Strandpiel 20: Winterwinde (winter winds)

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, now easing, 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 in the ongoing saga. Go to my archive and read. You know you want to.

Edit: damn. The usual crop of missed typos and that FF thing where whole chunks of text are randomly snipped out. Revising and checking.

The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork.

Lord Vetinari accepted the mug of tea with a nod of thanks. He returned to reading the foreign affairs briefings that the relevant Secretariat had prepared for him. Occasionally he cross-referenced what he was reading to a report from his Ambassador which had arrived that morning via Pegasus, along with a selection of the local newspapers from that country.

Rufus Drumknott stood back and observed the slightly amused look his boss was allowing to show on his face. It was clear the Patrician found the situation both informative and entertaining.

Vetinari looked up.

"I do appreciate the concept of democracy, Drumknott." he remarked. "So very instructive to observe from a distance. And it provides ample entertainment on a grey overcast winter morning."

"The forthcoming General Election in Rimwards Howondaland, sir?" Rufus Drumknott asked, politely.

"Indeed, Drumknott. I am observing closely. As it involves a possible change of government in a nation which is our closest regional ally, it is best to be prepared and to evaluate the possible nature of a new governing party, together with the strengths and weaknesses of the men who will comprise it."

Vetinari smiled gnomically.

"And I do so enjoy watching other nations attempt to make the democratic ideal work. It is always, inevitably, flawed and imperfect."

"And this nation…" Drumknott said, thoughtfully.

"Indeed, Drumknott. This nation. With contending players and political parties. On the one hand, the National Party and a cluster of fellow travellers. Which is the political grouping representing that approximate half of the white-skinned population who speak Vondalaans and descend, in the main, from Sto Kerrig. On the other hand, the Democratic Union Party. Who represent the other approximate half of the white population who speak Morporkian and descend, in the main, from Ankh-Morpork. Who have lived in a spirit of mutually held mistrust and misunderstanding of each other's cultural values since the, ah, Boor War. Neither can command a majority on its own in the Volksraad, the House of Assembly."

"And the fact the legislature has two names, in two different languages, says much about the country." Drumknott remarked. Vetinari smiled again.

"I suspect the only thing holding the Union together is a shared understanding that the alternative, for White Howondaland, is even more unspeakable then having to share power with the other white ethnicity." Vetinari remarked. "The Zulu Empire on one side and the Matabele kingdoms on the other. At least both white parties look at the other and can say – at least you are also white."

"And of course democracy there is conditional." Drumknott said. "The vote is conditional on your being a property owner, white and male."

"As I once remarked to the nation's then president, it does rather simplify things if you only have to solicit the active support of one in fifteen of your people once every few years." Vetinari remarked. "Louis van Baalsteufel was also somewhat embarrassed when I said that a system which excludes capable and intelligent women from standing for office appears to impose a self-inflicted limitation."

"You did ask him to contemplate, for instance, Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes in a position of political influence, sir." Drumknott said.

Vetinari smiled a satisfied smile.

"Allow me some little pleasures, Drumknott. While I happen to suspect Doctor Smith-Rhodes is far too intelligent and has better and more fulfilling things to do than to stand for political office in a country she left over twenty years ago, it could only benefit her nation immeasurably."

"Ah. The Smith-Rhodes family. Who have indeed been very active in their nation."

"Yes, Drumknott. I can't help noticing one or two family members are standing for election. As Members of the Volksraad. I suspect Mr Charles Smith-Rhodes is being active in the background, as is his wont."

Constantia, Caarp Province, Rimwards Howondaland.

Julian Smith-Rhodes, decorated war hero, diplomat and civil servant, put down the briefing documents his father had landed on him, grateful for a break. They were hard going. And the next month or so and a new career direction would be hard work. Chloe placed a hand on each shoulder and kissed him fondly. She smiled at him with guileless wifely devotion.

Julian sighed slightly. It wasn't a bad marriage. It could have been utterly unspeakable. He also felt the throb of guilt again. It wouldn't have been so bad that their respective families had forced a marriage of convenience on them, if Chloe was also awake to the possibilities. If she'd been the sort of woman he could have made a frank agreement with, along the lines of "Look, this is an arranged marriage. We have to live with each other. We like each other and find things to appreciate in each other, so that isn't a bad deal. When we've had, say, two children, we each live our own lives and discreetly do as we like. Very quietly see other people, if that's what we want. No jealousy, no recrimination. And be a married couple in public, as is expected. Privately – two friends in a house-sharing agreement. Or something."

The problem was – Chloe was in love with him. Crazy about him. Julian felt the stab of guilt again, for not being able to feel the same way back. He was fond of her. Liked her. A nice well-brought up but somewhat sheltered girl. Too innocent. Despite the fact her brothers were unspeakable oafs, she'd turned out nice. Too nice. He didn't want to hurt her. And he was scared he would. And she wasn't… he put the thought out of his head. That was over. Gone. It belonged in Ankh-Morpork. Different realities applied here. Very different local realities. Julian Smith-Rhodes sighed. It was worrying him that the older he got, the more like his father he was becoming.

Highmost Pigmanhey, Lancre

The pre-winter work was almost done. The butchering and slaughtering was winding down. The harvest of pigs, painstakingly reared over spring and summer. Bekki knew this was, at bottom, what meat farming was all about. Death was part of the cycle. Something farmers – and witches – had to do. And you didn't want surplus stock over the winter. You planned carefully, very carefully, so that sufficient, and irreplaceable, fodder was there, in store, to sustain a nucleus. To build again with in spring, when new piglets would be weaned to start the process again.

The porcine population of the farm had therefore diminished by a good three-quarters. Those allowed life were the best, the breeders, the prime specimens. Over the winter months new piglets would start arriving in the safe warm heated sheds and barns. This would accelerate, as green returned to the world. And nine or ten months later, most of the new stock would be on its way to butchers' shelves.

And over winter, they'd be occupied with cleaning the vacant sties and piggeries, repairing, making good, tidying. Tending the prime breeding stock, sort of seed-corn, who remained. The cycle of the agricultural year.

Petulia Gristle understood this. Pigs were her whole world. Her area of expertise. A woman who could still "um" and "err" a lot in company became totally self-assured and certain when around pigs and managing a pig farm.

"Right, these are yours, Bekki." she said, as another four or five pigs were driven into the shed. "Get cracking."

Bekki smiled slightly and unfolded the newspaper.

"Haal jou ore op en luister. Dit is interessant ..." she said, in the most monotone and flat voice she could manage. She then started reading the pigs the current Stock Exchange reports from the Bourse in Pratoria, emphasising which listed companies were rising and which were falling, what the percentage rise and fall in share values was, and how it was based on company performance and the standard economic indicators, even reading company press releases devised to justify their mid-term performance, the sort of bland corporate things devised by committee as agreed press releases...

After a while there was the dull slapping thud of a pig losing the will to live and keeling over sideways. Petulia nodded to the waiting farmhands, who stepped forwards to manhandle the carcass onto a stretcher and hurry it away to the butchering shed. Gouther Mossock and the other men would do the necessary preliminary work, and then the rest of the pig would go to a waiting line of men and women who would hasten its component parts towards the butchers' counters.

"It's humane." Petulia had said. "And better than the other method. You know, a really sharp knife."

Bekki understood. Pig-boring was an old craft skill. Terminal anaesthesia. She was glad she hadn't needed to use her machete. Messy, and it frightened the other pigs and made them harder to handle. Pig-boring had its hazards: even the two witches weren't fully immune to it. She and Petulia could really only work on them in batches of four or five at a time, before recognising the first signs of ennui and lethargy in themselves. At this point they'd taken a break, walked out into the clean open air, and done other jobs whilst the latest batch of terminally catatonic pork was being dealt with in the butchery shed.

"Do the necessary, Bekki?" Petulia had asked, indicating the large transit crates which were packed with meat produce. These would be carted down to Hot Dang to meet the eleven o'clock train and would be in Ankh-Morpork no later than eight or nine the following morning, to go to butchers' shops and delicatessens. Ten hours or so in transit, in winter, meant the meat was still good when it arrived. A local agent handled the sales(1), and the farm's bank account would be quite a lot better off as a result.

Bekki nodded. She focused. It was a wizard-spell she'd learnt from her father. Even though Dad hadn't known at the time that she was watching and learning. She'd watched him. When the big metal cabinets had been installed in the kitchen. Dad had rested a hand on the metal, focused somehow, and there'd been a flash of octarine. Nothing else had apparently happened. Bekki had been dissappointed by the lack of drama. Dorothea the cook had smiled and accepted it as an eveeryday commmonplace. Dad had turned round and said to Dorothea "Give it a couple of hours for the temperature to adjust. It should last a couple of months, then I can renew the spell". Intrigued, Bekki had returned to the kitchen a few hours later and investigated.

To her surprise, the long low chest, when she lifted the lid, was showing a bloom of frost on the inside walls and the underside of the lid. Various packages and bundles placed inside were now obscured by a bloom of frost. A gust of cold icy air met her face. She had closed the lid. The inside of the tall cabinet was not as drastic. Dorothea was storing things like milk and cheese and cream in there. But it was still a lot, lot, colder inside the cabinet, than the hot summer day outside the house...

Bekki had gone out into the garden, lost in thought. It had been a baking summer day. It was still hot. She could remember the old dry syllables her father had spoken. She experimented with a couple of empty flower pots. To her surprise one became unbearably cold to the touch and then shattered. The fragments developed a fast patina of frost, which fought the summer sun for a surprisingly long time before fading. She thought for a moment or two about how to adjust, then toned it down for the second one. She could still hold this one, even though ice crystals were forming inside. After a little more experimentation, she learnt to really control the temperature. Then her father found her, and said "Bekki..." in his "You're playing with magic again, aren't you?" voice. He hadn't been annoyed, just concerned. Dad was like that.

"Gydaire's Portable Cold Store." she said, to Petulia, as the first of the transit boxes for the meat became noticably cooler. "Apparently devized by a Wizard called Fred Gydaire."

"Well. Whatever they call it, it works." Petulia said. She considered a witch who'd learnt a bit of practical wizard-magic, the useful kind, was an asset. Especially when it came to safely moving meat that would be in transit for at least nine hours, probably more, via the Rail Ways. Doable in early winter – hazardous in Summer. In the warmer months they would send sub-herds of live pigs by train for slaughter in Ankh-Morpork. It reduced the profit margin, but it was the only way. Until now. Bekki was teaching her this spell. Petulia frowned. Wasn't the trainee witch meant to learn from the senior and not the other way round? But this one was a wizard's daughter... and not just any wizard...

Ponder Stibbons devised spells that worked. Or else he took dangerous spells devised by other wizards, and made them into useful, practical, spells, the sort that worked reliably and safely. Not many wizards could do this, apparently. Or were inclined to do it. It was one of the reasons why Bekki's father had ascended to his current position. He thought about magic, over and above the "Hey, let's fire this one up and see what it does. Maybe we can zap somebody!" level. Discovering his daughter had the same streak, he'd provided supervised training, and explained the need for caution. Bekki had learnt quite a lot of useful wizard-spells.

"Come on. Let's fill in the declaration forms." Petulia said. "Get it over with."

Goods in transit by rail or Post Office had to be clearly labelled with contents. They also needed to be clearly labelled and have the appropriate hazard sticker applied to them where they contained magic. Just in case.

Bekki applied herself to the necessary bureaucracy which, these days, applied to the practice of magic.

Hmm. Raw meat in transit. Forty pounds of butchered and prepared pork produce...

And Magic used? Tick box for "yes".

Describe magic used in full:

Name: Fred Gydaire's Portable Cold Store.

Description: temperature re-adjustment spell, Level Two, to lower ambient temperature by thirty degrees so as to preserve meat produce.

Special Instructions: will last up to three days. Inert and will not adversely react with or cross-contaminate other forms of magic. EXCEPTION: Do not store near a heat source or any item carrying a heating spell. (2)

Bekki sighed. Her father had been part of the advisory group setting up these regulations for magical items in transit. The Post Office and the Rail Ways had insisted. She could see the logic of it, but it just created work.

She also noted one of the large transit boxes was addressed to her parents. Well, I hope everybody likes pork. There's a lot of it here. Bekki took special care with this one, adding a couple of protection spells and anti-theft charms.

Then, with a spare few minutes while Petulia was brewing tea for them both, she took a few moments to read a slightly creased and battered newspaper Mum had sent on to her, which had already travelled several thousand miles from Home. It was a fairly recent copy of die Burgher en Volksblatt, a Pratoria paper. Mum sent these on to her if there was interesting stuff in it, often to do with Family. And a cousin – well, a second cousin, but that's just detail – wrote for this paper. Suki's stuff was always entertaining. Lurid sometimes, but entertaining.

Bekki wondered what it was this time. All she'd done, all she'd had time to do, had been to open it up to the Business pages for the stock market prices, for use in pig-boring. Petulia had agreed this had a touch of inventive genius to it. She'd simply been too busy to look at the rest.

She leafed through the pages. Hmmm. A man called Stukki van der Merwe had been arrested for indecent exposure. The punning headline – and why was she not surprised – made a lot of the rhyme perceived with the word perverte.(3). There appeared to be no way to prevent journalists from doing things like this.

Leefstylkeuses, the Lifestyle pages. Oh, very funny newspaper pun. Braaidag for Vrydag, Friday. The expectation that with the working week over, all you want to do is get out there and fire up the grill.

Bekki sighed. She was sitting on an upturned log in a farmyard in Lancre in early winter. Try having a braai out here and see how far you get. It'll still be fairly warm in Howondaland right now...

Then she worked in to the political news. She read and blinked.

Retired Ambassador Pieter van der Graaf, who served with great distinction in the Diplomatic Service for thirty-six years and was our Nation's ambassador to Ankh-Morpork, is expected to easily take the Volksraad seat of Hartenbos for the National Unity party. As neither of the main parties is expected to gain an overall majority, whichever party wins most seats will need to form a coalition with the smaller National Unity party to form a working Government. Mr van der Graaf may well then be a candidate as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, thus returning to his former employer as the man at the very top...

Bekki wished her great-uncle very good luck in his political career. She wondered what had made him come out of retirement. Having to live with Aunt Friejda for twenty-four and eight, perhaps? He might feel a need to get out of the house... she wondered why she was thinking this way. Her mother would be the first to make a snarky remark like that.

She noted the editorial was all in favour of a man like Uncle Pieter steering and deciding foreign policy for a whole country, and strongly advocated that whoever formed the next government should appoint an experienced former Ambassador who was extremely well regarded, especially in Ankh-Morpork where he had lived and worked for so long. In the opinion of the newspaper, her great-uncle was the perfect man for the job, and should be appointed forthwith.

She smiled. Then gasped at the next item.

Another potential rising star in politics is the renowned war hero, decorated twice for his bravery in battle, Julian Smith-Rhodes. Son of the powerful and influential man of affairs Charles Smith-Rhodes, and having spent eleven years honing his diplomatic skills in postings to the prestigious Embassies in Ankh-Morpork and Quirm, Major Smith-Rhodes is reported to have said that a career in politics is the natural next step and he is looking forward to the challenges, if elected, of representing the Bitterfontein constituency...

The newspaper then trumpeted a long interview with the glittering society couple Julian and Chloe Smith-Rhodes, the handsome war hero and his beautiful heiress wife, in their happy marital home in Constantia. Interview by Suki van der Graaf on pages 32-33...

Cousin Suki interviewing a Family member for her newspaper, who is standing for Parliament. That's nice. Then Bekki frowned. She had a picture of her mother, standing there with That Look on her face, saying "Nice you should think that way, Bekki. That's sweet and I love my trusting, gentle, and somewhat naive daughter who tends to think everybody is nice and decent, and nobody has any ulterior motives. But why are you thinking this is all working out very nicely? Ask yourself why it's all working out nicely all round. These things don't just happen."

Ok, mum. What do I need to know? Bekki asked her inner Mum.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes, or the mental picture Bekki had of her mother, smiled in her knowing tolerant way. She spoke slowly and laid out her argument in simple logical steps.

"Cousin Julian is standing for political office. What does he need to succeed in this? Think, Bekki. He needs a majority of votes. Voters need to be swayed. Coincidentally, he is offered a very sympathetic interview indeed, conducted by a journalist who is distantly related to him, who writes well and persuasively, and who is inclined to be sympathetic. And who will convey a positive impression of Julian and his dear wife to her readers, in a paper read by many. People entitled to vote will read this newspaper. They will be more inclined to vote for him. Julian therefore becomes a Volksraad representative. Another step up the ladder. As, perhaps, Uncle Charles intends."

And Uncle Charles is funding his campaign? They tell me standing for political office requires backers. I never paid too much attention before.

The picture of her mother nodded and smiled.

"Maar, you're still only fifteen. Why should you be interested in politics? But now you are thinking straight, Rebecka. Look for the causes of things. You're a witch. You are being trained to use second and third thoughts when you consider situations."

"Dankie, mum." Bekki said. Her mother's image smiled.

"Appreciated. But I'm not your mother. I'm just the image of your mother you carry in your head, based on fifteen years of knowing her. Which is no bad thing. Think of me as your Second Thoughts taking a shape you know, and talking to you as your mother would talk to you, based on all the conversations you have had with her that give you a good idea of what she would say and how she would react. On a good day, I might embody your Third Thoughts too."

Petulia came back with two mugs of tea. Bekki returned to the farmyard and accepted one with thanks.

"Who were you talking to?" Petulia asked. "One of your, er, relatives?"

Petulia had encountered those relatives. She'd had a long chat with some of them, in fact. Bekki grinned. It wasn't the dead Johannas this time. Sort of one of the living ones, filtered through Bekki's own psyche.

"Sort of." Bekki said. "Sorting out a few things in my head. Apparently I've got family who are going into politics. In Howondaland. Not sure how I feel about that."

Bekki showed her the interview with Julian and Chloe. It was a long puff piece, good PR, about a golden couple who featured in the society pages a lot. She spot-translated for Petulia, who had got the gist of it from the iconographs showing the golden couple in their luxury mansion, which Julian described, modestly, as a "starter home suitable for a young couple" that came with the marriage.

"Your Godsfather, isn't he?" Petulia asked. Bekki nodded.

"You miss him." Petulia added. Bekki nodded again. Petulia shoulder-hugged her.

"What's his wife like?" she asked. Bekki shrugged.

"Chloe? Never met her. Mum wasn't able to attend the wedding. Work commitments. My Aunt Mariella attended. She lives not too far away from Caarp Town, you see."

Bekki thought. Auntie Mariella had been very frank and direct in her report to Mum. Auntie Mariella was like that.

"Johanna, she's sweet. She's pleasant. I do like her. But I can't decide if it's because she's naturally a nice girl with not a single unpleasant thought in her body. Or if it's because she's as dim as an Ankh-Morpork street sconce at three in the morning, and shallow as the river Ulunghi in high summer. She really does adore Julian, though. I'm not sure if he's going to find her too clingy and needy. I can't see Julian getting on with that for too long and that's worrying. He might end up feeling suffocated, poor man. And above all, she isn't Ruth."

Petulia heard this out. She nodded, sympathetically.

"Sounds like the girl's been kept in cotton wool until the right potential husband turned up to marry her off to." she said. "Sheltered. Ignorant of a lot of things. Probably badly educated, too. And in that sort of society, daughters are commodities. You get the highest price you can for them. An arranged marriage between two families who are both far too rich for their own good, and both parties standing to inherit millions. There is seriously big money involved here. Forget love. That's a luxury the rich tend not to get. it's for poor people. "

Petulia shook her head.

"You've got to pity the rich. The rest of us think if only we had enough money we'd be happy. The rich have got enough money. They're in a position to realise that idea's utterly wrong. And they do persist in finding new and ingenious ways to make themselves unhappy, despite the handicap of having it all."

Bekki nodded appreciatively. Petulia could be one of the most thoughtful and reflective people out, in her own way. People who couldn't see beyond the superficial "um's" and "errr's" could get surprised by that.

They finished their tea.

"Shall we go and put in a bit in the butchery line?" Petulia suggested. "Looks like those five pigs were the last for now. Not many more barrows and gilts to go, I think. Gowther and the men should have finished the scalding, the searing, the scraping, and the skinning."(4)

The two witches took their place alongside some stolid Lancre women who were industriously butchering. Bekki had been surprised at first as to how little in the Lancre economy depended on cash exchange. Most of these women would go home after a day or two's labour with pork produce to the value of: a consideration in a Lancre winter, and capable of feeding a family for a long time. Petulia and Gouther also bartered pork for an equivalent worth of whatever they needed: flour, butter, milk, cheese, farm tools, tradesmens' services, cloth and leather for clothing, and so on. Pig hides to the local tannery and leatherworkers ensured an equivalent supply of goods coming the other way. A complex system of barter and equivalent worth fuelled the local economy. Tax to King Verence was paid in the form of pork produce to the Castle, as often as not.(5)

Actual cash money was mainly generated by pork sales to Ankh-Morpork. People in the city paid over the odds for lovingly tended free-range farm-reared artisan pork products, as opposed to the nasty soul-less mass produced stuff Sock's Butchers churned out. Petulia took advantage of this.

And when all the slaughter and meat preparation was done, and the last cold-boxes had been sent to the City, when the cold-store at Highmost Pigmanhey was crammed full of ex-pigs for winter, and when the temporary workers had been sent home with their agreed pay in pig produce, the people of Pork Scratching had a Bonefire and a hog-and-beef roast dinner in the open air. And Bekki was forced, albeit cheerfully, to accept she was wrong – you could have a braai in winter. Lancre people managed it.

The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork.

"I understand that the National Unity Party in Rimwards Howondaland is a third-way party that seeks to recruit from Morporkian and Vondalaander alike, and favours neither." Drumknott sad.

"Indeed, Drumknott. In seeking to be open to all and biased towards none, the party is both mis-trusted, and even despised, by most. Yet it invariably manages to win just enough seats to hold the balance of power, forcing one of the major parties to seek its support coalition rule."

Rufus Drumknott agai nattempted to get his head around the notion of democracy. It felt alien to his way of thinking.

"But, sir, why is a man like Charles Smith-Rhodes funding this party? It would seem completely out of character for him to support a losing minority political party. And his own son is standing as an NUP candidate. I have to admit to perplexity."

Vetinari smiled slightly.

"Think about it, Drumknott. Neither the Vondalaander nor the Morporkian party is strong enough on its own to claim power. They are perpetually locked in stalemate. In these circumstances, backing the minority party that holds the key to power is precisely the sort of thing I would expect a man like Charles Smith-Rhodes to do. Without needing to go through the irksome and tedious business of standing for political office himself, he is therefore able to sway the entire course of democracy in Rimwards Howondaland his way. That is the sort of democracy I fully understand and can deal with. And getting his very capable son into a position where he can now learn the business of politics from the inside, and in a few years perhaps be considered for higher political office, is a very worthwhile thing to do. Mr Smith-Rhodes also has a most able person lined up to serve as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in the next government. I do look forward to dealing with Mr van der Graaf again. Drumknott, please research the appropriate token of acknowledgement to send to a man I esteem, who acheives high political office in his own country? Thank you."

To be continued….

(1) The Guild of Butchers, who didn't cheat their members and ensured top dollar. Petulia and Gouther were members.

(2) The meat subjected to Fred Gydaire's cooling spell would not break down if subjected to heat, say if the transit box was put in a train compartment next to a heating pipe. It did mean that any nearby pipes carrying hot steam from the train's boiler to warm the carriages would fail, freeze and catastrophically burst, something the Rail Ways took a dim view of. Any magic whose source codex had been debugged, revised, updated and cleared for use by Ponder Stibbons and HEX was reliable and it worked. Put a cooling spell next to a heating spell, however, and the best outcome would be that the two, if equally strong, would just cancel each other out. Ponder thought this is what would happen. Err. Probably.

(3) the resident songwriter in her Uncle Danie's fifteen-a-side team would make a song about that which would gleefully be bellowed out after the match. A rough translation might go: His name is Stukkie van der Merwe and he's one enormous pervert…. And then the verses would explain the perversions involved, in great and explicit and inventive detail. Yes, there is indeed such a song. (sighs, deeply). The version you'll find on YouTube is fairly clean, however. Yes, I do know the primary translation of "pervert" in Afrikaans is "verdraai". Perverte is given as a secondary alternative, however.

(4) some explanation: a barrow is a castrated boar; a gilt a mature female who hasn't had any litters. These are apparently the prime candidates to slaughter for meat. Your stud boar is safe as the meat is too gamey and somewhat rank. If you want to slaughter an intact boar – you add insult to injury by castrating him first and waiting for about three weeks, as by then the body has flushed out the male hormones causing the meat to be unpleasant. Sows in season are also unpleasant in terms of meat and get a reprieve until they're off heat. Scalding consists of dunking the carcass in boiling water for a short period to soften the skin and render the hair and bristles softe,r so as to be scraped off. With an implement not unlike a wallpaper scraper. Searing is an alternative: lightly burning the outer skin to remove the bristles with fire. Skinning – taking the outer hide off for leather…. And no, I had to look this up too…

(5) it's complicated. It was accepted that witchcraft was a tax-exempt vocation in Lancre. But Queen Magrat was also a witch. Petulia sent her occasional little gifts of pork produce now and again, from one witch to another. By sheer coincidence, that was approximately the same value as the tax she might have paid to King Verence if she were not a witch, and therefore had to pay tax like a normal person. All Witches in Lancre had the same arrangement with Magrat, who was one of their own and who therefore was worthy of the odd token of friendship and appreciation. An unforced thing, as between witches. It all worked out, if people were sensible.

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.

PM from reader Dr Frankenberger:

Perhaps the Assassins are getting a little hung up on expensive high tech non - ferrous equipment (down to being rich ?) when a Guild familiar with explosives would surely be aware of less costly non - ferrous (perhaps copper,bronze or brass) metal tool/weapon options. Major Ffetch - Felix might be able to offer advice.
Great stuff though sir,

Reply:

Good points!

I see the Guild of Assassins as being in the same position as, say, the current American military machine. In a position where virtually unlimited finance is available for R&D and supported by a broadly sympathetic political administration. So they do these sort of things because they can and where money is no obstacle, the tendency is to go for the high-tech solution every time. (A parellel: American special forces, like the Navy Seals and others, are frequently consternated by their British counterparts and concede there is a lot to be learnt from low-tech improvisation - which has always been an SAS/SBS thing. If there's a need for a mission-specific piece of kit, the British approach is to do it as a garage workshop thing and lash it together in a cheerfully McGyver/Heath-Robinson sort of way. Americans tend to outsource it and buy a high-tech solution costing millions. The American way works and it's on the shelf for next time - but, as they admit, so does the British, for a lot less cash. A parallel was when the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force ran the same planes and a possibly fatal flaw occurred when the fuel tank leaked during a certain necessary manoevre - right into the rear-gunner's space and potentially over the red-hot breech of the machine guns. The RAF grounded their fleet of this plane for months and spent a lot of money, the modern equivalent of millions, on a solution. The Navy realised what the problem was straight away and their fix involved a wine cork on a string to plug the hole.

So you can be too clever and too high-tech. The Assassins may not yet realise this. No doubt my so far underused character of Major ffetch-Felix could point this out to them. He might suggest a return to the Bronze Age, perhaps, pointing out that while bronze is softer than iron and it blunts easily, it keeps an edge for just long enough. Maybe that's how the human race evolved bronze in the first place - to get an advance on elves who fought with stone weapons... sheer necessity. Thank you for liking the tales!