Strandpiel 43
Ode tot vreugde – Ode to Joy
Or
Ode om te geneitschadevreugde – Ode to Schadenfreude
first edit - eliminating typos and altering a couple of detail points noted by reader rga156. thank you. Realising the significance of Thirty Pieces of Silver to Harry Dresden and what this meant in his world - and not wanting to create confusion with a reference not really belonging here, given what that amount of THAT silver means in Dresden's world. An extra level of symbolism and complication that doesn't belong in this tale!
And we're back, keeping the momentum going. Ok. Quick recap. The summer hols beckon for students at the AG school. Famke is looking forward to private tuition in her musical speciality. Famke's parents are duly shelling out big dollar on a Concussion Bunker of their very own, with special attention paid to acoustic phenomena preventing sounds from leaking out and making them very unpopular with the neighbours. Also, they're not sure how many spare ear-drums Igorina has on ice.
Ruth is still getting more inspiration particles than she knows what to do with. Her latest concept – for a Clacks that transmits perfect sounds over unlimited distances – may just remain a paper project. Or it may not. Time will tell. She may also reflect that if sounds can be converted into discrete units of clacks coding, then they are also, by implication, preserved for playback later. Her father will have memories of the last time this was attempted on the Disc. It was his idea, after all. Ruth's mother will advise her as to the commercial possibilities and introduce her to little words like Patent, Copyright and Royalties.
Bekki is enjoying a bit of an early summer holiday catching up with Family before having to travel back for the Witch Trials. She is deliberately not thinking of the following few weeks of compulsory Watch training.
The other Ruth has now survived twenty-three assassination attempts, the last one of which nearly got through. She is also aware of the fact her newborn son Npiho is a baby boy with a Destiny. And therefore an assassination target in his own right. The child's grandfather will be no help in this, as she will soon discover.
In Howondaland, there are political machinations on the other side of the border. Pieter van der Graaf is industriously trying to foster better relations with the Zulu Empire. His strategy of putting a collar and leash on Crowbar Dreyer is working. So far. Two of Dreyer's most effective agents have now been posted out of his command as diplomatic officers, specially requested by the foreign minister. Both have arrived on the Central Continent to take up new roles, far from any potential battlefield. And one talented reservist has pointed out, somewhat crossly, that first and foremost she and her husband are farmers with a crop to bring in, and that comes first.
Vetinari is also reminding all players in a difficult situation which City has the banks that provide their loans, mortgages, and soforth, and who decides levels of import tax on their products. The Pegasus Service has been working hard to convey his written reflections on current affairs, delivered promptly with a minimum of delay.
A keen musician and capable Crockett player is also learning more about the Family who have, for the moment, granted him guest status.
Now read on.
Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork.
Johanna Smith-Rhodes put the final touches on a letter to the Burghers of the city of Pratoria. After reflection, she had decided to thank them sincerely for the honour that her nation wanted to bestow on her. She agreed the new town needed a better name than Housing Project 24, something more personalised and which had deep associations with the history and ethos of Rimwards Howondalaland as a nation.
Relising that they were planning to call it JohannaSmith-Rhodesberg was a great honour. She couldn't deny that. At least they weren't putting the recently bestowed Ankh-Morporkian honour of Dame at the front. You had to be thankful for some things.
However, could she, Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons, point out that there had been previous women in the family line called Johanna Smith-Rhodes, some of whom had in their time been elevated to the status of national heroines? Johanna van der Kaiboutje Smith-Rhodes, for instance, who had founded the family line, or her daughter Johanna van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes. Johanna felt, very strongly, that they were worthy of recognition too, perhaps even more so as they had been present at the great struggles that saw the birth of our Nation. A new town named after not one Johanna Smith-Rhodes but all of them was something she could happily put her support behind. She realised this might make commemorative statues more of a challenge but she was sure something could be worked out. Please keep her informed.
Johanna sighed and sealed the letter. Olga could fly it back when she went. And the bloody Times had got hold of the story. They could have a leaked copy to print and she could talk to Sacharissa Cripslock about family history, or something. Get my way of looking at things in print, so the local papers at home can take it up. Make it real. Maybe Suki can help.
Ah well. They'll shorten it to Johannasburg or Joburg or something. Depend on it.
Johanna turned to other matters. Work on the music studio was progressing well. She could start having all the musical instruments moved in there soon. Better get Guild insurance badges out front where Thieves and so on can see them and be warned off. Musical instruments are expensive.
There was one short Outward Bound course to lead before the end of term. A nice easy summer one, more of a nature trail really, three nights under canvas. Johanna considered. By lucky chance it took a group of students out towards Lancre. Where the Witch Trials were to happen. Johanna smiled. It would do no harm for her students to see Lancre-trained Witches in their own space. And observe and learn lessons useful to the young Assassin. It would also be a nice afternoon out for everyone and hopefully Educative. She decided to mention this to Alice Band, who would be co-leading the trek.
Eelsewhere, Ponder Stibbons was reviewing homework in Mathematics and Physical Sciences submitted to their respective teachers by his two younger daughters. He took a disbelieving look at the work submitted by Ruth. And winced. In most universes, fathers only get involved when their children are submitting sub-par or unsatisfactory work. Ponder had the opposite problem to deal with.
He looked down at the page again. It was a pre-printed worksheet with fill-in-the-blanks sections.
The printed questions began with Identify the shape.
In child-like carefully formed letters underneath, Ruth had diligently written
This geometrick form is a circle. A circle is defined as a continouss line drawn so that it connects the locus of all points that are at an equal distacne from a given point (on the plane) called the centre.
For want of something else to do, Ponder circled the three spelling errors. Well, Ruth was only eight. She still had problems with longer words.
The next part had been simply to correctly identify the radius, diameter and circumference. Ruth had gone into a lot of detail here too. She'd even helpfully added arcs, chords, segmentation and tangents and pointed out these were important too in circular geometries. With illustrations and equations for calculating how to precisely define them.
Answering the advanced question about a circle having no more than 360 degrees, which we will be getting on to at a later stage in your teaching, Ruth had politely disagreed and said you could have more than 360 degrees in a circle, but then it begins to overlap itself and move into a third dimension of space and you get a spiral circle. Which can be defined as a moving loci inclined on a helical plane and in theory has no upper limit. This was seen in everyday life in things like spiral staircases and carpenter's screws. And while she, Ruth, wasn't sure of the details and might ask her father, what if you could extend a spiral into fourth and fifth dimensions, say that of Time, and what the maths might look like...
As Mother Superior had pointed out, Ruth's Maths teacher had needed to sit down with a reviving drink and the kindly attention of a friend.
Famke's homework had been even worse, from the point of view of the teacher. Johanna had brought home selected examples and invited him to take a look at this, Ponder. Ponder had looked.
"Stewart Duggan's already beginning to twitch." Johanna had said. "And Lady T'Malia has advised me that Physics teachers don't grow on trees."
Ponder had blinked. He looked down at Famke's answer to a simple question in classical mechanics thought appropriately testing for the first year at a secondary school. She had pointed out a difficulty with the premise of the set question and elaborated on it with a thought experiment.
Suppose you isolate an alpha particle and accelerate it in absolute vacuum. It is perceived not to follow the equation F=ma. The question now becomes one of assessing the point p at which quantum mechanics is superceded by classical mechanics as perceived in the everyday macroscopic world…
"She's showing off." Ponder had said.
"Ja." Johanna agreed. "It perhaps comes of having you as a father. Osmosis, perhaps. I suspect a degree of dumb insolence is happening here. Ruth is doing it because she is simply a long way ahead of her peers and she is bored at school. She cannot help it. Famke, on the other hand, is using an area where she has a degree of specialised knowledge to be creatively insolent. The question is what do we do about both?"
Ponder winced.
"Did we ever have this problem with Bekki?" he asked.
Johanna smiled slightly.
"Only in her History classes." she reminded him. "I understand by the end, Miss Lonsdale-Rust had began developing nervous tics."
Ponder had steeled himself to look at further examples of homework submitted by both daughters. Famke even had a working grasp of basic mathematical equations in Quantum, although he detected errors that suggested she was regurgitating things only incompletely understood... absently, he corrected her mathematical reasoning.
I've got students who operate at this level... at a unversity...
From above there was the unmistakeable sound of a double bass, with noises that occassionally coincided with those of a bow being drawn across the strings.
Bekki. Ah well. She is improving. Slightly. At least when she goes back to Lancre or elsewhere, the bass goes with her.
"Liewe hecksie?" the kindly voice said.
Bekki put down the bow, glad for a break. She still wasn't sure of the precise reason why she was trying to do this. Being able to join in with Ruth, or when she got back to Lancre, with Alison, and to share their music, yes. But she was also uneasily contemplating the notion that Ampie might have something to do with it, too.
She frowned. They said that when you met a guy and liked him, you felt obliged to share his interests. Didn't they? Crockett and music. Damn, damn and damn, she was doing both.
She still felt like this was pandering to expectations.
Bekki felt that generations of witches were looking at her and expressing dissaproval. Then the train of thought arrived at Nanny Ogg Central and pulled up to the platform. Bekki had a visual picture of Nanny grinning a big dirty grin, making gestures of approval... and other sorts of gestures.
She shuddered slightly, but also felt better about it.
"Hello, Johanna Francesca." she said, politely. Bekki watched her deceased great-aunt taking her ease and sitting in the big comfy chair. Or at least, a good simulation of sitting. "What brings you here?"
"Well, you're not the only person I can speak to here." her great-aunt said. "But your father is preoccupied and your younger sister is at school. And I do quite like you. How are you getting on with your music?"
"Slowly. Not as fast as I would like." Bekki said, indicating the bow.
Johanna Francesca nodded sympathetically.
"We understand that. Would you appreciate some lessons?"
"I didn't know you played." Bekki said. Johanna Francesca laughed.
"I don't. But the Afterlife is a big place and we are not the only people in it. You make contacts. Friends, even."
There was a pause. Her great-aunt delivered a helpful prompt.
"I can come here freely as I am family and welcome. But others require invitation. There are Rules. Especially with the magical guards on this place."
Bekki understood. She said "Friend of Aunt Johanna. On this one occasion, would you like to come in?"
The new ghost looked a little like the iconographer Otto Chriek, only human. He was a dapper man in full evening dress and had fussiness written all over him. He blinked in the new place.
"Back in the world again." he said. His accent was Überwaldean. "Ah, danke, Frau Smith-Rhodes."
"Technically a Fraulein." Aunt Johanna said. "Never married. But here is the girl, Gustav. My great-niece, of whom I am very fond and to whom I owe many thanks."
Gustav looked Bekki over, critically. His eyes took in the double bass and lit up.
"Ah. You play, madchen? Or is it the case that you are learning to play?"
"Just learning." Bekki said.
Gustav smiled happily.
"You would not believe what a trial it is not to have physical form and not to be able to play." he said. "Your aunt is unable to handle weapons for the same reason. Our philosophers, and we have many in the Afterlife(1), speculate that is where legends of Hell originated. It is at the least purgatory."
"Herr Gustav von Verschlimbesserung was the principal bassist for the Bonk Philharmonic Orchestra." Johanna Francesca said. "I spoke to him. He is interested in you and suggests taking you on as a pupil. By arrangement."
"Okay." Bekki said, intrigued.
Herr Gustaf beamed.
"Sehr gut! Madchen, may we discuss tuition fees?"
"Okay..." Bekki said. Then she heard what the price of tuition was.
"There is no danger, liewe hecksie." Johanna Francesca assured her. "Firstly, he knows you are a heksie and is aware of what will happen if he does not respect you. Secondly, he knows if you need my intervention, I will enforce the agreement. By force, if needs be."
Johanna looked at Gustav and nodded. It reminded Bekki of her mother when she felt a need to emphasise a point.
The fussily dressed Überwaldean nodded back and smiled benignly.
"Two reasons not to be incautious or to overstay my welcome, then. I am aware I may only do this with your consent. But oh, to play the bass one more time.."
Bekki nodded. Then there was a shift in consciousness and she was aware she was sharing her personal space. She wondered if Mrs Cake felt like this all the time.
"Oh, Wahnsinn!" she heard the second voice in her head. "To be in a body again..."
Bekki felt her fingers twitching with commands she was not putting there.
"Just do not touch anything that isn't to do with playing a double bass." she said. Just to establish the ground rules.
"Verstehen, junge madchen. Now relax and let my hands instruct yours..."
Bekki felt herself picking up the bow. And felt her fingers moving on the frets. And then...
Apparentrly it was the Ode to Schadenfreude from a symphony written by Ludwig van Werkzeug zum Heben von Rüben. Gustav explained there was the moment in the final movement where the entire orchestra fell silent and the theme began on the double bass, then spread like a contagion first through the string section and then to the whole orchestra, and chorus. When our humble instrument has a chance to shine, madchen! (2)
"Today the string section. Tomorrow the orchestra." Bekki couldn't help herself saying.
"Ja! Heute, der Saitenabschnitt. Morgen, das Orchester!"
But they played on together. Bekki felt her body adopting new positions and her arm and fingers learning about bowcraft from a master. And she realised. You didn't use it like a saw. You let the bow guide and stroke...
And from downstairs, Ponder Stibbons heard the exponential leap in his daughter's abilities. He frowned. Magic was at work... but he paused to listen, all the same, while sensing the psychic atmosphere.
"Relax, Professor Ponder." he heard the voice saying near his ear. He jumped. Johanna could do that effortlessly. Her deceased relatives were better at it. "We have it taken care of. I would not allow anything nearby that could place Rebecka into harm."
"Thank you." Ponder said. "Err. Johanna Livinia, isn't it? Mevrou Smith-Rhodes?"
"It is, Professor Ponder. We thought, to spare everybody's ears, that Rebecka should be put in touch with a music teacher. A good one. He is a good man, and benign. With a passion for music. Hard to find, as so many genius musicians had unfortunate personality issues in life that made them hard to like, and certainly made them untrustworthy around young women.(3) Johanna Francesca is chaperoning."
"Bodily memory." Gustav said, at the end. "Over the course of our sessions, madchen, your body will absorb the skills I had in life. You may not be as good a bass player as I was. But I can assure you that you will be a much better one."
"Thank you." Bekki said.
"Now it is time to leave, I think. I have no wish to remain as an uninvited guest. Not in the body of a Witch."
"And I would have gone in and pulled you out again by the scruff of your neck." Johanna Francesca remarked, pleasantly. "But there will be no need for that, I think."
Bekki again thanked her guests as they departed. She picked up the bow and allowed her body to adjust... this time the sound was not that of an orchestral maestro guiding her hands. But it was still a lot better than it had been an hour or so previously.
The Zulu Empire, at the Lioness' Kraal.
"Thank you." Ruth N'Kweze said, as she turned the weapon over in her hands. "And you say you've created thirty-two of these for immediate use? You've worked hard."
Her armourer smiled in appreciation.
"It used most of the silver that was immediately available." he advised her.
Ruth nodded to Chakki N'Golante, who made a note.
"We'd better get some in, then. This could be important."
She handed the silver-plated assegai to another aide. Somewhere in the background a baby cried. Ruth jumped and fought down an urge to go to him. She still had to make time for leadership and decision-making.
"Is there enough silver available to plate, say, fifty or sixty crossbow bolt-heads?" Ruth asked. "I'd like the best shots in my personal guard to carry two or three each. For tricky moments."
The armourer frowned and said he might be able to manage twenty or so. Perhaps, with care, twenty-five. But more silver would be needed, Your Highness.
"I'll get you some." Ruth promised him. She wondered where from, exactly. How did you go about getting precious metals in useful quantities? The silver that could be provided had been gained by melting down jewellry and plundering the treasury for coins with a silver content. Ruth had authorised this as a necessary expedient, so as to get at least some of her soldiers armed with silver weapons for fighting weres. The armourers and artificers had then silver-plated the live blades on the weapons. Just a thin gilding, if you could call it that. A comparitively small amount of silver had gone a long way. But if any more Nagas came calling, there was now a counter-weapon.
"Silver nitrate, highness?" Chakki said, diffidently. "You can buy that from an alchemical suppliers. Trawlers in Ankh-Morpork do it. Perhaps one of the witches could collect and deliver?"
"Good point." Ruth said, thoughtfully. She remembered a time when she and Johanna Smith-Rhodes had gone hunting for were-creatures. (4) The silver nitrate bombs Johanna had devised had been lethal.
"We could reduce silver nitrate back to the elemental form, Your Highness." the armourer said, mistaking her intent. "We would need common salt, a strong caustic, and formaldehyde.."
"Order them too, Chakki." Ruth said. Let the chap feel useful. And this could be interesting in itself...
"And some sort of fulminate too, Highness." Chakki prompted her."You need an explosive trigger, if you're planning on making bombs."
"We can do that here, Highness." the armourer said. "Cinnabar is available in the hills near here, the geologist advises me. Mercury fulminate is a known exothermic alchemy reagant."
Ruth grinned. One of the growing community of Central Continent artificers attracted to working here was a skilled geologist. She had him exploring nearby terrain in her fiefdom with a professional eye, looking for useful things. Gold might be good. If it's there, I'll need some bloody Dwarfs... more complications...
Ruth made a note to have intermediaries approach commodities brokers in Ankh-Morpork to buy a couple of silver ingots. Not many, it wouldn't need that many. She wondered if Vetinari would permit its export. Never mind, we can deal with that.
She dismissed the armourer with thanks, and went with Chakki to look in on baby Nipho.
"Good prompt on the nitrate bombs." Ruth said, accepting her son from the nurse.
"You need a defence against weres." Chakki said. "Especially afteryou told the Witch-Finders they were as useful as a chocolate teapot or an ashtray on a racehorse."
They were speaking Morporkian. Neither of the Lionesses on guard nor the nurse spoke this language. Ruth had presented one of the door-guards with the silver assegai, remembering she had survived the fight with the Naga, and had said "You are the first. In recognition of your bravery and willingness to fight for me. This weapon will hurt creatures of muti. In time all my personal guards will carry moon-metal blades. And the blade still has a steel core. For more usual enemies."
"Good point again." Ruth said. "The Witch-Finders control the Leopard Society. I've annoyed them. And some bright spark is going to remember I helped kill two of them in Ankh-Morpork.(5) Worse, I fought alongside the Red Death on the night. Who they'd been sent to kill. If I get the pussycats prowling around wanting to play catch-up or question my loyalties, I will need silver weapons."
"Or one of your half-brothers or sisters might hire a were-leopard to come after you." Chakki said. "And your ex-husband's family are likely to remember who inhumed him."
"We're Assassins." Ruth said. "That sort of thing comes with the pink slip." She paused, settled Nipho in her arms, and added "You know about dealing with big cats, too. The Red Death used you as bait in a lion-trap once, didn't she?"(6)
Chakkie grinned.
"I came out alive." she said. "And Johanna gave me training at the new Zoo afterwards. Lions and tigers and leopards. Interesting."
Ruth smiled and sat, nursing her son. She motioned Chakki to sit with her.
"So. Thirty-two silver weapons." Ruth said, thoughtfully. "With more to come. Any thoughts?"
Chakki considered.
"Ruth, I saw how the woman on guard reacted to your giving her the first one." she said. "She lit up. Real pride and swank. And those silver spearheads look good, too. Parade the women who have them out in the sunlight, and they'll gleam. There's going to be real competition to earn them. Everyone's going to want one. The women who succeed become an élite."
Ruth smiled slightly.
"Win all round, then. The women compete for the prestige. Only the very best guardswomen get them. Not everybody. And I get personal guards who can kill a Naga or a were-leopard. Weres can sense silver from a long way. They'll be warned off. And as the crossbow bolts are going to be hidden in waist-pouches till they're needed, they won't know about those. Till they get hit by one."
Ruth smiled again.
"Worth sacrificing a few bits of bling for." she said. "That silver is serving a far more useful purpose now."
There was a silence. Chakkie filled it.
"The press corps." she said.
Ruth frowned slightly.
"Gods, yes. The journalists."
The fight with the Naga had spread around the world. It had caught the imagination. Everybody wanted to know more. Especially since the brave Princess had gone into labour shortly afterwards and had a son who might one day be a King. Ruth had seen the benefits of this and sent iconographs of herself and her newborn back to Ankh-Morpork to go into the Times. You couldn't under-estimate the value of good PR. Via Olga Romanoff, she had extended an invitation to any newspaper wanting to sent a representative out to come and be present at Nipho's Presentation. She could also organise extended tours of her more-than-a-kraal so that the world's press could see her nascent city and her soldiers. Nothing to hide. Nothing much, anyway. And writers-of-news were indeed turning up. Several of them. All with accreditation.
"You wanted a private word with the one from the Sto Kerrig paper? De Telegraf van DamHamster?" Chakkie prompted her.
"Yes. Marilyn van der Medelander, I believe." Ruth shook her head and smiled a little amused smile. "Have her escorted here, would you? Advise her the Princess is pleased to grant her a private audience, and she could well get a scoop. Possibly even What a story!"
Marilyn van der Medelander had heard through channels of her own that writers of news had been invited to the Zulu Empire to vouch to the world that Princess Ruth was alive and well after the sensational asassination attempt, and the eyes of the world, if they were on her corner of the Zulu Empire, may as well be there to observe the new city springing up from nowhere in the middle of an Empire not previously renowned for things like cities as the rest of the world knew them. And, it's my son's formal Presentation and Naming. Why not be my guests, if you think it's in any way at all newsworthy?
Marilyn's journalistic instincts had twanged. She was going to bloody well be there, whatever it cost. She had left a note to her editor to advise him of where she was going and that she'd submit expenses in the usual way on her return. She had also quickly visited her parents on the way out. Her father had been dubious and tried to talk her out of it. But he'd spoken to contacts who had got her some necessary introductions. Her father now had lots of contacts in lots of countries. Another quick word to a friend called Olga Romanoff had got her the favour of a very quick lift to Ankh-Morpork, where she'd made a courtesy call on Sacharissa Cripslock. Sacharissa had called her a perfect idiot, but had also said if they find out, they won't hear it from me. Further accreditation had followed, and she had then flown out to Howondaland on a magic carpet towed by a Pegasus, ferrying other members of the press corps from various papers and countries. Lord Vetinari had apparently approved.
Marilyn had then tagged on with various escorted parties to be shown round Ruth N'Kweze's world. Seeing so many armed Zulus in the same place- hundreds, maybe thousands - was a little disconcerting. Especially when she was told Princess Ruth's husband had brought his own Army Corps here and they were camped out in the hills over there somewhere, they say at least five thousand men. She was reminded that Zulus tended not to see the distinction between Sto Kerrigians and Vondalaanders and were inclined towards "same difference". Anybody with a white skin and a "van der" in her name was therefore suspect. She assiduously tried to only speak Morporkian if she could. Kerrigian was too close to being Vondalaans. Not a popular language in this place.
She had been impressed at what she saw. Only approved iconographs could be taken here; Otto Chriek had attended with the intention of getting lots of pictures of the Presentation, which promised to be visually spectacular. He was being minded in the visiting party and politely dissuaded from taking pictures inside the kraal. The Princess had insisted on this, apparently. Marilyn had smiled. It would possibly be the most unique Naming that magazines like Tepidity and Wotcher had ever reported on. But the birth of a royal child always made the illustrated glossies. It was a given.
Marilyn had been walking around, smiling a lot and talking to people. An easy charm was something she'd inherited from her mother. An asset she used a lot in her work. And she had to admit, a city was beginning to emerge here. There were factories, ugly functional sheds on the Ankh-Morporkian model. Industrial noise. Smoke. Alchemical smells. The Central Continent compound, where the journalists were staying, was an enclave all on its own, a suburb, you could call it, of buildings devised to a different, more Central Continent, style. That was occupying lots of the space between the inner and middle and outer walls of the kraal. It was beginning to look like a transplanted part of Ankh-Morpork with overtones of White Howondaland. New houses were going up all the time, with, where the occupants could lay claim to it, patches of garden. She noted one was guarded by Ankh-Morpork City Watchmen and carried a sign saying CONSULATE OF THE CITY STATE OF ANKH-MORPORK IN THE CITY OF THE INGONYAMA. And the outermost wall around the original kraal was being progressively rebuilt in stone. It even had towers, one now being rebuilt in stone, with a parapet and walkway along the top of the wall where it had been completed. Marilyn noted the large number of white people who were advising and leading and training Zulus to perform necessary jobs. she even spoke to a few who emphasised the good pay and the challenge and how well they were treated here, and such a nice place to bring the family to, the kids love it here. Those indigeonous native buildings seemed to be in the centre, and had an army barracks feel to them. But some were clearly civilian habitats. Civilian settlement was now spilling out on the other side of the outer wall, with low makeshift brush fences to keep animals out. Farmland extended quite a long way, and in the distance, what now was taking on the form of a road to the hills, earth beaten down and compacted by the passage of many vehicles. Ox-carts were regularly going to and fro, some empty, others with building stone. Marilyn tried to memorise things so as to add them later to the sketch-map that was taking shape in her allocated room. Iconography was discouraged.
And then the patrol of soldiers found her. The intent-looking women soldiers, who looked quietly intimidating.
She recognised Chakki N'Golante, the Ankh-Morpork-trained Assassin who worked for the Princess. Chakki smiled politely and relayed Ruth's request. Marilyn smiled back and said she would be delighted. The section of soldiers fell in around and behind her as Chakkie led the way. Marilyn had a moment of trepidation, then shrugged and went to where the story was.
There was a pot of tea on the table, which was a homely touch. Chakki went to stand by the door as Marilyn accepted the gracious invitation of the Princess to sit and make herself comfortable. Princess Ruth was somebody the journalist immediately recognised. She bit back a moment of worry that the Princess might also have a long memory for faces...
Ruth, sitting comfortably with her baby son in her arms, asked if Marilyn wouldn't mind pouring the tea, please. Thank you. Rooibuis, hope you don't mind? You probably don't have that very much in Sto Kerrig?
Marilyn saw amusement in the Princess's face as she poured the tea, the familiar reassuring scent of redbush filling the room.
They lifted their cups.
Then Ruth N'Kweze sighed a deep sigh.
"Suki, whatever got into your head to make you think you could get away with this?" she asked.
Suki van der Graaf, seeker-after-news, winced slightly. She did remember.
Ruth shook her head.
"You've had your hair dyed black, and I don't doubt for one moment your accreditation to De Telegraf van DamHamster is genuine and right now you are working for that paper. But. Marilyn van der Mederlander. I do speak Vondalaans, you know. And it's not a big leap from there to Kerrigian. Mederlander means something like "from a related country." Or "almost but not quite of this one". What a giveaway."
Ruth sipped her tea and watched Suki.
"And staying a "van der". When your real name is "van der Graaf". Something they warn you against when doing Disguise and Deception at school, Never pick a cover identity that gives people even the smallest clue as to your real one."
Suki smiled embarrassedly.
"I heard there might be a story in this?" she asked, hopefully.
"What, White Howondalandian spy caught out in clumsy deception, enters Zulu Empire posing as a journalist from Sto Kerrig?" Ruth asked. She let this sink in for a few seconds, then grinned.
"I needed a laugh after the last few days." she said, and extended a hand. "Welcome to my kraal. And be thankful I know you."
"I get to interview you now?" Suki asked, hopefully. Ruth gave her a stern look.
"I could get to disembowel you." she said. "But I'm inclined to say – stay Marilyn van der Mederlander from Sto Kerrig for now, do what you have to do for the next day or two, and the fact you are really Suki van der Graaf from Pratoria is our secret. Clear? Good."
Ruth grinned again. "Strictly speaking nobody gets to see my son until he's Presented. So I'm holding your scoop right now. You're the first person from the wider world to see my son. Two Witches present at his birth, the nurse who tends him, Chakki who escorted us back here from the birthing place under cover of dark - who is my personal assistant – and now you. Only the fifth person to see Nipho. So far. Do you want to hold him a while?"
Suki let headlines form in her head. Your reporter got to hold the future king of the Zulu Empire in her arms. Admittedly only three or four days old. A baby boy born to be King... most of all she felt the warm fuzziness of a woman allowed to hold a tiny baby. Not even a world-trotting journalist is immune from this.
They talked abut families and mutual friends for a while. It was easy and relaxed. Suki wondered about this woman's motivations. Newspapers at home, including her own, had pigeon-holed her as a deadly threat, a cold calculating deadly enemy scheming to become the Paramount Empress at any cost. This, to Suki, was not the Ruth N'Kweze she'd first met in the aftermath of the Battle of the Tobacco Fields(7), and a year or two later, when she had arrived in Ankh-Morpork to scoop the attempt to kill Johanna Smith-Rhodes and her family.(8) Suki had arrived in the aftermath of the fighting at Spa Lane and had stayed for the trial and execution of the would-be murderers. But that had been sixteen years ago... she had been banking on Ruth not remembering her face. She hadn't really been expecting to meet Ruth face-to-face... she had even put a temporary dye in her hair as an extra precaution, but it appeared she'd been identified straight away.
"You're blonde, by the way." Ruth added. "Another lesson. You're naturally a pale blonde, so it still shows up like Hell if you have your hair dyed black. Not natural. People clock that and wonder why you did it, and what you've got to hide. It really might have been better if you'd gone brunette and had it restyled short."
Ruth paused, and added
"But in your case, in this country. Given who your relatives are – I am glad you did not dye your hair red. Important. You might be mistaken for a Smith-Rhodes with red hair, and I think if that happened, there wouldn't be much I could do about it. At least here, I can pretend to be surprised after you leave my place, go home, and the stories appear under your real name. I can then admit I got taken in, and give you a bit of grudging respect for being so good at your job that you fooled everybody."
"Thanks. I'm glad you're taking it so well." Suki said. Ruth shrugged.
"What can I do? I know you're not here to plant any bombs or kill anyone. You're not an Assassin. You've not been sent here to spy on us. Despite having started that detailed sketch map of my kraal that you keep hidden in your allocated room. I know from what Johanna and Mariella said about you that you can't stand BOSS and you hate the idea of being beholden to your government. You wouldn't willingly work for them, right? You managed to swing your National Service to get into the public relations section at the Bureau of Defence, and you went into newspapers straight afterwards. But those two years in uniform are all the government work you've ever done."
Ruth noted the slightly astonished look on Suki's face.
"We do our homework too, Suki. I'm satisfied you're no threat. So I'm not arresting you as a White Howondalandian who's illegally entered our country."
Ruth stroked her baby son's cheek.
"Besides, I have to show clemency to offenders and issue pardons on the occasion of a royal birth. It's expected. Tradition. So consider yourself pardoned. Besides, how is it going to look if I execute a member of the press corps? Any good publicity from the papers is going to evaporate like piss in the wind if I start executing journalists. Defeats the object of inviting you all here."
Ruth grinned and ticked off a few more points.
"I know your cousins. Johanna thinks you can be a pain in the arse but she's not going to be happy about it if I mistreat you. Mariella thinks you're okay. Oh, when you see her next, confirm I got her message and that I believe her? Thanks. Kind of her to send it. Thank her for me. And most crucially, I like, respect and get on with your father. I think I can reveal we are occassionally in touch, as private citizens. I value knowing him and I'm not going to prejudice that by having you bumped off. I'll mention that you dropped by. But I suspect he already knows."
Ruth smiled again.
"Right. Fancy a few eye-witness accounts of the battle with the Naga? We can start with mine..."
To be continued...
Ruth's son will be Presented and Named to his people. After pushing her luck, Suki returns home. (and What A Story!) We move to the summer hols and a Witch Trial. Bekki becomes a reluctant Watchwoman.
(1) Other people in the Afterlife grumbled that philosophers were such smug bastards because they could continue where they left off doing exactly what they did in life.
(2) OK. The Ode to Joy from Beethoven's ninth. But you knew this already, didn't you?
(3) watching the damn Royal Wedding at the weekend. Feeling vaguely disappointed that the energetic and outgoing American bishop who led the sermon did not – as I really hoped – do the full James Brown shtick at the Landmark Church in The Blues Brothers, and really Americanise the service. Imagining Liz and Camilla and the other ladies present dancing in the House of the Lord and livening the place up. Ah well… watching the Royal Harpist playing for the congregation and reflecting on an aspect of my reseach. Which led me to conclude that the real hooligans in a pro orchestra are not – surprisingly – the percussionists. Nor are they the horns. Two previous Royal Harpists have brought the profession into disrepute. One lost her By Royal Appointment status over the fraud and burglaries she needed to do to support a drug habit. A second former Royal Harpist, married to a teacher, is currently in prison over an interest she shared with her husband – namely, teenage boys. Well, there's nothing like sharing a hobby with your spouse. She'd procure the boys and he'd join in. A veil of discretion is drawn over What Happened Next. Harp players, huh. You wouldn't credit it.
(4) to my story Whys and Weres.
(5) to my tale Whys and Weres, again.
(6) to my tale Nature Studies.
(7) to my story Bungle In The Jungle
(8) to my story Hyperemesis Gravidarum. There's a lot of back-story here.
The Notes Dump:
The place where background notes, proof I've done the research and Showing My Working, and odd little things not strictly relevant to this tale, go to sit until they're needed. A waiting room for ideas.
German, verschlimbesserung: any action which whilst sincerely intended to improve a situation, only makes it worse…
Watched a short documentary about an all-female army unit in Zimbabwe – and you really would not mess with them. Not at all. The real Lionesses.
Also playing with the idea of subverting The Lion King when Nipho is Presented. Nants Ingonyama Bagithi Baba, the Circle of Life, and all that. Damn, could have sworn the singer supported Arsenal and was singing "Arsene Wenger"… hatuna matata... Siyo nqoba– we will conquer.
From Wikipedia: "(In Dutch) Medelander is a neologism from two words: "mede-" ("co-") and "Nederlander" ("Dutch person"). It literally means co-countryman. Medelander was coined as a euphemism for the word "allochtoon" (lit: "from a strange land"), which was itself coined as a euphemism for "buitenlander" ("foreigner") and "asielzoeker" ("asylum seeker"). It is now used as a derogatory term in an ironic way. It is often written between scare quotes to accentuate its difference from a "Nederlander"."
I think I get this: English does much the same when it differentiates or adds pre/suffixes to acknowledge, sometimes grudgingly, that other people living here are entitled to call themselves British, but... so you get "British-Asian" or "Asian-British", for instance, implying that yes, he or she is British but they're also Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi. The implication, negatively, is "not quite the full deal" or "not quite like the rest of us". Gradations. And I know I mis-spelt "medelander" in Suki's alias. Must ask Dutch readers: what is the accepted status (socially or legally) of Afrikaaners in Holland? Do South Africans who speak a broadly recognisable, if odd, language class as "medelanders" - almost but not quite the full deal?
Finally got the lyrics to Ampie (SA singer-songwriter)'s "Plein Jane" not bad, only eighteen months or so after first hearing the song and liking it… (reads like somebody was transcribing direct from the song – even I could spot the gaps and the spelling errors, and see where they might have mis-heard a few bits, and I'm nowhere near fully fluent. Oh; one or two of my corrections might be Dutch spellings rather than Afrikaans and I might have inserted a few typos of my own. Asseblief.)
Damn, could have sworn he was singing about a meisie from Magersfontein – apparently it's Maaikiesfontein. Or Matjiesfontein. Which is a real place, but nowhere near Magersfontein. Ah well.
Sy dra net animal fur,
'n Prada bril (een bra vir bro?), Calvin Klein for her
Sy rol met die nieuwe iPad
Hazel Dreams, sy's baie wert
Sy dra 'n aktuaris,
Wat ophou praat. tot sy klaar is;
Sy skryf met 'n Montblanc pen (?)
(missing words) het sy reeds verken
Sy's nie by nie;
Nie vir my nie
Kan my nie kry nie;
Ek soek 'n Plain Jane, haar trein
Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein
Ry trein, rooksein
wat ver in die lug verdwyn
'n Meisie wat my hart laat klop;
En net daaroor te veel laat stop;
Plain Jane, haar trein
Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein
Sy dra 'n John Deer hoed
Werk op die plaas in haar oukamp boots
Sy ry in 'n groot geel trok,
Skape, beeste, agterop!
Sondae is sy moeg gewerk,
Kry weer krag by die ouklip kerk,
Dans soos 'n dreun op haar ousing kat,
Van 'n (?) als dit moeilik raak!
Sy is my nie,;
so verleidelik;
Laat ek verduidelik;
Ek soek 'n Plain Jane, haar trein ,
Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein;
Ry trein, rooksein;
wat ver in die lug verdwyn;
'n Meissie wat my hart laat klop,
En net daaroor te veel laat stop,
Plain Jane, haar trein,
Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein
Op 'n ou grond pad het my kar gaan staan,
En om die draai kom 'n geel trok aan,
Sy trap die rem ek hoor die bieke kraak,
So deur die stof kom my engel aan.
Plain Jane, haar trein,
Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein;
Ry trein, rooksein,
wat ver in die lug verdwyn!
'n Meissie wat my hart laat klop,
En net daaroor te veel laat stop,
Plain Jane, haar trein,
Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein;
Sy's my lewe;
So tevrede;
Met goeie reden;
Sy's my lewe;
Plain Jane, haar trein,
Bly op haar plaas op Maaikiesfontein,
Ry trein, rooksein,
wat ver in die lug verdwyn;
'n Meissie wat my hart laat klop,
En net daaroor te veel laat stop;
Plain Jane, haar trein,
Bly op 'n plaas op Maaikiesfontein…