Clowning 25
Trying to sort out a glitch that means when I transfer a completed document from Word to FanFic, it puts the entire blessed thing into basic italics and really mucks up the formatting. I'm not sure what's going on here. But it takes a lot of sorting out.
Right, on with the tale. In which the Witzkrieg continues and militant Clowndom sets about looking for Mimensraum. Angua and her little group get deeply into a desperate position, Müning becomes a focal point for intrigue as the operatives there start a little mischief, reinforced by an underground resistance group out of Bad Blintz, and Lady Margolotta starts to exert her influence. But we begin in Ankh-Morpork…
EDIT: Revising a few glaring typos and adding an odd line here and there. Miss Drapes, now in her own right a Fool, needed a Face. Her egg is no doubt enshrined in the Registry...
Sam Vimes grinned. It was the grin of a man who is beginning to feel he is getting the upper hand, and that the light at the end of the tunnel is not, as he feared, the little pilot light in the back of a dragon's throat.
The most senior member of the Council of Mirth on the premises of the Fools' Guild had turned out to be the determined Guild Financial Controller, Miss Drapes. While Vimes suspected she was at the top of the curve that would eventually lead to Dried Frog Pills, the heroic remedy for the occupational ills of all Guild Bursars, at the moment she was twanging with indignation and purpose.
She considered the hapless clown tied to the wall bars in the gymnasium. It was a look of anger, scorn and contempt. Behind her, Miss Sanderson-Reeves of the Assassins' Guild stood alongside Miss Dolores de Gutierrez, the Fools' Guild's principal teacher in Circus Skills and the pastoral mentor of the Guild's intake of girl pupils. At present there were only about thirty of them. But it was estimated that as the experiment continued, there would be more and more each year, and that the Fools' Guild, in the throes of a long-delayed opening-up and unprecedented liberalisation, would take in more and more. Eventually, girls might even be allowed to try their hand at becoming Clowns, Jesters, Troubadours, Theme Park Attendants In The Humorously Funny Costumes (1), or even Mimes. Vimes was guardedly for this, although he privately thought it would have to be a strange sort of girl indeed who expressed such a vocation.
There was no comfort for the captive Clown in looking into the faces of three women, two of whom he'd recently fired a one-shot crossbow at, and the third of whom was Miss Drapes. Dolores de Gutierrez was pointedly juggling a wicked-looking knife from hand to hand – Vimes reflected that Circus Skills covered knife-throwing, and besides, he had a trained mind that could recognise any of two hundred different cultural and ethnic street weapons very quickly. He assessed that was a Paraquatian puñale cuchillo, or possibly a cuchillo criolo.(2)
Joan Sanderson-Reeves had just let her face go to its default position of disapproving schoolmistress. As the school where she usually showed critical disapproval was the Assassins' School, this was in no way reassuring.
And behind them, the silent unblinking basilisk fury of fifty of their pupils, a mixed batch of Circus Skills and Assassin girls. Vimes almost felt sorry for the hapless clown. Then he reflected the clown had just tried to murder somebody. In most circumstances this would, unquestionably, make it his business. Unarguably so. But he realised this wasn't his parish. The murder attempt had taken place on Guild premises and might have been aimed at a Guild member. Depending on who the target had been. He realised he was going to have to be… he shuddered. Diplomatic. Diplomacy, as the word was commonly interpreted, did not come easily to him.
"Miss Drapes?" he said, trying to be conciliatory. "Thank you for calling the Watch out. I realise you have a right to deal with this according to Guild law and custom."
She untwanged. It was hard, for a woman with such a long thin body and a disposition to look like an over-tightened violin string at the best of times. It really didn't help that, for the look of the thing, Whiteface had requested his new Guild Bursar should learn some clowning skills to an acceptable level, enough to qualify her as Associate Tomfool at least. She had diligently learnt a few basic routines involving money and card tricks from the very helpful Moist von Lipwig, and devised a Face for herself, just for the look of the thing. This involved a comfortably fitting red nose, albeit a somewhat pointy one, and a face painted green, the colour of money, with a dollar sign painted on each cheek to denote her trade. With dark business clothing suitable for the Royal Bank's dress code, and a tightly bound black bun secured with vicious-looking hairpins, it made her look like a cash-conscious witch. Vimes suspected this was deliberate.
"Doctor Whiteface and the whole complement of the Jolly Good Pals are currently off-site, at the Palace." she said. "I really had no alternative other than to send for you. Besides, the distinction between Guild law and City law is becoming less and less clear, especially as I understand the Pals are now sworn in as Special Watchmen."
Vimes smiled slightly, He hadn't thought of that aspect. It gave him a lever.
"By express request of the Patrician." he confirmed. "And the use of a one-shot weapon anywhere in the City is a major offence against city law. That gives me a clear interest."
He looked down at the wicked little tube, which contained a coiled spring, a trigger, and a release catch. Damn close to being a gonne. Vetinari has firm ideas about any sort of hand-gonne.
"I believe Doctor Whiteface, in these extraordinary circumstances, would give permission for him to be taken into Watch custody." she said, eventually. "In his stead, I can give permission for you and your officers to take witness statements."
"Thank you, Miss Drapes." Vimes said, grateful. "I'll see to it that Captain Clapstick is present at the interrogation and that Doctor Whiteface gets full access to the ongoing investigation. It would be helpful if we can get a name for the suspect? If he won't give it, to look up his Face in the Registry?"
He reflected that miss Drapes and the girl students were the trigger that had caused the war in clowndom. Vetinari had pounced after the Guild had subsumed the Guild of Conjurors and added stage magic to its empire. What the Fools' Guild had not realised in time was that while conjurors were acceptably and invariably male, they tended to come with their Dorises. Who were invariably female and also Guild members. To save face, it had been reluctantly agreed that all Dorises, the indispensable distaff side of any magic act, were to be accepted as associate Fools' Guild members. The Fools' Guild, like it or not, had accepted the principle of female membership.
Then the Bursar position had fallen vacant. Whiteface had been reminded he had accepted Mavolio Bent, a gifted genius of a clown who had run away to join a bank and denied his destiny for a long time, as a Guild member. He had married Mr Bent to Miss Drapes in the Chapel of Mirth. Why, the lady was a Bent-trained financial officer, the best in her trade, and married to a man acknowledged as a great clowning genius. "Why, Doctor Whiteface!", said Vetinari, as if the happy coincidence of ideas had just occured to him, "You have your new Bursar!" And the position automatically elevated her to a key position in the Council of Mirth. Not just a woman Fool – but one, who by default, went right in at the top.
And the third blow had been the Monstrous Circus, in which women from other Guilds had shown their talent in circus and clown skills. Vetinari carried on applying subtle pressure. And the Guild conceded defeat, accepted it must go the same co-educational way as the Thieves and the Assassins, and started a Circus Skills training school. For girls. The intention had been to equip suitably vocationally inclined young ladies in the soft skills necessary for tightrope-walking, trapeze artistry, rhythmic gymnastics and contortion, being Doris to a Conjuror, a knife-thrower's target, or, sensationally, a practitioner of a whole new circus discipline, that of lion-tamer. Other Guild centres around the Disc had been instructed to accept girl pupils. Most had complied. But Müning, the ultra-conservative bastion, probably the oldest centre of clowning on the Disc outside Agatea, had gone into open revolt. Led by a renegade senior clown who had defied Whiteface and ignited a rebellion. Many clowns from Ankh-Morpork had clandestinely fled to join his colours.
Vimes, a man with a deeply ingrained cynical streak, suspected Vetinari had deliberately engineered the crisis as a means of dragging the Fools' Guild into the Century of the Anchovy, kicking and screaming preferred. As it had been stuck somewhere several centuries beforehand, that meant a lot of loud kicking and screaming and a long distance in which dragging could occur, done very very quickly, and with a minimum of necessary fuss.
He grinned. He had quite a few good people in Überwald right now. As did other City agencies. It just needed a messy period of time to lance and disinfect a very big festering boil. He fervently hoped not too many people would be in the way of the splash. It could still get messy. (3)
"Cut him down and book him." he requested Sergeant Detritus. He'd brought Detritus along to act as an incentive to get Fools' Guild compliance. "Attempted murder. Use of a one-shotte. Behaviour calculated to be prejudicial to the best interests of the City. Plus anything Jack Clapstick can add from Guild law. Plus anything the Assassins want to add to the list."
He turned to the hanging clown. "Just not your day today, is it?"
"Our Day will come!" the clown shouted, mustering defiance. Vimes shook his head.
"Maybe, but after today you're not likely to be here to see it." he said. "Cart him off, Detritus."
The forest near Bonk. Within sight of Margolotta's castle.
Angua trotted on, all her senses, especially nasal, primed to seek out and evade members of her own Pack. On her back, Jimmy the Gonnagal sat ready with the mousepipes. Probationary Lance-Constable Kirstie was sitting astride her neck, ready to insert the noise-cancelling earplugs at a second's notice. Not until it was necessary; Angua, for now, needed her hearing. In front, the Feegle hunter Silent Bob was scouting the way. Bob and Jimmy weren't Watch officers, by express command of Vimes. But they'd come as part of the package with Kirstie, the bodyguard and escort she could not shake off. Her mother, the Kelda, had insisted she take a bodyguard with her. Feegle daughters were too valuable to allow into the world undefended. Vimes tolerated this, just about. Angua knew the Feegle would fight to the death for Kirstie. This was a mixed blessing on Watch service. But it could make the difference here.
She knew the untried earplugs worked. Jimmy had played the Notes of Pain when a pack of true wolves had got too close, sensing a solitary werewolf on their territory. Igor had designed the implants according to Leonard of Quirm's principles of acoustics, to not only deaden sound, but to cancel it out. She wasn't sure how the science worked. She just knew the process of taking wax moulds of her inner ears, both as human and as wolf, had been distasteful. The Watch Igor had then crafted perfectly fitting bespoke appliances for her.
To her gratified surprise, a group of wolves intent on playing catch-up with a single imprudent werewolf bitch had shrieked, howled with agony, and one had run round in circles trying to bite its own tail off. She had felt a certain queasiness, but had otherwise been unaffected. Very, very, little had got through. At least, not through her ears.
She felt it would work on the Pack. At least, she hoped so. Wolf and Feegle moved on, cautiously, exploiting available cover and an upwind approach to the distant castle. Angua wondered what sort of a person could live in what looked like a parody of a fairytale princess's castle, all delicate conical towers with waving oriflamme flags, and impractically tall graceful walls. If all went well, she would soon be finding out.
At the Gasthaus dem Auslander, Müning:
The two clowns, part of the skeleton detachment left to garrison Müning and enforce the New Order, sighed in resignation. They were very junior Clowns, not yet accepted into the élite SchadenStaffel, and assigned the dogsbody task of watching the foreign women. They settled into the slog of observing a largely empty street, knowing that later, one of them would have to walk round to the former Assassins' Guild premises and send a routine "nothing to report" message to Ankh-Morpork, maintaining the pretence that the laughable Wetterarscht was still on duty there and had observed nothing of the big changes that were happening. Both agreed that the Assassins would buy into this, knowing the calibre of the man they'd sidelined to a place where nothing ever happened.
Then the witch returned, flying unconcernedly down into the street. They noted she had picked up company. A vampire, female, young-seeming and attractive.
The witch made as if to go into the Gasthaus, then turned and asked something of her companion. The vampire shook her head resignedly, and pointed to the large notice hanging beside the Gasthaus' door. The witch exuded understanding and sympathy. They did the kiss-kiss thing on each cheek, then parted company, the vampire gathering her cloak around her.
Typical of the Hexen, thought the clown. Best friends with the bloody Blutsaugern. The Fuhrer is wise to seek to outlaw the witches as an affront to good order and rule of law.
He frowned. The witch appeared to have a large fur coat or cloak attached to her broomstick. He shrugged. It must get cold up there. They are still human. Just about.
He logged the incident and the time she was seen to walk into the hotel.
"Coming in?" Olga asked Sally.
Sally shook her head.
"Can't." she said, pointing to the warning notice. It began with the inevitable "Achtung!" and continued with prominent phrases like "Streng keine Vampyren!" and "Auf Anordnung!"
"Age-old prohibition." she said. Olga expressed her understanding. The rest of the notice advised any would-be vampire guests that regrettably, the Gasthaus was not open to them and they were not to risk embarrassment by trying to book rooms. Members of the Undead community were respectfully advised to go to the local offices of the Überwald League of Temperance, located on Blase AufEinemStickStraße, who would be pleased to make arrangements of a more appropriate sort for their comfort and convenience.
"I'll check out the League." Sally said. "Touch base with the local vampires. There must be at least one here. Find out what they know."
"I'd better go up to my room and, er, unpack." Olga said. "Want me to take your hand-luggage?"
"I heard that, missus!" said a tiny whispered voice.
Olga and Sally did the friendly kiss-kiss cheek-cheek thing. (4)
"I'll send my luggage on." Sally promised, and they parted company.
Inside, Olga kept the attention of the desk receptionist with a few time-consuming trivial queries obliging her to go into the back office. A stream of rats detached themselves and followed the lead of Cherry Blossom into cover, seeking hidden ways upstairs. She smiled with satisfaction.
In the street outside, Sally waited till she was sure she was out of view of the watching clowns. She had sensed two in an upstairs room opposite the Gasthaus.
"We'll take your hand-luggage upstairs." Fishnet told her. "Follow me, everyone. I know a cellar way in."
Sally waited, counting twenty rats swarming down her body. To a vampire, it was like a refreshing massage. She waited until the last of the rats had found their way into a neighbouring cellar, using her cloak to shield them from view.
Then she walked on, seeking the local Black Ribboner office.
Sam Vimes left Cheery Littlebottom and Jack Clapstick playing a classic game of "reasonably good cop – you would not want to know what a bad copper I am!" with the detained Clown. He accepted a cup of tea from Captain Carrot.
"Still waiting on the next batch of reports from Überwald, sir." Carrot remarked. "The one from Angua should be in any time now."
Vimes read the unspoken concern.
"She'll be fine, Carrot." he said, reassuringly. "Her instructions were to keep her head low, watch, report, and get to Margolotta. Margolotta knows to expect her."
"I hope so, sir." Carrot replied, trying to keep his voice casual.
"We gave her a very good support team." Vimes said. "And Kirstie, despite the drawbacks, has the makings of a good constable. When she comes back, we can afford to lose the "probationary" to her name. Gods know, I need a good person on the Gnome and Little People beat. One who can use brains and charm rather than brute force. They respect their women, don't they?"
"Worship them, sir. Has this latest clown cracked yet?"
"With Jack, that's a matter of time. I put Cheery in there with him, to make sure the comedy doesn't get too physical. Thankfully he'd had a really good time at the Palace, playing with Vetinari's scorpion collection. To the Pals, that must have been like a petting zoo. He was in a good mood."
Vimes looked down into his steaming mug. He added another sugar.
"You know, Carrot, I hadn't appreciated before that fifty twelve-year-old girls can be so frightening. They practically made mincemeat out of the clown. Had to be told it was best to let him live to face questioning!"
"He did try to kill one of their teachers, though." Carrot remarked. Vimes paused before answering.
"I understand Miss de Gutierrez is pretty much loved by her pupils. I bet they were furious somebody dared try to shoot her. As for Auntie Joan, though. I'm betting those Assassin schoolgirls were mad as Hell somebody shot at her – and missed."
At the Gasthaus dem Auslander, Müning:
Sally returned from her trip to the local Mission of the Temperance League. She wasn't surprised to find it closed with an apologetic note on the door saying the local League Committee had found it a good time to take a holiday. There was no note as to when they'd be back. She sighed. Even the vampires had fled Müning. That was a sign something unwholesome was happening here. She wondered if it might have to do with wooden stakes, mallets and lemons. The clowns seemed to be disapproving of many, many, things. Irrelevantly, her mind turned to the unfortunate vampire hunter who suffered from dyslexia. The one who had tried to stick a melon in somebody's mouth. (5)
She found herself approaching the Gasthaus again. Then she heard a voice calling down from above.
"Hey! You!"
"It was Olga, leaning out of a window. Sally waved up.
"Come on up." Olga said. "I'm inviting you in."
Sally quickly flew up and scrambled through the window. She smiled. Olga had finessed the rule, then. Typical witch.
"It's simple." she said. "As long as I'm paying for this room, it's mine, yes? Therefore, I can invite in whoever I like. It over-rides the banishing notice at the front door. It's within the rules."
Sally nodded. "OK. So I get to see Emmanuelle and meet the Aunts?"
"They're staying in the adjoining rooms. They left a note to say they were at the local Seamstresses' Guild, but they should be back any time about now."
Sally accepted this. "Better wait in comfort. Got anything to drink?"
The forest near Bonk. Within sight of Margolotta's castle.
Silent Bob waved warning and sunk into the earth. Angua looked out from the undergrowth. They had extensively interrogated the captured werewolf. Apparently the Pack were spread out thinly with each member allocated a patrol beat. Angua reckoned that if she could evade one or two members of the Pack and slip through the cordon, she'd have a fast run to the castle and relative safety.
She smiled. Kirstie had done her best to attend to the werewolf's wound, which would incapacitate him until moonrise. He'd then have a short period of excruciating agony while the wound repaired itself and split and severed flesh knitted. The not-a-Kelda had applied a healing salve made from herbs picked up along the way. She had taken very gentle care to apply a supporting pad and then a bandage. The werewolf had whimpered with eyes firmly closed, and had not seen Kirstie delve into the backpack and retrieve a small package wrapped in shielding lead foil. She had then deftly inserted two small silver coins, hiding them between the gauze pad and the outer bandage. The nearness of silver would inhibit the werewolf from making the Change and lock him in his human form. (6) Angua appreciated this sort of forward planning. It made life easier. He had then been left with food and water and instructions to wait for members of the Pack, who would search when they found him missing.
"I could have killed you." she had said, pleasantly. "But we belong to the same Pack. That makes a difference. Remember this."
And now they were facing what turned out to be three werewolves, gathering in the clearing ahead. Angua sighed. She couldn't evade them. Their noses were too good. It had to be…
The wolf turned its nose to Kirstie. Who nodded. She reached into her pack for the earplugs.
"Play the music when I say, Jimmy." she directed. Her brother nodded and silently inflated the bag of his mousepipes.
Angua felt the plugs going in and steeled herself for the necessary departure of sound from her world…
"Play it, Jim."
At the Gasthaus dem Auslander, Müning:
Just to keep their hand (7) in, a group of rats had found a bottle of schnapps and two glasses, bringing them to Olga and Sally with a pointed remark about "here's some more hand-luggage".
A couple of relaxing glasses later, they heard Emmanuelle and the Aunts returning.
"Better get to work, then." Olga said, briskly. She and Sally went to the door of the room to welcome back the rest of the team. The intention was to gather in the middle room as usual, leaving scouts watching the corridor and the unoccupied rooms on either side. Olga walked out into the corridor and was greeted warmly. But Sally had a problem.
Olga, Emmanuelle and the Aunts saw Sally try to step out into the corridor. Then the vampire apparently walked into an invisible wall in the doorway and bounce off. She tried again, but was bounced back into Olga's room, this time with more force.
"Oh, damn!" Sally cursed. Olga did the face-palm thing.
"Sally, chèrie. There is a problem?" Emmanuelle inquired. "It is nice to see you, incidentally."
"Sorry, Olga." Sally apologized. "Looks like you were right. The hotel room is yours, as long as you're paying for it. So you can invite me in, and that gets round the Rule."
Olga sighed. "But the moment you try to step out of the room and into the corridor, the Rule applies. The hotel has not given you permission to enter. So you cannot pass over the threshold of my room, where my permission ends. Hmm." The witch sank into furious thought. Emmanuelle waited patiently. The Aunts, who were Morporkian enough to recognize entertaining street theatre when they saw it, looked on appreciatively.
"Got it." Olga said, eventually. "Listen." she said, seemingly to nothing in particular. But the word expressed authority. Emmanuelle and Sally recognized a witch performing a Working.
"I will request Aunt Sadie and Aunt Dotsie to give their verbal consent to Miss Salacia von Humpeding, vampire, to be allowed entrance to the room they are renting from the Gasthaus dem Auslander". Olga said. "Please can they give spoken consent to this, of their own unforced free will?"
"Fine by me, dearie." Dotsie said.
"She can come in, provided she agrees not to bite anything." said Sadie.
Olga nodded. "The agreement has been made. Salacia von Humpeding has been invited, by free will of the occupants, to enter Room 101."(8)
The witch addressed empty space again.
"It is the active will and desire of the occupants, who have the right, for Miss Salacia von Humpeding to enter their room. A hotel exists to serve the legitimate needs of those who pay to rent space. In order for that legitimate need to be satisfied, Salacia clearly needs to cross the intervening space between the two doors on this, the corridor side. The hotel will therefore permit this conditional access. Thank you."
Olga nodded to Sally, who suddenly found she could step through the door into the corridor. Experimentally, she tried to turn left, the wrong direction. She walked into the invisible wall again.
"Ouch." said Sally. But she found she was able to turn right and walk unimpeded as far as the door of room 101. But no further.
"Impressive." said Emmanuelle, who was appreciative of the fact Olga had managed to work some serious headology on a building. By rights it should not have been possible. But she suspected witches trained in Lancre did not recognize the word "impossible".
"You just need to know which buttons to press." Olga said, modestly. "And you learn a lot by watching Mistress Weatherwax".
The little hiccup sorted out, they discussed current events and shared information. Dotsie and Sadie sat back in a sort of genteel horror as lots of rats swarmed in and sat, in ordered ranks, listening to the discussion and occasionally volunteering comments via Cherry Blossom, who was acting as spokes-rat.
"So the vampires have left this town." Emmanuelle said. "And, mes amies, here in Überwald, is it not strange that we have seen no Dwarfs? They usually sense when there is trouble and are quick to go to ground."
"We should perhaps look for a dwarf, if any are to be found here." Sally said. "Find out what they know. It might be interesting to find out if any of this human unrest is spreading to the Low Kingdom. I mean, this Schadenfuhrer has got human mercenaries trained to fight. I know no self-respecting vampire would sign on with the Clowns. We're not made that way. But what if he gets Dwarfs on his team? Mr Vimes was here not so long ago. He saw there's a faction that don't want liberal ideas and were opposed to Rhys."
"And lower in the valley there are werewolves." Emmanuelle mused. "Is it not the case that Angua's brother and mother were plotting alongside the nastier Dwarfs?"
Sally breathed out. "Serafine." she said. "I wouldn't trust that old bitch further than I could kick her."
"And Angua's Pack territory is right on the marching route of this clown's army…" Olga sat up in horror. "Sally! I didn't know for sure you were here until we met at the clacks tower. What would you bet that's where Angua is right now?"
"It is worth finding out, most assuredly." Emmanuelle said. "This Clown army augmented with werewolves and Dwarf axes…"
They contemplated this, and shuddered…
"Errr…" Fishnet the rat said, diffidently. "We could scout out and find you a dwarf, if you like."
Emmanuelle smiled.
"This would be helpful, certainly." she said. "Mes amis, may I ask you to do the following for me? I wish to know all about the clowns' castle. I had only limited access when I visited by night. I would like you to scout it thoroughly. How many people garrison it, now the bulk of their force has marched out? How many clowns, how many mercenary soldiers? What are the ways in that humans could use? Also, I wish you to make contact with the prisoners in a tower cell, to run messages from me. I understand I am asking you to perform a distasteful duty in a dark place."
"Oh, we're trained for distasteful, missus!" a rat piped up.
"There's also the business of where Ankh-Morpork's local consul has buggered off to." Aunt Dotsie said. "We called by the consulate earlier. Just a notice on the door saying "On holiday." I'm wondering if he's in a cell somewhere, too. Vetinari's going to want to know!"
They agreed on jobs, roles, responsibilities. Sally and Olga were to send an agreed report from a safe clacks tower. This was written and agreed on.
"It's on the way down to Margolotta's castle." Sally said, practically. "We can drop the report off for transmission with some safe Dearheart people working for the Grand Trunk. Then fly on to Margolotta's. Scout out the dear lady Serafine on the way. Look out for Angua. She'll probably see us before we see her, though."
"A good plan." Emmanuelle agreed. "Here, we will scout the castle. Investigate the missing consul. Locate local Dwarfs, if any are to be found. Speak to our coachmen concerning their tasks, with regard to securing outgoing mail. And now we have rats. Many rats. That is for the good!"
"Flying flat-out, we can be at Margolotta's inside an hour." Olga said. Depends if a broomstick or a vampire are faster, though. And this is a souped-up Watch model. Even if Sally hops on the pillion, I can still get some speed out of it!"
She patted the staff of the stick fondly.
At floor level, Dubbin, son of Darktan, proudly called
"Number One Special Scout Company! Atten-SHUN!"
Fifty rats came to the rat version of attention. The commanding Rat proudly saluted.
"At your command, missuses!" Dubbin called.
Emmanuelle smiled. The counter-war was now on and Resistance began here.
(1) This was a fairly recent specialisation for the Fools' Guild. But it was accepted that anybody who actually wanted to dress up in a costume that made them look a bit of a prat and do all the consequent capering, pratfalling and serious method-acting involved in being, say, Billy Broccoli or his arch-enemy Micky The Maggot at the brassica-themed amusement park at Big Cabbage – well, this was natural turf for the Fools' Guild. Besides, Cauliflower the Clown actually was a trained clown who'd seen a new career opening. It just meant, he had argued in his presentation to the Guild, an application of the time-honoured skills in a different set of context-specific motley. Cauliflower the Clown acted as host, guide and Best Pal to little children everywhere at the theme park of Brassica World in Big Cabbage. We are told in Making Money that some little children actually stop screaming for long enough to adopt a catatonic look of surfeited horror at the sight of his huge head. The Council of Mirth had accepted that this broke none of the time-honoured rules of clowning and had given their blessing to adding it as a specialty of the Guild.
(2) to connoisseurs, the difference is in the length and curve of the blade. Vimes just recognised that a seven-inch blade is every bit as lethal as a ten inch one, if the wielder is a fighting mad gauchera whose sense of personal honour has just been slighted.
(3) He knew what he was talking about. He'd worked with Nobby Nobbs for thirty years, after all. Some concepts are not just abstract metaphors.
(4) A girl has to be very confident indeed of her friendship with a vampire for this to happen. Witches are trained to be confident. It's built in.
(5) The vampire gave in out of sheer surprise and confusion. It's hard to bite a neck when a large cantaloupe has been thrust into your face. You bite out of sheer reflex. It must be the veins. And it's harder to dislodge afterwards. Especially when it's a fairly large melon and your canine teeth are slightly backwards-facing. It took an Igor to get the melon out.
(6) OK, in Jingo, the silver is applied to Angua's neck to inhibit the Change. But as long as it's close to some part of a werewolf's body…
(7) Or paw.
(8) Room 101 had been allocated to the Aunts. For some reason it seemed extremely appropriate.