Home thoughts from abroad. Or abroad thoughts from Home. Or something.
Chapter Thirty-Six – Epilogues to a Travelogue
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.
I know. Can't stop fiddling. But a few after-images from shortly after the story ends with two girls paddling in the sea off Caarp Town…. a short to start you off. A glimpse of Assassins' School Life after Emma and Young Johanna get home. Tidied slightly.
Now read on….
_The Assassins' Guild School, Filigree Street, Ankh-Morpork. Raven House, one Sunday morning.
Miss Gillian Lansbury smiled and addressed the assembled students pleasantly. The Guild's Art Mistress had inherited the residential housemistress position from Johanna Smith-Rhodes when she had left to get married. Gillian had previously been a resident tutor at an exclusive girls' school in Überwald. She had previous experience. Several years running Raven House had made her an expert.
She looked down the dorm at the thirteen current Fifth Year pupils who shared the living space. They were all on the first year of the Black, training to become fully licenced Assassins. Seventeen others who had begun with them had either dropped out or elected to leave the School at the end of Fourth Year without Taking Black. Fifth Year pupils got a few extra privileges. But given what they were now training to become, they still needed close supervision.
"Good morning!" she said, cheerfully. "I won't keep you for long as you all have Chapel to attend later in the day. While I stress nobody is being accused of anything and we're not trying to catch you out in any way, we still have to do this once or twice a term. Just in case. I require you to empty your lockers and drawers and lay the items out on your beds, please. This is a routine locker inspection and if we all co-operate, we will get through this more quickly. Thank you."
It really was routine. Gillian was looking for unauthorised weapons and equipment items, or badly secured or unsanctioned kit. Teenage girls in a boarding school could develop feuds, rivalries and intense jealousies. Managing this in a school for Assassins, where such rivalries had lethal weaponry to hand, took careful and diligent supervision. Periodically reminding them that they were being watched was part of the standard procedure. All bladed and projectile weapons, when not in use, needed to be kept in a secure and locked personal armoury that was part of the wardrobe issued to each bedspace. Strictly no potions, chemicals or poisons were to be kept in personal space. This was held to be prudent.
Supported by several Upper Sixth Form prefects, Gillian hoped to get this routine check over very quickly and tick it off the checklist as having been completed for this month.
If any of them actually do have unauthorised weaponry, they'll have hidden it somewhere else and not in their bedspace areas. I know I would, she thought, as she passed down the dorm.
Several girls passed the check and were thanked for their co-operation.
Just to vary the routine, Gillian ran her fingers round the inside of a bedframe. Davinia Bellamy's husband was a prison officer who'd been really entertaining and informative about the sort of places where inmates concealed contraband. He'd explained a few of the usual tricks. But no. Nothing taped to the underside of the bed or on the inside of the frame. She wondered about dismantling a bed-head and shaking out the hollow struts. Just to make the point. Then decided not to. Let's get this over quickly. It's Sunday. In theory a day off.
Then she arrived at Emma Roydes.
Gillian visually inspected the standard weaponry in the armoury. Good, all present, all meeting the specs, nothing extra, nothing unauthorised, secure lock, the sort of hinges that can't be dismantled or bypassed. Back of the cabinet secure. Good.
Then she looked down at the non-lethal Assassin equipment laid out on the bed. Every student needed such kit. There was something there she didn't recognise. It appeared to combine a spring-loaded grip and several sharp-looking serrated edges.
"Please explain this item, Miss Roydes?" Gillian asked, patiently. "I don't recognise it as an approved item of working equipment."
She lifted the implement and squeezed the hand-grip thoughtfully. The wicked-looking blades, some looking as if they were designed to puncture, others to hold firmly and then slice and chop, moved with almost organic fluidity. It looked like a surgical instrument of some kind, and she guessed it transmitted the power of her grip on the handles into greater force on the other side of the fulcrum.
"Please, miss. When we went to Howondaland during the hols. Johanna's mother bought them for us. As a thank-you and a souvenir. She thought we might be able to find a use for them."
"You have one too, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande?" Gillian asked.
Young Johanna, in the next bedspace, helpfully held hers up for inspection.
Gillian nodded. She noted at least one of the other girls in the dorm was fighting back a snicker.
"Please explain to me what this is actually for, Miss Roydes?" she invited.
Emma suddenly looked eager to be helpful and informative.
"Please, miss. It's an agricultural tool. It gets used for one of those necessary jobs on a farm. When you're dealing with stock."
"Thet's important." young Johanna said, with a very straight face. "You have to do little tasks with livestock. To menage them properly."
"Well, maybe not so little." Emma said, thoughtfully. "you see, miss, on some farms you have to remove things from your cattle. You know. Safely and humanely. So they're easier to manage."
"Horns, on some kinds of kine." Young Johanna said, with a very straight face.
"Very important to take the horn away." Emma added.
"And this is used to take the horn off?" Gillian inquired. She flexed the implement again.
"In a manner of speaking, miss." Emma agreed.
Another girl snickered. Gillian started to feel like the butt of the joke.
"There is a different tool for de-horning, miss." Young Johanna said. "In the sense of removing the pointy things on a kine's head. Usually done when they are young stirks, end there is less to cut through. Less strain on your hand and muscle."
"Assume I do not have an agricultural background, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande." Gillian said. She was a city girl. Farming was foreign country to her. She preferred it this way. "Please demonstrate exactly what this implement is used for, in farming life?"
"Es you wish, miss." Young Johanna said. She stepped forward and gave a short presentation of exactly which end of the beast you operated on and how to do it. It was graphic with plenty of detail and hand gestures.
"This implement may also be used on pigs and sheep." she said. "Or to be strictly precise, on boars and rams. Ewes and sows are exempt, for en obvious reason."
"We did loads when we were in Howondaland, miss." Emma said. "Lots of spring and early summer calves that were at the right age to cut. You only need one or two intact bulls on a farm. Helped to do a stallion too, but that needed a few big men to rope it down."
Gillian Lansbury tried not to let her mouth drop too far open. She shook her head.
"And your mother…"
"Bought two more sets of the device, miss. For us to take home as souvenirs. She thought for Essassins, they might have a professional use." Johanna said, helpfully.
Gillian took a long thoughtful look at the fearsome device.
"Well… it might need scaling down." she conceded.
"That's exactly what Johanna's mum said, miss." Emma contributed. "Too big, apparently."
"Ja. Things could slip through end not be gripped firmly, Mutti said." Johanna confirmed.
There was a brief silence.
"Excuse me for a few moments." said Gillian Lansbury. "I won't be long."
She walked down the length of the dorm with immense dignity, left, and closed the door softly behind her.
A few seconds later, the Raven House fifth form heard the unmistakable sound of their Housemistress shrieking with uncontrollable laughter.
Then Gillian returned, having composed her features into something approaching official severity.
She handed the Device back to Emma.
"Lock this securely in the armoire with your other equipment." she said. "You too, Miss Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande. I believe I can overlook this and exercise discretion. You will, of course, both write a short essay on the uses and possible adaptation of this thing for Guild use. Consult Matron Igorina for professional advice if you get stuck. She would be interested, I think."
"Thank you, miss." Emma and Johana said together.
no footnotes? Blimey. Slow day.
Notes Dump:
A limbo for ephemera, et c et c, bonus bits, Soul Cake Day Eggs and odd stray thoughts with no immediate relevance to the tale at hand, but which need to go down somewhere lest I forget.