Strandpiel, Book Two Chapter 3: New Horizons, a discworld fanfic

Strandpiel Book Two

Chapter Three - Advancing the story.

As always, this is V0.2. Revisions and typo elimination and expansions are happening.

A continuing family saga charting the interlinked lives of family and friends on at least two continents, with a cast of characters both living and dead.

Initially about the name Famke and how it got to name a character here. People have asked. Also retconning something I got a bit wrong about Russian naming conventions. Hope no Russian readers were too offended.

Picked up a review from reader The Lady of Fiction. What can I say but… better crack on.

The Assassins' Guild School, Prep Time. A Thursday night in January.

Early evenings after dinner gave way to Prep, where the student Assassin was expected to put in at least one hour of study time, getting up to date with Homework assignments, and ensuring anything required to be handed in the next morning was satisfactorily completed. After that, for second-year pupils, the time until Curfew and Lights Out at nine-thirty was your own.

Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons usually sought to get through the drudge as quickly as she could, usually so as to earn some practice time on the drums down in Seven-A. As she was a bright and capable pupil, most things she could complete to an acceptable standard without needing to waste too much time. Things she actually liked, and which caught her interest, she would devote more time to.

Currently she was studying a style guide to Patronymic Form and modes of address in Rodinian. Her work was due for handing in the next morning, to give the teacher time to review and mark it ahead of the Saturday morning class. Miss Garyanova had said this wasn't too complex, provided you understood the underlying principles. She appreciated that for a learner, this would be intricate rather than difficult. You had to pay attention to context, relative social standing, circumstances and social situations. Famke got the idea. In one of her native languages, there were three words for a nice simple concept like "you". Morporkians, who generally only had the one word for "you", had trouble with this. She'd had the Jy/Jou/U thing, and when to use which, ever since she could speak. Quirmians had the tu/vous thing going on and Überwaldeans were like us, with du, Sie and something else.

Tвой [tvoî] – Your and yours (singular and informal, masc.)

ваш [vash] – Your and yours (plural or formal, masc.)

There followed a couple of advisory pages as to Where, When, to Whom, and in what circumstances.

We say "vash" to Miss Garyanova. She says "tvoi" to any of us if it's one-to-one, but "vash" if she's addressing the class. Like in Quirmian, then. Does Rodinian have a U form? But we only do that in Vondalaans if we're talking to somebody really, really, important, like when we're praying and Showing Respect to the Gods.(1) Then again, ages ago Rodinians had Tsars. How would you address one of those?

Famke made a note to ask Miss. Rimwards Howondaland didn't have royalty or nobility. How does Mum address anyone noble? She considered this. Mum's general opinion of nobility didn't include much that could be called social respect. It also occurred to her that Sto Kerrigians and Phlegms also used the U-form, a lot more than in Howondaland. Might be interesting to find out.

Famke read down the page and discovered, with a sinking heart, that Rodinian had all sorts of gradations in the way people spoke to people. Honorifics. Lots of nobility. Although Miss Garyanova had said that a lot of it was obsolete now as there wasn't currently a Tsar and no expectation one would come along any time soon, and the old Imperial Court had dwindled to various scattered noble families living on fringes of what was the former Empire. Families who at one time or another had provided ruling Tsars or Tsarinas, such as the Ignatieffs, the Ivanovs, the Godenovs, and most recently in terms of history, the Romanoffs. Courtly use of the language had therefore atrophied and in any case, her people's residual nobility used Quirmian to speak to each other, and that language had a code all of its own.

Famke sighed, and moved on to the next set of lesson notes.

She discovered there was indeed a socially acceptable form of address for a Tsar.

"Your Radiance. Vashe siyatelstvo. Ваше Сиятельство"

Miss Garyanova had added it for completion's sake, adding that a commoner should not use the direct "vash'e" form to the King-Emperor. A question should be phrased in the third person, ie "What does His Radiance desire of me?" until the Tsar signalled that a degree of informality was permitted. She had also added, drily, that these things should be covered, even in the abstract, as she understood that the Guild of Assassins places great stress on social status and correct social behaviour.

The next part was an explanation of correct use of patronymics. This was a big Rodinian thing even today. Each student in the class had been invited to construct their own patronymic, bearing in mind these things are gendered and roughly half the time are actually matronymics.

Famke Yohannovna, or in some dialects Famke Yohannavichnya, Daughter of Johanna, contemplated names and what people did with them. The thing with "Famke", for instance. Ouma Agnetha had said that if she hadn't been constrained by family tradition – the tradition of the family she had married into – to call her firstborn daughter Johanna, then that firstborn daughter would have been a Famke.

"So you get the name, at one step removed". her grandmother had said. "Your mother is Johanna Famke."

She had been interested enough to look the name up. And had felt both disappointed and a bit annoyed to discover it came from one of the Kerrigian languages, and meant just "girl" or possibly "young woman". And more irritated to know it might even be from Phlaanders, where Phlegmish-speakers had misheard the Quirmian speakers next door and begun with "femme", which just meant "female", or "woman" in Quirmian. And of course Sandra Venturi, forever looking for weak points, had jeered that this evidently meant your people lacked any form of imagination whatsoever, fancy just calling you "girl"! (2)

It had been the other girls in the dorm. A Vondalaans name, let's call it that, that they'd never seen before. It was meant to be pronounced something like "Fam-KUH", but outside her family and other Vondalaanders, and let's be fair here, Sto Kerrigians, nobody could get the hang of that. People always said "Fam-KAY", thinking they'd taken pains to pronounce the strange foreign name right.

Thus at school among so many Morporkians, she'd become a Kay. Familiar name. 100% Morporkian. Famke had looked this name up too. Nobody really knew. There'd been some old knight in Lancre or somewhere who'd been the King's butler and housekeeper, Keeper of the Keys. So it was one of THOSE names boys could also have. Another word-detective had said it was a short form, a very short form, for Katherine. It might also mean "Purity". Famke grimaced. However, another Authority had tentatively suggested it was a name from Old, for a locksmith or somebody who had an affinity with locks. Famke grinned. She was good at lockpicking and lock-mechanisms. Her teachers said so.(3)

But, really. What mental image did the name "Kay" conjure up? The sensible one, the one who worried about not getting it right, the one the teacher would rely on to be the grown-up in the class and who could be depended on. The boring one who obeyed all the rules. Famke sighed. In her dorm, that was Susan Metcalfe. A Susan. Figured. That's worse than being a Kay.

She got on with her Rodinian prep. The language fascinated her. It was spiky. The new alphabet made it exotic. And there was the alluring possibility of swords. Mum owned a couple of sets of those swords...

And as she worked, a delayed lightbulb switched on in her head.

Romanoffs?

The Assassins' Guild School, Evening Class. The same Thursday night in January.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes was also responsible for teaching and mentoring adult students on the Mature Students' Track. She also had to take a couple of evening modules with people who, for whatever reason, were taking the Associate Membership Course.

This evening, she had a mixed class of both, brought together because of a common teaching module. She quite liked taking an evening class; adult learners were quieter, more responsible, were motivated to be here and presented no management difficulties. Even so, the course content was mundane and inflexible: it got drab after presenting it for the fifteenth time and she could find herself struggling to keep it fresh and interesting.

With the aid of a senior student from Raven House who was running the iconograph slide projector, she rattled through an overview of History of the Guild, and laid down something of its customs, its expectations of members, its ways of doing things, and its general ethos. She noted the essential differences between being a Mature Student and merely studying for Associate Membership, accepted that everyone who had applied for these courses, or else had been nominated for them, had been vetted and background-checked. She hoped the process had not been too intrusive.

While she accepted that many of you will not want to go past Associate Membership and that this is necessary for those who work in trades and professions tied closely to the Guild, or else are good prospects as School teachers, who need to know something about us so as to be able to teach efficiently here, please be aware the door is always open for Associate Members to become Full Members. If you wish to, and if we think you are a good prospect, Associate Membership is a good entry-level course for going on the Mature Students' Track later. This counts as a course credit, in fact.

Thank you, and if there are no further questions?

As the room emptied, she thanked her senior student and discreetly tipped her a few dollars for her work. She didn't have to do that, but she was aware her assistant was a Scholarship pupil. Every dollar counted.

Then she collected a prospective Associate Member who was, indeed, already employed by an Assassin.

"So how are you finding it, Shauna?"

"Faith, of all the things I thought I might get to be, I never thought I'd end up as a fe…as an Assassin." Shauna O'Hennigan replied, honestly.

Johanna smiled and patted her shoulder.

"Ag. Essociate member." she reminded her. "This gets you a foot in the door end some privileges. You are working for me, end you have to represent my interests. A Guild bedge you cen wear legitimately will be a help to you."

Johanna didn't add that recently, Shauna had needed to break with Dimwell street ethics as part of her employment. She had been faced with a clash of loyalties, and had come down on the side of her employer in a way that would have inconvenienced a lot of Dimwell street people. (4)

Then she excused herself and went to introduce herself to a woman she found of interest. Johanna found she looked like a younger Alice Band: the same height and build, the same tall athletic frame and grace, her hair done up in a sensible working bun, and an intent thoughtful look. She wore a long simple pullover dress in green, belted at the waist, with a dress jacket over the top. And two swords, one on each hip, one long, one short. What looked like riding boots were visible, in red-brown leather.

"Miss Yelena Garyanova?" Johanna asked. "Nice to meet you. I'd really like to talk to you."

Over a drink in a nearby pub, Johanna divined that Yelena was new to the School and had in fact only just moved into Ankh-Morpork. She had been to the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies, sent there by affluent parents who wanted her to have a cosmopolitan education and learn Morporkian at least, and that she came from a family with Cossack traditions, who had also despatched her to spend time on the Vulga Steppe, near her home city of Astrakhan.

She had been married to a Cossack, but she was now widowed, her husband having been killed in action in a border skirmish with the Klatchians.

At this point, Shauna had gasped and expressed sorrow and sympathy. Yelena had smiled.

"Don't be sorry." she advised. "I'd have liked more time with him, but was good death for a Cossack, defending the Rodinia against the Klatchians."

She looked at Johanna, squarely.

"You have border. On other side of border, are enemies. They cross border to our side. Sometimes, no choice."

Johanna noted the accent became more Rodinian, in a way that came and went.

"Ja." she said. "My family and people too. In Howondaland. My family live on a kaplyn. There has been fighting."

Yelena looked at her thoughtfully.

"You are from Howondaland. I am from Kazakhstan. We have shared history in this. And do you know, I'm not sure if Rodinian even has a word for your people. Maybe there should be one."

They called for more drinks. Shauna, trying not to look as if she was two years under the legal drinking age, but reckoning that dressed in adult clothes, she was probably passing any visual test, sat between them at the table and watched. She reckoned the two older women had found common ground, and wondered what it was like to live in a place where the people next door might mount an invasion every so often, and you had to down tools, and fight them. All you had to worry about in Dimwell had been turf fights with the Pig Packers' Firm… then she wondered if this explained all wars. Pig Packers versus Dimmers, on the grand scale. It was an interesting thought. She also discerned Yelena had left Astrakhan shortly after being widowed, and had entered a life of teaching, as a respectable widow with an Education would always be in demand as a Governess or a private tutor to young people of Quality. By degrees, and a couple of residential finishing schools in Überwald, this had led her to Ankh-Morpork. All roads, after all, got you here. Whichever direction you walked in.

Eventually, they got to the gist of what Doctor Johanna wanted to ask.

"How do you find the pupils?" Johanna asked, carefully. Very carefully.

This time Yelena laughed.

"I was advised that when I meet you, that you will ask this question. That you feel need to go to people who teach your daughter, and to apologise for her in advance. There are no problems, Johanna. Famke is good pupil. Clever, well-behaved, pays attention, puts in good homework on time, and is involved in class. I like her. Good girl."

"Who, Famke?" Shauna could not stop herself saying.

Yelena looked at her and smiled. She turned to Johanna.

"Your daughter, she has reputation?"

"Wish she didn't." Johanna said, frankly.

"Da." Yelena said, seriously. "Many people in staffroom know Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons is my pupil. Perhaps they take bets as to how long the new woman lasts. Several people have warned me I am in for hard time. But I like her. I suspect she may like me. There are no issues, Johanna."

"Be edvised. She's really efter your swords." Johanna said.

Yelena's eyes narrowed for a moment. Then she laughed.

"Da. I see her coveting them. This, now you mention it, should have been obvious to me. So how should we deal with this, Johanna?"

The City of the Lionesses, the Zulu Empire.

About ten miles out from the kraal that was becoming, by degrees, a City, a spoil-heap of earth and rock was beginning to grow, altering the landscape. Periodically, a pony-drawn wagon came up from the workings and its tipped load of spoil and slag was tipped onto the new hill. The pony and cart then turned round and descended into the earth again to collect a fresh load.

The women who were watching, a group of warrior guards standing attentively nearby, observed this with fascination. In the near distance, machinery clanked, ground and rumbled. It was a necessarily loud rumbling. To Ruth N'Kweze's ears, it reminded her of time spent as a Watch special in Ankh-Morpork, when she had been partnered to Constable Bluejohn, and she had eaten her on-shift lunch in a Troll café.

The crushing and maceration of rock in the grinding press sounded exactly like a roomful of Trolls eating lunch.

"When we're done, ma'am, err, your Highness, Majesty, and we can't extract no more, that left-over slag can go into your city walls." said the diffident voice to her right. Infill and core to your city walls, in between the inner and outer glacis, or else bound in cement or concrete for general work. Maybe even the hoggin under a paved road."

She nodded acknowledgement. She hadn't really wanted Dwarfs here. They were an additional complication. But after the geologists had found gold and silver bearing rocks out here, there'd been no choice. She needed that gold out fast. Paying for the Cossacks who were coming out here to fight for her army was going to be expensive. Even getting them here had cost. The Neverlanders, seamen who operated on the hazy borderland of legality and the other thing, were good. They'd run the nominal blockade imposed by the Muntabians to get her new cavalry out here. But they cost. And the things Marianne had needed to set up at Sagalo needed resourcing too.

The people who knew about mining, especially for precious metals, were Dwarfs. No getting around that.

Ruth remembered to smile benignly at the Dwarf.

"How's progress, Mr Callavoritsson?"

"The lads are sending out side-galleries along promising seams, ma'am." the Dwarf said. "Definite gold down there…" the Dwarf's eyes closed in what looked unpleasantly like orgasmic bliss "…and of course where you find gold, there's usually silver and mercury. Not as interesting, but they also have a value."

Ruth smiled, genuinely this time. And this was on the land that Father had dowried to her when he made her up to Paramount Crown Princess. Anything on or under it was hers, by ancient custom and Law. She had a big central domain here, hers by right, and scattered bits of land elsewhere. Including Sagalo out on the Widdershins Ocean side. Her Cossacks would be able to ride a fair bit of the way inland across her fiefdom. And for the forty or fifty miles where the land belonged to half-brothers or half-sisters, a bit of diplomacy should ease their passage. Diplomacy along the lines of "You know whose battle-lines you will come to, if conflict comes. I do not expect your choice to be for our brother. Therefore let my troops march and ride on your lands without hindrance."

She turned back to the Dwarf again. She picked up one of the sample rocks on the table, thoughtfully. It was the size of two fists and was largely the milky-white of marble, streaked with veins of red-brown and blue-grey, blossoming with the organic fluidity of oil paint allowed to spread on water. Even without the blossoming of dull yellow, in flowers and veins everywhere, it was beautiful in its own right. Ruth felt sorry it was going to have to be crushed and pulverised as a necessary step to extracting the metal content. She wondered if she could have one of these nuggets as a desk-top ornament, a paperweight.

If the bloody Dwarfs allow this, that is.

"So what's the yield so far, Mr Callavoritsson?"

"Forty-five pounds, ma'am!" he said promptly. Ruth held his eyes. What do I do if I discover, for instance, that he's under-declaring? I really need somebody who can do an independent audit. At source and at all stages of the process.

"That doesn't sound like very much." Chakki N'Golante remarked. She looked suspicious. Then again, she was Ruth's right-hand person. Suspicion, and not taking anyone's word for it, should be part of the job description for Right-Hand Person to The Queen.

The Dwarf looked hurt.

"Takes a lot of extracting, does gold." he said. "And you'd be surprised, miss. You'd be really surprised. Do you know how many tons of rock you have to work to get a pound of gold? On average, miss, it's about seven hundred. In a really rich seam, you might luck out and get it down to four hundred. When it's near played out you get to over a thousand. It's slow work, miss."

"And that still only gets you an eighty per cent yield." another Dwarf added. "You can rework the slag with chemicals to recover what you missed first time. But some of those chemicals you do not want to mess with."

"We still do, though." the first Dwarf said. "Gold is gold."

"Not to mention silver." said the second Dwarf. His tone of voice said that silver was nowhere near as exciting as gold, but you had to grab what you could get.

"How much?" Chakki asked.

"Oh, around sixty pounds." the Dwarf said, indifferently. "Mercury too. But we recycles that, as it leaches the residual gold out of the slag. Bumps up the yield."

He looked pityingly up at this human woman, who knew nothing of gold-mining.

"Reacts with gold, see. In the right circumstances. It leaches, that is, draws, the gold out of the rock. Then we splits the two apart, and we re-uses the mercury."

"Some lead coming out too." Another Dwarf remarked. He sounded disappointed that in the hierarchy, he'd drawn a very short straw. "But it has its uses, I reckon."

"Other stuff, in the right places. Got some lads doing iron working higher up. In the red rocks."

"Oh yeah. Iron. Bit pedestrian, I suppose." said the disinterested dwarf who'd been assigned to mere lead. "But you can't do without it."

Ruth nodded. A track in her head was calculating the commodity prices of gold. One of the Pegasus Service girls dropped by every other day with the latest Ankh-Morpork newspapers. Ruth had grown better at reading the small print in the Financial Times. The same Pegasus took back a witnessed and audited statement of the amount of gold and silver that had been mined, which went to the Royal Bank. This was held to be more convenient and simpler than moving the actual bullion: the audit was carried out by a Royal Bank employee seconded to the Consulate here and dignified by the title Trade Secretary. It meant the Royal Bank owned a growing proportion of the gold being mined, but it enabled Ruth to draw on credit for various purposes.

"Agreement applies, of course." Mr Callavoritsson said, looking up at Ruth as if daring her to retract.

"Completely." Ruth agreed. The Dwarfs were investing in the set-up costs, the sinking of mines and the import of necessary machinery, for a guaranteed 20% of all gold mined. They'd wanted 25%, but Ruth had pointed out that when Sir Cecil Smith-Rhodes had set up gold and diamond mines in the country next door, he had agreed 20% with his Dwarfs. And White Howondaland still, to this day, conceded 20%, and no more. As the Dwarfs had looked at her with "She isn't meant to know that!" expressions on their faces, she had said "Twenty. No more. And, gentlemen, if the geological reports are right, you will be getting twenty per cent of quite a lot. Which is better than nothing."

The Dwarfs had retreated, gone into a huddle, and had come back to accept the terms.

Ruth sighed. The Dwarfs therefore got, on the basis of reported yields, nine pounds of gold and twelve pounds of silver. But that didn't matter. So long as they kept a steady reliable stream coming.

"And besides." Ruth added. "Go down deep enough and you're likely to find diamonds too. The geologists say there's a classic pipe formation there, whatever the Hells that means. Same agreement applies – twenty per cent to you, eighty to me. Now is there anything else?"

She thanked the Dwarfs, said she had no reason to see the strong-room where they stored the refined gold and silver – yet – and politely dismissed them.

Then she walked away with Chakki, their guard falling in behind.

"Tell me they're not fiddling us, Chakki." Ruth said, when the Dwarfs were out of earshot.

Chakki shook her head.

"They're Dwarfs, Ruth. Contracts and agreements are important to them. They'll drive a hard bargain, but they'll respect the agreement to the very letter. You can rely on that. Twenty per cent was agreed, and twenty per cent is all they'll take."

Ruth considered this.

"Thanks, Chakki. You're right, of course. Maybe what they say about being in the vicinity of large amounts of gold is right - it does do things to your head, and you get paranoid somebody's going to thieve it or screw you over."

"It's a commodity, Ruth. It buys things. Like five hundred or more of the best fighting cavalry in the world. Zoya was right. Simbothwe might have nearly three times our number of infantry. But he doesn't have cavalry. He dismisses them as being no use and demeaning as a weapon of war, the sort of thing only a woman would use."

"Well, my dear brother is right about that last thing." Ruth said, cheerfully. "I'm a woman. I have cavalry. I intend to use it."

As they returned to the kraal, Ruth spotted fast-moving dust on the far horizon, from the direction of the sea, over a hundred miles away. She heard orders being called. The guard unit fanned out to left and right and took protective positions around their Queen-Regent Elect.

"Riders." Chakki said. "Balance of probability says they're ours."

Ruth watched intently. She waited for detail to resolve itself.

"They don't look like Zulus, though. Wrong look."

"White skins." Chakki agreed.

"Probably Cossacks." Ruth said. "Although now we're welcoming white people, Chakki, the thought occurs this makes it easier for Crowbar Dreyer to send in a hit-squad. White people in the Empire would be assumed to be working for me."

"Until the moment they're not." Chakki agreed. "And Dreyer's one devious bastard. If he thought a hit would work, he'd lead it himself."

The riders resolved into five people in typical Cossack garb. They rode cautiously forwards, making no attempt to go for weapons. Ruth and Chakki relaxed slightly as one rode forwards.

"If you look behind you, Ruth." Chakki said, quietly, "The Dwarfs have seen the riders too. There are quite a few more above ground now, and they've all got axes. Shows they keep good security. And they mobilise pretty quickly."

"Gold mine. It figures." Ruth agreed. Dwarf mines came with good defences.

As the Zulu guard challenged her, the leading rider appeared to recognise who she was dealing with. She slowed her horse to a stop, raised empty hands, and called, in Morporkian with a Rodinian accent,

"Senior Uriadnik Karina Ladanovna of the Lvitsgrad sotnik, asking permission to speak to Her Majesty the Queen-Regent Elect. I bring the greetings of our Voikovoida and Hetman, Zoya Zlatanovichnya, cavalry induna to the Queen."

"Come forward, sergeant." Ruth replied.

She watched Zoya's Cossack sergeant give instructions to the four who had ridden with her, and all five dismounted.

Karina quickly went down on one knee. The four newcomers followed suit. Ruth bade them rise.

"They are here, Majesty. Five hundred shashkas and lances are coming ashore at Sagalo. My comrades are the first."

Ruth introduced herself to her new people and clasped the hand of each, welcoming them.

"How did you know it was us?" Chakki asked. "you just rode straight here. We could have been anybody."

Karina made a disgusted "Hmmph" sound.

"You are clever woman, Chakalate. Today is sunny day. Only Queen's personal guard carry silver spears and keep them so well polished. You were visible from ten miles away!"

Chakki hesitated. For slightly too long.

"Ah. Point taken." she said, eventually.

Karina Ladanovna laughed and clapped her on the back.

"Think yourself lucky we are on your side, Chakalate!" she said.

More coming!

In deference to a reader, The Lady of Fiction, I'll post this now.

Coming up:

Professor Ponder Stibbons gets to grips with the implications of the Sensory Deprivation Chamber.

Bekki goes on a duty round in her Steading. Her first emergency case.

An eventful dinner on Spa Lane

More soon!

(1) Interesting note; the U-form in Dutch and Flemish is the most formal and respectful form of "you" and is used in contexts where you might expect it – ie, Addressing Royalty. While I'm still nowhere near native-fluent, I've only really found two instances where U is used in Afrikaans, as opposed to jy/jou. Religious discourse and prayer – U is the reverential form of address to God or Jesus Christ. There's a line in the last verse of the old national anthem which roughly translates as asking God's favour on His African people, pretty much a prayer on behalf of the Nation. (or at least the Dutch-descended part of die Nasie that speaks Afrikaans).

(2) "Cassandra." Famke had said, deliberately using the full form of her name. "Your name comes from an Ephebian woman who was a prophet of doom and bad things, doesn't it? Who always got her prophecies right? Well, can you repeat after me, "Famke is going to punch me really hard in the face."

Several people had intervened and dragged Famke off. At this point in a discussion between Famke and Cassandra, it usually took quite a few people.

(3) Famke also had a little sister who had helped her with her homework. One of the demonstration locks that were handed out as homework assignments had defeated her, until one Wednesday evening she'd taken it to Ruth. The two had spent quality sister-time taking it apart. Then Ruth had rebuilt it while Famke watched and learnt.

(4) In Book One, Shauna, now an employee of the Smith-Rhodes Marketing and Management Consultancy, saw how a SRMMC client was being defrauded, and brought this to the attention of her seniors. The fraud involved how people could get entrance to a sporting arena without the hassle of paying for a ticket. A lot of the people involved in the fraud might well have been neighbours of Shauna from Dimwell. In the eyes of some, were they to know who had spotted it, Shauna O'Hennigan had Transgressed, changed sides in the Class War, and was not only a crab trying to get out of the bucket who therefore had to be stopped. She had also Grassed Us Up and could expect to become the crab meat in the salad. Johanna wanted it to be seen that anyone who worked for an Assassin could call on lots of protection if she needed it. She also wanted Shauna, the sort of girl who came from a social class that would never even think of mixing with Assassins, to have a broader education and to have her horizons expanded. For her to see what was possible. For Shauna, this was a no-brainer: Doctor Johanna was employing her, Doctor Johanna played fair, and Doctor Johanna was even at the start paying twice as much as a sixteen-year-old street scruff from Dimwell could hope to get anywhere else. Shauna was loyal. In a coming chapter, she will again prove she's worth the money. And a good bonus.

Notes Dump: a Township, exiled by statute to the very edge of the main story, where surplus ideas and concepts go into a pool of reserve labour but – very strictly – are not allowed to interact with the main story more than is absolutely necessary.

Callavorite is an ore containing significant amounts of gold.

Also... doing the research on the gold-mining thing. At first you wonder about the sheer faff of excavating, crushing, heating and chemically treating seven hundred tons of rock to get one pound of metal. Then you do the maths. At current (Jan 2021) prices, Ruth's share of 45 pounds of pure gold will be around the £900,000 mark, maybe $USD1,200,000. That's before you factor in those 48 pounds of silver - £1,453,000, or maybe $USD2,000,000. The idea that the redundant crushed rock, rubble and waste could be recycled into building work is cool, too - taking a quick look into how gold-mining changes a landscape, just googled on pictures of what can only be described as artificial mountains surrounding Johannesburg . these are slag heaps and spoil tips from a century of South African gold mining. Now her Dwarfs have mining up and running and are digging deeper and further... how will she deal with this.

Hot damn - also discovered 80% of the world's platinum comes from South Africa. Thought it was South America but no, it's SA. Current price - £23,256 a pound. $USD32,000 or thereabouts. I see Ruth backing a Dwarf into a corner and demanding to know why she was not told about this.

Wrote a far longer bit where Johanna first meets the new teacher Yelena, the one in charge of Rodinian Language and Culture, and the two size each other up. It ran on for far longer than it should and held up the story so I trimmed it back – this is the first draft of the extended dialogue sequence as a reader bonus. Had to introduce Yelena as a character, but it didn't need, in the story, to be this long. The revised scene throttles back on this.

The Assassins' Guild School, Evening Class. The same Thursday night in January.

Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes liked taking these classes. People who were motivated, with a reason to be here, who presented no disciplinary issues. Above all, they were adults. They'd pay attention. A mix of people on the Mature Students' Course, the latest intake and new to the Guild, who would if all went well pass out in eighteen months, as full Assassins. The rest of the people in the room were those who had been accepted for the lesser status of Associate Member, who for one reason or another required a lower-level Guild membership. Affiliate status, without the right to inhume or accept Guild contracts, but who needed some form of Guild membership for one reason or another. People who could in most circumstances afford to pay the course fees and them an annual membership fee.

A woman in her middle forties now, still athletic and somewhat attractive despite being a mother of three children, she had taken care to wear full Assassin black, just to make the point. (5)

Johanna (with the aid of iconograph slides) spoke for forty minutes on the Guild's history, its origins, the standout events of those hundreds of years, digressed into the chequered history of some of the Houses of Study, spoke about some of the notable contracts the Guild had completed, successfully or otherwise, and explained how all this built an ethos, an attitude, an outlook. She spoke about her own life history, and how circumstance had brought her to Ankh-Morpork aged nineteen to be offered a place on a Mature Students Class. (6) And about how, from being a reluctant volunteer, she had never left, and had come to appreciate the organisation she belonged to.

Certainly not uncritically. But I do eppreciate it." she said.

She got the senior student from Raven House who had operated the slide machine for her to come up and speak about her own experiences, and then she took questions from the audience. Afterwards, she briefly spoke to two Mature Students who she was professionally mentoring.(7), and took care to find a younger student in the room. In fact, the youngest person present by a long way.

She nodded to this other putative Associate Member.

"So how are you finding it, Shauna?"

"Faith, of all the things I thought I might get to be, I never thought I'd end up as a fe…as an Assassin." Shauna O'Hennigan replied, honestly.

Johanna smiled and patted her shoulder.

Johanna appreciated this. She saw this as reciprocal loyalty to a very good employee, a girl with potential. If you worked for an Assassin, you needed to know something about the Assassins' Guild. And to be in a position that guaranteed Guild protection if it was called for. Shauna's course fees were therefore being paid by her employer.

Besides, I really like this girl, Johanna thought. And she's already earning her pay. Worth my investing in her future.

Johanna looked over the people present, and remembered.

"I need to introduce myself to somebody else." She said. "Please wait for me and we can walk back together. Or take a cab. We'll see."

Shauna O'Hennigan could look after herself on the Ankh-Morpork streets. Even so, she was grateful Doctor Johanna was going to see her home. And the other woman she was talking to, who also wore swords and looked as if she knew how to use them. It would deter any unwelcome attention.

She watched, for the moment disregarded. The tall woman with the swords at her belt had a sort of look to her. She and Doctor Johanna appeared to be talking as professional equals, not friends as such, kind of formal. Something about her accent too. She'd heard that accent before. It had a spiky edge to it.

Reminds me of Miss Alice Band. Same sort of tall lean build. Hair tied up the same sort of way. Late twenties, early thirties? Sort of a greyhound look. Quiet. Doesn't talk much. Looks like she's weighing people up. Assessing them. Shauna, not long out of school herself, recognised Teacher in her. And reflected she had been taught by nuns. Not Assassins. Nuns didn't carry swords into the classroom.(9)

After initial social pleasantries, Johanna suggested that as they were all walking the same way home, why didn't they stop for a drink somewhere?

"This is Shauna O'Hennigan." Doctor Johanna said. "Works for me. Shauna, this is.."

Doctor Johanna paused for a moment.

"Miss Yelena Garyanova. A new teacher at the School."

Yelana Garyanova assessed Shauna, then smiled.

"I am pleased to meet you, Shauna. You are not a pupil at the School, I think."

"No, ma'am." Shauna said. "I was at Seven-Handed Sek's. Till I was sixteen. Errr.."

"Well, join us." Johanna said.

The three ended up in The Tap Room, the public bar at Jimkin Bearhugger's distillery, which specialised in Bearhugger produce.

Yelena studied her glass thoughtfully.

"So this is Ankh-Morporkian vodka." she said.

"Ja. Bearhuggers haven't been doing it for very long."

Yelena took a thoughtful sip.

"Not bad for first try." she said. "Give them time, they get better at this. Bit weak, though. Too much water."

"So, where are you staying?" Doctor Johanna asked the new woman.

"I have rooms in New Ankh, in Leastways." she replied, in good Morporkian but with an accent. Shauna, nursing a glass with a small amount of gin in it and a lot of lemonade, tried to place it. She'd met people who spoke with that accent.

"Not too far from me, then. I live on Spa Lane." Doctor Johanna relied. "Shauna here is my employee. I suggested to her it would be a good idea if she became en Essociate Member. It makes a lot of things easier."

"Do you find it of interest?" the woman asked Shauna, examining her.

"It's different." Shauna admitted. "Faith, people from Dimwell never become fec… become Assassins. Never even thought about it."

Yelena nodded.

"I never thought I would, either." she agreed. "And Johanna says she arrived late. But for me, it is necessary to confirm me in my job."

"Not a full Assassin." Johanna said. "Not the full pink slip end the licence to inhume."

She looked at the other two, amused.

"Unless you wish to. Which means the full Meture Students' Course."

Yelena Garyanova shrugged.

"A possibility, certainly. Something to consider. And I have been in this City for barely five weeks. There has been much to occupy my time."

"And you've got a full class set up and off the ground." Johanna said. "Impressive."

"It has been busy." Yelena admitted. "I heard about job vacancy at Guild school. I write and apply. Guild call me for interview. At same time I am renting rooms in Leastways."

She frowned and looked puzzled.

"Johanna, do Watch here never close city gates at night? At home in Astrakhan, Watchman who leaves city gates open, he is no longer Watchman the next morning."

Johanna grinned. Leastways was one of the newer suburbs of Ankh-Morpork, just outside the Least Gate. Commuting to a City job meant passing through a largely disinterested and inattentive Watch guard on the gate. Which like every other gate in the city wall, probably had gates with wonky hinges, or wet rot and woodworm in the timbers, or gates that had physically stuck in place and could only be moved with high explosives.

She explained this. Yelena took a few moments to grasp the point.

"Things are done differently here, then. Astrakhan, my home city on Mother Vulga, is careful. Muntabians on one side and Klatchians on the other. My people have fought both. The city keeps gates closed. Also, Cossacks have not always been peaceful visitors."

Johanna indicated the swords.

"My family are settled Cossacks. In the City my parents deal in things as merchants and traders. They were prosperous enough to send me to school in Quirm. That was after time spent on Steppe with the Host, where I learnt to ride horse and use weapons."

"Quirm Academy for Young Ladies." Johanna said.

"Da. After Steppe, I hated sense of being confined. At least I was able to bring horse. I also learnt Morporkian and Quirmian. Was good thing about it. I returned to the host. Got married. Husband killed in battle with Klatchians."

"I'm sorry…" Shauna burst out. Yelena looked at her.

"Don't be. On a border with bad neighbours, you fight. People die. But the Klatchians stay on their side of border with Kazakhstan. Cossacks make sure of that."

She took a sip of her vodka.

"A Cossack dies in battle. Is a good death. I would, however, have preferred more time with him." She paused and asked "Do they serve a stronger vodka in this place? And not these tiny glasses. Sto gram."

"There is a place on Palindrome Street." Johanna said. "The Bear and Balalaika, it is called. Used to be the Dancing Bear. I believe you can get a very good vodka in there."

"Errr… there are lots of your people in this city." Shauna offered.

Yelena took time in replying.

"Da, I hear there are. When things are not so busy, I would like to introduce myself. But a new job, a new home which requires a little work doing to it, and also my horses, which by the good offices of a colleague are currently being stabled at Garstairs, at the Guild's horse-riding place. These things, and the need to prepare my teaching strategy and my lesson plans. Not too much free time."

"Well. Why not come over for dinner next Saturday evening?" Johanna offered. "Meet my family."

She paused, and added

"My oldest daughter is in the Air Watch, part-time. Olga Romanoff thinks well of her."

Yelena sipped a refilled vodka glass.

"Lady Olga? Her name was given to me as a contact. I regret I haven't had the free time to introduce myself, yet. It is not meant as a slight."

"If you were at the Quirm Academy, Lady Sybil Ramkin would be interested in meeting you." Johanna suggested. "I know there is this informal nickname. Ladies who Organise. It seems to me that you are very good at organising."

"I went into teaching after being widowed. You understand, I felt the need to leave Astrakhan and Kazakhstan for a while. Salaried positions were available, for a respectable widow of good education to teach young people of the nobility. I tried this, discovered teaching is pleasant even if the parents can be – nie kolturny, lacking, shall we say? I grew used to living out of what essentials can be packed into my saddlebags. Move to new place, less time spent unpacking. Then, residential positions at finishing schools. In Überwald. From my last school, I heard the Assassins' Guild School wanted to try out a Rodinian course, but lacked the right skills. I applied. Lady T'Malia and Joan Sanderson-Reeves interviewed me, and asked how soon I can start. I thought about this, briefly, and said "Saturday morning." Dame Joan said she'd fix it for me to have my horses stabled for free, she said perk of the job, and introduced me to Mr Harvey-Smith. Who asked if I could also teach riding skills. I'd never considered that, but I suppose I could. All things are possible. If the Guild stables my horses, I no longer have to pay the thief and villain Hobson, I think I should give something back.

"I advertised for my course, hoping to get the right sort of pupils. To be honest, I was only thinking one lesson ahead, but I have a plan for how to teach my native language to pupils who begin from a common position, of knowing little or nothing."

"How do you find the pupils?" Johanna asked, carefully. Very carefully.

This time Yelena laughed.

"Who, Famke?" Shauna could not stop herself saying.

Yelena looked at her and smiled. She turned to Johanna.

"Your daughter, she has reputation?"

"Wish she didn't." Johanna said, frankly.

"Well. Why not come over for dinner next Saturday evening?" Johanna offered. "Meet my family."

She paused, and added

"My oldest daughter is in the Air Watch, part-time. Olga Romanoff thinks well of her."

Yelena sipped a refilled vodka glass.

"Lady Olga? Her name was given to me as a contact. I regret I haven't had the free time to introduce myself, yet. It is not meant as a slight."

(5) Visualising Johanna, aged 45 – 47. TV-friendly academic and presenter on various intellectual things, Professor Alice Roberts, comes to mind – right age, right look, right long red hair. Although Johanna's red hair might at this stage be helped along with discreet treatments at Conina's Barbarian Hairdressers…. (" The Hair-Care Stop for All Women Who Lead Busy Professional Lives"). Conina's will be a location for later in this tale.

(6) now go right back to my tale The Graduation Class which features, among others, a far younger Johanna who has just arrived in Ankh-Morpork and finds herself pressganged. It was also one of the first tales written by a younger and far less experienced author and this may show too!

(7) Keep your heads, pay attention, assume nothing, always remember everything is a test, and you'll live to graduate. Probably."

(8) In Book One, Shauna, now an employee of the Smith-Rhodes Marketing and Management Consultancy, saw how a SRMMC client was being defrauded, and brought this to the attention of her seniors. The fraud involved how people could get entrance to a sporting arena without the hassle of paying for a ticket. A lot of the people involved in the fraud might well have been neighbours of Shauna from Dimwell. In the eyes of some, were they to know who had spotted it, Shauna O'Hennigan had Transgressed, changed sides in the Class War, and was not only a crab trying to get out of the bucket who therefore had to be stopped. She had also Grassed Us Up and could expect to become the crab meat in the salad. Johanna wanted it to be seen that anyone who worked for an Assassin could call on lots of protection if she needed it. She also wanted Shauna, the sort of girl who came from a social class that would never even think of mixing with Assassins, to have a broader education and to have her horizons expanded. For her to see what was possible. For Shauna, this was a no-brainer: Doctor Johanna was employing her, Doctor Johanna played fair, and Doctor Johanna was even at the start paying twice as much as a sixteen-year-old street scruff from Dimwell could hope to get anywhere else. Shauna was loyal.

(9) The nuns at Seven-Handed Sek's carried long wooden rulers, tucked through their belts in exactly the same place that Assassins wore swords and for broadly similar reasons. Convent schoolgirls learnt to fear those wooden rulers.