Raising Steam (30 page)

‘And the other … thing?’

‘The other thing is satisfactory,’ said the King. He paused. ‘Yes, we should go to Quirm, but I think it would be wise to leave Albrechtson in charge here, just to take care of any business.’

Without his quite knowing how it had come about, and regardless of how little he was actually at the compound, it appeared that Moist was now Mr Railway. If anyone wanted to know anything about it, they asked him. If they’d lost their little child in the queue for Iron Girder, the call went out for Mr Lipwig and if somebody had a new idea for the railway it was sent to Mr Lipwig and after a while it didn’t seem to Moist to matter what time it was or, worse, where he was: the claims on his attention were never-ending.

He was pretty certain that he slept quite often, sometimes back
at home, if at all possible, or saving that a mattress and blanket somewhere within the warm and ever enlarging foundries along the route to Uberwald, or, if all else failed, snuggled down under the tarpaulins of whatever railway gang was near by, having shared whatever was in the cooking pot. If you were lucky it was pheasant or possibly grouse, and if you weren’t so lucky, at least there would be pot luck, which generally meant cabbages and swedes and almost certainly something that was protein, but you wouldn’t want to see what it was in daylight. However, to give them their due, the railway gangs, including the vanguard now bearing down on Slake, were resourceful men, especially in the tradition of setting snares to fill their pots along the permanent way.

Slake was one of those places, Moist thought, that you put on the map because it was embarrassing to have a map with holes in it. There was some mining, forestry and fishing and after a while you got the feeling that those people who chose to live in Slake and the surrounding area were people who didn’t want other people to know where they were. And when you walked around Slake you were always certain that you were being watched. He put it down as a place to avoid unless you liked bad cooking and banjos. Nevertheless, it had a mayor and was nailed to the map as a coaling and water stop.

No longer did Moist wear the snazzy suits and handmade shoes that, along with his collection of official-looking hats, were his calling card back in the city. They didn’t stand up well to the regime of the railway worker and so now he wore the greasy shirt and waistcoat with rough trousers tied at the knee. He loved the huge boots and the flat cap that seemed to go with them, making you feel safe at both ends. But the boots, oh the boots … a troll could drop on your head and you’d be dead, but the boots would be still alive and kicking! They had hobnails and were more or less like tiny fortresses. Nothing could get past a railway worker’s boots.

Messages found Moist wherever he might be, via train, goblin
runner or clacks, since there were very few places these days where their towers hadn’t found a niche in the landscape.

In the small hours of one morning in the Plains township of Little Swelling when it was pouring with rain that hammered on the makeshift lodgings, Moist pulled back the tarpaulin and wood door to see the face of Of the Twilight the Darkness, who couldn’t be called soaked, because there was really very little of him to soak.
^fn61
As soon as the goblin got inside the bothy, such water as was on him simply disappeared.

Almost automatically Moist looked up to see the lights of the local clacks tower and as he did so it flashed a familiar code: it was from Adora Belle. He recognized her code as easily as he would recognize his own. ‘Quickly!’ he said. ‘Get up that tower and get that message back to me,
now!
’

He waited, and in the gloom the voice of Of the Twilight the Darkness said, ‘Did I hear the magic word, Mister Little Damp?’

Moist was surprised at himself because, even though the goblin had a smell you could almost see, that was no reason for not minding your manners, so he said, ‘
Please
, Mister Of the Twilight the Darkness. Thank you so very much.’

And thus chastened, Moist kept silent as the little goblin scuttled back out into the rain and scampered towards the tower.

Moist finished his ablutions, gathered his things together – on the assumption that whatever the message it would require him to go somewhere else – and went out to where the golem horse was waiting unregarding of the weather, just in case it needed waking up, because however hard he tried he couldn’t think of it as anything other than alive. Admittedly, the horse was giving him incipient piles, no matter how much padding he put between
himself and it. And although the creature could now speak, Moist still yearned for all those fussing little rituals that defined horsemanship. He was aware that there should be such things as nose bags and adjusting the straps and giving the beast some water. The lack of these rituals slightly unbalanced Moist. It was creepy. In the falling rain it was as if he was in two different worlds.

And while he was wondering whether he should give the horse a name, which somehow would have made things feel better,
Mister
Of the Twilight the Darkness arrived, clutching a damp and smudged pink clacks flimsy.

Vetinari wants to see you immediately. Stop. PS Any chance of bringing home some of that goblin potion with you. Stop. PPS If you pass a bakery we could do with a couple of sliced loaves. Stop. Your loving wife. Stop.

And he thought, well, isn’t it nice to be wanted?

No more than a few hours and a bumpy ride through pouring rain later, the door to the anteroom outside the Oblong Office was opened by Drumknott, replete in a very smart engine driver’s hat, wiping his greasy hands on an equally greasy piece of ever-present engine driver’s rag.

‘His lordship will be with you presently, Mister Lipwig. You’ve been a very busy man lately, haven’t you?’

Moist could now see that the little secretary was also looking tanned beneath the smuts and soot, and the hat was, gods forbid, jaunty, a term never before applied to Drumknott.

‘Have you spent much time on the railway, Mister Drumknott? It looks like it’s doing you some good.’

‘Oh, yes, sir! His lordship allows me to take a few turns on the railway late mornings after he’s finished the crossword. After all,
everything
is about the train these days, isn’t it, and he was gracious enough to say that I’m keeping him in touch.’

At that moment, there was a shrill whistle from the other side of the door and Drumknott pulled it open to reveal Lord Vetinari, to Moist’s total surprise, catching one of the new little steam engines just as it was about to plunge off the highly polished desk. The familiar straights and curves were surrounded by little toy people: guards, engine drivers, passengers, the portly controller with a big cigar and various engineers with tiny crafted sliding rulers. And the tyrant caught the falling engine in a gauntlet, leaving water and oil dripping down on to the expensive polished ebony floor tiles.

‘Quite amazing, isn’t it, Mister Lipwig?’ he said cheerfully through the smoke. ‘Though isn’t it a pity that they can only run on rails? I can’t imagine what the world would be like if everyone had their own steam locomotive. Abominable.’

His lordship held out his hand for Drumknott to clean it with a not-so-greasy rag, and said, ‘Well, Mister Lipwig is here, Drumknott, and I know you can’t wait to get back to your wonderful railway.’

And Drumknott – the Drumknott who thought the finer things of life were stored in manila folders – headed off down the stairs two at a time to get into the cab, shovel the coal, start the engine, blow the whistle and breathe in smuts and soot and be that most wondrous of creatures, an
engine driver
.

‘Tell me, Mister Lipwig,’ said Vetinari, as the door closed. ‘It occurs to me that rocks on the line could easily derail a locomotive …’

‘Well, my lord, away from Ankh-Morpork we give the engines cow-catchers, a kind of plough, if you will. And remember, sir, a locomotive running free has a considerable weight and the signallers and linesmen keep an eye on the track.’

‘So, there has so far been no deliberate sabotage?’

Moist said, ‘Not since the attack on Iron Girder months ago,
unless you mean the little boys who put their pennies on the track just to get them flattened? That seems to be more of a pastime, and copper bends easily. It’s gone quiet, hasn’t it, sir? I’m thinking about the grags knocking down clacks towers and generally being difficult. It looks like they’ve given up.’

Vetinari winced. ‘You could be right. Certainly the Low King appears to believe so, and Commander Vimes reports that his agents in Uberwald are not picking up any disturbances. Other sources indicate the same. But … I worry that extremists are like perennial weeds. They may disappear for a while but they don’t give up. I fear they’ve gone further underground, waiting for their moment.’

‘Which moment would that be, sir?’

‘Do you know, Mister Lipwig, I wonder about that every night. I take some pleasure in the fact that the era of the locomotive has begun with care and thought and a scientific outlook instead of a lot of tinkering. Encouraging free-for-all simply encourages more episodes such as we saw in the Effing Forest. So …’ Vetinari now stared directly at Moist. ‘Tell me, how is the railway to Uberwald coming along?’

‘Making very good progress, sir, but there is a shortfall … as it were. We were expecting to drive the golden spike halfway through next month. There’s a lot of work still to do and we’re driving the train underground around the Gruffies. We’re tunnelling hard, but there are already a lot of cave formations up there.’

And there’s the bridges, he thought. You haven’t told him about the bridges. ‘And, of course, once we get to Uberwald we’ll eventually continue on to Genua.’

‘Not good enough, Mister Lipwig, not good enough at all. You must speed up. The balance of the world could be at stake.’

‘Er … with all due respect, my lord, why?’

Vetinari frowned. ‘Mister Lipwig. I have given you your orders; how you execute those orders is up to you, but they
must
be obeyed!’

Moist’s mood was not helped by finding the golem horse had been clamped, apparently by the Watch since he could see a watchman close by, laughing. The horse looked at him, embarrassed, and said, ‘I regret this inconvenience, sir, but I must obey the law.’

Seething, Moist said, ‘As a golem horse, are you as strong as any other golem?’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Very well,’ said Moist. ‘Then get yourself out of the clamp.’

The clamp cracked and split and the watchman ran towards Moist just as he leapt on to the back of the horse, yelling after him, ‘Oi! That’s public property, that is!’

And Moist shouted over his shoulder, ‘Send the bill to Sir Harry King, if you dare! Tell him it’s from Moist von Lipwig!’

Looking back as the horse galloped away down Lower Broadway, to his glee he saw the watchman picking up the pieces of the yellow clamp and he shouted, ‘No one interferes with the progress of the Hygienic Railway!’

Moist always preferred to move fast – after all, in his previous businesses a turn of speed was essential – and he arrived at Harry’s compound with the horse panting like a celestial runner.
^fn62
Stepping down and, for nothing more than effect, tying up the horse, he said, ‘Why were you panting? Golems don’t pant. You don’t breathe!’

‘Sorry, sir. You wanted me to be a more horse-like horse, so I am doing my best, sir … neigh, whinny, whinny.’

Moist burst out laughing and said, ‘That’ll do, Dobbin … No, not Dobbin! How do you fancy Flash?’

Reflectively the horse said, ‘I’ve never had a name before. I’ve always been “horse”. But it’s a very nice feeling to know who you are. I wonder how I did without it for these past nine hundred and three years. Thank you, Mister Lipwig.’

Moist made his way to Harry’s office and made certain that he spoke directly and in private to Harry, who stared at Moist for an eternity before saying, ‘Surely you know that they’ve hardly started reinforcing the first of the bridges on the Uberwald line? No train can run on thin air!’

‘Yes, Harry, I know. Gods bless me, I speak to the surveyors and inspectors all the time. But it’s only the beds of the bridges that need lots of work. The uprights have stood the test of time.’

And while Sir Harry was drawing breath to protest, Moist told him what he had in mind if Simnel’s engineers weren’t ready in time for whatever Vetinari was cooking up.

It took some time for Harry to get to grips with Moist’s plan, but finally when he’d heard it all he said, ‘You’re breaking all the rules, my lad, and you can only do that once to Vetinari. I’m pretty sure about
that
.’

It took all of Moist’s guile and self-control in the face of an angry Harry King, but he held his ground and said, ‘Harry, in all my time working for Lord Vetinari I’ve learned to understand the words “plausible deniability”.’

‘Eh? What does that mean, smart boy?’ said Harry.

‘It means his lordship chooses to have little idea of what I do and certainly doesn’t give me clear instructions, and it also means I have to guess a lot, but I’ve always been very good at that. Got a lot to do, Sir Harry, or shall I say
my lord
Harry or should I even dare to say
Baron King of Ankh-Morpork
… you can fill in that bit for yourself … and, if I remember correctly, when Vetinari makes you
the first railway baron you’ll be entitled to six silver balls on your coronet. A knighthood? Pah! You could be a Baron overnight. I imagine Lady King would be most impressed by a man with six balls.’

Harry snorted. ‘That’d give the missus a surprise!’ He considered the picture Moist had painted of the future and said, ‘Actually, I reckon she’d be swanking like a … Duchess!’ He sobered up a little and continued, ‘Believe me, I thought I was the King of the Shit, but
you
are full of the stuff! Would you damn well tell me how much trouble it’s going to get us both into? Baron, my arse. All right, mister, how do we get this thing done, scoundrels that we are?’

Even with the added pressure from the Patrician and with every lad, troll and goblin that Harry could provide, it still took time to build a railway. ‘Tsort was not built in a day,’ was the mantra when anyone got impatient. Still, day by day the great new railway line to Uberwald got closer to its destination.