Raising Steam (48 page)

Vetinari swung the poker against the fender, causing sparks to dance in the fireplace. He looked at the sparks and in whiplash fashion turned to Moist and said, ‘And if you, Mister Lipwig, ever tell anyone else about this, Mister Trooper will be very glad to see you again. Do we have an understanding? Excellent.’

As if anyone would believe him if he did breathe a word about it! Moist was finding it hard enough to credit from the man’s own lips. Then as he tried to process what he had been told, the Patrician’s words about his own prowess sparked a renewed sense of grievance.

‘You’ve given everyone else on that train a medal, even Nobby Nobbs. Is there nothing for me, then, my lord?’

There was a pause and Vetinari said, ‘Oh, there is, Mister Lipwig, there is, and it’s something wonderful: it’s the precious gift of staying alive.’

And later, when he came to think about it, Moist thought that was, well, on the whole a good deal and, after all, he had
danced on the speeding locomotive
. That was living, all right!

A few weeks later, Drumknott persuaded Lord Vetinari to accompany him to the area behind the palace where a jungle of drain pipes emptied and several mismatched sheds, washhouses and lean-tos housed some of the necessary functions without which a modern palace could not operate.
^fn81

There was a young goblin waiting there, rather nervous, clasping what looked like two wheels held together by not very much. The wheels were spinning.

Drumknott cleared his throat. ‘Show his lordship your new invention, Mister Of the Wheel the Spoke.’

Vetinari’s face was unmoving as he watched the goblin put a leg over his creation and pedal the little machine around the washerwomen, who threw up their arms saying things like ‘Oh my! Whatever next?’

And the oldest washerwoman said, ‘I reckon you could have a young lady on the pillion behind you.’

Lord Vetinari said, ‘You’re going to want one of these, aren’t you, Drumknott?’

‘Well sir,’ said Drumknott, ‘this is not a mechanism, really. All it does is simply extend the parts of the body and look, no steam, no soot, just sweat.’

‘Interesting,’ said the Patrician. ‘One man, his own motor.’

When the goblin eventually stopped in front of Lord Vetinari, he looked imploringly at Drumknott, who waited patiently for his master to decide.

Vetinari finally did smile and said, ‘A remarkable
velocipede
, Mister Of the Wheel the Spoke. I do believe that Leonard of Quirm had a similar idea, but now we are in a world of motion, I see no problem here. It appears that every man could be his own horse. I commend you. May I suggest, young goblin, that you take your prototype along to Commander Vimes. An instrument that
doubles one’s speed ought to be very useful to a hurrying watchman, or, indeed, an insufficiently hurrying one. Mister Drumknott, please write a note to the commander and I will sign it. After all, some of them could do with the exercise. And if I were you, sir,’ he added to the goblin, ‘I would make an appointment with a certain troll lawyer called Thunderbolt and do what he tells you.

‘The world is changing and it needs its shepherds and sometimes its butchers. And in this case, I’m its shepherd. Your enterprise has been noted. And all that anyone can say now is: What next? What little thing will change the world because the little tinkers carried on tinkering?’

fn1
There were some salacious comments about this, but it appeared, alas, to the local and as yet unmarried girls that Mad Iron Simnel and his men had found something more interesting than women and apparently it was made of steel.

fn2
Correctly pronounced Beyonk.

fn3
Literal translation: ‘chief mining engineer’.

fn4
Humans might have said ‘beef’ at this point, but not many dwarfs have a taste for cow, whereas rat is perennially dependable.

fn5
Scouting for trolls, dwarfs and humans was brought in shortly after the Koom Valley Accord had been signed, on the suggestion of Lord Vetinari, to allow the young of the three dominant species to meet and hopefully get along together. Naturally the young of all species, when thrown together, instead of turning against one another would join forces against the real enemy, that is to say their parents, teachers and miscellaneous authority which was
so
old-fashioned. And up to a point, and amazingly, it had worked and that was Ankh-Morpork, wasn’t it? Mostly, nobody cared what shape you were, although they might be very interested in how much money you had.

fn6
Besides being from the McSweeney dynasty and therefore frighteningly expensive. Although, he thought, when he looked at the porcelain shards on the floor, they didn’t look
that
expensive.

fn7
A term, technically speaking, for dog muck, much prized by the tanneries.

fn8
Unless they were a golem. During the dark days when the family clacks company had been usurped by
businessmen
, Adora Belle had diverted her energies into golem emancipation. She was still involved with the Golem Trust, but the pace of change in Ankh-Morpork, she was pleased to notice, meant that the golems were quite happily trusting themselves.

fn9
Adora Belle was, as even she knew, a creatively bad cook, mostly because she thought cookery a waste of time for a woman with even half a mind; and since Moist took pretty much the same stance when it came to manual labour, the arrangement seemed to suit all parties.

fn10
Which was his
only
name.

fn11
Separate bathrooms of course being the key to any happy marriage.

fn12
‘Spike’ to her fond husband. Her brother had called her Killer, but he meant it in a nice way.

fn13
The official collective noun for a bunch of goblins.

fn14
The wonderfully colourful oak wood of the Effing Forest was much in demand for high-class joinery.

fn15
Known by habitués as the Sticky Head.

fn16
If you could give that name to somebody who had to deal every day with forms to sign, go to far too many meetings
about
meetings and handle the most petty of correspondence.

fn17
This black crystalline compound was widely used by troll women as an anti-ageing cream. Dick Simnel had been thorough in his research and it was, apparently, a very efficient lubricant.

fn18
The actual chairman being, in point of fact, Mr Fusspot, chairdog.

fn19
A term meaning that the builder speculates about how far away he can be, and with how much money, before the buyer finds that the footings have, in fact, no feet, the septic tank is one foot deep with a tendency to flow backwards, and the bricks owe a lot to that most organic and venerable of all building materials, cow shit. The whole business traditionally begins with a plot, in every sense of the word. Entire suburbs were being built with such beguiling names as Nightingale Valley and Sunflower Gardens which had never heard a nightingale or seen a sunflower in bloom, but nevertheless were on the market with CMOT Dibbler Practically Real Estate and Associates, currently doing a roaring trade.

fn20
Oi Dong being not dissimilar to Shangri-La.

fn21
‘lawn ornament’

fn22
Not to be confused with the fabled Nougat Knights, famed in dwarfish mythology as the ancestors who, at the beginning of the world, created the treacle mines and other subterranean sweets.

fn23
Moist wondered whether it should be loti, but thought, well, what the hell.

fn24
The term ‘specie’ requires the person asking for it to rub their thumb and forefinger together in a
knowing
way, if you know what I mean, guvnor?

fn25
The moment Moist heard the name he went for the dictionary and was relieved to find that fornacite was a rare lead, copper chromate arsenate hydroxide mineral. The troll was a lovely bluey green colour.

fn26
Humans would have said, ‘Put it where the sun don’t shine.’

fn27
There had been some discussion about the word ‘hygienic’, and Moist had lost. Hygienic, everyone else thought, gave the project a certain tone, a sort of
je ne sais quoi
. Lady King said this herself and who was going to argue with the Duchess?

fn28
Although in the eyes of her spouse she had always been the Duchess, a pet name he reserved for just her.

fn29
The feared kitten torture was actually one dreamed up by Moist, and Vetinari had been impressed. In the dungeons of the palace there was a large iron maiden, seldom used. In these modern times the kitten torture regime was the punishment that would cause the miscreant to pause before doing anything that would place them in the dungeon again. The mechanism and the kittens were presided over by Cedric: not clever, but grateful for the pay packet every month, and he was very fond of kittens, with which the streets of Ankh-Morpork were overflowing. The kittens would be placed in the iron maiden in large numbers, along with the miscreant who could just about sit. At the bottom was a little hatch, large enough to push through a sizeable saucer of milk. Every time a kitten was in distress and made its distress noticeable, Cedric would open up the maiden and give the victim a whack with his cudgel, the amount of cudgelling being contingent on the state of upset of said kitten. There were some idiots who thought this laughable, but it worked, and after a certain amount of cudgelling visitors were said to be amazed at the general atmosphere of happiness inside the iron maiden, where the purring was so loud it resonated throughout the dungeon.

fn30
A discipline where the hands move in time as well as in space, the exponent twisting space behind his own back whilst doing so.

fn31
All’s mastery of artery-clogging cuisine had made him a number of friends in interesting places – trading sources for sauces had turned out to be very good business practice.

fn32
A dismay shared by many of the journalists, who worried they would get mud on their new shoes and be attacked by pheasants.

fn33
Proctector of the Eight Protectorates and Empress of the Long Thin Debated Piece Hubwards of Sto Kerrig.

fn34
There were in fact two waiting rooms, one for men and families and the other for single ladies; as predicted, Effie was very firm that all aspects of the railway should be clean and wholesome, indeed hygienic, something she was very keen on.

fn35
The caption as it turned out was ‘
Let the train take the strain
’. It appeared that Mr de Worde and his wife were very impressed with the toilet facilities.

fn36
And when a troll announces, you really are announced at.

fn37
Even Professor Rincewind, who spent most of the journey hiding under his seat in the firm belief that locomotion was exactly the kind of thing that usually led to certain death, conceded that trains could come in very handy when one wanted to get somewhere, or, more importantly,
away
from somewhere, quickly.

fn38
Which, it has to be noted, included a certain amount of hinterland, as with most city states.

fn39
The jailers couldn’t understand how he’d escaped until they realized they weren’t getting their washing back.

fn40
He knew he couldn’t use that colloquial term around there, of course, but after all, the people of Quirm called the people of Ankh-Morpork
sphincters
, mostly in fun. Mostly.

fn41
For humans he would have been in too deep. Way too deep.

fn42
An Ankh-Morpork citizen will never yield to the idea that there are other cities at least as good as their own and treat the concept that there could be with humorous disdain. The phrase originated when an Ankh-Morpork citizen was shown an equestrian statue in Pseudopolis and when faced with the beast, said, ‘Maybe it’s a Big Horse I’m Morporkian’, an incident that gave rise to a popular bar room song.

fn43
Which instead of masking the ubiquitous goblin smell merely lent it an extra piquancy.

fn44
Unggue pots, as they were called, had a major and sacred part in goblin society. In Ankh-Morpork sensible goblins were making quasi unggue pots for sale, looking like the real thing, Adora Belle said, but with the magic taken out and the wonderful sparkle left in. However, it helped if you didn’t pay too much attention to what the pots
traditionally
held …

fn45
There was no point in speculating on what else they could have. Just the thought turned Moist’s stomach.

fn46
Any young goblin is thought of as being a twig.

fn47
Which consists of a troll with a comfortable pannier on either side that can carry up to four people.

fn48
Apart from occasionally going with a few clients down to the Pink PussyCat Club to
appear
to have a good time and stick money down the garters of the gyrating young ladies, which really was hardly evil at all in the light of early-onset middle age, just rather sad, although extremely enjoyable at the time and a death warrant if Adora Belle ever found out.

fn49
Colon and Nobby had lived a long time in a dangerous occupation and they knew how not to be dead. To wit, by arriving when the bad guys had got away.

fn50
It would be impolite to ask Otto how he got around so quickly. Of course, everybody knew that he was a vampire, but he was a fervent black ribboner and so whatever anybody thought they knew about him, they didn’t talk about it.

fn51
A development that proved fatal to the Brassica Carriage Company, which had elected to construct its engines and tracks to a gauge based on the horse-drawn cabbage delivery carts.

fn52
And yet Harry was still a Titan, a humorous term meaning deep trousers and short fingers, owing to his tendency to look on the disgorging of money in much the same light as root canal surgery delivered by a troll dentist.

fn53
Feeney was privileged. To a goblin, the name is always the name, untouchable and part of the goblin itself.