Chapter 11: Classic Tales
Life on board the Suleika was leisurely and monotonous, and Angelina soon lost count of the days again. None of the Agateans spoke Morporkian and thus their social intercourse was limited to polite nods at mealtimes and whenever one happened upon another on deck. Of the crew only Mahmut knew their language, and his habits of professional servitude made a stimulating conversation with him nigh impossible. Angelina had once entered into a bit of small talk with Reverend Oats, the Omnian priest, but it had quickly escalated into a heated debate on the nature of evil, and since then she had carefully restricted her interactions with him to insipid remarks about the weather.
The weather, however, offered little in the way of variety, and after a few days she became tired of trying to find yet another way of saying what a fine day it was again. Vetinari on the other hand sought out the priest and involved him in lengthy debates, leaving the poor man looking more nervous after each encounter. Left to her own devices, Angelina spent much time being tremendously bored. She cared little for the game of Crossing Out Numbers On A Square Card, she detested the performances of the ship's belly dancer and she reflected sadly on the fact that she hadn't laid her fingers on a musical instrument in months. Her only occupation was altering her island couture into something more suitable for wearing in a mahogany panelled dining room.
It was therefore welcome news when Mahmut told them that the ship was expected to reach the island of Mithos during the course of the following morning and that the passengers would have the opportunity for an excursion. Angelina and Vetinari were taken ashore in the first boat. The harbour was small and the little settlement sleepy and dull in comparison to the bustle of Uyoiyahuoi. Whitewashed mud bricks formed the houses, roofed with bundles of raffia. When the passengers alighted, a group of children surrounded them and eyed them with curiosity. Angelina tried not to stare. Each child had a single eye in the middle of the forehead.
On the path that lead past the houses stood a row of men holding donkeys. Some women hurried past with clay pots balanced on their heads. Elderly men and women were sitting on wooden benches in front of the houses. Each and every one of them had the single eye.
"My goodness, they're all cyclopses," whispered Angelina to Vetinari.
"It is 'cyclopes', I believe," he answered.
The two Agatean couples who had come ashore in the same boat approached the donkey drivers, iconographs ready. Gold coins glinted. The ladies each mounted a donkey, while their husbands beckoned the cyclopes to pose beside their wives. Click, click went the iconographs. Then the gentlemen clambered onto their mounts and the whole group set off.
Angelina and Vetinari exchanged a brief glance. They strode up the path, passed the donkey drivers with a nod and moved swiftly onwards. The children followed them for a while, but turned back to the shore when they noticed the next boat landing on the beach.
The path led past the houses and up a slope into a ticket of olive trees. They plunged into the welcome shade and made their way steadily uphill. After a while, the trees receded and the path wound on over stony ground. The hills were ragged and reflected the heat of the sun. Dark-green, dusty shrubs emanated spicy scents. Cicadas chirped. Angelina panted. Not far from a low cliff the path split and they halted.
When they looked back, they saw that they had climbed some six or seven hundred feet above the sea. Back down in the harbour, the Suleika lay like some shiny leviathan. The ocean was as blue as blue can be. It was a uniform colour that can get fairly grating after a while, at least if one is used to the infinite variety of shades of grey that a rainy city offers.
"I'm too hot," said Angelina.
"Let's take the path to the right. It should be shady between those rocks."
A tiny trickle of a burn came down from a small gorge. They followed its course further uphill, grateful for the somewhat cooler air. Rock towered up on either side, and soon the sky was nothing but a strip of blue overhead. The gorge led them out onto a ledge overlooking the sea, and from there they went further into the barren, craggy hills. After clambering about for nearly two hours they came to a cave that opened up in the rock face to their left. There was no mistaking that this was a dwelling of sorts. Even if it hadn't been for the clay tablet at the entrance with the word Sunnyside carved in it, the pile of firewood and the clothes line would have been a dead give-away.
"Greetings, travellers!" came a voice from within the cave. A moment later, an elderly Cyclops appeared in the entrance. He wore a grubby loincloth, the hygienic state of which was best not investigated, and a black patch over his single eye, which made him look more than just a little pathetic.
"Good afternoon," replied Vetinari. "You speak Morporkian?"
The cyclops made a dismissive gesture. "Oh, everybody knows Morporkian in these parts."
"How did you know we were not Agateans?"
"A lucky guess?" The cyclops shrugged. "I am Polymer. I take it you came on the ship?"
"We did," said Angelina.
"Holiday of a lifetime, eh? You probably wonder what happened to my eye?"
"Well..." Angelina looked at Vetinari. She had a vague feeling that she knew what the answer to that question was.
"Group of hooligans it was, ages ago. I was expecting some friends round that day, and I had set up the buffet and all and then nipped down to the village to get some Seepo. Not much point in having a party without something to raise the spirit, eh? Well, I got the Seepo and when I came back, these men were sitting here at the table, bold as brass, eating all the food! They'd even taken the piglet off the spit and carved it up. Well, you can imagine that I gave them a piece of my mind. Told them how abominably rude their behaviour was and that their mothers would be ashamed of them. I said I would keep them there until my friends arrived and then they could apologize to them and to me. But before I had even finished my sentence, this one guy took the spit and drove it straight into my eye. Straight in!"
"Shocking!" said Angelina.
"Tell me about it," replied Polymer. "There I was, blinded, screaming in pain, and they just made off and, out of sheer spite, drove all my sheep away, too."
"Did you not follow then?"
"Follow them? In the state I was? I was glad when my friends came at last and patched me up. I was in bed three weeks before I felt I could get up again. The wound got infected and was oozing like mad, and my friend Stereos had to change the dressing about five times a day. I was in agony, I'm telling you. Would you like to see the scar?"
He lifted a hand to his eye-patch.
"No, thanks," said Angelina quickly. "I am sorry to hear you have had such a dreadful trauma."
"Right you are. Terrible business it was. We've had problems with gatecrashers here before, but that really took the biscuit."
"And have you done nothing to avenge yourself?"
"Oh, I would have pressed charges against him," said the Cyclops, "but we haven't been able to find out his address. He said his name was Outis, and there are five pages worth of Outises in the directory."
"Ah, yes," said Vetinari. "A well appointed police force would have served you well in this matter. I believe you will find that the real name of the perpetrator is Lavaeolus."
"How do you know?"
"Just an educated guess. I doubt you will be able to apprehend him after all this time, though."
"Blast! If I could only sue him for damages! I think if I got a decent sum for compensation, I could start my own business. A little taverna down by the harbour. I make a spectacular tzatziki with lemon juice and thyme. In fact, I have some here now, would you like to try it?"
"I believe it is time we left," said Vetinari. "We are hours away from the harbour. It would be calamitous if we missed the ship."
"Oh, no hurry. You just take that path on the left here, it takes you down in fifteen minutes!"
They thanked Polymer for the directions, but took their leave nevertheless. The sun was setting in a furore of tacky colours, when they returned to the ship.
"Did you have a pleasant time?" asked Mahmut.
"It was … interesting," replied Angelina.
"The mosaics in the Temple of Libertina are rather fine, aren't they?"
"Oh," said Angelina. "We didn't know about them. We just went for a walk and met this old, blind Cyclops."
"Old Polymer? Did he tell you how he lost his eye?"
"In great detail," replied Vetinari.
"Yes," said Mahmut, "he tells that story to anyone who will listen."
"You mean it's not true?" Angelina asked.
"Who knows? I hope you didn't try his tzatziki."
"No, we didn't. Why, what's wrong with it?"
Mahmut snorted. "Tzatziki with lemon juice and thyme? Have you ever heard such a thing!"
"Not until this afternoon," said Vetinari. "Thank you for telling us about the temple, Mahmut. May I suggest that another time you inform us of such attractions before the excursion? My wife and I will retire to our cabin now. We've had a rather taxing day."
oOoOo
The youngest Mrs Winter sat in her newly furnished parlour and put the finishing touches on a green silk blouse that would complement her dark skin tone. She had shown Goldy around the house, an occasion to which she had been looking forward to, but under the current circumstances neither of them had been in the mood to take much joy in domestic arrangements. Now Goldy sat in an armchair by the fireside with her feet dangling and her face pinched and tense.
Tvoolia sighed and wished Goldy's first visit could have occurred on a more auspicious day. She took such pride in her home, not the least because she had been instrumental in securing its comfort. Henry had been anxious about money, after spending such a substantial sum on the search for Angelina. He had feared that they would have to delay the wedding after all, unless he could get some more or at least more lucrative contracts. Tvoolia had recoiled from this notion, which went directly against her plan to persuade him to retire from active service and take up a teaching post with the Guild.
Fortunately, she had been able to contribute to their household not only with her self-made curtains, bed spreads and table cloths, but also with her sizeable nest egg. Tvoolia had been among the first to open a bank account when Mr Lipwig invited people to do so. Heeding the advice of that nice Mrs Bent, Miss Drapes as was, she had put by a regular sum. Her skills as a dressmaker had for some time seen her rise steadily in her profession and procure a good income, and since it had become known that she had been commissioned to make the dress for the Vetinari wedding, the demand for her services had soared. His lordship had also paid her handsomely, and thus it was that Tvoolia could furnish her house as much with the proceeds of her own labour as with her husband's tainted income.
"How is it supposed to work anyway?" asked Goldy.
"I'm not sure. I think they have a kind of tracking device attached to this omniscope. That way, it doesn't just show any old thing, but exactly the thing they're looking for. They'll find out precisely what happened. Henry says he wouldn't accept to have her declared ... he wouldn't accept it without proof. Apparently Commander Vimes says the same."
"Quite right to. You can't allow for them to be declared dead, just because that suits some people. I'm amazed the waiting period is so short anyway."
"Mr Slant had to look it up," said Tvoolia. "Henry says he wouldn't trust Mr Slant as far as he could throw him."
"Neither would I, though I bet I could throw him further than Henry could."
Tvoolia didn't laugh.
"It's just so hard to imagine how they could still be alive. After all these weeks..."
"I've looked at a map," said Goldy. "Just off the coast off Limonum there is a very strong current that leads rimwards out of the Circle Sea. There are a lot of islands in the Rim Ocean. I think it would actually be hard to miss them."
"I know." Tvoolia bit off the thread and put the finished blouse aside. "That's what Henry keeps saying. But I'm not so sure. Well, I'll be glad when he's back. It's the uncertainty that is the worst."
"You are wrong," said a voice from the door. They looked around. Henry stood there, grey-faced, red-eyed, his black silk cape hanging down limply like the skin of a dead bat. "The worst thing is certainty."
oOoOo
To his own surprise, Lord Vetinari enjoyed the sea voyage. Every morning he went for a brisk walk around deck 2 and afterwards spent an hour in his cabin working on his book. Then he woke Angelina and they went to the Nausicaa Bar for breakfast. Cook boiled the eggs just as he liked them, a gentle breeze cooled his brow and nobody bothered him. The Agatean couples were friendly, calm and, as he had noted with gratitude, not given to excessive laughter. He would chat with Angelina until lunchtime and sit most of the afternoon with Reverend Oats in the library, debating matters of doctrinal importance. He reckoned by the end of a fortnight he'd have turned the man into an atheist. Unfortunately, the Reverend was way too easy to beat at clay-pigeon shooting, because he couldn't hold the crossbow steady enough, but he had a decent enough aim at shuffleboard. Vetinari had let him win a couple of times, to stop him from moping. In the evenings everybody attended the on-board entertainment, which was invariably atrocious, but precisely for that reason provided a source of considerable amusement. Once Angelina was asleep, he went back to his manuscript.
He felt more like himself now that they were on their way home. The enforced idleness of his unplanned honeymoon had not agreed with him, nor had his vivid imagination of what might be going on in his city improved his spirits. The necessity to share at least some of his thoughts with his wife was a mixed blessing. Her presence was, as ever, a comfort to him, but she believed in such silly notions like: that it did one good to get things off one's chest. They hadn't been talking about precarious issues since that awkward day when they had ended up sleeping on the beach. Still, he was grateful to Angelina for reminding him that his self-worth didn't depend on Ankh-Morpork. There had been a time in his life, when he hadn't been Patrician, and there might even come a time again, when he wouldn't be. 1) But he had always been Havelock, though few people called him by that name. At least his wife was beginning to get used to that now.
It still astonished him from time to time that he had a wife. A wife wasn't something he had ever expected to acquire, and as a rational man he couldn't approve of it. Yet she had grown on him so gradually that he had never taken the trouble to think about her rationally until he had realized that he couldn't do without her. No, that wasn't true. He could do without her, obviously. It was just that he didn't want to, and he was a man who was ultimately used to getting exactly what he wanted.
Well, he had got what he wanted and contrary to certain truisms, he liked it. Having Angelina around was like eating chocolate 2) without getting fat. Coming to think of it, he wished he knew where she was. He hadn't seen her since breakfast, and it was nearly noon.
He found her in the Nausicaa Bar. She didn't notice him standing in the doorway, because she had her eyes closed in concentration. The two spotty youths who were the Suleika's sad excuse for a band stood next to her sheepishly. One of them had his hands on his drum and tapped it occasionally, but the other looked on empty-handed, for Angelina held his generic Klatchian string instrument and strummed it with marginally more success than he normally did. And she sang.
With a smile of satisfaction, Vetinari withdrew. He wouldn't pay to hear her, either, but it pleased him to know that his wife could accurately pitch a diminished fifth.
1) Not now, though, now he was merely sitting out for a couple of dances.
2) At least like what Vetinari imagined eating chocolate felt like to other people. He himself had never developed a sweet tooth.
oOoOo
It was eight in the morning and one of those infrequent days when the whole Vimes family was assembled at the breakfast table. Sybil scraped butter on a slice of only slightly burnt toast and Vimes glared at his coffee as if it was a criminal. There was no bacon, but half a grapefruit for each adult. Young Sam sat on his special chair, with one hand clutching his beloved cuddly hedgehog 1), with the other shovelling porridge into his mouth with the devotion only a three-year-old can muster.
"It is a jolly good thing that Ronnie gave up the post," remarked Sybil. "He's been a fearful oik and if he hadn't stepped down, I'm sure someone would have given him a little poke."
With his porridge bowl empty, Young Sam turned his attention to other matters.
"Daddy, why did the funny man poke the big man's eye out?"
Sybil's head rose sharply.
"Sam, have you been telling him about your work again?"
"No, dear."
"But he - "
"Why, Daddy?"
"It was just something in a book I read to him."
Where Is My Cow? had fallen out of favour with Young Sam some time ago, and the little boy was now eager for more adventurous reading material. As demand outgrew the picture books available, Vimes had begun to pick volumes from higher up in the book case.
"What kind of book would that be, dear?"
"Was the big man naughty, Daddy?"
"No, Sam, the funny man was naughty. It's called Tales Of The Classical World. It's educational," said Vimes doggedly. "It's all about a guy called Lavaeolus and his travels - "
"I know the book, Sam. That it's hardly appropriate reading for a three-year-old."
"He likes it! Don't you, Sam?"
"Daddy, you arrest the funny man?"
"No, Sam. Anyway, he knows it's not real. And worse things happen in the Shades."
"Daddy, can the big man still see anymore?"
"How do you know he knows it's not real?"
"Daddy, can he see anymore?"
"Because I told him so. No, Sam, he can't, that was his only eye. That's to teach you always to be extra careful with anything you've only got one off. I told you it was educational."
"I only have one Hedgehog."
"That is true, Sam. No, Sam, I don't think violence is educational, even if it's mythological."
"There you go, make sure you watch it carefully. It seems educational enough to me."
"Can I take him to the park, Mummy?"
"Well, I'm sure you know best. Yes, put him into your little pram. Do you think Mr Lipwig will be elected?"
"Can Teddy come, too?"
"He's too flashy. If you ask Purity nicely. People won't trust him."
"I don't think they ever trusted Havelock. He'll need to put his little red coat on."
"They'd trust him even less. I didn't know he had a red coat?"
"Pu'ity put it in the wash."
"Who else is there? It's not Sam's, it's Teddy's."
"There's Rabbit, can Rabbit come, too?"
"None who I'd care to see in the Oblong Office. No, two's enough."
"Oh, I think Rabbit could go. It'll be all over the papers tomorrow, I suppose."
"When do we go?"
"Possibly tonight. They will probably bring out a special edition. As soon as Purity comes back from the shops."
"But Teddy doesn't have his coat."
Fortunately, Purity arrived back at this precise moment and took Young Sam away, thus preventing a lamentable brain melt-down in author and readers. In a rather resigned manner, Vimes and Sybil continued their conversation on the prospect of a new Patrician, interrupted briefly when Young Sam rushed in to pick up Hedgehog. Soon afterwards Vimes left for the watch house, his expression even grimmer than usual.
3) In vain had Vimes pointed out that hedgehogs were, by default, not cuddly. Sybil has insisted that it was a most charming little toy, and besides, it was a present from Brenda.