4 The Emperor

Stern and bearded, a crowned man in the prime of life sits enthroned inside a hall whose walls are built of stone, with sparse decoration. He holds the sceptre of office and a sword is strapped to his waist. There may be a goblet of wine and a lit lamp in the picture, signifying the four primal elements turned purely to earthly glory with no thought of the esoteric significance. But like the Magician, he is a man who, at his most elevated, has learned to manifest and balance the qualities of all four.

He is all men, the embodiment of the masculine just as the Empress, his consort, is the embodiment of the feminine. He is Mars and Aries and is most powerful in March and April, the traditional New Year and time to enthrone a new monarch. The quality of "sovereignty" is here – the idea that the power of a kingdom and the power and virility of its king are intimately connected. (In the old days, the King was executed if the power of the land waned and crops failed(1)). He can be your father, your boss, your virility, your husband. He embodies all that is uniquely male, including lesser qualities such as the urge to fanatically follow a football club, or to gather together with other men to "waste time" (as wives put it) and to compulsively collect things that other people (wives) see no value in whatsoever and regard as clutter and eyesores…

She prefers the natural landscape and the unspoilt fields, forests and rivers. He, on the other hand, identifies himself with built and designed things – hence the stone wall behind his throne.

This story might also be viewed as a sequel, or a Chapter Two, to my tale of post-Teppic Djelibeybi, Look Upon My Works And Despair.

"Fascinating!" said Lord Vetinari, bending over the model.

"Most fascinating!"

For some months now, an informal committee consisting of Leonardo Da Quirm, Mr Pony of the Artificers' Guild, and the Djelibeybian model-maker Grinjer, had been occupying a large committee room at the Patricians' Palace, seemingly only emerging to send out requests for more modelling materials. They had sent frequent progress reports to the Patrician, politely requesting he should not seek to view the Work until it was finished. Knowing it was to do with the Undertaking, and knowing the best men he could possibly find were on the case, Vetinari had not pressed the point, preferring to let them get on with it.

Today was the day of the informal Viewing.

Vetinari and his secretary Drumknott had been allowed into a transformed State And Committee Room Seven. The carpet was covered in the sort of sheeting painters lay down when redecorating.

Trestle tables had been erected round three of the four walls. They were groaning with pots, bottles, jars and tins of paint, glue, and other nameless substances. Tools of all shapes and sizes were laid out, and crates of building materials were scattered nearby. The air stank of the acrid smells of paint, glues, and solder and other strange things. Vetinari had wondered just for a second, on entering, if some of the smells betokened substances he had last dealt with in the Inimical Alchemy(2) Class at the Assassins' Guild School.(3) It was all quite nostalgic, really.

But the centrepiece of the room…

"Incredible!" breathed Drumknott.

"It's not finished properly yet" said Grinjer. "Not to my mind, anyway. I wanted to carry on painting it, so it really looks like a small-scale version of the prototype, but Mr Leonard said to leave it, time was pressing and he somehow felt that stark white was ideal for the model".

It was a model of the city, faithfully rendered in a constant 1:288 scale. The river meandered through it, helpfully painted a sickly grey-green-black . Its familiar squiggly line helped the viewers orientate themselves on what they were looking at and the relationship between things. Most of the buildings on the Isle of Gods had been finished to exquisite detail and even painted to look like uncannily real versions of their originals. That had been Grinjer, no doubt. Further out, everything had been left in stark white. Principal buildings of the City had been finished in the same exquisite detail, but the suburbs of Dimwell and Dolly Sisters and the Shades had been left with simple white blocks along and between the main roads, denoting mass housing.

"We also compromised in the vertical dimension, my Lord." said Leonard. "In this scale, the Tower of Art would have been nearly five feet tall, and the Tump Tower three. Since this is just the, ah, top layer, and needs to be physically moved, excessively high model structures would have been somewhat unwieldy."

"So I perceive" Vetinari said, his eyes roving over the model, appreciating a detail here and a point of exquisite workmanship there.

"Gentlemen, you have certainly managed a prodigy here. I am impressed." he said. "Whose idea were the very small Watchmen outside Pseudopolis Yard? That one, tiny though he is, is Vimes to the life!"

"Can you see the cigar, sir?" Grinjer inquired. "I couldn't leave that out!"

Vetinari smiled.

"You certainly have the City and all its landmarks here. Is that not so, Drumknott? The Guilds here, the temples here along God Street – the Cathedral of Anoia, I notice - the Opera House, the Tanty nearby – I have always suspected that building our main prison next to the Opera House must add an exquisite dimension to criminal punishment – and here, the Goosegate, the Lady Sybil Hospital, the Charitable Hospital of Seven-Handed Sek, the Balancing Monks' Hospital…"

"It is interesting, sir, that the City's principal hospitals all congregate together in the same general area." Drumknott observed. "It isn't the sort of thing you notice until you see it laid out like this."

"They share expertise. They trade in bedspaces, pharmaceuticals, staff, ideas, and professional abilities." Vetinari noted. "Also, all their supporting industries such as chemists, bandage-makers, funeral directors, and so on, can base themselves conveniently close to hand. People are beginning to revive the old name for the area, too. Spitalfields. The place of hospitals."

He looked up.

Some features are not familiar to me, gentlemen. These locations in red, marked with the Dwarvish sign of the Long Dark. Can you explain?"

"Yes, my Lord" said Mr Pony. "These are surface-level access points to the new Underground. Stairs and lifts will connect to the actual stations, which will be up to five hundred feet underneath so as to safely pass underneath the River and the Great Sewer. The points marked in green will be ventilation chimneys above the underground tunnels, designed to draw fresh air down to those levels and to expel the stale. Which leads me to… gentlemen, if you please? Time to reveal Level Two."

Mr Pony then went on to say that the top level of the model might with care be lifted off. We designed it so that it lifts away in smaller sections, each of which two men may handle with care… Leonard, your turn to take the presentation?

Drumknott gasped. Vetinari was entranced. For Leonard, once the scale model of the New Undercity was revealed, had begun setting things in motion. Literally.

"Using the old Dwarf tunnels, my lord, and the indefatigable propulsive power of the Device, I envisage that a caravan train of linked carriages might be propelled along set rails, pausing only to stop at designated stations along its route.

"In designing these carriages, I had to make use of the smallest clockwork motors that the Artificers could provide, and to, ah, refine their operation to suit the needs of the model. The propulsive motor is located inside the lead carriage, which as you will see differs in size and purpose, and may be rewound thus. Obviously the real thing will be powered by the Device.

"You are observing a passenger caravan train – the word is borrowed from the Klatchian convoys of camels across the desert – as it makes its way along the proposed Rimwards Line.

This links Droversfield, outside the City in New Ankh, with the Shambles, The Shades, The Whore Pits, the Opera House, Nap Hill, and finally to Leastways, on the other side of the city wall. This line necessarily has to run deep, as it crosses under the River in three places. Local stopping stations are proposed at these seven locations, and a spur line running off to the University, the Palace, and then Dolly Sisters…"

Vetinari listened and watched, his mind making plans to demonstrate the new Underground at the earliest possible moment, to the civic dignitaries who would help fund it, and to the Dwarfs and Trolls who would help build it. The Ptaclusp family had been right – a good architectural model got you a long way further than halfway to selling your ideas to the customer. And building in model caravan trains, too… ones that actually ran by themselves and demonstrated the idea so beautifully…

Havelock Vetinari also knew that, as the demands of State allowed, he would be spending a lot of time here with the model railway. Refining the idea until the stopping stations were in the right places along routes that best served the City's needs, and the caravan trains could be guaranteed to run on time, every time, could well become addictive… he caught Drumknott's eye. His secretary was watching with a rapt interest he normally only reserved for his collection of office stationery down the years.

"Do you think I might be able to help out on this project, sir?" he inquired. "It would sharpen my understanding of the issues involved."

"I do not see why not, Drumknott." Vetinari said, generously. Then he spoke to the three model-makers.

"Gentlemen, it occurs to me that in the future, once this idea is established, why stop there? Why not drive overland lines through to the neighbouring cities so as to speed mass transportation?"

"Oh, we've thought of that, sir!" said Pony. "We envisage the Turnwise line out through Short Street and New Ankh terminates at the City Zoo. After all, lots of people want to go there. It's a popular destination. With spare land there, it would be the ideal place to establish an interchange with a projected line to the Stos and Pseudopolis. And later on, maybe, to Quirm and Uberwald…"(4)

He looked distant for a while and then smiled.

"If you have another spare room, my lord, we could set it up for you..." he said, hopefully.

(1) Today, of course, we vote them out of office – eventually – and they express remorse by picking up a huge pension and a meal-ticket for life on the lecture circuit. Or a seven-figure bonus from the bank they work for…

(2) Poisons.

(3) Over thirty years before, under a relatively young and not yet cynical teacher called Mr Mericet.

(4) Of course, this is exactly how things are in Berlin where the Zoobahnhof is the central bus, rail and S-bahn interchange… the Zoostation is a fascinating place to sit for a while and just watch people!

Leastways and Droversfields are names of my own devising for suburbs of the City which are outside the city walls and barely sketched out in the canon. Leastways - the urban area outside the Least Gate: Droversfields - the area outside the Shambling Gate, nearest the Cattle Market and slaughterhouse district, where cattle-herding drovers might bring their herds into the city; Spitalfields is as explained in the text and indeed an area of London, and Manchester, and of Maldon, Essex, and of several other British towns and cities. Hospitality's Fields, both a place for pilgrims and travellers to rest under auspices of the Church, and to get any injuries tended to, or to drop off any lepers for isolation. In English as well as French, the words hospital, hotel and hospitality share a common root. This is remembered in the English place name Spitalfields.