Strandpiel Book Two
Chapter Four - Walking the Walk.
As always, this is now V0.03. Revisions et c will follow - adding a bit I missed.
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.
We begin with a technical note, akin to Tolkien's Appendices about the academic difficulties in translating and re-presenting the small details of Middle-Earth in a way that makes sense in our day and age.
I've used "January", described as the Monday morning of months, as the placeholder for the part of the year in which our characters find themselves – midwinter in Ankh-Morpork with short drab days and long nights. I've just been reminded that the Discworld's consensus calendar does not actually have a January: it has the two months of Ick and Offle, of which that indispensible guide The Terry Pratchett L-Space Wiki says:
Ick: The Discworld month roughly analogous to Roundworld's January. While most months follow the standard pattern of having four eight-day weeks and thirty-two days, Ick only has 16 days and two weeks. It follows on in the calendar from Offle. (The other Discworld month roughly analogous to Roundworld's January. Unlike Ick, it follows the standard pattern of having four eight-day weeks and thirty-two days. Quite possibly named after the crocodile god Offler.)
However, the ancient Aztec/Mayan calendar of Central America had twelve thirty-day months. It disposed of the problem of what to do with the five spare days left over by calling them the Days of the Dead, right at the end of the year, where general Tezuman-like gloom reigned, penance was made, souls were cleansed, gods importuned, no fires or hot food were permitted, and generally speaking was like a Sunday in West Wales or the Scottish Islands. This also aptly describes the days in between Christmas and New Year for most of us...
So that's the background… January to us, Offle/Ick to the Discworld.
Two observations; on the Discworld, its equivalent of January has forty-eight days, which given the nature of the month is oddly fitting. You do tend to wonder when it will ever end.
Secondly – I recall I mentioned this in Gap Year Adventures as an aside – can't help thinking of Tevek, the January of the Jewish calendar – as I recall from the research into Istanzia/Cenotia, the Not-An-Israel of the Discworld, this may derive from a bleak inhospitable time with river monsters somewhere in the philology. Crocodiles again. Insh'Offler.
The Royal Ankh-Morpork Post Office, Widdershins Broadway, Ankh-Morpork. January (Well. Ick-Offle).
The old Post Office building had once been devastated by fire, suspected to be arson on the part of a business rival who wanted the institution to be destroyed past any hope of recovery.(1) The fire had in fact brought about the total opposite. The shell of the building and a surprising amount of the essential internal structure had remained. Wizards from the University(2) had said that the fire had, despite everything, been beneficial: the massive backlog of undelivered letters which had backed up over several decades and occupied every possible physical space had exerted a massive and negative psychic effect. In a very real sense, the blaze had Delivered them. The massive psychic sink was now gone, the atmosphere was now clear, and the Post Office could rebuild and look to the future.
Redeveloped by Gift of the Gods and the vision of energetic new Postmaster General, Moist von Lipwig, the interiors of the building had been remodelled largely following the floor plans of what went before. The Postmaster-General had made a big thing out of "rebuilding the interior with full and sympathetic consideration for what went before. I believe this is as much conservation of the past as it is building on the future." However, some new features had been built in. At the insistence of Deputy Postmaster-General Tulliver Groat, there was a training centre for new postmen. This also incorporated the headquarters of the Trade Guild, the Ancient And Worshipful Order of Postal Delivery Workers and Messengers. One aspect of the Ancient and Worshipful Training had indeed found a purpose-built home here.
And a group of people, about to be judged worthy of carrying the mail, were waiting their turn for Assessment.
Lancre.
The young witch looked up at the sky. After a few unfeasibly bright blue-sky days, the sort of day she'd been named after, everything had now reverted to the expected seasonable weather, with low grey cloud stretching from horizon to horizon and only the dull grey light of a January day to work by. Apparently it was snowing lower down on the plains, snowclouds blowing in from the Widdershins off the Vortex Plains. So it would soon be here, with lazy clouds shedding their load as they tried to get over the high Ramtops.
She made a little shrug and returned to her critical scrutiny of the burgeoning winter wheat, green pinpricks and shoots standing out against the black of the earth.
Everything seemed healthy and to be expected for the season; winter wheat was hardy and if it snowed again, which was highly likely, all it would do would be to insulate the growing green at a constant temperature whilst still allowing sunlight to get through.
Apricity Brabble smiled a contented smile. Everything was alright in her world. (3) The winner of the previous summer's Witch Trials moved in her world of the green and growing, now a witch in her own right and not an assistant or an apprentice, and wondered what had become of other members of her training coven. Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, she knew, was in faraway Howondaland to get a Steading off the ground there. It sounded frightening and foreign, even though Apricity knew Bekki had family there and spoke the languages. She hoped to see her again sometime, and catch up.
She moved on. This was the time of year where her sort of witch didn't have a lot to do. Not much grew in winter. But there was still the people stuff. And people were a lot more complex and less predictable than growing crops.
Apricity's thoughts turned to Sophie Rawlinson, big, cheerful, and self-confident in a way she, Apricity, wasn't, and remembered Sophie had gone to Ankh-Morpork and for the moment had signed on full-time in the Air Watch. Being a policewoman would suit Sophie, Apricity thought. Her sort of don't-need-to-think-about-it-very-much self-confidence and commanding presence would make a very good copper.
She gathered her hooded cloak around her in the afternoon chill, and left the field. She wondered if this was how it felt when a group of people who had lived together, trained together, shared the woes of life together, and traded stories about the eccentricities of their supervising senior Witches… well, then you had to break up, with the training over, and go your separate ways, as full Witches judged worthy of going on into the next stage of your lives. To a Steading or next-best. Or if all else failed, to a paid job somewhere else.
Apricity had seen the new crop of trainees in the latest Coven, some of whom were as young as eleven or twelve. It made her feel impossibly old, although she was only just past sixteen herself. She shook gloomy thoughts out of her head.
I have to check on the seedlings and young plants in the greenhouses, she reminded herself. And getting Lancre farmers to actually build a greenhouse was a little triumph.
With a purpose again, Apricity moved with squarer shoulders and greater intent. She wondered about a life that meant she was living and working within a mile of where she had been born. She hadn't even been to Ankh-Morpork, for instance.
Silly, she reminded herself. I'm a Lancre girl. Bekki was born in Ankh-Morpork. Her mother's from Howondaland. She lives in a bigger world. Sophie's from one of the Shires. Lancre isn't their home. But it is mine.
Apricity Brabble walked on to check on her greenhouses. In the traditional Lancre manner, they had been built from redundant window frames lashed and nailed together, but they worked.(4) Just two of them so far – glass was at a premium in this country – but enough so as to be able to demonstrate what it was for and how it worked. She'd just had to get them to scale it up and think in terms of a larger cold-frame, you know, one you could actually stand upright inside, and with room for lots of seedlings and potted-out plants. Winning the Witch Trials the previous summer had given her more authority and credibility to get things like this done. Lancre farmers, normally slow to new ideas and reluctant to do different, had seen how Miss Brabble had made a whole field of wheat and oats and barley grow, and were prepared to listen to her ideas. Miss Brabble got results.
As she checked on her young plants, she wondered what Bekki and Sophie were doing right now. She hoped it was interesting, whatever it was.
Bitterfontein, The Turnwise Caarp, Rimwards Howondaland
"Try it on." Aunt Mariella said, encouragingly.
Bekki turned the hat over in her hands. It was a typical item of frontier Boer wear, a broad and floppily-brimmed hat with a high-ish crown. There was a band round the crown, a useful place to tuck things. But there was something about the crown… instead of the usual central indentation, it appeared to rise instead, to a subtly under-stated point. The sort of point that would not be remarked unduly upon, but which was unmistakably a point.
And the hat was black. Again, not an unusual thing for a Boer hat, the sort of thing you'd wear if spending a day out in the bush or the veldt, broad-brimmed to keep the sun off face, neck and shoulders. Aunt Mariella and Mum both favoured this sort of hat. Assassins and black clothing went together. Mum usually favoured comfortable bush khaki rather than Assassin black. Bekki remembered the story that a disciplinary sherry had resulted when Lord Downey had tentatively suggested that as an Assassin, Mum should perhaps consider wearing Black more often, Doctor Smith-Rhodes.
Her mother had considered this, and said she would give it more thought, my lord. She would consider this.
Then she'd gone out and bought a black hat. Just to comply.
Aunt Mariella had taken the style cue, and her dress sense extended to wearing just enough Assassin Black. (5)
Bekki considered the hat again, black with its barely-there-but-unmistakable point.
Then she smiled and put it on.
Aunt Mariella smiled.
"Suits you." she said. "My gift. You need to wear a hat when you're out and about. On your working rounds. To keep the sun off."
"Thank you, Aunt Mariella." Bekki replied.
The Royal Ankh-Morpork Post Office, Widdershins Broadway
There was snow in the courtyard outside the Post Office. Not a lot, but just enough to cover the ground to perhaps the top of the foot. It obscured the shapes of things on the ground, leaving indistinct, often barely noticeable, hummocks. The kind of things that somebody who had to walk and who needed to cover a lot of ground in a hurry might miss. As this was Ankh-Morpork, the snow was already attracting a certain yellow patina.
This part of the Post Office courtyard was closed off from the greater space outside by a high wall. Working Post Office employees on the other side tended to avoid it, perhaps in the same way Assassins steered clear of areas of the city used for training, were they to know a training exercise was on. It had not been lost on Sergeant Nadezhda Popova (6) of the Ankh-Morpork City Air Watch, escorting a party of Air Watch pilots for what was described as a "training session", that the mixture of postmen and coach service employees out and about their labours had stopped and were covertly watching them with expressions of what looked like the usual wariness when in the presence of the City Watch, plus what looked like sympathy and "the poor cows don't know what's coming."
Forewarned, Nadezhda had turned to her colleague, Sergeant Hanna von Strafenburg, who would be undergoing the training course. Long-time Air Watchwomen who had joined up at the same time, risen through the ranks together, and who had fought side-by-side in the air war over Lancre and the Chalk, they had an Understanding. People who just saw one as Überwaldean and the other as Rodinian, and therefore not inclined to co-operation, could be surprised by this.
"Complete schieβe." Nadezhda remarked to Hanna.
Hanna von Strafenburg considered this.
"Ja. This is govno. Derm'ya, even."
They shared a wry grin. Swearing in the Air Watch was necessarily multi-lingual. Especially on a morning where both supervising NCO's considered the particular specialised training and induction the girls would receive was just an utter and complete waste of time and effort. However, as Hanna von Strafenburg said, the Patrician himself has commanded this. He spoke to Commander Vimes. Who then said to Captain Romanoff, "Sorry, Olga, they've got to do this. No way around it. Can you get one of your sergeants to march them up the road, half a dozen at a time, so it doesn't interfere too much with normal flying?"
"Befehl ist Befehl." Hanna said. Orders are orders. She added that Captain Romanoff and Lieutenant Politek had to do it too. They had been the first. This is proper. Captain Romanoff believes if a duty is distasteful, the Commanding Officer should not shirk or excuse herself if the landser are expected to undergo it.
They waited for a senior Postman to open the gate, underneath the arched doorway with the sign that said "Post Office Training Centre".
Hanna looked over, suspiciously. She half expected to see the Virtue, Hope, picketing the gateway. Hanna was a Witch. She knew Hope could be found hovering meaningfully on the wrong side of doorways she was excluded from entering. It was in Hope's job description, after all. (7)
"Was that a glimpse of a woman in white, do you think?" Hanna asked. Nadezhda shrugged again. She was Rodinian. Rodinian shrugs spoke volumes.
"Let us get it over with." she said, noting with distaste that Deputy Postmaster-General Tulliver Groat was approaching. Even on a cold icy morning, it had been her nose that alerted her first: Mr Groat's approach to personal grooming and self-medication was legendary. She nodded to Hanna.
"Do the honours, would you? Your department."
Hanna sprang to attention and glared at the Air Watch party.
"Achtung! Raus! Stillgestanden!" she barked.
Six Other Ranks and a sergeant came to attention. Hanna steeled herself, remembering that even a mere civilian deserved a full courtesy salute if he was of sufficiently exalted rank. Which the Deputy Postmaster-General was.
She had the satisfaction of seeing the old man blink and look, for a moment, uncertain.
"Senior Sergeant von Strafenburg, Sergeant Popova, and six enlisted pilots of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch Pegasus Service are present and correct, and are at your direction, Herr Stellvertreter des Generalpostmeisters!"
Nadezhda sometimes wondered if Hanna did this sort of thing on purpose, or whether she really did think this way. It was hard to tell. She reflected that the Post Office was also a uniformed arm of government service, where its members had to do foot drill and parade regularly. Just as the City Watch did. It was therefore no surprise that he recovered quickly.
Deputy Postmaster-General Groat, who was wearing something that might have begun as a formal uniform, came to an arthritic attention and returned the salute. He somehow radiated a certain smugness, as well as – Nadezhda tried hard not to breathe in too deeply – the accumulated smells of various chemicals, salves and preparations. Groat, she recalled, believed too many baths were physically harmful and deleterious to the body and spirit. She could sense that he practiced as he preached. From six feet away this aspect of Mr Groat was not, she considered, very appealing. Nadezhda, a fastidious woman who deeply appreciated the bath-house on Water Street that understood her needs,(8) made herself as impassive and unreadable as she could.
"As per Post Office Regulations, section three, part one, sub-section four and sub-clauses one to nine, ma'ams, I am formally welcoming you to the mandatory familiarisation, training and final examination necessary for people what is going to be officially classed as Post Office Auxiliaries. " he said, without seeming to draw breath.
Nadezhda made herself nod acquiescence. She tried to conceal the part of her that wanted to turn round and walk away, very, very, quickly, remembering the briefing from Olga Romanoff.
"Apparently, we have got to do this." Olga had said, in their late-afternoon briefing after she had returned from the Palace, a few days previously. Nadezhda realised it was serious. A bottle of vodka and glasses were on the table. The Air Watch only did this in working time if things were really desperate. Or distasteful.
Olga had poured four glasses. Large ones.
"Vetinari says it must be done. It is, apparently, all down to Trade and Guild politics. That word demarcation. This is important when one trade Guild makes a representation to Vetinari, which is one step short of being a complaint. Concerning one profession poaching on the working rights and territory of another."
"And the Guild of Postmen has complained about us. About the Pegasus Service." Lieutenant Irena Politek had added.
"Da." Olga agreed. "And as Lord Vetinari has ruled, they have right on their side. We in the Pegasus Service deliver his Lordship's written messages around the world. We carry diplomatic bags not just for Ankh-Morpork. but for many states that trust us to do so. Therefore, according to the strict interpretation of City and Guild law, we carry post. Vetinari has ruled that we should from now on take general airmail on behalf of the Post Office."
"He wants to undercut the Klatchians." Hanna remarked. "Their flying carpets take days. We can have it there an hour later."
"Da." Olga agreed. "Now he has conceded a point we have previously managed to successfully resist for some years, every Pegasus Service pilot must now also become, officially, a Postwoman. Which means…"
Olga indicated they should drink.
"..we all have to do the Postman's Walk. I'm so sorry."
This had led Hanna and seven Air Watch pilots to the Post Office. They weren't the first. Olga and Irena had gone first. Apparently as the highest-ranking officers in the Air Watch, they had done a more severe, stringent, and definitely exacting, version of the Walk. Whatever form it had taken, Irena had said "slava bogu!" and walked away afterwards shaking her head.
Hanna sensed she'd get one with a few twists built into it, possibly more so than the ranks would get. She steeled herself, and reminded herself that the Post Office had the right. There should be order in these matters. Structure. Alles in Ordnung. She made herself listen to the absurd and rather strangely-smelling little man.
"It's only right, ma'ams." Groat said. "Carrying the mail is a sacred duty. The people what carries it should be Postmen. So that you know. So that we knows you're worthy."
"I'm ready." Hanna said, stepping forwards. "As the senior rank here, it is correct that I go first. When you are ready, Herr Stellvertreter des Generalpostmeisters!"
A small group of Very Senior Postmen had gathered to observe and hand out marks. They lined up, carefully and with obvious respect, behind Mr Groat. All of them carried pencils and clipboards. Hanna nodded to them, listened to the instructions – she simply had to follow the Walk and deliver five notional letters at five different doors so as to pass out, in her case, as we're making allowances for your being a Sergeant, ma'am - with the rank of Senior Supervising Postman, Grade Two.
Hanna nodded her understanding, collected and donned the offered satchel, and set about the Walk. Within a few minutes, it started to dawn on Tulliver Grout that he was dealing with a woman who had Skills. With a capital S.
Suddenly, the Deputy Postmaster-General started to feel a lot less self assured. He also had a feeling that even without turning round to confirm things, that seven other Air Witches of various ranks and ages were smirking at him.
He watched the tall imposing blonde woman as she set off across the yard. The instructions were simple and straightforward: to deliver five letters, correctly, without fail or damage, to the right letterbox. On the way, the aspirant Postman must avoid unspecified perils and hazards.
Hanna von Strafenburg had sighed, a sigh that was a mixture of resignation and exasperation, and had set off. Her boots crunched in the snow as she walked. Here and there she had slowed her step, just slightly, glanced down at a featureless hummock or mound underneath the snow cover, and stepped aside slightly to avoid it.
Groat followed her with an attentive eye. He tried to ignore the little prompts coming up from those parts of the hindbrain which hadn't yet given up in the face of old age, the ones that were saying Damn fine-looking woman, especially when viewed from the back… and he forced himself to Think Like A Postman. She spotted the doggy-do's and did not tread in it. That's a mark-down on the scorecard, and allus good for a laugh, watching 'em swear and trying to scrape it off their boots. And the way she has her hair neatly braided and tied up like that, don't they have a word for it in Überwald? House-frow style, or something. Seen it on a stamp once, young Stanley was explainin' about their stamps. Oh, and she's comin' up to the roller-skate what some negligient child left out on the path! And here she goes…
Hanna glanced down, tutted, and paused. She examined the latest hummock under the snow. Then she said something in Überwaldean, sounded like Lass Ess Vaxen.
Groat risked a quick look over. Yes, the women and girls were grinning at each other and looking as if some sort of a joke was going on. The one in charge, the older Sergeant, another foreign one, with her black hair and a face you couldn't penetrate with a long heavy poleaxe – good-looking woman, though - look on her face, as if she's just got the joke.
Hanna placed her foot on the hummock. Then lifted her other foot and deliberately placed all her weight on the hidden roller-skate. Nothing moved. Groat frowned. By rights she should have been skidding off uncontrollably, to land flat on her unmentionables after a short uncontrollable skid. But nothing was moving. It was as if the thing had been nailed down, or set in concrete…. And is it me, or is it suddenly getting colder? He glanced up. The cloud cover overhead was getting a bit thicker and darker. Probably more snow on the way…. Have to put a memo out that as per Regulations, Postmen may wear greatcoats provided the mercury drops to minus three…
Hanna delivered her first two letters successfully, through two notional front doors that were out here in the outdoor stretch of the Walk. After that, the remaining stretch of the Walk was through the indoor training and testing arena. The Air Witches watched her go inside; the judging and scoring panel went in through a door of their own.
Groat suddenly jumped at an unexpected noise.
-Valkyrie to Mother Hen. Valkyrie to Mother Hen. Come in, Mother Hen. Over.
The older woman in Watch uniform, the other sergeant, the one with the fuller wider-hipped figure and the tied-back long dark hair, fiddled with something in the general region of her left bosom. Groat could not help watching.
"Mother Hen here, Valkyrie. You have sitrep? Over."
-Valkyrie to Mother Hen. Report I am in a place set out to look like typical city streets. I suspect the buildings I see are just false fronts…"
"'Ere! She can't do that! Tulliver Groat protested. "Tellin' you what to expect on the inside. That's cheatin', that is!"
The dark-haired foreign woman stared coldly at him.
"Nyet." she said, firmly. "You forget we are City Watch. If circumstances force Watchwoman to go into unfamiliar place alone where there is possible hazard, now we have Communicators, she uses Comms to report back and to tell what she sees. This is standard operational procedure."
"But you're doing the Walk!" Groat wailed. "You can't go tellin' the people what has to do it next what to expect, and where the hazards are!"
Nadezhda Popova shook her head. Then, because Hanna had left the channel open, everybody overheard a conversation…
Inside the training building, Hanna compared the address on the next test letter to what she saw. One of the fake streets, which she now saw were short and built to a smaller scale than reality so as to fit the space, was narrow and called Pinchpenny Lane. It was also very dimly lit. She shrugged, and sought to locate number 5a, so as to get this stupid thing done soonest.
With an experienced Watchman's eye for obstacles that might hinder or injure,(9) she moved on.
Hanna did not get very far when the dark shadow in the alley approached her.
"Yes, what is it?" she said, impatiently.
"Hand over the letters, lady, and nobody gets hurt." the shadow said, in an attempt at a menacing voice. "Reckon there could be things of value in that satchel."
Hanna smiled.
"I too would prefer it if nobody gets hurt." she said. "However, this is not always possible."
She turned and smiled at the man who was confronting her.
"Theft of or from the Royal Mail is a felony." she said, pleasantly. "As a Sergeant of the City Watch I know this. However, in this place I am a Sergeant of the City Watch who must become a postwoman. You are, I suspect, a Post Office employee who is paying the role of a thief, to whom I must show resolve and determination in defending the mail I carry."
She smiled again. Her assailant gulped, nervously. This was not going according to plan.
"I am assuming you are role-playing an unlicenced thief." Hanna went on. "As the Thieves' Guild knows better than to rob the Royal Mail. His Lordship does not like it. Therefore, I can, as I play my role as an ordinary Postwoman, show no restraint in preventing you from robbing me. I suspect the purpose of this part of the exercise is for me to demonstrate resolution in defending the Mail."
Hanna took a step forward. The role-playing Postman took a step back.
"err, miss…." he said.
Hanna smiled. "In this context, I am a postwoman first who is also, perhaps, a Special of the Watch. And, what a surprise, I am carrying my Watch handcuffs…"
The people listening from outside via Nadezhda's communicator heard a shriek of alarm followed by the unmistakeable clicking and snapping closed of handcuffs. Several Air Witches high-fived each other. Nadezhda smiled with satisfaction. One of the younger Air Witches said "He actually tried to rob the Golem?"
Without looking round, Nadezhda said, severely
"That's Sergeant von Strafenburg to you, Air Constable."
Tulliver Groat did the thing with the palm of his hand and his forehead. This really was not going according to plan…
Suddenly, the communicator relayed the sound of large, angry dogs. Some shouting happened in Überwaldean. Well, not shouting. Firm commands relayed in a loud commanding voice….
The canine noise subsided into apprehensive whimpering. The same female voice then spoke in Überwaldean, that had an approving, warmer, sound to it.
A little later, Hanna von Strafenburg returned to the yard.
"All done." she said, handing the satchel back to a postman. "No real problems. Who goes now?"
Nadezhda looked round.
"Air Policewoman Rawlinson." she said, deciding. "You go next."
Sophie Rawlinson shrugged. Best to get it over with now…
There was a hiatus, while a worried-looking senior postman politely asked Hanna for the keys to the handcuffs, miss, so as we can release young Godfrey, and, err, can you ladies please bear in mind he's only playin' the part of a street Thief? Hanna's handcuffs were returned, and Sophie made it into the indoor area without trouble.
There was a long ominous silence.
Even without a communicator to relay it, the voice carried. Sophie Rawlinson was a girl who had no problems with projecting her voice.
"Oh, don't be so bloody silly, man!"
A little later, the dogs barked again, perhaps not so confidently as they had done before.
"Alright, you people had better jolly well pipe down! I'm telling you now, I am not amused here! "
There was more canine whimpering. The Air Witches then saw a large Lipswiger attack dog running out into the yard, and run in a panicked circle. It was followed by an alarmed-looking handler.
Sophie strode out afterwards and handed her empty satchel to a postman.
"I'm assuming I've passed? Good-oh." she said, then she strolled unconcernedly over to the dog. It whimpered. If Lipswigers had tails, it would have been hanging between its legs.
Sophie calmed and petted it. It nuzzled her hand and tried a tentative lick. The handler took a deep breath.
"Mr Groat, I'm going to have to get new dogs." he said. "These ain't going to be fit for nothing, not for a while."
He looked accusingly at Sophie. She smiled back, her point having been made.
"I much prefer horses." she said. "But Daddy rides to hounds. We keep a pack of foxhounds at home. Nice chaps, but you do have to show them who's boss."
Groat's worries were compounded by Nadezhda Popova, who stepped forwards, her eyes suddenly very unamused indeed. She eyeballed him fiercely.
"I am not Pegasus Service pilot." she said. "Therefore I am not doing this… thing. I am here because two of my Fledglings are here."
She indicated the youngest members of the party.
"They are Air Watch cadets. Fledglings. Samantha is twelve. Alexandra is thirteen. They are not full Watch. They each have Pegasus. So they do this Walk to satisfy your Regulations."
She eyeballed Groat again.
"Fledglings are my responsibility. The Watch calls me Mother Hen. That is not just name. I look after my chicks. They will not be placed in danger here. Do you see my point of view, Mr Groat?"
Tulliver Groat wilted, and assured her that he did.
A little later, when Samantha Ryan and Alexandra Mumirovka did their Walks, they were set upon by a litter of adorable Labrador puppies. Regulations said there had to be dogs present that might impede or hinder the progress of a Postman on the walk. They just didn't specify a breed. Tulliver Groat felt that in these circumstances, Regulations could be safely followed to the very letter. Besides, the little girl had spent so much time playing with the adorable puppies that she very nearly failed to deliver her last letter. That made it a valid test in its way. A Senior Supervising Postman (Grade Two), and six Postmen (Class Two)'s left the Post Office, to make their way back to the Yard to report in. Post Office staff watched them go, with some relief.
On the walk back, Hanna von Strafeburg realised she'd forgotten something. She made a "tchh!" noise, annoyed with her uncharacteristic ineficiency, focused, and released the spell that had frozen the damned roller-skate to the surface of the Post Office courtyard.
Deputy Postmaster-General Tulliver Groat frowned. He located the roller-skate in the now well-trodden snow of the courtyard. He tried to move it with his foot. Nothing happened. It remained stuck fast. Probably the winter ice, he thought. Have to send a lad with a kettle of hot water. Bugger. it ruined a good Class One Hazard. He stood on the skate, lifing his other foot off the ground. just so he, as a long-time Postman, out in all weathers, could say he'd beaten the bloody thing.
then there was an almost imperceptible sghit in reality and the skate was frozen no more. Tulliver Groat sailed forwards, trying to keep his balance, his free leg flailing in the air. He just about managed to keep his balance, pirouteed twice, and fell sideways into a small drift. A couple of junior Postmen First Class ran to help him to his feet.
"Bugger." he said, feelingly. It had been one of those days.
The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard.
Captain Olga Romanoff had a vodka bottle and glasses ready.
"Any issues, Hanna, Nadezhda?" she asked.
"none at all, Captain." Hanna replied. "Everybody passed. Mr Groat was very accommodating."
Olga smiled.
"Horoscho." she remarked. "And we do it again next week with another six. Just so the boxes can be ticked, a Post office badge may be issued to sew to uniform tunics, and we can carry mail."
She filled the glasses. Olga was not unreasonable. Two of her sergeants had had a hard day.
"Nottie can escort next week's party." she decided. "Remind me to notify the part-time pilots we need to recall. Firebird, Snegoroshka."
Had to write this scene – may come back and spot-rewrite, maybe add a few bits and expand others.
More soon!
(1) See Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett.
(2) The Possibly Un-Civil School of Paranormal and Eldritch (Dis)Engineering
(3) Apricity is a wonderful word and the sort of word English should rediscover. The weather condition that Apricity describes is the sort of day in winter where the skies are blue, the sun is shining, and everything is sunnier and brighter than a day in January has to be. It was common in English a couple of centuries ago, and unaccountably dropped out of the language. It should still be there. I want to try and re-introduce it.
(4) Apricity had seen her chance when local farmer Thornton Tottleworth had welcomed a greater degree of cash prosperity by getting his windows replaced. She had asked for the old ones, ideally still in their frames, and explained how she wanted them rebuilding.
(5) Neither of the Smith-Rhodes sisters had been asked again to observe the dress code, after adopting black hats. Both Johanna and Mariella took scrupulous care to wear Full Black if out on any official Contract, however. That was a courtesy to both the Guild and the client.
(6) Anyone coming here from The Price of Flight, where Nadezhda is promoted to Lieutenant, might wonder why she is only a Sergeant here. Just reminding: this is January. The events where Nadezhda is promoted to Lieutenant take plave several months later in the same year, around June-July.
(7) go to The Discworld Tarot, The Devil.
(8) Ankh-Morpork did have public baths. This tended to surprise people. The one Nadezhda attended had Swommi attendants, who understood all about what they called a sauna and what Nadezhda called a banya. After interacting with Tulliver Groat, she felt she really needed a visit as soon as possible.
(9) What Tulliver Groat had failed to take into account is that Watchmen are out on the streets in all weathers, day and night, have a lot of ground to cover and are just as keen as Postmen to avoid the sort of hazards that can either injure you or leave you looking very embarrassed.
Notes Dump: a Township, exiled by statute to the very edge of the main story, where surplus ideas, observations 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.
Watching the video to Bok van Blerk's 68 Chevvy (Minki). This was shot in and around a roadside convenience store, in the middle of a nowhere in South Africa, that kind of sums up the ambience of somewhere in the general region of Bitterfontein, as I have envisioned the place. All you need to know about South Africa and Saffies, part 23: in the video, Bok van Blerk, for it is he, is lounging in the dust looking cool and singing about a girl he met and lost. The girl clerk at the convenience store, bored out of her skull in the backwoods, comes up to him and offers him a cigarette and a light. At the time he is taking his ease leaning on the petrol pump in the forecourt. Neither of them gives a damn about the tiny little possibility that this may not be the best place for naked flames and smoking, and they have a fag anyway. Now that has a certain Saffie-ness about it. Na-now I could use a smoke. Justnow I'll worry about the nearby petrol. If it doesn't catch light, everything is kiff. Lekker.
En ek wag by die kraai, waar die stofpad waai.
Want ek's 'n man wat by jou kan staan
Apparently the girl in the video, otherwise completely ignored by van Blerk and the boykies, may have been one of South Africa's foremost (at the time) fashion models… he simply ignores her as of no account. He does at the end go off with a different woman who is seeking him… she drives the desirable Chevrolet, which may be a factor in his thinking. Lovely vid, I'd recommend it as a slice of things South African and Afrikaner. Half-decent tune, too.
Also… if any Russian readers could advise?
Nadezhda Popova's call-sign was translated into approximate Russian as "Mother Hen". Apparently, a far better Russian idiom may exist for the concept of "older woman with a maternal side and motherly instincts towards young girls", which is наседка, Nasedka. It's also shorter than Mat'kuritsa. Would this work better?