The MGC returns? Epilogues
A month later.
Gerald Langworthy-Eccles sat in his study, trying to make sense of import-export notes and bills of lading for his ships, making himself work through the recent crushing shock of discovering his faithless wife had conspired to murder him.
As additional proof she had been the wrong woman to marry, she had proven to be so mentally unstable as to end up a basket case in the lunatic ward at the Lady Sybil, blast her worthless hide. Still, he was divorcing the wretched woman and leaving her without a penny. Slant and Honeyplace were expensive, but they were the best in town: that damned bloodsucking vampire Honeyplace had assured him that the divorce would be uncontested and he would need do more than make a conscience-saving donation to the Lady Sybil towards the cost of her cure.
He rang again, impatiently, to the kitchen. Damn place was going to pot since that fateful morning when the woman went mad. I mean… killing him with flowers. He hadn't believed the Watch at first and had only grudgingly believed them when that clever little Dwarf had shown him files and photographs. Still, it was all over now. He doubted anyone else would come chasing after him now trying to kill him, and after this divorce was done, he could set about getting a new wife, one who appreciated him more than that bloody ungrateful cow had ever done.
Where in the seven Hells was that cup of tea?
He forced himself to wait for a few seconds more. There was a knock on the door.
"Enter!" he boomed.
A black-clad housemaid entered, pushing a tea trolley. Gerald frowned. There was something subtly different about the black she wore, it didn't seem to be the plain and simple everyday housemaid's black. But she must be a maid, as she was wearing a white lace pinny over the front.
"Your tea, sir" she said, keeping her eyes demurely downcast.
He nodded.
"Bring it over here".
The maid, an older lady of about fifty, (he noted he'd have to tell Gillespie about that: send the young pretty ones in future, we must have some), obligingly wheeled the tea-trolley over and poured him a cup Without thanks, he took it and drank, going back to his paperwork. After a while he looked up.
"Still here?" he said, crossly, to the elderly maid, who was looking at him expectantly. He noted, abstractly, his lips were numb.
She nodded down at him.
"It's beginning to work, then. Good. Right now you should be feeling it in your lips" she said, pleasantly.
What was the damned impudent woman doing now? Damned if she wasn't rummaging on his desk, messing things up, looking for something…
"Isn't it always the way? You can never find a wretched pen when you need one. Ah, here we are."
She made a space by pushing a stack of his paperwork off the desk. He tried to shout at her but found he had no voice. He tried to push her from his desk but found he had no fingers.
Meanwhile the woman was humming a tune as she filled in…. a receipt?
"You are by now unable to speak. Your upper body is paralysed. Shortly you will be fighting for breath." she said, in an unconcerned voice. "Whoops, almost forgot. "
She took the lace apron off, leaving only the black. The pure, expensive-looking, black. All servility had gone from her now and she glanced at him, a sardonic, somewhat contemptuous, look on her face.
"Jolly bad form to stay in disguise at the critical moment." she said. She blotted her receipt – on his blotter! – and then waved it in front of his eyes. He read the large header.
Guild of Assassins
And the smaller print underneath
Official Receipt for Services
It was dated, and her name, he noted, began with "J".
She stood in front of him, leant forward, then folded the receipt and left it tucked neatly in his top pocket.
"We've got a few moments before you die, Gerald, so I can spend those moments telling you what a worthless disgusting little tick you are." she said. "You're a louse, Gerald. A bullying greedy pompous braggart who drove his wife to try to kill him, and when that failed, drove her insane. Well, you'll die before the divorce is finalised, so she'll still be your widow and she'll get everything. The hospital tell me she's responding well to love and patience, but you wouldn't know anything about that because it never would have occurred to you to ask."
"your wife wasn't the only one with a grudge against you. This is an entirely different contract to inhume and no, I'm not telling you who paid for it. And I'll tell you now I don't give a stuff for their reasons. Mine are that you're a wife-beating shit of a man with no right to walk upon the Gods' green Disc, and this world will be a lot better for your passing."
Gerald Langworthy-Eccles felt he was swimming through a mist, with the dour-faced woman Assassin looking dispassionately at him, her bony face swimming in and out of focus.
"Your eyes are failing, you're suffocating for lack of breath, and any moment now…."
Gerald gave a last convulsive shudder, and was still.
The woman nodded, then rummaged in a lower level of her tea-trolley until she found an iconograph, and took the picture that proved the contract had been honoured.
Then, because she believed in cleaning up after her, she replaced her pinny, and wheeled the tea-trollley back to the kitchen, taking care to sluice out the poisoned cup.
Later, she registered her claim and collected twelve thousand (after tax) in Guild bonds. She paid off the balance of the Personal Equipment Account(1) for four named student assassins (Richard Webbley, Jim Coogan, Sharon Higgins and Darleen O'Hagan), paid the remainder into her own savings account at the Royal Bank, then resumed her teaching duties at the Guild School.
As was the custom, at Prayers that night just before High Dinner, the Master noted that the Inhumation Bell had been rung four times that day and read out the day's Roll of Honour to the assembled School.
"Sir Roger Masenfield, baronet, of Quirm, was assisted from this vale of tears by the Honourable Patrick fFitch-Moore, of Pernypopax House.
"Mr Arnold Fettler of Nap Hill, Ankh-Morpork, was guided accross the veil to that which lies beyond, by Toby Baxter, of Cobra House.
"The Reverend Obidiah Golightly-Sprong of Pseudopolis was drawn a good deal nearer to his God than he anticipated when he got up this morning, by Martin Cox of Viper House.
"And finally but by no means least, Mr Gerald Langworthy-Eccles of Speedwell Lane, Ankh-Morpork, benefitted immeasurably from marriage guidance counselling conducted by Miss Joan Sanderson-Reeves, this school's Head of Bursary, Scholarship and Day pupils."
Joan and Davinia had between them created a new euphemism.
Two months later
Davinia Bellamy completed a circuit of Hide Park's lake in under fourteen minutes. This was well up on her first time of twenty-seven minutes, recorded some six weeks before when she had been allowed to start a fitness regime under the experienced eye of senior Assassins.
Fourteen minutes certainly wasn't enough to out-run Johanna Smith-Rhodes, her escort for the morning, who could do it in eleven. But with a backpack full of bricks, it was good enough for Johanna to be impressed with the older woman's progress.
"Look, we're both cerrying twenty pounds in dead weight." Johanna had said, kindly. "It looks like rain, so shell we meke it beck to the Guild, nice steady jog? End you ere doing well. For this, you must be fit! End you ere getting fitter every dey. Kiff!"
And this is even before she begins, Johanna thought. She may well pass. She has the guts for it.
Three months later
"Welcome to the Assassins' Guild!" Lord Downey said to the full conference room Behind him, eight members of the permanent staff, full Assassins all, studied the thirty new trainees impassively and silently.
This was the second Mature Students Class: this one was composed of twenty-one men and nine women, who were earmarked, if they passed, for various jobs within the Guild's structure and bureaucracy. The Guild needed a new Librarian, for instance: and dual-qualified Assassin/Librarians were thin on the ground. With the School's one elderly art teacher coming up to retirement, here was a moribund School department needing new blood. At least two of the Candidates were suitably qualified.
"you are all here because you have all come to the attention of the Guild Council for the same reason and you all have have something in common.
"None of you are Guild members, and yet at one time or another, you have all, without exception, accepted money in return for facilitating annulments. I'm glad that in our private discussions with you, you have all agreed that this is a regrettable state of affairs that the Guild simply cannot allow to continue. We just cannot allow freelance, non-Guild, Assassins to operate."
Lord Downey paused to allow this to sink in. His eyes scanned the room, meeting the eyes of each in turn.
"The circumstances in which each of you inhumed have been investigated. In many cases you carried out the inhumation, despite your lack of formal training, with commendable qualities of skill, resource, discretion and style. Most of you are of good or reputable family. You therefore, in the eyes of the Guild, have the aptitude and background to rectify this earlier omission and qualify as licenced Assassins. As the Guild does not approve of un-necessary or wasteful death, I am pleased you have all chosen the option of joining this Guild as mature candidates for full membership."(2)
Standing behind him, Alice Band allowed this to pass over her with half an ear. She'd been here before, after all, but on the other side of the desk. She watched the candidates, who were alert, apprehensive and worried at the thought of the coming year. Just as she had been.
"The oldest person to pass out as a full Assassin was forty-eight years old when she qualified. It is perfectly achievable given strength, fortitude, and positivity of mind."
Alice and Joan exchanged a secret smile.
"You are to undergo, over the next a year, a greatly accelerated version of the training course which produces at its end a Licenced Assassin. As mature students, as people from good social backgrounds, you will of course have assimilated many of the social and life skills which we normally have to teach to pupils of school age, which attenuates the course somewhat for you.
"Not all of you will succeed. Some will fall by the wayside in various ways, and others will fall at the final hurdle of the Examination. But simply by being here, you have all tacitly agreed that this is the best of the available options. All that is necessary now is for you all to sign an affidavit to the intent that you are here of your own free will, and to agree that in the event of failure to complete the course, your next of kin will not be able to sue the Guild. Although, of course, compensation for loss of a parent will be paid by the Guild to children under eighteen, as we are not an uncaring organization.
"However, to those of you with children, do pay thought to the fact that even as associate Guild members, if your childd shows promise, we may be prepared to educate him or her at a reduced fee cost. Please see me privately if this interests you.
"Some of you, in arriving in this room today, will have committed inhumations upon individuals for whom a Guild contract existed. This deprived a Guild member of the opportunity to earn a fee, which was another good reason for us to step in and detain you, and presents Mr Wimvoe the Guild Treasurer with a minor bookkeeping problem. We are not an unfair organization. In those instances, the fee due will remain in abeyance until you have qualified as an Assassin. It will then be retrospectively paid to you – you will have more than earned it – the moment the situation is rectified and you have your Licence. Less, of course, tuition, accommodation, and equipment fees. The rest of you, if you are not in a position to pay for the cost of the training you are about to undergo, will be offered a zero-interest student loan, redeemable against your first successful inhumations. Of course, some of you will go directly to the teaching faculty at the School to meet our perceived need for more female teachers. A similar de facto loan will be redeemed against your salaries over the first few years of employment. The same applies to those who are taken on by the Palace as Dark Clerks.
"You will each be personally mentored by two full Assassins, at least one of whom will have passed out from the previous Mature Students Class. The details of mentorship will be dealt with by Miss Sanderson-Reeves who will read you the list.."
Davinia Bellamy was not surprised to find she had drawn Joan Sanderson-Reeves and Madame Deux-Epees. She fervently hoped the Quirmian teacher did not hold a grudge, or she was in trouble.
"All that remains for me to say is "Good Luck", ladies and gentlemen , and I look forward to meeting with you over the coming year – which will be one of hard dedicated work and commitment. Thank you."
One year later:-
"Well, that concludes the Vivat, Mrs Bellamy. All that remains now is the final test of all. Follow me, if you please."
Her examiner, Baron Striefenkanen, led her to where a recognisably human body lay under a sheet. Davinia's flesh crawled. Although she had killed at least thirteen times, she had never actually been there when the body hit the ground. This was totally new to her.
Steifenkanen and the second examiner, Mr Mericet, exchanged glances.
I'm going to do this my way or not at all, she thought, rebelliously.
From an equipment pouch, she took an absorbent cloth and abottle of liquid in a brown bottle. She let the examiners note the breathing filters she inserted, carefully, into each nostril. Then she soaked the cloth in the sweet-smelling fluid, taking care not to breathe too deeply. Moving silently to the figure under the blanket, she swiftly gripped it by the back of the neck and applied the pad to the face. Although she realised instantly it was a well-crafted dummy, she silently counted to a hundred in her head before releasing a grip honed and made muscular by physical exercise and continual weapons practice.
She dropped both bottgle and cloth into a waste sack, stepped back, and said:
"Ether. It brings about unconsciousness within fifteen seconds. This causes the body to lapse into deep quiescence and all struggling ceases. If all the body breathes in after that is ether, then no less than forty-five seconds of no oxygen – anoxia – brings about death. The client is inhumed."
Her two examiners conferred. Davinia watched anxiously Was this permissible? Did they really want to see her use a sword or a stiletto, weapons she had a pass grade in (thanks to Emmanuelle, who really hadn't borne a grudge) but which she had no appetite for?
Then Mericet turned to her, his dry grave old face wreathed in a smile.
"So many students at this stage forget poisoning is a valid option. Beautifully executed, Doctor Bellamy!"
"I agree" said Streifehnkanen, holding out a pink slip. A big, gruff, man, the Baron was reputed to have some werewolf ancestry in him.
"You are now a licenced Assassin, Doctor Bellamy. You have my sincerest congratulations."
"I concur" agreed Mericet.
" Thank you." Davinia said sincerely, and went out to find Peter and the boys, who she knew would be waiting anxiously. She also wanted to find Joan and Emmanuelle and thank them too.
For the first time in over a year, the threat of death had receded. She had a new life to live now. It felt good.
One year and two months later
Martin Bellamy, aged eleven, waited anxiously in the courtyard of the Assassins' School, wondering what it was going to be like to be a pupil here.
He and Dad and his brothers had had that really awful time just over a year ago when the truth about Mum had come out, and Dad had warned them, struggling to keep his voice level, that whatever else happens, you will be looked after, that's a promise. They had all been scared Mum was going to be executed for what she did, but then the Angel had descended and she'd been offered a way out. For the next year, they'd all helped with her education. Tracey had taken over managing the florists' business (and had shown the door, firmly, regrettably, but politely, to any customer wanting more than just flowers) for Mum. Dad could be seen with her in the designated play area of the garden, the only place where Mum wanted to see balls and things that could damage her plants, in full armour, taking her through her sword and weapon drills. Miss Sanderson-Reeves from the School had taken to dropping by in the evenings, and frequently took tea with the family. Tim had never dared ask, but he wondered if the older lady was a little bit lonely and had missed out on having a family herself. But he sensed he'd see a different side of her here, at the School. As a day boy, he'd be in her class.
Miss Sanderson-Reeves, and the other lady Assassin who called by, the dark-haired Quirmian woman who remembered their birthdays with presents, would sit with Mum, and guide her through things she needed to know to pass. Auntie Emmie, as they called her, was nice, and smiled and laughed a lot, describing Mum as "the only woman to get the better of me in a fight. Of course I'd prefer her as a friend!"
He privately thought it was dead cool that his mum, who he thought could never kill a mouse(3), had inhumed so many people. It put her way ahead in the Cool Parent stakes. He wondered how many other guys his age had a mum who was a mass murderess, sorry, trained Assassin. He also knew she'd faithfully banked all the fees she'd received to pay for his and his brothers' educations. And now she was a member of this select club, it got her a discount on having a son go to school here. So she'd negotiated with the School on their taking him now, and his little brother in two or three years, and money had changed hands. Their older brother Simon was perfectly happy at the Builders' Guild School, wanting as he did to go into construction.
He hoped it wouldn't make a difference that his mum taught at the school he attended. He'd been warned not to expect any favours, not from Mum or "Auntie Joan". But it looked like it was going to be fun for the next seven years.
He noted a dark-haired and pretty girl of his own age, also a new pupil, smiling and winking at him. Sligtly abashed, he winked back. She giggled.
And the school had other interests, too...
(1) As generations of indentured Assassins have grumbled, the School serves bloody expensive PEAs.
(2) See my storyThe Graduation Class.
(3) She regularly killed mice, in a dispassionate and necessary way, that she thought were threatening her plants. Some of her more sophisticated plants regularly killed their own ration of mice and rats. the Death of Rats was a frequent visitor to Davinia's garden and greenhouses and often performed his necessary work halfway up a carnivorous plant.