The Urban Safari - epilogues
I'm claiming this, at 19:04pm GMT on Saturday 4th October 2009, as being thevery first Discworld Fanfic to incorporate material from Terry Pratchett's newly-released Discworld novel Unseen Academicals. In which we learn of various animal colonies within the university walls. Thank you! (Some might think this obsessive. This is true, up to a given value of "obsession". We are all, after all, devotees of the Master! I prefer to think of it as attention to detail. Thank you.)
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There was one last scene to play out in the Oblong Office, the decision to establish, support and endow a City Zoo having been made, and finance secured to operate it.
"Just one last little matter before we close." Vetinari said. "Doctor Whiteface, you requested an opportunity to speak to Miss Smith-Rhodes?"
The grim Master of the Guild of Fools and Joculators half-turned in his seat to face her.
"Indeed, my Lord. I listened to the ideas she presented with great interest, and I must compliment Lord Downey on his ability to recruit such talented and capable people to his Guild. She does you great credit, my Lord".
Downey accepted the compliment with a nod.
Whiteface gave Johanna an appraising look. She tried to meet it with lack of concern, although something inside her wanted to shudder.
"Two of my more, ah, talented and enthusiastic young men asked to see me this morning. Both have a strong interest in traditional circus clowning, and both were present to witness you demonstrating your animal management skills in the Park yesterday. They firmly believe aspects of your animal management abilities could be presented as a new and novel circus performance."
He's like Mericet, she thought. The mere idea of anything new or novel is totally distasteful to him. It sends him running for cover compiling all the reasons why it can't be done in our lifetime.
"I have to admit, they presented a very convincing case. Although I had to advise them that any novel idea has to pass through all the committee and discussion stages first, and could take up to fifty years to emerge at the trials stage. Clowning and the circus arts are not an area where you ad-lib or make it up as you go along, after all. We are the inheritors of a great tradition and as its custodians we must be careful and conserve, rather than innovate."
Doctor Whiteface paused for a moment to regard her. He asked:
"But tell me. Is it really possible to make large feral cats biddable, simply by threatening them with a whip?"
"I had a pretty good view from where I was standing" Sam Vimes cut in. "And yes, Doctor, it was bloody spectacular to watch."
"Ah yes. The demonstration saved the life of Commander Vimes. I do find it rather ironic, given the amount of time and energy the Guild has devoted to the alternative proposition over the years, that it should be an Assassin who actually saves the life of Sir Samuel!." Vetinari remarked.
"Yes, miss!" Dibbler put in, having regained something of his usual bounce and self-confidence. "Given that I hear the fee for Sir Samuel is over a million dollars now, and I read you as a young lady who is good with numbers, I'm surprised you didn't just let the lions get on with it, and then put in for the fee afterwards! It would have paid for your zoo quite a few times over!"
Johanna smiled, noting Vimes passing a shooting look at Dibbler. The thought she might have earned the fee for the notoriously-hard-to-inhume Vimes, and her own statue in the Hall of Fame for pulling off the trickiest contract the Guild had ever accepted, had genuinely never occurred to her.
"Several reasons, gentlemen." She ticked them off on her fingers.
"One, I've expressed a wish to invite Lady Sybil onto the menagement of the Zoo enterprise, because she is a world authority on the welfare of one specific species of enimel. She hes great concern for enimel welfare, end her work with swemp dregons hes given her trensferreble skills which I know she cen epply to the welfare of ell enimels in general. How far do you think I would hev got if I hed inhumed her husbend? End I suspect I would not hev enjoyed the million dollars for very long, before she came looking for me to discuss the metter.
Point two: to claim the fee, I would hev to fill out a report for the Derk Council. Whet do I write under "weapon used to conclude the inhumation?" The Guild could hev withheld the fee, arguing that "a pride of lionesses" is not an epproved technique, or thet I wes falsely taking the credit for coincidental circumstance. The Guild hes a procedure for dealing with members who make fraudulent claims, end I would not like to ectivate it!
"Point three: if Sir Samuel were inhumed by me, my colleague Alice Band would not be heppy with me. She would point out that she has been somewhat inconvenienced, end would now hev to find some other way to cure her pupils of over-confidence. I hev seen Alice when she gets engry. I would rather teckle a lioness bare-hended.
"Point four, I hev a certain emount of independent wealth. A little femily money, end some Guild fees I earned in the usual menner. Not a silly emount, but it enables me to live in some comfort. I really don't need eny more.
"Point five, the fee on Sir Samuel is still suspended. Which means the Guild prefers him to be elive rather than dead. In saving his life I was doing my duty es a good citizen, end as a Guild member. Which means I could still claim a small percentage under current errengements, Lord Downey?"
Downey nodded.
"Five per cent of the contract price is the usual fee in these circumstances, Miss Smith-Rhodes" he agreed. "The Guild wishes Sir Samuel to remain alive but under suspended contract, there was a real and significant threat to his life, and a licenced Assassin acted as bodyguard. Therefore the bodyguard may receive a small success fee for her prompt actions."
"Pay it to the Zoo Trust. End finally, Sir Samuel made me a Special Constebel. In accordance with Lord Downey's written wish thet Guild members should seek to be good citizens in all regards, I eccepted it. Now as a Constebel in the Wetch, I understand it is the height of bed menners, end somewhat frowned upon, to seek to inhume my commending officer? Therefore if the contract on Sir Samuel ever becomes ective again, it cannot be me who seeks to complete it, for a lot of good reasons"
Johanna smiled around the room.
"Are you enswered, Mr Dibbler?" she asked, sweetly. "Good. Now onto you, Doctor Whiteface."
"Please explain how it works, Miss Smith-Rhodes. Although I have reservations about the novel and the innovative, the described performance is something I find very intriguing indeed!"
"There is no mystery, Doctor." she said. "It has been known for a long time in Howondaland, thet the creck of a whip close to the ears of a large feral cat is a noise they cannot endure end seek to escepe from. I do not believe it is cruel, and I am satisfied it causes no permanent demege to their ears, or else I would not do it. You simply creck the whip so thet they flee from the noise in the direction in which you wish them to go. It helps if you can radiate strength, confidence, end purpose of mind, so thet they are deterred from ettecking. But a skilled prectitioner, like my old opie, she could make a lion sit, or lie, or stend on its hindlegs, es she chose! I hev to edmit thet et first I misunderstood the clown Bonzo's intentions, but I cen see, on reflection, thet this could be made into a circus show. Especially in terms of leotards, spengly tights, high-heeled boots, end a woman confident enough in herself to wear them in public!"
Doctor Whiteface nodded.
"You may be of assistance to me." he said. "With Lord Downey's permission, of course. You may be aware that we have been following the educational revolution with some interest? The Thieves' School has always, seemingly, admitted girls. You yourself are a result of the Assassins' School going co-educational. You were one of the first four women admitted to the Guild as full licenced Assassins. Since then, you have brought the first class of female students from admission to graduation."
Doctor Whiteface expelled a sigh.
"Following consultation with Lord Vetinari, our Fools' School has been convinced that we should admit a limited number of girl pupils. We will therefore be admitting fifty young ladies this Autumn."
Doctor Whiteface sighed again, as if this was something not completely of his own choosing.
"Since we assimilated the Conjurors' Guild, on the grounds that this is a time-honoured conservative entertainment medium which has remained unchanged in its essentials for several hundred years, and therefore perfectly suited to take its place alongside foolery and clowning (1), we have had to accept that every conjuror worthy of the name requires his girl assistant. There is also an ongoing need for tightrope walkers and trapeze artists, as well as knife-throwers' assistants. Therefore the girl pupils at the Fools' School will ultimately be training for these, ah, supporting positions. The thought occurs to me that your new discipline of, ah, lion-taming, should be developed by us, after fast-tracking through the usual acceptance procedures…"
"How fest is fest, Doctor?" Johanna asked him.
"The Council of Mirth meets on Tuesday. I will instruct them that we will be teaching lion-taming to the new girl pupils. By three o'clock on Tuesday, it will have been agreed. I would like to invite you to work with us, as a visiting lecturer, say once per week? It may be difficult for you, with all your other commitments…"
"Not et ell, Doctor. I will be paid?"
"And the copyright in the new skill rests with you, obviously. A percentage of revenue from each public performance…"
"Will be paid to the Zoo Trust. You will, efter ell, need to work with ectuel living enimels et some stage. The Zoo cen provide those, subject to hiring fees. End your girl pupils, plus, of course, any vocationally suitable males, cen be sent to me for enimel handling lessons, chergeble to the Guild School, es often es we both see fit? Thenk you, Doctor. I look forward to seeing this in writing."
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Ponder, somewhat stunned, left the meeting with Johanna.
"Another thing that slipped my mind in the meeting." he said. "Back in the days of Archchancellor Bewdsley, the University experimented with using trained marmosets as a message-carrying system between offices."
"End?" she said, interested.
"They, er, escaped. There's a large colony breeding in the pipework under the University. Perhaps we could arrange? You know? For you to bring some students round and trap them?" (2)
"Ponder, I would love that very much!" she said.
"Good." He said, with a deep happy sigh.
Lord Downey and Vetinari watched them leaving.
"It could come to something or it could come to nothing" Vetinari remarked. "I know Archchancellor Ridcully has got Professor Stibbons marked down as a talented young man who could become Archchancellor in his own right, within forty years."
"You can afford to be relaxed about people who could do your job in forty years' time" Downey replied. "It's the ones who threaten to become your immediate successor that you need to watch!"
"And if Stibbons has, shall we say, a personal advisor standing beside him, somebody who the Assassins' Guild has thoroughly trained in realpolitik and who Lady T'malia has schooled to her own satisfaction in Political Expediency, then he may toughen up very quickly."
"Indeed, my Lord." Downey said, frowning uncertainly.
"I had to suppress a smile when Miss Smith-Rhodes rather disingenuously said she was neither a politician nor a diplomat. That young lady's family ruled Howondaland for two hundred years and are still thought of with respect even today. And her family skills have been honed to a very razor edge by Lady T'Malia. Who I understand has generously given of her time and expertise in educating those lady Assassins the Guild chose to employ on its teaching staff. One of whom, I believe, now sits on the Dark Council itself."
Vetinari watched, with private satisfaction, as the barb bit home.
"Miss Sanderson-Reeves is an asset on the Council, my Lord. She represents the views of the new generation of Assassins whilst being of an age to understand the concerns and preoccupations of the old."
"And a possible successor to yourself as Guild Master. Or perhaps in this case, as Guild Mistress. And if not her, then in the fullness of time, Miss Band? Madame Deux-Épées? Or perhaps even Miss Smith-Rhodes. Or Mrs Stibbons, as she may then be. But as I said, it could come to something or it come to nothing."
"Indeed, my Lord"
Vetinari sipped his glass of distilled water, watching Downey pour another sherry from the decanter.
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After breakfast in the Great Hall, Johanna Smith-Rhodes performed the routine administration of Raven House, assuring herself that none of its girls had absconded during the night, and none needed to be sent to Matron Igorina as sick. She conducted a routine disciplinary between two first year girls who had had a falling-out and been caught fighting, put the fear of the Gods into them both with a very stern telling-off, than softened to dealing with the needs of two eleven year-old girls, away from home at Big School for the first time. She listened to them, dispensed good advice, then dismissed them.
Young Maroon, the duty mail-boy, ran to her office with a copy of the Times and her share of the morning post. She thanked him, and read the Times over a coffee. They were still covering the animal escape in Hide Park with photos and stories there'd been no physical space for the previous day. An iconograph showed Sergeant Angua and Constable von Humpeding of the Watch in borrowed Assassin black, and the caption was "New Watch uniforms? Or just undercover work? Either way, dressed to knock them dead!"
Johanna nodded with appreciation – Sally really looked the part and was wearing the borrowed black with absolute assurance. Then again, so was Angua, although a tunic meant for a fourteen-year-old girl pupil looked a little tight on her…Johanna speculated on what particular problems a vampire or a werewolf pupil would pose to her House Mistress, then shuddered at the thought of not Angua, but Wolfgang von Überwald with a Guild education. No wonder Vetinari absolutely bars our taking Undead pupils, she thought.
An editorial praised the far-sighted and civic-minded proposal to enable a City Zoological Gardens, and Johanna noted, to her approval, that somebody (Vetinari?) had given the Times a set of plans and artists' impressions to look at. And copy into the paper. She studied them herself: evidently a bright architect had been consulted. But that wouldn't do for a chimpanzee house, too many ways the creatures could escape. Oh, and she was named as a woman to whom the City owes deepest and most heart-felt thanks. She shrugged: praise would be forgotten by tomorrow, but the Zoo was already growing.
She turned her attention to the post. A letter from the Times, asking if Sacharissa Cripslock could interview her for the Woman of the Moment feature; a letter from home, from her mother, no doubt another litany of complaints about continued absence of son-in-law, her daughter's tardiness in doing anything about it that she could see, a warning that it will get worse after you turn thirty, and that she, Johanna's mother, would like to see grandchildren, ideally before she got too old and senile to appreciate being an opie and an ouma. Johanna put it to one side for attention later.
What's this… from Miss Estressa Partleigh, of the Campaign for Equal Heights. Why am I not going to like this?
It had come to Miss Partleigh's attention that she, Miss Smith-Rhodes, was only proposing to have chimpanzees of the species Pan Troglodyctus in the new City Zoo. Was she not aware that there was such a thing as the Dwarf Chimpanzee, Pan Bonobus, and what sort of a message was it sending out that the dwarf chimpanzee was being excluded from the new Zoo? She, Miss Partleigh, therefore demanded that three dwarf bonobos should be included for every two troglydyctus…
Johanna swore a spiky Howondolandian oath that was audible from Tump House, balled the letter up from the verdammte dumpkoft stupid woman, and threw it at the wall.
The last letter restored her smile: it was from the Council of the Thieves' Guild, acknowledging that Vetinari had personally passed on her comments at yesterday's meeting. In the light of which, the Council had debated the Zoo issue, thought it was a great idea, and in the interests of public relations and being seen as a mature and confident Guild that could join in with a good-natured joke at its expense… could we offer to sponsor the Chimpanzee House? Could volunteer students from the Thieves' Guild School have to do with its upkeep and maintainence?
She pencilled yes, of course in the corner of the letter, and leant back. It was shaping up into a good morning.
Lord Vetinari looked down at the intercepted diplomatic communications on his desk, and smiled slightly. Like many other foreign ambassadors, Pieter van der Graaf was in the habit of putting private letters to his family into the diplomatic bag to save on postal costs, and as assurance that they would eventually arrive at their destination.
Vetinari saw nothing wrong with reading transcripts of private letters: if it was in the diplomatic bag, it was fair game according to the informal rules of diplomacy, and besides, a private letter could say so much more about the thoughts and preoccupations and concerns of the diplomatic representatives he had to negotiate with. This one was to the ambassador's sister, Mrs Agnetha Smith-Rhodes of Piemburg in the Oranjesvreistaadt.
My dear Aggie.
I have to report that our very bright child, my niece and your oldest daughter, has proven herself as a true daughter of the Fatherland and was of great assistance in recent difficult circumstances. She is, and always has been, a young woman to be proud of.
But first – and I know you, I have been your brother for fifty-five long years – you will want to know that Johanna shows long-desired signs of settling down. The young man is a graduate wizard and university Professor who we have been watching for some time, as a high-flyer who is tipped in his due time to become Arch-chancellor of the University. She appears quite taken with him and he with her. Now I realise this news will have you jumping for joy and turning cartwheels down the aisle of the Temple whilst shouting "Glory Halleluiah!", but it is truth, subject to certain strictures – I believe Arch-chancellor Ridcully may abolish the old Lore that says Wizards are not allowed to marry, as to a certain degree this is an irrelevance. What really matters is that under no circumstances may they have more than seven children. (were they to marry, and we should not hope for this too soon). I realise that by Boor standards this is a small family, but this is a compromise Johanna may have to accept…
Vetinari smiled again. He wondered about the children of a wizard and an Assassin. And that eight child, the one who might in turn be father…no, parent of an eighth child… Vetinari frowned. He'd better make sure Ridcully would insist there be no eighth child. A Sourceror with grandparents like that…
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"He's me best young Wizard, Donald. I can't say "no"."
Lord Downey listened to Mustrum Ridcully with sympathy tinged with amusement. It wasn't often he got to see a woeful and dolorous Arch-chancellor. It was something to treasure.
"I believe the difficulty is that at the moment, wizards aren't allowed to marry. And in fact, any association with the opposite sex is frowned upon".
He smiled, and studied the play of light and shadow in the golden liquid of his sherry glass.
"Happily for me, Mustrum, graduates of my academy aren't just allowed to marry, they are actively encouraged to do so!" And to put it in the vernacular, a really good-seeing-to would make the girl a lot less prickly and more mellow. Heavens, Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Épées is a positive nymphomaniac – and she's always easier to deal with the morning after she's been pleasuring some poor chap's brains out!
Ridcully sighed again. "I've never told young Stibbons, but he might have guessed by now .He's the very best I've got. I rely on that lad to keep things ticking over! I don't want to lose him to a woman, Donald, damn lovely girl though she is."
In some respects, Downey was many times more worldly-wise than Ridcully.
"Do you need to lose him at all, Mustrum? I mean, this Lore that says wizards can't marry – surely that only becomes an issue the moment the girl gets him to the altar? And up until then he's permitted all the extra-maritals or instead-of-maritals that he can take?"
"Hah! Can't see young Johanna settling for being an instead of marital for too long! She's got class, that one!"
"Well, look at it this way, Mustrum. What's important about this lore of yours? Why are Wizards not allowed to marry? It's not the act of marriage that's the problem, is it? It's the number of children that's the issue. All this Sourcerer business, the eighth child of the eighth child, and so on. Surely you, as Arch-chancellor, can abolish one piece of lore that is no longer applicable to need, and replace it with a new one: Yes, you may marry, but have more than seven children and we come gunning for you. After all, I had to authorise a major re-write of the Concordat when we started taking girl pupils. The old version just wasn't relevant to mixed-sex education. Took a lot of fighting for with people who were married to the old wording, who didn't see why I should be changing what had stood the Guild in good stead for seven hundred years, but I got there in the end!"
Ridcully nodded.
"There may be something in what you say" he said, reluctantly.
Downey smiled again.
"But of course, Johanna is from a people who believe in big families. A remarkable people, the Boors. They preserve something of the cultural ethos prevelant in Sto Kerrig five or six hundred years ago. What's the phrase that sums up all that's expected of a Boor wife? Oh yes, dem Kinders, die Kerk en Kombuis. Especially kinders. When Johanna first came to Ankh-Morpork and I interviewed her for a mature student position at the Guild, it was patently obvious what she was running away from and what parts of the cultural expectation for young Boor girls she was in rebellion against. It wasn't too difficult to get her to see the advantages of remaining in this City with a student's visa. "
"Donald, assume I've neglected me studies in Kerrigian and Vondalaans lately?"
"Children, church and kitchen. Especially the first. It's not unknown for Boor women to have ten or more!"
"Donald, you're not helpin'" Ridcully said, severely.
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At the end of the day, Johanna was in the Animal Management Unit, dealing with students, handling routine admin, and stopping her thoughts from straying to dark-haired bespectacled young Wizards.
If he has his hair styled slightly differently and perhaps a different shape of frame on his glasses, and pays a little more attention to his clothes, he'd be quite good-looking. I'll talk to Conina about the hair.
"Cherie!" Emmanuelle said, stepping out from around the Aquarium and delivering a Quirmian hug and a kiss on each cheek.
"Oh, hi, Emmie. Whet beings you here?" She paused, and corrected herself. "Both of you here."
"So relaxing to be around fish, I find!" announced Joan Sanderson-Reeves (Domestic Sciences), in her brisk, no-nonsense, carrying voice. "I'd quite like a tank in my office!"
"Well, yes, Joan. But those are Vampire Goldfish from Bhengbhengduc. Swim in a river with those fellows end you'd be empty of all blood inside a minute! And thet's a Deep Sea Bloatfish. You don't need me to tell you whet it does. And those are pirhanas!"
"Very pretty, though." Joan said. "Now we haven't got long. Alice can't keep him in small-talk at the door for ever. Davinia!"
Mrs Bellamy, the Botany teacher, appeared from behind Johanna holding a clean, new, starched, white labcoat. With Johanna feebly protesting, her arms were forced into it and it was fastened in front.
"Did I mention your young wizard's here? " Joan said, cheerfully.
"MY young wizard?"
Emmanuelle stepped forward and took Johanna's arms. She expertly sprayed perfume on each wrist, then a little behind each ear.
"Oh, REALLY, Emmie!" she protested. Emmanuelle held up a cautionary finger.
"Cherie, who here knows more about men?"
"well, you, of course…"
"Et bien. You admit I know what works with men? Bon. Trust me. To your wizard, the so-clean new white coat will be like the finest lace lingerie." A clipboard was thrust into her hands.
Joan and Emmanuelle surveyed their handwork, and shook hands.
"I think she'll do" said the older female Assassin, satisfied. "I say, these hairy spiders are sweet, aren't they? Could be a market here, m'dear. Shoulder-sitters that won't set your hair on fire."
Johanna watched as the tarantula ran up Joan's arm and settled on her shoulder.
"I think you're very brave to let her sit there, Joan!" Johanna commented. "Especially as she's from a betch thet still hes ell its poison glands intact. We heven't hed time to de-feng them yet."
Joan stood very still as a senior student carefully removed the deadly arachnid from her shoulder.
"He's here!" Davinia Bellamy called. Uniquely for Assassins, Davinia went home at night to a happy marriage, and a husband and three kids who she loved. (3)
Emmie and Joan retreated to a discreet distance, and several student Assassins pretended to be very interested in their duties whilst trying not to giggle.
And then Ponder was walking uncertainly down the aisle, and she was walking forward to meet him. He stopped, taking in the white lab-coat and the clipboard. Emmanuelle nodded and smiled. Clearly smitten.
"Hello" he said. "I'm not intruding, am I?"
"No" she said, fervently. "Not et all."
"You did say to come round…"
"Let me show you round!" She took his arm, and led him down the aisle. From somewhere behind them, a voice she couldn't identify started humming A Wizard's Staff Has A Knob on The End…
Without turning round, Johanna said
"A week's detention to the person humming thet song!"
"That's a bit harsh, Miss Smith-Rhodes. Especially as it was me!" said Davinia.
"A fortnight's detention, then!"
And so a romance started. And as Downey observed, it could lead somewhere or it could lead nowhere. But for now, Ponder Stibbons is viewing Johanna's Animal Management Unit, and her friends are discreetly moving out and leaving them to it…
And I really think that's it.. maybe a tweak or two, but I really do thing it's done now. Let me know if you think I'm wrong!
(1) Something like this must have happened. In the very earliest Discworld novels, such as Equal Rites, conjurors have been described as jolly men with leather patches on their elbows and a hearty laugh, who congregate together at parties, associate with thin sad-eyed women (generally called Doris who affect spangly tights and leotards), and generally infuriate wizards by not realising how lowly they are. Yet by the time of The Truth, A group of sad, listless, and defeated men whose guild premises are directly underneath William de Worde's office. By inference one step away from Fools and every bit as cheerful, the trainee Conjurors are led through their lessons by strict rote. It is clear that as with the Fools and Joculators, there is no perceived need to alter what may, at some point in the preceding several hundred years, have once been a winning formula.
Quite clearly, in between Equal Rites and The Truth, something has happened to change the image of conjuring. Quite possibly the establishment of a Guild and the formalising of training into something sounding as unutterably miserable as anything the Fools' Guild has come up with? Indeed, given the generally negative levels of jollity and joviality floating about, together with the undeniable fact that stage magic is a somewhat stilted, forced and unspontaneous form of entertainment, unchanged in its essentials for many years, which has now become something of a cliché - could it be that Conjury has been subsumed as a sub-speciality of Clowning and Fooling, and ultimately comes under the chilly wing of Dr. Whiteface?
(2) I'm claiming this, at 19:04pm on Saturday 4th October 2009, as being thevery first Discworld Fanfic to incorporate material from Terry Pratchett's newly-released Discworld novel Unseen Academicals. In which we learn of various animal colonies within the university walls. Thank you!
(3) A future fanfic will explain more about Davinia the botany mistress and how she came to the Assassins'Guild as a mature student. It's sketched out and I like the feel of the story!