Strandpiel Book Two
Chapter Seventeen
Matryoshka
Every so often this will overlap The Price of Flight where the events of that story will be revisited, but from a different direction.(Why the Hells did I say "but from a different dimension"? Freudian slip there)
As always, this is V0.04. Revisions et c will inevitably to get something out there - I am likely to come back and revise.
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. In this chapter, we return to Ankh-Morpork and Howondaland and the focus moves away from the Air Watch (pretty much).
Story notes will be added at the end for anyone wanting insight into how these stories get constructed. Got into a long side-trail on this one…thinking aloud concerning Irena Politek as a character, I guess to work out where she goes next I need an idea where she came from.
Bitterfontein, the Turnwise Caarp, Rimwards Howondaland - at the end of January/the beginning of February:
Bekki had placed the matryoshka dolls, carefully and with thought, in the centre of a shelf in her room, overlooking everything. She had also taken care that the painted doll face of the largest outer doll was outwards, where she could see everything. Some obscure Witch sense was telling her this was how it should be.
Besides, something this gorgeously beautiful should be in pride of place, not hidden away in a draw or a cabinet somewhere. She knew this was right too. She admired the painting and the enamelling on the doll set, which must have taken the original craftsman – or woman – absolutely ages, all the intricate delicate patterning in red and gold, and again wondered who had made them, and when. The dolls had an air of age and antiquity about them.
Most crucially, they'd been in the home of a powerful Witch, possibly for as long as the witch had lived there, and, who knows, maybe something bequeathed by the previous Witch. And now they'd left Rodinia and come to Howondaland, with the express gift and blessing of the old Witch who had given them to her.
"You're strandpiel dolls now." Bekki said to them, feeling like a five year old girl with a beloved dolly, and feeling vaguely stupid that she was talking to an inanimate collection of objects. "You've emigrated. I hope you don't feel as if you're in exile."
Again she had the uneasy feeling there was more going on here than people had led her to believe. The Rodinian witches she had been among had expressed envious interest that old Natalya had chosen to gift these things of beauty to the foreign girl but – Bekki had wondered at this – had not openly speculated as to why. It was as if they already knew, but had closed ranks and were conspiring not to tell. And there was no people on Disc who could be more enigmatic, when they closed ranks and chose to conceal things from outsiders. (1)
Even Godsmother Irena and Olga Romanoff, who knew most about the way old Natalya's mind worked, appeared to be conspiring on this.
Bekki sighed. She reminded herself that every Witch who had attended had gone away with a carefully chosen gift, a small part of the old Babayaga's steading. Olga and Irena had discovered their inheritance had arrived in a plain brown parcel in the post, and both had taken it up for a test-flight. She had seen this. It had looked hair-raisingly dangerous and crazy as a method of flight. No doubt the enchanted mortar and pestle had been the old lady's sense of humour. Too old to fly herself, she had reasoned that her former pupils, who commanded the Air Watch, were the ideal inheritors of their people's unique tradition of air-capable Witches. And who knew, maybe the Air Watch might develop the idea into something workable, once Olga, Irena and the Teks worked out the flight technomancy. Why stop at a small kitchen utensil?
Bekki remembered seeing the massive industrial vats used for grinding herbs and spices on the commercial scale, and grinned at the thought of one of those taking to the air. That was exactly the way Olga's thought processes might go on this.
The girls studying in Lancre got an icon each, Bekki reminded herself. Natalya had spoken to them about the thing, the icon corner, which every Rodinian house builds over time, and said they should start collecting theirs. So here's one to start you off, with my blessing.
She thought about this. A tiny part of the Domovila had gone in maybe thirteen different directions. Like seeds?
She looked again at the Domovila-seed on her own shelf. This one had managed to fly as far as Rimwards Howondaland.
She had arrived home later in the evening by Ankh-Morpork time after returning from the Going-Away. After stabling Boetjie and feeling glad Sophie Rawlinson was on night duty – of course Sophie would volunteer for stable duties and make it her duty to help with bedding down so many returning Pegasi – she had broomsticked back to Spa Lane, the precious thing safely stowed in a backpack, feeling slightly dulled after several courtesy vodkas she couldn't evade. (2)
Her family had loved the matryoshka dolls. She had demonstrated how they worked, and her sister Ruth had been enchanted and delighted, for once a normal nine-year-old girl, at the idea of hollow dollies that fitted inside each other.
"I've never seen anything like this before." Mum said, thoughtfully. Again she lifted one of the dolls and cradled it. Bekki noted Mum had picked the second-largest doll in the series and ran through the order again, from smallest to largest. The child. The mother. The grandmother. The great-grandmother. The great-great grandmother….
Bekki noted her mother's eyes had closed. She seemed far away.
"Do you know." Mum said, opening her eyes and looking down at the doll, "I just thought of my grandmother. Got a very clear picture of her inside my head."
Bekki looked down to the doll her mother was holding. No, it still has its painted doll-face. Maybe that only works for Witches. But Mum still thought of… my great grandmother…
"Leonora van der Graaf." Mum said, thoughtfully. "Your ouma's mother. Neither of you would have known her. I adored her while I was growing up. You know, I hadn't thought of her for a while, but when you brought these dolls home and I got to hold them, all the memories of my Ouma Leonora came back? You got her name, Ruth, as your middle name. I can show you both pictures."
She carried on cradling the doll, in the same way a mother holds a baby.
Bekki wondered exactly what she had here, a suspicion growing that Natalya had had more than one reason for bequeathing them to her.
"Significant birthday coming up soon." Mum had said, after Ruth had gone to bed. "She gets into double figures."
"Something special for her tenth birthday." Bekki said. "I get it, mum. Shall I have a word with Godsmother Irena as to where we could buy her a set? She really loved these."
"I have genuinely never seen anything like this before." Mum said, thoughtfully. "Did you notice Ruth was asking the clever questions about how they are made? And how the inside has to be absolutely smooth and polished, or else the enamelling on the one fitting inside it might get chipped or scratched."
Her mother, reluctant to put the dolls down, looked very thoughtful and faraway.
"I know that face, mum." Bekki had said. "You're wondering if money can be made."
Her mother grinned.
"And I should not? These things, I suspect, are completely new to Ankh-Morpork. These were made by a craftsman many years ago."
She nodded to Bekki's father, who was very carefully not touching the dolls.
"Very old, your father says. I am wondering if they can be manufactured without the magic."
Dad grinned. He looked at Bekki, and they shared a Moment. Both joked that Mum, as she got older, was developing into a more hypercompetent Dibbler. Perhaps, Dad had speculated, she might be an anti-Dibbler, a Relbbid; when Mum got an intuition about what might sell, or recognised a good idea, she was capable of investing sensibly and backing the hunch with hard cash, making sure she got as near as possible to the sole rights. Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons had never made a loss.
"Competent woodturners with mechanical lathes." she said, speculating out loud. "Then competent – well, good - artists to paint and to seal in enamel. I wonder, as Ruth did, if they can also be created in ceramics rather than wood. We shall have to think about this, Ruth and I." (3)
She cradled the dolls, still oddly reluctant to let them go, and smiled at Ponder Stibbons.
"Do you not want to touch them, Ponder?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Better I don't." he said, seriously. "You won't be aware. Johanna. But I can feel the magic from the other side of the room."
He grinned.
"It's not hostile magic." he explained. "Anything but. Bekki's explained that four witches got together earlier on and put a seriously powerful spell, or spells, on them. That's on top of any magic that was already there."
He shook his head.
"At least eight decades in the home of a powerful Witch. Who wanted Bekki to see a little demonstration. She even said she needed help on this one, and she got three other Witches to help. One of them was Irena Politek, who is better at magic than she lets on. And Bekki said she saw one of the others stop forty galloping horses just by standing in front of them and putting out the suggestion they, err, stopped. The fourth Witch is the one the seriously powerful old lady wanted as her successor. And they all put their minds together to charge those dolls."
Ponder grinned again.
"So I'm not touching them. For one thing, this is deep-down womens' magic. I'm a wizard. A man. I'm getting the idea those dolls would let me handle them, if I really insisted. But if I did, I might not like it."
Ponder Stibbons looked at the dolls Johanna was holding and made a bow to them. Bekki noticed her father's face and mood changed for an instant, and he looked troubled and perplexed. She wondered if asking him about it would be a good idea, and decided not to. Something deep down was telling her it wasn't. Even if it wasn't providing reasons why.
Then he grinned again.
"They're going to Howondaland with you tomorrow, Bekki? Probably for the best." he said, mysteriously.
"Can we take iconographs?" Mum asked, practically. "Something to show people. As well as getting the details right. Of the artwork on the outside."
Bekki, in the moment in the early morning in her room in the plaas, wondered about all this.
Then she decided it could wait, and got on with her day.
Greene, Pellet and Schwartsnagel, Épiciers, Tinctures Road, Ankh-Morpork.
"You're kidding." Captain Olga Romanoff said, incredulously.
Mr Abraham Schwartsnagel, Master Épicier, looked hurt at the merest suspicion that the police officer investigating the break-in was doubting his word.
Olga, who had quite simply been the nearest Watch officer to the shout,(4) tried not to let her head swim at the overpowering ambience of lots and lots of herbs and spices in the warehouse. She wondered if people who worked with the stuff all day developed a sort of immunity to it. It was certainly the sort of place that would have her colleague Angua von Überwald making an excuse and getting out into clearer air.
Then she remembered this was the sort of place which handled things that could seriously wreck a werewolf's nose, and made a note to ask what else had been stolen.
"Would that I were, officer." Mr Schwartsnagel said, with lugubrious Cenotian sorrow at the wicked ways of the world. "Would that I were. But, oi vay, saffron is the most expensive common spice in the world. I repeat, it retails at two thousand dollars per ounce!"
Olga listened with half an ear to the account of how saffron is grown, how each flower yields at most three or four strands, how the land on which it is grown may only be used for saffron and nothing else, and gathered it would be so attractive to thieves because a relatively small amount worth thousands of dollars could be easily stowed in an inside pocket, and gathered it was currently more expensive than gold.
She sighed. Ankh-Morporkian thieves were nothing if not inventive and had a fine appreciation of value. Again she wondered at the dedication and intelligence that went into the "better" sort of crime, and wondered why that sort of mind wasn't doing legitimate work that was less precarious and could earn its owner at least as much, doing something beneficial. She shook her head, and assured Mr Schwartsnagel the Watch would do all it could, as this was evidently a high-value theft, possibly one of opportunity. To pass the time till the ground Watch could get a squad out here, she asked the standard questions; this looked like an opportunity theft carried out by somebody with the inside knowledge to know what they potentially had, and what the resale worth was. Tell me about your employees. Also, show me the layout of the place.
Flattered, he took her on a tour of the warehouse and spice works. So far, so standard theft investigation, something Olga had done hundreds of times before. Except…
Her attention was grabbed by the huge ceramic vats, like china bathtubs, tended by trolls and the odd golem who were industriously grinding with huge pestles. A warm and not unpleasant smell was rising. She drew Mr Schwartznagel's attention to this.
"Oh, this is Schnitzel. He's doing a batch of Ghatian curry spice mix for the general market. We start with garlic powder, ginger and fenugreek, in precisely measured quantities, and then we add…"
Olga was barely listening. Something deep inside was clamouring for attention, reminding her she was Rodinian, and seeing potential…
Had she sensed a little bit further, there might have been a suspicion of elderly-Witch cackle in the magical ether.
Bitterfontein, the Turnwise Caarp, Rimwards Howondaland
Bekki did not have to wait long for her first patient of the day. It had been a call-out, in fact; Dertien had come running to her, breathlessly explaining that there had been an accident in the wheelwright's shop, Miss Rebecka, you must come quickly!
She had prepared a travelling bag for emergencies like this, her experience in Lancre and the Chalk having taught her that most of the time you had to go to the patient. She hoped it contained everything she was likely to need. Well, I'll find out…
Dertien led her, at a running jog, to a part of the plaas complex she hadn't really properly explored yet. This was where Aunt Mariella had installed the huge glasshouses for cultivating young vines under cover, away from any predatory species. She appreciated the huge cost investment that must have gone into this, seeing them from closer to, suspecting a couple of full professional fees as Assassins might have covered the massive outlay. Getting the frames here, let alone getting all that glass here in one piece, must have taken some organising. But then again, Aunt Mariella can organise things.
Bekki really wasn't surprised to discover the plaas also boasted a large woodworking and wheel-wright's workshop. Passing a broken-down cart in the yard, with a wheel missing and sadly slumped over on its offside axle, where bits of broken wheel and a shattered metal rim were lying around. Passing on, she also spotted barrels in various stages of construction.
Wine. Spirits. Barrels. Coopering. We're way away from any city and I didn't notice a coopers in Bitterfontein town. Makes sense. Get all this done on site.
An older man, probably a couple of years away from retirement, looked anxiously at her. He was dressed in a white apron which had sawdust and woodchip sticking to it. Two white boys, apprentices in their teens, and several of the black workers, were clustered around, looking anxious, work having ceased.
"You are the new nurse?" he asked. Bekki heard a subdued whimpering, as if somebody just out of sight was holding back screaming.
"Ja." she said, to the anxious man. "Who's hurt?"
"This way." he said. Bekki assessed him: sixties, grey hair fading to white, looked like he'd never ever been in danger of running to fat, serious anxious look. She let her eyes adjust to the relative gloom inside the workshop. Dustmotes lingered in the air in the stark lines of light making their way in from windows and cracks in the external woodwork. The not unpleasant scents of fresh-cut wood were in the air, along with the tang of machine-oil and lubricants. Some sort of huge nameless machinery occupied a lot of space. The one over there was familiar from time in Lancre; a circular saw of the sort that could and did remove fingers, sometimes whole hands if the user had been seriously inattentive. Lancre has Igors. Are there Igors here?
She wondered about an accident with the saw, and made herself look at the guide-rails and cutting table. There was no tell-tale spurt or spatter of blood there. That was a relief; she knew there was no Igor nearby to do a reattachment. She could reset broken bones, clean, disinfect and stitch; these were standard trade skills for her sort of Witch. Reattaching that which had been separated – that was Igor tradecraft. Bekki shook her head. She remembered Aunt Mariella had said the nearest Igors, who operated under strict regulation and licencing, were in the big city, Caarp Town. And Caarp Town was at least a day's ride away.
I might be able to get a patient there on Boetjie… any severed bits might need to go into a pannier. Sort of well-wrapped, obviously.
She let her ears follow the sound of whimpering, and looked down.
One of the black hands was lying on a blanket, a couple of anxious friends kneeling alongside and supporting him. Bekki went forward to assess the injury.
She looked up at the anxious overseer, and tried not to jump at the sudden creaking noise of strained and abused wood that was happening somewhere in the background.
"What happened, Mr…?"
The old man, who looked genuinely concerned, Bekki noted, absently replied
"Arne Timmerman. You are Miss Rebecka Smith-Rhodes?"
"Ja." she replied, kneeling beside the injured man. Absently, she reflected on having met a professional woodworker whose name actually was "Carpenter". This was interesting.
I guess Lancre has been around for a lot longer than we have… not much scope here justnow for somebody called "Timmerman" or "Houtwerker" to work as, perhaps, a Grasdekker or a Loodgieter or a Kuiper…
She focused on calming her patient, recognising shock and trauma. She noted the lacerating injuries to his right torso, which seemed alarming but superficial. He was still breathing normally, which told her nothing had penetrated the chest wall. Gashes, blood loss… I need to uncover that right arm. Something tells me that's where the damage is… and get him up off this dusty floor. Too much sawdust and debris.
"Can you stand?" she asked the patient, gently. He nodded. Bekki turned to Mr Timmerman.
"Clear the top of that workbench. Sweep the wood-shavings off it and lay down a blanket or a sheet or something. There's more light there, and I can work standing up. What's your name? Phineas? I'm going to do what I can here, Phineas. What I want you to do is to lie down, justnow, on the worktable where I can see how you're hurt, and then clean up your injuries."
She noted the non-too-clean rags being used to stem blood flow on the arm. She sighed. Removing that makeshift bandage while having no clear idea of the extent of the injury underneath was going to hurt, but no help for it. She asked old Timmerman what had happened while she supervised transferring the patient.
Apparently, one of the plaas wagons had been overloaded and gone over ruts and stones on the track. The wheel had broken, it had needed to be unloaded, recovered, and brought back here for repair.
Bekki nodded. So far, a typical agricultural incident, especially out here with very few paved roads. The broken wagon had been brought back by a recovery team and brought here for repair.
"Well, we got as far as taking the damaged wheel off the axle. To see what we could salvage. Anything fit for future builds."
Bekki recalled the forlorn one-wheeled cart in the yard. She nodded.
"What we didn't realise was that because of the way the metal rim had buckled. It was putting the wheel itself under pressure and some of the spokes had distorted. Bent out of shape."
Phineas made another muted scream as Bekki, as gently as possible, putting out covert magic to dampen the pain, removed the rags. Fresh blood oozed. She looked down at the nature of the injuries.
"Those spokes shattered, miss. Phineas caught the hit."
Bekki rolled her sleeves up and unpacked the necessary medical instruments. Wooden shards and splinters. Lots of them. She suspected that kneeling down to attend to the wheel with his arms in front of him, this was how his chest had been relatively lightly hit. But she still had an indefinite time in front of her, removing some serious splinters, cleaning, patching, stitching…
"Will he be okay, miss?" Mr Timmerman asked. "Will he be able to work again? He's a good hand. He's been with me for years."
She sighed. One of those accidents. Nobody to blame, farms could be hazardous places and wood under stress could be unpredictable. Could have happened to anyone. She applied herself to extracting splinters and shards, to cleaning the wounds, to stitching where damage had been caused. She focused herself, trying to detect where the wood was and where the fragments she could not see had gone to. After a while she remembered, and injected a local anaesthetic. It wasn't a particularly strong one, but it meant, for anyone who was watching, it would cover up for the fact she was also using witchcraft, moving the pain and the discomfort to an abandoned wheel rim just outside the doorway. She judged that as it was nowhere near to anything inflammable, it could glow as red as it liked and with a bit of luck nobody would notice.
Another track in her mind was trying to remember, from the anatomy books, where the major blood vessels and nerves ran in a human arm. Muscles and skin had taken most of the impacts, she judged, and despite the bleeding, nothing had gone especially deep. No tendon damage. Just superficial. There'll be a lot of scarring. If he can flex all his fingers I will know there is no nerve damage, the only problem is extracting all those splinters from the muscle tissue. Catgut stitches internally, so they dissolve, and are harmlessly absorbed, as the muscle heals. Silk sutures on the external skin. But dirty pieces of wood forced deep down – I have to get all those.
Periodically flushing the wounds with sterile water and finally surgical alcohol, she probed for splinters, reassuring the patient as she inserted the long-nosed forceps and deftly extracted. His friends looked on anxiously.
One said to the other "Ugqirha olinenekazi?"
Bekki, absorbed in her work, heard this and was about to reply with "No. I'm not a doctor", then realised it was best to keep up the pretence of not understanding. She looked carefully blank and tried not to smile. Especially when the other friend replied with
"Bacinga ukuba eli bhinqa liselula ligqwirha."
She frowned, then hoped this would be taken as concentration on her work.
"Phineas, I am going to need to go deep here." she said, in Vondalaans. "Please try to remain relaxed. But you seem happier. That was a smile?"
"My friends were talking about you." he said. Bekki, who already knew, nodded semi-comprehension. "Nothing disrespectful, baas-lady. Mele asked if you are a doctor. Amos, he say, he has heard you are a witch. People talk."
Bekki gave the black labourer called Amos a cool stare. He looked away.
"Here, Amos, just a nurse." she said, putting him straight. "A healthcare practitioner. "Nurse" is a shorter word. A name for one who knows how do do first aid, a lot of procedures like diagnosis, the cleaning of wounds, stitching, bandaging, splinting, prescribing of medications. I am also a midwife. I have birthed children. A medical doctor studies for a lot longer and learns more. I cannot, for instance, perform internal surgery on body organs. Well, not easily, anyway. I can also look after animals in pain and distress, and where possible I can heal their illnesses. Which is something a medical doctor, who only deals with people, cannot do."
She felt resistance on the forceps as the jaws bit on something.
"Phineas, brace yourself. This will be a large one, it went deep, and I want to cause no more damage in removing it. I will follow the route it made on entering your body."
She nodded to Mr Timmerman.
"Please brace his shoulders? I really don't want him moving too much justnow. Dankie."
Bekki exerted an even, steady, force as Phineas whimpered and started sweating. Another part of her mind stored the pun in Xhosa for future consideration. She had got that Ugqirha meant "woman who is a doctor." But that other word "ligqwirha" had sounded like a clever pun, in context, if it had been meant as one. "Woman who is a user of magic", ie, a Witch. Sounded like plays on the same root word, for... "wise person"? Or, maybe, "witch-doctor", she thought.
She focused on exerting just the right amount of steady force, hoping a fragment of wood driven in this deep hadn't nicked a major blood vessel either on the way in or on the way out. It also occurred to her, in a guilty slightly shaming sort of way, that she was under-estimating the intelligence of the black people. Just because apartheid held them down to be labourers and at most semi-skilled labour, it didn't mean they weren't intelligent. She focused on the extraction.
"Arne, what's the damage?" the familiar voice said from behind her. She saw Amos and Mele looking guilty, as if caught out slacking.
"No, that's alright. You are worried for your friend. I understand these things." Aunt Mariella said, reassuringly. "We can all take a few minutes out here, or at least for as long as it takes for Miss Rebecka to do what she has to. The world will not come to an end, and work can wait."
She came over, looked down, whistled, then took the uninjured hand of Phineas. It was a completely human thing to do. Bekki felt happy about this.
"Looks messy, Phineas." Mariella said. "But I reckon it looked ten times messier before Miss Rebecka started putting you right."
She turned to Bekki.
"How long will he be off work for?" she asked.
Bekki shrugged.
"It doesn't look as if there's any permanent damage." she said, "But I'd be happier if he did nothing at all for about a fortnight. Light duties afterwards with no heavy lifting."
Mariella considered this. Phineas looked crestfallen. She squeezed his hand.
"You and your family will not starve, Phineas." she said. "You have my word on that. But I want you fit for work again. So light duties when you return. In fourteen days."
She nodded to the white apprentices, who were also watching intently.
"Do the same for you, if it needed it." she said.
Bekki threaded another needle.
"Almost done." she said.
Aunt Mariella watched as she worked.
"How do you thread a needle so quickly?" she asked. "Never got the hang of that. Usually I'm sitting there swearing, because they make the hole in the end so bloody small."(5)
Bekki grinned.
"An old lady in Lancre showed me." she explained. "It's a basic Prostitute trade skill…"
The two white apprentices, boys of around fifteen, suddenly started sniggering. Bekki sighed. This again…
"I'll show you, later…"
Aunt Mariella glared at the two boys. She switched to Morporkian.
"Listen to me." she said. "Morporkian is not my first lenguage either. There is a thing you should know, if ever you go there. I was eleven when I errived in Enkh-Morpork. It caught me out. Morporkians are peculiar people."
She explained the thing about Seamstresses and Prostitutes, using what Bekki considered was fairly basic Morporkian. The boys blushed.
Her point having been made, she smiled pleasantly. The boys shuffled.
"Err… Miss Rebecka?" one of them asked. Bekki looked up from stitching. Almost done; next thing is a light bandage…
"He will be alright? He's a good guy, Phineas. Part of the team. Err."
Bekki smiled. There was real concern there. No racism. Just people who worked together and respected each other, in the usual way. And a hint of young lads just out of school who had real respect for an older worker who was helping them make the transition to work, even if he was a black guy off the township. She looked across at Aunt Mariella, who had an indefinite sort of look on her face.
"Almost done." Bekki said. "Listen, Phineas. You'll carry a few scars to remind you but everything's going to work as usual after it all heals. Flex your fingers for me? And the thumb? Dankie. Now, verry carefully, bend your arm at the elbow? Rotate it a little, your hand at the wrist? Dankie. I reckon that'll do. I'll just put a dressing on, and you must keep it completely clean."
She turned to the boys.
"You two. Robbie, Barke. You're carpenters' apprentices, ja-nie? Here's a job. Make a stretcher. That's okay, Mr Timmerman? Then we get Phineas onto it, and we carry him to the infirmary where we put him in one of the sick berths. Dankie."
Aunt Mariella nodded.
"Phineas, I'll give you something to help you sleep and you rest this off for justnow. I'll try and keep you overnight if I can."
Bekki was aware immediately she might have said the wrong thing. The atmosphere had changed, in a slight but indefinable She's not from round here, so somebody ought to tell her sort of way.
Aunt Mariella sighed a resigned sigh. She exchanged a glance with Mr Timmerman.
"Best I talk to you, Rebecka." she said. "Arne, can you get on with making the stretcher? Might be a good idea to have half a dozen made up when you settle on a design. Lots of poles and canvas about, for instance. Dankie."
Back at the huis, Aunt Mariella had observed that Bekki's tunic was pretty much smeared and blobbed with blood from the job she'd been doing.
"Don't think you noticed, as you were absorbed in the job." Mariella said. "Everyone else did, though. Better change, and I'll get that washed."
Mariella looked speculatively at her.
"Could be a bit hard on your clothes. I'll have to think about getting you lots of changes of clothes. Best get you down to the tailors in Bitterfontein."
She handed the soiled and bloodied tunic to Sanna the housemaid, who gave Bekki something akin to a reproachful look, but took it away to be washed and cleaned. Jona, the other housemaid, tried to fight down a grin, and served tea. Bekki noted this. She was getting the impression that Sanna could get a little bit self-important about her slightly more exalted status of senior housegirl, and suspected she was capable of bullying the others. She also thought Aunt Mariella knew this, and had made a point of giving her the soiled laundry to deal with, something that might well have been foisted off on one of the other girls.
"Things you will need to know about living in Rimwards Howondaland." Mariella said, as they settled down to their tea. She gave Bekki a long serious look. "As the Quirmian philosopher said. Avec notre ami du bras blessé. Utilisez-vous la magié?"
Bekki understood. The chances of one of the servants, indeed of anybody else in the immediate area being able to speak Quirmian, was vanishingly small.
She grinned. Aunt Mariella must have done Quirmian at school. Bekki had grown up with the Lapoignards as neighbours. And she was good at languages.
"You mean… la philosophe Emmanuelle de Lapoignard?" Bekki asked. "Oui, chère tante. Les gens, ils m'appellent "La chère petite sorcière"(6)
Mariella absorbed this, and grinned delightedly. She advised Bekki to be careful, and not to explicitly use magic in her work. Although, making that old rusty wheel rim red-hot with the pain you took out of Phineas, and giving him an almost useless injection to cover up for it. Well thought of.
Bekki considered this. Then she remembered something her mother had said, about life in this country, and made another intuitive deduction.
"Tante Mariella ? Les filles de ménage. Lequel d'entre eux travaille, comme une mouche, peut-être, pour le Bureau de la Sécurité de l'État?"
Mariella considered this.
"I suspect the older one." she said, in Quirmian. Bekki got that she meant Sanna, who was clearly ambitious. "But I am not completely sure and there may be others. So we have to be careful. Even in here."
She switched back to Vondalaans.
"Things you need to know. About this great country of ours."
Mariella sipped her tea.
"We are a law-abiding household here." Mariella said, with a completely straight face. Bekki wondered if she should award marks for acting skills. "Which is as it should be. Every country has laws. People must obey them, if a society is to prosper."
She took another sip of her tea. Bekki followed suit with a sip of hers.
"Is there any way at all in which I might be breaking the law, Aunt Mariella?" Bekki asked. "They say ignorance of the law is no defence. Perhaps justnow I need somebody to advise and guide me."
Mariella grinned.
"You've been here for a little over a fortnight, meisie. You're doing well. I suspect what happened this afternoon is going to get around and travel a long way. People gossip. I know and you know that Phineas' arm and chest were not all that badly damaged. Nothing deep down, no severed main blood vessels, no cut nerves. But it looked messy, like a badly butchered steak. People saw that. Then they saw that heap of bloody splinters you fished out of him, and they saw you stitching everything up from the inside outwards, right back to the skin. He lost a bit of blood, which looked like it went all over you, incidentally."
Mariella smiled again.
"You're good at what you do. People are seeing that. Just keep the surgical alcohol secure? The carpenters' shop pretty much reeked of it. There are people about who will drink that."
"About the alcohol, Aunt Mariella. I had to use a lot of it on Phineas. To be sure everything was clean and sterile inside before I stitched him up. That's a lot more than I expected to use. And, errr, this is a distillery?"
Mariella got the point.
"Running out? How pure does it need to be? I'll have a word with Mr Gordon. I reckon he can manage eighty-five per cent. Maybe ninety. Who knows, I suspect George might see getting to absolute pure alcohol as a professional challenge. Leave that one with me."
Mariella grinned.
"Like I said, anything we can provide for you. Just ask. But first."
Mariella went serious again.
"Listen, you were talking about Phineas staying overnight in one of the cubicles in the infirmary. I agree that would be a good idea. But justnow, we simply cannot do it. He has to be off site before eight. I know. It appals you. But let me explain about Zoning Regulations."
Bekki heard.
"Among the laws of our great nation, which we have to follow to the very letter, are the Racial Separation Acts. This plaas is a whites-only area. Everything on it is a white-people-only zone. Our employees are exempt, provided they carry passes to say they are here to work for a named white employer. But this is only during accepted working hours. No later than eight in the evening, except during the harvest seasons when black employees may work as long as daylight lasts.
"And justnow is not the harvest season." Mariella said. "Your dispensary, surgery and infirmary are in a white Zone. You do not have a licence or written authority to run a hospital, which would allow you to keep a sick or injured black person overnight at your discretion. Apparently, that counts as a work of necessity and humanitarian mercy. But only with the appropriate licences."
"I see." Bekki said.
Mariella sipped her tea again. She asked Jona the housemaid to refresh the pot. Bekki's eyes followed her across the kitchen.
"Domestic staff get a dispensation." Mariella explained. "They have segregated quarters nearby to this huis, and that is classed as a black people's zone. Necessary, if they have to start work at four in the morning. Can't have us being forced to make our own tea first thing, can't they?"
"The world might end." Bekki agreed. Her aunt grinned.
"Now you're getting it. Anyway, Bekki. Any patient, however ill, caught in your dispensary a minute after eight is breaking apartheid law. Not white people, obviously. But a black patient. They get dragged off to jail, and this plaas gets fined, or worse, for allowing it. We might be able to challenge that in court, but that takes time and money."
Mariella looked at her.
"It is inflexible, I know."
"It stinks." Bekki said, frankly.
"Did I not just say that?" Mariella riposted. "As I say, we must obey the laws and ordinances to the very letter. People come round and check, for one thing."
Mariella frowned.
"There is a… policeman… called Captain Oskar Verdraainer. He is very particular and meticulous about ensuring these laws are obeyed to the very last letter. I'm surprised he has not contrived a reason to visit now you are here."
Bekki thought about this. She remembered a hateful weaselly face from her earlier childhood.
"Does he belong to the same police department as Liutnant Verkramp, back in Ankh-Morpork?" she asked.
Mariella grinned.
"Exactly the same arm of service, yes." she said. "And the same way of thinking. I understand he picked up a piece of gossip that alleges just because you lived in Lancre for a while, that makes you a Witch."
Bekki shook her head.
"Lots of women and girls live in Lancre." she said. "But only a few of them are Witches."
"Hold that thought." Mariella replied. "Lancre was where you learnt a lot about being a Healthcare Practitioner. You demonstrated this afternoon that you're a good one, and that you used no magic whatsoever in putting Phineas right. And that's all Verdraainer is going to see when he inquires. And he will. He has that sort of mind."
Mariella sighed.
"We need to make a plan about getting Phineas back to his family in Turfloop Township before eight." she said. "You haven't been there yet? I'll have to make a plan there too. Introduce you."
"Aunt Mariella? He won't be able to work for a couple of weeks. What's going to happen to him? And to the people who might depend on his pay?"
Mariella sighed.
"Now we come back to the Law." she said. "The laws which, as good model citizens of this nation, we have to obey in all respects. And as a good law-abiding citizen and as an employer of both black and white labour, I take very great care to ensure that I do. In every respect. Openly and visibly so."
Mariella smiled again. Bekki had no doubt whatsoever that her aunt was scrupulously, completely and transparently a law-abiding citizen. She also suspected Aunt Mariella had taken the time to thoroughly read her law books, with all the painstaking methodicity and attention to detail of an Assassin considering a contract. It was what she'd been trained for.
"Listen to me, Rebecka. The pay rates for black workers are set by law. There is very little room for manoeuvre. I can't go above a certain hourly or daily rate and in theory I can be taken to court if I underpay. That's meant to be a safeguard to protect their interests."
Mariella left this hanging.
"I cannot pay any sort of retainer to a black if he has to go off work sick or injured. Even if the cause of the injury was not his fault and he does his job properly and with diligence. As Phineas does. As far as the law is concerned, you can't work, you don't get paid. Meant to discourage malingering and laziness. The law would, in fact, allow me to dismiss him if he isn't capable of working. Nothing to stop me."
Mariella made a face.
"And this is a man who has worked for Lensen's for quite a few years, who Arne Timmerman has trained and taught skills to, who if he were white would be on a skilled worker's pay rate, and who is, in fact, teaching some of those skills to the two boys just out of school who we have taken on as workshop apprentices. And both those boys will end up on better pay than Phineas even if they do not turn out to have his skills. Because they're white."
Mariella shrugged.
"That's how it is. For now. But one thing the Law does allow me to do, in fact encourages me to do, is to make charitable donations. Poverty relief. I even get tax deductions on those, but that's not the point. I can't pay Phineas in actual cash while he's off sick. But I can at least make sure a food delivery arrives at his door, sufficient to feed him and his dependents, for as long as he's off sick. I look after good workers."
Mariella grinned.
"Like I said, Bekki, I'm completely law-abiding. In every way. Captain Verdraainer knows this. I make sure he knows, in fact."
Bekki considered this.
"Does he have problems with indigestion or anything like that?" she asked.
Her aunt reflected.
"Not that I'm wishing it on the man, of course. And you shouldn't, either. Even after you meet him. But I think it wouldn't be surprising if he did. I do hope his gastric condition doesn't feel worse after he's been dealing with me."
"Like Mr Moody at the Guild School? Mum was saying. How he always looked ill after he'd been in a class with you in it. Every time she has to apologise to another teacher who gets Famke in their class, she says she's reminded of when you were a pupil."
Mariella smiled, happily.
"And you didn't do that to your teachers? Your mother was telling me about your History teacher. The fights you had with her." Aunt Mariella reminded her.
Bekki smiled.
"Yes, but Miss Lonsdale-Rust was an idiot." she said.
"And so was Mr Moody." Aunt Mariella said. "Now tell me about Famke. What's she been up to lately?"
Bekki managed to laugh and wince at the same time.
"Where do I start? I don't know if Mum's managed to mention it to you yet, but there's been bother in Games lessons..."
Mariella was appreciative of the story of Famke's creative rebellion on the running track, relayed to her along a chain of at least four people. The go-slow protest on the way to the finish line was something she particularly appreciated.
"Wish I'd thought of that." Mariella remarked. "It might have saved me a lot of bother. I reckon if they'd put me on the running track and told me I'm only there because my aunt was good at it, I'd get annoyed too. I hope Sissi realised that."
Mariella looked very thoughtful.
"Do me a favour, Bekki? Next time you're in town, can you carry a letter from me to Sissi? Haven't seen her in ages, and I want to know how she's getting on, how her neck's healing."
After a while, they discussed the other pressing issue. Hartebeeste. Bekki mentioned she'd had a chance to talk about the situation with more experienced healthcare practitioners, but had been a bit hampered by not having seen it for herself, or met the principal players.
Aunt Mariella said she hadn't forgotten, it was just that she hadn't seen much of Jan or Anna lately. Now you come to mention it, Bekki, we should ride over one day, just to introduce you. By the way, how did this visit to Zlobenia work out? The funeral for the old lady ?
Bekki poured another cup of tea. This could take time. She began by describing the conversation she'd managed to have with Nadezhda Popova., Miss Tick, and others, where the Hartebeeste Problem had been discussed, as had the thing with the scissors…
To be continued – more to come. Looking here for a shorter linking chapter setting out a bit of background and more themes for the coming story.
(1) Winston Churchill famously described Russia, and Russians, as " a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". As he had to deal with Stalin and no doubt lots of "vranyo"; he had worked this much out. Churchill had matroshya dolls in mind here.
(2) Bekki had discovered a self-preservation trick; Vasilisa Budonova had grinned at her, completely knowing but not censuring, as she discreetly kept topping up a half-drunk glass with water, until after a while there was a lot more water than vodka in the glass. Bekki had discovered that as long as she had an apparently full glass in her hand, nobody kept pressing top-ups on her.
(3) Matryoshka dolls are a relatively new thing in Russia; rather than a time-honoured craft going back centuries, they first appeared in the 1860's as the brainwave of an artist. When the idea became widely known later in the century, they caught the imagination and a worldwide craze for them began. I was surprised that such a quintessentially Russian thing doesn't go back all that far: while on the Discworld I want it to be a long-standing tradition with a lot of history to it – and Witchcraft – I'd quite like Johanna (and Ruth) to be in on the ground floor with marketing them in Ankh-Morpork, in much the same way the idea took off in London and Paris in the latter 1800's.
(4) She would, later, look back on this theft report as having a bigger significance. The spiceworks had clacksed a report to Pseudopolis Yard about the theft; Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom had reasoned that while she could clacks a request to the nearest Watch-house to send an officer out, could it be quicker to try something else out? She had sent the clacks flimsy up to the Air Station for the attention of the Duty Controller; Sergeant Nadezhda Popova had put out a Comms message for the nearest Air Witch to land and take the initial investigation; Olga had been the nearest Air Watch pilot; and as it turned out, she got there twenty-five minutes before a foot patrol did. Sam Vimes had noted this and despite his mistrust of magitek devices, had conceded we might be onto something here. "How soon before these things go out as standard issue, Olga?"
(5) There is indeed a simple trick, and it works. Long-time Prostitutes have known it forever.
(6) Couldn't resist it. The opening line to that South African TV puppet show "hulle noem my Liewe Heksie" – they call me the Dear Little Witch. Hope the next bit of Quirmian can be figured out in context….Bekki is asking which housemaid is likely to be acting as an informant for BOSS. Johanna has taught her daughter well.
The stuff that gets dumped at the end in a secure palisaded enclosure: the Notes Stanitsa
On the Discworld "Czecho-Slovakia" and the evolution and re-writing of "Irena Politek" as a character. June 2021. Also, govno.
I wrote up a TV Tropes works page for the story "The Price of Flight". Well. It's good advertising and it also helps me analyze what I'm doing a bit more, usually with a "Oh, that's a thing? I never knew that" whenever a new trope comes up in the work, or – even – if a kind reader spots it and then adds it to TVT. (Apparently as of June 2021 I'm on 681 tropes pages as examples… I didn't put all of them there myself).
Anyway. Under "RETCON" I added the following note:
Irena Politek ceasing to be a "Czech" - the author says he didn't know how to properly pull this one off and suspecting the Czech identity might be a little too obscure for reader accessibility. She became a spiky and attitudinal peasant-born foil to the aristocratic Olga, the Nanny Ogg to her Granny Weatherwax.
And under "Early Installment Weirdness":
In her first appearances in the Discworld, Irena Politek was intended to be a Discworld version of a Czech or a Slovak (hence the vaguely Czech-sounding name, intended to make her distinct from the "Russian" Olga Romanoff) and introduce a cross-Slavonic needling. This got lost as the concept evolved, as did the horrible initial attempts to reproduce "Russian" accents in their spoken "English". In this story, Irena is as Rodinian as Olga - the needle comes from Olga being an aristocrat while Irena is a revolutionary with Soviet ideas.
I remember: in her first appearances Irena had no politics, but - to differentiate her from Olga and after consulting online translators and style guides – was allowed to vent her feelings with a lot of swearing in Czech, not Russian. The name "Politek", as well as evoking "many-skilled", also looked convincingly Czech/Slovak. (And… yes. I know in Slavonic naming conventions, this is the male form and should be "Politeka" for Irena. Blame this on piss-poor initial research).
This foundered at about the same time I gave up trying to reproduce "Russian" and "Eastern European" accents in English on the page. It just didn't look or feel right. Also, while I'd grasped that Czechs and Slovaks tend to consider their Eastern neighbour to be hard work, as well as noting a regrettable tendency to come visiting Prague in lots of tanks – I just didn't know as much about the culture, outside of "The Good Soldier Schwejk" and found it hard to get into. I didn't think I could do a Czech character convincingly.
Aside: the Czech translator of "The Truth" (still "Pravda") made this point when he came across Otto Chriek's bellowed profanity Bodrozvachski zhaltziet!, which in English was meant to look convincingly Slavonic while having no meaning at all in any Slavonic language; Terry wanted to convey that Otto was from somewhere impossibly remote in Far Überwald.
Problem is… to a Czech or a Slovak, it isn't impossibly remote at all, it's home and everyday, the readership actually lives in Far Überwald.
So how does the Czech-language Otto become foreign and alien to a Czech reader of the Discworld?
Answer… the translator made him a Russian, placed a lot of alarming-sounding nonsense syllables into Cyrillic script, and made the clear implication that a funny foreigner who is capable of that sort of swearing, as well as being a (presumed reformed) non-human bloodsucking parasite… well. Clearly Russian. He's got to be, hasn't he?
That was exactly the sort of undercurrent I wanted in any interaction between Olga and Irena, Russian and Czech.
But it wasn't working. So it got retconned; Irena became a stroppy peasant whose role in life is to deflate the aristocrat, to deftly insert a needle if Lady Olga gets too imperious. Meanwhile Lady Olga can point at people like Reg Shoe and Estressa Partleigh, and thoughtfully ask things like "Tell me about this Union of Soviets thing again, Irena. Who gets to be General Secretary of the Supreme Soviet, once again?"
Irena became "Russian". It felt better that way. But she has a name that doesn't sound too Russian. More Czech or Slovak, and too late to change it.
So thinking another retcon here, or maybe a bit of detail to the world-building. There's a story ("Clowning is…") where it comes out that Olga, growing up, had to learn the basics of a language spoken by people on her father's lands who are not ethnically "Russian", on the grounds that as Grand Duchess to be, she will be administering a minority population of Fistulans. Therefore she demonstrates a passing fluency in "Polish".
If "Fistulans" exist on the Disc (canonically there actually is a Discworld Poland in Far Überwald), I'm wondering, if you look in a slightly different direction, there may well be another minority human population who speak řĕlăted-to-Řodĭnian. There's nothing in The Compleat Discworld Atlas. But if Borogravia and Zlobenia are there to reflect the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Balkans on our world – then there must be Czechs. Or Slovaks.
Therefore. Irena's family, perhaps, might a generation or two back have been "Czech", or perhaps "Slovak", who moved into the Grand Duchy. Now treated as Kulaks and having married into and become Rodinian, but remembering having been something more than that, free people and not feudal serfs. Which would explain the revolutionary streak…
Also. As a nod to that residual "Czech" identity, Irena must have, at some point on her timeline, an encounter with a massively oversized cockroach. Quite possibly, the reason for Gregor Samsa's personal metamorphosis was that he seriously irritated a Witch, something Kafka glosses over. Maybe he caught Irena herself on a bad day, or she has to transform him back to human, or both. (Damn – a story idea has arrived here. Bloody inspiration particles.)
What else, to a Western mind, sums up Czechia/Slovakia? When the place is mentioned, what mental associations would a typical reasonably well-educated British person make?
The Good Soldier Schwejk.
Skoda cars with their interesting reputation in the West.
Extremely good beer in Prague.
Not the case today, I know, but in 1938 when the country became the focus of the world; unruly "Überwaldean" speakers in the Sudetenland. Lidice is known, an awful warning of what would have happened to us too, if Hitler hadn't been forced to stop at Calais.
A need to be reminded that today the Czech Republic and Slovakia are two distinct and separate places and "Czechoslovakia" is an entity of the past. One of our Cabinet ministers failed to make that distinction in a context where it really mattered and, well, sorry.
The strange inverted čaret appearing over seemingly randŏm letters – even čonsoňants – in Czech and Slovak. English has no accented letters and discourages their use in our language as an un-necessary and no doubt foreign over-complication. But it doesn't mean we are not deeply intrigued as to why foreigners find them unaccountably necessary.
The novels of Kafka.
Also... just picked up the folk- tale of The Mayor's Clever Daughter (the Farmer's Clever Daughter, Clever Gretchen...) , in which a bright young girl outwits the King in three unsolveable riddles and really socks it to him; common to Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and which may even be a version of Vasilisa The Cunning versus established order, in this case the old bloody-minded king rather than a Babayaga.
A musical discovery: The music of rock-folkies Hrdza (discovered that's not an acronym, that is the actual spelling of the band's name, even though it looks free of any contamination by too many vowels).
Almost like Otava Yo, but younger and Slovakian. "Stefan" ( the "Hey-ya-hoy-ya!" song) is a pretty good listen.
A discovery: the word Divčata, (girls) is not a million miles from Russian "devyushki". Also a Hrdza song title.
Anyway, the personal timeline of Witch, Irena Yannesovna Politek(a).
Age eleven, she discovers she is not as other girls and is responsible for nearly burning down the family isba with a few hot dreams. Night Terrors, possibly the Dungeon Dimensions or even… the people for whom you touch iron – come to her and she delivers retribution.
She is delivered to the local Witch, who is not quite a Babayaga at this point but is working on the witch equivalent of a post-doctoral qualification. Training is delivered, alongside another pupil Witch of the same age with whom Irena initially has a spiky relationship.
Around age thirteen, a visiting tourist called Perspicacia Tick takes over and gets Irena and Olga to Lancre, where between the ages of thirteen-fourteen to sixteen, further vocational education is delivered. (7)
Irena begins from a knowledge base of zero and learns a lot of Lancre Morporkian in her time there.
Age sixteen-seventeen, the girls trek to the Vulga River and spend perhaps a year, no longer than two, as Steading Witches with the Cossacks. Maybe a girl then about six, seven or eight, called Xenia Galena, remembers seeing them. (Getting these relative small details right is a bugger). Now accepted and adopted Cossacks, they decide a formal Steading is not for them, and they choose to travel again. This takes them back to Lancre, via a journey through the Hub and the Vortex Plains, encountering more Cossacks on the way.
Perhaps a slightly older Rodinian Witch called Nadezhda Popova, newly-married, and her husband Yuri, accompanies them out of Siber'ya. They remain in Lancre for a few months as assistant Witches in various Steadings.
At this time, the events of The Fifth Elephant take place.
Sam and Sybil take the long road back from Überwald and stay in Lancre for a few days. Nanny and Granny realise the ideal placement for two odd forn Witches who love to fly, and make an introduction. The offer of paid jobs in the Air Police is made. Irena and Olga think about it for maybe three seconds and go "Yes please!" (8)
Nadezhda, for the moment, remains in Lancre to learn about Witching as it is taught and practiced here. (She learns to fly, a new dimension for her). Aged maybe seventeen-eighteen-nineteen (these things are elastic) Olga and Irena go to Ankh-Morpork. Within the first six months or so, the Pegasi are born. (9)
Possibly three or four months later, with those first pilots still learning about Pegasi, the events of "Snuff" happen and there is a brief messy war in Howondaland. (10)
Shotly afterwards, Irena's mare, recovering from injury in Lancre, becomes gravid from a normally appointed stallion. (11) A young apprentice Witch of about fourteen, called Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling Garlick, decides as the day approaches to camp out in the stables so as not to miss the foaling. She discovers the newborn Pegasus foal will not accept fodder or drink from anyone but her. The third Pegasus Service pilot is recruited. Olga and Irena think hard about the principles involved, and allow Olga's stallion to enjoy some quality recreation time in a field full of mares in between flights.
The events of Fresh Pair Of Eyes (cameo appearance from Olga to gloat over Cousin Natasha being dunked in the Ramkin-Vimes dunnikin), Clowning is a Serious Business and Hyperemesis Gravidarum happen shortly afterwards. At this time, a child called Rebecka Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons is born, to localised rejoicing among her family and friends.
Meanwhile the fruits of the loins of Raduga Desh are born. One new Pegasus foal adopts a strange and intense Überwaldean Witch called Hanna von Strafenburg.(12) As the Air Watch is expanding, witches training in Lancre who have an interest in flight are also recruited. Marina Raskova, Tatiana Grigorenko, Kiiki Pekisaalen and others, including an older married woman called Nadezhda Popova, join the Watch for the pleasure of a flight-centred career.
Gap Year Adventures sees Olga promoted Sergeant as recognition of the need for a growing Air Service to have some sort of chain of command. After a while Irena becomes a Corporal. It is possible she forgave Olga for this.
Two years after the events of GYA, the even larger Air Watch has its most severe test. This is the air war over Lancre described in The Price Of Flight.At this time, Olga and Irena might be around twenty-four-or-five and are a Lieutenant and a Sergeant respectively, with several capable Corporals (Nottie, Nadezhda, et c.)
Shortly afterwards, Olga marries Eddie. Four years later, twin children are born. Vetinari's birthing gift is to suggest to Vimes that now the Air Watch is big enough, it should be headed by a Captain with a Lieutenant as its second-in-command.
Perhaps nine years after the Lancre War, with continual expansion of the Air Watch, we reach the present day where in this tale we are on the brink of strife with Klatch and there is a big tropical storm brewing in Howondaland. Olga and Irena would be in their middle thirties. If Bekki is coming up to seventeen, and she was born when Irena was eighteen-nineteen-twenty, this suggests the youngest age her Godsmother could be is around thirty-four, most probably thirty-five. With a loudly ticking biological clock.
And the whole GOVNO! Thing. I loved this word for "Shit!" in all its meanings. It seemed a shoe-in as a swear word for Olga and Irena to use. It felt right.
Then I realised.
Research indicates that this is used in Russian as a word for "Shit!", but in the sense of worthless nonsense, or an expression of exasperation. Russian has lots of other, more immediate, words which convey the Western sense of "Shit!" and will use them a long time before "Govno."
There is ерунда, дерьмо, чушь собачья, херня, враки, мудак, дристун.
говно comes in a long way down the list and only in the sense of "worthless thing". It would also appear to be a loan-word from related Slavonic languages like Slovenian and Serbian and isn't even originally Russian. Shame, really. I like this word. Ah well.
Before I forget: I am reliably told the best Russian word for "god(s)mother" is "kuma". (кума)
Documentary on TV about the rise and fall of the Romanoff Tsars. The obligatory young and very photogenic lady historian (British TV makes this a thing: interpretation of such things for the layman is done by female university academics, who are exceedingly TV-friendly, in both science and the arts(13)), is allowed access to Russian state archives and gets access to the private correspondence of the last Tsar and Tsarina. Interesting point: Tsar Nicholas II Romanoff was Russian; Tsarina Alexandra was German. A small point but a tangible point that helped a Revolution along. In the middle of a destructive and ruinous war with Germany, Tsar Nikolas asks his wife to run the shop while he commands at the front. A German Tsarina. In that place at that time. Russians loved this.
He's Russian, she's German. So of course their personal correspondence is – apparently - in English. Mind briefly boggled.
Wondering how to present this in a Discworld context… Morporkian used by a married couple who each speak barely a word of the other's first language? Or they both feel at home in Morporkian? (OK – Olga and Eddie…)
(7) Having met Granny Weatherwax, mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, who stayed over on their journey back to Lancre from Genua, (Witches Abroad) Natalya S realises her pupils can only benefit from time in this interesting foreign place with lots of Witches to learn from.
(8) My tale How André Got His Badge Back
(9) My tale Bad Hair Day
(10) My tale Bungle In The Jungle
(11) It is suspected Nanny Ogg deliberately left a normally closed connecting gate between two fields wide open, just to help things allnog a little and to see what happened next.
(12) visually, for Hanna von Strafenburg, the character of the German woman soldier Helga Geerhart in TV comedy 'Allo 'Allo. As portrayed – memorably – by Kim Hartman, all the stereotypes of a German woman taken Up To Eleven.
(13) Professor Alice Roberts (anthropology, biology, some History) , Professor Bethany Hughes (history and archaeology), Doctor Carenza Lewis (archaeology), Dr Lucy Worsley (British history), and Professor Sarah Churchwell, a startling blonde who does American Lit at my old uni (Hell of an improvement on Malcolm Bradbury) – she's a fixture on the heavy arty-farty shows. You could staff a whole university from British TV presenters carefully chosen to be attractive and telegenic.