Pair of Eyes 17

Can't think of an eye-related song for this one. Yet.

In which there is a reckoning when the girls return to school. Catherine discovers the truth. But how does she deal with it?

Catherine digested the information that her teachers had paid towards her treatment. It sounded like the sort of thing they'd do. To be a complete cow, you still had to have some sort of ethics. Some objective standard to measure the complete cow-ness against.

"The Black Widow. Madame Two-Swords." she said.

"Yes. I remember her on the day." Vimes said. "She came back to the wagon we'd set up to deal with anyone who got hurt, and went over to talk to Igor and Igorina about you. Not sure exactly how it's done, but my Watch Igor is pretty innovative. He's apparently cracked how to make replacement eyes. You don't have to take them out of dead people any more, apparently. He just needs to take a couple of living cells from somebody. Just a scrape from the surface of the eye. Then they somehow breed and multiply if they're given the right sort of nudges. Two months later you end up with perfect copies. He took a scrape from the Black Widow's eyes. I remember she was looking a bit wobbly afterwards. And two months down the line, he put those new eyes in you."

Catherine set down the teacup with exaggerated and pronounced care. She set down the sideplate with the half-eaten cucumber sandwich.

Catherine Perry-Bowen. Ask who donated your new eyes. They haven't told you everything….

"Madame Two-Swords. I've got her eyes. Or a copy of her eyes."

"Yes. You did."

Sam Vimes paused.

"You mean they never told you? Great Io!"

"Well." Catherine said, the knowledge settling on her like a bad curry.

"I know now."

There was an embarrassed silence. Sybil and Sam shared a long glance.

"I shouldn't have said that, should I?" Vimes said. "Damn. I really thought they'd have told you by now. Bloody Assassins all over, that is."

This is too big to deal with right now, thought Catherine. Just be thankful you've avoided the dunnikin.

"Your mother was at QAYL, wasn't she?" Lady Sybil said, smoothly changing the subject. "Quite a few years after me. I recall meeting her at an Old Girls event. Jennifer Easington, as was. Runs the village school in Sproutington now. Pro-bono. Delivering education to the children of farm labourers and field workers. Jolly good work. Of course, I made a donation to the School. You have to do these things for Old Girls!"

Catherine recalled her earliest education, in the democratically level playing field of the Sproutington Village Elementary School. It had taught her an early life lesson – that when your mother is the Headmistress, there was nowhere to run to, and you'd better Behave. And her father, a man who had left the Assassins' School without Taking Black and had gone on to train in Law, heard cases and dispensed justice as the local magistrate. She was bound to try to Be Good, almost neurotically so, twice over. Rebellion had come late to her and it had taken the life crisis of nearly being killed and receiving new eyes… her eyes…. to make her start pushing the boundaries.

Gods, Parents' Night. Mum talks to them as teacher-to-teacher. Professional equals. And Dad was at this school, and some of the older teachers remember him. Nowhere to hide.

"It might not be so bad." Vimes said, with the forced casual air of a man who is desperately trying to change the subject. "I don't know if you've thought about this, but the only condition Alice Band puts on this exercise is that you have to get close enough to me to at least make the attempt, yes? You don't actually have to try and get me once you're there? And the actual method you choose is completely up to you?"

"Well…. yes…." Catherine said, hesitantly.

From the other side of the coffee table, about eight feet away, Sam Vimes grinned.

"Has it occurred to you that you've succeeded, sort of?"

Catherine blinked.

"She has surrendered, Sam." Sybil objected. "She realised there was no point, and gave herself up. I'm not sure if that still counts."

"And I can't even chuck her in the dunnikin." Sam Vimes sighed. "I have to abide by some rules, and they clearly state that once somebody's given themselves up, and they're co-operating, the Watch then has to treat them fairly and reasonably decently once they're in custody. I have to look after their welfare, see they're housed and fed, and kept in a safe secure place."

He looked at Catherine.

"No complaints about your treatment while in detention, young lady?"

"None whatsoever, sir." Catherine said, quickly.

"Good. Have one of the cheese sandwiches. They're more fiddly and finicky than I usually like them and Willikins still persists in cutting the crusts off, but somebody's got to eat them."

Sybil laughed.

"But, and this is perhaps a little bit of Sam's horrible suspicious attitude rubbing off on me." She said. "I've known Assassins for a long time and they can be surprisingly nice people. When Donald Downey was a student he was quite frankly a bumptious horse's bottom of a man, hard to like, but I do have to admit he's mellowed out a bit as he's grown up."

"Really, Sybil?" Catherine asked, interested.

"Needed taking down a few pegs. Bit of a School Bully. Havelock managed it wonderfully. Met them all at balls and galas and things in those days, when I came out as a debutante. Havelock shook him down, and got him to buck his ideas up. You can see it still, when they meet today."

Catherine realized she was talking about the Patrician and listened, reflecting that you never got to hear this sort of thing, usually. She almost forgot the thing about her eyes, as she stored up an anecdote or two.

"But anyway. The thought occurs to me, and I do realise I'm thinking like Sam here, that you just might be thinking ahead. What if you only pretended to surrender to get Sam into a false sense of security? After all, I only have your word for it that you're not carrying any weapons."

Catherine realized Lady Sybil Ramkin was not stupid or frothy. Not at all. She thought quickly.

"You mean I could be sitting here waiting for the moment to deploy a throwing knife or something?"

She raised both her empty hands. Vimes didn't move, but watched her with attentive interest.

"I gave my word, Lady Sybil. I'm now a guest in your house. Well, under arrest in your house, anyway. And to be honest, even if I did have a weapon, I'd be trying to use it on Commander Vimes. I'm not at all sure I'd succeed. Especially since he's been watching my hands to see what I do with them. Besides, your butler is standing immediately behind me. Six feet away. I'm not at all sure I'd be able to move quicker than him."

Vimes smiled slightly.

"And Mr Willikins..."

"Just 'Willikins'", Vimes corrected her. "He's keen on that."

"Willikins. Even if he's got scruples about hitting a woman, and I'm not sure at all about that, there's a maid in the room. An employee, anyway. She came in with the little boy. I'm guessing there's more to her than there seems. And she wouldn't think twice about hitting a woman, perhaps."

"Remiss of me. I never introduced Purity." Lady Sybil remarked. "Young Sam's nanny. She does know a few little skills, just in case any unpleasant people try to do anything to Young Sam."

Purity smiled and introduced herself. She looked like a typical nanny and governess, a young woman who had a vocation for looking after small children, generally so their parents didn't have to. But Susan Sto Helit was a nanny. The Guild would not take any contracts on her. Nannies in Ankh-Morpork did not tend to be cuddly or ineffectual, at the best of times. It followed on that any nanny employed at Ramkin Manor would not fly over rooftops in the company of chimney-sweeps or sing whimsical songs about spoonfuls of sugar. Oh no.

"What she didn't learn from me, she learnt from Willikins". Vimes said. Catherine nodded. Battle Butler. Combat Nanny. Hmm.

Catherine was eventually escorted to the way out by Lady Sybil. She felt a little bit consternated by the turn of events, and shocked by the fact she was leaving the place un-dunked in any dunnikins. She wondered if this was an all-time first for anyone sent on the Vimes Run by Miss Band.

"Fixed you up a coach." Lady Sybil said, amiably. "The least I could do, my dear. I do see your mother at Old Girls reunions, after all. I want to be able to look her in the eye, and tell her I looked after you!"

Catherine had heard about the Ladies Who Organise. The loose circle of Quirm Academy alumni who had left that school and moved on with good marriages, well-placed husbands, or failing that, into useful professions. It had never even occurred to her, before, that her mother could call on certain membership privileges, part of the unspoken network of social expectations that any Old Girl of the QAYL could reasonably expect to enjoy. She wondered if Assassins' Guild graduates would, in their own way, become a circle of Ladies Who Organise. Or would we be more competitive than that?

"Alice Band's an Old Girl, too." Sybil said, thoughtfully. "So I accept she can ask for a few little favours that make her teaching career easier. Most of the time I just let Sam get on with it and dip them in the dirt. The people she sends learn a lesson, Sam gets to test his security, Alice gets to make a point, and people like that frightful Rust girl go away humbler. Everybody benefits."

"But I'm being allowed to go?" Catherine said, bemused. Sybil patted her arm.

"Between you and me, I think Sam's quite taken with you." she said. "He'll never admit it, of course. But just now and again Alice sends one with a little bit more go about her. Jocasta Wiggs. She's been here five times now. Got splashed every time, of course. But he lets her keep a spare set of clothes here now, to go home in, and allows her a bath. We launder the clothes she came in and save them for next time. Seems to work. I daresay he's quite fond of her. Never admit it in a million years, of course. But they don't all get that privilege!"

Catherine eventually got into the courtesy coach. Dazed with the turn of events, with a footman courteously returning the blanket and egg-cups she'd used to get over the spikes, she faintly acknowledged Sybil saying she ought to come back sometime, by prior invitation, obviously, and see the dragons? She thought Catherine was the sort of young gel who'd like that.

And as the coach rattled off, Willikins turned to Sam Vimes and raised a dignified butlerian eyebrow. Purity smiled an enigmatic little smile.

"I was too soft on her, wasn't I?" Vimes said.

"Not at all, sir." the butler assured him. "Dealt with her very firmly and fairly, if I may say so. But if I was you, I'd watch that one. Especially since you've put her in the Jocasta Wiggs category. I know that look."

Vimes grunted.

"Maybe." he said, trying not to look shifty. Willikins pressed his advantage.

"Take the other young ladies who were vectored here by the Honourable Miss Band." He said, with an inflection that made young ladies sound like Gods-awful little madams. "The Honourable Miss Rust, for instance. Who is, if I may say so, a worthy exemplar of all the qualities that make her family outstanding. And prior to her, sir, there was the Gnadige Fraulein von Kugelblitz, who I understand is in line to inherit a Grafinate in Borogravia. An established noble family who are related to the Grand Duchess Annagovia herself. Which didn't save her from immersion in the dunnikin."

Vimes smiled a contented happy smile. He appreciated the ongoing opportunity to add new dimensions to the education of the nobility. Nobility from other countries, often with a far more feudal tradition than Ankh-Morpork, offered him greater job satisfaction as he sought to redress the social balance in favour of the oppressed proletariat.

"And the Kinyagina Natasha Romanoff, last week." Willikins continued.

"Kin-ya-what?" Vimes queried.

Willikins cleared his throat. "I apologise for any mispronunciation, sir. In the Roos language spoken in Zlobenia and parts of Far Überwald, as I am given to understand from my training at the Guild of Butlers, Gentlemen's Gentlemen and Senior Domestic Servants, the title of Kinyagina is a honorific given to the daughter of a Grand Ducal family."

Vimes blinked. Tuition at the Butlers' Guild was certainly thorough….

"The title cannot be precisely translated into Morporkian, I regret. I am given to understand it occupies an intermediate status between The Honourable and Your Royal Highness, depending on the very fine gradation of relative nobility in the social system prevalent inFar Überwald . However, it did not spare the Kinyagina her immersion in the dunnikin."

Vimes grasped something he could rely on.

"Willikins?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Was it entirely coincidental that Officer Olga Romanoff was in the vicinity on a foot patrol?"

"I overheard you saying to Captain Carrot that it's always a good idea for all officers of the Watch, including those normally assigned to the Air Police, to keep their basic skills up to date by proceeding on foot patrols." Willikins said, smoothly. "I anticipated your wishes by making the suggestion to Officer Romanoff, who I am also given to understand is a more exalted Kinyagina in her own right, that she might find something of personal interest in the general area of Ramkin Manor should she be so good as to patrol there at an approximate time of three-thirty in the afternoon. You did say yourself that job satisfaction is a worthy goal in the life of a Watchman, and that your officers should find pleasure in serving the needs of distressed members of the public."

Vimes grinned. That was true, though he hadn't phrased it that way. And Olga had certainly had more of a smile on her face and a spring in her step that day. He didn't begrudge a good officer a little bit of happiness in the execution of her duties.

"I am also given to understand that the Kinyagina Olga Romanoff is the eldest daughter of a postelnik of the first degree." Willikins went on. "Whereas her cousin the Kinyagina Natasha Romanoff is merely the daughter of the younger brother, a postelnik of the second degree. Therefore social courtesy decrees that Miss Natasha must defer to Miss Olga on all encounters and give due deference. Other distinctions and gradations apply, such as the height, size and style of the fur caps and hand-warming muffs they may employ against the rigours of a Zlobenian winter, or the number and size of the horses they may harness to a troika, or indeed the opulence of the troika itself…"

"Thank you, Willikins." Vimes said. There was nobody like a long-time butler for being able to instantly and accurately rank distinguished guests, or at least the ones that thought they were distinguished, according to their place in the social hierarchy.

"But at the Guild School they're all equal, yes?"

"I understand the Honourable Miss Band has little patience with those who insist on the full social etiquette, yes." Willikins said, with a hint of disapproval. "All students are merely "Miss", just as the Kinyagina Olga Romanoff is merely a lance-constable when she goes about her Watch duties, and the Grafin von Überwald is always Captain Angua."

"Thank you, Willikins." said Vimes.

"As is my duty, sir. Her Ladyship is greatly desirous that your comprehension of the fine detail of social rank be enhanced. In fact, her exact words to me were I don't mind Sam taking the piss out of the nobility, but he'd better learn the details, so he can aim straight."

Vimes sighed. His wife knew him only too well.

"Miss Catherine Perry-Bowen." Vimes said, returning to the point. "Just a "miss", I note. No "Honourable", no "Countess", no "Her Royal, Imperial, or Ducal Highness". Just a plain and simple Miss."

Vimes emphasized the Miss with some satisfaction.

"Which probably goes some way to explaining how she got so close."

Willikins sighed.

"Indeed, sir." he said. "She got close. Which is my point."

Vimes nodded.

"Go on, Willikins." he invited.

"Thank you, sir." he cleared his throat. "She got close, sir. Close. And my information is that she recently succeeded in an attack on Miss Band and Miss Smith-Rhodes. That, sir, makes her dangerous!"

Vimes listened to an account of events on the field exercise. He whistled, appreciatively. He didn't ask where Willikins had got the information. The Guild of Butlers, Gentlemens' Gentlemen and Senior Domestic Servants was a formidable intelligence-gathering-and-exchanging network. It had to be. Its members worked, quietly and largely discreetly, for some very influential and powerful people. And Willikins took every Thursday night off to attend Guild meetings. Mr Carter, the butler who served Lord Downey and very senior Assassins, was also a member.

"I didn't know that." he said, thoughtfully. "So our Miss Perry-Bowen has a lot more going for her than I thought. Interesting."

"Just so, sir." Willikins said, forcefully. "and as with Miss Wiggs, you appear to have placed her in the informal category of Student Assassins Who I Dislike To A Lesser Degree. A casual observer might draw the conclusion, an erroneous one, I'm sure, that you quite like the young lady in question."

Vimes paused.

"She helped put a bomb. Under Miss Alice Band. And Miss Johanna Smith-Rhodes?"

Willikins nodded, emphatically.

"Blimey." Vimes said, quietly. He recalled a fairly recent situation where Johanna Smith-Rhodes, had she been so inclined, might have used a pack of lions to bring about his demise and claim the contract fee. And this girl had aced things and somehow got the better of Johanna?

"The young lady in question, sir, is capable and competent. She thinks about things. When the issue was raised by Her Ladyship as to the undeniable fact she had indeed got close enough to you to attempt a contract completion were she so minded, I observed her to be, seemingly, considering the case." Willikins went on. "Naturally I would have done my utmost to avert this. And she was clever enough to realise this. I would urgently counsel that in several years' time, she will be an Assassin whose activities you would be best advised to monitor. The very able ladies and gentlemen at the Cable Street Particulars should be requested to open a file."

Then Willikins dropped the deference.

"She's a clever little cow, sir. Don't turn your back on her for an instant. I wouldn't."

Vimes reflected. He'd defused Johanna Smith-Rhodes by making her a Special. She'd worked out, having accepted the badge, that it was both bad manners and somewhat frowned upon to attempt to inhume your commanding officer. Maybe with this one – and damn, he did like the girl…

"She's not nobility. Point in her favour. And she's not a Scholarship kid either. From what Sybil says, I gather her family are well off but not fabulously wealthy. So she'll be expected to get a job when she leaves school."

He took a deep breath.

"She's got talents I could use. And after Johanna I can't say no to any more Assassins joining the Watch. In any capacity. Damn, she'll be Downey's spy in residence. But I might consider offering her a contract for the Particulars. Take the sting out of her."

"If she accepts, sir."

"If." Vimes agreed. His butler coughed, discreetly.

"And it might be advisable to write a brief report for the attention of the Honourable Miss Band, sir. A concise and factual account of events here. You might choose to stress that she did surrender without any unseemly fight, and that you took her into detention and released her with a caution. Otherwise the rumour will inescapably get out that a student Assassin did complete the informal and non-lethal contract that exists. Which has the potential to damage your reputation."

Vimes sighed, conceded this was a valid point, and requested pen and paper.

"If it helps, sir, I rather suspect that the Honourable Miss Band will insist she returns here to repeat the exercise. On the next occasion, you would be well advised to drop her in the dunnikin. In deference to her unique status, I would allow her the same courtesy you extend to Miss Wiggs, with regard to bathing facilities and a change of dry clean clothing."

The Ramkin family coach rattled in through the open gates of the Guild. The coachmen obediently brought it to a stop as the gate guard stepped out with hands raised in the universal "State your business!" gesture. Nobody cared to argue with Assassin gate guards. As the driver explained his purpose to the guards, Catherine took a deep breath, shouldered her pack, and got down from the coach. She was met by two large porters.

"Miss Band's instructions, miss." Mr Maroon said, with deferential authority. "You are to accompany us to the washrooms in the servants' quarters next to the stables…"

He blinked. Something was wrong here. He turned to the other porter.

"Here, Bert!" he said, with some astonishment. "She ain't even been splashed!"

Catherine smiled.

"Lead the way, gentlemen". she said. She followed the two bemused porters.

There was a small crowd gathered in the stableyard. Catherine saw Natasha Romanoff, Solveig von Kugelblitz - and Deborah Rust – waiting for her. All three were each holding the obligatory bag of fresh clothing and toiletries. Catherine felt warmed by their presence. And the three others were amazed at seeing a clean, sanitary and un-dunked Catherine.

"Slavu bogu! What happened?" Natasha explained.

"Long story…" Catherine began. And then there were rushing feet, heels clattering on the cobbles. Miss Alice Band had arrived. She looked both astonished and disapproving. She loomed over her student and gave Catherine a long, hard, unfriendly look.

"Miss Perry-Bowen." Miss Band said, in a cold appraising tone. Her chest rose and fell with some very deep breaths. "Did you, in fact, actually bother to go to Ramkin Manor at all?"

"Yes, miss." Catherine said, truthfully. "Sir Samuel and Lady Sybil were very hospitable. I had afternoon tea with them and they laid on a coach to bring me home."

This did not sound nearly enough.

"It was a Ramkin family coach, miss. With the coat-of-arms on the door and everything. Mr Maroon, the porter, can bear witness to that."

Miss Band glared at her. Catherine decided she wasn't going to get into any more trouble than she was already in. She added: "Earl Green tea, miss. The fancy cakes were very nice. Although cucumber sandwiches are a bit over-rated, in my opinion…"

Miss Band glared at her.

"And Sir Samuel did remark that the cheese sandwiches, the ones with the crusts cut off, might be viewed as cruel and unusual punishment…"

"My office, Miss Perry-Bowen. Now."

Madame Two-Swords had tagged along to the debriefing interview. It was clear that she was concealing a lot of amusement at Miss Band's obvious discomfiture.

"You surrendered." Miss Band said, flatly. "Gave yourself up."

"Yes, miss." Catherine said, meekly. "If it helps, I did get to within ten feet of Sir Samuel. As the exercise conditions stipulate."

"Yes, but only after you gave up!" Miss Band insisted.

"Which perhaps does not count, cherie." Madam Two-Swords said, in a gentler voice. She sounded amused and sympathetic. "But I might consider giving you marks for the attempt."

She looked at Alice Band, and quickly added "But then, this is not my decision to make, obviously."

"Well, you're going to have to do the damned exercise again." Miss Band said.

"We are taught to abandon an attempt to complete a contract if it becomes clear during the attempt that there is no chance of success." Catherine said. "To have a line of retreat ready, and if that is not possible, to seek to get out alive and intact. That judgement call is left to the discretion of the Assassin on the ground."

"Yes." Miss Band said. "And that part of the Concordat stresses that you go back, rethink, make a fresh updated plan, then go back again to complete the job."

She smiled, mirthlessly.

"Never quote the Concordat to your teacher, young lady. We know it better than you do."

Miss Band shook her head.

"Over-confidence. Well, we can fix that." She looked over to Madame Two-Swords, who gave Catherine a brief sympathetic look, but one that said "I may not be able to get you out of this one, ma petite" as clearly as words.

"Also a certain flippant and somewhat insubordinate attitude is creeping in." Miss Band continued.

"Unfortunately, a correct assessment." Madame said, supporting her colleague. "It is unlike you to be so openly challenging and defying, Catherine. What has changed?"

Catherine had decided that in one respect she really didn't give a damn any more. A little part of her mind was the sober, mousy and compliant former self, from before the new eyes business, that was begging her to rein it in, before she ended up in a lot of trouble. She ignored the Old Catherine and turned to Madame.

"Well. Two things changed." she said. "I'm looking out of them right now. " She switched to Quirmian, knowing Miss Band also spoke the language.

"Madame Deux-Epées, I do not believe I have yet thanked you for the gift of part of your body, which enabled me to have these new eyes. Believe me, I am profoundly grateful for enabling me to look at the world through new eyes."

She took a trembling angry breath.

"It is far preferable to being blind. But I wish you had told me right at the start instead of leaving me to guess!"

Her teachers looked at each other.

"Ah. I begin to perceive. That is, I begin to understand." Madame Two-Swords corrected herself.

Miss Band took a deep breath.

"Let's start again, shall we?" she said, in a gentler voice.

That's it for this chapter, a cliffhanger.

Blimey. No footnotes.

Notes dump:

Random things get bunged here as I do research. They may not go into this story. But if it's too good to miss, I jot it down to make sure it's somewhere. And I don't always edit these things out of the completed version transferred to FF. – one or two have slipped past. Whoops. Or even "nichevo".

Lord Byron as Assassins' Guild pupil…. When the poet became a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1805, he was told pet dogs were banned. So he brought a (tame) bear to live with him.

Thank you! Sketching out a few glimpses of the "future" for my characters was fun to do and a nice Hogswatch present for readers. Working out a rough framework for their futures and doing it in such a way that it generates new story ideas and is consistent with what went before.(whilst not tying me down too much). the Discworld Astrology feature, where I was reading the stuff about Astrology on the Discworld and how it works (in the Almanack), and then applying the canonical stuff to my own characters, made me realise Johanna would not stop at one, whatever her personal feelings are. Coming from a big family and a country that believes in big families, that's predestined, almost. Ouma Agnetha will be quietly pleased, but after three grand-daughters will be dropping big brick-like hints that a grandson would be welcome. Ponder Stibbons will discover life as a harrassed and feeling-out-of-his-depth father. Godsparents, various Tannies and friends of Mummy and Daddy will be adding their input. The heir to the Lapoignard estates, and his younger brother (the spare), will have potential. The RATS Club at the Guild School will get new members. I haven't yet figured out how Davinia Bellamy Junior (Davvie) will fit. But I anticipate her mother will be teaching her the gentle arts of knowing her botany and what you can do with some of those interesting blooms. And leaves and stems and roots.

Two eighteen-nineteen year old Graduate Assassins will be on their Gap Year. Tannie Mariella and Rivka will be doing the gap-year trail across all the many cultures and civilisations that make up Klatch/Howondaland. Some countries will preserve awed memories. I visualise a series of letters and postcards to Ankh-Morpork beginning with things like "hi, Johanna! As you can see we're in the Central Plains and are guests of the Comanche Indians. They've already awarded Rivka four warrior feathers for leading a raid on the Arapaho and the chief has offered forty horses for her hand in marriage..."

They will begin, I think, doing the accepted student-on-a-gap-year thing in Cenotia and working on a kibbutz for a while. With Rivka dodging her own family and politely avoiding the yenta assigned to the case by her mother. Who will be persistent. Shidduch is not a small thing in Cenotian culture and an unmarried girl of eighteen or nineteen is a yenta-magnet. A Gap Year for newly-graduate assassins will be interesting.

Meanwile, younger sister Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, who will physically take after her father but have her mother's personality inside, will embark on steps that will lead her to Raven House and eventual Assassin status herself. Only a few ideas so far, but her peers will know her as Kay. Bekki, who has got magic, will go on from the Frouts nursery to first school at Seven Handed Sek's convent school, with all that implies. (Convent schoolgirl...) She may be allowed to go to the Assassins' School but only for the general early education - with magic, which will become more apparent as she grows up, she will not be allowed on the Black. Miss Perspicacia Tick will take an interest and then it'll be a sort of boarding education in Lancre after about age thirteen. and the hapless Parsifal Venturi will not learn from his early humbling and further indigntities are in store, to be delivered throughout life by Bekki and Davvie.

Just unformed ideas, really.

"The trope name comes from the Japanese idiomatic phrase kingyo no fun, which literally means "goldfish crap" but idiomatically means a sycophant or hanger-on. That's because goldfish poop has a tendency to stick to the goldfish. So it's vaguely loathsome stuff that follows the fish around, just like a Goldfish Poop Gang." (tvtropes)

Hmm. An Agatean character called Kingyo Nofun. Or else a rare expletive from Miss Pretty Butterfly.