The MGC returns? C15
The evening at the Palace menagerie passed quickly. Johanna used it as an opportunity to train her students in the mechanics of cleaning out large animal cages, the first and most obvious factor being to drive home the message that animals are territorial and do not appreciate their space being intruded into, even if it is being done with the best of reasons. And if your given task is to assist two elderly keepers and an enthusiastic but ineffectual troll with clearing out a fortnight's worth of accumulations from the elephant cages, then the first prerequisite is that the elephants should not be in there with you while you're doing it.
Therefore she assisted, while familiar faces and hands chivvied the elephants out into a temporary holding enclosure whose specific purpose appeared unfamiliar to her. It certainly had all the space to accommodate two elephants comfortably, but the oversized running wheel, that could have accommodated a mammoth?
Puzzled, she turned to Mr Grinchlow, who at sixty-six was one of the younger keepers in the Menagerie. He touched his cap slightly.
"Won an architectural award, miss!" he said, slightly defensively. "The Burgholt Stuttley Johnson Hamster Cage!"
Johanna nodded. She'd heard of B.S. Johnson. This made a special sort of sense. She'd also heard of the Guild of Architects, an organisation that was forever entranced by stylistic victories of form over function, and gave prestigious prizes to buildings that looked good but catastrophically failed to do what they were meant to. She'd heard Johnson had a special cabinet built for his architectural prizes.
"Tell me, Mr Grinchlow. Did Mr Johnson elso design elephant enclosures?"
"That he did, miss!" Grinchlow said, beaming. "I got it in the office somewhere, in a desk drawer…"
Johanna turned away, trying not to let her Howondalandian soul be affronted by the spectacle of Daphne the elephant climbing into the treadmill, and the deep-pitched croaking and groaning as it spun into life.
"Daphne loves her exercise periods so." Grinchlow said, through a seraphic smile. "That Mr Da Quirm, who lives up the Palace, he wants to attach the spindle to a machine that he thinks will generate power. Mind you, he's a loony. It'll never work."
"Hes nobody ever tried?"
"He were burbling a bit and he weren't too clear about it, but powering a lightning lemon from a machine operated by an elephant rotating a treadmill? That's loony, if ever I heard loony!"
Johanna sighed and dropped the topic.
"We ere ell yours, Mr Grinchlow. Show us where the pumps and hoses are, end where the Pelece gardeners keep the wheelbarrows end spades, end we cen stert work!"
"Right you are, miss. So you're from Howondaland? You'll have seen these animals in the wild, a whole flock of elephants? I only saw more'n two the once, when the Moving Pictures were on and this clever little sod from round your way delivered a thousand to the city gates. They din't half make a mess of the cabbage harvest!"(1)
"It was before my time here, Mr Grinchlow" Johanna said, feigning innocence. She remembered it had caused a diplomatic incident between her home country and Ankh-Morpork, each claiming the other had behaved badly and irresponsibly. She vaguely remembered her uncle, who was a civil servant in the exports department, had issued export licences and passports to the two blacks who had received Dibbler's order, as he had seen a trade opportunity(2).
And anyway, elephants were a protected species who b ecause they were protected, were causing a bleddy nuisance on the Veldt, and needed a way of thinning their numbers without culling them. Her uncle had also been the sort of liberal who'd argued for years that black Howondalandians should be allowed greater freedoms for overseas trade as it would enrich the country as a whole. His career hadn't survived the debacle, but oddly enough, neither of the blacks involved had been censured on their return – their misfortune was put down to Ankh-Morpork being bleddy unreasonable and stroeppy-awkward. They'd been feted as heroes, in fact.
"We kept these two, anyway, miss, as the Menagerie needed new elephants".
She nodded, and took a step towards the male elephant. It looked suspiciously down at her through piggy little eyes and flapped its ears in warning.
"I wouldn't go too near, miss. He can get funny."
"What's his name?" she asked, making eye contact.
"Hendrik (3), miss. The Patrician insisted. That black lad who delivered the elephants was riding on his back. Lordship had one of his little smiles on at the time."
"Yes, I'll bet he did!"
Johanna took a step further, without breaking eye contact, and gently said
"Hendrik. Ek is seker jy dit nie gehoor het hierdie taal in 'n ruk, hmmm?"
The elephant inclined its head to her with an "I'm listening" expression on its face.
"Do you heve eny rusk or mealiepap or eny hup? Suitable food, thet is. I believe he will feed from me. Is kiff, Hendrik."
The old keeper practically ran to fetch some stale bread buns.
"What did you say to him, miss? He's usually difficult around new faces!"
"It's because he doesn't speak Morporkien, thet's why!" Johanna said, allowing a bun to be taken from her hand. "I told him I bet nobody's spoken proper Vondalaans to him in years. End if he didn't respond to thet, I hed some Zulu fired up and ready to go!"
She gently removed an affectionate trunk from her shoulder, and led her new friend to see what the students were up to. She knew they were a capable group: several teams were setting up water pumps and hoses from the Palace wells, others had set to in the cages with shovels and wheelbarrows. As the wheelbarrows were filled, others were pushing them off to the Palace compost heaps elsewhere in the gardens. She spoke to the pumping teams and explained that elephants are cleanly animals. There is nothing they like better than to cool themselves in the rain or to spray each other with water. While you are waiting to clean the cages, I would like you to spray a lot of water over Hendriks. He will appreciate that.
Leaving a happy elephant trumpeting his appreciation for a bath, she took a turn in the cage loading a wheelbarrow, enjoying the simple healthy exercise of it. Pushing the barrow out, she half-glimpsed a black clad figure falling into step with her. Taking him for a student at first, she was about to fire off a loaded comment on the benefits of hard work, and why are you not doing any. Then looked again, and sagged slightly with relief that she had held the remark back. Her students might be wearing black, but she was pretty sure none of them had a well-trimmed goatee beard.
"My Lord?"
"The very capable miss Smith-Rhodes, I think. I won't in the circumstances ask to shake your hand, but you and your pupils are doing a fine job. Commendable. May we talk? Away from the students and Palace staff?"
Johanna smiled and wheeled the barrow on. In the circumstances it was a hard offer to refuse.
"None of my gardeners are anywhere to be seen, I note." The Patrician remarked. "Strictly speaking, this end of the task is theirs."
"It's no problem, sir. I ellowed for this".
"Indeed. My colleague here advises me you made something of a breakthrough in an ongoing investigation some time ago."
The Dark Clerk known to her as Mr {[Cough}} fell into step with them. He nodded pleasantly at them. Johanna wasn't surprised, Before setting out, she had advised her students that they were going into the heart of the government buildings as student Assassins, and in the case of eight of us, as nationals of other countries. We will be watched. I want you to treat this as an additional exercise and look out for the people watching you, and for the sort of places that you could be observed from . We can discuss this later. Thank you.
"The vexatious case of the serial killer known popularly as the Marriage Guidance counsellor. I understand that using your diplomatic accreditation, you were able to penetrate the premises of the prime suspect and make a very detailed report which added further circumstantial evidence indicating that she is, indeed, the killer we are searching for. Excellent work. The Guild student who accompanied you is also to be praised, of course. "
Vetinari fell silent for a moment. Mr {{Cough}} took over the account.
"As the past few weeks have been quiet with little new information and no new inhumations, the members of the investigating team have perhaps been too busy catching up with their other duties to realise that the prime suspect was very badly shaken by your visit. She perhaps had an intimation you were not all you claimed to be. She may even have seen you before somewhere in your substantive occupation as Assassin. Who knows? In any case, she was subsequently seen to visit the offices of the Ankh-Morpork Times. The observing team following her did not put too high an importance on this visit. They made what in other circumstances would have been the correct deduction that as a lady of means who runs a thriving business, Doctor Bellamy was visiting the Times to discuss advertising, and nothing more significant than that transpired."
"However" said Vetinari, "when the Times' archivist, Ms. Hauser, attended her God of the Month session, and made her peace with the God Cephut(4) by, metaphorically speaking, shaving the sins from her soul in a closed confessional. Alas for confidentiality, the gargoyle perched on the wall above the confessional was working for me. Being bound by no oath of confidentiality, he of course came to me."
Vetinari smiled a very slight satisfied smile. Johanna listened.
"Doctor Bellamy asked to search old archive copies of the Times with the intention of locating iconographs that proved her suspicions concerning the Assassins' Guild being close on her tracks. Ms. Hauser located graduation photographs from some years previously, which allowed Doctor Bellamy to ascertain that the Howondalandian Embassy employee named as Johanna van der Kaiboetje was in fact the licenced Assassin called Johanna Smith-Rhodes. She is now in some perturbation as to exactly why an Assassin should have called on her with an assumed name and identity. The good ms Hauser was very concerned for her friend and went on to confess that some time ago, they discussed ways and means of , er, removing, Mr Hauser from this vale of tears. Happily for his continued existence, however, the Hausers chose divorce as a less drastic means of ending their marriage. But Ms. Hauser, who I believe to be a woman of sterling morality, remains guilty that she considered murder and regarded it as a matter for the confessional.
"She was rather struck by her friend's intimate knowledge of plant-derived poisons and related toxins. She also related in the confessional that Doctor Bellamy assured her she could make it look like a natural death, and had in fact arranged this on one or two prior occasions, in return for a fee of five or six thousand dollars.
"Ms. Hauser is very concerned that her friend has brought the wrath of the Guild of Assassins down on her head. As is, indeed, Doctor Bellamy."
Johanna felt her mind beginning to work on the possibilities.
"But, sir, is it not safeguarded in law that the religious confessional is sacred and private, end enything said there may not be repeated outside, nor used to incriminate a person in the court?"
She hoped not: having learned to trust him, she'd said a few deep and personal things, in strict privacy, to the Guild's chaplain, who she counted as a close friend.
The Patrician shook his head.
"Unhappily, you have stated the case. A confession derived in these circumstances would be ruled inadmissible in court. We are still tied by the rule of law and of gathering conclusive admissible evidence. But we can use this knowledge indirectly, in other ways."
Mr {[Cough}} spoke again.
"She is a frightened woman living with a secret. We can make use of that, Apply psychological pressure. She knows you are an Assassin. It would be advantageous if she were to see you occasionally in the street. Chance encounters. Perhaps you should go to the pet shop on Pelicool Steps? You have a special interest in animals, after all, and Miss Speaker is keen to expand into exotics, such as snakes and reptiles. They are a special interest of yours, I believe? You might wish to, perhaps, suggest Miss Speaker acts as an agent for selling the more, ah, harmless, creatures you breed at the Guild, and which are surplus to requirements. Or you might wish to buy tanks and equipment through her, as you always have a need for vivariums."
"And I believe there is a very good Brindisian restaurant on the other side of Bellamy's Florists". Vetinari added. "I would consider that to be the ideal venue for lady teachers at the Guild school to have a lunch outside the Guild. The menu at the Guild is good, but it gets a trifle repetitive, don't you think? We had mixed grill on a Thursday night in my day!"
"Can we claim expenses?" Johanna forced herself to ask. The patrician laughed, humourlessly.
"On production of a valid receipt. I might allow generosity concerning your selection from the wine list. Ah, here are my gardeners, to, I hope, take this noxious wheelbarrow from your hands."
They walked back to the Menagerie together.
"Let her see you on Pelicool Steps." Vetinari urged. "Not as a stalker, of course, but always as a person with a legitimate interest for being in the area. Let her worry. It will eat her mind. By all means take the redoubtable Miss Sanderson-Reeves with you. Or Miss Band, as I understand Lord Downey is about to turn down her request for dedicated climbing walls on cost grounds. Ideally shortly after she gets the memo."
Vetinari smiled, and smoothly changed tack as another couple of barrowloads of elephant dung approached, propelled by cheerfully sweating students.
"I have instructed the kitchen to lay on refreshments for your students." he said. "I know they will already have eaten at the Guild, but hard work and young appetites, and all that. It gives me a chance to thank them personally, too. "
The barrows passed.
"I know I'm asking a lot of somebody who already has a very busy week, but with Professor Attenborough now indisposed, I will require an advisor on animal handling matters You are simply the most outstanding candidate. Expenses will be paid, of course, but this is pro bono, for the good of the city…"
"I eccept, sir. Does it make a difference thet I em not a Morporkien netional?"
"You are a licenced Assassin. You are also a citizen of the Republic of Rimwards Howondaland and have occasional diplomatic accreditation. As a trained Assassin and one who moves in diplomatic circles, I'm sure you know how the game is played. If I have information that I wish neither your uncle the ambassador nor Lord Downey to know about, I will endeavour not to discuss it in front of you. Otherwise you might feel obliged to inform them. I would not blame you for that, you have other loyalties. But I would not place you in an impossible position either. I would trust your good sense and judgement to treat occasional work at the Palace like, perhaps…"
"..the confessional box?" Johanna found herself saying.
Vetinari laughed.
"Indeed, miss Smith-Rhodes. The confessional box."
But as the penitent inside or as the gargoyle on the wall above, she wondered. She noted Vetinari had deliberately not made this clear.
New thoughts were occupying her mind as to how psychological pressure could be applied to Davinia Bellamy. She'd have a word with Joan and Alice later.
(1) See Moving Pictures, where two Howondalandian entrepreneurs bring a herd of one thousand elephants to the city to meet a request from clacks mogul C.M.O.T. Dibbler.
(2) This unprecedented issue of passports and the right to independent travel to two Howondalandian blacks had caused controversy in the Staadt, but Johanna's uncle had argued, persuasively, that two black citizens herding an ever-growing herd of elephants Hubwards were going to bleddy well go where they pleased anyway, passports and export licences or not. It was better for the look of the thing and the maintenance of apartheid if they were given official permission. This way it could be presented as an exercise in racial harmony, it would look good in an overseas press that was forever making critical noises about Rimwards Howondaland, and be seen as an unprecedented liberal gesture.
(3) On Roundworld, "Hendriks" was the forename of a Boer politican who was one of the architects of the apartheid regime.
Vetinari is presumably making a political joke about his Discworld counterpart.
(4) Cephut is the god of Cutlery. His remit is understood to include all those things with blades created by Cutlers, which have a positive environmentally friendly non-lethal application, such as canteens of cutlery, kitchen knices, bladed catering utensils, plowshares, and of course shaving razors. The supplicant is therefore invited to shave away her sins from her soul using the blade of her tongue, as she does the very unwanted hairs from her legs and underarms or bodily area of cultural choice.
However, Cephut himself has pointed out that there is a demarcation issue here, as the skills of the cutler, in time of war, become those of the swordsmith. And look at the number of domestic killings brought about by housewives, forced to the brink, who reach for the kitchen knife. Also regard what a plowshare famously might have been before it became a plowshare. And since none of you thick bloody War Gods have thought these issues through, none of you have staked a claim to being the god of swordsmiths, so I'm claiming 'em. Look, friend, what else is a sword but a longer heavier knife… Cephut, following the collapse of the theological system in Djelibeybi which nurtured him (see Pyramids) , and who had been summoned into the world in a state of some confusion when Time and Space went critical in that country, saw no reason to dissappear into the void of Small Gods when normality reasserted itself, following the fall of the Pyramid and the temporal relocation of Dios. Instead, he had given some tought as to how a man-shaped God with the head of a dog could thrive in this exciting new world, and rrealised that because every home on the Disc has some sort of set of eating utensils, there was a niche for him to occupy.
Helped by the Goddess Errata and that business over the Tsortean Falchion (see Terry Pratchett's script for the computer game Discworld Noir), Cephut wrested demarcation rights and some power from the War Gods by a practical application of brains baffling bullshit. He is believed to have come to a subsequent amicable agreement with the Goddess Anoia, a deity whose remit resonates in harmony with his (before a drawer can stick, somebody needs to twist a knife, fork or blunt-bladed kitchen utensil such as a spatula, just so.)
It looks as if the Anoia-Cephut partnership is propelling both Gods further up the ladder...