Going Postal (9 page)
Lord Vetinari opened his eyes. The men around the table were staring at him.
“Just thinking aloud,” he said. “I am sure you will point out that this is not the business of the government. I
know
Mr. Gilt will. However, I note that since you acquired the Grand Trunk at a fraction of its value, breakdowns are increasing, the speed of messages has slowed down, and the cost to customers has risen. Last week the Grand Trunk was closed for almost three days. We could not even talk to Sto Lat! Hardly ‘As Fast as Light,’ gentlemen.”
“That was for essential maintenance,” Mr. Slant began.
“No, it was for repairs,” snapped Vetinari. “Under the previous management the system shut down for an hour every day.
That
was for maintenance. Now the towers run until they break down. What do you think you are doing, gentlemen?”
“That, my lord, and with respect, is none of your business.”
Lord Vetinari smiled. For the first time that morning, it was a smile of genuine pleasure.
“Ah, Mr. Reacher Gilt, I was wondering when we’d hear from you. You have been so uncharacteristically silent. I read your recent article in the
Times
with great interest. You are passionate about freedom, I gather. You used the word ‘tyranny’ three times and the word ‘tyrant’ once.”
“Don’t patronize me, my lord,” said Gilt. “We own the Trunk. It is our
property
. You understand that? Property is the foundation of freedom. Oh, customers complain about the service and the cost, but customers always complain about such things. We have no shortage of customers at whatever cost. Before the semaphore, news from Genua took months to get here, now it takes less than a day. It is affordable magic. We are answerable to our shareholders, my lord. Not, with respect, to you. It is not your business. It is our business, and we will run it according to the market. I hope there are no tyrannies here. This is, with respect, a free city.”
“Such a lot of respect is gratifying,” said the Patrician. “But the only
choice
your customers have is between you and nothing.”
“Exactly,” said Reacher Gilt calmly. “There is always a choice. They can ride a horse a few thousand miles, or they can wait patiently until we can send their message.”
Vetinari gave him a smile that lasted as long as a lightning flash.
“Or fund and build another system,” he said. “Although I note that every other company that has lately tried to run a clacks system in opposition has failed quite quickly, sometimes in distressing circumstances. Falls from the tops of clacks towers, and so on.”
“Accidents do happen. It is most unfortunate,” said Mr. Slant stiffly.
“Most unfortunate,” Vetinari echoed. He pulled the paper toward him, dislodging the files slightly, so that a few names were visible, and wrote “Most unfortunate.”
“Well, I believe that covers everything,” he said. “In fact, the purpose of this meeting was to tell you formally that I am, at last, reopening the Post Office as planned. This is just a courtesy announcement, but I felt I should let you know, because you are, after all, in the same business. I believe the recent string of accidents is now at an—”
Reacher Gilt chuckled. “Sorry, my lord? Did I understand you correctly? You really intend to continue with this folly, in the face of everything? The Post Office? When we all know that it was a lumbering, smug, overstaffed, overweight monster of a place? It barely earned its keep! It was the very essence and exemplar of public enterprise!”
“It never made much of a profit, it is true, but in the business areas of this city there were seven deliveries a day,” said Vetinari, cold as the depths of the sea.
“Hah! Not at the end!” said Mr. Horsefry. “It was bloody useless!”
“Indeed. A classic example of a corroded government organization dragging on the public purse,” Gilt added.
“Too true!” said Mr. Horsefry. “They used to say that if you wanted to get rid of a dead body you should take it to the Post Office and it’d never be seen again!”
“And was it?” said Lord Vetinari, raising an eyebrow.
“Was what?”
“Was it seen again?”
There was a sudden hunted look in Mr. Horsefry’s eyes. “What? How would I know?”
“Oh, I see,” said Lord Vetinari. “It was a joke. Ah, well.” He shuffled the papers. “Unfortunately, the Post Office came to be seen not as a system for moving the mail efficiently, to the benefit and profit of all, but as a moneybox. And so it collapsed, losing both mail and money. A lesson for us all, perhaps. Anyway, I have high hopes of Mr. Lipwig, a young man full of fresh ideas. A good head for heights, too, although I imagine he will not be climbing any towers.”
“I do hope this resurrection will not prove to be a drain on our taxes,” said Mr. Slant.
“I assure you, Mr. Slant, that apart from the modest sum necessary to, as it were, prime the pump, the postal service will be self-supporting as, indeed, it used to be. We cannot have a drag on the public purse, can we? And now, gentlemen, I am conscious that I am keeping you from your very important business. I do trust that the Trunk will be back in commission
very
shortly.”
As they stood up, Reacher Gilt leaned across the table and said: “May I congratulate you, my lord?”
“I am delighted that you feel inclined to congratulate me on anything, Mr. Gilt,” said Vetinari. “To what do we owe this unique occurrence?”
“This, my lord,” said Gilt, gesturing to the little side table on which had been set the rough-hewn piece of stone. “Is this not an original
Hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl
slab? Llamedos bluestone, isn’t it? And the pieces look like basalt, which is the very devil to carve. A valuable antique, I think.”
“It was a present to me from the Low King of the Dwarfs,” said Vetinari. “It is, indeed, very old.”
“And you have a game in progress, I see. You’re playing the dwarf side, yes?”
“Yes. I play by clacks against an old friend in Uberwald,” said Vetinari. “Happily for me, your breakdown yesterday has given me an extra day to think of my next move.”
Their eyes met. Reacher Gilt laughed hugely. Vetinari smiled. The other men, who badly needed to laugh, laughed, too. See, we’re all friends, we’re like colleagues really, nothing
bad
is going to happen.
The laughter died away, a little uneasily. Gilt and Vetinari maintained smiles, maintained eye contact.
“We should play a game,” said Gilt. “I have a rather nice board myself. I play the troll side, for preference.”
“Ruthless, initially outnumbered, inevitably defeated in the hands of the careless player?” said Vetinari.
“Indeed. Just as the dwarfs rely on guile, feint, and swift changes of position. A man can learn all of an opponent’s weaknesses on that board,” said Gilt.
“Really?” said Vetinari, raising his eyebrows. “Should he not be trying to learn his own?”
“Oh, that’s just Thud! That’s
easy
!” yapped a voice.
Both men turned to look at Horsefry, who had been made perky by sheer relief.
“I used to play it when I was a kid,” he burbled. “It’s
boring
. The dwarfs always win!”
Gilt and Vetinari shared a look. It said: While I loathe you and every aspect of your personal philosophy to a depth unplummable by any line, I’ll credit you at least with not being Crispin Horsefry.
“Appearances are deceptive, Crispin,” said Gilt jovially. “A troll player need never lose, if he puts his mind to it.”
“I know I once got a dwarf stuck up my nose and Mummy had to get it out with a hairpin,” said Horsefry, as if this was a source of immense pride.
Gilt put his arm around the man’s shoulders.
“That’s very interesting, Crispin,” he said. “Do you think it’s likely to happen again?”
Vetinari stood at the window after they had left, watching the city below. After a few minutes, Drumknott drifted in.
“There was a brief exchange in the anteroom, my lord,” he said.
Vetinari didn’t turn around but held up a hand. “Let me see…I imagine one of them started saying something like ‘Do you think he—’ and Slant very quickly shushed him? Mr. Horsefry, I suspect.”
Drumknott glanced at the paper in his hand.
“Almost to the word, my lord.”
“It takes no great leap of the imagination,” sighed Lord Vetinari. “Dear Dr. Slant. He’s so…dependable. Sometimes I really think that if he was not already a zombie it would be necessary to have him turned into one.”
“Shall I order a No. 1 Investigation on Mr. Gilt, my lord?”
“Good heavens, no. He is far too clever. Order it on Mr. Horsefry.”
“Really, sir? But you did say yesterday that you believed him to be no more than a greedy fool.”
“A nervous fool, which is useful. He’s a venal coward and a glutton. I’ve watched him sit down to a meal of pot-au-feu with white beans, and that was an impressive sight, Drumknott, which I will not easily forget. The sauce went
everywhere
. Those pink shirts he wears cost more than a hundred dollars, too. Oh, he acquires other people’s money, in a safe and secret and not very clever way. Send…yes, send Clerk Brian.”
“Brian, sir?” said Drumknott. “Are you sure? He’s wonderful at devices, but quite inept on the street. He’ll be seen.”
“Yes, Drumknott. I know. I would like Mr. Horsefry to become a little…
more
nervous.”
“Ah, I see, sir.”
Vetinari turned around.
“Tell me, Drumknott,” he said, “would
you
say I’m a tyrant?”
“Most certainly not, my lord,” said Drumknott, tidying the desk.
“But of course that’s the problem, is it not? Who will tell the tyrant he
is
a tyrant?”
“That’s a tricky one, my lord, certainly,” said Drumknott, squaring up the files.
“In his
Thoughts
, which I have always considered to fare badly in translation, Bouffant says that intervening in order to prevent a murder is to curtail the freedom of the murderer and
yet
that freedom, by definition, is natural and universal, without condition,” said Vetinari. “You may recall his famous dictum: ‘If any man is not free, then I, too, am a small pie made of chicken,’ which has led to a considerable amount of debate. Thus we might consider, for example, that taking a bottle from a man killing himself with drink is a charitable, nay, praiseworthy act, and yet freedom is curtailed once more. Mr. Gilt has studied his Bouffant but, I fear, failed to understand him. Freedom may be mankind’s natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling. On the other hand, Freidegger, in
Modal Contextities
, claims that all freedom is limited, artificial, and therefore illusory, a shared hallucination at best. No sane mortal is truly free, because true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes. It overwhelms the soul, very much like the state he elsewhere describes as
Vonallesvolkommenunverstandlichdasdaskeit
. What position would you take here, Drumknott?”
“I’ve always thought, my lord, that what the world really needs are filing boxes which are not so flimsy,” said Drumknott, after a moment’s pause.
“Hmm,” said Lord Vetinari. “A point to think about, certainly.”
He stopped. On the carved decorations over the room’s fireplace, a small cherub began to turn with a faint squeaking noise. Vetinari raised an eyebrow at Drumknott.
“I shall have a word with Clerk Brian immediately, my lord,” said the clerk.
“Good. Tell him it’s time he got out into the fresh air more…”
Dark clerks and dead postmasters
• A werewolf in the Watch • The wonderful pin
• Mr. Lipwig reads letters that are not there
• Hugo the hairdresser is surprised
• Mr. Parker buys fripperies • The nature of social
untruths • Princess in the tower
• “A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.”
“N
OW
T
HEN
, Mr. Lipwig, What Good Will Violence Do?” Mr. Pump rumbled. He rocked on his huge feet as Moist struggled in his grip.
Groat and Stanley were huddled at the far end of the locker room. One of Mr. Groat’s natural remedies was bubbling over onto the floor, where the boards were staining purple.
“They were all accidents, Mr. Lipwig! All accidents!” Groat babbled. “The Watch was all over the place by the fourth one! They were all accidents, they said!”
“Oh,
yes
!” screamed Moist. “Four in five weeks, eh? I bet that happens all the time around here! Ye gods, I’ve been done up good and brown! I’m dead, right? Just not lying down yet! Vetinari? There’s a man who knows how to save the price of a rope! I’m done for!”
“You’ll feel better for a nice cup o’ bismuth-and-brimstone tea, sir,” Groat quavered. “I’ve got the kettle boiling—”
“A cup of tea is not going to be sufficient!” Moist got a grip on himself, or at least began to act as if he had, and took a deep, theatrical breath. “Okay, okay, Mr. Pump, you can let go now.”
The golem released his grip. Moist straightened up.
“Well, Mr. Groat?” he said.
“Looks like you’re genuine after all, then,” the old man said. “One of the dark clerks wouldn’t have gone bursar like that. We thought you was one of his lordship’s special gentlemen, see.” Groat fussed around the kettle. “No offense, but you’ve got a bit more color than the average pen-pusher.”
“Dark clerks?” said Moist, and then recollection dawned. “Oh…do you mean those stocky little men in black suits and bowler hats?”
“The very same. Scholarship boys at the Assassins’ Guild, some of ’em. I heard that they can do some nasty things when they’ve a mind.”
“I thought you called them penpushers?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t say where, heehee.” Groat caught Moist’s expression and coughed. “Sorry, didn’t mean it, just my little joke. We reckon the last new postmaster we had, Mr. Whobblebury, he was a dark clerk. Can’t hardly blame him, with a name like that. He was always snooping around.”
“And why do you think that was?” said Moist.
“Well, Mr. Mutable, he was the first, decent chap, he fell down into the big hall from the fifth floor, smack, sir,
smack
onto the marble. Head first. It was a bit…splashy, sir.”
Moist glanced at Stanley, who was starting to tremble.
“Then there was Mr. Sideburn. He fell down the back stairs and broke his neck, sir. Excuse me, sir, it’s 11:43.” Groat walked over to the door and opened it, Tiddles walked through, Groat shut the door again. “At three in the morning, it was. Right down five flights. Broke just about every bone you could break, sir.”
“You mean he was wandering around without a light?”
“Dunno, sir. But I know about the stairs. The stairs have lamps burning all night, sir. Stanley fills them every day, regular as Tiddles.”
“Use those stairs a lot, then, do you?” said Moist.
“Never, sir, except for the lamps. Nearly everywhere on that side is bunged up with mail. But it’s a Post Office Regulation, sir.”
“And the next man?” said Moist, a little hoarsely. “Another accidental fall?”
“Oh, no, sir. Mr. Ignavia, that was his name. They said it was his heart. He was just lyin’ dead on the fifth floor, dead as a doorknob, face all contorted like he’d seen a ghost. Natural causes, they said. Werrrl, the Watch was all over the place by then, you may depend on it. No one had been near him, they said, and there was not a mark on him. Surprised you didn’t know about all this, sir. It was in the paper.”
Except you don’t get much chance to keep up with the news in a condemned cell
, Moist thought.
“Oh yes?” he said. “And how would they know no one had been near him?”
Groat leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Everyone knows there’s a werewolf in the Watch, and one of
them
could bloody nearly smell what color clothes someone was wearing.”
“A werewolf,” said Moist flatly.
“Yes. Anyway, the one before him—”
“A werewolf.”
“That’s what I said, sir,” said Groat.
“A damn
werewolf
.”
“Takes all sorts to make a world, sir. Anyway—”
“A werewolf.” Moist awoke from the horror. “And they don’t tell visitors?”
“Now, how’d they do that, sir?” said Groat in a kindly voice. “Put it on a sign outside? ‘Welcome to Ankh-Morpork, We Have a Werewolf,’ sir? The Watch’s got loads of dwarfs and trolls and a golem—a free golem, savin’ your presence, Mr. Pump—and a couple of gnomes and a zombie…even a Nobbs.”
“Nobbs? What’s a Nobbs?”
“Corporal Nobby Nobbs, sir. Not met him yet? They
say
he’s got an official chitty saying he’s human, and who needs one of those, eh? Fortunately there’s only one of him, so he can’t breed. Anyway, we’ve got a bit of everything, sir. Very cosmopolitan. You don’t like werewolves?”
They know who you are by your smell
, thought Moist.
They’re as bright as a human and can track you better than any wolf. They can follow a trail that’s days old, even if you cover yourself with scent—
especially
if you cover yourself with scent. Oh, there’re ways around, if you know there is going to be a werewolf on your tail. No wonder they caught up with me. There should be a law!
“Not a lot,” he said aloud, and glanced at Stanley again. It was useful to watch Stanley when Groat was talking. Now the boy had his eyes turned up so much that they were practically all whites.
“And Mr. Whobblebury?” he said. “He was investigating for Vetinari, eh? What happened to him?”
Stanley was shaking like a bush in a high wind.
“Er, you did get given the big key-ring, sir?” Groat inquired, his voice trembling with innocence.
“Yes, of course.”
“I bet there is one key missing,” said Groat. “The Watch took it. It was the only one. Some doors ought to stay closed, sir. It’s all over and done with, sir. Mr. Whobblebury died of an industrial accident, they said. Nobody near him. You don’t want to go there, sir. Sometimes things get so broke it’s best to walk away, sir.”
“I can’t,” said Moist. “I
am
the postmaster general. And this is my building, isn’t it? I’ll decide where I go, Junior Postman Groat.”
Stanley shut his eyes.
“Yes, sir,” said Groat, as if talking to a child. “But you don’t want to go
there
, sir.”
“His head was all over the wall!
” Stanley quavered.
“Oh dear, now you’ve set him off, sir,” said Groat, scuttling across to the boy. “It’s all right, lad, I’ll just get you your pills—”
“What’s the most expensive pin ever made commercially, Stanley?” said Moist quickly.
It was like pulling a lever. Stanley’s expression went from agonized grief to scholarly cogitation in an instant.
“Commercially? Leaving aside those special pins made for exhibitions and trade shows, including the Great Pin of 1899, then probably it is the No. 3 Broad-headed ‘Chicken’ Extra Longs made for the lace-making market by the noted pinner Josiah Doldrum, I would say. They were hand-drawn and had his trademark silver head with a microscopic engraving of a cockerel. It’s believed that fewer than a hundred were made before his death, sir. According to Hubert Spider’s
Pin Catalogue
, examples can fetch between fifty and sixty-five dollars, depending on condition. A No. 3 Broad-headed Extra Long would grace any true pinhead’s collection.”
“Only…I spotted this in the street,” said Moist, extracting one of that morning’s purchases from his lapel. “I was walking down Market Street and there it was, between two cobblestones. I thought it looked unusual. For a pin.”
Stanley pushed away the fussing Groat and carefully took the pin from Moist’s fingers. A very large magnifying glass appeared as if by magic in his other hand.
The room held its breath as the pin was subjected to serious scrutiny. Then Stanley looked up at Moist in amazement.
“You
knew
?” he said. “And you spotted this in the
street
? I thought you didn’t know anything about pins!”
“Oh, not really, but I dabbled a bit as a boy,” said Moist, waving a hand deprecatingly to suggest that he had been too foolish to turn a schoolboy hobby into a lifetime’s obsession. “You know…a few of the old brass Imperials, one or two oddities, like an unbroken pair or a double-header, the occasional cheap packet of mixed pins on approval—”
Thank the gods
, he thought,
for the skill of speed-reading
.
“Oh, there’s never anything worthwhile in those,” said Stanley, and slid again into the voice of the academic: “While most ‘pinheads’ do indeed begin with a casually acquired flashy novelty pin, followed by the contents of their grandmothers’ pincushion, haha, the path to a truly worthwhile collection lies not in the simple disbursement of money in the nearest pin emporium, oh no. Any dilettante can become ‘kingpin’ with enough expenditure, but for the true ‘pinhead’ the real pleasure is in the joy of the chase, the pin fairs, the house clearances, and, who knows, a casual glint in the gutter that turns out to be a well-preserved Doublefast or an unbroken two-pointer. Well is it said: ‘See a pin and pick it up, and all day long you’ll have a pin.’”
Moist nearly applauded. It was word for word what J. Lanugo Owlsbury had written in the introduction to his work. And, much more important, he now had an unshakable friend in Stanley. That was to say, his darker regions added, Stanley was friends with
him
. The boy, all panic subsumed by the joy of pins, was holding the pin up to the light.
“Magnificent,” he breathed, all terrors fled. “Clean as a new pin! I have a place ready and waiting for this in my pin folder, sir!”
“Yes, I thought you might.”
His head was all over the wall…
Somewhere there was a locked door, and Moist didn’t have the key. Four of his predecessors had predeceased in this very building. And there was
no escape
. Being postmaster general was a job for life—one way or the other.
That
was why Vetinari had put him here. He needed a man who
couldn’t
walk away, and who was incidentally completely expendable. It didn’t matter if Moist von Lipwig died. He was already dead.
And then he tried not to think about Mr. Pump.
How many other golems had worked their way to freedom in the service of the city? Had there been a Mr. Saw, fresh from a hundred years in a pit of sawdust? Or Mr. Shovel? Mr. Axe, maybe?
And had there been one here when the last poor guy had found the key or a good lockpick, and was about to open it when behind him someone called maybe Mr. Hammer,
yes, oh gods, yes
, raised his first for one sudden, terminal blow?
No one had been near him? But they weren’t people, were they…they were tools. It’d be an industrial accident.
His head was all over the wall…
I’m going to find out about this. I have to, otherwise it’ll lie in wait for me. And everyone will tell me lies. But I am the fibbermeister.
“Hmm?” he said, aware that he’d missed something.
“I said, could I go and put this in my collection, Postmaster?” said Stanley.
“What? Oh. Yes. Fine. Yes. Give it a really good polish, too.”
As the boy gangled off to his end of the locker room—and he did gangle—Moist caught Groat looking at him shrewdly.
“Well done, Mr. Lipwig,” he said. “Well done.”
“Thank you, Mr. Groat.”
“Good eyesight you’ve got there,” the old man went on.
“Well, the light was shining off it—”
“Nah, I meant to see cobbles in Market Street, it being all brick paving up there.”
Moist returned his blank stare with one ever blanker.
“Bricks, cobbles, who cares?” he said.
“Yeah, right. Not important, really,” said Groat.
“And now,” said Moist, feeling the need for some fresh air, “there’s a little errand I have to run. I’d like you to come with me, Mr. Groat. Can you find a crowbar anywhere? Bring it, please. And I’ll need you, too, Mr. Pump.”
Werewolves and golems, golems and werewolves
, Moist thought.
I’m stuck here. I might as well take it seriously
.
I will show them a sign
.
“T
HERE’S A LITTLE HABIT
I have,” said Moist, as he led the way through the streets. “It’s to do with signs.”
“Signs, sir?” said Groat, trying to keep close to the walls.
“Yes, Junior Postman Groat, signs,” said Moist, noticing the way the man winced at “Junior.” “Particularly signs with missing letters. When I see one, I automatically read what the missing letters say.”
“And how can you do that, sir, when they’re missing?” said Groat.
Ah, so there’s a clue as to why you’re still sitting in a rundown old building making tea from rocks and weeds all day
, Moist thought. Aloud he said: “It’s a knack. Now, I could be wrong, of course, but—ah, we turn left here…”
This was quite a busy street, and the shop was in front of them. It was everything that Moist had hoped.
“Voilà,” he said and, remembering his audience, he added: “That is to say, there we have it.”
“It’s a barber’s shop,” said Groat uncertainly. “For ladies.”
“Ah, you’re a man of the world, Tolliver, there’s no fooling you,” said Moist. “And the name over the window, in those large, blue-green letters, is…?”