And then there were the golems. They hated golems, because they moved silently, for all their weight, and looked like trolls. They arrived and departed all the time, fetching timbers from who knew where, marching down into the dark…
And then one day golems came pouring out of the hole, there was a lengthy discussion and the smoking woman marched over to the watchers. They watched her nervously, as fighters do when approached by a self-confident civilian they know they're not allowed to kill.
In broken dwarfish she told them that the tunnel had collapsed, and she was going to leave. All the things they'd dug out, she said, were gifts for the King. And she left, taking the wretched golems with her.[3]
That was last week. Since then the tunnel had completely fallen in and the blowing sand had covered everything.
The money looked after itself. It sailed down the centuries, buried in paperwork, hidden behind lawyers, groomed, invested, diverted, converted, laundered, dried, ironed and polished and kept safe from harm and taxes, and above all kept safe from the Lavishes themselves. They knew their descendants — they'd raised them, after all — and so the money came with bodyguards of trustees, managers and covenants, disgorging only a measured amount of itself to the next generation, enough to maintain the lifestyle for which their name had become synonymous and with a bit left over for them to indulge in the family tradition of fighting amongst themselves over, yes, the money.
Now they were arriving, each family branch and often each individual with their own lawyer and bodyguards, being careful about whom they deigned to notice, just in case they inadvertently smiled at someone they were currently suing. As a family, people said, the Lavishes got along like a bagful of cats. Cosmo had watched them at the funeral, and they spent all their time watching one another, very much like cats, each one waiting for someone else to attack. But even so it would have been a decently dignified occasion, if only that moron nephew the old bitch had allowed to live in the cellar hadn't turned up in a grubby white coat and a yellow rain hat and kept on blubbing all through the ceremony. He had completely spoiled the occasion for everyone.
But now the funeral was over and the Lavishes were doing what they always did after funerals, which was talk about The Money.
You couldn't sit Lavishes around a table. Cosmo had set out small tables in a pattern that represented to the best of his knowledge the current state of the alliances and minor fratricidal wars, but there was a lot of shifting and scraping and threats of legal action before people settled down. Behind them the alert ranks of their lawyers paid careful attention, earning a total of a dollar every four seconds.
Apparently the only relative that Vetinari had was an aunt, Cosmo mused. That man had all the luck. When he was Vetinari, there would have to be a cull.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, when the hissing and name-calling had died away, 'I am so glad to see so many of you here today—'
'Liar!'
'Especially you, Pucci,' said Cosmo, smiling at his sister. Vetinari didn't have a sister like Pucci, either. No one did, Cosmo was prepared to bet. She was a fiend in vaguely human shape.
'You've still got something wrong with your eyebrow, you know,' said Pucci. She had a table by herself, a voice like a saw encountering a nail with a slight additional touch of foghorn, and was always referred to as 'a society beauty', which showed just how rich the Lavishes were. Cut in half, she might make two society beauties but not, at that point, very beautiful ones. While it was said that men she had spurned jumped off bridges in despair, the only person known to have said this was Pucci herself.
'I'm sure you all know—' Cosmo began.
'Thanks to your side of the family's total incompetence you have lost us the bank!'
That came from the far corner of the room, but it triggered a rising chorus of complaint.
'We are all Lavishes here, Josephine,' he said sternly. 'Some of us were even born a Lavish.'
That didn't work. It ought to have done. It would have done for Vetinari, Cosmo was sure. But for Cosmo, it only upset people. The growls of objection got louder.
'Some of us make a better job of it!' snapped Josephine. She was wearing a necklace of emeralds, and they reflected a greenish light on her face. Cosmo was impressed.
Whenever possible, Lavishes married distant cousins, but it wasn't uncommon for a few, every generation, to marry outside, in order to avoid the whole 'three thumbs' situation. The women found handsome husbands who did what they were told, while the men found wives who, amazingly, were remarkably good at picking up the petulance and shaved-monkey touchiness that was the mark of a true Lavish.
Josephine sat down with a poisonous look of satisfaction at the muttered chorus of agreement. She sprang up again, for an encore: 'And what do you intend to do about this unforgivable situation? Your branch has put a mountebank in control of our bank! Again!'
Pucci span in her seat. 'How dare you say that about Father!'
'And how dare you say that about Mr Fusspot!' said Cosmo.
It would have worked for Vetinari, he knew it. It would have made Josephine look silly and raised Cosmo's stock in the room. It would have worked for Vetinari, who could raise his eyebrow like a visual rim shot.
'What? What? What are you talking about?' said Josephine. 'Don't be so silly, child! I'm talking about this Lipwig creature! He's a postman, for goodness' sake! Why haven't you offered him money?'
'I have,' said Cosmo, and added for his inner ear: III remember 'child', you whey-faced old boot. When I am a master of the eyebrow we shall see what you say then!
'And?'
'I believe he is not interested in money.'
'Nonsense!'
'What about the little doggie?' said an elderly voice. 'What happens if it passes away, gods forbid?'
'The bank comes back to us, Aunt Careful,' said Cosmo, to a very small old lady in black lace, who was engaged in some embroidery.
'No matter how the little doggie dies?' said Aunt Carefulness Lavish, paying fastidious attention to her needlework. 'There is always the option of poison, I am sure.'
With an audible whoosh Aunt Careful's lawyer rose to his feet and said, 'My client wishes to make it clear that she is merely referring to the general availability of noxious substances in general and this is not intended to be and in no way should be taken as an espousal of any illegal course of action.'
He sat down again, fee earned.[4]
'Regrettably, the Watch would be all over us like cheap chain mail,' said Cosmo.
'Watchmen in our bank? Shut the door on them!'
'Times have moved on, Auntie. We can't do that any more.'
'When your great-grandfather pushed his brother over the balcony the Watch even took the body away for five shillings and a pint of ale all round!'
'Yes, Auntie. Lord Vetinari is the Patrician now.'
'And he'd allow watchmen to clump around in our bank?'
'Without a doubt, Auntie.'
'Then he is no gentleman,' the aunt observed sadly.
'He lets vampires and werewolves into the Watch,' said Miss Tarantella Lavish. 'It's disgusting, the way they're allowed to walk the streets like real people.'
— and something went ping! in Cosmo's memory.
'He's just like real people', said the voice of his father.
'This is your problem, Cosmo Lavish!' said Josephine, unwilling to see targets switched. 'It was your wretched father who—'
'Shut up,' said Cosmo calmly. 'Shut up. And those emeralds do not suit you, by the way.'
This was unusual. Lavishes might sue and conspire and belittle and slander, but there was such a thing as good manners, after all.
In Cosmo's head there was another ping, and his father saying: 'And he's managed to hide what he is so well, and at great pain. What he was is probably not even there any more. But you'd better know in case he starts acting funny. . .'
'My father rebuilt the business of the bank,' said Cosmo, the voice still ringing in his head as
Josephine drew breath for a tirade, 'and you all let him. Yes, you let him. You didn't care what he did so long as the bank was available to you for all your little schemes, the ones we so carefully conceal and don't talk about. He bought out all the small shareholders, and you didn't mind so long as you got your dividends. It was just a shame that his choice in chums was flawed—'
'Not as bad as his choice of that upstart music-hall girl!' said Josephine.
'—although his choice in his last wife, however, was not,' Cosmo went on. 'Topsy was cunning, devious, ruthless and merciless. The problem I have is simply that she was better at all this than you are. And now I must ask you all to leave. I am going to get our bank back. Do see yourselves out.'
He got up, walked to the door, shut it carefully behind him, and then ran like hell for his study, where he stood with his back to the door and gloated, an exercise he had just the face for.
Good old Dad! Of course, that little talk had been back when he was ten and didn't have his own lawyer yet, and hadn't fully embraced the Lavish tradition of prickly and guarded involvement. But Dad had been sensible. He hadn't just been giving Cosmo advice, he'd been giving him ammunition which could be used against the others. What else was a father for?
Mr Bent! Was… not just Mr Bent. He was something out of nightmares. At the time the revelation had scared young Cosmo, and later on he'd been ready to sue his father over those sleepless nights, in the very best Lavish tradition, but he'd hesitated and that was just as well. It would all have come out in court and he'd have thrown away a wonderful gift.
So the Lipwig fellow thought he controlled the bank, did he? Well, you couldn't run the bank without Mavolio Bent, and by this time tomorrow he, Cosmo Lavish, would own Mr Bent. Hmm, yes… leave it perhaps a little longer. Another day of dealing with Lipwig's bizarre recklessness would wind up poor Mr Bent to the point where Cranberry's special powers of persuasion would hardly be required. Oh, yes.
Cosmo pushed his eyebrow up. He was getting the hang of it, he was sure. He'd been just like Vetinari out there, hadn't he? Yes, he had. The look on the family's faces when he'd told Josephine to shut up! Even the recollection made his spine tingle…
Was this the time? Yes, just for a minute, perhaps. He deserved it… He unlocked a drawer in his desk, reached inside, and pressed the hidden button. On the other side of his desk a secret compartment slid out. From it, Cosmo took a small black skullcap. It seemed as good as new. Heretofore was a genius.
Cosmo lowered the cap on to his head with great solemnity.
Someone knocked on the study door. This was pointless, since it was then slammed open.
'Locking yourself in your room again, bro?' said Pucci triumphantly.
At least Cosmo had strangled the impulse to snatch the cap from his head as if he'd been caught doing something dirty.
'It was not in fact locked, as you see,' he said, 'and you are forbidden to come within fifteen yards of me. I have an injunction.'
'And you are not allowed to be within twenty yards of me, so you broke it first,' said Pucci, pulling up a chair. She straddled it heavily and rested her arms on the back. The wood creaked.
'I wasn't the one who moved, I think?'
'Well, cosmically it's all the same,' said Pucci. 'You know, that's a dangerous obsession you have there.'
Now Cosmo took off the cap. 'I'm simply trying to get inside the man,' he said.
'A very dangerous obsession.'
'You know what I mean. I want to know how his mind works.'
'And this?' Pucci said, waving a hand at the large picture that hung on the wall opposite the desk.
'William Pouter's Man with dog. It's a painting of Vetinari. Notice how the eyes follow you around the room.'
'The dog's nose follows me around the room! Vetinari has a dog?'
'Had. Wuffles. Died some time ago. There's a little grave in the palace grounds. He goes there alone once a week and puts a dog biscuit on it.'
'Vetinari does that?'
'Yes.'
'Vetinari the cool, heartless, calculating tyrant?' said Pucci.
'Indeed!'
'You're lying to your sweet dear sister, yes?'
'You can choose to believe that if you wish.' Cosmo exulted, deep inside. He loved to see that irate-chicken expression of furious curiosity on his sister's face.
'Information like that is worth money,' she said.
'Indeed. And I'm only telling you because it's useless unless you know where he goes, at what time, and on which day. It just may be, dear sweet Pucci, that what you call my obsession is in fact of great practical use. I watch, study and learn. And I believe that Moist von Lipwig and Vetinari must share some dangerous secret which could even—'
'But you just weighed in and offered Lipwig a bribe!' You could say this about Pucci: she was easy to confide in because she never bothered to listen. She used the time to think about what to say next.
'A ridiculously small one. And a threat, too. And so now he thinks he knows all about me,' said Cosmo, not even trying not to look smug. 'And I know nothing about him, which is even more interesting. How did he turn up out of nowhere and immediately get one of the highest jobs in—'
'What the hell is that?' demanded Pucci, whose massive inquisitiveness was hampered by the attention span of a kitten. She was pointing at the little diorama in front of the window.
'That? Oh—'
'Looks like an ornamental window-box. Is it Toytown? What's that all about? Tell me right now!'
Cosmo sighed. He didn't actually dislike his sister — well, more than the natural basic feeling of irksomeness all Lavishes felt for one another — but it was hard to like that loud, nasal, perpetually irritated voice, which treated anything Pucci didn't immediately understand, which was practically everything, as a personal affront.
'It is an attempt to achieve, by means of scale models, a view similar to that seen from the Oblong Office by Lord Vetinari,' he explained. 'It helps me think.'
'That's crazy. What kind of dog biscuit?' said Pucci.
Information also travelled through Pucci's apprehension at different speeds. It must be all that hair, thought Cosmo.
'Tracklement's Yums,' he said. 'The bone-shaped ones that come in five different colours. But he never leaves a yellow one because Wuffles didn't like them.'
'You know they say Vetinari is a vampire?' said Pucci, going off at a tangent to a tangent.
'Do you believe it?' said Cosmo.
'Because he's tall and thin and wears black? I think it takes a bit more than that!'
'And is secretive and calculating?' said Cosmo.
' You don't believe it, do you?'
'No, and it wouldn't make any real difference if he was, would it? But there are other people with more… dangerous secrets. Dangerous to them, I mean.'
'Mr Lipwig?'
'He could be one, yes.'
Pucci's eyes lit up. 'You know something, don't you?'
'Not exactly, but I think I know where there is something to be known.'
'Where?'
'Do you really want to know?'
'Of course I do!'
'Well, I have no intention of telling you,' said Cosmo, smiling. 'Don't let me detain you!' he added, as Pucci stormed out of the room.
Don't let me detain you. What a wonderful phrase Vetinari had devised. The jangling double meaning set up undercurrents of uneasiness in the most innocent of minds. The man had found ways of bloodless tyranny that put the rack to shame.
What a genius! And there, but for an eyebrow, went Cosmo Lavish.
He would have to make good the failings of cruel nature. The mysterious Lipwig was the key to Vetinari, and the key to Lipwig—
It was time to talk to Mr Bent.
Chapter 5
Spending spree — Inadvisability of golem back-rubs — Giving away money — Some observations on the nature of trust — Mr Bent has a visitor — One of the Family
WHERE DO YOU TEST a bankable idea? Not
in a bank, that was certain. You needed to test it where people paid far more attention to money, and juggled their finances in a world of constant risk where a split-second decision meant the difference between triumphant profit or ignominious loss. Generically it was known as the real world, but one of its proprietary names was Tenth Egg Street.
The Boffo Novelty and Joke Shop, in Tenth Egg Street, prop. J. Proust, was a haven for everyone who thought that fart powder was the last word in humour, which in many respects it is. It had caught Moist's eye, though, as a source of material for disguises and other useful things.
Moist had always been careful about disguises. A moustache that could come off at a tug had no place in his life. But since he had the world's most forgettable face, a face that was still a face in the crowd even when it was by itself, it helped, sometimes, to give people something to tell the Watch about. Spectacles were an obvious choice, but Moist got very good results with his own design of nose and ear wigs. Show a man a pair of ears that small songbirds had apparently nested in, watch the polite horror in his eyes, and you could be certain that that would be all he remembered.
Now, of course, Moist was an honest man, but part of him felt it necessary that he keep his hand in, just in case.
Today he bought a pot of glue and a large jar of fine gold sprinkles, because he could see a use for them.
'That will be thirty-five pence, Mr Lipwig,' said Mr Proust. 'Any new stamps coming along?'
'One or two, Jack,' said Moist. 'How's Ethel? And little Roger,' he added, after only a moment's shuffle through the files in his head.
'Very well, thank you for asking. Can I get you anything else?' Proust added hopefully, in case Moist might have a sudden recollection that life would be considerably improved by the purchase of a dozen false noses.
Moist glanced at the array of masks, scary rubber hands and joke noses, and considered his needs satisfied. 'Only my change, Jack,' he said, and carefully laid one of his new creations on the counter. 'Just give me half a dollar.'
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