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Chapter XXXV
The time had come, Patrick thought, to think of many things: of hate and danger what to say; to friends and to the girlfriend, about getting far away? His time in the Secret Service had been to his advantage, he had a way of turning things in that direction, but his time was nearly up, though The Watch might not know that yet. He still didn't really know what was going on, but he was sure he knew a great deal more than anyone else did, he also knew that it stank worse than two-day-old nappies,1 and that he didn't want to be around when that shit caught fire.
He wasn't easily frightened, in fact Bliss had said she doubted that he was any longer capable of 'physical fear', but this was scaring the excrement out of him. The sheer amount of hate was astonishing, scarcely believable when you considered what it was directed at. In a vast city like Ankh-Morpork he couldn't see how so much venom could be directed towards such a small and, as far as he could see, harmless community. It made no sense and that's what really gave him the trembles.
At The Guild school some lessons had interested him more than others: he'd hardly been able to stay awake in Law (contracts), though he'd been very interested in both Chemistry (poisoning) and Physics (ballistics) what had really fascinated him was Logic. For some boys logic had seemed to be of no more practical use than Music, which they also all had to learn as part of rounding them out as 'gentlemen'. They all came to see that being able to structure a cogent argument was not merely a useful but an essential skill; though, admittedly, not as indispensable as being able to spot the flaws in the arguments made by others. However, there were a few boys, including Patrick, whom Dr. Al-Mawt, the dark, unfathomable professor from Betrek, had taken under the wings of his cloak and introduced to what the Tsortians called dilectio sapientiae.
Ethics was generally taught as part of Law, its first principal being that once a contract had been agreed it had to be fulfilled, whatever the danger to the agent of the contract, as the currently popular euphemism would have it. Of course it would take a special kind of insanity to renege on a bargain you'd struck with the Guild of Assassins, however, most people were surprised to discover that the Assassins never went back on their side of the bargain either. Unlike the Guild of Lenders, for example, but then even the Thieves Guild held itself to higher standard than that.
That could be interesting enough, Patrick had thought, especially compared to the interminable talk of endless clauses that constituted the rest of Contracts. What Dr. Al-Mawt introduced the select few to was something called moral philosophy and Patrick had never heard the like of it.
According to the learnèd doctor there was a difference between right and wrong on the one hand and good and evil on the other and it seemed that the latter applied even to the gods, whatever They might say to the contrary. This was what was interfering with his packing. It was obviously wrong for him to stay in the city with all that was going on and right for him to get as far away as possible before the slow-burning fuse that had been fizzing away these past months finally reached the thing that was waiting for them all. On the other hand, he thought… 'No, there is no other hand!' he almost said out loud as he balled another pair of socks and thrust them into his rucksack. There was no point to either right and wrong or good and evil if he were dead. On the other hand there was Smite who was, almost in spite of himself, his friend. But he could make other friends in his new place. And there was Bliss, whom he loved. On the other hand, he thought, stuffing unfolded underwear into the bag, she didn't love him back, and that was hardly fair…
It was no use. Good and evil and Dr. Al-Mawt got the better of him and he upended his bag onto his bed. What, he wondered, would be the point of going somewhere else if he left himself behind? Smite was laid up in hospital unable to take care of himself, Bliss was too busy taking care of others to even think about herself. They needed him and if he was not prepared to protect them then he was no better than a Lender.
Downstairs in the bar Kate was still up and having a nightcap. She seemed surprised to see him.
"I thought you were leaving," she said.
"So did I," he replied, "where are Bruise and Sheara?"
"Where do you think, what with it being the end of the world and all. Would you like a drink," she asked, "on the house?"
"You have no idea."
"Wine I assume."
"Not tonight."
"That bad, eh?" she asked, pouring him a large whisky.
"I refer you to my previous answer."
"Glen Deoch," she said, filling the glass to the top, "from the far off Isle of Drookit."
"Slàinte," he said, taking a large mouthful that made his eyeballs swirl.
"To your health too, good sir," said Kate, draining her small sherry and getting a whisky-glass up for herself.
"What changed your mind?" she asked, pouring a decent measure into her glass and refilling his."
"The nature of good and evil," he said, pompously.
"I didn't think Assassins gave much thought to that."
"You knew?" he asked, only mildly surprised.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" she asked.
"Kate," he replied, "a woman farther from being stupid I can't imagine."
"There you go; the easy, casual compliment. Too posh, too charming, too clever, too handsome and too good with his fists, I'm surprised that you fool anyone."
"I'll work on it."
"I would, if I were you, now that you're staying."
"Did you really think I might leave?"
"No," she conceded, "I've seen you with your mate and I've heard you talk about your girl; I knew there was no way you'd abandon them. You'd rather it cost you your life than your soul."
"Actually, I think for a lot of people it might be both. It's going to be very bad, isn't it?"
"Very, very, very, very bad," Kate confirmed, "are you sure you still want to stay?"
"Of course, I have a soul to save," he confirmed, "here's to you and yours, Katy," he added, raising his glass.
"May the road rise to meet you, Paddy!"
They clinked.
Smite kept trying to get out of bed and Blister kept pushing him back into it.
"I'm fine," he kept saying, struggling up.
"No, you're not," she kept insisting, shoving him back down.
This had been going on for some minutes when happened past.
"Ith thith a private game," he asked, "or can anyone join in?"
"Sorry, doctor," Blister apologised, "the patient refuses to listen to medical advice and wants to leave the hospital."
"Well," said , "in my opinion he ith well enough to be dithcharged."
"He's a Watchman and wants to go back to his duties."
"Yeth? Well he ithn't well enough to do that, tho perhapth we thould keep him in."
Smite tried to get up again and Dr. Igor pushed him back down again, gently, but with enough force to make it clear that getting out of bed was no longer an option worth pursuing.
"Jutht for a little while."
"Thank you, doctor," said Blister, sticking her tongue out at Smite.
"Not at all," said Dr. Igor, "I thall now leave you to your fun ath I have roundth to do."
"See!?" said Blister, when the doctor had gone.
"But I just want to do my duty," said Smite plaintively.
Oh, she wasn't falling for that one. The easiest way to get round virtually any Omnian was to appeal to their sense of duty, doubly so if she was a nurse. Blister was a nurse, more even than she was a daughter and far more than she was a Follower of Brutha. She knew that during the previous emergency she would have stayed at her post and cared for her patients even if the mob had been charging down her ward. Smite wanted to do his duty, like any good cop, and like any good nurse it was her duty not to let him.
"Smitey," she said, using a nickname from when they were kids, "your duty is to get well enough to actually do your duty properly, and you're not well enough yet."
She rather liked this argument, it was compelling, and it certainly convinced Smite.
"Ok, he conceded," pulling his covers up, "but not a moment longer."
"Agreed," she conceded and they shook hands. Then she went and washed hers, thoroughly, doctor's orders. Dr. Igor in Diseaseology had told her about 'invithible little thquirming thingth that can thpread thickneth' and she wasn't taking any chances.
If it was hard to stop some people doing their duty, it was very difficult to get other people to do theirs. Patrick was leaving. He didn't know exactly where he was going yet –he was considering several options- but it was going to be somewhere far, far away from Ankh-Morpork, that was for sure, or so he said. Mind you he was a liar, a witty, charming and rascally liar, but a liar nonetheless, so maybe he was just going to hide out somewhere nearby until The Trouble went away. Who could say? Certainly not her, that was for sure.
Oh, he'd asked her to come with him, to Genua, of all places: the place he talked about all the time and made sound so mysterious and so wonderful –and which was obviously so tasty- but she hadn't been remotely tempted. As she'd pointed out to him they had never really been anything more than friends. That whole asking her to marry him thing had just been a joke, surely?
But, as she tidied up and did her last bed-check before the dayshift took over, she decided to admit that she was lying to herself. Smite was her friend, Lucy was her friend, Dr. Igor in Cryingology was her friend… Patrick was not, had never been and could not possibly be, her friend. He was the love of life.
Dr. Igor had tried to reassure her that all her moping and blubbing were just symptoms of what he called Endocrying.
"Yeth, the wide eyeth, the flutheth, the tearth, the thkipping heart… are all perfectly normal, you'll get over it."
No, she thought, she wouldn't and she wasn't even going to try. She was going to become a Sister of Kindness. She would renounce men and good wine and fine food and all other pleasures of the flesh while she dedicated her life to the service of others and the cultivation of her soul. As she walked miserably the short distance to the Nurses Home, eyes downcast, she wished it were raining, to match her mood. Mind you, at the moment, so did everyone else in the city. There hadn't been a spot in Om knew how long: everything was drying-up, like her heart, and the heat was becoming more oppressive by the day. She looked up as she reached the bottom of the stairs and saw…Patrick.
He was standing next to Lignite, the door-guard. The troll guards weren't supposed to let any men anywhere near the entrance to Nurses' Home, but Lignite was, unlike the rest of them, a big softie and a sucker for a throb story.
Patrick had a strange smile on his face –wry, regretful, shy, wistful…- and a box under his arm, covered in pictures of flowers, which she was sure contained the finest chocolates ever made.2
"We need to talk," he said.
"No, we don't," she replied, curtly.
"Yes, we do," he said emphatically, "and we need to do so now!"
"No," she was equally vehement, "we really don't!"
"I have a bottle of wine from Petrus' Castle," he offered.
Petrus had been an Ephebian king noted for his love of luxury and his contempt for the poor. When the poor decided they'd had enough of him, and being treated like that, they rose up, overthrew him and established what the called a Ftochocracy. The idea of the poor ruling themselves was so ridiculous that the rulers of all the surrounding countries laughed. When it turned out that the poor of Ephebe were actually quite good at it then they didn't find it quite so funny, especially when the poor in their own countries started getting ideas above their pay grades.
Meanwhile, Petrus fled to Genua, where everyone loved luxury as much as he did and took as many of his luxuries with him as he could. The legend was that anything that had belonged Petrus must be the finest in the world. As Blister was about to renounce all pleasure she thought she really ought to do so with a flourish. The feast before the famine, as it were.
"Half-and-hour," she said.
He crooked his arm, she put hers through it and he led her away.
"You two luv burds av fun," Lignite rumbled from behind them, with a huge smile spreading, slowly across his face.
"What do you think?" asked Patrick.
They were sitting in one of the booths in The Duck and Blister had just taken her second taste of the wine.
"It's good," she said.
"GOOD!?" he exclaimed.
"Alright," she conceded, "it's very good. Very, very, very good."
She let the wine take its full effect and the taste to take possession of her nose and mouth.
"Actually, it's wonderful," she admitted.
"Isn't it just," he agreed.
"How much did it cost?" she asked.
"There you go again," he admonished, "confusing price and worth."
"How much?" she insisted
"Four thousand dollars," he admitted.
"What!" she screamed, "are you insane!?"
"Good, though, isn't it?" he shrugged.
"Marvellous," she agreed, "how much is a bottle of Devil's Cellar?"
"About five dollars."
She looked at him in a way that suggested that she could hardly begin to even number her levels of incomprehension.
"This is much better, maybe ten times better, but it isn't a thousand times better; nothing could be."
"Insane, isn't it?" he laughed.
"Patrick," she said, in an exasperated voice, "why am I here?"
"Only Om can say," he shrugged, with a smile.
"Don't try to be clever," she snapped.
"I can't help it," he said, "I am clever."
"Eerrgh!" she shrieked.
"Ok, listen, Bliss…"
"Don't call me that."
"…the problems of two little people don't amount to a pile of peas on this crazy Disc. I'm no good at being noble but I know that if I leave now I'll regret it, maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow but soon and for the rest of my life."
"You're staying?"
"For as long as you're here, then I'm going to be here, and I'm going to do my duty, by you, by the City and by myself; on one condition."
"Which is?" asked Blister, she known there had to be a catch.
"That when this is over, if we're still alive, you'll come with me to Genua and be my bride."
"Um, actually," she said, after a brief pause, "I think can promise you that, my prince." She felt her lip beginning to tremble.
"And if I'm not alive, that you'll find someone else and not become a sister of kindness?"
"Who'd have me?" she laughed.
He rather assumed that this must be a rhetorical question but he answered it anyway:
"I shall get my shyster to draw up a will where you'll get all my money."
"Do you have a lot money?" she asked. Omnians were almost universally lacking in avarice.3
"Tons and tons of it," he said, quite truthfully and, when it came to the gold, probably quite literally.
"Wonderful, that should make me very popular," she laughed, "with all the wrong people."
He raised his glass and she raised hers in reply.
"Here's looking at you, kid," he smiled.
"Don't look at me that way."
"This could be the start of beautiful relationship," he concluded.
"What do you mean the start?" she wanted to know.
1 The only reason he knew what unchanged nappies smelt like was that some of his customers sometimes came in wearing them, until Kate made them go home to wash and change.
2 It was almost universally agreed that the best chocolate on The Disc came from the small town of Flavigny in Howandaland. It was made by two sisters –Val and Rhona-who had original come from the Baffled Island of Mawkit.
3 According to the Book of Contracts, the sacred text of the Guild of Lenders, for a lie to be truly effective it must bear not the slightest relation to reality.