Another rewrite, clearing up a dangling loose end concerning Johanna - written in accordance with the person she became after seven years, not the one she started out as. Also a cameo from Davinia Bellamy, who while added to the unfolding story later, needed to be here too, as she was a part of the team by then.
Alice, reflective, remembered something else that needed to be done before the morning was over, and stopped at the back door of the Guild kitchen.
"I know you're really busy," she said, to a tousled young chef. "But could you oblige me?" He nodded, and was back a few moments later with a greaseproof bag inside which something wobbled. Alice smiled her thanks, and tipped him with a couple of dollars.
"Much obliged, ma'am!" the chef said, smiling. Alice transferred the bag, very carefully, to a leather pouch which she secreted inside her cloak. For later, she told herself.
Then she went forward to the milling crowd in the yard. For a while she wasn't noticed, which suited her, as she could take in the throng and recognise faces and people. There was Sir Richard Venturi and his wife… oh no, the body language told the story, of parents running out of hope long after the expected time of return of… Lady Susan…. but doggedly holding on there. Susan Venturi. Alice remembered her as somewhat headstrong, somewhat over-confident, somewhat lax in her preparation. Had she been in Tump, Alice would have cured that by sending her on the Vimes run as often as it took. But it looked as if Susan had failed…. Emmanuelle should by rights be dealing with that. But then again, how many grieving parents will there be in the Tump House family this morning?
Lord Ronald Rust and his wife. He, the ramrod-straight waxed-mustachioed career Army officer, the living walking examplar of the Stiff Upper Lip and of Taking It On The Chin. (which she heard Sam Vimes inflicted at every possible opportunity). Lady Rust, a trembling mass of nervous tics and suppressed insanity. She's been married to Ronnie for thirty years, Alice reminded herself. That must be Hell on earth. She too had the look of suppressed panic and barely-concealed hysteria about an overdue daughter. Lucinda, Alice realised. Lucinda Rust must be overdue. But she's one of Johanna's.
Alice wrapped herself in her cloak and moved her eyes on. Oh yes…. The Union of Rimwards Howondalaand's ambassador, Pieter van der Graaf, and his wife. Trying to make safe diplomatic small talk with the Kwa'Zulu Ambassador, Prince Canaan Banana N'Vectif. And three of his wives. Who I'm glad to see are dressed for the city. Alice recalled, with a smile, the way Kwa'Zulu women had dressed, or rather not dressed, when they first arrived in Ankh-Morpork, and very careful diplomatic offers had to be made re. local sensibilities, and the need to cover up your top half. It had been the redoubtable Lady Sybil Ramkin who had suggested to the ambassador that perhaps his ladies needed assistance in dressing suitably for the colder Hubwards climate, and could benefit from a shopping trip, perhaps? Lady Ramkin had mentioned that her grandfather had been treated with the utmost politeness and courtesy and hospitality while in Howondalaand, and as his descendent, it was her positive duty to return the hospitality and see your ladies are kitted out with the full complement of clothing suitable for this city. Dresses for day, ballgowns for official receptions, informal and formal clothing of all sorts… "do leave it to me, mr Ambassador!"
And on the fringe of the Howondalaand groups, Johanna Smith-Rhodes and the chaplain, Clement N'Fallibl!
Alice looked further. Oh, joy! There's Precious! And gods, what's happening here… they're actually mingling? And hugging? And celebrating together? Precious Jewel N'Khazi, Heidi Retief…. Hans Retief? Ruth N'Kweze, Joshua N'Kouth? All of them dancing a wild spontaneous wardance, for want of a better description? Hans Retief banging an assegai on a shield while Joshua N'Kouth plays with a Boor sjamboek whip? Their elders are letting them, or at least pretending not to notice? And… yes, that's Otto Chriek moving in with the iconograph. What an iconograph for the Times!
"…and vun of Miss Retief and Miss N'Khazi, close in, ladies, big hug!" (Whoomph! )
Just wait until the overseas editions get to Pratoria and Piemburg...
Alice looked onwards. Commander Vimes of the Watch, looking out of place in the throng, finishing a cigar and stomping down on the stub. Alice watched him walk over towards Lord Rust: she read his body language and for once, saw something sympathetic, even diffident, there. He was steeling himself to say something to Rust. Alice moved closer.
"May I speak to you, Lord Rust? Privately?"
Rust turned a cold fish-eye on the chief of police.
"There's no place for you here, Vimes." he said, deliberately. "In fact, how dare you intrude. This is a time and place for families of Guild pupils. And while I concede your son might make a useful Scholarship pupil and a tolerable fag to his social betters, it'll be a good ten years before he's enrolled here! You have no place here!" Rust hissed.
Alice could see Vimes patiently repressing his anger.
"What I have to say is important. It might relieve Lady Rust of some of her anxiety…"
"And now you presume to bring my lady wife into it! Have you no shame, Vimes? We are waiting for news of our daughter! "
"In fact, sir... my lord… Ronald…if you would just listen! This is for your good!"
Rust turned his back on Vimes, who took a deep breath.
So be it then. But let the record say I tried." Vimes about- turned and nearly walked into Alice.
"Miss Band" he said, touching his helmet to her. "Were you by any chance Lucinda Rust's house teacher?"
"No" she said "But you can tell me. I'll see miss Smith-Rhodes is made aware." Alice paused. "She's dead, isn't she?"
"Not for want of trying" Vimes said, mirthlessly. "No miss. She's alive. Maybe her father might prefer her dead, though. Another glorious failure in the Rust family tradition. . What happened last night was this…."
Lucinda Rust awoke in a room that was pitching wildly from side to side. It reeked of old fish. She tried to move her legs. They were shackled to the wooden floor. Her wrists were similarly manacled, although in a way that allowed her comparative freedom of movement.
As the drug wore out of her system, she tried to remember. Those disgusting lower-class Watchmen who'd tried to impede her, HER, Lucinda Rust, on her Final Exam. Their insulting calls on her to surrender. She'd replied with crossbow shots and winged one of them, good. Then they sent that stinking disgusting Zombie in. She hadn't realised it was a Zombie and had filled his chest with bolts, but he'd kept on coming. Then that damn troll or golem or whatever had sneaked up from behind and picked her up bodily, and Vimes had shouted at her, the nerve of the common thief-taker, and she'd been sedated, drugged…
She saw the letter pinned to her tunic front. Very well. She'd read it. Then the moment she was free she'd demand somebody contact Daddy. Then they'd pay.
Lucinda saw the letter bore three seals. One with the Guild crest, one with a plain "V", sans-serif, and one with a dragon motif she didn't recognise. She broke them and opened it. It had the Guild crest at the top of the page and was suitably embossed and watermarked..
Lucinda Rust.
The letter had a distinct fill-in-the-blanks to-whom-it-may-concern feeling.
When you come to read this letter, you will be a long way away from Ankh-Morpork. You are currently aboard a ship whose captain has been paid to look after you and treat you fairly and decently until he puts you ashore. You will not know the location where you make land. Your working equipment will be returned to you as will a modest purse sufficient for your immediate needs.
Lucinda patted herself. She had been stripped of all knives, blowpipes, poisons, lockpicks! The sheer effrontery!
You do not at the moment realise how lucky you are. By consultation with selected members of the City Council, the Guild has been prevailed upon to trial an alternative method of dealing with Candidates who, while still alive at the end of the Test, merit a Fail grade. You are to embark on an extended Escape, Evasion and Orientation exercise where your task is to make it back alive to Ankh-Morpork, using all those skills you have hopefully learnt at the Guild School in the last seven years. If you can report to Filigree Street and to your House Mistress Miss Smith-Rhodes within a year of the date of this letter, successful completion of the exercise will be taken as practical evidence of your fitness to be a licenced Assassin. You will then be allowed to repeat the Viva and the concluding stage of the Test. Charges relating to attempted murder of two members of the City Watch will also be set aside should you succeed.
Be advised. There will be no, absolutely no, third chance offered.
You have a courtesy copy of the Concordat to re-read on the voyage. We counsel you to read it thoroughly.
Signed for the Guild: Lord D. Downey.
Signed for the City: Havelock Vetinari, Patrician.
Witnessed: Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh.
Lucinda felt hot fiery tears on her face. Uniquely for a Rust, she cried in self-pity. The ship rocked and swayed on….
Vimes concluded "So you see, Alice, that's what I wanted to tell Ronnie. If only to console Lady Rust. I mean, I'm a father myself, and Sybil keeps hinting that it has to be this school, as Ramkin boys have always gone here…. Well, I can see how it must feel. I don't want to be standing here in seventeen years' time with a great big ache in my gut over Young Sam."
"But he didn't want to listen" sighed Alice. "Look, I'll talk to Johanna."
Their attention was suddenly absorbed by a commotion. Joan Sanderson-Reeves, who had been walking over to greet Alice, stopped and her head also tilted in the direction of the Rusts.
"Did you really say that?" Lady Rust suddenly screamed, her self-control crumbling. Her husband looked at her with mild surprise.
"Yes, my dear. All I said was, at least we have two other daughters at this school. One of them might succeed where the eldest, sadly, failed. Learn from her big sister's mistakes, what?"
Lady Rust threw back her head and screamed, the long, long, inchoate primal scream of thirty years' loveless marriage, the scream of loss of a mother at the death of a daughter, the pain of a parent who has outlived a child. With tears pouring from her eyes, she balled her fist, screamed again, and punched out.
"You heartless, cruel, callous, bastard!"
As Ronnie Rust measured six feet of cobblestones, his wife stumbled off, helplessly crying.
"I could have spared them that!" groaned Vimes. Joan Sanderson-Reeves said "If I heard you correctly, Commander, Lucinda's still alive?"
"Yes. You heard it all?"
"I'll go after her. She isn't safe out there. Tell her." Joan said, racing off.
"Joan!" Alice called.
"Yes, dear?"
"Offer her a contract!"
"I'll offer her a bloody big discount! Ronnie, I would do for the pure satisfaction of it! "
Vimes laughed, and watched as Rust was carried off to the Guild infirmary by two big porters.
And another episode was closing, over there in the crowded yard.
Precious Jewel N'Khazi walked steadily over to Johanna Smith-Rhodes, stopped within several paces of her, and looked her firmly in the eye. Johanna stared levelly back. Alice wondered if there was going to be some sort of confrontation, out here in public where everyone could see it. Others were wondering too; Davinia Bellamy (who had somehow drawn the Apothecary Gardens as her checkpoint last night, and who had challenged several Candidates with supplementary questions such as "name this plant and two of its medicinal uses!") was also drawing closer. As were other Assassin-teachers. Ruth N'Kweze and Canon Clement had altered position slightly and were looking alert and ready to move.
Precious raised her assegai. Johanna did not move, but her hand was resting on her whip-handle in the manner of a fast-draw duellist. Alice had seen how as she could move. This was serious…
And then Precious was lifting the assegai in the air and singing something in Kwa'Zulu. Alice saw Clement and Ruth visibly relax.
Then Precious saluted with her clenched fist, inclined her head slightly, and reversed the spear so its shaft was towards Johanna.
Who nodded, responded with a few curt words of Zulu, and took the shaft in her right hand. Then she lifted her whip from her belt and offered the handle towards Precious, who took it. She also returned the slight bow and smiled slightly. Then each took back her weapon and they turned away. Everyone watching visibly relaxed, and the Zulu contingent were smiling broadly.
Nothing more was said and there was no more contact between Precious and Johanna.
"What was that all about?" Alice asked Canon Clement later. He smiled.
"My half-sister did the correct and polite thing." he explained. "When a warrior passes his final rite of passage and becomes a full member of the adult impi, he is expected to thank the older warrior who has trained and mentored him. He ritually offers his spear to the older, with words of thanks and an apology for any occasions on which he has given offence. He then offers his services to defend and fight for his mentor should they be needed. The mentor is then expected to accept the offer of service and to reciprocate by offering his - or in this case her - own personal weapon in support of the younger, should it be called for. It was fitting and right for Precious to so acknowledge Miss Smith-Rhodes as she enters the particular adult impi of which we are all members. She is a Howondalandian warrior too, after all. And so Precious enters her adult life with no lingering enmity. You do not speak Zulu, miss Band? A shame. Or you would have heard Miss Smith-Rhodes acknowledge a worthy pupil and apologise for the way one Boor treated one Zulu. I would call that a small step forward!"
"Maybe not so small…" Alice mused. "But if they meet again in Howondaland, they would still fight?"
"Oh, certainly!" said Clement, laughing. "Sometimes there has been civil war or disagreement between clans, and impis have fought each other, with friends on both sides. But on a battlefield they would, I think, courteously disregard each other unless there were no other alternative. Both are also Assassins, after all. Larger miracles, miss Band, take a little longer!"
Davinia Bellamy smiled.
"I'm just so relieved I didn't have to intervene there." she said. "It really wouldn't have looked good if a teacher and a graduate were to have had a fight in front of relatives and the Times."
"How could you have intervened, Doctor?" Clement asked, politely. "I know how fast a whip and an assegai can move in a fight. You were, forgive me, some yards away. Although I did suspect you were assembling a blowpipe."
"I had a charge ready to shoot through the widest bore." Davinia said, self-effacingly. "It would not have travelled far, but it would have spread wide. The pollen of the Lachrymose Hydreangea of Ghat. They would have been enveloped in a cloud of stinging pollen that causes nasal tissues severe irritation and which provokes uncontrollable secretion from the tearglands. Not lethal, just incapacitating. Neither would have been able to see to fight and in any case would have had other uncomfortable things to worry about. I had it ready for use last night, just in case any candidate believed the fairytale about inhuming their examiner, and the blowpipe was still set up for fast use, you see. Did I tell you I've been working with Mr Mericet on how to artificially replicate it in the lab?" (2)
And elsewhere in the City, Downey paid a handsome tip to the Gnolls who had dived and retrieved Timothy Walsham-Runton's body. The Assassins who had accompanied him gently and caringly laid him out in a coffin. They returned to the surface, quiet and unspeaking, and loaded the latest body into the Broom Wagon.
Maybe the new way Vetinari and Vimes pushed on me isn't so bad after all, Downey thought, biting back the bile. At least it offers an extended second chance. Provided somebody like the Rust girl realises she only stands a chance if she learns to be conciliatory, and a little bit more humble and co-operative.
Maybe next year we make some of the traps and pitfalls a little less efficient. And use the extended second chance a bit more. Some of them might thrive on it. Maybe offer it as an alternative Final exam for some? As Vimes said, make the test as realistic as possible without testing to destruction. Poor Walsham-Runton had a lot of promise.
"Mr Vimes? I got your order from the all-night engravers. Lady Sybil asked me to make sure they were properly wrapped and ribboned. She seemed to think you'd forget the small details."
"Thanks, Cheery." Vimes said to the Dwarf sergeant. "Stick around a while, will you? Miss Band here was telling me the Guild might accept its first Dwarf pupils next year. Male, and female. Give her a few tips."
Alice had been discreetly ticking Tump House pupils off her mental checklist for a while now. One was missing….but hadn't Joan off-handedly said "oh yes. Did one of yours. Very last candidate! Sent the mucky pup off for a damn' good clean-up and a change of clothes to make her fit to present in polite society!"
She looked around, hoping to see the mucky pup.
Vimes was now in amiable conversation with Colonel Wrangle and Brigadier Mountjoy-Standish, two senior army officers who he seemed to respect and get on with. They were talking about the glorious Revolution over thirty years before, rather before Alice's time. (1) Clive Mountjoy-Standish's daughter Emilia and Tom's son Mark had both succeeded in their runs, and were joining in the conversation. Alice knew Mountjoy-Standish senior had received his first active command in ages when Vetinari had recalled him to command the City's first horse artillery regiment, an attempt to adapt and improve on the "barking dog" technology of the Agateans. Mountjoy-Standish had then got his old friend Tom Wrangle back on active service again, and the two men thought of as the best and most able soldiers in the city were back in business. Working for Vetinari this time, and not for Selachii and Venturi. There is no way Vetinari would want firepower like that in anyone's hands but his, Alice thought. It makes it easier to challenge the old order, for one thing. She suddenly heard Emilia give a high-pitched girlish shriek. Yes. There she was. Jocasta Wiggs, in the middle of a fragrant cloud, in clean clothes, waving a rather soiled pink slip.
After the hugs and the kisses and the congratulations, after the Wiggs and Mountjoy-Standish and Wrangle families had shaken hands and congratulated each other's children, Vimes stepped forward, looking slightly embarrassed.
"Er… I'm not a big one for speeches and I don't really do emotional. But over the past few years, Sybil and I have seen young Jocasta here quite often. In quite a few different ways and quite a few different places, but never really at her best. She's dropped in at Ramkin House so often she's almost like one of the family, so to speak. I've already been told in no uncertain terms that I've got no place here and I should be off, but before I go, I'd just like to present Jocasta a little thing or two. One's from me and one's from Sybil."
Vimes handed over the carefully wrapped presents and stood back. Jocasta unwrapped them carefully, opened the presentation boxes and laughed. Alice stepped forward to see.
One was a perfectly normal silver salver engraved with the year and date of Jocasta's passing of her final exam, under the Guild crest. A discreet plaque said "From Lady Sybil Ramkin, with congratulations".
The other was more ornate. Again a shield, but with a moral fable engraved on it. Jocasta read it, her lips moving with the words, and looked at Vimes, who nodded encouragingly. Then she laughed, stepped forwards, and kissed Vimes on the cheek. He reddened slightly.
"It's just possible I shall treasure this for life!" Jocasta Wiggs murmured, holding it so Alice could read:-
The Perils of Over-Confidence:-
In the bitter colde and Snowwe of the Zlobenian winter, a Peasant wanders down ye Roadde.
He stoppes, and sees a small Byrdde on the Ground, near dead from the Colde. The peasant picked up ye Byrdde and warmed it. Ye Byrdde soon recovered itself and ye Peasant wondered what to do next.
Then a Cowwe came by, and dropped a large hot steaming Turdde right in front of him. The Peassant then dydde place ye Byrdde in ye turdde so as better for it to stay warm until morning and then be able to fly away.
But a Catte fared along after the Peasant hath gone, and hears the bird singing happily to itself in ye steaming mess. Ye Catte seized ye Byrdde, breaking its neck, for to taykke home for supper.
This old fable hath 3 moralles:
1 Do not believe that everybody who drops you in ye Shitte is your enemy.
2 Do not believe that everybody who gets you out of ye Shitte is your friend.
3 Whenever you are in ye Shytte, keep quiet about it.
"Anyway, Sybil wants you round for dinner sometime" Vimes concluded. "You too, Alice. Apparently you went to the same school. Bring Jocasta. If she comes in through the door marked "guest", I promise we'll look after her."
He tipped his helmet again, and set off.
(1) Mountjoy-Standish and Wrangle appear in "Night Watch" as capable and able junior army officers, who really don't deserve "John Keel" outwitting them and wrecking their careers.
(2) Davinia is describing tear gas, horrible stuff that provokes floods of tears and snot as the body seeks to defend itself against a severe irritant. Not lethal, but not nice either.
{More to follow. This is to end the day's submissions on an up-beat note and send you to bed smiling}