The Price of Flight – part ten
After the war – who will we be fighting for?
V0.5. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space.
Title from a song by Gary Moore.
The end of the Lancre War cycle, then back to "the present" and the logistic problems of flying elephants.
Originl intention - not all of this is covered in these 6,000 words but it will come. As always, you come up with a plan and its realisation takes you on a detour. It was to have covered - breaing the news to families; readjusting to everyday policing and Pegasus work; Olga tackles two lots of personal business; (Natasha and Eddie); four funerals, and a very unique wedding.
Epilogue: remembrance. This bit features Bekki.
It's taken a diversion I didn't initially intend, but maybe setting up a plot line or two for further tales; how Vetinari might have to take a resurgent "Russia" into account, run by Grand Duchesses, perhaps, who can think further and more clearly than their fathers and who set about reforming and unifying – well, the elves put the idea into both their heads. But it won't work out the way the elves wanted it. Also returning to Natasha Romanoff, a character somewhat under-used so far (yes, Nimbus, your idea) and developing her as a slightly imperious Rus noblewoman with a calculating streak as well as a mean way with a bow. Something of the Avenger about her but not a one-for-one correspondence: with a spiky relationship with her cousin, not close friends by any means, lots of needle and disagreement, but two people who can work together.
Ideas about long-gone Tsarinas, all called Catherine… and as yet no room for an itinerant Wizard called Gaz Putin who in his time exerted an influence. (Ra Ra Gaz Putin…)
There had been one last surprise for the soul of Tatiana Grigorenko. War, dressed this time as a Cossack Ataman, had shook her hand vigorously and said he was damn proud of you, classic death in battle for one of you people, they'd be singin' songs about that, now yer lift out's arrived.
Tatiana looked up. Her first response was to push the Valkyrie out of the way and demand her deathright as a Cossack, which was to ride her own horse. The lightning stroke that had killed her had also killed the captured Elven horse she had been riding; Tatiana had thought it was a damn shame, twice over as the soul of the horse had tottered to its spectral hooves, blinked, and looked at Death. Who had shaken his head, waved a bony hand, and watched its essence disperse into vapour and nothing.
NOT OF THIS WORLD, Death had explained. IT BELONGS ELSEWHERE.
"Nichevo." Tatiana had replied. "Pity. I could have ridden that. You know. To where I'm going."
And now she looked up at the Valkyrie who was grinning down at her. You had to admit, with blonde hair like that, and an ancestry like hers, she was perfect in look… and name…
"Sigrid?" Tatiana said, disbelieving.
Sigrid Helgasdotttir, lately an Air Witch, grinned down.
"They were recruiting." she explained. "They said I had exactly the right experience and employment profile. And apparently being dead is no disqualification. I'm still not sure how it works, but while I'm on shift I get some sort of bodily substance again for coming into this world."
There was a silence.
"Hop up." Sigrid said. "If you're good, I might even let you drive for a while."
Tatiana vaulted up.
"There are still a couple of job vacancies." War said, genially. "No hurry. You can settle in, then fill in the application forms."
And Tatiana Grigorenko passed into her Afterlife.
Ankh-Morpork, after the war is over:
Two women met for lunch in one of the better and more socially select restaurants in the City. They were related, certainly, but could not be described as especially close. A casual observer might have taken them for sisters. The same casual observer might also have reflected that a relationship between sisters can be complex, tumultuous, marked by sibling rivalry, a competitive streak, and a sense of one-up-man-ship that can propel the most alpha of alpha males a long way down the Ephebian alphabet.(1)
The two women meeting ostensibly for a civilised friendly lunch are actually cousins. It doesn't make it any less hazardous that this is the sister-sister dynamic working out at one step removed. Both are only daughters; in fact, only children. Each would argue that she was deprived of the chance to have this sort of spiky interaction with an actual sister, so this is the next best thing. Their fathers might be brothers, but are barely on speaking terms with each other. It could be argued that a really big family disagreement is there, largely unspoken, in the background.
When that casual observer realises each is Heiress to a Grand Duchy of her very own and bigger stakes still are involved, the said casual observer might ask for the bill, please, waiter, then settle up, and leave as quickly as possible.
"Krasnostop Zolotovsky." one of the two said, sipping her wine.
"Da." said the other. "From Novyisvet."
She was reading the label on the bottle; she did not have her cousin's extensive education in fine wine appreciation, which was held to be an indispensable skill of her profession. (2)
"An acceptable red."
"Da."
Both sipped their wine leisuredly. Eye contact was made.
"So, Olga Anastacia. What's next for you?"
Olga, in everyday City Watch working uniform, glared at her cousin Natasha, who as always was in impeccable, smart and very expensive-looking Assassin black. (3)
"I visit families. Of women lost under my command. I begin training new recruits and replacement pilots. I do the job which is in front of me as a Watchwoman and a Pegasus Service pilot. Most immediately, at two this afternoon I do the Pegasus Service duty flight to Rimwards Howondaland. Where it will be ten o'clock in the morning when I arrive."
Natasha Romanoff sipped her wine.
"Well. Just time for lunch, first."
She set down the wine glass.
"Vetinari is not promoting you, then? In thanks for sterling leadership and bravery in combat with a battle won? How very grateful of him."
Olga shrugged.
"It is possible. Mr Vimes pointed out all the Captain positions in the Watch depend on that Captain commanding sufficient numbers to justify the rank. At present my command does not number sufficiently and I agreed I should remain a lieutenant. Lord Vetinari did ask, however, what the threshold is for my receiving a suitable elevation. He then suggested that when my command numbers over a hundred, the rank structure should then be reviewed. So any promotion - not just now."
Olga felt irritated she felt a need to explain to her cousin. Natasha nodded, thoughtfully.
"Lieutenant seems an awfully low rank, though."
Olga bridled slightly, sensing the needle was being applied again.
"You are thinking in military terms. I belong to the Watch. The rank titles have different weight. First Commander Vimes. Then Deputy Commander Carrot, who prefers still to be addressed as Captain. Captain von Überwald is next in rank, she commands all Uniformed personnel, the largest number. Then there is the grade below them, variably honoured with titles like Inspector, Superintendent, and Lieutenant. That is my place. Am I going too fast for you? Inspector Pessimal is in charge of administration and what are called white-collar crimes, financial and tax-related. Superintendent Loudweather commands the Cable Street Particulars, the plainclothes detective force. I am Lieutenant commanding the Air Arm. I also have supervisory responsibility to the Palace for the Pegasus Service and other duties, at the discretion of the Patrician. There are plans to add a River Police and a Mounted Police, who will also in time be commanded by officers in my pay grade. Below us, Fred Colon is Senior Sergeant, the RSM perhaps, and then there are non-commissioned officer grades. There is no direct equivalence, but in military terms my rank and responsibilities might be those of a lieutenant-colonel. You could think of Mr Vimes as a General, although he certainly does not, and Captain Carrot as perhaps a Brigadier. Have I clarified things? Horoscho."
Natasha looked thoughtful.
"Fred Colon is the praporshchik." she said, mulling the concept. "Or at least the starshina. That is amusing."
"Da." Olga agreed. She thought of truly terrifying senior sergeant-majors she had seen. Fred didn't quite fit that mould.
"Which makes the mouzhik girl Irena into your starshina. That is perhaps fitting."
"She was reluctant to accept the rank." Olga said. "Vetinari suggested to her that it was entirely her choice to refuse advancement."
"So she took three stripes. With no great rush."
"Da. She says one day she will forgive me for it. She is a good starshina. Which reminds me."
Olga passed over two pistol crossbows. That had Natasha's initials, НАЛР, monogrammed on the butts.
"I thank you for the loan, freely given. Natasha Alianovna Ledavichnya (4) Romanoff, you are not entirely a complete bitch."
Nastasha smiled faintly. "Doctor Smith-Rhodes asked. You do not refuse your former teachers. Not easily."
"Very wise." Olga agreed. Her cousin was still a fairly new graduate Assassin, after all. But one who had come out near the top of her year.
Natasha studied her pistol crossbows.
"Did these draw blood?" she asked.
Olga grinned.
"What, cousin Tasha? You have not yet had occasion to use them in earnest yourself?"
Olga enjoyed her cousin's quickly hidden scowl.
"I prefer the various forms of true bow." Natasha said. Olga nodded, sympathetically.
"So the answer is "no". Nichevo. You will be pleased to know they are both bloodied. Caroline Mayapple carried them and scored hits in the final fight."
Natasha changed the subject. She leant forward.
"Cousin Olga? Really three hundred and seventy elves?"
Olga smiled inside. She suspected a lot of the claims, especially for kills in the air, were likely to be just a little bit inflated.(5) And there was no precise way of tallying how many they'd got on the ground. Nobody had been there to witness whatever havoc had been wrought by Hanna's audacious act of magic in the Elfworld, for instance. Irena had frankly said that her priority had been to get the hells out while their attention was distracted, and to get medical attention, quickly, for Hanna.
However, she was not going to admit this to her cousin. Who will no doubt be reporting our conversation later to the Dark Council. And Mr Vimes will casually ask me what my cousin thought important enough to raise in conversation. So he knows what the Assassins consider important enough to want to know, concerning the Air Watch.
"The final figures are open to review. As new information arises. But, and this is not a matter to make light comment about, I lost four people dead and three more wounded. That is grievous to me."
Natasha nodded, and remained silent. They sipped their drinks.
"There was a lot of speculation in the Guild." She admitted. "Lots of talk. You have to understand, this is a whole new way of fighting a war. The Guild is taking a close interest."
Olga shrugged.
"So you are here to ask me." she said. "On behalf of the Guild."
Natasha smiled slightly, with a hint of embarrassment.
"I was approached. Yes." she said.
"There is really no need. I talk openly and frankly with people like Johanna Smith-Rhodes and Alice Band, who are friends. I know they are also Assassins. But I still talk openly and frankly with them, knowing this. Perhaps more openly and frankly than I do to you, perhaps."
"Then, cousin Olga, let me talk openly and frankly to you." said Natasha. She took a deep breath.
"I was incautious. I discussed elves and what the Guild knows about them without bothering to touch iron."
Natasha reached out and picked up a table knife.
"I thought it a silly superstition. I also considered that, after hearing tales coming back concerning how you were fighting, that they had more to concern themselves with than an Assassin who did not touch iron on mentioning the name, and in any case nothing happened. I went to bed that night and even thought – I did not touch iron, and they did not come. No matter. I went to sleep."
Olga listened. She supressed a smile. What did Johanna call it? Over-confidence. Well, we all learn.
"I awoke, or thought I had awoken, to see my former teacher Joan Sanderson-Reeves in the room. You have met her? Then you will know she is frightening."
Olga nodded. She forced herself not to show satisfaction at her cousin's mask of insouciant confidence slipping.
"She stood there with that look on her face. The one that says she considers you to be a horrible slimy little cockroach. The one she uses when you have made an error."
This time, Natasha shuddered slightly. Olga could not resist asking "You saw her use that face often, then?"
"Da. When she as good as says "Are we wasting our time and effort here in trying to make an Assassin out of somebody as stupendously slow, stupid and unfit as you? You are a waste of good precious oxygen, Miss Romanoff."
"Ah, so she did say it to you, then. I did wonder."
"Listen, Olga. The woman in my room, in my dream, did say this. I felt worthless. Lowly. As if the lowest, dumbest, smelliest kulak, the one all the other kulaks look down upon, was still better than me. It was horrible. I felt as if she was stripping my soul away like the skins of an onion."
Olga remembered her own experience with the exiled Elf-Queen. She suddenly felt sympathy. And picked up a table-knife herself.
"Da. The Elves did it to me too. I'm not laughing, Tasha. I actually in this moment feel some empathy for you."
"There was a little bit of me in there. Untouched. I wanted to ask Miss Sanderson-Reeves why she was doing this to me. She's harsh. But she isn't a sadist. Not in that way, anyway. Then I saw her eyes. Not hers. Something was using her shape, Olga. Pulling bad memories out of my head. Things I fear. Using them against me."
"Da. My experience too."
Natasha swallowed. She beckoned a waiter and asked for vodka. Olga asked the waiter to make it two. Large ones.
Then Natasha continued.
"The thing that was pretending to be my old teacher, the one who really, really, scared me, then offered me a contract. She asked if I was Assassin enough to take it, or would I even fail at this?"
Two large vodkas had arrived. They took them.
Olga listened attentively. The Elf, who had taken advantage of the way in that Natasha had given him – or perhaps her – had manifested as a Night Terror, in the form of the one teacher who her cousin still had vividly bad memories of. Taking advantage of this, the Elf had then said. There are reports about your cousin Olga. Not a full-blown contract as yet. But operational plans exist…
"Don't look at me like that, Cousin Olga. There are files on every important titled person on the Disc. Just in case they ever attract a contract. It's nothing personal."
"You tell me the Assassins have seriously considered inhuming me. And it's nothing personal? Well, carry on." Olga said, tartly.
It's very simple, you stupid girl. So simple even a nobly-born dolt like you can grasp it. You are Heiress to a Grand Duchy. Your cousin Olga is Heiress to a Grand Duchy that borders onto your inheritance. Even though she is somewhat estranged from her father, she is his only child. Your Uncle Nicholas has no choice. It must go to his daughter, regardless. Unless she dies. In which case according to the laws of inheritance it goes to the next oldest brother's eldest child and Heiress. Who is you. You have an opportunity. To double the size of your inheritance simply by putting an arrow into the right place. Then you hold two out of the four Grand Duchies. And you are then within sight of a greater prize. Do we need to spell it out to you? You could become, if you also eliminate a couple more cousins, uncontested Tsarina. Natasha the Great, perhaps…"
Olga listened.
Go to Lancre. You can be there inside a day. Your cousin Olga – isn't she so much better than you, by the way? More attractive. A greater leader. She has magic. She has the confidence and the trust of Lord Vetinari. What you had to work at, she has naturally. Your father admires her. He wishes she were his daughter and not you. You disappoint him. Olga does not. Well. She is fighting a war from the air. Accidents happen in wars. While her attention is distracted, a single arrow. Use one with a stone head so it will be taken for Elven when it is removed from the body. So simple, Natasha. Your cousin blocks your way. Liquidate her.
"The Elf went, then." Natasha said. "I was relieved."
Olga tried not to glare at her.
"But you didn't go."
Natasha smiled, weakly.
"Nyet. If the truth be told… well, in a funny sort of a way, I like having you around, Olgusya. And, well…"
Olga softened her glare. She noted the affectionate diminutive of her name. Just once, and Natasha had hastily corrected it.
"Tell me. What is the Guild price on me, please?"
"Provisonally, forty thousand."
"Hmmph. So little. Is it likely to go up at any time soon?"
Natasha smiled slightly.
"I said, provisional, cousin Olga. That's a long way from actual. The big consideration is that you work for Sam Vimes. He gets emphatic if he hears of a contract out on a Watchman. Also, you're a magic user. The Guild has long experience of what that means. We think long and hard about contracts on wizards and witches. You only get one go, for instance. And if you miss on that one go, then…"
She beckoned the waiter again.
"Two more big vodkas, Sergei. Spassibo."
Olga noted the waiter's ethnicity. She wondered if Natasha had also seen the implications…
The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork.
Vetinari listened to the recording of the conversation, his agent translating the language for him. Dark Clerks skilled in shorthand and in the language being spoken were industriously transcribing the report. His operatives were very efficient at things like this. A written transcript would be available shortly. Vetinari listened, occassionally signalling for the playbacl to be puased whilst he clarified a point with the field agent who had been close enough to the subjects, most of the time, to hear everything.
NR then said to OR, besides, you're off the Register now, after Lancre. There'll never be a contract out on you. You're too important. If anyone goes after you, they're in trouble. So you're safe, Olga. From me or any Assassin. Now. Let's talk important things. I don't want to kill you and I think you don't want to kill me.
Agreed, OR replied.
NR: We're both going to be Grand Duchesses. And neighbours. So we need to work together, Olga. You've seen how our fathers and uncles squabble like cats in a sack because they all want to be Tsar. They can't work together. It's poisoned the family. I don't want that.
Agreed, OR replied.
It makes sense, Olga. We do different. Have you seen how our fathers cling onto the old ways? They can't see how we're bleeding away peasants who are running to the cities. Here in Ankh-Morpork, especially. Have you noticed how many Rus are coming here? We can't tie them to the land any more as bonded peasants. Irena was the first. She won't be the last.
OR and NR then discussed Sergeant Irena Politek of the City Watch. NR said that when she stopped being affronted at what a mere peasant was telling her, she stopped to realise that she was hearing truth because in Ankh-Morpork, IP no longer felt intimidated from telling a noble what she, a mere peasant, was really thinking.
NR: Olga, how many kulaks and mouzhiks think like her, inside? They go along with it, they're submissive, they bow, they tug the forelock. We nobles see that and think all's well and as it always has been. But what are they really thinking, inside? How many Irenas are out there?
OR; Oh, you've noticed, have you?
NR: It frightens me, Olga. I think we can't go along with the old ways any more. Lady T'Malia, in Politics classes, observed that the harder you push something down, the more likely it is to hit you in the face when it bounces back. We need to do different, Olga. In my Duchy and yours.
OR; So we liberalise?
They discussed methods of liberalising their governance of their people for some time. The agreement was that as rulers they would give a little in order to give the governed more of a say in their country: the idea of something called a Duma was discussed, a representative council of all social classes, and ways of reforming and ideally abolishing serfdom were mooted. Then they discussed wider politics: they agreed that Zlobenia, the nation of which both are technically loyal subjects, was a complete dog's breakfast of a state that only held together because all its many and varied ethnicities hated the Borogravians. Meanwhile Borogravia, also a total dog's mess of a country with at least twenty different ethnicities, only held together because its citizens all hated the Zlobenians more than they did each other. (6)
They discussed the uncontested fact that their own Rus ethnicity was a majority in Zlobenia and a significantly large minority in Borogravia, and that if both Rus peoples were to ask why they were fighting each other, especially for rulers of a different ethnic group, things might eventually get interesting, and the political map might end up being redrawn. Both also expressed disdain for their notional Head of State, Prince Heinrich, describing him as a thick nie-kolturny brain-dead oaf of Fritz origin. Conversation then turned to Uncle Casimir, a Romanoff brother held in respect by both his nieces. It was noted that Prince Heinrich effectively exiled him as far away as he could, sensing a threat and a rival, but dignified this by calling it an ambassadorial appointment to a country thought of as a sweaty backwater armpit, Rimwards Howondaland.
The cousins parted on friendly terms, OR declining another vodka as she was due to take a Pegasus flight, wholly coincidentally, to Rimwards Howondaland, and she needed a clear head for this.
Vetinari smiled again, and noted some points for due reflection later. He wondered about a small bonus, nothing untoward, for Agent Sergei.
The Klatchian Embassy, Ankh-Morpork.
"Nobody saw you coming in?" the Military Attaché asked.
Mustafa ibn-Aleahira, a carpet pilot employed by the Ankh-Morpork Air Watch, shook his head.
"no, offendi. I took care to disguise myself as a cleaner-of-cesspits and was admitted by a rear entrance, as is fit and proper."
He indicated the large toolbag he was carrying. The military attaché nodded approval. He motioned his spy to be seated and graciously poured coffees. Mustafa knew the blend: in his case it was a special blend of Klatchian coffee, which promoted the telling of truth and the avoidance of evasive replies. It had an element of the knurd about it, in fact.
They drank coffee and made small-talk together. When the soldier judged enough had been consumed, he asked the question.
"Tell me all you saw of the air war in Lancre."
Mustafa sighed, and spoke. At length.
The military captain listened. At great length. What he heard was not comforting. Ankh-Morpork, indeed, had an air force of some potency. He would have to report this back to his superiors in al-Khali. Who did not appreciate bad news.
The officer part-drew his sword. Mustafa winced.
"Did you personally slay any of the foul djinn?"
Relieved the drawing was only to touch the nearest available iron, Mustafa nodded.
"Three, offendi. Who tried to take my carpet. They died."
The officer nodded, approving.
"You were sent out as bait in a trap. By the clever and dangerous Lady Romanoff."
"It is her tactic for combat, offendi. To claim height and then to swoop down, driving all before her. And the women she commands are dangerous and skilled. The djinni in the air who were intent on taking us did not look up to see what, in their turn, was descending upon them. From an even greater height."
The officer listened with mounting gloom as his spy – one of his spies - in the Air Watch related everything he had witnessed and participated in during the war in the skies over Lancre. A few years earlier, when the Leshp business had offered the perfect opportunity to eliminate a rival, and morons like Rust, backed by a hysterical mob, had given them a casus belli, Klatch could just have walked in. Ankh-Morpork barely had an Army, it could only cobble together a makeshift Navy, and it had nothing, nothing, to prevent a fleet of flying carpets from mounting an air assault, ferrying the best fighting soldiers in the Klatchian Army to wrest control of a defenceless city. Klatch had invested heavily in large long-distance carpets for ostensibly civilian purposes. They were still used these days for commercial air travel, offering a means of linking cities which was far faster than ships. Klatchian Carpetways had the monopoly and made vast profits. The journey still took days between, say, Caarp Town in Howondaland to Ankh-Morpork. But a ship linking these cities took five weeks.
And in war, those carpets were military transports. A whole regiment could be airlifted easily. Smaller fighting carpets offered air cover which would scarcely be needed.
Until now.
Vetinari had somehow turned the Leshp business to his advantage and had surrendered in a way that gave him all the benefits while Klatch had reaped only confused division and headaches.
He had used the years since to rebuild an Army – one whose generals were loyal to him. A new Navy was rolling off the slipways, combining innovation in design with weapons more powerful than any foe could match.
And now he had an Air Force. Ostensively a division of the police force and – most of the time – civil servants entrusted with law enforcement.
He was learning about what it could do for the rest of the time.
He had learnt it could transport sufficient personnel and equipment to operate in improvised bases far from home in a largely self-sufficient way. Its leaders could plan and organise and deploy to great effect. They could take on superior numbers in the sky and win.
"So. Periodically squads of… air policewomen – travel out of the City. They go to the Chirm mountains, sparsely populated and barren. They spend a full day practicing their skills. You have travelled out there with them, ferrying stores and equipment, and you watch what they do. You have even participated in such exercises."
"Let me show you, offendi." Mustafa said, reaching into his bag. Inside, he was wishing he could get family members out of Klatch to Ankh-Morpork, where the Khalif's special guard could not reach them. Compliance had been enforced by threats of what would happen to them if he did not spy for Klatch. He felt bad about this. He respected, even liked, the women he served with. He also fretted about what Lieutenant Romanoff would do if she ever found out. And behind her, Mr Vimes.
"What is the purpose of this?" the officer asked, receiving the modified crossbow. It was standard City Watch issue, but modified. Where the bolt would normally go, there was the square box of an iconograph.
"It is called an iconographic bow, offendi. When a witch in a mock air fight makes an attack approach on another, instead of a crossbow bolt she aims this weapon and pulls the trigger. It activates the iconographic imp who takes a picture. If the witch she is attacking is squarely in the picture, where a bolt would strike if fired, it is considered a kill. It also has to be taken from within seventy yards, the effective aimed range. Lady Olga considers this is a bloodless way of teaching her pilots how to get in close, and aim accurately."
The officer considered this.
"Is there an active imp in the box? We should kill it. We don't want it going back and reporting on where you have been."
"The box is inactive, offendi. I considered this."
The officer checked anyway. He grunted approval. Neither of them knew the box also contained one of the newest generation micro-imp recorders. Who was currently faithfully taking down everything that was being said. The next day, the recording would be retrieved and transcribed. (7)
Mustafa then told the Klatchian officer exactly what strategies were currently being developed to attack carpets. He should know, he'd been flying one. As he pointed out, the blind spot for a carpet pilot was directly underneath. You would not be aware. Until it happens. And then it's too late. An air witch could get into that blind spot, angle the nose of her broom slightly upwards, and then…
"I later saw many iconographs of my own carpet, offendi. Taken from underneath. Most of the time I was watching for other fliers where I could see them and because my eyes were elsewhere and there were many, four or five at a time, I missed the one coming at me from underneath."
"Insh'Offler." the Klatchian military attaché said, quietly.
"Insh'Offler." Mustafa replied.
Witwatersrand University, near Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland.
Olga Romanoff steered Raduga Desh, her Pegasus, into a perfect four-hoof landing. She was relieved; she could still feel the two big vodkas and a couple of glasses of wine, a legacy of lunch with Tasha, taking the edge from her flying.
Vetinari had noted there was an unavoidable backlog of diplomatic and City business to clear, as for five or six days all Pegasus Service flights had been suspended due to the Emergency.
"I'm sure you will clear it soon, and the recipients will be understanding." he had said, adding, mysteriously "Your Uncle Casimir is Zlobenian Ambassador to Rimwards Howondaland, is he not? Give him my best wishes."
It had occurred to Olga in the thinking time in between drops.
Sergei the waiter. Who spoke Rus.
She wished she hadn't tipped him so much now.
But now she was on the sparse grass outside the Department of Magical and Mystical Studies. Many students and staff had gathered to watch her land: the Pegasi would always be awe-inspiring and new, to a lot of people who rarely saw them.
Olga smiled. It was good to be back to normal again. She smiled at the tall, thin, Wizard who came to meet her. He had red-blonde hair, a straggly beard, and a look of downtrodden pessimism, as if the worst was yet to come. He brightened on seeing her.
"Despatches for Direktor van Rijnswaand."(8) she said. "Fraternal greetings from Arch-Chancellor Ridcully. A great stack of research material on loan, with the compliments of Professor Stibbons. You can carry it, Doktor de Kockamaainje."
The young wizard nodded. He stretched out his arms for the expected books and files.
"Oh, Eddie?" Olga said. He turned to her.
Then she grabbed him and kissed him. Long and hard.
It was good to be back from a war. And back to normal.
After a while, Eddie de Kockamaainje happily carried her delivery for her.
Next chapter: maybe a few more postscripts to the war, but we're back to the Present after that where Olga is a Captain and dealing with the logistics of flying elephants. I know I promised you a wedding and there will be one – but next chapter?
(1) Researchers at Unseen University have established that compared to sororial rivalry, a formerly alpha-male struggle relegates to Epsilon and sometimes even to Theta.
(2) Nor mine. Had to read Wikipedia's article on Russian wine history and production.
(3) She was Natasha's guest here. Natasha had chosen the venue, knowing it didn't normally allow lowly Watchmen in uniform, and only relented for Olga because she was an officer and perhaps a Gentlewoman. And certainly Natasha's guest. The restaurant had no issues at all with Assassins' Guild members. One-upmanship had begun at the door. Olga was already plotting vengeance. She would suggest somewhere informal for their next meeting, possibly the snug bar of the Bucket on Gleam Street, where an Assassin would be in a pub full of coppers.
(4) I've named Natasha's mother somewhere else in the tales; can't remember what name I gave her, so "Leda" is a placeholder for now. So she's Natasha Alianovna {{AuntOfOlgavichnya}} Romanoff
(5) Olga's best estimate of air kills, and she admitted it was only a guess, was around a hundred and eighty. One of the lessons of the war was that they really needed a far more accurate evaluation and recording system to tally claims and assess the damage done to the enemy. She just wasn't sure how.
(6) thinking of Borogravia and Zlobenia as variations on a theme of Austro-Hungary: a small ruling class and dominant ethnicity of German origin holding down twenty or thirty times its number of non-German ethnicities, including a majority of Slavs. The Austro-Hungarian Empire eventually disintegrated after a long, ruinous, war.
(7) Olga knew who the spies were and had a pretty good idea of their motivations. Vetinari had considered, advised, and introduced her to people. He considered it no bad thing if the Klatchians got a honest first-person account. But a record of what was said was also, he considered, useful.
(8) Because anywhere on the disc where there's a school or university or faculty of magic, the Head Wizard will always get a suspiciously familiar name.
Notes Dump: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered ideas which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.
Discovered from a search on the name that there are at least six people out there called Tatiana Grigorenko. And I really thought I'd assembled the name at random… ah well.
The only Sigrid Helgasdottir who shows up, on the other hand, is a ninth-century Queen of Denmark (well, Jutland), so I'm safe there.
The names Marina Raskova and Nadezhda Popova are a lift from Russian history – Soviet aviators of WW2. Damn, their photos make them look like women who would have got respect in Lancre.
Olga Romanoff is, of course, a real-life Russian with a legitimate claim to the Tsarate. I swear I did not know this when I picked the character name and any resemblance is of course et c et c.
Natasha Romanoff – well, Nimbus Llewellyn . Ask him. Sort-of-a-Russian woman who uses arrows to deadly effect – on Roundworld, an Avenger (the American sort, not somebody who knocks around with Steed), on Discworld, an Assassin.
Kiiki? Something must be going on in my head. I wanted a Finnish-sounding name for somebody who deliberately embodies the Finland siblings of "Scandinavia And The World". (knives, vodka and Perkele). I discovered an orchestral conductor is out there called Esa-Pekka Salonen. And I settled on "Pekkasaalinen" for my character…