‘He’s armed with a poisoned dagger, sir,’ said Ponder.
‘Ah? Well, that should make for a more interesting game, at least, eh, Mustrum? . . . Mustrum?’
‘What? Oh, yes. Yes. Something to think about, indeed. Yes, indeed. One man, in charge . . . The onlooker who sees most of the game . . . the gamer, in fact . . . So what move have I missed?’
‘Sorry, Archchancellor?’
Ridcully blinked at Ponder Stibbons. ‘What? Oh, just composing my thoughts, as one does.’ He sat up straight. ‘In any case the rules don’t concern us at this point. We have to play this game in any eventuality and so we will abide by them in the best traditions of sportsmanship until we have worked out where they may be most usefully broken to our advantage. Mister Stibbons, you are collating our studies of the game. The floor is yours.’
‘Thank you, Archchancellor.’ Ponder cleared his throat. ‘Gentlemen, the game of football is clearly about more than the rules and the nature of the play. In any case, these are pure mechanical considerations; the chanting and, of course, the food are of more concern to us, I feel. They seem to be an integral part of the game. Regrettably, so do the supporters’ clubs.’
‘What is the nature of this problem?’ Ridcully enquired.
‘They hit one another over the head with them. It would be true to say that brawling and mindless violence, such as occurred yesterday afternoon, is one of the cornerstones of the sport.’
‘A far cry from its ancient beginnings, then,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, shaking his head.
‘Well, yes. I understand that in those days the losing team was throttled. However, I suppose this would be called mindful violence that took place with the enthusiastic consent of the entire community, or at least that part of it that was still capable of breath. Fortunately, we do not yet have supporters, so that this is not at present our problem, and I propose we go directly to the pies.’
There was a chorus of general agreement from the wizards. Food was their cup of tea, and if possible slice of cake too. Some of them were already watching the door in anticipation of the tea trolley. It seemed like an age since nine.
‘Central to the game is the pie,’ Ponder went on, ‘which is generally of shortcrust pastry containing appropriate pie-like substances. I collected half a dozen and tested them on the usual subjects.’
‘The students?’ said Ridcully.
‘Yes. They said they were pretty awful. Not a patch on the pies here, they said. They finished them off, however. Examination of the ingredients suggests that they consisted of gravy, fat and salt, and insofar as it was possible to tell, none of the students appears to have died . . .’
‘So we are ahead on pies, then,’ said Ridcully cheerfully.
‘I suppose so, Archchancellor, although I do not believe that the pie quality plays any role—’ He stopped, because the door had swung open to allow the ingress of a reinforced, heavy-duty tea trolley. Since it was not being propelled by Her, the wizards paid no further attention and settled down to the passing of cups, the handing round of the sugar bowl, the inspection of the quality of the chocolate biscuits with a view to taking more than one’s entitlement and all the other little diversions without which a committee would be a clever device for making worthwhile decisions quickly.
When the rattling had ceased, and the last biscuit had been fought for, Ridcully tinkled his teaspoon on the rim of his cup for silence, although since he was Ridcully this only added the crash of broken crockery to the hubbub. Once the girl in charge of the trolley had sponged everybody down, he continued: ‘The chanting, gentlemen, appears to be another inconsequentiality at first sight, but I have reason to believe that it has a certain power, and we will ignore it at our peril. I see the museum’s translators say the modern chants were originally hymns to the goddess calling on her to grant her favours to the team of choice, while naiads danced on the edges of the field of play, the better to encourage the players to greater feats of prowess.’
‘Naiads?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘They’re water nymphs, aren’t they? Young women with very thin damp clothing? Why would anyone want them around? Besides, didn’t they drown sailors by singing to them?’
Ridcully let the thoughtful pause hang in the air for a while before volunteering: ‘Fortunately, I don’t think anyone these days would expect that we play football underwater.’
‘The pies would float,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Ponder.
‘What about clothing, Mister Stibbons? I assume there will be some?’
‘Temperatures were somewhat warmer in olden days. I can assure you that no one will insist on nudity.’
Ponder might have noticed the rattle as the girl with the tea trolley almost dropped a cup, but was gracious enough not to notice that he had noticed. He went on. ‘Currently the teams wear old shirts and short trousers.’
‘How short?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, urgency in his voice.
‘About mid-knee, I believe,’ said Ponder. ‘Is this likely to be a problem?’
‘Yes, it is. The knees should be covered. It is a well-known fact that a glimpse of the male knee can drive women into a frenzy of libidinousness.’ There was another rattle from the tea trolley, but Ponder ignored it because his own head had rattled a bit, too.
‘Are you sure about that, sir?’
‘It is established fact, young Stibbons.’
Ponder had found a grey hair on his comb that morning and was not in the mood to take this standing up.
‘And precisely in what books does—’ he began, but Ridcully interrupted with unusual diplomacy. Generally he liked little tiffs among the faculty.
‘A few more inches to prevent mobbing by the ladies should present us with no problems, surely, Mister Stibbons? Oops . . .’
This last was to Glenda, who had dropped two spoons on the carpet. She gave him a cursory curtsy.
‘Er, yes . . . and we should sport the university colours,’ he went on, with a hint of nervousness. Ridcully prided himself on treating the staff well, and indeed did so whenever he remembered them, but the expression of intelligent amusement on the face of the dumpy girl had unnerved him; it was as if a chicken had winked.
‘Um, yes, yes indeed,’ he said. ‘The good old red jersey we used to wear in my rowing days, with the big U’s on the front, bold as brass . . .’
He glanced at the maid, who was frowning. But he was Archchancellor, wasn’t he? It said so on his door, didn’t it?
‘That’s what we’ll do,’ he declared. ‘We’ll look into pies, although I’ve seen a few pies that don’t bear looking into, haha, and we’ll adapt the good old red sweater. What’s next, Mister Stibbons?’
‘With regard to the chanting, sir. I’ve asked the Master of the Music to work on some options,’ said Ponder smoothly. ‘We need to select a team as soon as possible.’
‘I don’t see what the rush is,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, who had almost nodded off in the arms of a chocolate biscuit surfeit.
‘The bequest, remember?’ said the head of the Department of PostMortem Communications. ‘We—’
‘Pas devant la domestique!’ snapped the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Automatically, Ridcully turned again to look at Glenda, and got a distinct feeling that here was a woman about to learn a foreign language in a hurry. It was an odd but slightly exciting idea. Until this moment, he had never thought of the maids in the singular. They were all . . . servants. He was polite to them, and smiled when appropriate. He assumed they sometimes did other things than fetch and carry, and sometimes went off to get married and sometimes just . . . went off. Up until now, though, he’d never really thought that they might think, let alone what they thought about, and least of all what they thought about the wizards. He turned back to the table.
‘Who will be doing the chanting, Mister Stibbons?’
‘The aforesaid supporters, f
ans, sir. It’s short for fanatics.’
‘And ours will be . . . who?’
‘Well, we are the largest employer in the city, sir.’
‘As a matter of fact I think Vetinari is, and I wish to all hells I knew exactly who he is employing,’ said Ridcully.
‘I’m sure our loyal staff will support us,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He turned to Glenda, and to Ridcully’s dismay said, glutinously, ‘I’m sure you would be a fan, would you not, my child?’
The Archchancellor sat back. He had a definite feeling that this was going to be fun. Well, she hadn’t blushed and she hadn’t yelled. In fact, she had not done anything, apart from carefully pick up the china.
‘I support Dolly Sisters, sir. Always have done.’
‘And are they any good?’
‘Having a poor patch at the moment, sir.’
‘Ah, then I expect you will want to support our team, which will be very good indeed!’
‘Can’t do that, sir. You’ve got to support your team, sir.’
‘But you just said they weren’t doing well.’
‘That’s when you support your team, sir. Otherwise you’re a numper.’
‘A numper being . . .?’ said Ridcully.
‘He’s someone who’s all cheering when things are going well, and then runs off to another team when there’s a losing streak. They always shouts the loudest.’
‘So you support the same team all your life?’
‘Well, if you move away it’s okay to change. No one will mind much unless you go to a real enemy.’ She looked at their puzzled expressions, sighed and went on: ‘Like Naphill United and the Whoppers, or Dolly Sisters and Dimwell Old Pals, or the Pigsty Hill Pork Packers and the Cockbill Boars. You know?’
When they clearly didn’t, she continued: ‘They hate each other. Always have done, always will. They are the bad matches. The shutters go up for those. I don’t know what my neighbours would say if they saw me cheering a Dimmer.’
‘But that’s dreadful!’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
‘Excuse me, miss,’ said Ponder, ‘but most of those pairs are quite close to one another, so why do they hate one another so much?’
‘That at least is easy,’ said Dr Hix. ‘It’s hard to hate people who are a long way away. You forget how dreadful they are. But you see a neighbour’s warts every day.’
‘That’s just the sort of cynical comment I’d expect from a postmortem communicator,’ grumbled the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
‘Or a realist,’ said Ridcully, smiling. ‘But Dolly Sisters and Dimwell are quite far apart, miss.’
Glenda shrugged. ‘I know, but it’s always been like that. That’s how it is. That’s all I know.’
‘Well, thank you . . .?’ There was no mistaking the hanging question.
‘Glenda,’ she said.
‘I see there are a great many things we don’t yet understand.’
‘Yes, sir. Everything.’ She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It just escaped of its own accord.
There was a stirring among the wizards, who were nonplussed because what had happened could not really have happened. The tea trolley might as well have neighed.
Ridcully banged his hand on the table before the others could summon up words.
‘Well said, miss,’ he chuckled, as Glenda waited for the floor to open and swallow her. ‘And I’m sure that remark came from the heart, because I suspect it could not have come from the head.’
‘Sorry, sir, but the gentleman did ask for my opinion.’
‘Now, that one was from the head. Well done,’ said Ridcully. ‘So do, therefore, give us the benefit of your thinking, Miss Glenda.’
Still in a kind of shock, Glenda looked into the Archchancellor’s eyes and saw that it was no time to be less than bold, but that was unnerving too.
‘Well, what’s this all about, sir? If you want to play, just go and do it, yes? Why change things?’
‘The game of foot-the-ball is very behind the times, Miss Glenda.’
‘Well, so are you— Sorry, sorry, but, well. You know. Wizards are always wizards. Not a lot changes in here, does it? And then you talk about some Master of the Music to make a new chant, and that’s not how it goes. The Shove makes up the chants. They just happen. They just, like, come out of the air. And the pies are pretty awful, that’s true, but when you’re in the Shove, and it’s mucky weather, and the water’s coming through your coat, and your shoes are leaking, and then you bite into your pie, and you know that everyone else is biting into their pie, and the grease slides down your sleeve, well, sir, I don’t have the words for it, sir, I really don’t, sir. There’s a feeling I can’t describe, but it’s a bit like being a kid at Hogswatch, and you can’t just buy it, sir, you can’t write it down or organize it or make it shiny or make it tame. Sorry to speak out of turn, sirs, but that’s the long and the short of it. You must have known it, sir. Didn’t your father ever take you to a game?’
Ridcully looked down the table at the Council and noted a certain moistness of eye. Wizards were, largely, of that generation from which grandfathers are carved. They were also, largely, large, and awash with cynical crabbiness and the barnacles of the years, but . . . the smell of cheap overcoats in the rain, which always had a tint and taste of soot in it, and your father, or maybe your grandfather, lifting you on to his shoulders, and there you were, above all those cheap hats and scarves, and you could feel the warmth of the Shove, watch its tides, feel its heartbeat, and then, certainly, a pie would be handed up, or maybe half a pie if times were hard, and if they were really bad it might be a handful of fat greasy pease which were to be eaten one at a time to make them last longer . . . or when times were flush there might be a real treat, like a hot dog you didn’t have to share, or a plate of scouse, with yellow fat beading on the top and lumps of gristle you could chew at on the way home, meat which now you would not give to a dog but which was sacred lotus eaten with the gods, in the rain, in the cheering, in the bosom of the Shove . . .
The Archchancellor blinked. No time seemed to have passed, unless you count seventy years which had gone past like that. ‘Er, very graphically argued,’ he said, and pulled himself together. ‘Interesting points well made. But, you see, we have a responsibility here. After all, this city was just a handful of villages before my university was built. We are concerned about the fighting in the streets yesterday. We heard a rumour that someone was killed because he supported the wrong team. We can’t stand by and let this sort of thing happen.’
‘So you’ll be shutting down the Assassins’ Guild, will you, sir?’
There was a gasp from every mouth, including her own. The only rational thought that didn’t flee from her mind was: I wonder if that job is still going in the Fools’ Guild? The pay wasn’t much, but they do know how to appreciate a pie.
When she dared look, the Archchancellor was staring at the ceiling, while his fingers drummed on the table. I should have been more careful, Glenda whined in her own ear. Don’t get chatty with nobs. You forget what you are, but they don’t.
The drumming stopped. ‘Good point, well put,’ said Ridcully, ‘and I shall marshal my responses thusly.’ He flicked a finger and, with a smell of gooseberries and a pop, a small red globe appeared in the air over the table.
‘One: the Assassins, while deadly, are not random, and indeed are mostly a danger to one another. Assassination is only to be feared, generally speaking, by those powerful enough to have a stab, as it were, at defending themselves.’
Another little globe appeared.
‘Two: it is an article of faith with them that property is undamaged. They are invariably courteous and considerate and notoriously silent, and would never dream of inhuming their target in a public street.’
A third globe appeared.
‘Three: they are organized and therefore amenable to civic influence. Lord Vetinari is very keen on that sort of thing.’
And another globe popped
into life.
‘And four: Lord Vetinari is himself a trained Assassin, majoring in stealth and poisons. I am not sure he would share your opinion. And he is a Tyrant even if he has developed tyranny to such a point of metaphysical perfection that it is a dream rather than a force. He does not have to listen to you, you see. He doesn’t even have to listen to me. He listens to the city. I don’t know how he does, but he does. And he plays it like a violin’ – Ridcully paused, then went on – ‘or like the most complicated game you can imagine. The city works, not perfectly, but better than it has ever done. I think it’s time for football to change too.’ He smiled at her expression. ‘What is your job, young lady? Because you are wasted in it.’
It was probably meant as a compliment, but Glenda, her head so bewilderingly full of the Archchancellor’s words that they were trickling out of her ears, heard herself say, ‘I’m certainly not wasted, sir! You’ve never eaten better pies than mine! I run the Night Kitchen!’
The metaphysics of real politics were not a subject of interest to most of those present, but they knew where they were with pies. She was the centre of attention already, but now it blazed with interest.
‘You do?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘We thought it was the pretty girl.’
‘Really?’ said Glenda brightly. ‘Well, I run it.’
‘So who does that wonderful pie you send up here sometimes, with the cheese pastry and the hot pickle layer?’
‘The Ploughman’s Pie? Me, sir. My own recipe.’
‘Really? How do you manage to get the pickled onions to stay so hard and crispy in the baking? It’s just amazing!’
‘My own recipe, sir,’ said Glenda firmly. ‘It wouldn’t be mine if I told anyone else.’
‘Well said,’ said Ridcully gleefully. ‘You can’t go around asking craftsmen the secrets of their trade, old chap. It’s a thing you just don’t do. Now, I am concluding this meeting, although what it has in fact concluded I shall decide later.’ He turned back to Glenda. ‘Thank you for coming here today, Miss Glenda, and I shall not enquire why a young lady who works in the Night Kitchen is pouring tea up here at nearly noon. Do you have any further advice for us?’
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