Raising Steam: (Discworld novel 40) (Discworld Novels) Page 18

  ‘Yes, and so does Commander Vimes, captain,’ Moist snapped. ‘Tell me, where is Chuckles today?’

  It was worth it to see the captain grimace; if you looked carefully you could see the outline of the fangs. It was a risky move, but he had a reputation to live down and cheeking the Watch was a pastime he cherished and was very good at. They were altogether too stuffy and Captain Angua, try as she might, looked stunning in her uniform, especially when she was angry.

  ‘With the Patrician,’ she growled. ‘An attack on the railway is an attack on Ankh-Morpork. With delvers involved there is a possible connection with the attacks on the clacks. All of this needs to be investigated and it would have been helpful if one of the perpetrators had been left alive and available for interrogation.’

  Moist almost choked, saying, ‘Captain, when a lot of unpleasant people are trying to kill you, it’s hard to remember that leaving one of them alive might be a spiffy idea. You have other things on your mind such as, maybe, not dying yourself. If it’s any help, I think you’ll find that the Marquis des Aix en Pains will by now have sent iconographs of the dwarfs who did this. The Marquis is a decent bloke and generally helpful and keen to have the railway, so I’m certain that you’ll get your evidence.’

  And as he thought that, mischief rose in Moist’s mind and he said, ‘And I know that you yourself can travel very fast, captain. They might still be fresh if you hurry.’

  This time it was not a black look that Moist got. It was a look that said patience was about to crack.

  Fortunately, the door opened just at the right time and Commander Vimes entered, his expression grim.

  ‘Ah, Mister Lipwig, please follow me to my office, if you’d be so good. I always know when you’re in the building.’ He nodded at the simmering Angua and said, ‘I’ll deal with Mister von Lipwig, captain.’

  Moist was unsure about how much Commander Vimes actually disliked him. After all, the man was so straight that you could use him as a pencil, whilst Moist, on the other hand, despite the success of the Post Office and the Royal Bank and even the wonderful new Mint, was still seen by Vimes and many others as bent as an old spoon and most certainly up to no good.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ Commander Vimes asked as they entered his office. ‘The pot downstairs is always on and it doesn’t always taste of mud.’ He opened the door again and shouted down, ‘Two coffees up here, please, Cheery, one black, and you can empty the sugar bowl into mine.’

  Moist was somewhat disorientated, because Vimes was acting in a way that, if looked at forensically, might even have been somewhere within the circumference of friendly, rather like, he supposed, an alligator yawning. The commander was now back in his chair, and, yes, smiling.

  The truth was that between Moist von Lipwig and Commander Vimes there was a certain … what they politely called a difference of opinion. Sam Vimes did not live in the same world as Moist von Lipwig. Did the man ever laugh, he wondered – the commander must have done something funny at some time. Probably he’d laughed at somebody falling over a cliff or suchlike.

  At which point, to his surprise, Commander Vimes cleared his throat and said slowly, like a man essaying something unfamiliar, ‘Mister von Lipwig, it may be the case in recent years that I’ve given you the opinion that I consider you a cheat and a fraud and no better than a worm. However, the fact that you threw yourself in front of that train to save two kiddies suggests to me that the leopard can change his shorts.

  ‘Theoretically, I’ll be dressing you down for sorting out the murderous dwarfs involved in this latest atrocity and telling you that you should leave that sort of thing to the damn Watch. But I’m not stupid and I’m prepared to give credit where credit is due. The delvers are a vicious lot, a type of vermin that I’d very much have liked to see dance to Mister Trooper’s tune just to show them how justice should be done. But knowing that at least some of the buggers are out of the way must suffice for now. So, on a personal note, which I’ll certainly deny if you repeat this to anyone: Well done.’

  And at this Vimes waggled, yes, waggled a finger, and in tones of a funeral bell and much louder said, ‘Don’t do it again! That was an official reprimand, you understand, Mister Lipwig? And this is my hand.’

  To Moist’s amazement Vimes walked around the table and gave him the hardest handshake he had ever had. It was like shaking hands with a boxing glove full of walnuts. Nothing actually broke and there was no blood and Vimes hadn’t even tried to squeeze, so it appeared to Moist that what had just been perpetrated must be Commander Vimes’s everyday handshake. He decided it was probably the commander being a man who didn’t believe in half measures.

  And now the commander looked sombre, saying, ‘If I were you, Mister von Lipwig, I’d make certain that my wife spent a lot of time out of the way in clacks towers for a while and I’d ask the Watch to keep an eye on my property. Those wretched delvers will stop at nothing, and I mean no offence when I say I’m surprised that you managed to take the bastards down.’ He lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, and said, ‘What did it feel like, son?’

  There was an expression in Vimes’s eyes that told Moist that now, if ever, it was time for the truth and so he too lowered his voice and said, ‘To tell you the truth, commander, I had some unexpected back-up. You wouldn’t believe it.’

  And amazingly, Vimes’s smile broadened and he said, ‘Actually, Mister Lipwig, I just might. I know a little something of fighting dirty in the dark, don’t I just. It was under Koom Valley a few years back and I had some back-up too, and I don’t think I want to know where it came from. Just be careful now. The grags clearly have your number. You’d better go and see Vetinari, but I’m very glad we’ve had this little chat.’

  ‘Why d’you think I’m going to see Vetinari next?’

  ‘I know, because I’ve just come from the palace. He was sending for you and I asked his lordship if I could get a crack at you first.’

  Moist walked to the door, turned round and said simply, ‘Thank you, Commander.’

  Outside on Lower Broadway, Moist hailed a one-troll trolley busfn47 and he was not pleased when a dwarf jumped into the pannier beside him. He braced himself for a blow, but the dwarf just smiled at him.

  ‘Mister Lipwig, how pleased I am to see you. I’d appreciate a moment of your time.’

  ‘Look,’ said Moist, ‘I’m a very busy man with a great deal to do, and I’m expected at the palace.’

  ‘The palace? Allow me.’

  And the dwarf flipped the correct fare to said troll and gave him the destination in the troll’s own language, much to the amazement of the troll. Oh my, thought Moist. Ankh-Morpork, the melting pot of the world, which occasionally runs foul of lumps that don’t melt.

  Moist looked down at the dwarf which was, of course, inevitable. He seemed to be more, well, streamlined than your traditional dwarf, although smiling in a confrontational sort of way: not unpleasantly, but with a kind of inner dedication to the smile. He realized that the dwarf reminded him of something … oh dear, what was its name? Oh, yes, a gyroscope, which he’d seen demonstrated in Unseen University’s High Energy Magic building. In short, and of course this person was a dwarf, he did have the feel of a gyroscope about him, something spinning around an undeclared centre. The insight built itself in a matter of seconds, at the end of which, instead of insisting that his unwanted fellow passenger got out, Moist was paying a lot of attention to the smart little figure.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I am merely a messenger,’ replied the dwarf. ‘I am here to tell you something that you cannot ignore. In a sacred place near Koom Valley your name is on the list of people to be summarily executed, but do not fret unduly, because—’

  ‘Er, you mean I should just simply fret in a duly kind of way, then? So what the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  The annoyingly grave face of the dwarf, with its curious essence of smile, was irking Moist, and the dwarf said, ‘Well, Mister Lipw
ig, you are in a queue behind Lord Vetinari and Commander Vimes and, of course, so are a very large number of dwarfs considered to be un-dwarfish. It is a tiny war at the moment, it’s burning underground like an abandoned coal measure, waiting to break out in unexpected places and soon, I suspect, to a place containing yourself.’

  ‘Look,’ said Moist, ‘it may have escaped your notice, but I am not and never have been a dwarf, okay? I don’t have a beard and I can’t walk under a table. Human, you see?’

  The composure of the dwarf was unshakeable, just like his smile, which now broadened a little as he said, ‘You may not be a dwarf, my friend, but you are considered a vector, a symbol of all that is opposed to real dwarfishness, a carrier, if you like, and also a central figure in a city that some dwarfs would love to see burned to the ground. The clacks were just the start. Your railway will not succeed in tempting dwarfs from the true path of Tak. The commander and Lord Vetinari are surrounded by people who carry a large variety of useful weapons. You don’t, though, do you, Mister Lipwig? You are not a warrior, you are a target, admittedly a remarkable and ingenious one. I suggest you remember how Albert Spangler watched his back and, above all, do not go into dark places.’

  The dwarf shook his head and added, ‘You have been warned, sir. I understand you have been known to say that a life without danger is a life not worth living, and frankly all I can say is, good luck with that. Tak does not require that you think of him, but he does require that you think, and I suspect that Tak will be requiring your services in the near future. There are things happening, political things, that you know nothing of, but Tak knows where to find you when Tak needs you.’

  And with that the dwarf smiled, jumped out of the pannier and ran off at speed before Moist could react.

  Taken by surprise, Moist continued the journey to the palace with his head in a whirl. Until the massacre at the railhead, he hadn’t been doing anything wrong! Just trying to help everybody! And now he was apparently a target because he represented the wicked ways of Ankh-Morpork … which was not only unfair, but also untrue. Well, probably untrue, well, at least a bit. He assumed that the grags were hurt about the fact that he had just killed some of their number, even though it had been a fair fight. Well, probably fair and, anyway, they’d got what they deserved. Moist had hardly done anything actually truly wicked in his lifefn48 and now his new cleaned-up, hard-working, upstanding citizen persona was at risk.

  Moist was seething by the time he arrived at the Oblong Office.

  ‘It seems I’m a damn target,’ he began, ‘and you knew it, sir!’

  In the following silence Lord Vetinari’s head did not move until he folded his newspaper. ‘I assume the grags found you, yes, Mister Lipwig? I thought you knew that, along with myself, Drumknott, Commander Vimes and many others, you are on what I believe is called a hit list drawn up by radical grags. But if I were you I wouldn’t worry. After all, a life without danger is a life not worth living, eh, Mister Lipwig?’

  And Moist said, ‘Well, yes, but what about Adora Belle?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mister Lipwig, I told her last week.’

  ‘What! She didn’t tell me!’

  ‘I believe she wanted to surprise you, Mister Lipwig. She knows how much you like surprises and you do enjoy a quantum of frisson, she told me.’

  Moist almost squealed, ‘But you know I’m no fighter!’

  ‘Really, Mister Lipwig? But I already have reports that say otherwise: thrilling tales of derring-do and, believe me, nothing was said about derring-don’t.’

  Moist, a long-time student of Vetinari and his moods, knew that you could never be sure of what he was thinking. But now the Patrician seemed carved out of stone, like a statue.

  ‘Mister Lipwig, you know what they say about dwarfs?’

  Moist looked blank. ‘Very small people?’

  ‘“Two dwarfs is an argument, three dwarfs is a war”, Mister Lipwig. It’s squabble, squabble, squabble. It’s built into their culture. And in the squabbling, the grags hide and poison.

  ‘The Koom Valley Accord, which I helped to broker with the Low King and Diamond King of Trolls, was hailed around the world as a fresh hope for the future. But now some of the senior dwarfs appear to be in thrall to a faction of the grags who are bent on destruction. Differences of opinion are one thing, but this sort of atrocity cannot be borne. Diamond King of Trolls and I are putting pressure on the Low King and we have every expectation he will deal with the matter.

  ‘It has gone too far, Mister Lipwig. Once upon a time the grags were bold dwarfs who checked the mines for firedamp, hence the heavy clothing. Of course that gave them status but, in truth, they were just plucky miners … expert at mining, perhaps, but certainly not skilled in politics and thinking. After all, you don’t negotiate with a lump of rock. With people, you negotiate all the time. The Low King knows it. The grags know it but don’t like it.

  ‘I am a tyrant and, if I say so myself, good at it, but I understand the ways of people and the way of the world. Everything is mutable. Nothing is unchangeable. A little give and a little take and a little negotiation, and suddenly the balance of the world is back on track again; that is what politics is for. But the politics of the grags consists only of “Do what you are told, we know best.” And I find that rather tedious.’

  ‘And I find it tedious when your men wake me up by prodding me,’ said Moist.

  ‘Really, is that all?’ said Vetinari. ‘I shall tell them not to prod too much in future.’ He smiled and said, ‘Mister Lipwig, Commander Vimes is a decent man and he spends much of his time telling people what to do and that is how the Watch works. It’s not an area where freelancing is allowed. Things have to be seen to be done, in the proper manner. There is indeed a difference between tyranny and running a police force. There must be rules that everyone understands. Do you understand, Mister Lipwig?’

  The Patrician stared at Moist, who said, ‘Yes, I understand. The commander is Vetinari’s terrier and I—’

  ‘You, Mister Lipwig, are useful and a conduit for serendipity. For example, I understand you have just blessed us with more goblins at a time when we need them. Apart from that, I am told by Sydney, the head ostler, that one of our golem horses arrived here declaring “Give me livery or give me death”. We had been given to understand that golem horses do not talk, but it would appear, Mister Lipwig, that you have introduced that one to the delights of speech. I am impressed.’

  Lord Vetinari’s smile was widening. ‘What a little bundle of joy you are, Mister Lipwig.’ He sighed and continued, ‘To think I once fed you to Mister Trooper’s capable hands. He often asks after your wellbeing. You know he never forgets a neck. Now off you go, Mister Lipwig … your audience needs you.’

  The Low King’s bellow of rage and betrayal when the news of the massacre at the railhead arrived echoed around the state quarters and into every corner of the great cavern. Bats dropped out of the ceiling, in the bakeries the dough refused to rise, and the silver on the decorative weaponry tarnished.

  Rhys Rhysson sat down heavily on the Scone of Stone and waved the clacks flimsy he had just received.

  ‘Dwarfs have killed railway workers!’ he shouted. ‘Ordinary men, going about their business in an enterprise that would be useful to dwarfs as well as humans.’ The King looked almost in tears and thumped a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘This after the clacks towers!’ he said, with a groan of loss. ‘This is a message from Diamond King of Trolls and he is trying not to upset me, but I think he feels sorry for me.’

  He raised his voice and shouted, ‘And this is the king of the trolls, our one-time arch enemy, but now a personal friend of mine! What will he think about the trustworthiness of dwarfs now? Thanks to intelligence gathered by the Ankh-Morpork Watch, including our own Cheery Littlebottom, we have the names of the idiots who did the deed. And now I know exactly who is behind it all.’

  He paused and glared at the growing crowd. ‘Where is Ardent? Bring him to me at once!
I’ll show him what his idiotic ranting has caused! I want him brought here in chains if possible. Good heavens, Tak gave us the Koom Valley Accord and now the little blister is trying to break it.’

  The crowd was bigger now and the voice of the King was even louder. ‘I repeat, I want him here. Now. Today. No excuses. No second chances. No redemption. Let it be known that the King will not let the benefits of the Koom Valley Accord be turned to dust by adventurers who believe that the past is still with us and belongs to them. All I see is its sterile echo.

  ‘And I notice these days talk against goblins who are working in the human industries, such as the new railway and the clacks. I hear a lot of complaints that it is taking work from us dwarfs, but why is that? Because goblins learn quickly, work hard and are glad to be in Ankh-Morpork! And the dwarfs? We have factions that bring us down with every flaming tower … Who would trust us after that? Remember, if Tak teaches us anything, he teaches us to be tolerant of all sapient shapes. Let me tell you, the world changes with every generation and if we don’t learn to surf on the tide then we will be smashed on the rocks.’

  By the Low King’s side, Bashfull Bashfullsson picked up the theme. He looked around at the assembled dwarfs and spoke.

  ‘Tak did not expect the stone to have life, but when it did, he smiled upon it, saying “All Things Strive”.’ Glaring at the onlookers, Bashfullsson continued, ‘Time and again the last testament of Tak has been stolen in a pathetic attempt to kill the nascent future at birth and this is not only an untruth, it is a blasphemy! Tak even finds it in his heart to suffer the Nac Mac Feegles, possibly for their entertainment value, but I wonder if he will continue to tolerate us … He must look at us now with sorrow, which I hope will not turn into rage. Surely the patience of Tak must find some limitations somewhere.’

  Bashfullsson bowed to the Low King and said, ‘I am your servant, your majesty. What would you have of me?’

  The King, still red in the face, said, ‘I won’t have you bow to me, my friend, I rather think I should bow to you. Your words are wise as ever and will be proclaimed in every mine.’