Another minor rewrite, this time to allow for the changes in Johanna over time and introduce another minor character who would have graduated in this run.
Alice stood in the shadows at Checkpoint Twenty-Seven, listening to the nearby rush of the almost-water and stilling her mind and senses so as to be aware of all the other, subtler, occasional, noises that the larger sound was masking. She became aware of the scrabbling and occasional chirruping of the messenger rats in their cage; of the curiosity of a feral rat, a native of the sewer, wondering why a not unattractive female should be cooped up behind bars, and investigating; of the conversation between the rats, which boiled down to a haughty go-away-I-am-as-far-above-you-as-the-stone-sky-is-above-the-rushing-waters, punctuated by the male rat's Dur? Why-we-not-mating,-prime-female?. (Alice thought I must be light-headed or suffering from sensory deprivation. But she still tuned into the rats, anyway. It was something to do. ).
{Modifer indicating exasperation and annoyance}Because-you-are-keekee-from-the-place-where-humans-send-their-bodily-excrements,-and–this-female-is-superior-status-from-Clan-Who-Work-for-Vetinari. That-is-why!
But-all-females-grey-in-the-dark-and-all-will-mate-readily-with-strong-male!
Return-when-you-have-cleaned-up-and-grown-brain!
Alice chose to look in on her rats. A scraggly grey-brown feral male hissed at her and retreated from the cage, followed by a small stone, which deliberately missed. She smiled at the female in the cage, and tried to vocalise "{modifier indicating distaste and exasperation} Males,- huh?"
{modifier indicating amusement} Males-indeed,-mistress!, she almost heard from the rat, which looked up appraisingly at her. She checked they had sufficient access to food and water, and resumed her vigil.
Her first candidate approached at just after one in the morning.
"Sir? I am here!"
Alice stepped, shrouded, out of the shadows.
"Make that a "ma'am", if you please." she said, trying to convey the idea that getting the examiner's sex wrong was one big step towards failing. "Number?"
"Black- seven, ma'am"
She checked the sheaf of papers she'd been given just before setting off. It had all been finely calculated and computed so that randomly issued colours and numbers sent the candidate on a preset route, on which they would intersect with four named examiners. Therefore, among a dozen or so Candidate papers she'd be assessing, there had to be… oh yes. Black –Seven. She took it to the front of her clipboard.
"Name?"
"Jeremy Ampleforth-Winchester, ma'am"
It tallied: she ticked it off. What comes first… oh yes. The symbol.
Alice held up the card.
"I haven't the vaguest idea, ma'am". A brief pause as Alice lifted her pen, and he added:-
"But rotated clockwise through ninety degrees, it's a Wizard's talisman advising any unwelcome visitors that they are now entering the Maximum Security Shelves of the Library, and the spell of Eightfold Stasis will be applied with maximum prejudice to anyone seeking to steal the books. The bananary fingerprint is not an official part of the design."
Ah. A comedian. Right… she ticked off "sign" as completed, and went onto the three questions of the Viva.
"Under what precisely defined circumstances may an Assassin use lethal force without first securing payment?"
"Ma'am. Like any member of society, the Assassin has the civil and common law right to self-defence if attacked by common thieves or thugs, or if for whatever reason an individual seeks to do them violence. He …or she…may then take the appropriate means necessary to protect their person. Although we are expected to act responsibly and use the minimum degree of force to, say, incapacitate an attacker, sometimes use of lethal force becomes necessary."
"That's one. Name a second."
"If your native country is at war and you are called up to its armed forces. It's impractical to take out a contract on every soldier in the enemy army before the battle starts, and therefore the Assassin in those circumstances is awarded a dispensation, and may inhume pro bono publico…"
"And a third case?"
Ampleforth-Winchester looked stumped for a few moments and errr'd. Alice poised her pen to make a cross. Then it came out in a desperate rush:
"Under Lord Vetinari, if the Assassin's services were to be required in the service of legally constituted civil authority, it would be regarded as pro bono publico, or at the least subject to a very big discount.."
"Name an example of the third type." Alice said, mercilessly, having not forgiven the slip over the sign and the cocky way he'd pointed it out to her. She now placed his face:- Ampleforth-Winchester was one of those confident pupils who sauntered through life barely breaking a sweat, and effortlessly passing tests and exams without exerting himself unduly. Well, you'll sweat now!
"Ma'am, the exam only calls for three questions.."
"And that's your answer, is it? If you'd read the exam rules a little further, you'd have seen that the examiner, at his or her discretion, may add a supplementary fourth!"
"Ma'am, an example of an assassin acting pro bono publico in the service of the State. The Honourable Michael Carrington, of Tree Frog House, who at Lord Vetinari's discreet request recently annulled the former Lord de Worde following an attempted coup d'état. And who then circulated iconographs of the dead Lord to his co-conspirators, as a warning about any repetition."
"Good enough" said Alice. "Now your next checkpoint will be at the dome of Small Gods. You need to figure out where to leave the Cloaca and start climbing upwards. Bit of a trek, I'm afraid. Off you go!"
Alice watched her first Candidate gratefully speed onwards into the gloom.
One down, eleven to go.
Jocasta Wiggs kicked her legs in frustration. Only twenty past one! She screamed inwardly: she wanted to get it over with, whatever the outcome. She had joined a motley group of later runners, for company and comradeship, in the Tump House Senior Common Room. They were preparing each other for the Run in a variety of ways: rote sessions from the Concordat, practicing Zen breathing, drinking coffee, and out in the ante-room…
Chanting, punctuated by rhythmic stamping and beating.
Nkulunkthulu! Inkatha yeSizwe Kwa'Zulu!
Jocasta allowed the translation to form in her mind. She'd done Howondalaandian Languages, a supplementary course offered by the school chaplain, Canon Clement N'Effabl (known to the pupils as "Black Mass") out of interest and a desire to do different.
Great Sky God! We, the crown of the nation, give ourselves to you, in the {rite of passage} that lies before us tonight, and in the ongoing struggle for a Free Howondaland…
"Damn' blacks." muttered Dorothea Selachii. "Lowering the tone of the school!"
"I bet you wouldn't dare say that when they're in the same room!" Angharad Rhodri-Protheroe teased her. "And everyone's entitlled to pray to their Gods, after allll!"
"It must be serious." Jocasta mused. "Normally they only insist on the right to their religion because it really gets up Miss Smith-Rhodes' nose, and they know it." She grinned, remembering a time when things had been really inflammatory between pupils from White and Black Howondalaand, and the senior teachers had had to step in to prevent the loss of valuable fees and embarrassing diplomatic incidents boiling up under the school roof. It had been a learning curve for all, including Miss Smith-Rhodes, and bloodshed had only narrowly been averted.
But even Miss Smith-Rhodes had learnt in seven years, hadn't she? Black Mass, Canon Clement, had softened and chipped away at some of her ideas, for one thing. And she'd had lots of opportunity to see what the black pupils were capable of. Take Ruth N'Kweze, for instance: she'd made it to Head of House, and deservedly. According to whispers, Miss Smith-Rhodes had asked for her by name to help in a difficult job a year or two ago.(1)1 No, thought Jocasta, Ruth was another of the stellar ones, the elite, who would breeze through things tonight. Everyone tipped her to be one of the contenders for the Sword of Honour, the prize to the outstanding candidate of the night. It's probably Ruth leading the singing in there, she thought. Tonight, both Boor and Kwa'Zulu pupils would run in the Finals: children sent to the Assassins' School by their countries to participate in a different kind of Arms Race.
They want them to come back home as trained Assassins, Jocasta thought. They will, but what their families don't know is that each side has had to make its own peace with the other for seven years on neutral ground. Take Precious Jewel N'Khazi and Heidi Retief: seven years ago they'd have happily killed each other, age eleven, because one's a Boor and the other's a Kwa'Zulu. Look at them now: age eighteen, they've been living and working together for seven years. They might still try to kill each other if one was on the wrong side of the border, but it'd be with extreme reluctance. Give 'em another forty years to get to influential positions in their societies, and Gods know they train you for that in this school, and who knows? A final lasting peace treaty? I heard Vetinari forced it on the Guild –to take equal numbers of black and white Howondalaandians. One of his subtle long-term plans, I bet…
The chanting and the ritual banging of assegai against buffalo-hide shield carried on.
Siyo nqoba! Ukufa! (HAI!) Ukufu! (Hai!) Siyo nqoba!(2)
"Bloody noisy, though" Angarhad remarked, lifting her head from the Concordat.
"Very showy. Their God must demand a lot of song and dance." agreed Antonia Ludorum. "I could never get into happy-clappy religions." Her nose crinkled with distaste. Still, at least we're running soon." She shot a look of pity over to Jocasta.
Singabangane! Singibuthe! (3)
Jocasta sighed and tried to compose herself with Zen breathing. A buzzer rang.
A senior Assassin was heard shouting in the corridor:
"Candidates Black and White Forty-One to Forty- Four are to assemble in the yard! Two minutes!"
Jocasta, Black Ninety-One, sighed as the ritual "good luck!", last hugs and hand gestures were made around her and the common room emptied by a small but significant number of bodies. She saw people she had known ever since the age of eleven walking out through the door, and wondered if this were to be the last time she'd see them. Seven years of her life were ending. It felt overwhelming and heartbreaking…. She forced herself to focus on her breathing. The chanting ended next door. At least two of the three Zulu pupils were to run on this one, then. Everything went quiet. She found she missed the We-defy-you, Death song of the Kwa'Zulu.
In the now-empty room next door, Death, marking time on what was usually a busy night for Him, picked up an assegai and a shield and weighed them experimentally. He had been the unseen fourth in the room, attracted by a song in His honour. I HEAR YOU. he said. ALL I CAN PROMISE IS IF YOU SEE ME TONIGHT, I'LL BOW TO YOU AS WARRIORS. IT'S EXPECTED, AFTER ALL. He checked a lifetimer that was hovering on the brink of running dry. He read the name and nodded. IT APPEARS I HAVE TO AWARD A FAIL GRADE. Then He stepped forward, and disappeared.
Alice examined six more Candidates, four male and two female, in the following hour and a half. After the initial novelty and newness had worn off, it became just another teaching duty: while she knew them all by name and face, and several had been in her classes at one time or another, none of the students were especially known to her and neither of the girls were from her own Tump House. Given the interminable bouts of waiting in between students, it was all starting to get rather boring, in fact: Alice was looking forward to a hot drink, bath, and bed as soon as she could manage.
"Ma'am? I am here!"
Alice had to stop herself from jumping. This one was good!
She turned, making it slow and casual, to find a hooded figure, who had stopped, respectfully, just outside effective stabbing distance.
Careless, Alice! she raged inside. She looked into the hood, seeing white teeth in a perfectly dark face.
"Your number?"
"Black, forty-four"
"Precious Jewel N'Khazi."
"That is me, madam."
"We shall proceed. This sign?"
"Thief-sign for "protected by dragons", ma'am. With modifiers to say how many dragons and how territorial they are".
They passed through the three questions. Alice then read the instruction:
"Proceed along the Cloaca to Checkpoint Twenty-Five…" Alice looked up at Precious, realized the implications, and her voice faltered.
"Is everything alright, ma'am?" Precious asked. Knowing that this student liked and respected her, and was asking out of genuine concern, Alice shook her head. "You will proceed to checkpoint Twenty-Five." Alice repeated, getting control of herself. "It's only a short distance away. "And in between you've got an Emergency Drop. The tilting slab. Survive that and then you've got to confront the examiner at Checkpoint Twenty-Five. But the rules of the game say I can't warn you. Maybe that's fair about the Drop, you have to spot that for yourself, but it isn't fair to send you into a head-to-head with Johanna. Not with the particularly poisoned student-teacher relationship you two created for yourselves. Far too late for repair, even though Johanna's mellowed over the years to an extent I'd never have thought possible when I first met her. it's simply that these two started off on the wrong foot and it never really got better, not in the way it did with Ruth N'Kweze, say. And even if it were Ruth, they're still from countries who are mortal enemies. It'd be the easiest thing in the world, with no witnesses, for there to be a swift inhumation in the dark. And it can go either way, if we get over-confident and under-estimate some of the people we've been training up for seven years. Ye Gods, why can't you people leave your bloody war in Howondaland?
Alice took a very deep breath, and said:
"I'm sorry, I never learnt to speak very much Zulu. If I were to say wees baie versigtig, (5) please understand I don't mean it as an insult."
Precious drew breath and paused, as the implication of the Wondalaans phrase sank in. "Miss Band, in seven years you have never offended me even once. I think I understand you perfectly. I thank you."
And she was off. Alice hoped the warning in Wondalaans had alerted the girl to what could not be said openly. And that she would go very carefully. And that Johanna Smith-Rhodes would consider her duty as a Guild teacher to mark and assess fairly would outweigh her feelings as a Boor national who was about to confer Assassin status on one of her country's mortal enemies. If I were Johanna, would I have the cold blood to inhume her? I know her. I think I know her. And the person she was seven years ago is not, in many significant ways, the person she is now. Or she would not think so highly of Ruth and other pupils. I would like to think they will both refrain, wit absolutely correct politeness.
Alice wondered if this were the sort of situation to use an emergency messenger rat, but what could she say?
I believe the assessor at Station Twenty-Five may allow national sentiment to over-ride duty to the Guild…
There is a danger a Boor examiner might inhume a Kwa'Zulu candidate for reasons other than those to do with the exams…
Alice stamped, frustratedly. She liked Johanna. They had a history together. They were friends. On one occasion it had gone a little way beyond friendship, although Alice suspected, with embarrassment, that never-repeated occasion had been down to too much champagne and the elation of passing their Final Run. It was just this damn stupid unpleasant nasty racism she'd been brought up with. While to her credit she'd lost most of it, the legacy of a bad beginning still persisted, and a long-lasting consequence was about to catch up with her.
Alice caught herself. What if her intervention were to get Johanna inhumed? What if she was wrong? Johanna had shown promising signs of change, growth, maturity, a different way of looking at the world. But it hadn't always been that way…
It had happened about three months into their teaching careers, when they were a lot younger and less experienced and were settling into their roles.
Alice, like the rest, had been getting used to the in-between-class commotion of a thousand pupils migrating between classes. For a few moments there would be a seething mass of pupils, mainly male but now dotted with groups of gymslips, dwindling within a minute or so to empty halls, stairs and corridors again. Any member of the teaching faculty caught in it had to duck for cover or be swept away.
On this morning, however, Alice, new and inexperienced as she was, picked up a different note in the noise and susurration. Young girls squealing with fear and alarm, and a note of… anger? Violence?
Fight. And a playground fight in this school is not a trivial thing!
Unceremoniously pushing through the throng and heaving aside even sixth-form boys who were bigger than she was, Alice ran to the sound of the noise, up the Raven House stairway. Pushing aside a couple of horrified girls, she stopped dead at what she saw. Lucinda Rust, her face white with fear and mottled red, was pinned to a doorway by Precious Jewel N'Khazi, who against every school rule was holding the very sharp point of a war assegai to her throat.(4)
"Yes, I live in a mud hut!" she was hissing. "My family lives in a mud hut! The Paramount Chief himself lives in a mud hut! And your point is? Lucinda, I'm waiting! Are you calling me some sort of primitive, some sort of aborigine, some sort of ape? What else is the brick you build from but a kind of dried mud? Are you Rusts any superior? Daughter of a man who waxes his moustaches with pig fat? At least MY father the Paramount Chief brings most of his soldiers back alive after a war!"
Alice noticed Lucinda's hands were groping as if for a hidden knife.
Oh no, this won't do….
Alice was stepping forward to intervene when Johanna Smith-Rhodes stepped forward from the next corridor. She barked a series of abrupt commands in a language Alice didn't recognize. Precious ululated a high-pitched war-cry.
"Oh yes, baas-woman! You tell me to let the white woman go! But am I a Hottentot or a Bantu for you to use kitchen kaffir at me? Listen to me, Boor-lady! I am Kwa'Zulu! I am nobody's slave!"
Johanna's face reddened with anger and she reached for her right hip… only for Alice to take her wrist firmly and shake her head, ever so slightly.
"Not here, Johanna." she said, firmly. "Please?"
Joan Sanderson-Reeves had joined them. Alice breathed a sigh of relief at the approach of a far more experienced teacher.
I think" Joan said, steering Johanna gently away, "that if we all take a few moments to calm down, all this can be resolved bloodlessly. Miss Band, will you go and speak to Miss N'Khazi and Miss Rust? Ladies, both of you appear to trust Miss Band's good judgement. You may be sure she will be a fair arbiter of whatever dispute you've had. Now listen to her. Miss Smith-Rhodes, please come with me. Classroom 3B is free at the moment."
Alice took a deep breath. "Precious Jewel, please lower your weapon. Lucinda, do not even think of bringing that concealed knife out into the open. Thank you. If we can resolve this here, I will try to persuade the Master that it need not trouble his office. I can't guarantee that, but I think it would benefit everyone if it ends here. Now both of you come with me".
Some things take little explaining. Lucinda Rust's racial abuse, which appeared to be ignored, or simply not noticed, by Miss Smith-Rhodes, had bubbled under for several weeks until Precious had exploded and threatened to wash her spearpoint in Lucinda's heart's blood.
"When it comes to doing routine chores in the dorm, Lucinda throws the broom at me and says why should she sweep the floor, when there's a kaffir in the room."
"I see." Alice mused, thinking there's only one place on the Disc where black people are called kaffirs. But then, there are Boor students here too, not just first-years. It might not be coming from Johanna. Maybe she's just slow to notice. Damn, I'll talk to Black Mass about this. Our esteemed chaplain has a way of penetrating Johanna's dense skull.
Alice heard out the story. Lucinda's stubborn refusal to talk was as good as a confession It appeared to be a Rust family trait, if caught in wrongdoing, to bluster and stare haughtily and emit an aura of perceived superiority, as if they were collectively above any court, any tribunal, any justice. Well, it wouldn't work here. . She took a deep breath, and exhaled.
"You're both in Raven House, aren't you?" What a stupid, stupid, place to send a Black Howondalandian girl to! She raged, inwardly.
"Precious, I'll talk to the right people and try to get you transferred to Tump, where I can keep an eye on you. I believe the relationship between you and your housemistress is non-existent and you'll thrive better in a different environment. I'm sorry it means starting again with a different set of people, but I will tolerate no racism and no bullying in MY House.
"Lucinda. I'll keep it brief. If you were one of my girls in my House, you would by now have accumulated so many demerits that your record would be in deficit until at least your third year. I do not like the way you have behaved. We show respect to each other, miss Rust. We co-operate. We are equals. I realize these are foreign words to you, but as you proceed in this school, you will realize that the person you bully, browbeat and belittle today may well be the person with your life in their hands during, for instance, an edificeering lesson. Express common courtesy to people on the way up. Or you may well glimpse them, very very briefly, on the way down. Perhaps from a hundred feet up the side of the Bottle. Have I expressed myself clearly? As it stands, you provoked this situation and I am awarding you the maximum five demerits.
"Miss N'Khazi.. Whatever the provocation, you drew a bladed weapon on a classmate. This is strictly against school rules. I'm very sorry, but even allowing for provocation, I have to award you a demerit. I also have to warn you that if Miss Smith-Rhodes chooses to bring up issues of disobedience and rudeness to a teacher, and I will try to persuade her not to, there may be further sanctions. Now I should walk you both to your next lesson. Your teacher will need to know why you're late."
"I nearly told her to voetsaak." Precious murmured.
Alice tried hard to look stern. Inwardly she was laughing.
"I'll pretend I don't know what that means!" she said. "But had you used that phrase to Miss Smith-Rhodes, and I counsel you in all seriousness not to, then it would have taken three of us to drag her hand away from her whip!"
After that, and after Johanna had been summoned to a long private chat with Lady T'Malia, from which she came away looking chastened and thoughtful, the working relationship between the Boor teacher and her Kwa'Zulu pupils became one of icy, absolutely correct, formality on both sides. Over the years this had thawed, with some, into a mutual understanding, even a veiled respect, but not with Precious; the early damage had been done.
And now, seven years on, it was culminating….Alice decided that there was nothing she could do, the dice were cast, and settled down to await her next Candidate. Although she hoped to see both her friend and her valued pupil again come the morning.
(1) See my story Murder Most 'Orrible, where selected student Assassins are tasked with going undercover on assignments and Ruth tankes on one of the most hazardous.
(2) We shall be victorious or we shall die!
(3) We are friends! We are warriors!
(4) Kwa'Zulu pupils had been discouraged from their practice of carrying culturally specific weapons with them at all times. But in even-handedness, Boor pupils had had their whips confiscated, except for sanctioned weapons training.
(5) wees baie…Afrikaans/Vondalaans for "go very carefully" Voetsaak means... well, to an Afrikaaner it's fighting talk. Seriously so. And if it comes from a black person….