Nothing to it, really! 14.
Moving the story on to the conclusion with mayhem, fighting, and (no spoilers). People will get hurt. Including the good guys. No getting around this. Ground rules: condense to
Drink Rooibuis tea.
And here we are, trying to wrap up this tale. To get to the end where the bad guys get theirs (did you think they wouldn't?) and nicer things happen.
Oh - Tegg's Nose really exists. It's a disused quarry near Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, that's now a country park used for recreational purposes including rock-climbing and - yes - cross-country running.
An unspecified location, somewhere in Ankh-Morpork:
The latest safe house was worse than its predecessors. Water dripped and condensed on the walls. Three men, none of them angels, all of them criminals with long and depressingly black records, looked anxiously in the general area of the fourth. Between them they'd committed just about every serious crime in the statute book and even invented at least one new one. On two continents. But the fourth, the ringleader, a man of dark and compelling charisma backed with homicidal strength and primal anger, was the worst of the four by a long way. And none of the other three dared run. Or even could run. They were in too deep. Even if they could have evaded du Plessis, all of them were dead men walking and wanted in at least five jurisdictions. Their names and likenesses had been widely circulated. Even Trolls and Dwarfs wanted their heads. At the last count, at least six separate agencies were out trying to track them down. If they were lucky, the end would be some sort of trial and some sort of noose. Or if the Quirmians got them, the guillotine.
Benckel, the nearest thing the group had to an intellectual, the man with the alchemical know-how to make bombs, reflected that they said the guillotine was instantaneous. He hoped it was. Even though he remembered when they'd first been incarcerated in Howondaland, in the slave-farm whey they'd thought they were safe, one of those scary women had remarked loudly, just where they could hear it, the bitch, about life persisting in a severed head for several minutes after decapitation, with the stump of your spinal column registering only excruciating pain, seemingly radiating from your whole body. Evil fucking bitch. He'd found out her name was Jocasta something. He'd looked her up in an Assassins' Guild directory of licenced practitioners. He'd wanted to go for her, and that Quirmian woman. The Quirmian was pregnant, wasn't she? Easy meat. Barely able to swing a sword right now. Not like the Band woman, who was dangerous and had a reputation. People in the Troll's Head weren't the sort who scared easily, but they all remembered the night the Band woman had called in and chopped people up, easy as blinking. (1) No, go for the pregnant Quirmian. But duPlessis had vetoed that for now, saying "Later".
Now Benckel saw more clearly why. He'd allowed them to go for that kaffir girl, the policewoman, at her family business. Slipping a bomb on the delivery cart so some other poor sap would convey it to her door had been a pleasure. Bloody blecks, ecting like real people. They need reminding where their place is.
The bomb sent to the Patrician, the one who had the power, had been designed not only to deliver a "voetsaak!" message to the man agitating for their deaths. It had been to spread confusion and tie up the Watch, diverting them from other duties. And killing Vetinari would have taken out the one man capable of uniting all the countries that were arguing over when and how to kill them. It meant a stay of execution for the other bros in that hellhole prison, the ones who hadn't escaped: maybe they'd end up just serving life, or at least having more time to plan their own escape.
And the hit and run raid on the Embassy made sense too. They'd have got van der Graaf, killed him dead, if that huge rhinoceros of a man hadn't used his own body as a shield. Benckel frowned. The idea of deliberately sacrificing yourself for somebody else was foreign to him. Oh, sure, you do a bro a favour. He remembers, he does you one back, yesno? Good sense. But not at the expense of your own life. Anyway, they'd delivered a vengeance on the country that had consigned each of them to long prison sentences. Humiliated the bastards. Made it look like they couldn't defend their own Embassy. They'd laughed at the newspaper reports afterwards. But duPlessis had gone into a black rage.
And Benckel now knew, or suspected he knew, what the deeper motivation was, the beetle inside the head of duPlessis that was driving him more and more insane.
He'd screamed in anger that while they'd got the Ambassador, they'd killed the two senior military commanders at the embassy, they'd knocked down seven or eight of those toy soldiers, all they'd done to the Smith-Rhodes bastard was to shoot his hat off. The local newspaper had run an iconograph of the bastard showing off the officer's cap with the crossbow bolt sticking through it.
And duPlessis had been galvanised by something else he'd read in the paper, in the back sporting pages, and he'd gone off on a recce of his own. The other three had considered running for it while he was gone, but, dispirited and worn down by the months spent escaping and evading from a Justice they all knew would inevitably find them, and knowing that even if Justice didn't find them, Preet duPlessis almost certainly would, they'd just sat there. Tried to sleep. Didn't even ask what was so important.
And duPlessis went again that afternoon with a small powerful crossbow. He stole a horse. He returned, rubbing a badly bruised arm and laughing with delight. Benckel, alarmed, recognised insane laughter. He'd heard a lot of it in various prisons.
If I survive this, he thought, if this crazy bro dies and I live, I'll try to get to Fourecks. Or the Foggy Islands. See what a man can do there.
DuPlessis was crowing about having got one. One of the Smith-Rhodes bitches. One of that bloody hoity snooty superior bastard family. One less. And the other bitch is next. The older one.
Benckel, very cautiously, took the evening copy of the Times from him. The headline proclaimed MURDERER STRIKES ON THE SPORTS FIELD! in large letters. Smaller capitals underneath shouted MAD RANDOM SHOOTER ATTACKS SCHOOLGIRLS. Even smaller capitals added CONFUSION AT ASSASSINS' SCHOOL SPORTS MEETING: ONE PUPIL BELIEVED KILLED. EVENT BREAKS UP IN CONFUSION. GAMBLERS' GUILD ADJUDICATED THAT ALL BETS WERE NULL AND VOID.
The article itself soberly related how school pupil Mariella Smith-Rhodes (13), a rising star in track athletics and a future international athletic prospect, had been brutally assaulted by an unknown assailant with a crossbow, who had got clean away. A fellow pupil, identity with-held by request of the Watch and the School, had valiantly attacked the lone crossbowman with thrown rocks and driven him off. She was able to give a full description to the Watch later. The Guild of Assassins has not disclosed the current condition of Miss Smith-Rhodes, but eyewitnesses report seeing an inert body carried away on a stretcher and loaded into a fast carriage, later seen arriving at the Guild. Her older sister, Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes (32?), a prominent Assassin, was later seen rushing into the Guild, looking drawn and tight-faced. She declined to give an interview. The Rimwards Howondalandian Embassy has been informed, and will no doubt be tasked with breaking the bad news to the family at home…
"I got her!" duPlessis announced to nobody in particular. "One of that bloody damned family! And the other missie is next!"
Benckel realised. The focus of the man's obsessive, psychotic, hatred was the Smith-Rhodes family. He now had a clear idea of where they were going to strike next. And he was not looking forward to it. It would be like going for a mother rattel defending her surviving cubs against the hunters who she knew had killed one. A rattel with vengeance on her mind. From a family of rattels.
The Assassins' Guild Infirmary, Wednesday evening.
Mariella Smith-Rhodes shifted uncomfortably in the bed. Her injured leg was propped up on a soft block to elevate it, the injury wrapped in neat white bandages. While it was getting her a couple of days off school, she itched to be mobile and up and running again. Doing something. Confinement to a bed was not something she took to gladly. But she'd been told to stay here, in this small private room in the Infirmary, excused lessons for now. She recalled the real shock of the wound had hit her while she was on the stretcher. Cold, frozen, aware how near she had come to death, she had pulled the blanket up over her face, not wanting to be seen, and tried to hide, just lying there, still and quiet. She had heard girls crying, from a long distance away. Then the carriage, the jolting making her leg scream with pain, bringing her back to earth again.
Igorina had deftly removed the crossbow bolt and had asked her to brace herself as she probed inside the wound, retrieving a scrap of her running sock that had been forced in there by the bolt. That had hurt. But Mariella knew about wounds and decided pain now was preferable to not having a leg at all later. Then it was all over, something had been applied to numb the worst of the pain, and Igorina was apologising that there would still be a matching pair of scars, one on each side of her leg, albeit faint ones. A warm soothing drink was offered. Mariella tasted hot soothing sweet chocolate, with an added ingredient she couldn't identify.
Then sleep.
And then visitors. Johanna and Cousin Julian were the first. Then Lord Downey himself accompanied by her Housemistress, Mademoiselle de Badin-Boucher. Mlle. Antoinette had said something colourful in Quirmian about the situation, but had reassured herself the wound was not critical. In a faraway floating state of mind, Mariella listened as a conference happened at the bedside. Johanna sounded furious. Downey sounded nervous under a surface layer of smooth conciliation. Well, he's dealing with my sister in a stroep. That gets anyone anxious.
She gathered some sort of necessary deception was being proposed, and tried to make herself focus. Johanna seemed to give grudging consent to something. Cousin Julian made a comment. Mariella sensed her cousin was being diplomatically amenable, building a bridge, smoothing over, asking how he should phrase his report to the Embassy about attempted murder of a citizen in the care of an Ankh-Morpork school.
Downey eventually turned to her.
"I must sincerely apologise, Miss Smith-Rhodes." he said. "We simply did not think our students were at risk of attack from unknown assailants whilst going about their legitimate sporting pursuits. Security at the sports fields was lax."
"Bloody non-existent." Johanna said, in a low voice. Downey winced.
"Although it's no consolation to you, we will, of course, be reviewing security arrangements at Tegg's Nose and instituting new measures to ensure there can be no repetition. We take a duty of care to our students most seriously."
Mariella saw Downey turning to her, his face gravely attentive and full of concern. Inside she thought We take a dim view of outsiders trying to kill our pupils. That's our job!
"We failed you in that duty of care and I most sincerely apologise. A sum of compensation will of course be paid. I will agree this with your sister, who is your legal guardian and next-of-kin during your stay in this city."
He breathed out. "I'm told there will be no lasting complications of your wound, excluding a certain amount of scarring? Good."
"She will be able to walk again in three days." Matron Igorina said from behind Downey, making him jump. Mariella suspected she had done it on purpose to remind him Igors could sneak up unobserved even on Assassins.
The Matron ticked off points on her fingers.
"Trauma damage owing to a sharp slightly barbed metal device inserted with great force. Torn gastrocnemius muscle at the fascia with the soleus. Achilles tendon partially ruptured by the passage of the aforesaid barbed device moving at great impact speed."
Downey looked politely blank. Igorina sighed. She resorted to layman's terms.
"She took an arrow through the calf, halfway up the leg, at the point where two muscle groups conjoin to form the Achilles tendon, which is the main lever for moving the foot."
Igorina held up an arrow in a gloved hand.
"The Watch have done what they can with this." she said, and laid it down on the bedside table. "I suggest Miss Smith-Rhodes keep the bolt that might have killed her as a souvenir, and as a reminder that joining the Assassins can be dangerous."
Igorina frowned at Johanna.
"All damage repaired. Wound cleaned and disinfected. Patient expected to make a full recovery. Now am I wasting my breath in saying no walking for three days? No running of any sort for at least seven? And no competitive running for at least fourteen?"
The frown became more disapproving. "Because this family has a history of ignoring medical advice. I remember a colleague treating a Smith-Rhodes with a broken forearm and telling her not to put any weight or stress on it. And what does she do, the idiot woman goes out and starts shooting a crossbow, and of course the recoil re-breaks her arm!" (2)
She glared at Johanna. Who had the good grace to remember and look away.
"I'll tell you later." she said to Julian. "You need to know, es it involved enother etteck on the Embassy. Different enemy, thet time."
"I'm told you managed to assemble a weapon of last resort, despite your wound." Downey said to Mariella. "That displayed impressive resolve and ingenuity."
"I remember Ponder – Professor Stibbons – talking ebout a wizard called Rincewind." Mariella said. "When everything else failed end megic was no use, Rincewind took off one of his socks end filled it with helf a brick, so thet he et least hed a cosh to swing. I hed no formal weapons. But around me there were rocks. End I hed socks."
Downey nodded.
"Improvised weapons as a last-ditch resort." he said, approvingly. "And as Miss N'Kime reported, the resolution to use them. Miss de Badin-Boucher, please enter this on her permanent record as a skill and a commendation? Thank you."
And then the Deception was explained to her.
"People saw a still covered body being carried away on a stretcher." Downey said. "The Ankh-Morpork Times made the assumption there had been a fatality and attached your name to it. We have not lied outright or confirmed that you are dead. The newspaper has only been told that we cannot release any information until your family in Howondaland have been informed, as they should know first. Decency dictates, and all that. Regrettably, breaking the news to your parents will require sending a messenger on the flying carpet service. This will take at least three days."
Mariella tried to sit up.
"You're going to tell my parents I'm dead?" she exclaimed. Downey raised a hand and shook his head. Johanna scowled.
"No. Here, we are doing nothing to dispel a rumour, fostered by inaccurate Press reporting, that a pupil was killed in a murderous attack. That is their error. A messenger will be despatched to Howondaland with instructions to speak to your parents, express regret at your injury, but to reassure them you are in no danger. You will be given opportunity to write a letter to reassure them you are alive and well, regardless of what they might see when copies of our newspapers reach Howondaland. I want them to hear it from us first rather than see it in print. So I'm sending our messenger with the Pegasus service. She will arrive well before the Klatchians deliver copies of our newspapers for dissemination or local circulation."
Mariella turned this over in her head. It sounded as if some sort of game was being played.
"Pupils here will be advised that you are critically ill. Although if you wish to name any special friends who may wish to visit you, we can facilitate this provided they swear to silence."
"Rivka bin-Divorah." Mariella said, without hesitation. "End Rupert Mericet. I know he will worry."
"Rupert Mericet?" Johanna asked. Rupert was a sixth-form boy. Much older than Mariella.
"He is a friend, Johanna." Mariella said. "We work together on the School newspaper. He is kind end friendly end encourages me. He treats me seriously, not es if I were a silly little girl. It is like having an older brother. There is nothing more."
"Hmmmph." Johanna said. She sounded unconvinced.
"The Mericet boy." Downey said, doubtfully. "Well, he can be advised that it is most important he keeps this confidence. Perhaps we can agree a form of words for the newspaper he edits."
After a pause, Mariella asked
"Sir? Why is it so important the world thinks me dead? Will you ellow me to return from the grave?"
"After perhaps a week. We want the men who attacked you – who attacked your cousin, who propose to attack your sister, the clever but deadly dangerous criminals who pose a threat - to believe they have scored a victory. We want them over-confident. We hope this will draw them out into making a mistake which allows us to catch them. If nothing emerges after seven days, you return, healed by Igorina, to the circles of the world. We propose that after a day or two here, you continue a leave of absence from the School to recuperate in your sister's home, away from prying eyes but under a strong guard. Your named closest friends will of course have access, provided they keep the secret. Is this acceptable to you?"
"Regrettable." Lord Vetinari said, calmly. President van Baalsteuwel indicated his agreement. They had quietly visited the other survivors of the attack on the Embassy. Most of them had reacted with alarm and consternation on identifying the visitors, but the President's good-humoured bonhomie had been like a sort of magic. Vetinari had reflected that Rimwards Howondaland being a democracy – a sort of democracy – where the President needed to perform the irksome task of being re-elected every five years, must select for men who were good at things like this. Who could project an attitude of care and concern and fellow-feeling with the ordinary man – emphasis on white and on man – in the street.
Vetinari had never really got the hang of that. He hadn't needed to. He stood back politely as van Baalsteuwel exchanged jokes and handshakes with his people – eight or nine votes assured there. Again, Vetinari mused on the selective nature of democracy in Rimwards Howondaland, where the emphasis was on one white man, one vote. (3) And then, only if the white man owned property worth more than R14,000. He understood intelligently frustrated white women were agitating for the vote which they currently did not have. But reflected it must make democracy more amenable if you only had to worry about the active approval of one in fifteen of your population.
"BOSS can tell me nothing." The President said. "All Verkramp has are summations of their military and prison careers and a list of crimes they have been indicted in. Apart from one chance meeting in a place favoured by white Howondalandians, and the information gleaned by your City Watch, we have nothing to go on. Although I had the great pleasure of speaking to the young lady who encountered them."
Vetinari studied the face of his fellow Head of State. It was said a younger van Baalsteuwel had been popular with the ladies. Age may have slowed him, but the charm remained. He recalled dining at the Embassy the previous night. The President had been seated, he suspected deliberately so, between the pleasant Lady Friejda and that somewhat attractive Social Secretary, the one whose beauty was in inverse proportion to her intellect, the one who had inadvertently assisted the criminals. Both had been flattered and enchanted by him.
He frowned slightly.
"If, as you say, they have gone to ground. The place to find rats and cockroaches is generally in holes and crevices. Or underground. Insanitary animals usually flee to deep dank places. I have instructed my intelligence associates to search the Undercity. However, the Undercity is extensive. It is not even fully mapped out. This will necessarily take time."
"Appreciated, Havelock. Now if I may ask you one last favour? I would like to visit the injured girl. Charles Smith-Rhodes would not forgive me if I did not. Can you facilitate a visit to the Guild of Assassins?"
"I need to confer with Donald Downey." Vetinari agreed. "A visit will serve both purposes."
Alice Band tried one of her classroom glares. It didn't work on the angry girl who stood across the desk from her.
"Miss Band, I repeat. Nobody dies from an arrow through the leg. Well. Not unless the arrow was poisoned. But I saw it. I dressed her wound. She was conscious and capable of speech. She nearly hit me with that cosh she made! I want to see her!"
Alice Band reflected that this was a very long speech from the normally taciturn Miss N'Kima. It reflected passion and depth of feeling. She respected passion in her girls. Sensibly used, it could be a useful tool in an Assassin's armoury provided you didn't let it override your head.
"I honestly don't know what condition she's in." Alice said, honestly. "I never got to see Johanna – Doctor Smith-Rhodes. But I'm reliably told she didn't look happy. The way you'd expect to look if somebody had killed your sister. And anyway, it's all under strict lockdown. I will make enquiries for you. It's reasonable you should ask, as you were there. I'll make that point to the Master. Especially since the Watch questioned you for over an hour."
Sissi N'Kime had indeed been interviewed. With Miss N'Kweze and Canon Clement in attendance, she had gone over every aspect of the incident with a sympathetic Captain Angua. Her description of the attacker had matched the fugitive duPlessis in every respect. She'd seen him clearly and witnessed him riding back, Rimwards by Widdershins, towards the City. Angua had matched that to a description of a stolen horse recovered near Leastways. Incredibly, a honest citizen had led the horse to a Watch-house and handed it over as lost property.(4) It was another lead. Angua suspected the fugitives were starting to get tired and were beginning to make mistakes as the slow, plodding, but above all, remorseless, police chase caught up with them. The Watch had again descended in force on the Leastways area where the horse had been found, but nothing had emerged yet.
Rats got everywhere, the criminal called Ouistrehaam thought, sourly, as the verdammte creature dodged his boot. It disappeared into a hole in the bare wall. But there'd be another one along sooner or later. There always was, in this damp place. At least they wouldn't be there for much longer. The baas-fella wanted one last big raid on a big target. Then he'd promised he'd think about them dispersing and going their separate ways. There was too much heat now. Everybody seemed to be looking out for them. Thieves, Assassins, policemen, the Howondalandians… distantly, Ouistrehaam heard the chittering of another rat in the wall. He sank deeper into his gloom.
At Vetinari's suggestion, Heidi van Kruger (the nominated messenger to Howondaland) took several iconographs of Mariella sitting up in bed, smiling and pointing down to a copy of the Times that gloomily trumpeted about the murder of an Assassins' School student. A last photo had Mariella holding up a placard that said
Geliefde Mutti en Vatti. Ek is nog steeds lewendig! Moenie bekommerd wees oor my. Met liefde, Mariella Elisabet. (5)
"I aten't dead yet". Vetinari said, mysteriously. He didn't elaborate the joke. Heidi added a picture of what she thought was an incongruous family group, of Johanna and Julian on either side of Mariella. The old Howondandian man who had accompanied Vetinari and declined to be introduced as anything other than a "family friend" said
"Very prudent, Havelock. Agnetha will be keeping count of the weeks, as a grandmother does, and will know it is a recent iconograph of her older daughter." He added a question in Vondalaans – "how many weeks now?", and Johanna answered.
"Keep me informed." Van Baalsteuwel requested. "Julian, my flight back home will leave very early tomorrow. If you have any letters or despatches, please have them ready by then."
He nodded down at Mariella, who had been shocked to recognise the old man and had wondered how on Disc he'd got here.
"A pleasure, my dear. A shame it had to be in these circumstances, but Smith-Rhodes women are notoriously hard to kill. People do keep trying, though."
About an hour later, an unscheduled Pegasus flight took off for Howondaland. Irena Politek and flight Feegle Buggy Swires were getting Heidi van Kruger back Home by the speediest of methods. For the look of the thing, she'd been seen taking off on a scheduled long-haul carpet belonging to Klatchian Carpetways. But by arrangement with the Klatchians, a Pegasus popped out of Feegle-Space just below and to the left of the commercial carpet. Heidi took a deep breath, tried to ignore the fact she was currently several thousand feet up, and dropped down, swinging herself into the pillion position behind Irena. As consternated passengers looked on, the Pegasus banked away into a convenient cloudbank, where Buggy performed the craw-step…
Johanna returned home. Ponder had been briefed, and tensed himself for dealing with her in a foul mood. He was surprised when she kissed him and said "Thenk you for telling Mariella ebout Rincewind. You know, the half-brick- inna- sock".
Johanna then told the household staff about what had happened to Young Madam, and that she would be staying here for a few days to recover. The servants responded with mixed grief and relief. Claude the butler looked grave and his expression was unreadable. Johanna studied him. That was not the sort of reaction she would have expected. Blessing was weeping, Dorothea looked angry, and the house-goblins were chattering among themselves in a way she'd last seen when the former slaves in Howondaland had decided to arm themselves and fight. Johanna felt reasonably assured they'd fight for her if it came to that.
She looked at Claude again. In the time she'd employed him, he appeared to have changed from a slightly worried, put-upon, senior "houseboy" as they were known at Home – all male black servants could be a "boy" even if they were middle-aged and greying of hair. She'd put it down to her more relaxed manner of running a household in the Ankh-Morporkian manner, combined with the tuition she was paying for from Willikins and The Guild of Gentlemens' Gentlemen And Senior Domestic Servants. He was blossoming into a very diligent and capable butler indeed, in the Ankh-Morporkian way. Johanna had remarked to him that this meant, once his term of indenture to the Embassy was up, he'd be able to name his own wage at Home from the sort of people who wanted a butler rather than a major-domo. Ankh-Morpork-trained butlers were rare in Rimwards Howondaland. Claude had considered this, and mildly remarked that having seen this City, he might not want to return Home, madam. Johanna had considered this. She wondered how easy it would be to persuade her uncle to wangle him a permanent visa to carry on living outside the Staadt. Blacks were not, generally, allowed to emigrate. Maybe I can get him a permit to live here so long as he works for me, she thought.
But there was something else there. She'd witnessed him helping the Boy to cut firewood for winter. Claude had wielded an axe with what she recognised was proficiency. She'd seen him helping Dorothea to joint a half-carcass of lamb for winter preservation. A woman who knew about bladed weapons, she'd seen more than just competence there, as well as an instinctive knowledge of where to cut. Trainee butchers hacked, often trying to hack through the thickest bones out of inexperience and brute force. An experienced butcher knew exactly where to apply the blade, so as to chop through in one smooth cut. This was something the Assassins taught, albeit for a different purpose, on a different but similar anatomy.
And all the servants except Claude were still uneasy about the weapon displays on the walls. She'd seen him, in quiet reflective moments, almost appraising the crossbows, blades and sharp pointy things, as if refreshing old memories.
No, I need that word with him, she decided.
"I don't want to do thet again in a hurry." Heidi said to Irena. She was still shaking slightly from the mid-air leap off the side of a flying carpet.
"They teach you gymnastics at the Guild, don't they?" Irena said, unfeelingly, as Buggy Swires sniggered from his comfortable seat in the mane. "Look upon it as a sort of Emergency Drop."
Heidi relaxed. If you closed your mind to a drop into the Circle Sea from ten thousand feet up, it had really been quite simple. The Pegasus had kept station just underneath the carpet, matching its speed. All Heidi had needed to do was to dangle, swing her legs, and drop the five feet or so to where Irena had caught and steadied her. Well, she could now report to the Guild that this was wholly doable as a manoeuvre… and Mr Harvey-Smith taught advanced riders to leap from saddle to saddle to change horses quickly in mid-gallop, of course… she'd done that training too…
"Of course, we don't envy you your job." Irena said, mildly. She'd met Johanna's father at her wedding. Having to break the news his youngest daughter had been injured by an attacker would not be pleasant for the messenger. Having to explain to him why the Guild considered it expedient for the world to persist in the mistaken impression that Mariella had been murdered…. Irena shuddered slightly.
"Yon Barbarossa's a bigjob among the bigjobs, aye." Buggy agreed, with the serenity of mind that comes of not having to break bad news to a man who had once arm-wrestled Mustrum Ridcully. And won. (6)
Heidi sighed. It would take sensitivity and diplomacy.
And things settled down again.
President van Baalsteuwel flew back to Howondaland via a second Pegasus. He carried a satchel full of reports and documents from the Embassy and others, as well as private letters for people such as Charles Smith-Rhodes. He had come to an agreement with Vetinari, privately agreed face-to-face without having to take other nations' opinions into account around a conference table. This necessarily sped up the process of international debate, and would cut through the morass of further interminable negotiation with six or seven governments.
In its essentials, it said the four renegades currently on the run in Ankh-Morpork, once apprehended, would be immediately tried, publicly, in that city. When found guilty – Vetinari had been scrupulous to amend this to a necessary If – they would publicly hang at the Tanty. Rimwards Howondaland was invited to send lawyers to argue the case, under its law, for punishment of the attack on the Embassy and murders of members of the diplomatic staff. The nations of Quirm, Matabeleland, the low Kingdom of the Dwarfs and the Diamond Kingdom of the Trolls were to be invited to send representatives to observe the proceedings. But they would have no further part in it and could like it or leave it. Negotiations were now over. The remaining eleven defendants from the earlier case, still in Quirmian custody, would be invited to meet Madame Guillotine, as soon as could be arranged under Quirmian law. Quirm was to be reminded, wholly coincidentally, about loans and loan guarantees held by finance houses in Ankh Morpork. And taxation on imports of wine, fine cheeses, snails, designer couture, and other consumer luxuries, would soon be up for renewal, Vetinari reflected.
"But we still have to detain them, Havelock." the President had remarked.
Vetinari had grinned a completely humour-free grin.
"Investigations proceed, Louis. They proceed."
And rats of all sorts proliferated in the Undercity. Its population of desperate beggars, down-and-outs, gnolls, goblins, and all the others who sink beneath the bottom, was being checked and investigated. It would not be long now before Vetinari's spies and messengers in the Underworld, very few of them human, got a definite lead.
Confined and bored, Mariella Smith-Rhodes was allowed discreet visitors the next day. Her friend Rivka bin-Divorah spent a couple of hours with her and left, having vowed a quiet vengeance on whoever did this to her friend. Mariella had no doubt she'd be merciless if whoever it was got within range of a throwing knife. Her next visitor made her sit up straight.
"You are not going to try and hit me with a cosh again?" her visitor said, with polite wariness.
"I epologise." Mariella said. "But I did not know who was going to eppear first. Hed it been the man who had shot me…"
Mariella had pulled the makeshift cosh back swiftly as Sissi had leapt out of the way. Then the Zulu girl had explained, hands held up empty, that her motivation was to help, if even a stupid Boor could grasp that. First aid had followed.
"I believe I elso owe you a new running vest." Mariella said, tacitly extending the apology.
Sissi nodded, and sat down by the bed.
"I thank you. But there is no need. Miss Band saw to it that I received a new one. She refused an offer to pay for it. I understood her to be well-disposed towards me. Then I asked about you, and insisted on seeing you."
She held out a basket.
"I understand in this country, fruit is the appropriate gift to one in hospital? They say the food in hospitals is abominable."
Mariella smiled. Food in the infirmary was that which was held to be suitable to invalids, thin soups, minimal bread, a bland diet, a lot less than she was accustomed to. She had not thought that an additional trial in hospital was to be underfed on poor food and to have to withstand the hunger pangs and the cravings for something worth eating.(7) It also seemed to be a blind spot among Igors, who seemed to believe that if you were able to criticise the diet and want something better, then you weren't really ill.
"Thenk you." Mariella said, selecting a handful of grapes. She noticed there was the obligatory pineapple in the basket. She wondered if that was a wry statement of her current predicament.
"Why are you here?" she asked. The Zulu girl looked like a quivering bundle of pent-up anger. And concern.
"I want you well!" Sissi said. "I want you fit! I want to run against you! You are still an enemy, Boor-girl. Don't misunderstand me. But an enemy who is worthy of honour! Such people, you cherish. You're the only one who is a real test of my running. Can you imagine how boring it will be not to have you on the track?"
"Keep your friends close, end your enemies closer." Mariella remarked, quoting something she'd heard. It might have been Lady T'Malia. She half-remembered T'Malia had been quoting Vetinari.
"Exactly!" Sissi said, emphatically. "How soon will you be able to run again? Properly run?"
"Igorina reckons a fortnight." she said. She noted the other girl's genuine concern, imperfectly hidden underneath the obligatory words. Mariella decided to go for broke.
"Sissi," she said, "You know they charge edmission to the grendstend when we run? Thet people like Medame Two-Swords make a lot of money betting on us? And we don't see a penny of it? People are making money out of us? Listen…"
And she outlined her plan.
Some time later, a Boor and a Zulu went against the general trend of their respective nations and shook hands, having agreed on a joint plan.
Johanna Smith-Rhodes took a lesson in Inimical Alchemy with a senior class, covering for a rare absence on the part of Mr Mericet. Apparently he'd been summoned to an emergency session of the Dark Council.
It was textbook stuff, covering the properties of certain alchemically refined reagents and their potential uses to the working Assassin, and it didn't stretch her too much. At lesson's end, she briefly said
"Mr Mericet, remain. I'd eppreciate a chat. Thenk you."
She meant Rupert Mericet, a sixth-form pupil who had the misfortune to be distantly related to the veteran teacher. Rupert tried, pointedly, not to be too good at alchemy, in self-defence. He was a founder member of the RATS club, Relatives of Assassin Teachers and Staff, a group of pupils bonded in the adversity of being related to teachers or being thought to be related to teachers. A fifth-form girl called Margaret Band was no relation to Alice Band, for instance, but everyone thought she was. Johanna knew other members included the Bellamy boys, and her own sister Mariella. The group was informally officially sanctioned, as a method of letting pupils in this position let off steam and help fellow sufferers along.
"Ma'am?" he said, politely. She studied him. Mericet was tall and lean with distinct dark good looks and a self-confident air. His quick wit was a legend among students, and had landed him into trouble for insubordination several times. (8) She suspected the carefully chosen "ma'am" was his way of pushing it with her, but let it slip.
Johanna left it for an interminable instant before she spoke.
"What hev you heard ebout my sister Mariella?" she inquired, watching his reaction. He blinked, then steadied himself.
"I understand I should give you my most sincere condolences." he said, but there was no humour or irony in his voice. She held his gaze.
"But. Forgive me if this is not the case. She's still alive, isn't she?"
Johanna nodded.
"Ja. And she hes esked if she cen see you."
Mericet's face could not conceal relief.
"I'm very pleased." he said. "She's bright. She's talented. She can write a good story. You wouldn't believe how rare that is! I like her. Err.."
He faltered, watching Johanna's eyes.
"Don't misunderstand me." he said, quickly. "I'm an only child. My parents didn't want to have any more kids. Sometimes, you know, it's nice to think of somebody like a little sister… the sort you'd like to have had…. errr…"
Johanna smiled, and patted his hand. He'd passed the test.
"I don't doubt you, Mr Mericet… Rupert. Mariella can tell you where I live. Drop by for dinner some time. Thenk you."
She dismissed him, reassuring him that dinners she and her husband hosted were informal. Then she reflected that in ten years' time, an age gap of four years wouldn't be as significant, and who knew? Then pulled herself up sharply, realising she was planning a possible husband for her sister. Mariella will find her own man, when she's good and ready. Don't meddle! Reasoning that it was pregnancy that was making her think like this, but consoling herself with the thought that Rupert's intentions were honest and laudable ones, not that she'd ever really suspected anything else, deep-down, she packed up her things and got on with her day.
Julian Smith-Rhodes went over the case-file for the tenth time, reading all the information available on the four hunted thugs. He noted that Preet duPlessis had first come to the attention of military authority aged nineteen, during his national service. There had been a difference of opinion with his commanding officer on active service. His unit had taken Zulu prisoners. DuPlessis had loudly advocated for losing the encumbrance of prisoners and had expressed a preference for killing them out of hand. His officer had intervened, there had been a confrontation, blows had been exchanged and duPlessis and other mutineers had gone under close arrest, later court-martialled.
Julian took a deep breath. Refusal of orders whilst in the front line. Striking an officer. Mutiny. Hanging offences. Although the officer had punched back, and harder, and because the accused had been under twenty, the death sentence had been mercifully commuted to five years in a military prison.
Julian tried to find a record of the court-martial. He was interested in finding out the identity of the officer who could not only still stand after taking a punch from duPlessis, but could counter with an even more damaging counter-punch. He wondered if it would turn out to be Colonel Breytenbach, due to be discharged from hospital soon after Igor attention. Breytenbach would have been a giant of a man even thirty odd years ago. And it added another reason for the Embassy attack.
Julian eventually found the court-martial record, hidden in the back of a very thick folder marked duPlessis, P. He translated the Vondalaans in his head as he read.
Evidence was given by Captain Andreas Smith-Rhodes, who testified that the assault on his person had followed an argument over disposition of several prisoners-of-war.
He blinked. He read on.
Captain Smith-Rhodes explained to the accused, in no uncertain terms, that he had every intention of getting back home as his wife had just had their first child, a daughter he hadn't yet seen…
Julian checked the dates. He did some mental arithmetic. Then he called, loudly, for the Duty Officer so as to send an urgent clacks to the City Watch and Guild of Assassins. He now knew who they'd be going for next. And he suspected he also had an idea as to why.
Heidi had not expected that Mr and Mrs Smith-Rhodes would hear her out in complete silence. She, Irena and Buggy had been invited to stay at the Smith-Rhodes farm and at least eat with everyone. Buggy had been regaling some of the younger children with Feegle song and story, and Irena had only had to rebuke him once for using bad language. Barbarossa, a man who recognised a kindred spirit, if one only six inches tall, had said he'd crack open the witblits later, if you're interested. Then he'd heard the story and appreciatively received the iconographs. Agnetha had wept for one daughter and expressed pride and satisfaction in the advanced pregnancy of the other.
"Johanna chose that life." Barbarossa said, slowly. "End the risks. We eccept thet. It doesn't mean we hev to like it, but we eccept thet."
His wife Agnetha nodded, sombrely. Heidi thought she could see a much older Johanna in her face. One who had never left home and accepted a different life.
"But they ignore her, to go efter my other daughter." He said. His face darkened. "A coward's way. Johanna can defend herself. She hes much practice. But to etteck Mariella. This enrages me."
He stood up, his bulk unfolding. Irena thought it was like a troll rumbling upright. The red beard fading to grey made him look like an old-time ogre.
"The ettecker is called duPlessis, you say? I remember one such. From my Army service. A worm of a man who used bullying end blustering. I corrected him meny times. Listen, Heidi. Listen, policewoman. There was the last time he dared go against my orders. Shortly after Johanna was born…"
Then Heidi and Irena heard the story too.
(1) Shameless plug. To my story Clowning Is A Serious Business.
(2) New shameless plug: to my story Why and Were.
(3) South Africa ignored womens' suffrage until 1930. Until then, only white men who owned property could vote. Universal suffrage to all white people regardless of property and social status had to wait another couple of years. Black and coloured people got no vote until the late 1990's.
(4) A completely honest citizen in Ankh-Morpork who sees not "a free horse for the taking", but "a lost horse needing to be reunited with its owner". Really incredible, but every police investigation deserves a lucky break every so often.
(5) "Dear Mummy and Daddy. As you can see, I'm not dead. Please disregard anything else you hear. Love, Mariella."
(6) It's like this. Part of the stellar roster of Ankh-Morporkian dignitaries who had attended her wedding to Ponder, Mustrum Ridcully had met Andreas Smith-Rhodes, and two extremely large men of approximately similar age, both powerful alpha males, had weighed each other up in a way the happy bride would have recognised as a primate dominance ritual;. Ridcully had amiably introduced himself as the nearest thing to the father of the groom, the lad's somewhat like a son to me, no parents of his own, you follow? Andreas Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes had nodded and said "Ja, I follow. Es it heppens, I em father of the bride, end it fells to me to pey for this day. We mey es well hev some fun." The two big men had then rolled up their sleeves and elected to arm-wrestle, loser buys the beers. Bets were made and a table was cleared. An appreciative crowd gathered round to watch Ridcully win the first round. Surprised, Barbarossa had offered "Best out of three?" After a lot of straining and grunting and ominous creaking from the table, Barbarossa won the second round. On the third round, the table collapsed. Then Agnetha Smith-Rhodes, a woman a third the size of her husband, put her foot down, and ordered Andreas not to carry on making a spectacle of himself. Barbarossa meekly said "Yes, dear", then laughed, slapped Ridcully on the back, and demanded beer for myself and my new friend Mustrum, the only man to beat me in an arm-wrestle!
(7) Really true. Really. As I mentioned, I was in hospital for a week. British hospitals are allowed to set their own diets and the quality varies widely. I discovered hospitals across Great Britain budget between £5.00 and £15.00 per day for all meals per patient. Guess which end of this scale Stepping Hill, Stockport, operates on? The food, correspondingly, is poorly prepared crap. It's an extra horror of being ill.
8 (8) I'm describing comedian and satirist Peter Cook here, who co-founded satirical magazine Private Eye and went on to forge a career in comedy, initially alongside his partner Dudley Moore. At school, Cook regularly got into trouble for cutting and accurate impersonations of his teachers and for slipping inflammatory stuff into the school magazine.