VI.
Hanna angrily brushed her hand over the chess board, knocking the pieces off the little game table.
"I've said it once and I'll say it again: This is the most humiliating piece of boredom ever invented."
"You could have at least waited until you were properly in checkmate," said Lord Vetinari. "You had eleven possible moves to avoid the attack of my…"
She ignored him, bowed under the table and started picking up the pieces. They were on the pebbled pathway of the second terrace in the villa garden. It was late afternoon, another cloudless day. A small waterfall trickled over stones beside them. Day shift Assassins were in various stages of sprawl all along the terrace. Half of them had abandoned their coats and ties. Several had fashioned hats out of old paper they'd rustled up in the guest house.
Vetinari was relaxed in a chair, enjoying the shade of a large umbrella stuck in the lawn. He was still wearing his normal black robe but his sleeves were pulled up to his elbows. His face showed a hint of color that wasn't there when he spent his days in the Oblong Office.
He was quite in agreement with Hanna. Chess was a boring game. It was impossible to discuss things with the figures over dinner or send an agent to find out where their children went to school. But Khavos didn't have much in the way of entertainment. Chess was better than nothing. Vetinari beat Hanna at the game with unfailing regularity but at least it was entertaining to see her frustrated. That day, though, she only agreed to play on one condition: He had to participate in a little game of her making.
She stood up and clapped her hands. A few moments later, the servants shuffled up with a long table that they set in the path nearby. Eleven glasses sat on the table. They were filled with water. There was also a large platter covered with a cloth, which Hanna fetched and set on the game table after the chess board had been removed.
"The game," she announced, "is Self Control."
The Assassins stirred.
Vetinari's powers of self control were legendary. When normal people allowed their eyelids to drop involuntarily every few seconds to moisten the eyes, Vetinari could halt the reflex altogether if a long, icy blue stare was required as a scare tactic in his (former) work. It was said that he once out-stared a picture of a snake. The absurdity of this pleased him so much that he never denied it.
He'd given up using the stare on Hanna because she always spoiled the effect by saying in an exasperated tone, "You're forgetting to blink again, your lordship."
"I am capable of self control, your lordship," she said.
"Ah. You showed a great mastery of the self when you screamed at the top of your lungs after the Palace Trainer released the bridle of that horse last month."
"I'd never been on one before! Besides, it was going too fast and--"
"I also recall that little embarrassment at the pageant of the Guild of Vintners when, after watching the men dance in suits made of wine leaves, you said loudly: 'We don't get that class of pervert in my guild.'"
Hanna laughed. "Don't exaggerate. I whispered that to you. And it was pretty funn--"
"And we dare not forget the time when you consumed three mixed drinks of unknown content and then slid down the stairway banister during the Watch Ball at the Ramkin house."
"I wouldn't have done it if a certain Patrician hadn't expressly forbidden me to do it. I can't be your obedient servant all the time, can I?"
Vetinari looked surprised. "My goodness, did I just hear you say the word obedient? Marvellous. Perhaps one day you'll learn what it means."
The Assassins followed the conversation like an audience at a tennis match. They had the sensation that what they were watching was theater. Except that everyone knew Lord Vetinari didn't hold with that kind of thing. And Hanna. Well… The Assassins reckoned that even somebody who'd seen Vetinari in his underpants shouldn't be allowed to talk to him like that.
"I won't lose this game," she said.
"I do hope not. That look you give me when you lose at chess breaks my heart." He fixed her with a gaze that had made people in Ankh-Morpork wonder if he had a heart.
She pointed a finger at him. The Assassins looked at each other warily. Finger pointing was a risky business with Vetinari.
"In a few minutes that arrogant smirk will be wiped off your face, sir."
"Arrogant? Moi?" Vetinari turned an innocent gaze to the cloudless sky. "I? Smirk? Dear me, you have formed a false impression of my character, Hanna."
"Are you ready?"
"Please."
She waved at the Assassins. "Come on, lads, have a look. This'll brighten your day."
The Assassins clustered around the table. She lifted the cloth. Two glass bowls sat on the platter, one full of what looked like small, slightly slimy red vegetables shaped like elephant trunks with knobs on the end. The second bowl was empty.
"These, as I'm sure you've guessed, are Ephebian Fire Peppers."
Lord Vetinari recognized them, of course, though he had succeeded in living nearly fifty years without eating them. He was not a spicy food kind of person.
"This is how it works," said Hanna. "We all alternate eating peppers." She pointed to the table where the glasses were set up. "There's the water. The last one of us to grab a drink wins."
She grinned up at the Assassins. They were looking worried.
"I do expect you all to play along. It'll be fun."
Kinsey scratched his head. "I don't think we--"
"I insist, Mr. Kinsey."
"Yes, miss, but--"
"Miss Stein insists," said Lord Vetinari, "and believe me, gentlemen, it is useless to resist her. I have one year, six months, one week and three days of experience to back me up."
"I understand, sir, but…" Kinsey surveyed the doubtful looks on the faces of his shift. "Are those things safe?"
"The cook washed them, I'm sure," said Hanna.
Vetinari stroked his beard for a long moment. "I appreciate your attempt at livening up the island, Hanna, but it does occur to me that this game has no intellectual or strategic value whatsoever."
"Don't think you can wriggle out of it that way."
"I do not wriggle. I am merely making an observation."
Hanna held up one of the peppers and turned it in the sunlight.
"There's an Ephebian saying: Paradise started with the pepper. It grows in the ur-gardens on the edge of the desert scrublands. The nomads who eat them swear that the only way to cool the body is to heat it like the sun. You've told me that self control is the root of your coolness, but my dear," she smiled slyly at Vetinari, "I know that your powers fade when you're confronted with real heat."
Several Assassins swallowed hard. A few shuffled a step or two away from the game table. It was her voice. She had this thing she could do with her voice. There weren't just layers of innuendo; there were mine shafts. It was a voice of dark, pleasant doings in private. None of the day shift Assassins could afford Hanna before she became Lord Vetinari's private seamstress, but they were beginning to see how she'd hooked him. The hooking had actually happened the other way around, but the Assassins didn't need to know that.
Vetinari blinked. "Hanna?"
"Yes?"
"It occurs to me that these peppers may have some effect on the digestive system."
"Games without risk are boring. Thus, chess." Hanna smiled. "To be fair, I'll even volunteer to go first. You second, then our fine guards, here." She nodded around the group of Assassins, who were looking worried again. "Are we ready?"
She selected a pepper from the bowl, held it up for all to see, and inserted it slowly into her mouth. She was using a special technique, her lips puckered, the pepper sucked in at increments with her lips. Some of the Assassins were suddenly very thirsty indeed. She removed the stem of the pepper and set it in the empty bowl. She swallowed and licked her lips.
"Mmmmm," she said. "Delicious. Your turn, your lordship."
Lord Vetinari reached for a random pepper and bit it firmly and efficiently off the stem, which he set in the bowl. He chewed without any noticeable reaction to what he was eating, swallowed, and shrugged.
"You implied this was going to be a challenge."
"Just wait. Your turn, um…Mr. Foster."
The unfortunate Assassin named Foster had come to the island because his girlfriend had left him for the vice president of the Guild of Actors and he wanted to forget everything that had to do with women. He wished he hadn't just seen Ankh-Morpork's most prominent seamstress put a long item with a knob on the end into her mouth.
He reluctantly took a pepper. It wasn't so bad, he decided as he chewed. A bit spritzy, slightly oily, but otherwise…
He tossed the stem into the bowl.
…and coughed. The other Assassins watched him carefully like miners observing the canary. He coughed again. It felt like someone had rubbed sand paper across his throat. He doubled over, his hands on his knees, and breathed.
"Very good!" said Hanna. "Who's next?"
The Assassins weren't lining up for the privilege. Vetinari waved at a short one with cauliflower ears, who snatched up a pepper, ripped it with his teeth off the stem and tried to swallow it without chewing. He thought it was a clever thing to do.
It wasn't.
A minute later he was sprinting down the garden steps and fumbling with the belt on his trousers. Hanna counted him out though he hadn't drunk any water.
Most of the Assassins got through the first round, though by the time Kinsey swallowed his pepper, they were standing around with their tongues hanging out and gazing with longing at the water glasses. The peppers had a delayed effect.
When Hanna's turn came up, all eyes were on her. She selected another pepper, an especially big one with an especially knobby knob on the end, settled back in her chair and looked like she could take all the time in the world to brush the pepper across her lips. And take a long, luxuriant lick around the stem. And enclose it in her mouth, and take it out as if she had second thoughts.
The Assassins, with the exception of Kinsey, were practising meditative breathing. Vetinari looked like he was observing the speaker at a mildly interesting lecture. Kinsey frowned with disapproval.
Hanna finally slipped the pepper into her mouth and held it there without biting it. Then she slowly rotated it by pinching the stem in her fingers. The Assassins winced. Vetinari put a hand over his mouth.
She set the stem in the bowl. The Assassins noticed that a sheen of moisture had developed on her forehead. It made things worse.
Vetinari casually ate his second pepper. He wasn't sweating anywhere anyone could see.
None of the remaining Assassins survived the second round. Foster was the first to dive for the water glass. One of the younger Assassins emptied his glass, didn't find it enough, and stretched out under the water fall, his mouth open. Another with an especially low pepper tolerance ripped off his shirt as he sprinted down to the beach and threw himself into the ocean for a cool down. Kinsey bowed out gracefully, though he did take a third pepper and sat on a terrace rock, admiring its color in the sunshine. A servant was sent for more water, and the rest of the Assassins sprawled out on the lawn, panting up at the sky.
After his fourth pepper, Lord Vetinari, his face slightly red, unfolded himself from under his umbrella. He fetched a water glass and held it up.
"Victory, Hanna. I congratulate you on your very special skills." He took a sip and eyed her over the lip of the glass. "You never cease to surprise me."
He set a water in front of her but she pushed it aside, closed her eyes and tipped her head to the sun.
The game was self control, but it meant different things to different people. For Vetinari, it wasn't whether he could eat the peppers. It was whether he could watch Hanna eat them without cracking a smile. For the Assassins, it wasn't about the peppers either. It was whether they could maintain their…dignity…while watching Hanna eat them in her own special way in the presence of the former Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, a lord who didn't need his office to maintain an aura of polite threat.
In his short note to Hanna, Vetinari had instructed her to find creative ways to use her Seamstress Guild skills to their advantage. He hadn't expected this.
He'd also written a thing or two about theater. All the island was a stage, and they the players on it…
She unfurled a red fan and fluttered it as she lounged in her chair, her face still turned to the sun.
"Cooling down, your lordship?"
"My dear Hanna, I was never warm."
They smiled at each other.