told you, their writ ends at your front gate?

This referred to a fairly recent incident in a Morporkian pub where the Embassy's Howondalandian Watch went to drink and let off steam. One of the embassy guards had recognised a kaffir working there, one who had run from the Embassy, and foolishly tried to essay a citizen's arrest using what, at home, would have been unremarkable tactics from a Watchman to a non-white arrestee. The pub landlord had intervened, furious at this treatment of a damn good employee, applying a barman's friend to the Boor's skull. The fight had escalated, with Ankh-Morporkian citizenry (ever on the side of the underdog) taking the part of the poor bugger who'd escaped from the Embassy, and a minor replay of the Boor War had ensued in the street outside, drawing in forty or fifty Watchmen and necessitating Sergeant Detritus fire a warning shot in the air before it was quelled. The resultant window-shaking sonic boom and firework display in the sky had forced silence, and Vimes' men had moved in to make arrests, with the absconded black servant mysteriously disappearing in the crowd, unfortunately.

After this, the ambassador had authorised the building of the Springboek Club in the Embassy grounds, for Howondalandians wanting to unwind over a drink. It seemed safest to keep it in the family.

And now the certainties of the demo were dissipating, as a black footman, taking advantage of the temporary delay at the gates, and attraction being focused elsewhere, took his chance to to run for freedom.

The sight of a running man touches a deep-seated reflex in Watchmen. Straight away, four or five of the Embassy Guard set off in got pursuit. One was tripped by a demonstrator, and another fell over him. This summoned more guards from inside the embassy compound, who raced for the gate and a legitimate chance to crack a few skulls.

Vimes and several of his coppers set off to pursue the fleeing servant, who wore the orange-and-gold embassy servants' livery. Leaving Angua and several others to pursue, and noting that as if by some sort of magic, more and more idle-minded bystanders were rushing into the street to watch the show, Vimes intercepted the Howondalandian Watch with a raised hand, which said "HALT!" in any language.

"Get out of the bleddy way, man! We went thet nigger!" a florid Boor guard demanded, reaching for his sjaembok.

"You've got no jurisdiction on this street." Vimes said, flatly.

"And you call me "Sir", you horrible article! And I'll tell you this for nothing, carry on reaching for that bloody whip and I'll rip your arm off!"

Vimes stepped forward into the Boor's personal space and eyeballed him.

"We're in hot trod, man….sir! Hot pursuit! "the Boor spluttered. Vimes nodded, knowing him to be within his rights: he'd done a similar thing in Bonk, chasing Wolfgang von Überwald down after the incident at the Ankh-Morpork Embassy, with Capton Tantony of the Bonk Watch accepting the primal law of hot trod. (4)

But what if the law they're enforcing is a rotten and revolting one? The only reason that poor bugger ran is because life with a black skin in that country isn't a barrel of laughs. And I bet this brute's used that whip on somebody in the past few days or weeks. Well, at least I've held them up.

Vimes stepped aside. "Constable Haddock? Constable Fidden? Escort our guests and see they don't exceed their powers."

The mixed group of Watchmen set off after the escapee.

Vimes looked around at the sudden chaotic scene, and sighed. There'd definitely be complaints from the neighbours tonight. But there was Willikins and a group of servants from the Ramkin household, no doubt come out to watch the scene and cheer indiscriminately at the fighting… two or three of his Watchmen were mixing it with the Boor guards, who'd rushed the demonstrators to play catch-up and get a few punches and blows in. Two or three of the students were lying, groaning or otherwise incapacitated: his Watchmen were pitching in to drive the Boors back to the Embassy gates, pointing out that it's our job to sort these stroppy bastard students out, thank you very much.

Fred Colon had organised a couple of troll constables to grab the riot barriers, and physically use them to drive the onlookers back to a safe distance. The crowd was growling now, and insults were being thrown at the Boors, and, oh no, some of those hotheads are shouting things like like "Remember Magersfontein!" and "My grand-dad was at Spion Kop, you arrogant bloody Boor!"

To which the Boors were calling back "Yes, and we won both bettles, Morporkian, so voetsaak!"

But they were falling back to the Embassy gates, and shit, here come the first cobblestones.

"Fred, get in there with a squad, will you, and nick somebody for damaging the highway and throwing rocks?"

Colon nodded acknowledgement, and called for Bluejohn and Flint to follow him. The crowd retreated from the onrushing trolls, and Vimes speculated for a moment on how the Boor War might have worked out if we'd had trolls in the Army then. He spotted a new complication: at the other side of the street, a party of Assassins who were watching the fight with interest, but making no move to join in. It looked like a teacher from the Guild School – purple sash – escorting a party of students. Seven or eight of 'em. Well, they're not causing any trouble, and people should be bright enough not to cause trouble for them.

The Embassy gates had opened to allow the retreating Guardsmen to enter, as well as the delayed coach. Vimes thought he could see Ambassador van der Graaf on the Embassy side of the gate, taking a report and issuing orders. He moved towards the gates, right hand raised and empty. The ambassador acknowledged him with a nod, and they went to confer through the fence.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Colon had run into a problem in the crowd. The trolls had made two arrests for throwing stones, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was a huddled, shivering, black-skinned figure in orange and white servant's livery, who was huddled on the ground trying to make himself look small.

"Please, baas… don't make me go beck!"

Colon sighed. He knew his duty. This was technically an illegal immigrant caught while trying to enter the city . As a Watchman, he had to detain the poor sod so as to deport him from Ankh-Morpork and repatriate him to his native country. Just march him back to that gate and hand him over…

The problem was that they were in the thick of over a hundred Ankh-Morporkian citizens, all of whom grudgingly acknowledged that Ol' Stoneface had the right to arrest stonethrowers, we're not arguing about that, but this poor sod was running for his life, wasn't he? Hand him back and they'll at least have him whipped as a warning to the others. Treat 'em like dogs in there, they do, Mr Colon… and what's one more poor bugger trying to get by, in this city? Neither here nor there.

It had been Nobby Nobbs who had arrested, or at least halted, the runner. Maybe something in Nobbs' habitual demeanour had screamed "friend" to the fugitive. Whatever the reason, the crowd had gathered around them as they shared a cigarette, shielding them from the sight of all, and Colon, arriving with a snatch-squad of trolls, had landed right in the middle of it. Colon reflected, mainly on his own chances of coming out alive if he tried to enforce the letter of the law. Besides, those bloody Boors got right up his nose. How much did they owe to the Traffic Division in unpaid fines and contemptuously torn-up tickets now… seven thousand eight hundred and sixty-five dollars. That was how much. Colon, a meticuluous man, kept precise records of what each foreign embassy owed in fines for traffic misdemeanours. Periodically, Sam would lay the figures in front of Vetinari, just to annoy him.

Colon smiled. He might be racist in a low-level glowering ignorant inarticulate sort of way, which was so much on general principles that it utterly failed to offend anybody, but one thing he hated, really hated, more than illegals coming in to pinch our jobs and our women (when they weren't sitting on their bums expecting hand-outs), was smug foreign diplomats pointing to the CD plates on their coaches, and ripping up the parking tickets. (5)

He smiled at the Howondalandian.

"This is your lucky day." he said. He turned to a familiar face in the crowd. "Ray, I ain't seen him. Can you get him out of here without nobody else noticing?"

The tension eased and people started smiling. Colon called his trolls and their arrestees together. Nobby joined them, and the crowd parted to allow them to go. Behind them, a Howondalandian refugee was being discreetly hustled to freedom…

No, I'll hand over their asylum-seekers when they start paying their bloody parking tickets, Colon decided. Until then, what's that word they use? They can all go voetsaak. Bloody Boors.

"What's it all about, Fred?" Nobby asked. "Why do we only have a problem with this embassy's staff doin' a runner?"

"It's this apartheid thing, Nobby" Fred replied. "Captain Carrot explained the word to me. It means Apart-hood in proper language. Seperation. You have your white people and you have your black people and they live and work apart."

"Except when the white people needs servants to cook and clean and wash up for them" Nobby mused.

"Seems a sensible idea, to me." Colon stated. "I mean , you're a big-shot farmer or a diamond dealer, you speak Morporkian – well, after a fashion, anyway. You live in a proper house and you eats proper food. What are you going to have in common with a native living in a mud hut and callin' himself a Zulu or a Bantu or whatever? Sounds right. Sounds practical. We could do with somethin' like that here. you know, they have their zones of the city and we have ours. Catch a black in the whites-only area without a pass to say he's got a right to be there…"

"As a cleaner, cook, domestic servant or whatever…" Nobby chimed in,

"..and you arrest him, bang him up. Everyone knows where they stand then. No nonsense from the blacks, they know their place and woe betide them if they get cheeky!"

Nobby was in a thoughtful silence for a moment or two. Then he spoke.

"But Fred, how's that any different from here?"

"I'm not catching your meaning, Nobby"

"Round here, right, Nob Hill. Forty-odd years ago, when we was both starting out, both of us from Morpork, too poor to afford a pot to piss in, if we dared come round these streets, where all the nobs are, we'd get stopped, right? If you couldn't prove you were here for a reason, right, let's say you worked as a servant for one of the big nobby households, any Lord could have his men beat seven kinds out of you, and then throw you in the Tanty for malicious lingering. They had their zone of the city – here – and we poor buggers had ours. Morpork and the Shades, right? Cross into the rich-only zone without a pass, and the Watch nicked you. If you were lucky. The old Lord Ramkin had my dad whipped and put into the Tanty, for walking on this street without leave."

Nobby paused, and asked

"Ain't that a sort of apartheid, sarge? That poor bugger dint ask to be born black. You and me certainly dint ask to be born poor."

Colon sighed, having again been out-philosophised by Nobbs. The feeling never got any easier with the years. (6)

Johanna Smith-Rhodes watched them pass and waited for the last of the confusion to die down. Then she nodded to her pupils, and led them towards the Embassy gates.

They were learning: she'd had to restrain deKlerk and Botha from going chasing after the luckless kaffir, but they'd all grasped that part of the profession involved silently watching, observing, and noticing things whilst being disregarded on the fringes of events. And Guild students were discouraged from joining in demonstrations at the Embassy gates: to Johanna's mind, that also meant discouraging sympathisers from mixing it and making a bad situation worse. And she'd bet a few rand on that servant never being recaptured, and joining the ever-growing ethnic minority of stateless black Howondalandians in this city.

Ah well. Not my problem.

A lingering demonstrator attempted to press a pamphlet on her. She glared at him.

"Do you think for one moment I'd eccept thet? I'm one of the enemy, you bleddy fool. Now get out of my way!"

Johanna felt ashamed of being rude and abrupt, just for a second, then shrugged. It wouldn't do to be friendly to a demonstrator right on the Embassy steps where possibly inconvenient people were watching. Besides, she reflected, this was a student political agitator, a longhand way of saying "self-righteous idiot."

She passed by the Watch with hardly a nod (anyway, none of her particular friends were there), and announced herself in Vondalaans to the surly-looking gate guard.

"Johanna-Smith-Rhodes. Citizen. I have with me eight fellow citizens who are all enrolled students at the Assassins' Guild School. We are expected."

She nodded as the guard went from slouching to full attention in less than an eyeblink. The name of Smith-Rhodes still carried weight, then. Or perhaps it was just the fact that the Ambassador was her uncle, and this was known.

"Hello, Johanna!"

Katerina van Mauritz. Well, it didn't hurt to be friendly, although Johanna had known Katerina at school: it amazed her that somebody could be the same age as her, work in the same City, and in some respects not to have grown or changed at all.

"The Ambassador sends apologies. As you can see, we've had a little bother. He has asked me to show you all to the reception room and to make you comfortable."

Johanna followed the pupils into the reception room, where servants stood ready to offer light refreshments. These little receptions occurred once or twice a term. The School encouraged pupils from other countries to maintain their links with their homelands, and she didn't mind shepherding her White Howondalandian pupils to the Embassy and presenting them to her uncle. It was a break. The kids would get a taste of home, indulgent treatment, reassurance that Howondaland hadn't forgotten them, and an evening away from the School. It was also useful training in presenting yourself acceptably at formal occasions.

She nodded, noting that several of the older pupils had picked up the habit of saying "thank you" to the servants taking away coats and cloaks and bringing them drinks. The Guild insisted on correct behaviour towards servants and ensured it was taught to pupils.

Katerina raised a well-groomed eyebrow.

"What do you teach them, Johanna? Oh – here's the Ambassador."

Johanna greeted her uncle and aunt, first formally and then informally.

"That's another one gone, then. We'll have to inform Home." he sighed.

"Do you really follow through the threat to jail family members if they defect once they're here?" Johanna asked.

"It's a distasteful business. But you have to deter them somehow." her uncle said. "And we keep losing them!"

"This City is too soft." Katerina declared. "It has no idea about dealing with blacks. They even allow them into the Watch!"

"So, if we assume Lord Vetinari has no immediate intention of enacting the racial separation laws as we know them at home, how do you propose we deter our servants from running away?" the Ambassador asked. "People, black or white, will choose the best circumstances available in which to live. Some things are universal across the races!"

Katerina reddened, and went silent.

"What beats me" Johanna said, testing the waters, "is why you don't go to Mr Keeble's job shop and ask him to provide white domestic staff. There are thousands in this city with experience of domestic service, and Keeble is very good!"

Her aunt looked totally aghast. So did Katerina.

"You cannot have white people doing menial work!" her aunt declared.

She couldn't have looked more horrified if she'd been asked to do something unspeakable with a Zulu warrior, Johanna thought.

"Why ever not, dear Aunt Frieda?" Johanna asked, pushing the point.

"It's unheard of! It's demeaning! White people, doing black work!"

"But in this city, different standards apply and there is a different way of thinking. Virtually all the servants at the Assassins' Guild are white, and they appear to enjoy what they do. And you must have been guests at the big households where you would have had white servants waiting on you? I saw Mr Willikins in the street, Lady Ramkin's butler, and he does not appear to be demeaned by his job. Quite the opposite, in fact!"

"Now I know you're only trying to help, Johanna…" her aunt began. Johanna knew the code. This meant "You are being wholly impractical and unrealistic to the point where you are trying us."

Aunt Frieda changed the conversation.

"What do you think of the flowers, Johanna? Katerina found us a very clever florist. Apparently she does Howondalandian specials in her hothouses."

"Very nice, Aunt Frieda." Johanna said, politely, surveying the flower arrangements and table displays. An idle thought struck her.

"Who do you use, Katti?"

"I found this amazing place on Pelicool Steps. Mrs Bellamy is so very clever with flowers! She's a real artist!"

"Is that so…!"

Johanna had heard about the abject failure to get into Bellamy's for a covert look around. An idea was forming in her mind for how somebody could get in there legitimately and take all the time she needed for a specialized look-round. She turned to her old schoolmate. Normally, Johanna considered Katerina to be a rather dim fluffy airhead who was as interesting as a piece of bewilderbeeste spoor on the savannah. Now it would pay to touch base again.

"Katti, how long is it since we last went out for a sensible drink and some girl-talk? In a sensible language and not in the Morporkian we're forced to speak in this city?"

"Oh, too long!"

"Good. We can take in your florists' shop on the way. I know Lord Downey's been complaining about our floral bill…"

Johanna knew she'd have to run the idea past Uncle Piet, and she needed a particularly gifted Guild student to do her a favour, but as far as Davinina Bellamy was concerned, she'd be dealing with two accredited Embassy social secretaries in her shop….

Johanna smiled. She was glad she'd come here tonight.


(1) Except for the Lancastrian Embassy, which is a rather poky office two floors above a coal depot on the dockside, and those foreign nations too poor to afford the fabulous costs of prestigious real estate in Ankh.

(2) Of course, instead of the quasi-Tsarist tyranny of an Archchancellor and Faculty, you'd obviously still need a People's Committee to run things, with a General Secretary to act as its democratically elected head. But the General Secretary would only ever be first among comrades, let's make that clear now. (Joseph Stalin, officially the democratically elected General Secretary of the People's Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, found it hard to keep a straight face sometimes...)

(3)Visit, who as an Omnian classes as an IC6, is using the British police shorthand for ethnicities, which runs

IC1=white north European

IC2=white south European

IC3=black

IC4=Asian

IC5=Chinese, Japanese or other Far East Asian

IC6=Arabic or north African

IC7 is just a police joke. IC7=tantastic, and denotes the male/female IC1 who has just left a tanning shop, and has a wholly un-natural orange look to their skin.

(4) Hot Trod: in the debated border region between England and Scotland, it was accepted that Scottish border guards in hot pursuit could chase down their quarry into England, and vice-versa, demanding and receiving assistance from the host country. The right to pursue across borders is one of the oldest police conventions anywhere.

(5) Really true. London's Metropolitan Police have a shame-list of foreign embassies to Britain that use diplomatic immunity as a reason to refuse to pay parking fines and traffic violations. Top of the list, surprisingly, is the United States Embassy, who have chalked up over a million pounds worth of fines that the State Department refuses to pay.

(6) Nobby has just encapsulated the reason why conservative-right parties in the West hated South African apartheid and had an interest in ending the system. Not because it discriminated against blacks – in a good capitalist society, not everyone can be rich, the rich will need domestic servants, and the poor thereby get a chance to do a honest day's work, know their place, and learn respect for their social betters. It was just that the South Africans made the mechanism of a capitalist system too bleeding obvious. Too many people of the wrong sort were capable of following a Nobby Nobbs train of thought and concluding "whoa…wait a minute… it doesn't just apply to Black South Africans…."