The Discworld Tarot:
The Seven of Pentacles (or Coins. Or Discs.)
Diminishing Returns.
The Sevens are about restrictions, setbacks, the unexpected, plans failing, want and lack of something vital fouling things up, or just generally running out of steam.
The Seven of Coins (Pentacles, Discs) operates in the sphere of money and materialism. It could denote a situation where you enter with high hopes, but entropy applies and you have to put more and more effort in to get less and less out. What looks like it might be a high-return low-cost strategy starts to incur more and more costs, so that you are lucky to come out even slightly ahead after much labour and in fact might end up in a loss situation. As a member of the Guild of Thieves, Cutpurses, Burglars, Housebreakers and Allied Trades is shortly going to find out.
Steffi Gibbet hummed a cheerful tune as she carefully nailed the cheaply gilded badge to the householder's door frame. She stood back to admire her work and returned the small hammer to her toolbelt.
"Everything's in order now, Mr Carver," she said, happily. "With the Silver Plan, you are now free from any sort of Guild activity for twelve months and you even get an insurance policy against any incidence of unlicenced theft or burglary. The Guild will undertake to track down any burglar or unlicenced operator, retrieve your goods or compensate to the value of, and you even get to watch when we deal with the culprit according to Guild law!"
She shook hands with the householder and moved on down the street, noting houses that already had current Thieves' Guild protection. She frowned as she passed number twenty-one; that looked like a carefully forged Guild protection shield nailed to the doorpost. The gilding looked slightly off and the details seemed wrong. She noted it for a visit later, after checking Guild records to confirm her suspicion. Back-up from a couple of enforcers would be useful, too: she was currently working alone. While the Guild approved of fraud and deception in general terms – Moist von Lipwig was a lifetime honorary member in recognition of services to the profession – it took a hard line when people outside tried to defraud it.
She smiled and waved at a Watch patrol as she passed by twenty-three and twenty-five, which both had current insurance, then came to twenty-seven. She frowned, seeing no obvious sign that the premises had either Thieves or Assassins' Guild insurance policies. (1) Then she mentally rehearsed her script and knocked on the door.
That Time Of Year had come around again. Mr Boggis had called together a hundred Guild members, who had gathered in what had formerly been the City's principal law court, now the meeting hall of the Thieves Guild (and thus continuing a long association with crime and grand larceny). Everybody knew what was going to happen. There was a general air of resignation to a long unrewarding slog that was about to come. Steffi, a younger Thief in her early twenties, a fairly recent starred honours graduate of the Thieves' School and one who now worked for the Guild, teaching its young students about Edificeering and Combat Parkour, found a place to lounge decoratively against what had once been the witness box.
"It's perfectly straightforward." Boggis had assured them all. "You each get a beat of the City. You just check which households have got current Guild protection and which haven't. If they don't, you knock on the door and explain the benefits of buying a Guild protection plan. In a perfectly friendly and non-confrontational non-threatening way, of course. You are the public face of the Guild. Public relations, right? Raise awareness, show them we're a friendly public-spirited bunch of people, explain what might happen if they don't renew, and get the revenue in. If they're unco-operative or just plain nasty, just smile nicely, apologise for wasting their valuable time, and remember to take the address so we can send a follow-up team later. Nothing to it. You've all been selected because you've got the right..."
Boggis looked down at his notes.
"people skills. We can send the ones who don't have people skills round to follow up later. Got your beats? Good. Now get out there and raise revenue!"
Steffi sighed resignedly. She reflected that the Assassins didn't need to go out doorstepping for trade. She wondered what form this would take – stab one, garrotte one free? Or you could buy our Silver Dagger plan, squire, immunity from inhuming for you and for one selected family member for a year...
And now she was here, noting the Watch patrol was paying close interest. She'd been warned about that. Vimes couldn't interfere directly as it was all within the law and accepted Guild practice. But he could make it a little more difficult, as far as he could. Besides, raising revenue had more than one meaning. The Guild of Thieves paid a high proportion of its take to Vetinari as part of the Agreement. Effectively making her part of the most effective tax-gathering operation Ankh-Morpork had ever known. And nobody liked a visit from the taxman...
She took a breath, aware the watch patrol had clocked her and was watching from the other side of the road, and knocked on the door of Number Twenty-Seven.
"Oh, hello, dearie! You'll be the girl they've sent me from the Agency?"
"Well, I'm from the..."
"Come on in, dearie! Can't have you standing there!"
Steffi paused for a moment, then followed the trusting old lady into the house. She noticed the householder was moving slowly and hobbling a little; she seemed to be at least eighty years old. Steffi sighed. She'd always thought this was not what being a Thief should be about. She noted the general aura of old-lady neglect, but appreciated the house was more-or-less clean, if spartan.
"Could you start with my feet, love? They've been giving me real gyp lately." the old lady said, flopping herself down into a well-loved chair.
"Your... feet?" Steffi asked, nonplussed. She had various tools on her working belt. Some of them could be applied to feet, she conceded, but only in self-defence or if she had to deal with any Unlicenced Thieves she encountered.
"New girl? New job?" the old lady asked. "Nothing to it, love. They'll have give you some training? The Agency?"
"Well, I'm actually from the Guild on a routine visit..."
"That's nice, dearie. Did they give you clippers for me toenails? Not to worry, the last home-help the Sisters sent me left a set behind, they're on the mantlepiece."
Steffi made a leap of realisation. She also realised why the old lady might be hobbling.
"There's water on the hob for washing, and clean-ish towels." the old lady said, hopefully. "When it's hot, you can fill the footbath, that's on a hook behind the kitchen door. What's your name, dearie?"
"Steffi... er, Stephanie."
"That's a nice name, dear. I'm Mrs Elbow. Olecrana Elbow." (2)
And twenty minutes later, Steffi Gibbet was kneeling on a folded towel to save her own knees against the rough floorboards, having filled a footbath, found towels and soap, and was, with deft gentleness, washing a pair of old-lady feet. It wasn't as dreadful as she'd feared, and having seen how the toenails had grown, her inconvenient conscience was telling her she couldn't refuse. She had also heard about the home-help service provided by the Spiteful Sisterhood of Seven-Handed Sek, an order of devout and charitable nuns who despite their name radiated compassion, love and care. Steffi assumed the name might have meant something else a few centuries before and meaning hadn't kept up with current intent.
She also wondered about how to broach the subject of Thieves' Guild protection. It looked like the old girl didn't have two farthings to rub together; the collection of knick-knacks accumulated over a lifetime might have things you could fence for a few dollars, but seemed to be of more sentimental worth. Which would not worry some Thieves. But the kitchen had been woefully short of foodstuffs: a bottle of elderly milk, some porridge oats, a crust of very old bread, and that was it.
There was a knock on the door, which opened directly onto the street.
"Door's open, dearie!" Mrs Elbow called, as Steffi began gingerly clipping iron-hard toenails. She glanced up; two Watchmen entered.
"Just seeing everything's alright, Mrs Elbow." one said. His look took in Steffi, kneeling with a foot in one hand and toenail clippers in the other. She glared up at Constable Ping, daring him to make any comment.
"Seeing as the girl from the Thieves' Guild came in here twenty-five minutes ago, and we ain't seen her leave yet." Constable Robins added, meaningfully.
"Thieves' Guild?" Mrs Elbow said, and cackled. "You're mistaken, love. This is Stephanie from the home-help agency, aren't you, love?"
Steffi nodded, grimly, and industriously tried to aim toenail shrapnel at the two Watchmen. They dodged as a particularly stubborn chip richocheted off the far wall.
"You two are looking after the old lady's welfare, right?" Steffi almost growled. She put down the clippers and rummaged in her pocket with a free hand.
"I'm telling you, she's got nothing in her kitchen. Nothing. So what you can do, Ping, is get down the corner shop and see she's alright for basics."
Steffi forced two dollars at him. He looked at it doubtfully.
"Well, yes, but.. what do I get?" he asked, puzzled. "Mrs Ping deals with that sort of thing."
"Oh, good grief!"said Steffi. She lived alone in a single-girl bedsit. She'd been supporting herself since coming of age and leaving the Guild school.
"Bread. Milk. Eggs. Basic veg. Potatoes. Onions. Cabbage. Turnips. Wahoonies. Teabags. Things that keep. You know? And I want the change!"
She glared at the two Watchmen, who nervously backed out of the door. They were experienced street-Watch: they knew that sort of look on the face of a professional woman with a short temper out on a mission. Just because it belonged to a boyishly attractive young woman with a pretty face and short-cut auburn hair did not make it any less meaningful.
Then Steffi got on with the task at hand, listening to the old lady's faraway chatter about Albert, been in Small Gods these last ten years now, godsresthissoul, and about children living elsewhere, as far away as Pseudopolis, and the minutae of the doings of grandchildren and great grandchildren she didn't get to see as often as she could, and you're a good girl, Stephanie, so very gentle, have you family of your own?
"No, mrs Elbow. I was a foundling. The Guild took me in. They're my family now."
In accordance with Guild practice, the baby left on the steps had been given a honoured trade name, in her case Gibbet (although she might have become a Ludd or a Boggis) and fostered with the other foundlings in the Guild orphanage.(1) As soon as she could toddle and sucessfully nick toys from the older kids, and break out of her crib three nights out of four, she'd been sent to the Thieves' Kindergarden, then the First School, then the Thieves' School proper to learn her trade.
"Such a shame." Olecrana Elbow said, shaking her head. "You never knew your family."
"The Guild became my family, Mrs Elbow." Steffi said, awkwardly. She was never completely at home with conversations like this.
As she was drying the old lady's feet and preparing to powder them and roll on support stockings, the two Watchmen returned with laden grocery bags. Ping looked awkward.
"Change." Steffi directed, extending a hand.
There was some. But the groceries had cost a dollar-thirty. Steffi sighed.
"Ping, you were robbed." she said. "Remind me to have a word with those Klatchistanis at the corner shop."
"Well, you should know..." said Constable Robbins. She glared him into silence.
"What if I make a lunch, Mrs Elbow?" she said, brightly. I can't leave her hungry. I just can't. Besides, I can't leave without telling her the reason why I'm here...
And nearly two hours later, having cooked a large stew for an old lady and two mumphing Watchmen, licenced thief Steffi Gibbet nailed the little silver badge to the doorframe that announced Mrs Olecrana Elbow was now under Thieves' Guild protection and immunity from robbery for one year. It was easiest this way. Although Steffi winced that her personal purse was now lighter by fifteen dollars. There was no way Mrs Elbow could have afforded this herself, and even the little sentimental knick-nacks and memories of a marriage would be vulnerable to a different sort of Thief.
Steffi sighed. She could make up the fifteen dollars with a dip or two in the Maul. Look for rich people who were careless about their money and didn't have Guild protection. But that could mean a few hours of Malicious Lingering just to break even on today... still, better than robbing an old lady who was hardly worth five dollars. Steffi had her ethics about Thiefcraft.
She said goodbye and moved on. Although she had a feeling she'd be back. You know, drop by. When I'm passing. Just to see if the old girl's OK...
(1) Both Guilds sold home insurance. The Thieves complained about demarcation issues and were threatening to put out policies against theft of life just to get even.
(2) Olecrana (an anatomical term) came up as the answer to a crossword clue. It seemed like such an appropriate Discworld name I had to use it.
(3) Steffi is a cameo character in Thief of Time, referenced as a fellow Guild foundling and inferentially as Lobsang Ludd's first girlfriend. Before he met, you know...