Page 10 of 10
Chapter XXVII
It was moving time again. Lord Bothermore had decided that he needed to slaughter some birds and deer and rabbits… and to watch his dogs tear some foxes to pieces. It seemed that all of these activities fell under the general term sport. Lord Bothermore did enjoy his sport, so much so that he was planning to launch a new publication dedicated to it. Katy had overheard him discussing it with its prospective editor, Viscount Nigel Jeremy Alderley-Edge. Its working title was Moor and River and its remit was to cover all sports. This meant that in edition to the sports already mentioned, there would also be fishing. Lord Bothermore did not fish as he simply didn't have the patience. However he knew that other members of polite society did and he was prepared to curry favour with them. It was certainly the only thing that was ever going to be curried in his household.
What this meant was that Katy would be leaving the city for a while and moving into the country, though not a long way into the country. Lord Bothermore liked to get away from it all, but not too far away from it all as he never knew when he might need to get back to it all in a really big hurry. Leaving at dawn on Saturday, and spending one night at an inn on the way, they should arrive late on Sunday evening, allowing Lord Bothermore to join "The Hunt" on Octeday.
For Katy there were both positives and negatives to time spent at the Hall rather than at Bothermore Towers. Actually, there was one advantage, Rupert wouldn't be there, and everything else was a negative. Rupert didn't like to be away from his friends or from the amusements that they all liked to inflict on servant girls.
He'd gone off sport since his father had forbidden him to use a gonne as his preferred method for slaughter. Apparently, it wasn't very sporting. The supposed justification for sport was that the dead animals were cooked and eaten. When an animal had been hit by a gonne there wasn't a piece of it left big enough to cover a small water-biscuit.
So, she was spared his unwelcome and unpleasant attentions for a while, but there was more than enough other unpleasantness around to compensate for this little bit of relief. For one thing, she was away from her mum and her sisters, and Sacharissa, of course. For another, there was the tedium. She wasn't invited to the sport, and wouldn't have gone if she'd had been. She'd long since explored all the vaguely interesting parts of the Hall and walked all the walks around it, twice, and they had none of them been terribly interesting the first time. However, the biggest negative was the staff, which was mostly terrified.
Lord Bothermore and his chums liked to beat the servants and generally abuse them as a matter of course, but what really frightened the maids and the footmen was someone who was supposed to be one of their own. In theory "below stairs" was under the authority of the cook and the butler. However, Mr. Bridges and Mrs. Hudson were getting on a bit and were rather set in the ways of a half-a-century before, though they were decent enough people, at least to Katy's mind. Which was more than she could say for the housekeeper.
Frau Strohdachdeckerin was from Überwald and ruled the Hall with a will of iron and a rod of birch. There wasn't much positive that you could say about Lord Bothermore but at least he loved his dogs. Oh, and his Sewer Plumes. Frau Strohdachdeckerin didn't appear to like anything or anyone.
She was fairly tall, for a woman, and her gaunt features made her seem taller still. Her hair was silver, probably dyed, and looked as if it were actually made out of metal, but it was her horrible eyes that really gave you the shivers.
Katy remembered the first time she had visited the Hall. The housekeeper had loomed out of the shadows with her red, raw, painful stare and had almost given her a heart attack. She wasn't as terrified of her as the rest of the staff because, in the petty-hierarchy of servitude, she was at least her equal, if not her superior. She was still scared of her though; especially as she couldn't hear her creeping up behind her.
The servants at Bothermore Hall were required to wear bells: the footmen, a ring of them around their upper arms; the maids a ring around their ankles. That way their superiors could always hear them approaching. There were three exceptions: Mrs. Hudson –though the cook never left the kitchen- Mr. Bridges and Frau Strohdachdeckerin. The latter two so that they could creep up on their underlings and catch them doing things. Even Katy had to wear bells on her ankle, lest she inadvertently come across Lord Bothermore or one of his cronies surreptitiously doing things. This was part of the reason she and the housekeeper weren't completely sure of where they stood in relation to each other. Lord Bothermore certainly seemed to treat Katy with more respect, but it was very much a relative thing. Still, all of that was more than a day away; for the moment Katy planned to simply enjoy the journey.
It wasn't a large entourage, just two carriages and four outriders. Inside the first carriage was Lord Bothermore, his valet and two bodyguards. The second carriage held Katy and the maid, Rose. On top of each carriage, in addition to the coachman, rode another two bodyguards. The four horsemen –two at the back and two at the front- were also bodyguards. Lord Bothermore certainly felt that his body needed a lot of guarding.
As Sacharissa said: "If you spend your life stirring-up hatred, then some people might hate you for it". Lord Bothermore was very ignorant. He even prided himself on the depths of his ignorance. But he wasn't stupid.
It had taken a couple of ugly hours to clear the makeshift settlements and shanty-towns that surrounded the walls of Ankh-Morpork but then they were in the countryside proper. She much preferred the rimward uplands to the Sto Plains. Some people liked their wide, open spaces and Katy could see the attraction, but it was all rather samey and grew dull fairly quickly. She'd much rather have what they were travelling through now: hills and woods, streams and little waterfalls, small towns, smaller villages and tiny farms. But, in truth, it was good to just to get out of the city. It was certainly still hot out here too, but it wasn't the oppressive heat of the streets and, even better, there were hardly any flies.
She and Rose had been chatting all morning but now they were content to just gaze out of their windows and watch the world amble past. In theory, Rose was Katy's maid, Katy being on the first –or possibly second- rung of the ladder, rather than actually on the ground. Rose knew her place and always called Katy "Miss". However, Katy knew her own place and it wasn't as anyone's superior. It had been awkward to begin with, but eventually they'd become friends. Not friends like with Susan and certainly not "friends" like with Sacharissa, but friends nonetheless. They even slept in the same bed.
Katy tried not to sleep at Bothermore Towers any more than she had to but whenever she did Rose slept with her, for two reasons, one selfish and one altruistic. The selfish reason was that she loved having someone to talk to in bed. They never talked about anything of consequence, just chatted away until one or other of them drifted off. It was very relaxing. The unselfish reason was that, as Katy was allowed to lock her door, she could keep Rose safe from Rupert, at least for a little while.
Rupert wouldn't be at Bothermore Hall but there was usually some horrible guest around to make the servants lives miserable. Katy supposed that it was unsurprising that Lord Bothermore's "friends" were as vile as he was himself; no decent person would be prepared to be seen with him. If she didn't have to.
The night spent at the inn had been uneventful, unlike the morning after. Katy and Rose were awoken by someone banging on their door. They opened it, still in their nighties, to be confronted by a breathless and flustered security guard.
"Dressed and downstairs, now," was all he said and was gone.
They dressed as quickly possible and hurried downstairs to find the whole place in uproar. Before Katy could even ask what was going on she and Rose were bundled into the coach, without any breakfast, and were soon tumbling around as the horses were whipped into a gallop by the coachman.
After a few minutes, when the pace had settled down a little, they managed to take their seats and get their breaths back.
"We're going the wrong way," said Rose, looking out of the window.
"Looks like we're not going to Bothermore Hall after all," said Katy.
They smiled at each other: "Great!" they said in unison.
It was only later that Katy discovered the reason for their sudden about-turn: the first edition of The Guardian had hit the streets, and the manure had hit the windmill.
She was sitting in Krishnom's restaurant in the Egitto waiting for her contact. When she found out that Sacharissa had booked the table under the name Honeysuckle it had made her smile. She was less happy when she discovered that the restaurant was vegetarian, and unhappier still when they told her they didn't serve wine. Katy didn't approve of vegetarianism, still less of teetotalism; they were for weirdoes and religious maniacs, but certainly not for her. However, she cheered-up a good deal when the brought her some spicy arokaps with a creamy dip. And after a couple of glasses of herbal tea she was as lappy as Harry. Thus Sacharissa found her, smiling beneficently.
"Hello, girlfriend," she said, "you look pleased with yourself."
Katy always got a funny little feeling in her tummy when she called her that.
"Just enjoying the food, it's delicious, dry tum."
"Is that that what you've got," laughed Sacharissa, "you haven't been at the tea by any chance, have you?"
"Slovely," replied Katy.
"So I've been told, but I think we should order some water as well."
"Whatever you say, sweetie."
They were both equally surprised that she'd said this, and both looked away.
After asomas and some more arokap, Sacharissa ordered for them both: anuhb for Katy and ooladniv for herself with irawhsep bread to share. Sacharissa had a bit of Katy's anuhb because "it's absolutely gorgeous, you really, really have to try it" and Katy tried a forkful of ooladniv, even though Sacharissa had advised strongly against it. It did, admittedly, clear her head, but only by almost burning her tongue off.
"How can you eat that!?" she gasped.
"It's an acquired taste."
"You can't possibly taste anything that hot! It's like trying to eat lava."1
"It does take practice," admitted Sacharissa, "and a strong constitution".
She ordered Katy a creamy drink called issal which, almost miraculously, took away the burning sensation. And then they got down to business.
"So, how are things at Bothermore Towers?" asked Sacharissa.
"Close to boiling over," said Katy, "almost as hot as ooladniv. All the newspaper people are angry with each other, Kelvin Bridge is furious with the lot of them and Lord Bothermore is close to apoplectic. Apparently, freedom of the press means that Lord Bothermore should be free to say whatever he wants, and everybody should be free to buy his newspapers and…that's it. None of them saw it coming, no one knows where it is or who is financing it, and they have no idea where it gets its information from."
"That's down to you, girlfriend, not everything, but a lot."
Again the flip of her stomach.
"I do my best," said Katy, blushing, "the details are in here."
She slipped an envelope from her bag and passed it under the table to Sacharissa, who quickly stashed it in hers.
"I really think we need to start paying you, in more than lunches."
"No, no, the lunches are payment enough," said Katy "that, and your company," she added, daringly.
"I'm flattered," said Sacharissa, flattered.
"Anyway, if I just get a lunch then it feels like I'm doing my civic duty; if I were being paid it would feel like corruption."
"Intelligent, resourceful AND principled!? I think I love you".
"I love you too," Katy blurted out.
They looked into each other's eyes for a few seconds and then both looked down.
"I think I should get the bill," said Sacharissa.
For the next few minutes they talked about inconsequentialities and Sacharissa asked after Katy's mum and sisters. When she got up to go she took Katy's hand and squeezed it.
"We'll talk about what you said next time," she said, then she leant over and kissed her briefly on the lips, "goodbye, girlfriend."
When Katy left the restaurant a few minutes later she thought she might have a go at trying to fly. And it was nothing to do with the tea.
1 According to Monsieur Shale, the head chef at the troll restaurant Le Granite, "fresh lava should only be served with the whitest sand from the Rimward beaches of Genua".