Chapter 13: Swallowed by a whale - not!
"Any man I choose?"
"Any man. You look at him, you say special words in your mind, you do as you choose with him."
"Are you sure it works?"
The old woman had a face like a raisin, or possibly a sultana. She waved a beringed hand in the air impatiently.
"Does it work? For woman with crooked teeth, with sallow face, maybe yes, maybe no. For woman who is as beautiful as the sun - how can it not work?"
With a jingle of bracelets she stretched out her arm and her hand closed over the gold coins. The other woman, the one who was as beautiful as the sun, picked up the amulet and left without a greeting, proving that "Handsome is, who handsome does" is just another pointless saying.
oOoOo
"I can't believe my husband has been swallowed by a whale!"
Angelina was holding on as best she could while the creature ploughed through the waves. She had never been very confident even on a horse, and riding this slippery giant was infinitely worse.
"I'm a fish, actually," replied the creature. "The difference being, I have fins, not flippers, and I'd thank you for not pulling them quite so hard."
"Very well, swallowed by a fish then. Are you sure he will be alright in there?"
"For a little while. Can you hear me in there, mister? You'll be as right as rain!"
There was no reply from the inside of the fish.
"I'll try to get ashore as quickly as possible. Will Hersheba be okay for you?"
"I hardly know."
"Well, I'll make for Hersheba then, it's closest. If I don't get rid of him soon, I'll be sick. I'm vegetarian, I'll have you know."
Angelina sighed.
"I am riding a talking fish, who is vegetarian, but has accidentally swallowed my husband. Is there any evidence that I haven't gone mad?"
"It wasn't accidentally. I was trying to save him, you know. Why do you think I took you on board, eh?"
"Well, why did you?"
"Because I can't stand that flipping Hydra. Well, I'm also doing somebody a favour, but I'm not allowed to talk about that. But that Hydra! Arrogant like a basking shark and vile manners. Last week she turned up her nose at old Mrs Palaver, the moray eel, only because Mrs Palaver has given up her own cave after her husband died and now lives in a rented crevice. Scylla now, I've never minded her, always polite, always greeting everybody as she ought to, and doesn't give herself any airs..."
The fish droned on and on and Angelina's thoughts drifted away. 'If we both survive this,' she thought, 'I might even start worshipping a God. I'd just have to decide which one.'
oOoOo
They had both been lost in thought, one on his way home from work, the other wandering aimlessly without a workplace to come home from. They had collided with each other and muttered their excuses, then exclaimed in surprise when they recognized one another. After a chat in the streets, their voices competing with the sounds of carts rattling past and fishwives yelling, Drumknott had invited Constantin home. Now they were sitting at the well-scrubbed kitchen table and talking about old times, half aware that they were way too young for this kind of nostalgia. Meanwhile, Elsie served lentil soup, followed by bangers and mash with fried onions, and watched with satisfaction how Constantin polished off his second helpings of each.
"So, how's Downey treating you?" Constantin asked between two spoonfuls of mashed potato.
Drumknott didn't answer. He had a mouth full of sausage.
"Lord Downey has instructed Rufus to bin all the reports that Lord Rust left unread," said Elsie. She tried to achieve a facial expression of grave concern.
"Flipping egg!" exclaimed Constantin. "I bet you didn't like that, did you?"
Drumknott was still chewing.
"Rufus is rebelling," declared Elsie and giggled. At last, Drumknott swallowed.
"He also told me to have the reports discontinued. But I haven't cancelled them, and I've filed them all the regular way without his lordship's knowledge. Just in case..."
His eyes met Constantin's, the same unspoken glimmer of hope on both sides. Elsie pulled the Spotted Dick out of the oven and began to dish it out. Constantin dug his spoon in as soon as the bowl stood in front of him while he poured over the cream with his other hand.
"I don't actually believe it was an accident," he said after the first mouthful of pudding had made its way down his food pipe.
Drumknott took the cream jug and carefully measured three spoonfuls into his bowl.
"You know, that thought had occurred to me, too. For a start, I can't quite believe the account of Miss Winter's behaviour. As far as I know her, she's quite a plucky little woman, when push comes to shove. It wouldn't be like her to refuse the only means of rescue on account of some hysterical fear."
"I've seen her in a tight corner a couple of times, but I've never heard her scream," agreed Constantin.
"But that's not the main thing. I know his lordship well. I am almost certain he truly loves Miss Winter, but - and, Constantin, I am sure you'll agree with me - if it had been a choice between abandoning her and abandoning his city, I don't think he'd have opted for her."
Constantin shook his head. "No, I don't agree. He wouldn't have abandoned her. But he would have made her get into the rowing boat. Can you imagine any scenario in which he would not get her to her senses?"
"Hm." Drumknott scraped his bowl and savoured the last portion of pudding. "True. But either way, the account we've been given doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't. I tried for a while to find out what really happened. I thought Rust or Downey had staged it, but it wasn't them. And then I gave up, because I thought, what's the point? It won't bring back the dead."
"Ah, but are they dead? The newspaper account certainly wasn't true. And that's what makes me think that the other story, you know, the one about the omniscope, might not be true either."
There was silence, as both men contemplated the implication of this. Constantin sighed.
"I wish you were right," he said. "If only he came back, then all would be well. I really don't know what to do any more. I just cannot be an assassin."
"I could probably find you a job at the palace. Clerk Michael retired last month."
"You want me to do filing? I thought you knew me better than that, Rufus." Elsie put down another plateful of pudding in front of Constantin, which he tucked into with undiminished enthusiasm.
"True. I forgot your need for excitement. What else could you do, though?"
"I really do not know. I've tried all sorts of things. The post office won't have me, because I'm allergic to dogs. I've applied for a post as a bouncer at the Mended Drum, but they just laughed at me. The woman at The Times said my spelling wasn't good enough. Anything I try has some kind of snag."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's a tough life. Well, just be on the watch for me, will you?"
"Certainly." Drumknott paused and furrowed his brow as if mulling over what had just been said. "Actually, I can think of something that would suit you."
"Do you?" Constantin finished off the last spoonful of Spotted Dick and proceeded to pick up the crumbs with his fingertip.
"It involves danger, requires fitness and quick thinking, and an admirable man will be in charge of you."
"Sounds perfect. What is it?"
"Listen..."
And while Elsie at last sat down to eat her own meal, Constantin listened.
oOoOo
Hersheba greeted Angelina in the shape of a bleak, forlorn beach with very little sand and plenty of sharp, red rocks. It fell towards the sea rather steeply and the slope appeared to continue under water, thus allowing the fish to come fairly close to the shore. With a noise so repulsive that Angelina wished she could forget it instantly, it disgorged the limp body of Vetinari, which sailed through the air for a good ten yards and landed just where the breakers washed upon the beach. Angelina dismounted from the fish and waded ashore. Vetinari was alive, but unconscious and covered from head to toe with yellowish goo. She dragged him up the slope out of the reach of the waves and sank down beside him, panting. Just as she was thinking about what to say to the fish by way of a thank-you 1), a gust of wind whisked up the sand and dust and a huge figure formed inside the cloud. It was roughly man-shaped, but with the horns of a bull and the shell of a tortoise on his back. It glanced at Vetinari and then turned towards the fish.
"That's not the Reverend," it rumbled. "You got the wrong man, you stupid fish!"
The fish gave the fin-shaped equivalent of a shrug.
"He was the one that fell into the water," it said defiantly. "Besides, I liked the little lady who was with him."
The figure shook a fist.
"I shall smite thee - !"
"You're not supposed to do that anymore. Anyway, I must be going. Good luck with your man, Miss," said the fish and slid back into the ocean.
"Pardon? Oh, yes, thank you, thank you very much," said Angelina. She hadn't quite managed to keep up with the events. The apparition turned around, scowled at her and disappeared in a puff of green smoke. An earlier train of thought occurred to Angelina. She shook her head.
"Maybe not," she said to herself. "Not this one anyway."
All alone on the beach now, she sat with Vetinari's head in her lap, uncertain what to do next. She would have liked to remove his clothing and rinse it out in the sea; salty water would have been preferable to the digestive juices of the fish. But he was a tall man, and it would have been difficult for her to undress him, and she didn't want to leave him exposed to the sun naked. After a while, the stench seemed less noticeable, but maybe that was just her sense of smell giving up.
It was nearly nightfall when Vetinari regained consciousness. He opened his eyes and looked up at Angelina.
"Definitely preferable to the last thing I saw," he mumbled and closed his eyes again.
They slept on the beach that night. It was warm enough, so they didn't need shelter, and they felt that there was nothing much left that they could fear. In the morning Vetinari took a bath in the ocean while Angelina did the best she could with his clothes. She realized that she wore nothing but her bi-skin-knee, sandals and her watch on the chain round her neck. Water had seeped behind the glass. She sighed.
"Do you think this will count as the shipwreck?" said Vetinari while they spread out his clothes over the rocks to dry.
"I don't know. I'm not sure we're still following the trail of Lavaeolus. The fish didn't fit in."
"Hm, yes. Maybe we won't have to do the whole lot. Let's hope so. We're in enough trouble as it is. No food, no water, no idea where we are - "
"Hersheba. We're in Hersheba. The fish told me," said Angelina.
Vetinari steepled his fingers.
"You rely on information given by a fish?" he asked.
"It was a rather helpful and polite fish," replied Angelina.
"Well, it makes little difference. All we can do is to try and find a settlement. We'd be best climbing up one of those hills and take a look around."
"Will you be able to walk?"
"I am fine."
"What was it like inside the fish?"
"I don't want to talk about it. We'll go as soon as I have something to wear. I'm afraid your attire might meet with censure among the local population."
In the sweltering heat, it only took just over an hour for Vetinari's shirt and trousers to dry. His shoes were still squelching, but they set off anyway and made their way up the slope of the nearest hill. When they reached the summit, it afforded a splendid view of a coastline that was deserted in both directions as far as their eyes could see. With no hope to find a settlement on the seaside, they turned inland. The hills were rocky and dry and entirely pathless, forcing them to skid down slopes and scramble out of valleys like rather clumsy ibexes. Around noon they stood on top of a knoll that seemed to mark the edge of the downs. Ahead and below they saw a dusty plane stretching to the horizon with just a few rocky outcrops to the left. A shambles of strangely shaped rocks and boulders huddled at the foot of these outcrops. They descended the shady side of the hill and had come about half the way down, when they heard the trickling of water over rock. Angelina rushed ahead.
Overhung by a small cliff of red rock, the mouth of a cave opened and from it emerged a miniscule spring. The air was cooler here, chilled by a draft from the dark cavern. Angelina knelt down by the rivulet and plunged her hands into the cold water. Vetinari, who had caught up with her, looked at the cave, looked at the spring, felt the draft and came to a conclusion.
"Don't drink that water!" he shouted.
1) How to address expressions of gratitude to marine creatures is a topic sadly neglected in the classic curriculum.
oOoOo
Icy rain and smog were fighting for supremacy in the streets of Ankh-Morpork. To anyone who would have cared to observe the struggle, it would have looked like a draw. Nobody cared, though. People huddled into their coats and hurried along to seek shelter in whatever suitable or unsuitable place they could find.
Some people, of course, were rich enough to be above the weather, at least metaphorically speaking, and were conveyed without being inconvenienced by the wet and wind. A considerable number of these lucky creatures were currently congregating at the residence of Lord and Lady Selachii. They left their carriages and made their way into the house under the protection of large umbrellas, which floated alongside them, the hands which held them attached to human beings of much lesser importance, who were therefore increasingly soaked.
As soon as one came through the door, one was in a different world. Left behind was the dark and damp, and the light and warmth of many fires and even more numerous chandeliers welcomed the visitors. They slipped out of their coats, oblivious to the hands that caught and carried away those garments, and joined the select crowd already assembled.
The Patrician had been one of the earlier arrivals. He didn't normally care much for Lady Selachii's soirees. But this one was a welcome distraction from the disaster zone Rust had left behind. He had to admit, though obviously only to himself, that Havelock had done an excellent job all those years. It would take him a while to make the city work again. One of his first deeds in office had been to readmit the guilds banned by Rust. He wondered if Rosie Palm might have reciprocated by blacklisting the man, just as she had shown herself appreciative of Downey's support.
With a glass of cognac 2) in one hand and a salmon pâté vol-o-vent in the other, he was currently trying to decide how best to impress as many people as possible with his presence, while talking to as few of them as he could get away with.
It was one of Regina's themed parties, meaning that in addition to Ankh-Morpork's nobility she had invited illustrious persons from a particular walk of life. This time, Downey had noted with relief, the chosen group were musicians, so he could expect not to be embarrassed by anything other than his complete lack of interest in their trade. With a shudder he remembered the occasion when the special guests had been fashion designers.
His painful reminiscence was interrupted by Lady Selachii's voice from behind him:
"Oh, and now you must meet our dear Patrician, he is such a treasure!"
He turned round. He blinked. He blinked again.
Next to Lady Selachii stood a woman. No, not a woman, a Woman. She was at least six feet tall and to call her voluptuous would be an almost criminal understatement. An emerald green dress did not so much conceal her body, but accentuate it. Her eyes were of a similarly glittering green, highlighted by a golden ring around the iris. Long, curved eyelashes the colour of jet surrounded them.
The most remarkable thing about her, however, was her hair. It rose from her brow in an intricate tower of interwoven braids that added further to her impressive height. Out of the centre of the tower it cascaded in a sheer unbelievable abundance of gentle curls, flowing down her back and over her shoulders almost down to her waist.
Its colour was that of polished copper, shining and glimmering in the candle light like the contents of a treasure chest. Here and there touches of gold and amber lent an extra sparkle to this breathtaking wonder of nature. A faint scent of lilies emanated from the tresses. 3)
"This," Lady Selachii said as if the siren's beauty was in any way her own achievement, "is Dame Gina Dulci."
The Woman smiled. As she did so, little golden twinkles seemed to appear in the air.
"I am delighted to make your acquaintance at last, Lord Downey," she purred. "Why, I have never yet seen you at the opera house!"
She fixed her eyes on him and he felt he was drifting away in a current that took him way, way out into a sea hitherto unknown.
2) Poured from a decanter labelled "cangoc".
3) Come on, you must have figured out by now why her name is Maria Susanna!
oOoOo
"Don't drink that water!" shouted Vetinari, but Angelina had already dipped in her hands and taken a deep draught. A curious taste it had, and it wasn't as cold as she had expected. It seemed heavy and sweet, and a pleasant darkness embraced her...
Angelina stands by the doorway and glances inside. The room is dimly lit and comfortably furnished with an assortment of chairs and occasional tables of vastly varying styles. Some thirty women are seated there, attired in a range of different fashions that seem improbable to say the least. They are talking to each other in small groups, or rather, talking would be the technical definition of their physical actions, while the overall effect of their communication would be better described as bickering.
Angelina finds herself listening to the group nearest the door. A stout woman of about fifty, with curly dark hair and flashing eyes, addresses another, regally dressed female in the opposite chair: "Well, he never even married me until we had been living together for eighteen years, and even that only after I had saved his life when the French came. He called it gratitude. I call it cheek!"
"Oh, stop whining, Christiane, he didn't exactly cut off your head, did he?" says the regal woman with a yawn and arranges the lace on her impressive ruff.
"That's all right for you to say, you were a queen and people had to give you some respect. You didn't have to put up with the posh ladies of the town arguing whether they would even give you a cup of tea!"
"Give it a rest, you two, will you," says another woman in a short, tight-fitting dress and pillbox hat. "Now, when my husband was killed, I was so distraught that…"
"…you kept wearing the blood-stained suit, yeah, yeah, yeah," chime two of the others in unison. One of them, who is similarly clothed to the owner of the blood-stained suit, shakes her head in a sharp gesture of irritation.
"Really, Jackie, "she says, "we've heard it a thousand times by now. Get over it. You did very well for yourself afterwards."
"Harken to Wallis, she knows all about second marriages or even third," adds the other, whose blonde hair is pulled away from her face into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. "And it's not as if you were the only one who was married to a popular president." The one addressed as Jackie snorts, but the blonde woman just glares at her, stands up and takes a deep breath.
"No, Eva!" calls the woman with the ruff and pulls her back down unto her seat. "If you start singing that awful Don't Cry for Me song again, I will cut your head off!"
"Don't be ridiculous, Anne," says the one referred to as Wallis. "You have no idea how to wield an axe."
"Oh, you are just jealous, because you never got to be queen!"
"Peace, peace!" cries the woman called Christiane. "I don't mind Eva singing, as long as I don't have to listen to Lady Felmet going on about blood on her hands again."
All five cast a surreptitious glance at another group of women nearby, who are listening with dazed looks to the drone of a rather statuesque lady. Then they look back at each other and nod in silent agreement.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Topsy Lavish gave her a right…" begins Christiane, but she is interrupted by Jackie, who has spied Angelina by the door.
"Oh, look, here's somebody new. Come in, come in, there's space enough."
Angelina takes a cautious step towards the group.
"What is this place?" she asks.
The women exchange looks.
"Have you not been told?" replies Eva. "It is the Hall of Famous Wives in Limbo. We're all stuck here until our husbands have sorted out their affairs, huh, and get round to claiming us for the afterlife. Talk about hell being other people!"
"Who is your husband?" demands the one called Anne.
"Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork."
A hush falls over the room. The women in the other groups drop their conversation and turn their heads. One by one, they rise from their seats and draw near, eyeing Angelina with suspicious faces.
"He married you?" asks Wallis. "I don't believe it."
"Well, I don't see why everybody assumes that a man of importance cannot fall in love with…"
"Oh, shut up, Christiane!" says Anne. "Will you look at this little excuse for a woman?"
"Indeed," agrees Jackie. "Does she look to you like she could be a First Lady? No fashion sense whatsoever. What an appalling outfit!"
"And his lordship such a fine-looking man, too," adds Eva.
"She doesn't have the legs for it," sneers Wallis.
"Well, I…" begins Angelina, when she feels her whole self yanked back and pulled away from the scene, which dissolves in darkness.
When she opened her eyes, Vetinari was looking down at her.
"Oh, good," he said. "I thought you really were at death's door there."
"Quite possibly," replied Angelina, "I had gone a little further than that. What happened?"
"You drank from that spring and then you fell over."
"And what did you do?" She looked at a strange arrangement of little stones on a flat rock. "What are all these pebbles for? It looks like some sort of game."
"Oh, I just played a little round of Thud!"
"With whom?"
"It's of no consequence."
"But there isn't - "
"Never mind. Let's get away from here."
He dragged her away from the cave and down the slope. Near the foot of the hill they saw that what had looked like a random assortment of rocks was actually a small camp of very poorly pitched tents. It had seemed lifeless it the midday heat, but now that the sun was sinking, people were emerging from the tents. The small, lumpy boulders were nothing else than resting camels. Vetinari pulled Angelina down behind a large stone and peered around it cautiously.
"There are about a dozen people down there," he said. "Mostly Hershebean, though one seems to be a white man."
Angelina looked out at the other side of the boulder. She saw the tents, the camels and the dark-skinned men in their white robes and headscarves. Then she spotted the one Vetinari had referred to. He wore a white shirt, short trousers and a buff coloured hat. She saw him moving about the camp, purposefully, vigorously. He lifted a hand and rubbed his neck. Angelina held her breath. She knew that gesture, that way of moving. Without a second thought she leapt up from behind the boulder and began running towards the camp.