Strandpiel 30:- Beperkings - restrictions
Beginning to gather loose threads together and knotting ends of subplots. second revison - tidying and section breaks
Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork:
Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons sat cross-legged on her bed, absorbed in her sketch-book. Every so often she rubbed out a line and amended the drawing. The idea was absorbing her interests, and she was completely focused on getting it right.
Eve the maid, who knew Little Madam's special needs and was prepared to cater to them, had knocked on the door, let herself in, and left a plate of sandwiches and a drink on the table at the bedside. Madam had said it was for the best when Miss Ruth was absorbed in her ideas, just so long as she sat down at table with the rest of the family for one meal a day. Madam insisted on that. To remind her the rest of us exist, Madam had said. And so I can get her halfway socialised. The Professor had mildly said he'd been like that as a boy, too. He could get so absorbed in ideas that he'd forget there was a world out there. Forget to eat, that sort of thing.
Madam had looked at him with amusement.
"And at what age did you stop being a boy, Ponder?" she had asked. Otherwise, Madam had accepted that Miss Ruth was a little girl who had a lot of her father in her. It made her, to Madam, easier to understand and deal with if she treated her youngest child as a version of her husband, albeit one who was not absorbed with things of magic.
Regard Ruth, seven years old and rising to eight. The plate of sandwiches sits, largely untouched, on the bedside table. She has somehow got one of the larger bedrooms in the house as her own. People admit the space is needed in a way neither Rebecka nor Famke required.
That half of the room which is nearest the large rimwards-facing window, the half which catches a lot of natural light, is given over to Art and painting. Ruth is naturally a tidy girl: her paints and brushes and tools are racked methodically on a table and a desk, where she can find things easily. The rearward half of the room, more in shadow, is given over to Music.
While she had an early affinity with the piano, and anything with a keyboard fascinates her – the big piano downstairs has been joined by a harpsichord, a virginal and a celeste – musical instruments of all sorts are accumulating here. People tend to give Ruth musical instruments, you know, its just been gathering dust, and, err... and they all end up here. The process of creating things to make music fascinates Ruth, and there is, for instance, a partially dismantled Quirmian horn on a table where she has been taking out the valves "to see how they work". The fact she can just as quickly reassemble them, now, is something which is not lost on her parents. Ruth is clever with her fingers. Her mother has tried her out, under supervision, with the mechanism of a crossbow. Weapons aren't that interesting to Ruth: she can fire a crossbow and can do basic moves with a sword, but she'd far rather be painting, crafting, or making music. Her mother was impressed when Ruth diagnosed the problem with a defective crossbow straight away, a technical issue that eluded many Assassin students when presented to them as a test. Looking at it, then handing it back and saying "It's this part here, mummy. It's not engaging properly with this part here and that's why it's locking itself up when you try to fire. I'd replace it with a differently shaped piece. I can draw it for you, to the right size?"
And the other thing isn't that interesting to Ruth either. Ponder Stibbons had died a death to see his daughter looking intently into a grimoire. Not a particularly potent one, but not one to disregard, either.
He'd then realised she wasn't the slightest bit interested in the spells.
What she was doing was copying the large illuminated capital letters at the header of each paragraph, the ornate marginal designs that contained the text, and some of the sidebar illustrations the original author had seen fit to embellish the text with. And the magic seemed flattered by this attention and was letting her do it. (1)
Ruth looked down at the conventional six-stringed guitar lying on the bed, one of several she owned, and then to the sketch on her pad.
The sound-box needs to be deeper. To, make the noise, sort of stronger. Louder. Deeper. Everything-er. The body needs to be a slightly different shape. The openings in the top could be a different shape. There only need to be four strings.
Ruth reached down and sounded the two lowest, thickest, strings.
These two strings. Plus two more which have to be bigger and thicker still.
She paused. How did you make guitar strings? Some were gut, she knew. Others were metal. The Dwarfs had worked out how. Ruth decided she'd quite like to find out how, But just four strings. You didn't need to be brilliant on this instrument. Just good enough to pick out simple repetitive themes. To keep the tempo. No more than three chords. Plus the truth.
She frowned. Plus the truth? Where had that come from?
Ruth put down the sketch-pad and picked up the guitar. She remembered going out for a walk with Shauna. Excitement had been provided by flames down near the river, where a building was on fire. Shauna said it was a gambling casino. Probably unlicenced or a gang thing. A turf war. It did no good to ask who had been holding the matches and the oil can.
Ruth had been captivated by the play of the fire, its reflection on the waters of the Ankh, and the smoke billowing over the river. She'd tried to paint it from memory when she got home.
She picked up the guitar. A simple little tune was calling to her.
Dum, dum, dum, dum-der-de-dum, dum, dum, dum, der-dum...
After a while other tracks in her mind suggested how a keyboards player might build on this riff. She could also see what Bekki had meant about the bass line, the skeleton of a piece, underpinning everything. It would be nice to try to build something. To make the idea real.
Ruth sighed. There was never enough time. And she was still only seven. People always wanted her to put down the paintbrush, or the sketch-pad, or to come away from the piano, as it was time for something else, child. And you must be in time, child. (2)
Ruth paused for a moment. Then she put down the guitar and went over to a keyboard. Only a harpsichord; she'd been firmly told that if she wanted to play anything bigger, she'd have to come downstairs for that. But the new tune rose, seemingly from nowhere, in her head, and then spoke to her fingers... Play me.
Downstairs, Ponder Stibbons heard the harpsichord playing, at once a little bit atonal and then developing a musical logic of its own, and winced slightly. He looked at the thaumometer on his desk. One particular set of readings was nudging on the red. He sighed, with deep resignation. He knew now more of exactly how the magic was working with Ruth. His youngest daughter was a capture-net for inspiration particles. But ones of a certain sort: configured in just the right way to hit the neurons that dealt with musical and artistic creativity.
He groaned, and wondered what to do about it. He now guessed at the origin of the themes she was playing. Brand new here. But they'd also hit Roundworld hard over a twenty or thirty year period. He, Ponder Stibbons, had heard that music there. In California.(3) It was hard to forget. One very specialised form had gripped the Discworld for a short time, until the source of the contagion had been dealt with.
He decided to ask Johanna. Once she was out of hospital and fit again, of course. At least Bekki was going to be home for a couple of weeks to help deal with things. Ponder sighed. Witches were called upon to deal with some difficult things...
Johanna Smith-Rhodes sat up in bed, feeling decidedly groggy. There was a nagging pain in her chest. She tried to remember if this was supposed to be good or not, and allowed herself to relax into a warm fuzzy haze. The analytic side of her, the one that was doggedly refusing to lie there and go with the flow, was saying things like Hospital. Anaesthetic drugs. Painkillers. Igorina. Remember? You're in no danger.
"I'd lie down, if I were you." a kindly voice said. "Hell, how does it go, now?" There was a rustling as of a piece of paper being located and unfolded, and the same voice said in heavily accented and uncertain Vondalaans: "Kom lê, mev Smith-Rhodes. Probeer om te slaap. Jou het pas hartchirurgie gehad."
"Igorina?" Johanna said, speaking with an effort.
"Johanna?"
"I eppreciate the effort. Keep it in Morporkian, would you?"
Igorina sighed.
"Your daughter suggested a few stock phrases for when you came out of anaesthesia. Just in case the Morporkian didn't work. If it helps, she also translated "Lie DOWN, you silly cow!" And "I'm the doctor here and you do as I tell you." With phonetic spelling."
"Ah-huh. Which one?"
"Famke. Rebecka's flying over. She ought to be here any time now."
"Oh, great. You end my daughter to boss me ebout."
"For your own good, Johanna. Did you know I replaced three heart valves and patched up a few cardiac blood vessels, no extra cost? There was a lot going on in there. But it's all tidied up now. Provided you don't take on that one contract too many or get into a war you can't get out of, you'll still be here at eighty."
"Ah-huh. And how long before I'm beck to normal?"
"Did I hear a "Thank you, Igorina, for saving my life" in there anywhere? Must be going deaf. Never mind. Two days bed-rest here for observation, Johanna. And no arguing. Then we discharge you home. Two weeks complete rest. Take it very easy. And. No. Arguing. Then we'll see. Hearts need tender loving care, sturdy though they are. And this one would have killed you. Tomorrow, the week after, next month, next year, in ten years. But the moment it went, and it would - – bang. Gone. Dead. Which is a shame, as quite a few people out here do quite like you, argumentative temperamental bloody-minded stubborn old bitch that you are."
"End thet's a good bedside menner, is it?" Johanna asked, as pointedly as she could.
"Never said it was." Igorina remarked, shrugging. "But it does the job."
Johanna sighed and closed her eyes, accepting that sleep was probably best right now. Her last conscious memory was of Igorina smiling a smile that was pure job satisfaction.
"So what is that?" Ruth asked her older sister, curiously.
Bekki stood back from pinning the strange-looking thing, which looked like a large spider's web in a circular frame with dangling feathers, up over her sister's bedroom window.
"They call it a dream-catcher." she said. "Apparently the Indians in the Central Plains use them to ward off bad dreams, and encourage the dreams they do want to have."
"Sounds really nice!" Ruth said. "It looks pretty, too. Thank you, Bekki."
Bekki smiled.
"Anything for my baby sister." she said. She didn't add that research witchcraft – there was always some going on – had looked at the concept, agreed it had some validity to it, and narrowed down the best sort of feathers to use and the best material to make the web out of. The result had something in common with a witch's shambles, although there was no living component woven into it. And her father, after consulting research wizards at the Thaumatalogical Park, had suggested fine wire made from extruded octiron would enhance the effect.
The result would do everything a dream-catcher should and Ruth would indeed have some nice dreams. It would also, their father suggested, intercept and trap a lot of the inspiration particles that were making Ruth's head fizz with ideas and concepts, some of which, he fretted, were the sort that would have Lord Vetinari looking closely at her. Something dangerously close to Music With Rocks In, for instance. If that were to come back for an encore...
Bekki, after hearing about the Music With Rocks In craze, had agreed to help. Although it also made her curious. At least, she reasoned, her sister might have something like a relatively normal seven-year-old life, at least for a while. She thought back to some of the things that had happened to her at the same age. If you were – hah! - gifted, then it was more, rather than less, important to live like a normal girl. She appreciated the things her parents had done for her to help her be normal during the onset of magic. It grounded you. Kept you sane. Whatever was happening with Ruth – Bekki wasn't sure how far magic came into it – it was important to keep her feet on the ground.
She sat and talked with her sister for a while, glad to be back among family. Boetjie was in good hands with Sophie. And this was a family emergency that needed firm handling. Bekki suspected it was really going to stretch her witching abilities.
"Mum isn't going to die, is she?" Ruth asked, anxiously.
Bekki smiled.
"No. Not if she's sensible." she reassured her. "We've just got to make sure she is. What's happened is that there were things with Mum's heart that could have gone wrong. But Igorina, who's really clever about these things, has put them right. But nobody has an operation on their heart and gets up and goes to work the next day, as if nothing's happened. Not even with Igors. We've just got to stop Mum getting impatient and restless and wanting to go back to work. That's going to take all of us. I'm going to talk to Claude later about what he can do. He's clever about these things."
"Mum's going to think we're all ganging up on her." Ruth said.
Bekki smiled slightly. Her sister could be very perceptive.
"Yes. She will. And you know what? She'll be right!"
Johanna fell into an uneasy doze, then a deep sleep. She hadn't looked and didn't want to look, but signals from her body were telling her that her chest would be one solid bruise. She metaphorically shrugged this off. The discomfort would go, and Igorina had assured her the necessary stitching had been done to the highest Igorina standards and would be barely visible. And only her closest friends would ever get to see it, which was a consideration.
Memories surfaced, recent ones. Or were they just drug-induced hallucinations? Her mind scrolled back...
"Well, Johanna Famke. We haven't spoken directly to each other in years."
The voice was kindly, familiar, and spoke Vondalaans. Johanna had looked around her. There was a shrouded body on a table under a bright light. Igorina, gowned and masked, with another younger Igorina and a couple of white-clad nurses. A smaller table, a trolley really, had gleaming tools on it. Large gas bottles stood by with tubes leading from them.
"I really wouldn't look, Johanna Famke. I believe Igorina's lifting a couple of your ribs out of the way so as to get to what's underneath. It's likely to hurt like Hell for a few days after she puts them back, but at least she's putting right in you the things that killed me."
Johanna looked across to where her aunt, Johanna Francesca, was standing, disregarded, at the back of the operating theatre.
"It won't look pretty. Trust me. And looking at somebody up to her wrists in your chest is going to be a hell of a shock. I think we should go somewhere else? Leave them to it?"
Johanna reflected that she felt light and insubstantial.
"Am I dead?" she asked.
Her aunt laughed, amused.
"Hell, no. Do you see the fellow with the scythe? Or the girl who covers for him now and again? Or the little rat?" she asked. "You're just in a different place. For now. We've got time to talk. And I don't know about you, but I'd quite like to."
"Rebecka says there's more than one of you." Johanna said.
"Our clever liewe heksie? Ja. But I get to meet you here. Because I knew you in life. The others didn't. I have more of a bond with you, you see. And I do look in on you now and again."
Johanna Francesca held out a hand. Johanna Famke hesitated.
"If I touch you." she said, doubtfully. "Does this mean I'm dead and I can't go back? There's a lot I'd still like to do. And see."
"Hell, no! Rebecka would have died many times over if this were the case. You're only dead when the man with the scythe turns up. Or the girl. Or the rat. Besides, look over your shoulder. The blue cord's still there."
Johanna looked. It felt attached to her back like a rucksack. But the blue light, almost a cone emanating from her body, tapered to a cord,(4) the other end of which appeared firmly fixed to the body on the operating table.
"Verskoon my asseblief." she said. "I'm new to all this. Ponder and Bekki are experts. Definitely experts."
She hugged her aunt for the first time in decades. Her body felt reassuringly solid and warm. And the operating theatre faded. Johanna had a brief impression of the wider Lady Sybil Free hospital and the City beyond it, then she and Aunt Johanna were standing out on the Howondalandian veldt, by a river. There was a sensation of having moved a long, long, way without having moved at all.
"Kuiperskop." Johanna remarked. They were standing on a long low rise nearby, she knew, to her family home. They looked over the river together to the Zulu lands beyond. Everything was quiet here. Pastoral. Cattle grazed.
"Always loved it here." Johanna Francesca said, laconically. "You did, too."
It was, indeed, a peaceful place.
They talked about home and family and people for a while, two Boer women sharing the currency of everyday life. Johanna wondered why her chest wasn't hurting and felt intact.
"Ag. That's body stuff." her aunt replied. "Enjoy it for now. You will feel it when you go back. What's happening to your chest is no small thing, but it's being done by somebody who knows what she's doing."
Johanna Francesca looked wistful for a moment.
"Wish there'd been an Igorina for me..."
"So. Being dead?" Johanna asked, wondering how to broach the topic. It wasn't one she'd had to broach all that often. In fact, never. Her aunt smiled.
"You get used to it." she said. "Hey, there are limits to what we can tell the living. Rules apply, unfortunately. But it isn't a bad Afterlife. You get drawn to people you have things in common with. Family. Friends. When it's really your time, Johanna Famke, you'll join us. But it isn't your time justnow."
"Can I ask?" Johanna said. "Reincarnation. Does it happen?"
"That's what they all ask." Her aunt laughed, then looked serious for a moment. "Let's say it did. And I'm admitting nothing, you understand. It would not be automatic. If it happened, do the maths. There are only so many babies born every day. How many discarnate souls do you think are out here? Johanna van der Kaijboutje has been here for over a century, for instance. If she were on a waiting list, if one existed, for another go, if reincarnation happened, then, maar, it would be a long list, do you not think?"
Johanna Famke smiled slightly.
"I believe I understand. But if it happened, is it not possible, as the Ghatians and the Agateans think, to come back as an animal?"
"Ag, would you, given some of the things people do to animals? Vorbei, if you've been human, coming back as a slug or a dung beetle? And where would the larger part of the human mind which is surplus to requirements, as a slug, go?"
"So you enjoy the Afterlife." Johanna said. Her aunt shrugged.
"We make the most of it. There is always Family to watch over. Now and again, a gifted person is there on the living side who you can talk to. The clever Rebecka, who by the way we all love, is one such. Listen to her, Johanna Famke. Your daughter has a wise head."
Her aunt shook her head slightly.
"Your daughter Famke Cornelia, however. Headstrong. Temperamental. No malice in her, but she requires firm guidance. Like somebody else I knew at the same age, I have to say."
"I understand." Johanna said. "And Ruth?"
Her aunt smiled and shook her head.
"You really were making mischief when you chose that name, weren't you? BOSS can't prove you named her for a Zulu Princess. But they suspect."
The two laughed together.
"Ruth is an interesting one." Johanna Francesca said. "I sometimes wonder if like Rebecka she would be able to see and speak to us. But she is so absorbed in her own world – and maar, that child has a gift – that the moment has not been right to seek to make contact."
Her aunt then went very serious.
"And speaking of people called Ruth. There is something we need to show you, before you have to go back. I need to take you a long way away from here, Johanna Famke. You have the training and the intellect to understand what you are about to see. It relates to the situation in Muntab."
The two clasped hands again. There was the shimmering sensation of moving without moving. Then they were in the air, looking down on a green fertile country between the sea and a dense distant forest.
"We are on the Gulf of Muntab." Johanna Francesca said. "The furthest border the Zulu Empire has, furthest away from our own land. Currently a large part of its army is gathering here. There will, I fear, be war. Watch carefully."
The Muntabians were, by the standards of the Disc, a modern army, relying in bodies of disciplined men wearing mail and body armour, equipped with a variety of weapons. The Zulus travelled light, were fast and mobile, but their weapons were so much more basic. They were also a culture that spurned projectile weapons, viewing them as not fitting to a warrior, a man who got up close and fought hand-to-hand. The Muntabians had lots of bows and crossbows.
Any battle between the two looked as if it was going to be completely mismatched. And yet...
The Muntabian cavalry, heavily armoured and with long spears, bore down on the Zulu impi. The Zulus had horses, but didn't do cavalry, arguing the only fitting way for the warrior was on foot and that men who relied on horses were disgustingly effete. Johanna expected to see a lot of brave men get uselessly crushed. And then...
The Zulus, waiting and watching the enemy charge, produced bows and crossbows. And Johanna saw what else was new about this impi.
Every second woman had a crossbow. Others had more conventional bows. And they could shoot straight. The Muntabians, who had evidently been briefed not to expect Zulus to have archers or to shoot straight, ran right into the arrow-storm.
"Their iNduna expects her troops to be able to shoot straight, fast, and accurately." Johanna Francesca remarked. "She saw the value of the arrow-storm at a battle over some tobacco fields."
And then... light cavalry appeared and exploted the dissaray of the stricken Muntabians. They were women too, mounted on smaller faster horses, armed with light javelins.
"Not Zulus. Mainly a smaller tribe from the margins of the Empire. Who do believe in cavalry. This iNduna recruited them as the nucleus of her cavalry force."
And then the remanant of a Muntabian cavalry regiment was trickling away as best it could. The Zulu women soldiers were already moving among the casualties, collecting uninjured horses, harvesting captured weapons, and stripping corpses for their armour and equipment. Johana estimated the battle had taken maybe fifteen minutes. And resulted in Zulu victory.
Then she saw the iNduna, in ornate head-dress and lionskin cloak. And recognised her.
"That's their best General." Johanna Francesca said, drily. "Well. Officially only the wife of the commanding General and here as a figurehead, a Crown Princess raising the morale of the troops. But her husband is a man of rare common sense who knows to take his wife's advice. And you know how few of those there are."
"Ruth N'Kweze." Johanna said, shaking her head slightly. "Jislaik. I know she was pissed off about being commanded to go home. So she's raised an Army and she's demonstrating she knows what to do with one. Talk about playing catch-up."
"You taught her too well, Johanna Famke." her aunt said. "And that was only a skirmish, not the big battle. Your old pupil's ripped up the rule-book for Zulu fighting. She's writing a new one, in fact. One that works better. And while all this is happening out here, a long way away from our border. Imagine this sort of thing being tried out on us, if they get a mind to?"
Johanna winced. She was going to have to remember this, when she woke up. And was this admissible evidence? Her body was currently on an Igorina slab under heavy anaesthetic drugs. For all she knew this could be a very elaborate dream her brain was constructing to take her mind off – literally off, and a long way off - from what was happening in her chest.
It was horribly plausible, though. Ruth N'Kweze making the sharpest point she dared make to her father, through the medium of raising her own fighting Army, and demonstrating that – for now – these soldiers, trained to a Central Continent standard of efficiency, trained in brand new fighting techniques, capable of demonstrating they could take a more sophisticated Army to little pieces inside a quarter of an hour- this new Army is at your command, Father, and loyal to you. For now, that is. And maybe we could then talk about how you dragged me away from a happy life in Ankh-Morpork?
"The Ingonyamakazi, the Lioness Impi, Johanna Famke. When you come back to yourself after your medical treatment, raise the name with Lord Vetinari, or perhaps with the Guild. Their intelligence services will know the name."
"More than an impi." Johanna said, assessing. "Getting on now for nearly triple normal strength. With archers. And cavalry."
"In our terms, a brigade." her aunt agreed. "And many, many, young women want to join. It's as if Zulu women and girls have been waiting for this opportunity for a long time."
Johanna Francesca paused. The world seemed to wobble.
"Our time together is ending, Johanna Famke. So nice to see you again, geliefde..."
Then there was a dizzying moment, a little nausea, and Johanna was aware of somehow coming together again with a dull pain in her chest. She felt lethargic, tired, unable to move...
"You're awake, then" Igorina had said. "Everything went okay. No complications..."
"Nnnnghhh", Johanna had replied.
And now Johanna, transferred back to her home by ambulance-coach, is sitting on the comfy sofa in the lounge. Various people, family and close friends, are in the room with her. Claude the butler has just poured a hot sweet cup of rooibuis tea and is standing to one side attentively.
And everybody, Bekki realised, appeared to be looking at her.
She swallowed, and stepped forward.
"Mum. You know I love you. You know I respect you. You know I'd normally do as you tell me because usually you're right, it's for my own good, and you're my mother. Errr. Well. Now isn't one of those times."
Bekki sat next to her mother and took her hand.
"Mum, you're in my world now. I'm going to be here for the next fortnight supervising things and looking after you. Seeing you rest and take the apothecary preparations at the right times. As, you know, a witch. And Mum, it would save a lot of time and arguing if you got into a habit of agreeing with me, doing what I ask you, and saying "Yes, Rebecka."
Johanna looked hard at her daughter.
"Do I get a choice?" she asked.
"No, mum." Bekki said, firmly.
Johanna smiled slightly. She looked around the room.
"Yes, Rebecka." she said, eventually.
"So I can tell the Dark Council you're on the mend, then?" Miss Alice Band said. "You'd be surprised how many people are anxious."
"Stick eround." Johanna said. "There's something we need to telk ebout..."
Later on, Johanna called for paper and pen. Ponder heard her out, and wrote a short codicil to his wife's account.
I consider in these circumstances that there is an objective reality to this account. There are unique psychic circumstances in this family which mean that deceased relatives, along the blood and family line of the Smith-Rhodes family, are frequent visitors and that at least one member of this family, an accredited Witch, can sustain dialogue with them. My wife, normally incapable of direct conversation with the deceased, has recently been in a situation where she ended up on the borderline between life and death during surgical procedures. In this state, which is well-documented in Wizardry, she encountered and interacted with the spirit of her dead aunt, her father's sister, who showed her current events in the Gulf of Muntab. Astral travel in this world and others is a known magical reality. I would reccomend the relevant interested Parties cross-reference this account, for veracity, against more conventional forms of intelligence reports coming from Muntab...
Ponder signed his assessment, belatedly remembering to put "Sir" in front of his name, and added the more relevant of his professional qualifications. He then clipped this to Johanna's account of her conversation with her dead aunt.
"Two copies, one to the Palace, one to the Dark Council." he instructed the house-goblin who ran the clacks. "Bring the original back so I can file it."
Meanwhile, Johanna was in conversation with Alice Band and Rebecka. Bekki, pleased her mother had made contact at long last – albeit in circumstances it might be best not to repeat – listened to the discussion.
"Not good." Godsmother Alice said. "I can see the provocation. Ruth's still livid she was ordered home and forced to marry somebody else, and this is her way of rebelling. You know, sticking firmly to the letter of her instructions, but in such a way that it alarms her father. I suspect she's doing what she's doing just that little bit too well. Could get messy."
"Ja." Mum said. "She's turning things upsidedown there. Teaching Zulus who aren't bound to tredition things like, you know, how to fight effectively. Doing things the Empire has never tried before, or tried half-heartedly. That male soldiers do not like, end do not went to do. But with women. End I'm worried."
Alice nodded.
"The status quo thing again. Two or three big countries locked in a stalemate as no one has the decisive advantage to win. Then somebody comes up with a game-changer. Which makes big war more rather than less likely. If Ruth's innovations are giving the Muntabians a nasty surprise, what if they get the idea to use them against your people? That means war. Vetinari won't like that. I rather think he'd consider it economical to remove the problem at source."
Johanna nodded, sadly.
"Ja. He takes a contrect out on Ruth. Or if not Vetinari, then my people will. She may not hev considered this."
To be continued...
(1) The grimoires in his study had met Johanna. When Bekki was toddling and adventurous and had gone into her father's study, alarming her parents, and raising the possibility that some of the less friendly grimoires might take advantage, Johanna had walked in, glared at the books of magic until she had their full attention, then produced a book and a box of matches. She had ripped a page out of the book she held, set fire to it, and dropped it into a metal wastepaper bin. Then another. Then a third .(1.1) Then she'd nodded at the grimoires and walked out again, not a word having been said. They had got the idea, and behaved around the children from then on.
(1.1) The book she'd burnt had actually been the previous year's desk-top diary. But the grimoires didn't need to know that.
(2) I know. Well, my music references can't all be Blue Öyster Cult ones. Other classic rock bands are available.
(3) My tale The Many Worlds Interpretation. And yes. I know. It stalled on the "Scooby-Doo Gang" going ghost-hunting in Empirical Crescent. This will resume. Ideas are forming on how Penny and Sheldon discover the lost workshop of a great, but insane, artist. (Hmm. What if there is a foreshadowing here of how Ponder and Johanna's daughter turns out? Interesting thought).
(4) Personal Fortean experience: this is how it appeared to me the one time I was definitely aware of the silvery-blue cord. At the risk of being seen as flakey: it felt like a large heavy rucksack on my back. But the further "away" I got from the thing that appeared to be my physical body, the more it stretched and tapered to a thin cord, as if it was actively "extruding". The jury is out as to whether this was "only" a very vivid dream, something conditioned by my expectations from reading about these things, as if my dreaming mind was obligingly constructing something that fitted what I expected to experience. Or it might have been something objectively real, to a given value of "real". I will add it was the last in an overlapping sequence of vivid dreams – which at an earlier stage had involved (touches iron) Elves. And as we know, the Gentry are prone to confusing and deceiving… Worth assigning to one of my characters as her own OOB/NDE!
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.
And yes, the Zulus in our world did have bows. But just used them for hunting or as curiosities. They tended to get old, clapped-out or obsolete firearms, in a "running guns to the Apaches" sort of way. Which led to the problems inherent in training to use them – any sort of rifle requires constant practice – and that the technological leap forward, for a pre-industrial society, was not intuitive at all in terms of maintenance and things like keeping the weapon routinely clean. Also – where did ammunition supplies come from in a country that could not make its own? It wasn't so much disdain for the weapons as familiarisation with them.
And Zulus had horses – they were seen as draft animals and useful for getting from one place to another with least effort. Old, fat or disabled warriors were offered them as a courtesy to keep up with the march… which led to younger fitter men seeing them as a mark of weakness and spurning horses as unmanly. Towards the end of the Zulu War they'd seen what British and Boer cavalry could do, accepting that an infantry-only army was at a disadvantage, and were starting to raise cavalry units of their own – but they just got timed out…
Now imagine in a different world a Zulu army where a leader thinks – why not do different….