Home thoughts from abroad. Or abroad thoughts from Home. Or something.
Chapter Thirty-Five; A Definite End. For now.
Being a series of letters and postcards to Ankh-Morpork from two recent school-leavers on a gap year – well, by now more of a Gap Eighteen Months - touring the Howondalandian (or Klatchian – it depends where you're standing) continent.
It's the end of the line and the rest of everybody's life begins here. In which the story resolves itself and new horizons beckon.
Now read on….
Early Ick, in The Year of The Determined Squirrel. Caarp Town.
The dining room at Jacarinthia House was hosting a small-ish formal dinner for maybe twenty people. Formal dress had been insisted upon. This had been a worry for two of the guests, but their hostess, Lady Mary Smith-Rhodes, had seen the problem and insisted they be fitted out by her personal dressmaker in Caarp Town.
"Oh, don't worry about the cost. Small change, and Charles can afford it. He realises you need to look the part, both of you. I'll say to put it all on my account. Little gift to you both. You can't be expected to have lugged evening dress with you all the way from Cenotia on the off-chance. I'm sure the Guild School taught you how to wear it for formal do's like this. Get your hair tidied, get good shoes, that's important. I can sort out some bits of jewellery, on loan of course, to accessorise with. You'll both knock them dead, you're pretty enough!"
Maids in the service of the Smith-Rhodes family had helped dress them both.
"I can put up with living like this." Rivka ben-Devorah remarked. "And I wouldn't believe it, but you kind of scrub up well, Mariella!"
Mariella looked at the reflection of her made-up face and had to agree. She wasn't one, temperamentally, for makeup or fussy hairstyling. She was a stranger to high-end clothing. She was in full agreement with her sister Johanna that if you had to, you had to, but most of the time don't be a fool to yourself, dress practically and comfortably, and a little squirt of something in the problem areas after bathing was usually a sufficiency. That and good foot powder.
But tonight was the sort of night where you had to make an effort. There was no getting around it. And the other end of the Smith-Rhodes clan was that sort of place.
"Remind me again what the occasion is." Rivka said, thoughtfully preening.
"Cousin Cecil getting elevated to Bishop." Mariella said. "Cousin Julian's other brother. You met James in Cenotia, remember."
"Gevalt, yes. Nice enough guy, but you can see Julian got all the brains and all the talent. Whoever decides these things must have been saving it all up for the youngest son."
A maid stifled a laugh. She tried to look deferential and respectful again.
"That's okay, we understand." Mariella reassured her. She turned to Rivka.
"Cecil's the middle brother. No interest in politics or in going into the family business of general interference and making lots of money. He wanted the Church."
"Ah. Bit of a Lamister, is he?"
"A lot of a Lamister." Mariella agreed. Mr Lamister had apparently been an ineffectual teacher of the old school, in the old Master Greetling sense. The Assassins' Guild School had had to forcibly retire him with a compensation payoff and a "Look, old chap, this isn't really working out…" talk. It had been held to be bad for the look of the thing if the pupils were to succeed in actually killing a teacher. It might give them ideas, for one thing. Set a bad precedent. Lamister had retrained as a priest and was just as hapless and ineffectual in this role. (1)
"It's like the first two were practice." Mariella said. "To find out what not to do, and not to repeat it. Then it all came together on the third. Cousin Julian."
One of the maids snickered again, and tried to correct herself. Mariella turned and smiled, kindly.
"We really don't mind, you know. You are allowed to laugh." she said.
"Thank you, madam. Er. Mister Julian. You know him?"
"Well. It's a real shame he's not here." Mariella said. Rivka seconded this.
The black maid looked shy and uncertain, and then plucked up courage.
"How is he getting on? Many of us miss him. He is nice and kind and clever."
Mariella reflected on Julian's necessarily discreet liaison with Ruth N'Kweze, and wondered if the Uncle Baal streak ran down this side of the family too. No. Julian isn't mad. Not in this country. He isn't Uncle Baal. Julian has a glittering future and too much to lose. She paused, and added I think, anyway.
She obliged with a few personal reminiscences of a cousin from this side of the family who she genuinely liked, admired and respected. She very carefully left Ruth out of it. Her tale of the night, when Mariella and Rivka had only been thirteen, when they had all fought a life-or-death battle on the same side, drew enthralled gasps.(2)
"Remember me to him, madam." the maid said, with a wistful air. "Mary M'Puto."
And then the dinner gong rang, and Mariella and Rivka were descending the grand staircase, each wearing what Mariella estimated to be perhaps twenty or thirty thousand dollars worth of borrowed diamonds and sapphires and things. The sort of exquisitely understated jewellery that advertises "I have both money and good taste."
And then they went to dinner with some of the real movers and shakers in Rimwards Howondaland.
A few weeks earlier in Piemberg. Glimpses of family life.
Two other members of Johanna's family party were also involved in the everyday chores of farming. They had assisted the farmhands in rounding up and penning a group of young bull calves for some rather bespoke personal attention. That had been interesting, and in a way, fun.
Now under the attentive eye of Agnetha Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande, they were learning how to do the next necessary thing. But both were Assassins' School students and both came from agricultural families. They had previous experience, and, as they cheerfully remarked to each other, this might even be a transferable skill sometime in the future. You never knew your luck.
"What's the thing with Mariella?" Emma Roydes asked, as she deftly roped a young bull calf and brought it crashing down, immobilised by the rope around its hooves. Grinning farmhands who were there to assist expressed approval at her technique. But Emma had grown up near Scrote, daughter of farm labourers, and was used to this sort of thing. She'd learnt to do similar to piglets and yearling lambs.
Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande quickly helped immobilise the calf and helped prepare the necessary place for their bespoke attention. Her mother looked on with quiet pride and approval.
"Ag. Tannie Mariella's walking around like a fart in a tin can. You know. Sort of aimlessly and feeling like she's suddenly a bad smell in a confined space. Her best friend's found a boyfriend. She's the spare. She isn't liking it very much. You'd be as bad if it were me, Piles."
"Or if it was me and you were the gooseberry." Emma retorted. "Grab those back legs, would you? I don't want it kicking out."
"Show some understanding." Agnetha said to her oldest daughter. "It could be you one day. I'll speak to Mariella, when I get five minutes. Now remember what I showed you on the first one?"
The calf mooed in pain, discomfort and a lot of aggrieved resentment. Twice.
"Oh. You did. Well done." Agnetha said, blinking. She remembered her daughter was an Assassins' School student, as was her friend… well, more than a friend. Sort of family. Of course they'd figure out how to do this and what the tools were for. And they'd do this necessary small task quickly and cleanly and well. Without flinching.
There was the soft plop-plop of two things dropping into the bucket provided. Nothing got wasted on a farm. Sosetjies beckoned, or perhaps a treat for the dogs.
Emma reflected, looking down on her suddenly bloody hands and feeling no revulsion. Surplus bulls had to be made into oxen sometime, and best it was done now while they were young, and hadn't had a chance to realise what they were losing.
"Hey, Johanna. This is a neat tool."(3)
She held up the castrators.
"I wonder if this could be a trade skill. You know. Part of the working kit for dealing with men."
Agnetha smiled slightly.
"Take it from me. That device wouldn't need to be so large."
The three laughed together. A couple of male farmhands tried not to look uncomfortable but still felt their knees closing in self-defence.
Emma looked up into the warm Howondalandian sun and smiled contentedly. This beat a rainy cold early winter in Ankh-Morpork hands-down. Just hanging around School during the hols with nothing much to do.(4) She assisted Young Johanna in tidying up the operation site, then released an unsteady-on-its-hooves newly-minted bullock and called for the next one. She clicked the castration tool experimentally. The sound of the metallic clinking made a farmhand visibly wince. It had a horribly definite ominousity to it.
Meanwhile, the Welfare Officer to the Cenotian farming students had settled in. Barbarossa, amused and somewhat in awe of the force of Nature who had arrived on his plaas (although he'd never admit to being in awe) had allowed her a spare room in the main house. He was uncomfortably aware that she had made friends with his wife, and did the only thing a sane man could do in those circumstances, which was to get well out of it and find lots of things to busy himself with on the more remote corners of his domain. Right now, his wife's kitchen, always an independent fiefdom, was not his territory at all.
"That bloody woman's a heksie." he announced. Ponder Stibbons, who dealt with witches professionally, patted him on the back. It was good to be able to get one back occasionally.
The group of men bent over the growing hole in the ground.
"Well, the earth's getting damper." Kurt Maaijandie remarked, watching the latest black labourer coming up from the excavation with a large bucket of spill to add to the mound. "Something's down there."
"Ja." Barbarossa agreed. He leant on his spade. He'd been pitching in with the digging alongside the blacks. "Better not have too many of those fellows down there when they break through."
He looked round to the expanse of dry, arid, unpromising land. It was easier to deal with than Yenta Goldberg. More familiar. He knew where he was with land.
And then the first trickle of water began. The black labourers scrambled to get out of the way as the hole began filling.
Barbarossa bellowed with exultation and slapped Ponder on the back so hard he nearly fell over.
"You bloody wizards are actually useful!" he roared. "Saved me a few thousand rand! And we can get this land working! Kurt, we need to shore up, make good, and get a windmill over this to pump the blessed stuff up!"
He turned and smiled genially at the labourers.
"And you fellows get a beer and a bonus!"
There was general happiness. Mister Barbarossa worked you hard, but he was a good baas. Everyone knew that.
Ponder Stibbons sighed, ruefully. Water divining was a specialised wizard skill and he hadn't been too sure he could do it. He also knew a good water-diviner could command a fee in excess of a few thousand dollars. Water was valuable in places where there wasn't too much of it. But he thought about his father-in-law's likely reaction to an invoice. Better leave this one pro-bono, then… after all, this was family.
Ponder picked himself up. All that time spent working on Disc hydrostasis with HEX had been good for something practical, then. He hadn't been sure at all, but the folds and convolutions of the land had suggested a likely place to find an underground aquifer. He'd mapped that against what he remembered of theoretical lines of flow under the Disc surface and what he'd read about water tables and the "reach" of a river, which went a long way around what you actually saw on the surface. Just geology, really, and not much practically applied magic, apart from a bit of guided intuition and possibly a heartfelt prayer. You could call it geomancy, if you stretched it. But it had worked.
Water was now flowing where no river had flowed nor rains fell. And just in time for Hogswatch, too.
"Well, if the Goldberg woman's real reason for visiting was to put pepper into young Rivka's guava concerning finding a man, she'll go away happy." Barbarossa remarked.
Kurt Maaijandie nodded.
"Nice meisie. Provided you don't annoy her. Plenty of pepper in that guava already. Red Python chili pepper."
Barbarossa nodded thoughtfully.
"A good man, young Aaron. Thoughtful. Hard worker. Knows how to manage people. Hope he's not out of his depth with that one!"
They looked at the cart, loaded with prefabricated parts for building a wind-driven water pump. It would be good to be able to make a start on building it before nightfall.
At about the same time, Yenta Goldberg and the older Agnetha Smith-Rhodes were bonding. It was the sort of bonding that betokened bad news for somebody somewhere.
They passed through the rich vein offered by Daughters, Shortcomings Of. This necessarily took time. Mrs Goldberg commiserated with Mrs Smith-Rhodes about daughters working far away from home who only remembered to write back after several heavy prompts. Her own Erika was working as a singer and musician on the Central Plains. Does concerts in Ankh-Morpork and the other cities but too proud to use her own given name, calls herself Ricki Gold because it's "not so Cenotian", can you imagine? (5)
Yenta Goldberg and Agnetha Smith-Rhodes bonded in adversity. The Yenta got back to the point again.
"Gevalt. So your oldest only got round to marrying when she was nearly thirty?"
This was positively geriatric, by anybody's standards. Agnetha looked serious and frowned sadly. Yenta Goldberg reached over and patted her on the arm.
"Your people need Yentas." she said. Agnetha sighed and nodded agreement.
"It worked out alright in the end. She got a better husband than she deserved, and two fine little girls. They're here. You'll meet them. I tell Mariella. Do not leave it as long as your sister did. Don't think she'll listen, though."
Agnetha signalled to the maid to pour some more tea. Usually she did this for herself, but Johanna had thought to bring a girl with her. In her opinion this should not be wasted, and the girl was on her employer's paid time. Best to find Eve something to do while she was here. Eve served the tea promptly. She'd dealt with the woman she knew as The Old Madam before. (6)
"I'm sorry you had a wasted trip. Getting here, to find Rivka seems to be coming to her own arrangements with a fellow."
Yenta Goldberg smiled blissfully.
"Oh, no! That's success. My little Schmoopie evidently listened to everything I've been telling her! I'm proud of her. He's a good boy. Farm management's a profession. Not the usual one, but a profession. When he goes back to Cenotia, he has a career in front of him. A good boy, of good family. Temple-going, and he knows what's expected"
She paused.
"When I took this assignment for the government, I not only got free travel and expenses. I got to read the reports on people. Find out about them. My work here may be done!"
Agnetha Smith-Rhodes smiled slightly.
"Well. While you're here, you might want to have a little word with Mariella? As a favour? When Danie and Heidi get wed, she's the last one. If she's taking her example from her sister Johanna, I worry about her."
"The one who was single till she was thirty." Yenta Goldberg said. She winced. The existence of thirty-year-old spinsters was a professional insult to her. Agnetha nodded, grimly.
She rubbed her hands together. She appreciated a challenge. She liked being needed.
The conversation moved on to Failings of Husbands. Agnetha sympathised with the information that Mr Goldberg needed to be prompted to go and actually put trousers on, if guests were expected. She remarked that Andreas can get like that sometimes. If it wasn't for us they'd be perfectly content to live in caves.
Mariella Smith-Rhodes was getting it out of her system on a long horse-ride with her sister Johanna. It bonded them; both loved to ride. And the children were safe with Annaliese.
"Still feeling put out?" Johanna asked.
Mariella nodded.
"And you're feeling guilty because it makes you look like a selfish unreasonable cow. You can't make a fuss because you should be feeling happy for your best friend. But you've still been displaced."
Mariella sighed.
"Look, you've spent the best part of a year and a half crossing this continent. The two of you are close. You got even closer. And now it's all over, real life is getting in the way. Rivka, in the nicest possible way, is indicating she doesn't need you around so much and she's moving on. Making you feel like a spare part. It was bound to happen sometime. And anyway, you've got to sign your name on the recruitment form pretty soon. You'd have parted anyway."
Johanna smiled sympathetically at her sister.
"Listen. My best friend at school was Katerina de Mauritz. She still is, in so many ways. Do you think I didn't spend a few years being the one who got ignored, because all the guys were after the gorgeous blonde one? She started with boyfriends a long time before I did. So I got displaced too. One of life's lessons, Mariella."
"Thank you." Mariella said, after a while, wondering why her eyes were wet and stinging. She and Rivka would still be friends, she knew, but something had changed, and it would never be the same again. Adjusting to a new reality was hard.
Johanna shoulder-hugged her sister.
"There'll be somebody." She said. "That's if you're looking, and for all I know you aren't. Yet."
And a lone rider approached the Smith-Rhodes plaas from the direction of the Piemberg road. He rode with a certain resolution, knowing that the informal law of hospitality meant he could at least claim a bed for the night before riding back in the morning.
He still wasn't sure why he was riding out. There was a job to do, yes, but why it meant that he had had to spend the best part of three days on the road out of Pratoria to discharge one little obligation when he could have posted the item, or otherwise sent it along the informal network of boer people who all looked out for each other… he didn't know what sort of reception he'd get. He shrugged, said "Insh'Offler" to himself, and rode on.
Eventually he saw buildings in the distance and people working in the fields. He leant down from his horse and asked a black fieldhand
"Am I now in the Smith-Rhodes plaas?"
"Ja, baas. Keep riding straight on for two or three miles. This is all Mister Barbarossa's plaas, all around you."
"Dankie!" the rider replied, courteously.
After a while he arrived at the central farmhouse complex. A woman was shepherding some young children in the garden. He took off his hat and addressed her respectfully as mevrou.
She welcomed him.
"Come on in. You've come a long way? I'll get somebody to see to your horse. Fix you a drink. I'm Cornelia Smith-Rhodes, by the way. My husband's out on the land, but he should be home soon. You can leave the crossbow in the hall? It'll be safe there. The children know not to touch."
"Dankie." he said, and introduced himself.
Cornelia Smith-Rhodes looked at him with scrutinising amusement.
"Well, come on in, then. You're welcome."
Evening meal was held for Family at the main farmhouse. It had to be a big room and a big table to accommodate a lot of Smith-Rhodes family members, with younger children displaced to a table of their own where Annaliese volunteered to preside. But everyone fitted in.
Rivka was eating with the Cenotians in the guest-hall; this made sense for religious reasons. In the main the guest students organised their own kosher kitchen. Apparently Yenta Goldberg had taken it over this evening to do some home cooking. She had insisted. It gave her a chance to look over the couples and the romances that had inevitably formed, casting a Yenta's professional eye over them with guidance to follow.
Mariella sighed and reasoned it gave her friend more Aaron-time. She felt conflicted: happy for Rivka, jealous of Aaron. This made her feel like a true heel. Especially since try as she might, she could find no fault with her friend's choice.
But this was a joyous family thing: everybody except Danie together in the same place, which didn't happen often. Danie had sent regretful apologies via Johanna. He'd have loved to come, but a big game on against the Barbarians.(7) And Heidi was on call to cover residential students at the School during the holiday. Some other time, huh? Love to big sister, middle sister, baby sister and big bro.
Barbarossa accepted this. He followed his younger son's adventures through the newspaper back pages and expressed satisfied pride that in his own way, he was making an impact. Often with full force on the field of play, going by the papers.
"Sending him to the City was the making of him." he announced. "Got the same streak as his sisters, but unless he's really unlucky, he's not likely to get himself killed. Lots of young women chasing him, too."
His wife glared at him.
"But only one of them's getting him." she reminded him. "Johanna, find out how near Heidi is to a wedding? That poor girl's been waiting too long as it is."
Barbarossa turned his attention to one of the younger guests at table. He switched language to Morporkian as a kindness to her. She had been trying to follow the conversations in Vondalaans; her friend Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande had been intermittently explaining words and meanings and associations to her when she found it hard going.
To everyone around the farm, a young girl with the right sort of flaming red hair who looked like a Smith-Rhodes, but who had a Sto Plains accent and was only imperfectly fluent in Vondalaans, was an interesting phenomenon.
"How are you liking your stay with us, young meisie?" Barbarossa asked. "I heard good reports about you two meisies, end how well you're fitting in."
"Sir, I really like it here." Emma Roydes said. "I'd love to come back and stay for longer."
"Ag, you'd earn your keep." Barbarossa said. "Johanna says you're a country girl?"
Emma explained about her life and upbringing in Scrote, around cabbages, largely grown on land other people owned, and the family smallholding, too small to sustain a large family and even this only rented. She had been picked out as having talent, and had become a scholarship pupil at the Assassins Guild School where she'd been in the same dorm, Raven House, as her friend Johanna.
"Your femily do not own the land they work." Barbarossa said. He shook his head. "Et least, I'm betting they own it in every respect except the name on the title deeds. Ag, they'd have more claim than the ebsentee owner who takes the rent."
Emma decided not to dwell on the more unpleasant aspects of being a penniless scholarship girl at the Assassins' School. Her family sent such money as they could spare, but it was intermittent. Then Miss Lansbury had called her to the office to say she could now benefit from a small and regular sum of pocket money, to be disbursed each week as usual. "No, the person who is paying this has asked to remain anonymous. I'm permitted to say the same benefactor might pay for costs of trips and extracurricular activities, so that you aren't disadvantaged."
She'd discovered her benefactor was Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes, at around the same time she'd worked out the Other Thing. Invitations to accompany her friend Johanna Smith-Rhodes Maaijande to Wednesday evening dinner at Doctor Smith-Rhodes' home had followed. Among other things she'd met Rivka ben-Devorah there, a senior girl with a fearsome reputation, who had taken a liking to her and taught her informal skills for dealing with bullies and idiots.
Life had improved rapidly, and Emma Roydes had soon achieved Scary Mary status in her own right. Only very close friends had the privilege of calling her "Piles", for instance. And Rivka's friend Mariella Smith-Rhodes had suggested to her that when it came to selecting optional Saturday Morning classes, she could do worse than ask Miss van Kruger for admission to her Basic Vondalaans module. Emma had been learning Vondalaans for some time now. She was even a Bokkie Babe on a Saturday afternoon and had learnt lots of the songs and chants. Some of them were even clean. Clean-ish, anyway.
Emboldened, Emma explained about her family history. How a great-great aunt called Mary Roydes had married a man called Cecil Smith. Who'd emigrated to Howondaland and changed the name to Smith-Rhodes. And, er…
Barbarossa looked at her with benevolence.
"End your side of the femily remained over there. Till now. Well, you're here now. Better late than never, I say!"
"Well, that explains why she looks like one of us." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes remarked. "Because she is one of us!"
"Think ebout emigrating." Barbarossa advised her. "I'm guessing you're feeling the call right now."
He grinned.
"And we do not normally speak Morporkian. Nobody will make the obvious joke as in our language, the word is Aambeie. Which sounds nothing like "Emma Roydes". The joke would not even occur to people."
Emma considered this, and smiled.
"I think I like the idea more and more. Thank you." she said. She added "Dankie."
Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes shook her head. She looked at her pupil with sympathetic eyes.
"You do realise once you're in this Femily, you are in for keeps?" she said. It sounded halfway to being a warning.
And then Cornelia Smith-Rhodes arrived, bringing a guest.
"Sorry I'm late. This young man turned up. Can we fit in another chair somewhere and make room for him?"
Mariella sat bolt upright.
It was Horst Lensen.
She tried not to glare too darkly at him.
"Hello, Mariella." he said, politely.
"No, really." Horst said, later, "I wanted to give Rivka her crossbow back, And to thank her for the loan. I believe I now know why she told me I'd need more than one shot. The second dummy behind the door. Representing an enemy in concealment."
"Oh, so you worked that one out, then?" Mariella said, still feeling cross and put on the spot in front of her family. There had been a few knowing grins and nudges when Horst had walked in and greeted her.
"So not a complete pielkop then, But maybe still jou bliksem."
She tried to make it sound scathing. And realised she'd failed utterly. This didn't help her temper.
They walked on together. Mariella tried to put the traitorous thought out of her head that there might be something slightly romantic in this. A man who wasn't – these days – completely objectionable had cared enough to ride several hundred miles. Ostensibly to return a loaned weapon, but mainly to get to see her.
Hmmph. Tall. Blonde. Well-sculpted face. Muscly lean body. Hmmph. As if that was enough. And an unexpectedly likeable person was emerging after the traumas of his last year. And they'd fought side-by-side. At Smithville and the river. Johanna had said you really get to know somebody, after an extreme like that.
They ran into Yenta Goldberg, who was coming the other way.
She shrieked with delight to see Mariella with a young man, and within seconds had got Horst to talk about himself.
"Sweetie! Now let me look at you! I can't call you a Schmoopie, that's taken, so I want to see if you're a Poochums or a Huggie. No, I'd say you're a Poochums. Let me explain. All my little let-me-be-your-Yenta talks to my Schmoopie Rivka have worked, and she's been sensible, and found herself a nice man in a profession. My work there is done! Now your mother, such a lovely lady, you should listen to her more than you do, she has suggested I spend time with you, and put you on the right pathway in life. And what do you know, I'm here for two days still, so I can give you all my attention, Poochums!"
Horst Lensen excused himself after a while. He walked on, saying he'd catch up to Mariella later.
A little later he walked into Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes.
"A little word, boy." he said, curtly.
Johanna Smith-Rhodes heard her father's voice from a long way away. Her father had never quite got the hang of discreet.
She paused to listen. Assassins can move silently and inobtrusively.
"Now see here, boy. I heard about you. You were in the papers. You stood alongside my girl and fought for her and maybe that means there's something to give you credit for. But I asked Johanna about you. What you were like when she taught you. I'm telling you now, boy, there are things I do not like about you.
"If you ever go running to those bastards at BOSS with tales about my family. Believe me, I will get to hear of this! And if you do, if you are so stupid or ill-advised as to do that thing, I will personally tear the skin off your back and braid it into a sjaemboek. Are you hearing me? Then I will come back and use it to thrash your bare bones with!"
"I hear you, sir. And I understand your point of view."
Lensen, thought Johanna. Scared of Father, and who wouldn't be, but standing his ground and not being terrified.
"And another thing, boy. My daughters are gold and silver and diamonds to me. I do not let just any hopeful fellow near any of them. Behave in such a way that it causes hurt or upset to Mariella, who is the youngest of my children, and you had better PRAY that I only tear your skin off and make it into a whip to lash your bones with, do you hear me? I can't stop her courting you if that's her wish, but I can make my feelings clear, as a concerned father."
Johanna decided to intervene.
"Hi, Vatti. Having a quiet man-to-man talk with young Horst, are you?"
Her father grinned at her. He made a show of patting Horst on the shoulder.
"Now think on concerning what I've just said, young man, and we'll say no more of it. For now."
"Thank you for expressing your concerns, sir. I now know where we both stand in the matter."
"You'd better." Barbarossa said. He waited while Lensen walked away, trying not to look too shaken up.
Johanna waited till he'd moved on.
"He's not that bad, Vatti. I believe he really has changed. He doesn't want to join BOSS any more, for one thing. And I'm getting the impression he really is very fond of Mariella. He's just ridden gods know how many hundreds of miles just to see her, for one thing."
Her father grunted. Johanna pointed out that Hans Dreyer himself, the legendary Crowbar, had seen something there that made him write a personal reference. She didn't remind her father Mariella had also received a similar invitation.
"He's got to do National Service too, Vatti. The odds are they'll be training a long way apart from each other." She crossed her fingers at this point. "Not many opportunities over two years. After that they're both two years older and wiser."
Her father accepted this. He calmed down.
"Maybe you're right, Johanna. While I was shouting in his face he stood his ground. Scared, yes. But not shifty or guilty. There might be a decent young fellow in there."
"Sleep on it tonight, Vatti?" Johanna suggested.
Over the next few days, Mariella spent a lot of time with Horst Lensen, mainly doing the many things demanded around a working farm. He proved himself competent, hard-working and even good company. To her surprise, she found herself liking it.
Although she still addressed him as jou bliksem. Some things were ingrained habit.
They even attended a farewell braai together, attending as a foursome with Rivka and Aaron, the night before the Pegasus and flying carpet arrived to craw-step Johanna's family party back to Ankh-Morpork.
A week or two after that, Mariella and Rivka decided to complete the final leg of their trek, down to Caarp Town and the sea.
To nobody's great surprise, a clacks message arrived from Uncle Charles saying he would be honoured if the two famous adventuresses stayed as his house-guests.
"You'd better go, then." Barbarossa said, practically. "Cousin Charles doesn't easily take "no" for an answer. See life at the other end of this bloody Family."
Early Ick, in The Year of The Determined Squirrel. Caarp Town.
The formal dinner had included current and retired politicians, a banker or two, and other dignitaries from the high end of Society. It also included two Assassins who had dressed up for the evening. Assassins were encouraged to attend this sort of event, if only to meet people who could afford to pay for contracts on other people. And to research the sort of people who might find themselves subject to contracts.
Mariella and Rivka found themselves sitting on either side of a sprightly old man who was honoured to meet them. He was also the retired President of Rimwards Howondaland. Mariella had met him twice, once at Johanna's wedding to Ponder and once when he'd visited Ankh-Morpork in conditions of great secrecy and visited her in hospital.(8)
Louis van Baalsteufel had lost none of his charm and affability. Or his perceptive mind.
"Always knew you were going to be something special." he said to Mariella. "Looks like I was right!"
Uncle Charles, tall, distinguished, hawk-like and looking every inch the multi-millionaire, presided with smooth geniality. He reminded the assembled company that the events the young ladies precipitated in Smith-Rhodesia had provoked much coverage in the Press and indeed lots of conversations in select circles. A regular and much-repeated component of the commentary had been a sort of surprise that the founding family of Smith-Rhodesia seemed, in the main, not to want to live there and had apparently moved as far away as it could from a place still seen as their nation.
"It's as if we apparently want to disown the place." Uncle Charles had said. "Well, as you know, my son Cecil has recently been elevated to a bishopric, and the purpose of this dinner tonight is to recognise and to honour his achievement."
He nodded to his son, in purple shirt front and white clerical collar. The distinctions seemed painfully new. Mariella saw the red hair of her family, but a vaguely good-natured expression and an otherworldly air that otherwise was not a general Smith-Rhodes thing. She recalled that he'd been an academic cleric in the theology school at Witwatersrand University. Cousin Julian had said his unworldly brother had been packed off there to get him out of the public eye and into a place where he could cause least potential embarrassment. And who knows, he might even be happy there.
"I am pleased to announce that his Grace, Bishop Cecil Smith-Rhodes, is going to the most appropriate diocese possible. New Scrote, in Smith-Rhodesia. Ladies and gentlemen, Cecil Smith-Rhodes returns to his country."
Mariella looked at Rivka. She wondered how big a donation to the Church of Blind Io it took to arrange this happy outcome. Hughnon Ridcully was regarded as a very good fixer. If suitably incentivised.
(I'll probably add more filler here. This is interim just to close the story)
And then Mariella and Rivka were on the beach at Caarp Bay, symbolically dipping their feet into the water to say – this is it, as far as it goes. We've run out of land. They paddled in the water, barefoot. It was a sort of symbolic moment.
"Where to next?" Mariella asked.
"We should do Aceria." Rivka said. "you know. Start at the Hub. Cross the country. Come out at Genua. Maybe even Californicatia."
"But not for a year or two yet." Mariella said. She had to return to Pratoria and sign up for her conscript service. She suspected it would lead her back to Smith-Rhodesia and the Slew. Horst Lensen might end up there too. It wasn't a completely horrible thing to contemplate. Bliksem though he was.
Rivka nodded.
"Write to me." she said. "If you're allowed."
They watched the sea, looking out to the distant Rimfall.
"And you?" Mariella asked.
Rivka shrugged.
"Got that offer from your Uncle Charles." she said. "Tempting. But you know Aaron's going back to Cenotia? They're going to give him a kibbutz to run. Rumour is that it might even be the one we got off the ground at Gemala. It'd be interesting to see it again. You know, see how everyone's getting on."
There was another meaningful silence.
"It was fun, though."
Mariella agreed.
"Definitely. It was fun."
They linked arms and watched the Rimfall.
And, subject to proviso concerning adding a few more bits at Uncle Charles's establishment in Caarp Town (left them out here as they would have been incidental to actually finishing this long rambling tale) that's it! Story finished! And now – to reviewing and maybe even finishing another tale or two….
(1) Mr Lamister is a real character in canon. That indispensable reference source, the L-Space Wiki, has this to say: Mister Lamister is a tutor and member of staff at the Assassins' Guild school. He appears in the Assassin's Diary, and on several of the student rules:
6. Boys are strictly forbidden from teasing Mr Lamister.
12. Boys are expressly forbidden to use Mr Lamister's door as a target.
15. Boys may carve their initials once into their desk, and the leads on the roof of the Big School Building. Boys are emphatically not allowed to carve their initials on Mr Lamister's leg.
170. No pupil is to attempt to walk like Mr Lamister.
Uniquely he does not have a subject area at the Guild School, and appears not to take classes. Neither is he assigned as the head of any student house.
From his appearance in the staff iconograph he looks to be a worried man, with a droopy moustache and small round glasses. He would appear to have suffered a nervous breakdown similar to Dr. A. A. Dinwiddie at Unseen University. While he is not able to perform his role, he has become a fixture, and it would be unthinkable, or seemingly so, to have him removed.
He may well have left the Guild and re-trained as a priest in the interim between the Assassins' Yearbook and The Compleat Ankh-Morpork. In The Compleat Ankh-Morpork, in the Places to Pray section, mention is made of the Reverend Lamister. On page 55, in "Rules for use of the Temple of Small Gods", Rule 13 reads:
No-one is allowed to tease the Reverend Lamister.
On page 56 of TCAM, the Reverend Mr Lamister is allowed space of his own, to write a religious homily similar in its well-intentioned vagueness to a BBC Radio Four Thought For The Day or a stereotypical Church of England sermon. He recounts an escalating catalogue of disasters in which, trying to free a utensil stuck in the kitchen drawer, he becomes more and more entangled in the draw and then the cupboard under the sink, so that he has to be physically extracted himself. He asks himself "What would Brutha Himself have done in these circumstances?" without coming to the obvious conclusion that even Brutha might have tried praying to Anoia, who doesn't even get mentioned once.
Maybe Mr Lamister is one of life's natural victims, and not even Anoia could resist sticking it to him?
(2) My tale Hyperemesis Gravidarum.
(3) There are images online of Victorian/early 1900's veterinarian/stockbreeder tools for castrating large bovine, ovine and porcine creatures. They really do have an aura about them of the sort of specialised equipment an Assassin might select for those specialised jobs, calling for a degree of individualised, personally bespoke, attention to the needs of the client. Perhaps with prejudice.
(4) Some explanation: knowing she'd got a contract in Howondaland, the privilege of Pegasus flight and craw-stepping to get her there, and permission to bring family, the older Johanna Smith-Rhodes had considered, then later in the evening while Annaliese and Eve were packing for the family, she'd taken a cab back to the School to speak to Gillian Lansbury about permission to take her niece home with her. She thought she might as well. Agnetha would want to see her daughter, after all. Young Johanna had been summoned to the Raven House office and the offer had been made; her housemistress Miss Lansbury was filling in the release forms authorising pupil absence in the care of her named guardian. Johanna had then asked why Gillian had brought out two sets of release forms. Gillian smiled. "Think about it, Johanna." she said.
Johanna thought, then kicked herself.
"You might as well. Everybody thinks she's a Smith-Rhodes." Gillian said, helpfully.
Emma Roydes (refer to various stories in the Discworld Tarot sequence), a Scholarship pupil from Scrote, would otherwise have been stuck in School for the week's holiday. It had been agreed this was for the best. After all, the early winter following Harvest and stubble-burning was a quiet time for farm labourers who didn't own the land they worked on, and from her parents' point of view, at least one of their children was being housed with three square meals a day. One less mouth to feed. Gillian said she'd clacks the family to say their daughter had been offered a last-minute place on a trip that would be of great value to her education and would be in the care of a very experienced senior teacher. And given the circumstances, she ought to see Howondaland, don't you think? Johanna had agreed, feeling irritated she hadn't thought of it herself, and Emma had joined the family group.
(5). Yes. This is lifted from an episode plot of The Goldbergs. Guilty.
(6) Hyperemesis Gravidarum, in which among other things Johanna acquires servants.
(7) The Barbarians were a tough side. A fifteen-a-side foot-the-ball team drawn from the Young Men's Pagan Association, who styled themselves on the heroes and adventurers of old. Their team captain was called Olaf Cohensgrandson, but as he pointed out, this was hardly exclusive. Cohen the Barbarian had left a lot of descendants in the world.
(8) Hyperemesis Gravidarum again.
Notes Dump:
A limbo for random out-of-sequence concepts, et c et c. Strange things happen.
This has no direct reference to any character in the tales so far. But this bad habit of checking out porn actresses for facial similarities to Discworld ladies as I envisage them. Gods help me. I discovered a porn star called Tanya Tate, in her possible early forties. The right sort of polished pneumatic qualities to her figure, possibly surgically enhanced. (Only "possibly"?) And she stands out by the dire standards of Los Angeles adult film casting for one reason.
She's British. But not just any old British. She is indistinguishable from her L.A. sisters in the trade in every visible respect. But when she opens her mouth to speak – she's Scouse. From Liverpool. This is utterly bizarre in a WTF sort of way. Her accent must be erotically exotic to Americans, and let's face it, they buy 90% of the stuff.
From over here… how can I break it to you, guys. The Liverpool accent has many charms. It's warm, it's homely, it's from the heart. But one thing it isn't, and that is an essential thing in this context, is erotic or sexy. Scouse has all the sex appeal of lukewarm gravy or stale cheese. It's the aural equivalent of socks with sandals. Imagine a young Cilla Black doing porn. ("Surprise Surprise!")
And listening to Tanya putting her heart into sounding sexy… the only thing I could think of which would be a worse passion-killer, anti-viagra (Argaiv?) would be a porn starlet from Birmingham. Or Staffordshire. And I bet having said that, there will be a porn queen on the L.A. circuit who's from Stoke or Solihull.
Suggestion (non-porn) for Davinia Bellamy: Carenza Lewis, TV archaeology queen from "Time Team". Thank you to reader Space Anjl. A plain and quirkily attractive lady in her forties with blonde hair who spends her working life bent over holes in the ground with muck up to her elbows. This one makes me go "Hmmm"…
Sproetjies (Afrikaans) - Freckles
Professional note on snake-sexing. They all look the same from outside. How can you tell? Err… It's very difficult to sex a snake without sticking a metal prod up their cloaca (which should only be done by vets or herpetologists, as laymen risk hurting the poor snake). If it goes all the way in, it's a boy. If it gets about 1cm in before you hit something, it's a girl.