Soul Music (20 page)

So . . .

‘And then what happened?' he said.

‘An' then he started singin', yerronner,' said Cumbling Michael, licensed beggar and informal informant. ‘A song about Great Fiery Balls.'

The Patrician raised an eyebrow.

‘Pardon?'

‘Somethin' like that. Couldn't really make out the words, the reason bein', the piano exploded.'

‘Ah? I imagine this interrupted the proceedings somewhat.'

‘Nah, the monkey went on playin' what was left,' said Cumbling Michael. ‘And people got up and started cheerin' and dancin' and stampin' their feet like there was a plague of cockroaches.'

‘And you say the men from the Musicians' Guild were hurt?'

‘It was dead strange. They were white as a sheet afterwards. At least,' Cumbling Michael thought about the state of his own bedding, ‘white as
some
sheets—'

The Patrician glanced at his reports while the beggar talked. It had certainly been a strange evening. A riot at the Drum . . . well, that was normal, although it didn't sound exactly like a typical riot and he'd never heard of wizards
dancing
. He rather felt he recognized the signs . . . There was only one thing that could make it worse.

‘Tell me,' he said. ‘What was Mr Dibbler's reaction to all this?'

‘What, yerronner?'

‘A simple enough question, I should have thought.'

Cumbling Michael found the words ‘
But how did you know ole Dibbler was there? I never said
' arranging themselves for the attention of his larynx, and then had second, third and fourth thoughts about saying them.

‘He just sat and stared, yerronner. With his mouth open. And then he rushed right out.'

‘I see. Oh, dear. Thank you, Cumbling Michael. Feel free to leave.'

The beggar hesitated.

‘Foul Ole Ron said as yerronner sometimes pays for information,' he said.

‘Did he? Really? He said that, did he? Well, that
is
interesting.' Vetinari scribbled a note in the margin of a report. ‘Thank you.'

‘Er—'

‘Don't let me detain you.'

‘Er. No. Gods bless yerronner,' said Cumbling Michael, and ran for it.

When the sound of the beggar's boots had died away the Patrician strolled over to the window, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and sighed.

There were probably city states, he reasoned, where the rulers only had to worry about the
little
things . . . barbarian invasions, the balance of payments, assassination, the local volcano erupting. There weren't people busily opening the door of reality and metaphorically saying, ‘Hi, come on in, pleased to see you, what a nice axe you have there, incidentally, can I make some money out of you since you're here?'

Sometimes Lord Vetinari wondered what
had
happened to Mr Hong. Everyone knew, of course. In general terms. But not exactly
what
.

What a city. In the spring, the river caught fire. About once a month, the Alchemists' Guild exploded.

He walked back to his desk and made another brief note. He was rather afraid that he was going to have to have someone killed.

Then he picked up the third movement of Fondel's
Prelude in G Major
and settled back to read.

Susan walked back to the alley where she'd left Binky. There were half a dozen men lying around on the cobbles, clutching parts of themselves and moaning. Susan ignored them. Anyone trying to steal Death's horse soon understood the expression ‘a world of hurts'. Binky had a good aim. It would be a very small, very private world.

‘The music was playing him, not the other way round,' she said. ‘You could see. I'm not sure his fingers even touched the strings.'

Susan rubbed her hand. Satchelmouth had turned out to have quite a hard head.

‘Can I kill it without killing him?'

‘Not a hope,' the raven translated. ‘It's all that's keeping him alive.'

‘But Granda . . . but he said it'll end up killing him anyway!'

‘It's a big wide wonderful universe all right,' said the raven.

‘But . . . look, if it's a . . . a parasite, or something like that,' said Susan, as Binky trotted skywards, ‘what's the good of it killing its host?'

‘He says you've got him there,' said the raven. ‘Drop me off over Quirm, will you?'

‘What does it
want
him for?' said Susan. ‘It's using him, but what
for
?'

‘Twenty-seven dollars!' said Ridcully. ‘Twenty-seven dollars to get you out! And the sergeant kept
grinning
all the time! Wizards
arrested
!'

He walked along the row of crestfallen figures.

‘I mean, how often does the Watch get
called in
to the Drum?' said Ridcully. ‘I mean, what did you think you were doing?'

‘mumblemumblemumble,' said the Dean, looking at the floor.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘mumblemumbledancingmumble.'

‘Dancing,' said Ridcully levelly, walking back along the row. ‘That's dancing, is it? Banging into people? Throwin' one another over yer shoulders? Twirling around all over the place? Not even trolls act like that (not that I've got anything against trolls mind you marvellous people marvellous people) and you're supposed to be
wizards
. People are supposed to look up to you and that's
not
because you're somersaulting over their heads, Runes, don't think I didn't notice that little display, I was frankly disgusted. The poor Bursar has had to have a lie down. Dancing is . . . round in circles, don'tcherknow, Maypoles and suchlike, healthy reels, perhaps a little light ballroom . . .
not
swinging people round like a dwarf with a battleaxe (mind you salt of the earth dwarfs I've always said so). Do I make myself clear?' ‘mumblemumblemumbleeveryonewasdoingitmumble,' said the Dean, still looking at the floor.

‘I never thought I'd say this to any wizard over the age of eighteen, but you're all gated until further notice!' shouted Ridcully.

Being confined to the campus was not much of a punishment. The wizards usually distrusted any air that hadn't hung around indoors for a while, and mostly lived in a kind of groove between their rooms and the dining table. But they were feeling strange.

‘mumblemumbledon'tseewhymumble,' mumbled the Dean.

He said, much later on, on the day when the music died, that it must have been because he'd never been really young, or at least young while just being old enough to know he was young. Like most wizards, he'd begun his training while still so small that the official pointy hat came down over his ears. And after that he'd just been, well, a wizard.

He had the feeling, once again, that he'd missed out on something somewhere. He'd never really realized it until the last couple of days. He didn't know what it was. He just wanted to
do
things. He didn't know what they were. But he wanted to do them soon. He wanted . . . he felt like a lifelong tundra dweller when he wakes up one morning with a deep urge to go water-skiing. He certainly wasn't going to stay indoors when there was music in the air . . .

‘mumblemumblemumblenotgonnastayindoorsmumble.'

Unaccustomed feelings surged through him. He wanted to disobey! Disobey everything! Including the law of gravity. He was definitely not going to fold his clothes before going to bed! Ridcully was going to say, oh, you're a rebel, are you, what are you rebelling against, and he'd say . . . he'd say something pretty damn memorable, that's what he'd do! He was—

But the Archchancellor had stalked off.

‘mumblemumblemumble,' said the Dean defiantly, a rebel without a pause.

There was a knock at the door, barely audible above the din. Cliff opened it a cautious fraction.

‘It's me, Hibiscus. Here's your beers. Drink 'em up and get out!'

‘How can we get out?' said Glod. ‘Every time they see us they force us to play some more!'

Hibiscus shrugged. ‘I don't care,' he said. ‘But you owe me a dollar for the beer and twenty-five dollars for the broken furniture—'

Cliff shut the door.

‘I could negotiate with him,' said Glod.

‘No, we can't afford it,' said Buddy.

They looked at one another.

‘Well, the crowd loved us,' said Buddy. ‘I think we were a big success. Er.'

In the silence Cliff bit the end off a beer bottle and poured the contents over his head.
¹⁸

‘What we all want to know is,' said Glod, ‘what you thought you were doing out there?'

‘Oook.'

‘And how come,' said Cliff, crunching up the rest of the bottle, ‘we all knew what to play?'

‘Oook.'

‘And also,' said Glod, ‘what you were singing.'

‘Er . . .'

‘“Don't Tread On My New Blue Boots”?' said Cliff.

‘Oook.'

‘“Good Gracious Miss Polly”?' said Glod.

‘Er . . .'

‘“Sto Helit Lace”?' said Cliff.

‘Oook?'

‘It's a kind of very fine lace they make in the city of Sto Helit,' said Glod.

Glod gave Buddy a lopsided look.

‘That bit where you said “hello, baby”,' he said. ‘Why'd you do that?'

‘Er . . .'

‘I mean, it's not as if they even allow small children into the Drum.'

‘I don't know. The words were just there,' said Buddy. ‘They were sort of part of the music . . .'

‘And you were . . . moving about in a funny way. Like you were having trouble with your trousers,' said Glod. ‘I'm not expert on humans, of course, but I saw some ladies in the audience looking at you like a dwarf looks at a girl when he knows her father's got a big shaft and several rich seams.'

‘Yeah,' said Cliff, ‘and like when a troll is thinking: hey, will you look at der strata on dat one . . .'

‘You're
certain
you've got no elvish in you, are you?' said Glod. ‘Once or twice I thought you were acting a bit . . . elvish.'

‘
I don't know what's happening!
' said Buddy.

The guitar whined.

They looked at it.

‘What we do is,' said Cliff, ‘we take dat and throw it in de river. All those in favour say “Aye”. Or Oook, as the case may be.'

There was another silence. No one rushed to pick up the instrument.

‘But the thing is,' said Glod, ‘the thing is . . . they
did
love us out there.'

They thought about this.

‘It didn't actually feel . . .
bad
,' said Buddy.

‘Got to admit . . . I never had an audience like dat in my whole life,' said Cliff.

‘Oook.'

‘If we're so good,' said Glod, ‘why ain't we rich?'

‘'Cos you do the negotiatin',' said Cliff. ‘If we've got to pay for der furniture, I'm soon goin' to have to eat my dinner through a straw.'

‘You saying I'm no good?' said Glod, getting angrily to his feet.

‘You blow good horn. But you ain't no financial wizard.'

‘Hah, I'd just like to see—'

There was a knock on the door.

Cliff sighed. ‘Dat'll be Hibiscus again,' he said. ‘Pass me dat mirror. I'll try to hit one out on de other side.'

Buddy opened the door. Hibiscus was there, but behind a smaller man wearing a long coat and a wide, friendly grin.

‘Ah,' said the grin. ‘You'd be Buddy, right?'

‘Er, yes.'

And then the man was inside, without actually appearing to have moved, and kicking the door shut in the landlord's face.

‘Dibbler's the name,' the grin went on. ‘C. M. O. T. Dibbler. I dare say you've heard of me?'

‘Oook!'

‘I ain't talking to you! I'm talking to you other guys.'

‘No,' said Buddy, ‘I don't think we have.'

The grin appeared to widen.

‘I hear you boys are in a bit of trouble,' said Dibbler. ‘Broken furniture and whatnot.'

‘We're not even going to get paid,' said Cliff, glaring at Glod.

‘Well now,' said Dibbler, ‘it could just be that I could help you there. I'm a businessman. I do business. I can see you boys are musicians. You play music. You don't want to worry your heads about money stuff, right? Gets in the way of the creative processes, am I right? How about if you leave that to me?'

‘Huh,' said Glod, still smarting from the insult to his financial acumen. ‘And what can
you
do?'

‘Well,' said Dibbler, ‘I can get you paid for tonight, for a start.'

‘What about the furniture?' said Buddy.

‘Oh, stuff gets busted here every night,' said Dibbler expansively. ‘Hibiscus was just having you on. I'll square it with him. Confidentially, you want to watch out for people like him.'

He leaned forward. If his grin had been any wider the top of his head would have fallen off.

‘This city, boys,' he said, ‘is a jungle.'

‘If he can get us paid, I trust him,' said Glod.

‘As simple as dat?' said Cliff.

‘I trust anyone who gives me money.'

Buddy glanced at the table. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that if something was wrong the guitar would do something – play a discord, maybe. But it just purred gently to itself.