A-N: I thought it was high time for a cliffhanger. Beka – Don't remember seeing you review before, so welcome! Ivy – Are you on the right track? Well... ( gazes at the sky) It won't be long till you see. byrd – I try to avoid cliches, but don't always manage. Maltesi, btw, is named after a certain well known fictional sailor. I wondered if anyone knew who, but no one's brought it up yet! Ouatic – No, Hanna's not being very fair, is she? This will lead to problems later... So enjoy the next bit! oOo
10. Sail away
The next morning at breakfast, Hanna was quiet. Half a croissant with strawberry marmalade stayed uneaten on her plate. She sipped juice and didn't take any coffee like she usually did. There were shadows under her eyes and a jackhammer in her head. Being a brewers daughter didn't mean she could handle large amounts of rum and vodka.
Madam wasn't looking much more rested. She grunted as she lifted the cat onto her lap.
"There are many paths in life," she said, "and at times, two of them become especially clear. Let us call them, the easy way and the hard way."
She stroked the cat.
"The easy way, of course, is the one most agreeable to us. Not so many brambles in the path, hidden dangers don't seem so urgent. Perhaps it is a path already tread by others so that we only have to walk to know the way."
Hanna took coffee after all. She warmed her fingers on the kitten mug.
"And then there is the hard way," said Madam. "The path is overgrown, the dangers are obvious and pain is certain. Yet, I propose to you that the path that looks the most difficult can yield the greatest advantages. The journey may not be as pleasant but the destination is almost certainly worth the effort. A path that is too easy probably isn't worth traveling."
Steam rose from Hanna's mug. She blew on it, took a drink. Metaphors. She'd been expecting a lecture and she was getting an extended metaphor.
"If enough people travel one path, there must be something to it," she said.
"You give people too much credit. They follow the person in front of them, all the way up to the leader. And there can be only one of those. Interestingly enough, the path for the leader is difficult and that same path is easy for the followers."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know where this is going."
The cat leapt off Madam's lap when she got up from her chair. She didn't look angry. If Hanna was to put a word to it, Madam looked worried.
"You haven't been thinking about our conversations."
"Auntie, please, I'm tired..."
"Hanna." Madam sat beside her and put a thin hand on her arm. "I would like to ask you a question. Woman-to-woman. I hope you'll answer it honestly. Can I rely on that?"
Hanna nodded. She guessed what was coming.
"Tell me, why did you help my nephew after he was overthrown?"
That wasn't the question Hanna expected. Lord Downey of the Assassins Guild had taken over the city for a couple of months. The moment Vetinari was put in jail, Hanna mobilized, doing everything she could to help him.
"Why didn't you protect yourself?" asked Madam. "You saw where the wind was blowing. The sooner you severed ties with Havelock, the safer you would have been. The unpleasantness with Downey that I heard about would never have happened."
This was true. Hanna dipped her nose in her cup.
"I knew Downey was too weak to stay patrician," she said. "The city wasn't going to run for long without Lord Vetinari."
"Ah!" Madam looked pleased. "You made a political assessment. A correct one, as we saw later. The city doesn't run so well without Havelock. Yes. That is true. But what did that have to do with you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Last I checked, your contract is with Havelock Vetinari, not the city."
"Is there a difference?" said Hanna wryly.
"It may seem at times that there isn't but believe me, there is. Now answer my question. Why does it matter to you who is in power in Ankh-Morpork?"
"His lordship is better for business."
"Also true! He is very good for business. And you are a businesswoman. He has reminded me of that many times in his letters."
Madam gazed shrewdly at Hanna.
"You must be a better businesswoman than I am, and that's saying something. You let that idiot Downey abuse you for business. You lived in exile for two months on a lonely island for business. A slight difference in the disposition of certain Assassins and you would have been inhumed for business. I'll say it again," Madam smiled, "you are a very dedicated businesswoman."
"Yes, I am." Hanna drained her mug and slammed it on the table. "I thought this trip might revolve around his lordship, but I have to say, I'm tired of it. The past two years of my life have revolved around him completely. Can't I get a rest?"
"I will remind you that you have been occupied with my nephew for two years. He has been occupied with you for four. Think of what that means."
"I don't know."
"Why do you think he pays you so much? Hm?"
"We negotiated it."
"No, he offered you a fortune up front. There was no negotiation."
Hanna stood up but Madam pulled her back into her chair with a surprisingly strong grip.
"Why did he buy your house for you?"
"I don't know."
"And why did he buy your family that brewery?"
"It was a reward."
"A reward. And why did he make you a baroness?"
"It was--"
"A reward, yes. And why did he set your Assassins Guild contract to 150 thousand dollars?"
"I don't know!"
Madam flinched.
"If you really don't know, I suggest you do some thinking."
Hanna had been doing that all night and wasn't interested in continuing. She got up and reached the door before Madam said, "You've achieved so much by taking the harder path. Don't stray from it now."
oOo
The Curl Up & Dye Salon and Beauty Emporium was Pseudopolis' finest establishment for ladies looking for a bit of help in the beauty battle. When Hanna walked in, a dozen women were in various stages of cosmetic or follical perfection, or were helping customers to that end. The steel grey sky outdoors was enough of an incentive for many of the city's ladies to flee to a warm communal place to forget the weather by contemplating lipstick colours, nail files and the stacks of iconographs that showed the year's hottest new hair styles.
Hanna didn't have an appointment but by the gods, she was going to get her hair done. She said up front that she was a baroness and she was rich. She got the expected reaction from Ginger, owner-operator of the salon. A gasp. Long purple nails (fake) clutching her chest for a moment in sheer snobbish delight, and then...
Hanna was surrounded by Beauty Specialists who whisked her into a chair and put a pink smock on her and introduced themselves and gave her coffee and so on. Hanna's hair was taken down and brushed out.
"Gorgeous, milady," gushed Ginger. "Customers pay top dollar for just that shade...we call it Summer Wheat, you know, a light brown kissed by the golden strands of sunshine." She sighed. "Heavenly. I have the perfect idea for a style that will wow the other ladies at any soiree. If we gather up the ends like this and twist like that..."
She began piling Hanna's hair every which way.
"I have something else in mind."
"Anything, milady. A facial first perhaps?"
"Blonde."
Ginger blinked.
"Pardon?"
"What is the blondest blonde you could put in my hair?"
"But milady, the colour you have is a lovely--"
"Blonde," said Hanna firmly. "I want to be so blonde that I can be seen from space."
"But why? If I may ask, milady."
Why. That was the important question but Hanna wasn't prepared to answer it. She only knew that early in the morning she'd brushed aside the paper swans she'd spent the night obsessively folding, something Madam had said to her replaying in her head.
He was never one for blondes...
And the accompanying thought that if the bastard didn't like blondes, he was going to get one.
"What is the blondest blonde you can give me?" she asked again.
Ginger fluttered away to consult her crack team of dye specialists and returned with a thick loop of hair. A colour sample.
It practically glowed.
"It's called Octiron Blonde," said Ginger, "for the intensity of the shine."
She held it next to Hanna's hair.
Hanna slowly smiled at herself in the mirror.
oOo
At the Palace of Ankh-Morpork, there were the usual reports, meetings, letters, negotiations, troubleshooting and other normal realities of city government. The only clue that something was amiss was the change in the Patrician's management style. He tended to be a hands off kind of ruler. He arranged things so that he rarely had to interfere in anything directly.
But lately, his rule had shrunk to microcosmic proportions. He Took An Interest. In everything. He went out himself with a yardstick to measure the street-to-gutter ratio on Broadway. He demanded a list of public lanterns in need of replacement and plotted the locations on a city map. He invited himself to the weekly meeting of the Guild of Butchers. He did all of this alone, no guards, no clerks.
People were getting nervous.
The City Watch meeting in the Oblong Office included a discussion of a dog napping ring and problems with traffic around public squares.
"...so I trust you will speak to the carters, commander," said the Patrician.
"Yes, sir." Watch Commander Sam Vimes stood staring over the Patrician's head, while Captain Carrot loomed like an oak tree just behind.
The Oblong Office smelled faintly of burnt paper.
The Patrician wrote on a list in front of him, then smiled at Vimes.
"And now for the tea," he said.
"Sir?"
"What kind of tea are the men drinking these days in the Watch houses?"
Vimes and Carrot exchanged puzzled looks.
"I think it's just tea, sir," said Vimes.
"Lingian, perhaps?"
"I don't think so."
"Agatean Blue?"
Vimes looked to Carrot. "That sound familiar?"
"No, sir."
Lord Vetinari gazed from Vimes to Carrot and back again.
"I believe, gentlemen, that the issue of tea is of some importance. The right blend of taste and stimulant will maximize the productivity and, I dare say, the job satisfaction of the watchmen. Happy watchmen make effective watchmen, eh?"
"Yes, sir," said Carrot with conviction.
Vimes tried hard not to let his brow wrinkle with too much obvious perplexity.
"If you want them happy, more money'll do it over tea every time, sir," he said.
The Patrician held up a finger.
"Ah, but in the long run, improvement of the daily working conditions is worth far more than a few extra cents a month. When the watchmen feel..." He stared into space, "...that their workplace is their second home, that they are comfortable there, valued and cherished, content in the small and pleasant details of work – such as the availability of hot and nourishing tea – they will be more likely to lead a more fulfilling, satisfying... I dare say, happy...life." He seemed to come down from whatever cloud he'd been on. "Don't you agree?"
"Yes, sir," said Carrot.
Vimes' wrinkles deepened. "You have some tea-related suggestion, sir?"
"Orange Pekoe in the morning and Earl Pink in the afternoon." The Patrician leaned back in his chair, his long fingers laced together. "Pekoe has a gentle yet sustained lift that will get the watchmen through till teatime, when Earl Pink's more aggressive yet shorter effects can be enjoyed until the end of the shift."
There was silence in the Oblong Office. Vimes did what he normally didn't do, which is to look directly at the Patrician. Lord Vetinari's face seemed open and pleasant.
"It's a good idea, sir," he said to be on the safe side.
The Patrician made a check on his list. "Inform me in a week of progress. Good day."
The clacks smoldering in the grate was from Griffin. Most everything was burned except for ...report, they disappeared during the scuffle between the Brotherhood of Lenny and the priestesses of Eartha... returned early afternoon to Madam's... Unaccounted for: 16 hours. Same evening, with Mr. M. at bar Clinical Diagnosis... Complaints... Tears...
oOo
The Deathday party was well underway. It was held on the Ankh, of course. What better place to honor Captain Maltesi with a brew up that promised blathered guests and accordion music than on his own ship? Hundreds of former crew members and friends were on deck kicking it up or drinking it down. Paper lanterns were strung up the ropes. Fireflies glowed inside their glass globes hanging here and there on the railings.
Maltesi was at that moment receiving the business end of Syd's hand on his rear.
"He got'm, yes he has!" yelled Old Pete. He was wearing a frilly light blue shirt and had a paper hat on his head shaped like a boat. He had a beer in his hand. There was laughter across the deck.
Maltesi's party hat was conical and had sparkly paper sprouting out of the tip. He looked like he was about to punch Syd in the face, but Syd said something and Maltesi broke down laughing. Syd was still dressed in the Klatchian harem girl outfit.
Old Pete made a wobbly attempt to raise his beer.
"One up fer the old cap'n!" he shouted.
One up fer the old cap'n! chorused the guests. Everybody drank down whatever they had on hand.
They seemed to have been doing this all night. Beer was tipped over shoulders, dribbled down shirts and poured accidentally over heads. The deck was periodically swabbed by two mild looking golems wearing aprons and party hats of their own.
The carriage pulled right up to the gangplank. The driver got down to help Hanna. He averted his eyes as he did it, giving him a groveling look. He wasn't exactly groveling, it was just smarter under the circumstances to look down. This was how he discovered that the glittering hem of the lady's gown looked like it was worth a year's salary; she was obviously a big tip waiting to happen. He did a deep Pseudopolis bow and offered to help her up the gangplank. She declined and tipped big. He drove home and took the next week off.
When Hanna was halfway up the gangplank, she was spotted from the deck by a little old man with less hair and more liver spots than Old Pete. He oggled her a moment, then disappeared.
By the time she stepped on deck, a good portion of the guests were clustered around staring at her. Squinting, actually. Some kept their heads turned slightly, as if looking at her directly hurt their eyes.
For the most part, this was true.
Maltesi stepped out of the crowd to see what was going on. He had to shade his eyes with a hand.
"What the blazes did you do to yourself?"
"Does the Gentleman's Guide to Pseudopelian Etiquette say to greet party guests like that?"
He sneaked a peak at her, then rubbed his eyes.
"We could stick you on a rock by the water and use you as a lighthouse."
"You don't like it?" She ran her finger down a ringlet at her neck. "I think it's very..."
"Blonde." Maltesi's brow wrinkled. "Did you mean for it to turn out that way?"
"You're very tactful, Mr. Maltesi. And yes, I did. I was looking for something new. Something with more energy and excitement."
"You could power the fabled Klatchian solar barge. Good gods."
Syd fluttered up and let out a long, high-pitched gasp.
"You look FABULOUS! Let me guess. Octiron Blonde, isn't it? I love it! I just do!" They kissed each other on the cheeks. "It just makes you..." Syd threw his hands up in the air. "...light up. Like a star! Oh... I wish I could wear blonde, but it's just not me. I've tried highlights but they just don't show up! Did you have it done at Curl Up & Dye? I knew it! Ginger is the best. She plucks my eyebrows personally. See?"
Syd leaned close to Hanna and pointed at his eyebrows.
"And your dress! I'm just dying to see the whole thing!"
Hanna took off her cloak. The guests had to shade their eyes again. In the firefly light, the gown shimmered like it had a life of its own. Syd looked like he was about to choke on his envy.
"Oh, Anthony, doesn't she look divine? Like a goddess!"
Maltesi called for a beer and thought over what he was about to say. It was off page 83 of the Gentleman's Guide and he wanted to be sure it came out right.
"You're looking especially lovely tonight," he said.
Hanna smiled.
"And I mean especially lovely as in I'm sure you look lovely normally. I wouldn't know, really. The only nights I've seen you, there was the bath house pool and the business with the Brotherhood and the tunnel and frankly, neither of us were at our best then, and at the Clinic you were a right mess, but I assume on a normal night, the kind with no kidnappings and breakdowns and so on, you probably look only slightly less lovely than you look tonight."
He ran that over in his mind again, and nodded, satisfied.
"If I was blonde, would you say such sweet things to me?" asked Syd.
"Er... No."
"You're hopeless!" Syd slapped Maltesi on the arm, tossed an envious look at Hanna and went off into the crowd to search for a new victim.
"The hair's not that bad," said Maltesi. "It's a little radical, that's all."
"Well, I like it. And that's what's important."
The accordions started up something new, a catchy beat that got everyone clapping. Old Pete started jigging in place. People formed up two long lines down the deck, feet tapping, fingers snapping. There was a male line and a female line. Hanna and Maltesi took their places. Syd found a partner and positioned himself in the female line. Of course.
At first, clapping was the main part, and some general all purpose bouncing. Hanna clapped to the beat and smiled at Maltesi opposite her. He smiled back.
The accordions were harmonizing. The women started doing little knee kicks, and it took Hanna a minute before she caught on. The men took up clapping over their heads and they had the complicated footwork, the jig. The accordions sped up and the lines met and parted and met up again, and as the beat raced along, there was a point when Maltesi grabbed Hanna's hand and so did Syd and a snaking worm of an oval spun around down the deck and back up again. There was a pause for some kicks – Hanna crashed into Syd at first because of velocity – and the spinning started again, and the kicks, and the spins.
She was laughing. Everybody was. Hanna couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed that hard and that long.
It was just what she needed. If she laughed hard enough and drank enough and had enough people around her, it was easy to stop thinking about Vetinari and Madam and being a baroness and a seamstress and just a normal person manipulated by people who were not normal, for purposes she could only guess at. She was tired to death of it.
When the accordions finally cut off, everybody screamed and hooted and stomped their feet. Hanna joined in for the heck of it.
That was how most of the night went. Dancing, drinking. It got too loud to talk to Maltesi but then, she didn't want to talk to him. They were too busy dancing or clapping or whistling or laughing at other people. He pinned a party hat to her hair. There was a lot of singing, but they were old sailor songs that Hanna didn't know. She tried to teach the group an Ansbacher beer song, and a few old crew members of the Captain knew it and when everybody got through it successfully, Hanna was given a large beer with the blessings of the ghost of the Captain. She drank it down without batting an eye and the people were so impressed, they made her an honorary member of the Captain's crew in a ceremony that involved drunken speeches by various people including Old Pete. At one point, Hanna sprawled on a piano brought on deck for the evening and sang a seamstress song that began I want to be loved by you, by you and nobody else but you..., which earned her hoots from the sailors and the satisfying view of a flushed Maltesi guzzling beer something chronic while he watched.
In the wee hours, the guests started dribbling away to their beds. Hanna stayed when the golems carried the last of the crates of empty beer bottles off the ship and deposited them on the dock for delivery to the brewery in the morning. She helped Maltesi collect the stuff guests left behind and dumped it in a lost and found box.
And then, only they and the golems were left.
They were both in that sobriety on the other side of dead drunkenness. Side by side, they leaned on their elbows against the rail of the ship and looked out over the river.
"Do you know what I'd like to do?" asked Hanna.
Maltesi waited.
"I'd like to drive this thing straight out to the ocean."
He glanced at her. The night must have drained everything; she looked troubled again.
"I figured you had to be getting back home."
"I don't have to do anything I don't want to. For once." She straightened. "Can we sail this ship to the ocean? Right now?"
An internal crisis erupted in Maltesi, a bigger one than he'd had in the cab the night before when Hanna kissed him. On one hand was that part of his brain – and other organs -- that thought sailing off with a lady like her was a very, very nice idea. The more cautious part of his mind figured that being thrown in the river with cement around his feet embedded with the seal of Ankh-Mopork was not the way he wanted to end his life.
"I don't think..." And then he stopped thinking because she'd moved closer with a certain look on her face that he hadn't seen before, a soft, inviting look that made him forget what he was so worried about. Ankh-Morpork? That cess pit of a city was far away. And Vetinari? Vetinari who?
"To hell with him," he said.
Hanna took his hand. "To hell with him."
When Griffin saw the golems pulling in the gangplank, he slinked out of the shadow he'd been lurking in, took a rope with a hook from his pack and swung it at one of the ship's lines. It caught. He pulled to fix the connection and prepared to swing onto the side of the hull.
A sudden black out, courtesy of the Agatean Sleep Grip delivered from behind, made him crumble up on the dock instead.
Dennis stooped and put a couple fingers to Griffin's neck. The pulse was fine. He'd wake up in a few hours.
"Sorry, old boy," he whispered.
Not far away, Lester was already sleeping the sleep of the Agatean Grip.
The ship was slowly leaving the dock. Dennis snatched up Griffin's rope and took a running jump.