The Discworld Tarot
The Six of Swords
The best one in the Swords. It stands for concepts like realisation, breakthrough, collaborative work with gainful results, intellectual success, graduation as a student, writing and publishing a book…. So how can I bring all these things together. Swords can also be unlucky. Especially if one side of a deal or a contract is not being scrupulously open or honest or fair.
Hmm. After the last chapter (Page/Princess of Wands) , reviews and PM's asked for more of the next generation of Assassins. And more of Bekki Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. So let's start here, possibly nearly two years after the end of Hyperemesis Gravidarum. this ran away with me and may go into more than one chapter.
"You've got to admit, sir, this is the sort of thing that would fly off the shelves at Hogswatch." Mr Cropper said to Mr Goatberger. "We really shift product then. And such a simple idea. I can't believe it was written by a pair of kids."
Mr Goatberger grunted in a non-committal sort of way. The publishing house needed a bestseller, yes. And books for children moved ten times faster in the run-up to Hogswatch. But even so…
"What are we paying them, Mr Cropper?" he asked. "Can we get away with a courtesy copy each, ten dollars a head – no, let's make it fifteen, it is Hogswatch – and a box of chocolates each, or something?"
Mr Cropper shook his head. He remembered being there when Mrs Ogg the Lancre witch – and her friend – had called round to negotiate a royalties payment. The memory still made him wake up sweating in the middle of the night.
"With these kids, sir? We may need to go higher…"
"What? You mean Weinrich and Boettcher's? That's a bit extravagant, Mr Cropper. Higgs and Meakins should be perfectly adequate!"
Cropper sighed. His boss really wasn't getting the essential point here. And he feared that with these authors, the essential point would very soon cease to be metaphorical. Literal, in fact.
The RATS Club was convened, as it was at least once a week. Its founder Rupert Mericet had managed to pass his Final Run and had graduated from the Guild School. Leadership of the RATS had passed, by common consent, to Maggie Band. Maggie was moving towards her own Final Run, and was a few terms away from Assassin status, pursued by the misperceptions concerning her name that had dogged her for nearly seven years. Nobody would believe that she wasn't related to Miss Alice Band, for instance. And it took a lot of convincing before people were prepared to accept that she really was inclined to be more interested in boys. The name Band had a lot of associations, and Maggie found some of them to be both unhelpful and inaccurate. She gritted her teeth and carried on regardless. Being one of the RATS helped.
In the beginning, the RATS had met in the home of School teacher Doctor Davinia Bellamy, who was quietly sympathetic. Two of her sons, both Assassins' School students, were members, after all. It meant the members could get together outside the School, and in the case of the boarders, see some sort of family life. It also meant the School was less likely to monitor them, and they could speak freely. Doctor Bellamy preferred not to know what was being said by the mixed group meeting upstairs in Tim or Martin's bedroom.
These days, the RATS had an alternative meeting place. Doctor Smith-Rhodes and her husband lived two doors down on Spa Lane from the Bellamys. She also had relatives who were School students and was aware of the special difficulties this imposed. Without making a big thing of it, on a night where she and Professor Stibbons were attending a formal reception at the University, she had allowed the RATS to convene in her lounge. Periodically, the efficient Claude or one of the maids refreshed the pitcher of soft drinks. Light snacks had also been offered.
The Relatives of Assassin Teachers And Staff were agreed things, in this respect, could be worse. Bonded in the adversity of being family members related to their teachers, or in Maggie Band's case being thought to be related to a teacher, they relaxed in each other's company.
Mariella Smith-Rhodes, aged nearly fifteen and about to ask for acceptance on the Black, relaxed and cuddled the sleepy child on her lap. Her niece Bekki Smith-Rhodes had been allowed, as a treat, to sit up later with the grown-ups, enjoying the adulation of older girls who all thought she was sweet and cute and lovely. Tim and Martin Bellamy, fairly recently blessed with an unprecedented baby sister of their own, understood this. Both had been painstakingly taught, by their mother, such skills as to which way up to hold a baby, and useful transferable skills that Davinia assured them would serve them in good stead later in life, such as how to uncomplainingly change a nappy, and to be good big brothers in general who were useful to their mother. James de Yoyo, another fairly recent RATS member, had no sisters, baby or otherwise, but understood some crossbow bolts were hard to dodge.
Mariella didn't mind this. She found her sister's child to be oddly adorable, and to her surprise, was quite enjoying being an auntie, Tannie Mariella. She settled Bekki in her lap, then looked across the room and frowned at one of the new members. She remembered she was already an aunt, several times over. But up until now it had been different…
There was a knock on the door. Claude the butler entered, ushering in another member of Johanna Smith-Rhodes' household staff.
"May I take the opportunity to remind Young Madam that it is Little Madam's bedtime?"(1) he asked, with the sort of politely deferential butlerian tone that conveyed a very big hint. Mariella smiled at him.
"Whet, elready?" she said, pretending surprise.
"Indeed, Young Madam." Claude said, gravely, as Annaliese the nanny bustled forward. Annaliese was that sort of big hearty girl with comb-defying big hair and a certain width about bosom and hips, who could therefore, by iron law and social convention, be relied on to be sensible and down-to-earth.
"If ye shalt so permit, Young Mistress." Annaliese said, in her native Phlegmish.
"Oh, for goodness sake, call me Mariella, Annaliese!" Mariella said, in her native Vondalaans. Phlegmish sounded incredibly old-fashioned, like a hangover from several centuries ago, but it was very close to Vondalaans. Mariella wondered what Vondalaans, Howondaland's dialect of a common mother tongue, sounded like to her. I bet we come over as graceless colonials speaking an appalling ill-educated drawl, or something. (2) She carefully stood and handed over Bekki.
"Ye are sister to the Mistress, Young Mistress." Annaliese said. Mariella shook her head. She's still fairly new. She'll probably relax at some point. Working for Johanna must be intimidating.
"Time for bath. Ye must be cleansed. Then thy nightgown and a bedtime story, ja?" Annaliese said to Bekki, who gurgled and looked happy. Goodnights were given by everyone in the room and kisses by some. Nanny and butler receded with Little Madam, and the door closed.
"She's completely natural with Bekki." Maggie Band said, wonderingly. "But shit-scared of everyone else."
"It must be something to do with the clothes we wear." Tim Bellamy suggested. "She works for an Assassin and she's just walked into a room full of Assassins. Worries some people."
"None of us are Assassins yet." his brother Martin objected. "We're still students."
"But we all wear black." Maggie said, drily. "Or even bleck."
"Voetsaak, jou blitsem!" Mariella said. She'd lost her awe of the older girl, having known her well for several years now. The RATS were a closely knit group, and a lot of affectionate badinage like that went on.
Maggie grinned.
"Do you kiss your sister with a mouth like that?" she asked, taking no offence. Mariella grinned back.
"I never kiss my sister." she replied. "One of my nieces, perheps."
They looked over at the new bods in the room. Both were first-year pupils and fairly new arrivals at the School. Both were looking on with deferential shock at the older girls.
"Better get on with business." Maggie decided. She sat up straighter.
"Fellow RATS, bonded in the adversity of being related to those who have been set in charge of us, of those whose task in life is to teach us, we who walk through life at this School knowing all around suspect us of getting an easier time of it, because they are family. We have here in our midst two new candidates for membership of our noble Order, forged in suffering and bonded in adversity. Do we accept them as members of the Order? Step forward, Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande of Raven House, and make your case for membership!"
The girl was about eleven. She had only a hint of red in otherwise blonde hair, the sort of colour described by optimistic marketers of hair colourants as strawberry-blonde. But observers would remark on a strong family resemblance to Mariella Smith-Rhodes. The girl gulped, and stood up.
"Well. I'm here because. My tannie, my aunt, is Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes. I was edvised this could make things complicated. The people who so edvised me were not wrong. I even share her name. End although my femily name is properly only Maaijande, es oldest daughter, I was told the name Johanna must be mine end I will cerry the femily name, my mother's maiden name of Smith-Rhodes. My brothers end sisters are just Maaijande."
She nodded to Mariella.
"End neither of my aunts is enybody I would be inclined to kiss." she added, meaningfully. There was appreciative laughter. "It complicates things thet my other tannie is a student here elso."
"Cursed twice over, then." Maggie said. "Brethren and sistren, do we accept her as one of us?"
There was general assent. Johanna, the younger Johanna, was handshaken and welcomed to membership. Then all eyes turned to the other probationary member, also a first year student in Raven House. This one very definitely had red hair and a peppery demeanour.
"Your turn." said Martin Bellamy. Very carefully not using her name. School rumour said you had to be careful with this one.
The wiry eleven-year-old, a Scholarship pupil granted a boarding house place, nodded at everyone and took a deep breath.
"My name is Emma Roydes." she began, looking everyone in the eye and daring them to laugh. "I'm now in my second term at the School. I think they put me in Raven to see if I could survive there."
She took another deep breath.
"Mrs Mericet recruited me. She thought I had promise. I remember she talked to Squire Dunham-Massey, who does local history in Scrote, where I'm from. She came out, looked at me for a long time, then asked how I'd like it at this School. Then she persuaded my mum and dad. But she didn't tell me. The reason."
"If it helps, she didn't tell eny of us, either." Mariella said, gently. "Johanna – thet is, my sister Johanna – only figured it out efter speaking with Mr Dunham-Massey herself. We were surprised, to tell you the truth." (3)
Emma smiled briefly.
"It turns out that my family, in Scrote. Had a great-great-great-aunt who got married to a man called Smith and emigrated to Howondaland. My great-several-times grandfather, her brother, stayed in Scrote. My family are the Rhodes half of Smith-Rhodes. They changed Roydes to Rhodes, I got told."
Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande took her friend's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"Well. It means we're cousins." she said. She could see Martin, Tim, James and Maggie making "we're trying-to-work-this-out" sort of faces.
"Errr… cousins five or six times removed? Or something?" Martin said.
"Second cousins four or five times removed?" Maggie asked.
"Sort of related." agreed Nigella Wiggs, a young cousin of Miss Jocasta Wiggs.
"Which makes you related. To Johanna. And Mariella. And to Doctor Smith-Rhodes." said James de Yoyo, getting to the point.
"She looks like a Smith-Rhodes." Tim Bellamy said, scrutinising her. "But without the accent."
"That's probably why Mrs Mericet signed her up." Maggie remarked. "And if we can see it – and frankly, kid, you look like you're related to Mariella and both Johannas, something about the hair- then everybody else will."
"You hed better stert learning Vondalaans." Mariella said, half-seriously. "Miss van Kruger runs a cless on Seturdays."
"But are we agreed?" Maggie said. "Emma… Emma. From Raven House. Related to Doctor Smith-Rhodes, even so distantly, but looking like a Smith-Rhodes, even though she's never been outside Scrote in her life and can't speak a word of Vondalaans. I mean, I got in because everyone thinks Bandy Alice is my sister, or my aunt, or my mother, or something. I asked my family. Those Bands have absolutely no links to us whatsoever. Just one of those things. But everyone's going to think you're a Smith-Rhodes because you look like you ought to be. Fellow RATS, I move we admit Emma… just Emma – to membership."
There was acclaim. Maggie looked at Emma Roydes with sympathy.
"I think I can see why your Howondalandian family changed the name to Rhodes." She said. "Maybe. You know. You could change it to Emma Rhodes or something? They can hardly complain."
Emma sighed.
"Too late now. Everyone knows. I'll still be Emma Roydes to everyone."
Johanna Smith-Rhodes-Maaijande squeezed her friend's arm again.
"It's not so bed, Piles." she said, reassuringly. Everyone else winced. But it seemed the younger Johanna had Best Friend Privileges.
Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes sighed, resignedly. Aunt Friejda meant well. She always meant well. She'd been utterly delighted and had got maternal in a big way over her new great-niece Rebecka. One of her gifts had been a large stack of picture books suitable for very young children, to be read to the very young child by her nanny, or even her mother. As Rebecka got older and could turn the pages for herself, the pictures were designed to delight and enchant and the text was minimal. Where's My Cow? had been in there somewhere. Some had even been in Vondalaans, imports from Home. Friejda, like her mother, was firm and insistent that the child be brought up bilingually so that she didn't forget her roots. For once, Johanna whole-heartedly agreed with her mother and her aunt. It was one reason why Annaliese had been employed. A nanny who could speak a version of the mother tongue would be useful. Johanna had been quietly amused to watch Annaliese getting her tongue and comprehension around the unfamiliar Vondalaans idioms, spellings and pronunciation. The girl had even brought over some picture books and basic primers in Phlegmish, her native language, and was adding those to the stories she read over the crib or the pram. Johanna again speculated that her daughter would grow up speaking a dialect all of her own. It would be interesting to see what way she went.
But some of the books… one was clearly from the same place as that appallingly syrupy, over-optimistic, short-on-understanding-of-human-nature, display that Crumleighs' toy store insisted on trotting out every Hogswatch. Wouldn't It Be Nice If We Were All Nice?
All the little boys and girls of the world, smiling and laughing and sharing their toys and making friends with each other. Just like that. Johanna educated young people. Drawn from all over the Disc. She'd managed a residential house for ten years that had students from all countries. She knew if you brought together, for instance, a young person from Zlobenia and one from Borogravia in the same place without extensive groundwork first, and preferably heavily armed chaperones to supervise(4), you did not get happy laughter, mutual understanding, and sharing. Oh, no. Friendships and mutual understandings did happen. Eventually. But it took years.
And the Vondalaans-language primers from Home, while welcome, conveyed certain social assumptions that Johanna wasn't all that in step with any more. A brother and sister, little white-skinned children, lived in a big house and had black-skinned servants waiting on their every need. The book emphasised that the role of a white person was to be firmly kind and understanding to their blacks and to accept they were Not As We Are. It wasn't so much See Spot Run, as See Spot The Ridgeback Chase The Black Children. Isn't Spot Funny? Johanna winced. Then winced again, when she remembered all but one of her domestic staff and employees were Black Howondalandian. Aunt Friejda had said this would mean Bekki was sure to grasp an essential point of citizenship in Rimwards Howondaland, practically by default, and had smiled serenely.
Claude the butler glanced dispassionately at the primer. Johanna looked apologetic. And a little embarrassed. Then he handed the book back, saying "None of us can be blamed for the education our elders saw fit to provide for us. I am sure you will manage, madam. To give the Little Madam a more cosmopolitan upbringing." He reached down, not that far down, and scratched Crème the ridgeback behind her ear. Her tongue lolled out appreciatively and she tried to lick his hand.
A year or two ago he would never have used words like "cosmopolitan", thought Johanna. This city has changed him. It's changed us all. Even my dogs.
She thanked him, and turned to where her sister Mariella was thoughtfully leafing through the other books their aunt had delivered.
"They gave me this to read at the Veldt School, Johanna." Mariella said, referring to her own elementary education. "Complete dreck, isn't it?"
"Ja." Johanna said. "Me also. And the bad thing is, you grow up believing it because your teachers assure you it is right and correct. But the Bureau of Education sets the curriculum. What can you do?"
"Pretty much what you do, I think." Mariella said. "Make them think you're giving them what they want to see. But you subvert it. You send it up. Add a sub-text. What Rupert Mericet calls being satirical."
"Me? Subversive? Liutnant Verkramp would notice." Johanna said, with studied innocence. Her sister was undeceived. Johanna felt vaguely unsettled that her younger sister had noticed.
"You get to teach us civics." Mariella said. "All the Rimwards Howondalandian pupils in schools being educated overseas. Mandatory course for citizenship. The Guild School makes facilities available, so we're not at a disadvantage. But you've got to stick to the Bureau of Education's set curriculum. The Embassy sends people to observe. And as often as not, that's Verkramp himself."
"Don't remind me." her sister said. She made the best of a bad situation. She'd introduced the weaselly Verkramp to fellow Assassins, explaining he was the local section head of the Bureau of State Security and had a position of key importance at the Embassy, responsible for monitoring the moral and intellectual welfare of his fellow citizens resident in Ankh-Morpork.(5) Verkramp had puffed up with pride at the fulsome generosity of her introduction. But she'd still made it clear that if anyone had any further questions or needed further guidance on what it meant to be a citizen of White Howondaland, she could make time to speak privately to them.
"You know, Johanna, some of these books could be rewritten. You know. So it's still relevant to children of between two and five. They learn from them, but learn real things. You know, something of the way the world really is."
"Without giving them nightmares or making them into three-year-old cynics." Johanna said, firmly. She suspected Mariella was turning into a fifteen-year-old cynic.
"Nigella Wiggs is good at Art." Mariella said, thoughtfully. "She does little cartoons for the Cloak and Dagger. And we both got really good experience working with Rupert when he edited the C&D. He showed us how to write and the sort of things you can write."
Johanna was immediately on her guard. Rupert Mericet had graduated from the Guild, He was now on Work Experience for the Times, doing its gossip columns and odd jobbing pieces. William de Worde and Sacharissa Cripslock had recognised a Talent. Rupert was carrying on doing what he did best, and making a hobby into a living. Seven years on the School newspaper, the Cloak and Dagger, had honed his skills at digging out dubious news items and writing them in such a way as to fall short of attracting censure, whilst still being scurrilously sensational. Now he only had lawyers and libel actions to dodge. Like his relative, the Guild's veteran Alchemy master Mr Mericet, he knew words were a deadly inhumation weapon, and had some of the same dark sarcasm. Only he called it social satire. Graduating as an Assassin, to him, meant he had the necessary skills for self-defence against other forms of reader criticism. The ones that bypassed lawyers.
And Nigella Wiggs' caricatures of teachers and other people were a regular feature of the C&D. She was, in a specialised way, good at Art. It regularly got her into trouble.
"So what did you have in mind?" Johanna asked Mariella. Her sister smiled slightly.
"Borrow some of these books. Ask ourselves how they could be done better. I could have a go at writing the text. Nigella might want to do some pictures. Then we try them out on Bekki. If she likes them, we know we've got something worth taking further. Oh, and there's Mannie and Davvie too. Sit them all down and read them a story. Show them the pictures. They're our target audience, after all."
"OK, but I want to vet what you come up with. Before the children see. That applies to the others, too."
Rupert Mericet looked up approvingly from the draft pages. He cross-referenced them to the source books.
"You know, this is actually rather good?" he said.
Mariella and Nigella smiled happily. Rupert might have graduated as an Assassin, but having left the School didn't mean he was gone forever. Taken on by the Ankh-Morpork Times as a useful, if potentially inflammatory, talent, he now rented a bachelor flat off Kings Way, supported not so much by his journalist's pay as by some family money he'd inherited. He liked to keep in touch with old friends.
The two girls had no worries about him. Even though they were breaking several School rules in one go. Girl students at the Guild School were absolutely prohibited from spending time alone in the living quarters of single older men. The Rules absolutely required them to be chaperoned by a responsible older woman, preferably over thirty and married. Being in a recent male graduate's flat on the other side of the City, unescorted, away from School supervision, risked accusations of impropriety. The School took a dim view of this. If parents got to hear about things like this, fees were at risk. And they'd assured Mademoiselle Antoinette, their Housemistress, they were going to a reputable tea-room in Ankh for a quiet afternoon cup.
"We can always say we were chaperoning each other." Mariella had said. Nigella had grinned. Rupert had thoughtfully made tea. It was a room. Tea was available. Therefore they weren't lying to their teacher, as such.
And now Rupert, a man whose opinions they respected, had received the latest copy of the C&D with thanks. He'd promised Mariella and Nigella a cut if any of their material appeared in his gossip column in the Times. Not much, but a couple of dollars each was always welcome. And the Times had happily published several of Nigella's cartoons. Words had been spoken afterwards by Dark Council members.
And he was also looking over their idea for a relevant, truthful and interesting primer book for little children.
"Arabella would be interested in this." he said, meaning his girlfriend. She was the other reason the two girls had no qualms about being alone with Rupert, who was a decent guy despite his air of louche worldly sarcasm. Arabella Pinchpipe-Eorle worked in one of those reputable areas for a young woman of Quality, as an assistant publishing editor for Goatberger and Cropper's publishing house. (6) Arabella had left the Assassins' School without Taking Black and had gone on to an exclusive finishing school in Quirm. At the earliest opportunity she had returned to the City and had met Rupert again. She was, Mariella thought, okay for a relative of the Duke of Eorle, and had her had screwed on in broadly the right way.
"Good catchy title, too. One of yours, Mariella? Thought so. Leonora The Explorer. A little girl of four or five who finds a magic doorway that lets her go to anywhere she chooses on Disc, and to look around and meet the people. Children reading it get a lead character to relate to, with a touch of magic, and learn something in passing. I can't help wondering if you've based some of the characters on real people, though? These illustrations of yours look a bit familiar, Nigella!"
Rimwards Howondaland was represented by a slightly stroppy red-haired girl in safari veldt garb, with a machete and a whip. Hanna de Slegt'Humeur became Leonora's friend and guide and introduced her to the wildlife and the people. Leonora then passed into Zululand, where her friend for the adventure was a native girl called Rachel N'Bekoming. Nigella had very carefully drawn her in a modesty-preserving full-body dress, but she still carried shield and assegai. She looked tall and slender in a strangely familiar sort of way.
Leonora The Explorer finds out about Howondaland and Klatch." Rupert read. "Lovely pictures. Simple text. And you've tried it out on children of the right age?"
"we did!" Mariella confirmed. They'd taken the stories, painted larger than book-size on heavy card, next door and chatted to Madame Emanuelle, Johanna's neighbour. Emmanuelle de Lapoignard also taught at the Guild School. She'd become mother of a son who had been born a few days after Bekki. She, and the other neighbour, doctor Davinia Bellamy, had happily agreed to let the girls read their story and show the pictures to Emmanuel-Martin, little Mannie, and to little Davvie Bellamy. Madame Emmanuelle had also got Annaliese to bring Bekki round, so she could play with her two little friends, and enjoy Story Time. This was understood. Any of the three neighbouring Assassin mothers could take the children of the other two at any time, leaving a message with the relevant household to say, for instance, Bekki's at mine. We'll bring her back for tea. love, Vinnie. The three women had been through pregnancy together and the added complication presented by a group of unlicenced Assassins who wanted to kill them. Their children, born within weeks of each other, had become playmates. Mariella had been caught up in the fighting. She carried scars on one leg as a reminder. (7) But having fought for her sister and for Bekki gave her a few privileges.
Leonora The Explorer had been a huge hit. The children wanted more and were entranced with the pictures. Nigella had taken the precaution of taking iconographs of her original art and getting it laminated against toddler fingers.
And now Rupert had arranged, via Arabella, to get the book professionally assessed by Goatbergers. Who wanted to publish. Mariella and Nigella, though, were not happy with the contract, such as it was, that had been offered. Negotiations had stalled and deadlines for printing in time for Hogswatch were near. Mariella took a deep breath, and came clean to her sister. Johanna might help. If she dropped by at Goatbergers and took over contract negotiation. Mariella felt her sister could get her more than fifteen dollars, a complimentary copy of the book, and a courtesy box of chocolates.
(1) It's like this. Claude had arrived as part of a draft of domestic servants wished on Johanna Smith-Rhodes by an aunt with high social expectations of her niece. At first a senior houseboy, as Rimwards Howondalandians term their staff, he had been educated out of over-deference to his employer and a tendency to call her "Baas-lady". His own further education had been at the hands of Willikins, butler to the Ramkin Family, who had suggested to Johanna that her man be enrolled at the Guild of Butlers, Gentlemen's Gentlemen and Senior Domestic Servants. Butlerian virtues had settled on Claude, who now addressed Johanna as Madam, as she clearly had no title or nobility.(1:1) Her younger sister Mariella presented an issue of the correct degree of relative nomenclature. Claude had resolved this by addressing her as Young Madam. After they had fought together in defence of Johanna's home, the relationship was now one of mutual respect. Johanna and Mariella's parents had arrived unexpectedly and stayed for an indefinite length of time. Agnetha Smith-Rhodes, their mother, had become "The Old Madam" to the staff. Although not where she could hear it. And on the arrival of Johanna's daughter Bekki, the only possible term for her on the part of the staff had been "Little Madam". It was meant with love and affection, however. Claude was sworn to the service of the Smith-Rhodes family and Bekki was clearly a Smith-Rhodes.
(1:1) Johanna cheerfully agreed she had no nobility whatsoever. Having lived in Ankh-Morpork for long enough to see Selachiis, Venturis and Rusts demonstrating the essential qualities of noble birth, she took this assessment of her proletarian origin as a compliment.
(2) Dutch, Afrikaans and Flemish are all mutually intelligible. The move to bring them all together as one common-standard Ur-Nederlaans language is called Tussentaal – "together-speak". But it's like the thing with British English and American English, French French and Quebecois, or Spanish as spoken in Spain and Spanish as spoken in Mexico. Speakers of one form look on with a sort of baffled amusement as to how speakers of the other form mangle the common language and suspect, in their heart of hearts, that speakers of the colonial form have buggered it up beyond all redemption. Meanwhile the "colonial" form is spoken by people who hear the parent tongue and consider its speakers are clinging on to something incredibly old-fashioned and behind the times. The gap is most marked in Portuguese, which is spoken by a lot more people in Brazil, who are beginning to consider Brazilian should be the dominant dialect as so many more people speak it and, frankly, we make the rules now. Me le pelas, Lisboa.
(3) Refer to the Discworld Tarot story, The King of Swords.
(4) The Assassins' Guild School had these. It called them Residential House Teachers.
(5) The other Assassins, such as Monsieur Le Balourd and Doctor Perdore, who looked after the Guild's intelligence-gathering network, had understood immediately that this meant "This little shit is here to spy on me. I can't say it out loud or explicitly, but he's a spy and a secret policeman representing a not very nice secret police force. If he ever becomes subject to a contract, and Gods I hope it's soon, you now know his face. Thank you, gentlemen."
(6) really true. Old-style English publishing was viewed as a sort of finishing school for university graduates in English Lit who were female, of good quality, and crucially from the right social background. You don't see many women working in publishing who went to comprehensive schools and don't have double-barreled names.
(7) Refer to my story, Hyperemesis Gravidarum.
Notes Dump
Where random ideas go for isolation and study.
A plant of interest to botanically-inclined Assassins for two good reasons:
Croton oil (Crotonis oleum) is an oil prepared from the seeds of Croton tiglium, a tree belonging to the order Euphorbiales and family Euphorbiaceae, and native or cultivated in India and the Malay Archipelago. Used for medicinal and other purposes in North America. Bernard Cornwell has a secret service use it as an inducement for prisoners to talk. Small doses taken internally cause diarrhea. Externally, the oil can cause irritation and swelling. Croton oil is used in some chemical peels, due to its caustic exfoliating effects it has on the skin.[1] Used in conjunction with phenol solutions, it results in an intense reaction which leads to initial skin sloughing. Since croton oil is very irritating and painful, it is used in laboratory animals to study how pain works, pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory drugs, and immunology.