GC26 – aftermaths
On a warm summer morning, Brigadier Clive Mountjoy-Standfast and Colonel Tom Wrangle sat their horses and looked towards the Pseudopolis-wards horizon. The open fields outside the City that by convention were used as a military training area were at the moment deserted, apart from a working party of trolls and golems who had just finished setting up the targets and who, job finished, were tramping back to the city. Two of the virtually indestructible military golems remained, stolidly holding up large red flags at each extreme of the range area.
"They should be here in the next five minutes, sir." Tom Wrangle reported, checking a fob watch.
"Capital!" said the civic dignitary who had driven out to watch the display. "Mr Chriek, very soon you will have some unparalleled action photographs to put in the Times!"
The vampire iconographer nodded his acknowledgement, and went back to checking his equipment. Behind Vetinari's party, Lords Rust, Eorle, Selachii and Venturi also sat their horses, looking glum and less than happy. The Duke of Ankh, who was the very first to admit he was not a horseman, was sitting atop Vetinari's coach, companiably sharing a water bottle with the two newest Dark Clerks who were assigned to escort duty on the Patrician.
"Thank you, sir." said Sharon Higgins (Licenced Assassin), as she took a deep draught. Vimes grunted.
"I'd still like to know how you got into and through my garden and walked through half the Watch as if they weren't there. With nobody noticing. You were just about the only one!" he said. She smiled.
"I got the idea from Miss Sanderson-Reeves, sir. Nobody notices you if they think you're meant to be there. She did one of her inhumations dressed as a nurse, and it took ages for people to make the connection because they expected a nurse to be at the client's bedside. The moment I got into your garden and realized the Watch were there, I found a Watchman's helmet that had been knocked off in a struggle. So I just took my cloak off, put the helmet on, and joined in the chase for myself. Sergeant Colon was very helpful, when he pointed at me and said 'You! Block the way to the summerhouse, will you? That's where the bloody Assassins are meant to be reporting to their teacher, and maybe you can stop her!"
Vimes laughed and winced at the same time. "Still got the helmet?"
"Yes, sir."
"Keep it! You put one over on us and won it fair and square."
Elsewhere, the conversation was also about the recent Assassins' Finals.
"What's your boy planning to do now he's graduated school, Tom?"
"I knew Mark was never going to practice as an Assassin." Tom Wrangle said. "He was just doing it for the challenge of passing. Now he's had the education and got it out of his system, he's going on to the Academy at Sto Lat. Should graduate as a subaltern in two years, hopefully."
Clive sighed. "One thing you can say for the Assassins, they teach a lot of practical skills an Army officer in the field is going to find damn useful. Not the killing side, I mean, although if it comes to it, that helps. More your weapons drills, your fieldcraft, wilderness survival, and so on."
He paused, reflectively.
"Has Millie worked out what she's going to be doing next? I mean, I can't see her being an active Assassin. I've known her all her life, and all that."
Clive Mountjoy-Standfast sighed, expressively.
"That's just the thing. She said herself, could you see us sending her to an expensive finishing school in Quirm or Sto Helit, now? To use her own well-chosen words, it'd be a waste of money as she'd, and I quote, just be bored right off her tits."
"Beats me where young girls learn that sort of language"
"Quite. Speaking of the Royal Military Academy in Sto Lat, Tom, did you hear they've been following the experiment at the Assassins' School with great interest. And having seen how the first batch of girl pupils has turned out, they're prepared to enroll a class of women cadets. Half of 'em are going to be Assassin School trained. And I couldn't say "no", could I? She's got it in the blood."
Tom grinned a long slow grin.
"So my Mark and your Millie are in the same year at Sto Lat. Who don't threaten to kill cadets who wash out. Damn fine! But what's she going to do for a job when they commission her as a second lieutenant? Openings for women officers are a bit thin on the ground, surely?"
"Now, maybe, but in two or three years? In any case, the Borogravian Army's been recruiting women soldiers for a while now. They shape up damn capably, too! That's her ambition, to do a Perks in the Borogravian Army. Bit hairy, bit dangerous, but I suppose if you tolerate it of your sons, you can't deny your daughters. Not in this modern world we live in."
Wrangle nodded, reflectively.
"And her friend Jocasta Wiggs? Nice girl, I thought."
"She's doing a year out, by all accounts. She's been invited on an archaeological dig out towards Brindisi. Not much pay, she says, but hard work out in the sun with cool tavernas to go to in the evening. Her old teacher's organising that. Alice Band. Good woman, Alice. Jocasta's in safe hands there!"
"And speaking of the modern world, Clive, here they come!"
Clouds of dust on the horizon resolved themselves into horse-teams pulling limbers, to which were attached wheeled devices, the purpose of which was at first unclear. At the sight of them, the knot of old-school military officers represented by Rust and the Lords of the City perked up and paid attention. They also did not look very pleased about it.
Within minutes, the blue-uniformed soldiers had wheeled their horse-teams through a half-circle and to a halt. Most of the crew leapt off, some unhitching the wheeled device as an NCO directed the direction in which to point it, others reaching for unspecified tools and equipment. A flurry of unclear activity went on around each of the four strange weapons, as the hauling teams were led to the rear. This involved ramming things down the large drainpipe- like brass tubes, while a man with a lighted match stood by at its rear. The distant targets looked like… lines of infantry and cavalry on the march, about six hundred yards away.
Clive heard Sergeant-Major Williams yelling "READY!". But he was looking at the faces of Rust and Eorle and the rest. Particularly Lord Venturi, who had sacked him from his last regimental posting as a "rank bad hat". He knew Tom Wrangle had a similar issue with Lord Selachii. And both had an issue with Rust, who at one time or another had served alongside both of them, and then unaccountably been promoted over both their heads. Well, not unaccountably. Lordship, in the eyes of those with influence, always out-trumped a mere mister. It cetanly counted for more than talent and ability. But just maybe things were beginning to change…
Still looking at the lords, Clive raised his sword-arm and let it drop.
The four cannon exploded in a volley of smoke and ear-splitting noise. As the smoke ebbed, explosions sounded among the dummies of infantry and cavalry soldiers: Clive could see by the looks on the old Lords' faces that his mens' fire had been accurate, and that massive holes had been blasted in the carefully placed dummies' ranks. And the cannon were reloading, this time with Captain Shrapnel's technological innovation…
"Four minutes, Clive, between unhitching and firing!" Tom shouted. "And look what we've already done to their cavalry!"
It was true: huge empty gaps had been blasted in the lines of the life-size plywood and cardboard cut-outs that represented men and horses. And there was more to come: the capable Captain Shrapnel was redirecting the fire against the brick and sandbag redoubts which, in active service, would have been fortified positions offering shelter to men.
Several volleys later, and these too were blasted into ruins. Tom punched his fist into his hand excitedly. All the drills, all the evolutions, all the sweat and swearing, were paying off. The Ankh-Morpork Horse Artillery had demonstrated its worth, right from unpromising beginnings all those months ago with the "acquired" Agatean Barking Dogs. The Guild of Artificers had refined the design and rebuilt the Dogs from the wheels up, incorporating a hydraulic-and-spring recoil absorbtion system that stropped the whole thing leaping into the air and backwards for about ten feet on firing, thus being as much of a danger to the men firing it as for those in the indeterminate place where the round would land.
Similarly, advances in optics had created the telescopic ranging system, which in conjunction with the better and more stable exothermic alchemical reagents (1) devised by the Alchemists' Guild could accurately deliver sixteen pounds of solid lead shot to the chosen target at up to a thousand yards. Or grapeshot. Or chainshot. Or the lethal storm of shrapnel.
A bugle sounded: the limbers trotted up, the Dogs were re-hitched, the crew stowed equipment and remounted, and within minutes they were riding off.
Vetinari nodded at Sam Vimes, who grinned back, making sure Rust and Selachii shared the triumphant smile.
The Lords, who annually spent millions on raising conventional cavalry and infantry regiments loyal, at bottom, only to them, recovered from stunned surprise and mobbed Vetinari, angry and shocked. The two Dark Clerks moved to left and right of their employer and adopted relaxed-alert positions. Vimes put himself between Rust and Vetinari.
"My Lord, I protest! That isn't soldiering, that is mass slaughter!"
"That's never put you off before, Ronnie." Vimes remarked. "By the way, had a postcard from Lucinda yet? Dear Daddy, I love you despite the fact you wrote me off as dead…"
Vetinari raised a hand for silence.
"How can conventional troops fight that?"
"It's intolerable that we can't raise this artillery…"
"You're making our regiments obselete!"
"Really, Lord Rust? All the Duke of Ankh and I are doing is what you do: spending our surplus personal income on raising and maintaining military units. Except that while Lord Vetinari as a private citizen is raising a Regiment, as is his right, Lord Vetinari the Patrician is stipulating that its loyalty is vested in the City and only in the City and its legally constituted government. You all know he principle involved? Agatean Doors, I believe it's called. The term is often used to justify what might otherwise be schizophrenic conflicts arising in the same head. It appears to work. And as this new type of Regiment requires large financial investment in the equipment and technology, I actively welcome the Duke of Ankh's financial support in establishing and maintaining it. He too agrees that only the City should have this sort of firepower available to it."
Vetinari let this sink in.
"I realize that you may have to re-appraise your rather expensive hobby in the light of these changes in the nature of likely future warfare. But I'm minded to remind you in particular, Lord Rust, of your words to me during the Leshp emergency, where you invited me to stand down as Patrician for the duration. You were considerate enough to point out that your Regiments were in the streets outside, purely coincidentally, as a counter-measure to any civil disturbances that might happen if I insisted on clinging to power. . I stood down to prevent any bloodshed at a time when this city needed to project strength and unity of purpose. I would be sorry if the money invested in your Regiments were to be wasted by technological improvements in the nature of war and warfare."
Vetinari smiled at Rust. The smile said Try it again, and with great reluctance at the waste of life involved, you will see I am now ready with a blunter implement of my own. Your move?
"The suggestion has been made, gentlemen, that rather than the Army remaining in the hands of private citizens, it is brought under City control, commanded by professionally trained military officers loyal only to the City. With the aid of General Mountjoy-Standfast and Colonel Wrangle – dear me, what am I saying, at present you're only a Brigadier – I may have made a modest start. It remains a long-term possibility".
"Mountjoy-Standfast? But he's barely a Right Honourable! You CANNOT have a General who's a mere Mister!"
"In a modern Army" Vetinari dismissed them, "all things are possible. I'd like to think fair promotion on the sole grounds of talent, regardless of social rank, might one day be possible. If you wish to be soldiers, then my advice to you is that it is not a hobby activity. You need to work at it. No more questions? Then good-day to you."
He nodded, asked Wrangle and Mountjoy-Standfast to meet him at the Palace concerning the little matter of establishing a Secretariat for Defence, and was off.
As his coach moved off, with the Duke of Ankh making hand gestures to Rust, Mountjoy-Standfast and Wrangle smiled at their former employers.
"You'll have to excuse us, gentlemen. We have a Regiment to run." Then they too rode off, leaving the old way of things abandoned and disregarded in the wilds.
Abercrombie-ffitch, Calum.
Bailey, Anthony.
Boggis, Tracey.
Coypu-Congleton, Carinthea
Donavan-Myerscroft, Jacintha.
Dudley-Bohay, Noel.
Foxache, Arthur Michael.
Hendricks, James.
Keith, Richarda.
Madden, Kristina.
O'Hagan, Liam Thomas.
Peppercombe, Agnetha.
Rawlinson, Vivian,
Venturi, Lady Susan.
Von Senger und Etterlin, Joachim.
Walsham-Runton, Timothy.
Zappa, Francis.
__________________
ANKH-MORPORK TIMES (The Truth Shall Make Ye Ferret)
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION!
These seventeen unremarkable names each have a particular poignancy to a family in Ankh-Morpork tonight. Each is a young person of age seventeen or eighteen who Failed the final exam at the Assassins' Guild School. This school is unique in that to fail its final exam means no possibility of a resit . To fail is invariably to die, and today the Times prints a list of the dead.
Our Special Investigation seeks to get to the heart of the institutional mentality behind a School that sanctions the death of its pupils, and asks: in this day and age, are deaths in Finals necessary at all? At every turn the Guild has tried to block us, to conceal, hide, obfuscate and cover up. There is the shocking secret of the misericordia, for instance, a mediaeval survival the Guild seeks to conceal as its deepest darkest secret. We learnt from sources close to the Patrician that Lord Vetinari himself has accused Guild president Lord Downey of the most shocking negligience. We ask: how long can this go on?
On Other Pages:-
A "Wind of Change" has begun to blow across Howondalaand, says Patrician (International)
New "Valkyrie Division" composed entirely of female personnel in formation for Borogravian Army:- Perks tipped for promotion under General Froc? (see Women's Pages – "An Equality Too Far?")-
Today's Humorous Vegetable – see page 27 for our droll regular feature
Note that from today, the Times is adopting its new signature typeface of Times New Latatian, which we hope will make for a clearer and easier-to-read newspaper.
Alice Band took her boots off and gratefully flexed her toes. It had been a long day on the dig, but at least they were establishing that the old Latatian civilization had maintained a latifundia in this part of Brindisi. She considered the working tools on the table, her trusty pick and shovel, the graded brushes and trowels for fine close-in work. She was unrecognizable as the schoolteacher she was for most of the year. The severe hairstyling was replaced by a loose long pony-tail, her auburn hair hanging long and free. The severe half-lens glasses she wore in class were replaced by deeply tinted full-lens glasses, proof against the strong Brindisian sun. Her clothing was minimal and practical: denim shorts offering full freedom of movement, and an armless tunic fitting close to her body. As Alice had a long lean athletic figure, it would have caused commotion in the classroom and extra work for Washable Topsy with regard to the boys' bedsheets. As she was also an Assassin, she had an easily accessible throwing-knife on each thigh, as well as less visible equipment elsewhere on her person. Her hunting bow rested here, un-used, in her lodgings.
She drew her legs up on the bed and started to write her account of the day. She had barely started when there was a knock on the door.
Signorina Band? Ė una visitatora!
Grazie, Francesca. Un'instante, per favore!
Alice set her journal aside and went to the door. Her landlady had brought a visitor who she instantly recognized…
"Hello, miss. You said if I were in the area I should drop by and see you."
Jocasta Wiggs. The same slightly frizzy slightly curly blonde-brown hair, cute little nose and slightly worried expression. Alice smiled, delightedly.
"Come on in. And it's not "miss" any more, I'm Alice, now!" Alice thanked Francesca, closed the door, and smiled at Jocasta. Jocasta smiled back, uncertainly.
"So what beings you here?"
"Just hiking. Millie had to go straight to the military academy. To be honest, it's a bit boring without her."
So you thought you'd drop in on your old spinster schoolmistress? How thoughtful of you!"
Alice felt Jocasta's eyes on her. Regarding her with... hunger? Frank interest?
Of course. She's never seen me dressed like this before.
Alice took Jocasta's hand and squeezed it. Jocasta didn't pull away. Their eyes met.
"And to be honest, miss…Alice… oh I wish I knew the words!"
Alice drew Jocasta into a hug.
"Does it need words? I'm so pleased you're here." She felt Jocasta's arms around her, her fingers stroking the thin material of the tunic, her face snuggling into Alice's shoulder.
Have I got the right? Even now? So soon after she's been my pupil?
Jocasta raised her head. She appeared to have made a decision.
"My name is Jocasta Wiggs" she announced. "I'm over eighteen years of age, making me legally adult. I have left school. I have survived the Assassins' Guild final exam. I can legally feel sexual attraction. I am capable of choosing people I'd love to go to bed with, and I'm even free to decide what sex they should be. And I prefer girls."
She looked Alice in the eye. No longer teacher, no longer in loco parentis and free to act, Alice kissed her former pupil, who kissed back just as enthusiastically.
Just don't say anything, Alice thought, taking Jocasta by the hand and leading her to the bed, with every intention of furthering her education. And this will turn out just fine. (2)
(1) exothermic alchemical reagents:- Explosives
(2) Alice is fulfilling a promise she made during a climatic scene of The Second-Greatest Thrill.