And we return to Darkest Howondaland chapter 15
Epilogues
Ankh-Morpork
Lord Vetinari looked up from reading Pessimal's report and smiled slightly.
"One less consequence of your visit to the Shires to concern myself with." he remarked. "And it may in the long run have done some good. The Treaty of Windhoek was bound to be breached at some point. It was only ever a provisional agreement."
Sam Vimes maintained a stolid attention in front of the desk and waited for the other shoe to drop.
"Inspector Pessimal has done a superb job. Commendable. A good place for diplomats to be is on the battlefield, witnessing the consequences of their respective nations failing to act decisively or with integrity. Amazing how quickly they arrived at an agreement their governments are eager to ratify."
"Sir." Vimes said. It was the safest response.
"You will soon be greeting a draft of men who are to be trained, collectively, in Watch skills and patterns of thought." Vetinari said, amicably. "They are already trained as fighting soldiers. It is now your responsibility to get them to think like policemen."
Vimes sighed. His own report from Pessimal had been concise.
"How many, sir?"
"One hundred and twelve, to begin with. As more men are discharged from medical care after convalescence, you will have up to four hundred."
Vimes winced.
"I don't think the Lemonade Factory is big enough, sir." He said, stalling desperately.
"They will be housed at the military barracks outside the city. Arrangements are being made to provide sufficient bedspaces. You can station a training squad there."
"But I only have one officer who speaks Matabelian, sir…"
"Several speak good Morporkian. They can be your interpreters. Other skilled people can be found within our Matabele community."
Vimes considered. The ethnic communities in the city were growing by the day. Perhaps in this new draft he might get a couple of permanent constables with the right skills.
"And it is customary, after a battle is won and the people who fight it gain experience, to reward outstanding individuals with promotion." Vetinari went on. "Sergeant Precious Jolson, for instance."
"Precious? She's only a… oh, I see. Right, yes. Sergeant Jolson she is, then."
"And I believe two women soldiers were captured wounded, and are even as we speak being transferred to the Lady Sybil for convalescence." Vetinari remarked. "They appear to be made of the same stuff as Sergeant Jolson, only appreciably more so. As the male soldiers are in awe of them, you might wish to consider using them as the provost detail, to avert any little breaches of discipline among our guests. Sergeant Jolson has their full respect, I believe. She can work with them and show them what is required. Should they assimilate here, you may well have two more first-class Watchwomen in the making."
Vetinari steepled his fingers.
"And I believe your opinion of the social and cultural ethos of Matabeleland is not a high one? You have said, and I quote, "that bloody stinking swamp of a place needs law and order"? You are now in a position to provide it. I believe you need to work out the administrative details with Captain Carrot? Do not let me detain you."
Vimes saluted and left.
Vetinari relaxed.
"Well done, sir." said Rufus Drumknott, placing a new report on his desk. The front page of the Times featured prominently.
"From Our Own Correspondent in Rimwards Howondaland." Vetinari read. "Interesting. I know there are good reasons for Miss van der Graaf to be anonymous in any copy she files here. No doubt her Embassy also reads her despatches with interest."
"She does have dual nationality, sir. She was, after all, born on this continent." Drumknott remarked.
"Which is a gift from the Gods. Such an upbringing opens the critical faculty and makes it impossible to be provincial in one's outlook. Advise me when the Ambassadors return from consultation in their own countries, Drumknott? I wish to speak to them. Thank you."
Drumknott retired. Vetinari read the Times. Occasionally he smiled to himself.
Lord Downey frowned, at the head of the conference table. Excluded for the moment from sitting, Miss Alice Band and Madame Emmanuelle les Deux-Epées stood politely to one side whilst the Dark Council debated. They were, after all, not Dark Council members. Every so often one would be politely requested to clarify a point or amplify a description of recent events.
"Thirteen." he said, flatly.
"Thirteen." Alice confirmed.
Downey took a deep breath.
"Well, I think this rather excludes the idea of our accepting a contract on Prince Samuel now." he said. "Oh, we could accept a contract and take an advance payment. Brief people. Research the client. Perform normal mission preparation. But one of those Zombies is bound to get through, long before we're ready. Does the Prince have any idea they're on the way?"
"No, sir. All the survivors of his army are on the way to Ankh-Morpork. Miss van der Graaf was persuaded not to include it in her story. Even though she called it an "inhuman interest" item. All the signs are that Samuel believes he's got away with it. Again."
"My, isn't he in for a surprise…" Joan Sanderson-Reeves murmured.
Downey sighed.
"Lord Vetinari has of course prohibited us from recruiting zombies." he remarked, a propos of nothing. "Not terribly difficult, as zombies tend not to have the degree of style and grace we expect of our people. But oh, the advantages of an Assassin it would be impossible to inhume…"
"Which is exactly his point." Mr Mericet said, drily. "Although I understand zombies may be stopped by fire or bodily discorporation."
"Still, there are thirteen of them. Ah, well. I notice Doctor Smith-Rhodes is not with you?"
"You have her written report, sir." Alice said. "She sends her apologies. But as she is in her home country, a place normally difficult to get to and involving a protracted sea voyage, she is taking time off in lieu in order to visit her family. She is accompanied by Professor Stibbons."
Downey nodded.
"An acceptable reason for her absence. Let us hope the Professor is accepted by her family."
"Poor chap. Meeting her parents for the first time is always an ordeal." Monsieur leBalourd observed. "Here's hoping they approve of him."
There was a reflective silence.
Joan Sanderson-Reeves broke it with a prompt.
"Lucinda Rust. That bloody damn girl. What do we do about her?"
"Involvement in slavery. Against the laws of a lot of civilised countries. All indications are that she was the brains behind this and her brother was an accomplice. Bringing the Guild into disrepute. Suspicion of murder. And offering her services as retained Assassin to a foreign dignitary. Without paying the standard fifty per cent Guild tax on the contract. Thus defrauding the Guild."
Alice noted the issue of not paying Guild tax appeared to be the most serious offence. Nothing was said about her providing Prince Samuel with the names and descriptions of the Assassins he was facing on the beach, she noted.
"Inhumation sentence?" somebody suggested. Downey shook his head.
"No. The Patrician appears to have made an informal deal with the Rust family that the issue be resolved by Gravid being disinherited and exiled. If we then annul his daughter, Vetinari will not be happy with us."
"But, as I hear it, the Honourable Gravid Rust is, due to very briefly find a funnel-web spider underneath his lavatory seat." said the Compte de Yoyo. "Which our operative, Miss Arachne Webber, is to take very good care in placing there."
"So that it looks like a convincing accident." Downey said. "If a second convincing accident were to happen to his daughter, however much she may merit one, it would look suspicious."
There was silence for a few moments. Lucinda Rust was currently locked up, complaining and petulant, in a well-furnished set of rooms at the Guild with full meal service. It was, as Downey conceded, hardly solitary confinement at the Tanty. Downey sympathised with a point of view which stated it would be wise to resolve the matter. Soon.
"Aren't there places on the Disc that currently do not have a Guild office or a local resident Assassin?" Joan Sanderson-Reeves asked. "I'm thinking here of the Plague Islands out in the Rimwards Sea. Or else PhukYu island near BhangBhangDuc. Inaccessible, served by one ship a year, jolly hot, jolly insanitary, lots of tropical diseases to catch, no doctors. Plonk her in one of those, tell her she's now the local Guild office, and she is not to even think of leaving till the Guild relieves her of her duties or appoints a successor. If she survives, say, fifteen years, we could show clemency and move her somewhere better?"
Downey smiled. There was general assent.
The only issue now was which tropical plague-pit Lucinda was to represent the Guild in… after some debate, the remote settlement of Elbow Island and its twin neighbour Arsehole Island1 (1) was agreed on as being suitably remote, under-developed, insanitary and a long way away from Ankh-Morpork.
Epilogue; on the family farm
The magic carpet winked into real space over a meandering river. Johanna leant forward and said to the pilot to please take good care to stay on this side of this river, on the right. Otherwise we are over the Zulu country and there could be complications.
The pilot nodded understanding, and steered to the right, heading Rimwards. Buggy Swires reclined on the carpet, having crawstepped them several hundred miles from the jungle camp.
"Just so as I know where to pick ye up from, mistress. Ten days from now, ye said?"
"Ten days." Johanna said, firmly. She checked her large pack and her bag again. Ponder Stibbons was looking down on the landscape with interest.
"My home, Ponder." she said, simply. "I was born here. The Gods' own country. The Veldt."
Ponder was entranced. Rich red earth sprayed with green, gently undulating, flat in all directions except for where a mountain range rose in the distance. The Drakensberg, it was called.
Ruth N'Kweze stirred, adjusting her own pack and burden.
"Anywhere around here, please, Johanna." She requested. "I'll be in your country for just as long as it takes me to ford the River. Then I make contact at the nearest guard post, announce myself, and pick up an escort. Get somebody to carry this lot. After that I'm at the Royal Kraal inside three days."
"I think we can get eway with crossing the river once." Johanna reconsidered. "We go in low, nearly on the ground. Less chence of being noticed. Put you within a mile of a guard post. Eccepteble?"
It was. Ruth hopped off the carpet behind a handy screen of baobab trees. She adjusted her burden – trophy Matabele shields and weapons to present to her father, taken from a high-ranking officer she had despatched in the battle - confirmed she'd be waiting here in ten days time for her return flight, then waved goodbye and set off at an easy run. Johanna directed the pilot to return over the river that marked the border between two hostile states, then to pick up height again.
After a few miles, Johanna directed the carpet to turn inland. A single plume of smoke was visible, suggesting an isolated settlement of some sort. She nudged Ponder, and remarked that over there, thirty or so miles away, was Piemberg, the nearest city of any size. "We'll go there. But not today."
As they approached the chimney smoke, Ponder cleared his throat. He had a suspicion as to why Johanna was bringing him to her family home. He wanted to get something out of the way first. In common with many young men, he wondered how to phrase this, having had no previous practice. He fumbled in his pocket.
Err… Johanna. The Arch-Chancellor thinks he can get that change in the Lore past Conclave and the University council sometime this year."
He paused.
"Oh, hell. I'm no good at this sort of thing. But. Err. Ruth gave me this. She suggests it's a loan, for now, till I can buy you something better. And I will. But. I'd. Err. Sort of appreciate it. If you married me. Ummm."
He was ready for anything at this point. Johanna weeping was something he hadn't anticipated.
"So that's a no, then?" he murmured.
"Dumbkopf." she said, through tears, holding her hand out. He fumbled with the ring, a Howandalandian native artefact of Zulu manufacture, a cluster of uncut diamonds and rubies set in gold. Hoping he'd got the right finger, he slipped it on. She thought it was perfect.
"So you can show it to your parents." He said. "Declaration of intent, and so on."
She held him close.
"I was thinking. We could start looking for a house when we get back." he suggested. "Gillian's set to take over Raven House, and I'd quite like to live outside the University. Get away from it at nights. Moving out of where you work should be good for you too. Err."
Johanna knew she was going to have to move on from residential responsibilities at the School someday. The younger and single Gillian Lansbury had been understudying her with a view to taking over Raven House, living in twenty-four and eight, acting as House Tutor to its girls. She was there right now, Johanna knew, looking after things in her absence. And Gillian was capable. Johanna just hadn't realised she'd be leaving so soon, after ten happy years. But you had to move on, she reflected, as a familiar farm settlement grew closer and nearer. One she'd known since birth. She'd moved on from here too.
"Somewhere in Enkh, I think." she said. "Moon Pond Lane is nice. Or Spa Lane, near Davinia Bellamy end her family."
The sprawling and achingly familiar farm complex loomed up at her. Black-skinned labourers looked up from the fields in wonder as the carpet drew nearer the ground.
"But we cen discuss this later." She said. "Pilot? Please lend near the signal beacon. Between there end the windmill. Thenk you."
The carpet pilot, a MOKO, smiled benevolently. He sniffed a tear away.
"First ever marriage proposal on me carpet, miss." He said. "Warms the heart, it does. Makes my day."
"May ye be Kelda to a big clan, lassie." Buggy Swires said, gruffly, The Feegle was wiping a tear away too. "Fair does ye good to see a happy beginning."
Then Johanna and Ponder and their bags were on the ground. Declining the offer of refreshments and a rest, the MOKO pointed shyly to his brown skin as reason and said "Best be back to the city, miss. Got a job to do. Good luck to you. Ten days? Here?"
And the carpet took off. They watched it rise until, about a thousand feet up, there was an octarine flare. And then empty sky.
Hand in hand, a soon-to-be-married couple went to face another ordeal – Meeting Her Parents.
Nine months later.
The Guild of Assassins was hosting diplomats from around the Disc to High Dinner. The new junior defence attaché from Rimwards Howondaland, uncomfortable in his rarely-worn dress uniform, appreciated the gesture. But suspected that the diplomatic contingent had been strategically placed at High Table, so that a hall-full of junior Assassins and students could take a good look at them and memorise their faces.
The pale khaki-grey uniform with red epaulettes, braiding and lanyard was drab in comparison to the other uniformed dignitaries at table. But it was distinguished by the blue ribbon and medal of the Howondalandian Star in Gold. It was not one conferred for thirty years' service along with a social promotion, or one the wearer could expect of right as an accident of birth. People who mattered knew this was conferred for exceptional bravery in combat. He had already been asked about the Battle Of The Tobacco Farm by several fellow diners.
Captain Julian Smith-Rhodes wondered if the accident of his birth had granted him the Gold Star when the men who had fought with him, with the exception of Dekker (2), had only received the Howondaland Star in Silver. This worried him. It also worried him that quite a few women had taken an interest in the dashing and gallant young officer who was so modest about his bravery. But Johanna and Mr van der Graaf had taken one look and warned him about seamstresses. Lady Frijda had taken a strong maternal interest in him. Somehow she had gained the impression he had saved her silly fool of a husband's life. Thinking he could go into battle at his age.
Like many men blessed with good looks and a seemingly assured nature, Julian was embarrassed about the attention he drew and would have preferred less of it. But, he reflected, the Guild had found a dining companion for him and she was pleasant and congenial company.
Ruth N'Kweze playfully ran a fingertip down the raised detail on his Gold Star. Julian repressed a shudder of pleasure. She half-smiled.
"I'm so glad you got that for fighting the Matabels. And not against my people." she said, playfully. "So I can whole-heartedly congratulate you. Promotion, too!"
"Everyone got promotion." he said, trying to keep it low-key in public. "Bob Maarlei's a sergeant. Desmond Dekker too. And it's Brigadier van der Louw now, since they beefed up the presence on the border and stationed two more Kommandos there. Kiff for him. He's a good man who wasn't expecting another advancement at his age."
"Yes." Ruth said. "Everybody got promotion."
She looked down the table at a diner who wore the plain service uniform of a Kolonel of the Rimwards Howondalandian army. It would have been out of character for Johanna to wear full dress uniform just to eat in. But she wore her Howondaland Star in Gold, along with the ProVirtute for exceptional leadership in battle.
"Impressive, as she started out as a Luitnant." Ruth added.
"She'd been overlooked for eleven years." Julian pointed out. "Something to do with leaving Home in a hurry and the circumstances of her departing. Politics. After she led that defence and helped broker a peace, the Staadt couldn't ignore it."
"All the newspaper coverage helped." Ruth said, drily. "Those articles the Ambassador's daughter got into print."
"Who happens to be her cousin." Julian said. Being a Smith-Rhodes, he knew about influential family in high places.
"Decorated. Promoted Kolonel. In the Reserve, admittedly, but still Kolonel." Ruth said.
"Entitled to raise a Kommando in Staadt service if she so wishes." Julian mused. He and Ruth paused and considered the implications of this.
"National heroine. If she ever marched on Pratoria…"
"Which is probably why the deal was, she also got a large donative in gold from a grateful nation. Who pointed out it had been paid into her account at the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork, if she'd just care to return there in order to appreciate it more."
Julian nodded. He changed the subject.
"And you? You were there too. But I can't see my country giving you a medal, somehow. No offence."
"None taken." Ruth replied. "I got to report to my father on what happened. After I explained and he asked a few questions and I answered them, he went away and had a think. Then he came back and said there was a little issue of State to be resolved, as to which of his daughters got to be Paramount Crown Princess. First among equals, so to speak."
Ruth smiled.
"Ceremonial thing. It means if all my brothers were to drop dead and no other suitable candidate emerges, if Father dies, I get to be Paramount Empress. But hey, I get a bit more bling out of it, and a larger dowry to lay at my future husband's feet. As well as the ill-concealed jealousy and enmity of most of my sisters, who I now need to take care around. I just need to choose a suitable husband next time. Father was keen to point out he wasn't overly impressed with the last one."
Julian was surprised.
"The last one?" he said, with a slight splutter.
Ruth patted his hand.
"Dead, now." she reassured him. "Honesty dictates that his death was not unconnected to my being a licenced Assassin."3 (3)
She gave him a big honest friendly smile.
"But we're… sort of friends here. Yes? And when we last met, you conceded a need to learn Howondalandian native languages. Maybe, just maybe, I could be available to teach you. As and when. Personal tutor."
She let the offer hang in the air. Julian, dumbstruck, nodded assent.
She squeezed his hand.
"So that's settled then."
Down the table, Johanna noticed and smiled serenely. Her uncle had let slip that the Staadtspraesident himself had remarked it would not be a bad thing at all if a reliable, high-level and above all discreet and deniable, channel of communication were to be opened with the Paramount Royal House of the Zulu Empire. She rather suspected they had one, now. And Ambassador van der Graaf would be inclined not to officially know one of his diplomats, from a high-ranking and influential family, had opened such a diplomatic liaison with, for instance, the Paramount Crown Princess, who had her father's trust and attention. And after inhuming her first husband, she felt she owed something to Ruth. Julian was not a bad choice, by Smith-Rhodes family standards. And it was going to be interesting to watch.
Ambassador van der Graaf looked on, indulgently.
Oh, it was in one respect unwise. They could never, for instance, marry. But Ankh-Morpork was a free place and the two of them were young. And he was cosmopolitan enough to know there could be a difference between the person you married and the person you loved. Especially at high political level. He was lucky he'd found both in Frijda. He relaxed, and considered the advantages. He trusted in their good sense to keep it discreet, then looked away and struck up a conversation with the Quirmian Ambassador.
Fort Verkramp, on the border of Rimwards Howondaland and Matabeleland (ten years on?)
It is perhaps ten or twelve years after the battle. The soldier on gate duty at Fort Heinz Verkramp watched the jungle disinterestedly. He was a conscript doing National Service, and was resigned to having pulled a bum posting to the arsehole of nowhere. Apparently a battle had been fought here a decade or so ago. He'd been well under ten at the time but vaguely recalled some sort of excitement when the newspaper reports came in.
He shrugged. Being Rimwards Howondalandian meant a battle or a skirmish of some sort was bound to flare up somewhere. But it hadn't happened here since. That was good enough for him. He only had the jungle heat and discomfort to deal with. At least the guys over there in the Matabele military kraal were getting it as bad…
He waved at the Matabele guard three hundred yards away, on their side of the line of border posts. On this side they were painted in Matabele colours of red, green and black, indicating that if you took another step you were in their country. Once on a patrol he'd cautiously walked up to one and ducked his head around. Yes, on their side facing them, the colours were orange, white and blue, giving much the same warning. Stood to reason, really. The Matabele guard, he thought it was Ariyosi from his build, might be Dan or Big Addi, waved back and grinned cheerfully. Sometimes men from both sides would meet at the border posts and trade rations and comforts. It was hard to want to fight a fellow after you'd met him and shown him family iconographs, and swapped a crate of your beer, bloody piss-water, for a crate of his better brew.
Fort Heinz Verkramp had been built on the site of an old tobacco farm where the battle had happened. Named after some bloody officer who'd died there, won a Howondaland Star, much good though it did him. He had a memorial just off the parade ground, where he was buried, a hero to his country.
The two sides had agreed afterwards that demilitarizing an area left too much for chance and offered room for suspicion, if you weren't sure what the other fellow was up to. Better have two forts within missile-distance of each other so you could practically see into his parade ground. It kept it all honest, somehow.
And the settlement growing up on the coast, those funny pygmy people who weren't human. The aardmanettjen. Deroetzwarteelfen. A people never before seen in this continent, so that Vondalaans had needed to reach back to its Kerrigian parent tongue to find a word for them. Their town was called Koboldsdorp. Goblin Town, if you spoke Morporkian. And it thrived. The original roetzwarteelfen had been brought here as indentured labour or something. Given freedom – apparently the fight had been about this – most had opted to return to the Central Continent. But some had been born here and others wanted to make a go of it here as free people. They were racially classified like Dwarfs, as "honorary white humans". This had been firmly insisted on at the time, apparently. And everybody knew where they stood and got on, more or less peacably.
The guard looked over to the artificial mound known as Kobold Kop. The roetzwarte buried their dead there and kept it well tended. Behind it was a burial ground for the dead Matebele soldiers from that battle. Although it was on the other side of the border, the Mats were allowed to cross to keep it tended. It was also a war grave, and some formalities were respected. And everything was relaxed, on a quiet stretch of the Border where nothing had happened, much, for years...
(1) It was said that after a few months there, it was difficult to tell your Arsehole from your Elbow. A former ruler of Quirm had been exiled there after making trouble for his neighbours on the disc, lasting six years before expiring of something suitably tropical.
(2) Now Sergeant Dekker, Howondaland Cross in Silver, ProMerito, and wound stripe. All the survivors of the battle had been decorated and promoted. Thieijsmann was now a senior sergeant-major; Maarlei also a sergeant; even Tuits van der Maaitals, evacuated as too young to die, had received a Bronze Star and corporal's stripes. Apparently one of the crossbow bolts he fired from the back of a departing Pegasus, in the random direction of the enemy, had killed a Matabel right on their start line. He got his medal for exceptional shooting, even though his sergeant had called it a fluke.
(3) See my story Whys and Weres. In which Ruth is, very briefly, married under Zulu law and custom.