Strandpiel 11: Groei so vinnig op; vlieg in die lug

How dual nationality works out for one proud user.

Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically. Still, taking sick leave has some advantages… pain and discomfort are a bugger but at least I can do this.

A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. Trying to keep everything in roughly chronological and sequential order with lots of call-backs and flashbacks to related tales.

Bekki was finally at the Assassins' Guild School. Well, for one very special lesson. Just this once. Mum had wangled it somehow.

"Stay together, now!" Sister Mary Conception called. She was one of the younger teaching nuns, Hergenian, and quite liked by the girls at Sek's. It didn't stop them, with earnest deadpan faces, calling her "Miss". She'd put up with that in the spirit intended and say "Less of that sort of thing, now. You all know, so, to address me as "Sister"."

Today she was escorting a group of Seven Handed Sek's girls who had been invited to the Assassins' School for a Very Special Lecture. Mother Superior had agreed to the idea as, you know, a bit of an experiment, an exchange visit. And if Mary Conception is going to teach this sort of thing here, better she learns too. From the experts. And dear me. Miss Conception. How do they think of these things?

Twenty or so of what Mother insisted should be sensible girls, good advertisements for the School, had been sent across the City with a teaching nun to escort. And now they were a gaggle of white blouses and raspberry-red blonketts, standing out among the all-black of the Assassins and attracting attention. Bekki was fascinated by the really old school around her, which exuded class and style and assurance from every stone and every architectural feature. She felt a pang, well, more a memory of an old pang, really, that she'd been rejected as a student here. She wondered how her life might have been if she'd come here to go to school. Standing over there as one of the Assassin girls who were curiously regarding the intruders, not in a hostile way, just curious.

I wonder if any of them are asking themselves, right now, how it might be if their parents had sent them to Sek's…

She'd seen her mother, in the distance. Bekki had been impressed by the aura of respect her mother projected around her. Then again, this seemed to be standard for AGS teachers wearing the purple sash. Pupils stood up straighter, made way respectfully, looked more alert and diligent, with a great big atmosphere of "Whoever Doctor Smith-Rhodes notices and shouts at, Gods, I hope it isn't me."

Even Sister Mary Conception had noticed this; she had an expression on her face that spoke words. Which Bekki heard as "how do they do that? I wish I could do the same with some of mine…"

There was no intermingling among the two sets of schoolgirls. Bekki didn't expect much. It was sort of tribal: different schools, different traditions, different uniforms, different everything. Different gangs. Her friend Davvie Bellamy had said hello, in an awkward sort of way, then gone back to her set. Shauna O'Hennigan had called "Don't be a stranger, now, Davvie!"

Which was as near as it could get to acknowledging friendships outside their respective schools. Out of uniform and in civilian clothes, there were friendships. But not here, in uniform. Some things were understood.

And there were challenges too. Dominance rituals. One of the Assassin schoolgirls, backed by her sniggering friends, was being a pain.

"I see we've got the peasants in." the girl said, sneeringly. "The gods-botherers from Seven-Handed Sek's. Talk about lowering the tone and letting the hoi-polloi in for the day!"

She expanded on this theme as her gang sniggered.

Bekki gave her a Look.

Hou jou lyn en staan jou man, she thought, glaring back. She thought she recognised the girl: Carenza Venturi, a relative of the unspeakable and odious Parsifal.

"And not just hoi-polloi. Colonials. Bloody smelly wogs." Carenza added, nastily. She made a holding-my-nose-there's-a-bad-smell-in-the-room mime, and sniggered at Shamsa Patel, who was a Ghatian. Shamsa was excused the blonkett hat on the grounds of culture and ethnicity. She was allowed to wear a sari in the School colours and a headscarf. The other girls envied her and thought she looked exotically pretty.

Bekki took a step forward. She didn't usually like hitting people. But just this once… if she was related to Parsifal, it was justified.

Shamsa was shuffling uneasily, not sure of what to do. Bekki felt angry about this on its own. She really didn't like bullies.

"Colonials, you say." Shauna said. Shauna was tough, street, self-assured. "Well, now there's a thing. I'm a colonial too, although I'm sneaky about it as I've got a white skin. I pass for human in a crowd."

She stepped forward and eyeballed Carenza.

"I'm just off the bog in Hergen. I'm a colshie bogtrotter reeking of peat who only eats cabbage and bacon and the odd potato. When there isn't a famine going on. But hey, let's be reasonable. Everybody knows the Famines were down to we Hergenians being lazy shiftless fecks who sat on our arses and expected to be fed."

Shauna stepped forward again.

"Nothing to do with absentee landlords like for instance the Venturis, who still wanted their bloody rents, regardless. And you know, my darling girl, when they call us a bunch of primitive tribal people who like a good fight and have a complete chip on our shoulder about Morporkians and who fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, then you know something?"

She leaned forwards and put her face very close to Carenza's.

"They could be right!"

She waited for Carenza Venturi to recoil slightly, then nodded to Bekki.

"And my associate here is a nasty smelly Boor from Howondaland who's never heard about soap in her whole life, isn't that right, my darling? One of another horrible tribe who nonetheless still managed to take a Morporkian army, and kick its fecking arse all the way out of Howondaland. She's a colonial too."

One of Carenza's brighter friends was looking at Bekki, who was putting a glare on. It appeared to have registered with her as to why a red-haired Howondalandian who glared like that was so horribly familiar. She was trying to get Carenza's attention by tugging at her arm.

Bekki grinned. She put on a Howondalandian accent, sensing this was expected of her.

"I do not go running to my mother to solve my problems for me." she said. "My mother might teach here, ja. But she raised me to be self-reliant end to solve little problems like this for myself. Maar, we're a self-reliant volk."

The Assassin bullies were backing off now. Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed teachers moving to the source of potential trouble.

"Shauna.." she said, in warning.

Shauna had taken a box of matches out from somewhere and was considering it thoughtfully.

"You know. The Venturi family owned a lot of estates in Hergen. Collected a lot of rents. Let a lot of people die during the Famines. Didn't matter, as long as the rent was on time. Sixty years later we had a War of Independence. We got to burn down the country seat of the Venturis. Just to make a wee tiny bit of a point."

Shauna lit a match and flicked it at Carenza, who leapt away yelping.

"Crackle crackle, boom boom, sizzle, sizzle." she said.

"What's going on here?" a voice said. Bekki was impressed with the way the matchbox suddenly disappeared.

It was one of the purple sashes. Plus Sister Mary Conception.

"We're guests in this place." the nun said. "Whatever has been happening here. Behave!"

The teaching nun rested her hand on the long wooden ruler tucked through her belt. Nuns wore the Rule as an essential item of dress, in much the same way Assassins wore swords. And in much the same place, so as to be able to draw quickly. This was not lost on the Assassin teacher, who was young, well, youngish, and who wore big round glasses and large impractical-looking earrings.

Bekki wasn't fooled. Teachers who wore glasses could be the biggest cows out. Evil.

"Miss Venturi." her teacher said. "Were you making comment again? Unwise comment? Well, it appears you've been given a lesson in what happens when you get over-confident."

Miss Gillian Lansbury looked over Bekki, Shauna and Shamsa. Bekki realised that if you knew Carenza Venturi, say by having taught her for some years, you would not need to be a genius to realise the sort of unwise comment she might make.

She looked back at Carenza Venturi. It was not a sympathetic look.

"Learn from it." Gillian said. "And any further disturbance will be punished."

"Miss O'Hennigan." Sister Mary Conception said, sternly. "You are a guest in this place. Behave like one. And if that was a box of matches I saw in your hand just now, I'm just betting there might be a packet of cigarettes in there too. Just a thought I have, you understand. Don't let me have to search you."

She patted the ruler at her waist, meaningfully. Practically every girl in the area shuddered, not just those from SHS. Everyone knew what a nun with a long wooden ruler in her hand was capable of. Even Assassins.

Miss Gillian Lansbury looked down reflectively.

"If you feel you need to actually use that ruler to enforce good order, Sister, then be my guest." She said. "On anyone you like, not just your own pupils. I'll support your professional judgement completely."

Ouch. Assassin teachers could get inventively nasty…

The drama over, a couple of hundred girls were directed into the big lecture theatre. A group of teachers sat at the back, to observe. These included Sister Mary Conception.

And then they got The Lecture. This was the point of the day. The friendly and smiling Matron Igorina delivered it. Mercilessly. With lots of long detailed descriptions and iconograph slides.

Bekki already knew some of this stuff and had even had a little practical exposure to it, because of her ongoing Witch training, Seeing Practice, and spending time at the Zoo. She appreciated it was aversion therapy as well as teaching. But the effects on the other girls…

She also appreciated this was teaching for Sister Mary Conception too. She had been tasked, as one of the lowest nuns in the hierarchy, with delivering Personal and Social Development to SHS girls. It was just that she wasn't especially good at it. It had been mortifying to watch her stumble through her own version of The Lecture, red-faced with embarrassment.

Bekki had described this to her mother that evening and had said she felt a bit sorry for the nun. Who was actually really nice and didn't deserve this. Mum had looked thoughtful and reflective. Then she'd gone off to talk to people.

A day or two later, Mother Superior had said, at Assembly, that colleagues at the Assassins' Guild School were being very kind and understanding, and we would be sending a carefully selected party there to attend a special lecture. If all went well and there were good reports, she hoped to send every girl in the School to sit in.

"It will be good for you." she had said.

Over a hundred girls filed quietly out of the lecture theatre at the end. Some were pale and shuddering. Matron Igorina's teaching had been thorough.

"Faith." Shauna had said. "I can see what they're doing here. They're trying to recruit some new nuns. You know. The vow of chastity is pretty attractive after all that!"

Bekki had been relatively unaffected. The only other SHS girl to have sauntered unaffected through it all had been Joyce. She found Bekki, and asked, in puzzled tones, what all the fuss was about. You needed to know these things, and anyway, she, Joyce, already had a pretty good idea. You know, through Mum. And people at her work.

Bekki understood. Joyce was the daughter of a Seamstress. A good one, who made a living at it. Bekki had thought about this. Joyce and her sisters never went without. There was always a good dinner on the table. Their clothes were good and they each had more than one pair of shoes, none with holes in. Joyce's mum was kind, loving, caring and a really good mother to have. It was a loving home to be brought up in. So she worked a specialised sort of night shift two or three times a week. Bekki thought about this. Her own mother sometimes worked night shifts too. In her profession, it was expected.

But people still looked down on Joyce because of her mum. Shauna said that was fecken' shite, and had invited her to join the misfits, the awkward squad. The ones who didn't quite fit. Shauna's gang. The group who made their teachers wary and watchful.

Bekki realised it didn't make a difference at all. Her mother had killed people for a living. It didn't make her a bad person. Not at all. So Joyce's mother did something else to men for a living. So what. We all had to live.

Well, apart from some of Mum's customers. At least customers of Joyce's mum got to walk away afterwards. Which might make Joyce's mum more moral? Bekki pushed it away. These were big questions.

And then Bekki had another milestone in her life. She did her first birthing. Solo. It had actually been Shauna's mum. Shauna lived in a big, chaotic, but loving, household. The O'Hennigans didn't have too much money to clink together, but they managed. Shauna's dad was a wiry little man who worked on building sites. He'd managed to father nine children. Shauna's mum was big with what would be the tenth. She said, dismissively, she was used to all that sort of thing by now. And your mum only has three, darling? Small family. Ah well. Bekki had been a guest in the chaos, with Shauna's older brothers and sisters bringing in what they could to help out, her younger siblings playing about their feet, living in a sort of cheerful Hergenian poverty and living from day to day. Any interaction between the siblings generally involved a physical rough-and-tumble, and they tended to use swear words almost as punctuation.

Bekki liked it there. She also really liked the diet of mutton-and-veg stew, baked potatoes, or bacon-and-cabbage. It was different to Dorothea's meals at home, more basic, but it was warm and filling and from the heart.

And then, one evening, it had started happening. Shauna's dad had rushed out to see if he could get somebody from the Lady Sybil. Bekki realised, with horror, that having a Clacks link at home was the exception rather than the norm. Here, they'd have to summon emergency help the old-fashioned way. Bekki focused on getting Shauna to assist with helping her mother up to a bedroom, and detailing other family members to do other things that were necessary. If only to get them out of the way.

Bekki, thirteen, had realised. And taken charge. She'd done the theory. She knew what to do. She hoped. And the important thing was to take charge. And in the next couple of hours, she knew she'd taken one big giant step closer to becoming a Witch.

Eventually, a medical crew from the Lady Sybil turned up with a midwife. To find they'd missed the birth by a long way. The mother was sitting up in bed with a carefully bathed baby daughter, looking tired and happy. A teenage witch was sitting by the bed with a thousand-yard stare. Somehow she'd done it. Don't ask her how.

"You're too late." Mrs O'Hennigan said to the midwife. "This bossy little madam took over, and started shouting at people. Told my Shauna to stop flapping around and to feck off out of it if she had nothing to contribute. And she fecked off, too, so she did. Without arguing."

She looked over at Bekki.

"You needed the odd little prompt, darling. But you did well. I reckon bossy little madam is another word for witch."

The child was called Rebecka. This was expected too.

"So you birthed a child." Godsmother Irena said. "Well done. Now get cracking on mixing up those salves."

Bekki sighed. Olga Romanoff smiled slightly.

"What? You're expecting a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates or something and the hearty congratulations of every Witch on the Disc who'll line up to shake your hand? Doesn't work that way, devyuschka. You were there where you were needed and you did the job in front of you. That's witchcraft. Now those salves aren't going to make themselves."

"Didn't do badly, though." Irena agreed.

"Not a complete disaster, no." said Olga. "You get better at it with every one you do. And it was a straightforward birthing with an experienced mother. Just be thankful it wasn't a bad one. That's when you know if you're a witch or not."

"Did you make a wish?" Irena asked. Bekki shook her head.

"Tcch. Just remember to attend the Naming. Good manners. And put a Blessing on. You'll know what to say."

"Oh, and put the kettle on sometime soon, Bekki?" Irena added. "Get the samovar going. Spassibo."

Just another evening at the Watch Steading…

But at least, after doing her first birthing, Godsmother Irena had decided it was time for other aspects of her training. Irena had sat down over a drink with mum and dad. Bekki had not been included. Mum had been anxious after the birth, expressing misgivings about Bekki growing up too soon. Irena had explained that a lot of witches start younger and thirteen, out in somewhere like Lancre or the Chalk, is thought of as a bit late to do a birthing. Mistress Aching of the Chalk, by all accounts, had done one when she was eleven. And by the way, Ponder, she might be dropping by sometime soon. Is it alright if she meets Bekki?

Irena had then persuaded her parents considering Another Thing. Bekki had been summoned out to the back garden. Her parents were there. Mum looked anxious. Dad looked proud.

She saw Irena with a broomstick that looked longer and heavier than the usual model. It was hovering in neutral a few feet above the grass.

Irena, without ceremony, handed over a set of thick flying gloves, a set of goggles, and one of the swept-back slightly truncated pointy hats that Watch witches wore. It was Bekki's first pointy hat. She turned it in her hands for a moment or two.

"Wear a thick coat." she said. "It can get cold up there. And put these on."

And, a little later,

"No. Front seat. I'm going pillion. Don't get any big ideas, though. I've got an over-ride if you get into trouble. Dual control. Twin-seat trainer."

And a broomstick ascended, slowly, uncertainly, and shakily. She looked down to see her parents waving her off. Bekki noted how her mother looked so small and worried from up here. But at least Dad, who knew about flying, appeared to be reassuring her. Then she started paying attention to things like trim and banking and artificial horizon. All the new vocabulary items that Irena was expecting her to get to grips with, very quickly. She wished there was a handy glossary somewhere to refer to.

Ankh-Morpork started to spread out all around her, unfolding as she ascended, and she looked down at her city from above. She wondered if over there, those were the Ramtop Mountains beginning to show, in the unguessable distance to the Hubwards. And over there, the grey-green expanse of the Circle Sea with small and frail looking ships on it…

"We're not up here for sight-seeing, devyuschka." said the voice from behind her. "Focus, Raise the nose. Should be a few degrees above the bristles. Keep it raised. That take-off was bloody awful, by the way. It will improve. Now show me how you'd go about doing a starboard turn. On the flat. We can do a climbing turn later. Just the basics for now. Go!"

And her flying lessons began.

"You'll go solo when you're fit to." Godsmother Irena said. "When I think you're ready. Which, based on your performance so far, will not be for a long time yet. This is an expensive precision broomstick, it's the property of the Air Police, and you would not believe the paperwork to be filled in if some dumb novice pilot tries to fly it underground, and wrecks one."

Irena smiled a reassuring smile.

"And I don't intend to be the one who has to go to your mother and say "err… Johanna? Was Rebecka insured?" or "At least you've still got two other daughters, Johanna." Your mum is the sort of lady who would, in those circumstances, be extremely inclined to shoot the messenger. No doubt very accurately and with extreme prejudice. And I do have plans to live a long happy life."

Irena patted Bekki's forearm.

"So it's dual-seaters with an instructor. For however long it takes. Now shall we clock up another hour?"

In this way, Bekki started clocking up flying hours. Irena insisted she fill in a log-book, as it was a vital discipline. She dutifully completed it after every flight. Sometimes Olga or Nottie or one of the Service's part-time pilot-witches took her up. Every Pegasus had its pilot. The only people who could ride the flying horses were witches. It was understood that the informal price for a Lancre Witch to pay, on bonding to her Pegasus, was to fly for the Pegasus Service. Not every Service pilot was also a watchwoman. Quite a few also ran Steadings in Lancre or the Chalk. This was accepted. Those witches were rostered to work for the Service as part-time pilots, for one or two shifts a week. They did their share of the long runs with a navigating Feegle, as authorised representatives either of Lord Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork or of King Verence of Lancre, or sometimes of both.

These part-time pilots were younger witches who'd graduated from the informal training school in Lancre. Half the time they were only a few years older than Bekki. The witches she flew with on these occasions, to get her broomstick hours up and build her experience, were happy to tell her about the ever-changing training coven, a sort of informal University. How it operated, how trainee Witches were rotated around steadings and supervising senior witches for an indefinite period, until they were judged Ready to take on a Steading of their own.

"Daresay it'll happen to you before too long." Deleria Tremmence remarked as they flew. "Although you've already had a lot of training with the girls here."

Bekki gathered that the average starting age for girls in the Lancre School was usually twelve or thirteen. She frowned, considering this. She was tied to SHS until the age of at least sixteen, when she'd be taking the usual school-end exams in the usual sorts of subjects. So she wasn't likely to be going to Lancre till her schooling was over. Which would make her impossibly old and possibly geriatric compared to her peers there.

Deleria made a guess at her thoughts.

"Olga and Irena were late arrivals." she said. "In the first coven. The one that had Tiffany Aching in it. Oh, they were so lucky! They'd had a couple of years studying with a Witch in Far Überwald. Then they spent a year crossing the continent to get to Lancre. They were both over fifteen when they got to knock on Mistress Weatherwax's back door. Ask them. They said they'd been part of the group, but just stood back and did their own thing and let the younger girls bitch-fight it out as to who got to be leader. Foreign and fifteen, you see, among lots of local girls of twelve or thirteen. Didn't quite fit. The others din't quite know what to do with them, and by all accounts they told Anngramma Hawkins flat-out that if she tried it on with them, they'd drop her in the govno from a great height. Head-first. So Annagramma just pretended they didn't exist, and they were happy to let her do that. When Sam Vimes passed through and said he was short of pilots for the Air Police – well, they joined the Watch. Just to get to spend all their time flying. And here they are now."

"How do you get a Pegasus?" Bekki asked. The flying horses fascinated her. She spent as much time as she could get away with in the stables with them, grooming, feeding, and mucking out. But she'd discovered that although they'd let her mount and sit on their backs, they were deaf and unresponsive to any commands or prompts. Bekki, who'd been riding since she was five, felt put out by this.

"Natural you should try." Olga Romanoff had said. "Don't blame you. But she'll let you sit up there for as long as you like. And that's all you can ever do. The only person a Pegasus will respond to is the witch she's bonded to. Right now, as far as she's concerned, you're just a saddlebag. Neither here nor there. You are not her witch. That's all there is to it. Now over here, I see a wheelbarrow and a shovel. And nobody's using either."

Deleria had explained. There was a very special horse-stud in Lancre. The original two Pegasii, one male, one female, had both ended up doing what came naturally with perfectly normal unmagical horses. The Pegasus stallion had been quite enthusiastic about it, in fact, and had covered lots of mares. She, Deleria didn't need to draw a picture? Anyway. Most of the resulting foals had apparently been just normal wingless horses. But every so often you got a foal with folded-back wings. A special, precious, horse. And it had been discovered that if a witch got in first with water and fodder – that foal would then bond to that witch. Who could fly the new Pegasus.

Lord Vetinari had acted quickly, made a treaty with King Verence, and in essentials, it had been agreed that all Pegasii foaled in Lancre were the property of Verence, King of Lancre. Who then graciously leased them out to Ankh-Morpork. Ankh-Morpork them paid generously to lease the royal property, on the understanding no other nation got them.

But the wingèd horses really belonged to the witches they were bonded to. This was understood too. Those witches then graciously consented to fly them on missions for Ankh-Morpork and Lancre. Getting to see the world was a draw, too. Olga Romanoff was well thought of in witchdom, and was seen as the flying Witch par excellence. Irena Politek wasn't far behind. And Ankh-Morpork was the acknowledged centre of the Discworld's broomstick technomancy. Any witch with an interest in flight wanted to come here. To learn. To see and to fly the best. To be at the cutting edge of flight. Working for the Pegasus Service or the Air Police, even part-time as a Special, was the necessary pay-off.

"That's how it works, basically." Deleria said. "For me, I run a steading in Sore Bottom. With the neighbouring hamlet of Butt's Rest. Don't ask. Please. Getting to fly for one or two days a week or to run long missions with a Feegle navigator – well, that's my time. It's rest and relaxation. I like it. Keeps me sane. And if the mission is giving a few more flying hours to a trainee witch, that's good too."

They were drinking tea, sitting on the parapet of Pseudopolis Yard, watching the city go by underneath. Bekki let her legs swing, considering the drop. She was aware of a group of trainee Assassins, edificeering the side of the Opera House. She was pretty sure that was Godsmother Alice supervising them. That long lean tall figure was pretty much unmistakeable, chiding and encouraging her group of students in their climb. (1) She watched the Assassins for a while, feeling neither regret or jealousy for a life missed, a life that might have been. That was how things might have been. Once. But she was certain she'd never have learnt to fly. Assassins, clever and resourceful people that they were, could not fly.

Bekki smiled. She thought she was getting the better deal, all things considered. She could fly. They had to climb.

(1) Assassins did not edificeer on the sides or roof of Pseudopolis Yard. It was held to be prudent.

Notes Dump:

Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.