Of course, despite the threat of death, despite the relentless training, there had been lighter moments, of humour, even farce, for the mature students. Right at the very start, when Alice and Emmanuelle had moved into a shared apartment with the semi-incarcerated Joan and Johanna, they had barely hung clothes up in the wardrobe and folded them into drawers when an appalling commotion was heard down in the yard. To Alice's ears, it had a certain indignant, harrumphing, quality to it, and her heart dropped.
"Oh, dear" she said. "Uncle Hughnon".
Joan raised a qustioning eyebrow.
"Well, he's not actually my uncle" she amended. "An old family friend. He's my godfather. He was at seminary with my father."Joan joined her at the window.
"Oh my gracious! The Chief Priest? Your uncle? And he's not alone... who's that troll?" Emmanuelle's head lifted with a start and she ran to the window.
She groaned. Chrysophrase. But there was also...she nudged Joan, who smiled warmly. The woman loomed, and managed in her indignation and folded arms to look even more dangerous than the troll.
"Dear old Whitlow!" Joan sighed. "such a friend... I think they're all here for us, girls!"
Behind the Chief Priest, the Troll crimelord and the University's housekeper stood two slightly built men: one in the universal Howandalaandian outfit of safari suit and floppy bush-hat, the other in black suit, natty embroidered waistcoat, with the transparent green visor of office projecting over his eyes.
"Scrote Jones, from the Gambler's Guild" Alice said. "And... somebody for you, Johanna?"
"My Onkle Piet" Johanna said. "The Embassador."
The four women watched as the gate guard from the Guild retreated, strictly at a loss as to how to handle this situation. After a couple of minor incidents with the resurgent watch and its troll members, especially Sergeant Detritus, the Guild was dimly begining to realise that there was nothing, anywhere, in the Black Library or the accumulated skills of living Assassins, concerning how to inhume trolls. They'd never been important enough to merit a Guild fee before. And the guards understood that inhuming the Chief Priest, the Head of the Gambler's Guild and a prominent foreign Ambassador could be perceived as being impolite, to say the least. Not to mention the terrible spectacle of an indignanant Mrs Whitlow, who was loudly and indignantly demanding to be allowed to see her friend Joan, right now, if you please!
Chrysophrase stood back, silently grinning, allowing human indignation to open doors. It summoned Downey and Cruces. The gate gurd gratefully let them take over.
"Got a BIG bone to pick with you, Donald!" Hughnon Ridcully boomed in his deepest fire-and-brimstone voice. "You sent two of your bloody soldiers to break into me own bloody palace and abduct me god-daughter. Young girl I faithfully promised her father I'd keep an eye on and look after! And I hear you've still got Alice here now because you held a crossbow to her head and made her sign up with you! I'd be obliged if you had the kindness to let me see her!"
"There's nothing like having friends, is there?" Joan whispered to Alice.
"Doctor Cruces, HWHAT have you done with my friend Joan Sanderson-Reeves?" Mrs Whitlow demanded. "And HWHAT is this absurd rumour going around that she's a mass murderer? I demand you let her OUT of her CELL now!"
"Es Embassador to Enkh-Morepork of the Union of Rimwerds Howendelaand, it hes come to my ettention thet you are ilegally detaining a citizen of my country. When this gets to Pretoria, et the very least, your country's Embassador will receive a note of protest. I must insist on my right to see my country's citizen and assure myself thet she is alive and being treated well. I have also protested to Lord Vetineri!"
There was a pause. Cruces said "Mr Jones?"
Scrote Jones adjusted the green visor of office, and said, reasonably "You know the protocol, Dr Cruces. Any Head of Guild has the right to request a private discussion with any other Head of Guild. I'm asking for that right in respect of one of my Guild members who appears to have dissappeared following her detention by Assassins' Guild representatives."
Cruces looked at Downey, and both nodded.
"Mr Chrysophrase?"
"Dere ain't nutting I can add dat ain't been said by dese four fine outstandin' pillars of der community" he said. "But at der time Mr Jones here lost his Guild member, she was workin' for me. I want to see she OK. And talk about transferring her contract from my management to yours. Poachin' my employees might be seen as impolite. As not havin' respect. And whatever else you Assassins is, you are people who have respect. I sure I not wrong in dat"
"Please, all of you come up to my office." Cruces said. "We can discuss this in private".
The women were not surprised when there was a polite knock at the door and they were invited to attend at the Master's office.
"As you can see, they are being treated with respect and consideration" Downey said. "We think of these ladies as each having great potential for the Guild, and we hope that they will become fully-fledged and trained Assassins in due course. We in fact welcome their having concerned friends outside the Guild gates, as this way it can be seen that we have nothing to hide or conceal. Arrangements can, of course, be made for visits to those who are unavoidably detained on Guild premises at the moment."
"Then you won't mind me talkin' to me god-daughter in private, Donald" Ridcully said, firmly. "if nothin' else I'm her god-father and spiritual advisor, and your Guild rules will of course respect freedom of religion and the sanctity of the confessional. Which means, Donald, I shall be visitin' me god-daughter regularly."
"As is the right of both of you, Chief Priest" Downey said, smoothly.
"And if any of the other ladies here are Ionian, that right is open to them too." Ridcully said, flatly. "I'm sure I can find a chaplain of choice to any who aren't!"
"I am from Quirm and I used to see Bishop Band. He took me through First Communion and Confirmation" said Emmanuelle, doing her best to look innocent. Ridcully examined her through suspicious eyes, and then nodded.
Catching on, Joan said " I might not have been a good Ionian, but I prided myself on making it to Evensong as often as I could!"
This left Johanna, who said "Kerrigian United Reformed Temple of Io end Offler?"
Ridcully grinned. "There's a joke about your lot!" and insisted on telling it. "A priest of the Kerrigian Reform Temple goes into the chuch one day and finds a black woman on her knees in front of the altar. So of course he goes Bursar at her. Woman! Whet you think you ere DOING! This is a white people's church! She replies But I'm scrubbin' the floor, baas! The priest calms down and says Thet's elright. Thet's ellowed. But don't let me cetch you PRAYING while you're down there! Do you hear? "
"Very droll, Chief Priest" observed Downey. Johanna had gone red.
Ridcully nodded. "Far as I'm concerned, these four ladies, including the one who through no fault of her own belongs to a colonial church with some errant doctrines, are members of Ionian churches, and therefore members of me congregation. Which makes me their chaplain, d'you hear, Donald?"
"Perfectly, Hughnon. Now each of you might want to speak privately to their friend or relative? Arrangements have been made. And I assure you you will not be eavesdropped."
"Thirteen?"
"I'm afraid so, Uncle Hughnon"
"Hmmm. Damn fine shootin', though. Good economy of arrows! And it comes under the Works of Duty and Necessity clause. Does it disturb you, though, Alice? Do you wake up at night tormented or troubled by the memory?"
"Never given it a second thought, Uncle Hughnon."
"Then the forgiveness and blessin' and absolution of the god Io goes with you and accompanies you down the road of your life. Amen!"
"Amen"
Hughon Ridcully sat back in his chir and a grin formed on his lips.
"I met that old schoolfriend of yours, Caroline Bradwell. She asked after you. This is where she's stayin', if you wanted to meet up, talk about old times!"
He passed over a note. Alice looked at him. Surely he knows? My father discussed his demon-taken immodest daughter with his best friend and confessor...
Alice was sure he winked.
"You're absolved of all sin. Remember? And by me, not just any old priest. Go forth, and rejoice in the way Io made you!"
And in a neighbouring room, a conversation in the Wondalaans language. This has been translated into Morporkian for the benefit of the reader.:-
"Just say the word, Johanna, and you'll be on a ship back home to Howandalaand as quickly as we can manage."
"That's very kind, Uncle Pete. But I've decided to stay."
"Johanna?"
"OK, so they doped me with ether and carried me here against my will. They should not have done that. But now I'm here, something about this place really appeals to me, uncle. It's something I want to do. And think about the advantages. When I return home, I will have had a first-class training in everything to do with Assasination that can only be of benefit to the Staadt! They have a library here that you would not believe. I get to live in a city for a few years. I often wonder if I could settle down to be a schoolteacher. Here I get to try it".
"Are you sure? I put in a complaint to Vetinari about this. I retract it, he's going to think that Pieter van der Graaf is generating a lot of light and sparks over nothing."(1)
"I'm sorry, Uncle. But I really want to do this. There is nothing, nothing, like this available at home! It seems to be a better deal than just becoming some landowner's wife and mother of his children back home. It's a vocation. A career. A profession. It attracts me!"
"So be it, Johanna." the Ambassador said, sadly. "I'll still complain to Vetinari concerning your abduction by force, obviously. But I will tell your parents you made a free choice to remain afterwards, in vocational training and work that may be vital to the Staadt in years to come. Obviously I'll check on your welfare from time to time, ensure you have enough money and your needs are met".
And next door:
"When I heard you were here, I asked Archchancellor Ridcully if he'd be prepared to come and support me and talk to Lord Downey on my behalf. You know how it is, the word of another man of class carries more weight than a mere housekeeper's."
"You've never been a mere housekeeper in your life, my dear Whitlow!"
"And then he said there'd be no need for him to come, as it wouldn't be fair for Downey to face down both Ridcully brothers. He gave me a letter of introduction to the Chief Priest, who kindly invited me along. But, Joan! You're a prisoner here? I can't believe it!"
" A prisoner for now, yes."
" I hear there was some trumped-up charge that you'd murdered twenty-four people..."
"It was only eighteen. And yes, I did it."
Mrs Whitlow's fingers flew to her mouth in horror. And then, because she was Mrs Whitlow, her eyes became harder and her pose firmer. Besides, she was a fairly typical reader of the Tanty Bugle, Ankh-Morpork's premier penny-dreadful of murders most 'orrible.
"tell me all about it" she said. "Leave nothing out".
"Thank you, Scrote. You're a better friend than I deserve."
"At least it's all bottomed out now. The Troll's paid off. You've been accepted for training by the professionals. They've agreed that you may remain a Gamblers' Guild member with full privileges. Which includes my right to visit to check on your welfare. All you have to do is learn and stay alive. It's never straightforward with you, is it?"
"You'd never want me any other way, mon cher ami. Mon tres cher ami".
Their hands met accross the table, two friends who understood each other.
"Oh, by the way. There are odds out on your surviving the training course."
Emmanuelle wasn't offended. This was the Guild of Gamblers, after all.
"What sort of odds?"
"Two to one says you'll pass. Five to three you'll fail."
"Put five hundred on me passing, cher ami. A little extra to work for. And can you work out odds on Alice and Joan and Johanna? Especially Joan. Nobody expects la vielle to pass, she is troppe ancienne, but I perceive the old lady has steel in her back and will surprise us all. We could make a killing on her, cher ami! "
"Dat will do nicely" Chrysophrase said, taking the money pouch. He signed the agreement. In its essentials, the parchment that said that a donation would be paid by the Assassins' Guild to a recognised troll charity. This gesture of symbolic goodwill and charity would be accepted by Chrysophrase, as full compensation for the transfer of the contract of one Emmanuelle -Marie Lapoignard les Deux Epees to the Assassins' Guild. It was also agreed that if Chrysoprase needed a hit-person in the future, he would preferentially approach the Guild to request Emmanuelle's services, should she survive training. As this looked likely to be a repeat engagement, perhaps even a Retained Assassin agreement, a certain amount of discounting could be factored in re. fees.
"A pleasure to negociate with you" said Dr Cruces. "Do call again."
"And everyone's up for the Octeday poker game, as usual?" Scrote said, cheerfully. "Gamblers' Guild rules, aces low, Brindisian Hold-'em. Got Mr Boggis from the Thieves' Guild and Queen Molly from the Beggars so far. "
"I'm in" said Cruces.
"Got the 'evenin' free. Don't see why not!" said Ridcully.
"Dis troll will play. But wid' a clean unmarked deck!" agreed Chrysoprase.
One day, about halfway through the year, somebody had noticed the clauses in the Concordat that said that the Assassin should be at home in any company and able to play at least one musical instrument, as well as fluent in at least two languages.
The senior class were therefore summoned to the Music Room with their instruments of choice, to prove their proficiency in front of the Guild's music teacher, Doctor von Ubersetzer. This had caused Alice a moment of angst, as it meant her guiltiest secret of all was about to be exposed to the world. She agonized about it for a day or two, then thought oh, to hell with it, it had to come out sometime. A quick note to Uncle Hughnon meant a very junior Deacon was despatched from the High Priest's Palace, with evidence of a guilty secret that went right back to her schooldays in Quirm. Alice received him with thanks, looked round twice to see nobody was watching, gave him a donation to temple funds and suggested it went straight to the Deacon's Benevolent Fund, then scuttled to her room to hide the evidence.
On the appointed day, she and a group of the other mature students were admitted to the Music Room to have their musical proficiency tested to see if it was up to approved Guild standards. Alice sat there, her instrument case at her feet, daring people to comment. Although it drew puzzled looks, nobody commented.
Joan Sanderson-Reeves went first, apologising for being a bit rusty after thirty years, but what she'd learned at finishing school should come back to her, with luck.
"Proceed" said the fussy little Doctor, tucking his thumbs inside his waistcoat.
Joan then played a competent Hergenian piece on the concert harp, announcing it as by Hergen's national composer Turnip O'Caravan, and called "Sweet Joan", (2) which was why she'd learnt it all those years ago. It actually wasn't bad, Alice thought: full of the trills and turns and dancing little passages that were characteristic of the Hergenian native music style.
The Doctor nodded, appreciatively. "Very good. I would call that a pass. Next?"
Johanna Smith-Rhodes stepped forward with a guitar that had travelled Howondaland with her.
"This is a song of my people end my country. It is entitled, De Broederbondlied."
It was performed in Howondalaans, slow, strong, building to a repeated chorus, with a passion and a dignity about it.
Alice saw that her classmate Piers Verlinden was looking uncomfortable and shuffling his feet. Being a native Sto Kerrigian, the Boor language of Howondaland would be intelligible to him: whatever he was hearing wasn't exactly a sentiment he could stand four-square behind.
Probably something about being the master race who have the right to rule over kaffirs and lesser races, Alice thought. The Sto Kerrigians got rid of their warlike, pugnacious and adventurous people four hundred years ago by packing them all off to the colonies. The ones left behind are pacifists and rather dull stolid types who like building windmills, carving clogs, growing tulips and smoking strange herbs in coffeeshops. For a modern Sto Kerrigian, meeting a Boor must be like seeing an evolutionary throwback. Culture shock. (3)
"I think a pass. A good solid voice and very competent playing. And the song was about?"
"The struggle of the Boor people for freedom, self-expression end a nation united, in the face of the enemy inside end outside!".
Emmanuelle went third, unpacking her violin, preparing to play, until Doctor von Ubersetzer lifted a hand and said
"If you permit, madame? I just vish to check…"
He turned the violin over in his hands. "Ah yes, the crossbow fitted in here? And merely playing a sequence of minor chords followed by a major fifth activated the trigger and inhumed the client? Most ingenious, my dear. I vished to assure myself it was not loaded before you began playing, you understand."
"D'accord" said Emmanuelle, and played a series of hauntingly evocative Quirmian airs that had Alice aching for the city of her childhood. She was passed with distinction.
Piers Verlinden played a cello competently, and then it was Alice's turn.
"Unusual. Proceed"
Her eyes daring the room not to laugh, Alice inflated her cheeks, engaged the mouthpiece, and started to play Tubas in The Moonlight.
"Look" she patiently said, later, "When it came to sorting out instruments to learn at school, I was late that morning, and all that was left was the tuba or the bassoon since nobody else wanted them. I took the one that made the less obviously farting noises. I'm proud of it, OK? I played tuba in the school orchestra!"
Tired of merely providing the oompah bass line for the brass instruments seen as more versatile, she and Caroline Bradwell had written a piece of whimsy called Tubas in The Moonlight, allowing their maligned and belittled instrument a solo or two.
Tubas in the moonlight
Playing for me all night
Sing the song I want to hear;
Am I only dreaming?
Am I only scheming?
Stars above me
Shining brightly
Why can't she be
Sitting here beside me?
Tubas in the moonlight
Will bring my loved one home! (4)
The music room was silent. Alice lowered her tuba.
"Vell" said Doctor von Ubersetzer, "It is entirely possible that what I have just heard will prove to be an unforgettable performance. I award you a passing grade, miss Band."
Alice smiled, grimly. At least it was over and she'd satisfied the course assessors she could proficiently play a musical instrument…
"Well, do you think the Guild of Musicians will send their enforcers round to demand we pay their membership fees?" Joan asked, brightly. "After all, we've just played in public in Ankh-Morpork without being Guild members, so we owe them seventy-five dollars each!"
"Bring 'em on!" growled Alice. "Satchelmouth and the Ford Grisham Harmony Singers. NO problem! I feel like I want to inhume somebody!"
Doctor von Uberseltzer grinned. "Ladies, you do know you are not allowed to inhume anybody until you are fully licenced? However, as a music-lover, I could easily look zer other vay vhile you carry out a contract on the officials of zer Musicians' Guild. I am sure you are all capable, and the city's musical community vould extend their undying thanks to you."
The other half of the equation was language skills. A quick audit revealed that the bulk of the Mature Student intake was, regrettably, monoglot Morporkian. This regrettable state could not be allowed to persist, so some sort of language tuition must be fitted in, so that everyone met the minimum requirement of fluency in at least one other language.
Alice, bilingual in Quirmian and Morporkian, as well as Ecclesiastical Latatian, Classical Ephebian, Tsortean, Djelibeybian and Omnian, had no problems here. Neither did Emmanuelle (Quirmian, Morporkian, Brindisian, Genoan and other Latatian-derived languages). Joan spoke a sort of stiff, dormal, Quirmian, but it was rusty. Johanna had to be told, very carefully, that her own native bilinguality didn't quite satisfy Guild requirements, and she had to study another language from scratch. She opted for Überwaldean, on the grounds it was as closely related to her native language as Morporkian was, only in the opposite direction. This led her to Doctor Graumunchen, the resident teacher.
Alice and Emmanuelle found themselves jointly leading an evening class, twice a week, in Quirmian, as the default "foreign language", for the rest of their peers. To their surprise, they found themselves enjoying the mechanics and processes of teaching, and deriving satisfaction from communicating knowledge to other students. They were becoming trained Assassins, yes: but they were beginning to become something more than that.
Teachers.
(1) I know. I know. Another low pun. Or I could have been referring to the 1970's Dutch experimental progressive rock band Van Der Graaf Generator.
(2) Ireland (Hergen)'s national composer is Turlough O'Carolan, who turned Chieftains-style folk music into respectable baroque and orchestral pieces. One of his better-known harp pieces is Sí Siobhain gheall a'spearbhan (Sweet Joan, fairest among women). The lyrics are actually scathingly sarcastic and depict Joan as being neither sweet nor fair and having the intellectual capacity of a small twittering garden bird. But then, they're rarely sung…
(3) Just in case you think I'm getting at South Africans, this theory was actually advanced to me by a native Dutch girl, who was absolutely appalled at encountering Afrikaaners for the first time. She likened it to being a Cro-Magnon man who has discovered he has Neanderthal relatives.
(4) On Roundworld, performed by prankster performers The BonzoDogDoodahBand in the style of a 1920's jazz-blues fusion. The BDDB knocked around with people as disparate as Monty Python and the Beatles and at their best are very, very, funny.
Author's Note:-
For the benefit of non-British readers who may not understand the brass band tradition, a world-famous British ensemble, in brass circles, are the Black Dyke Mills Band. On a tour of the USA, they were very seriously asked to change their name, as it was held to be politically incorrect and insulting to lesbians of colour. This amused them all the way back to Yorkshire, where a Black Dyke is nothing more than an embankment holding back water which just also happens to be dark in coloration. Now I wanted Alice Band to be a player of a seriously incongruous musical instrument, I chose the tuba. She wears Assassin's black. I've established her in other stories as being discreetly lesbian. There has to be a possibly unkind joke here, but I can't work "mills" into it. Ah well, this may be for the best.