He smiled, well aware that one wrong word from him would send shock-waves around the cavern and the result, whatever it was, would be his fault. Such is the fate of those who work only for the propagation of peace over warfare, and the way of the conscientious facilitator is a path strewn with thorns.
He looked at the angry councillors brandishing weapons around the huge table. It was as if being a dwarf meant that you lived in a permanent state that the term ‘grumpiness’ simply couldn’t convey. A conference of dwarfs was, in their language, a confusion of dwarfs.
His voice low, Rhys spoke. ‘For what purpose am I King? I will tell you. In a world where we formally recognize trolls, humans and, these days, all manner of species, even goblins, unreconstructed elements of dwarfdom persist in their campaign to keep the grags auditing all that is dwarfish.’
He looked sternly at Ardent as he continued, ‘Dwarfs from every area where dwarfs live in sufficient numbers have tried to modernize, but to no avail apart from those in Ankh-Morpork, and the shame of it is that often those determined to keep dwarfkind in the darkness have somehow inculcated their flocks into believing that change of any sort is a blasphemy, no specific blasphemy, just a blasphemy all by itself, spinning through the cosmos as sour as an ocean of vinegar. This cannot be!’
His voice rose and his fist crashed down on the table. ‘I am here to tell you, my friends and, indeed, my smiling enemies, that if we do not band together against the forces that wish to keep us in darkness dwarfkind will be diminished. We need to work together, talk to one another, deal properly with one another and not spend all our time in one enormous grump that the world isn’t entirely ours any more and, at the finish, ruin it for everyone. After all, who would deal with such as us in a world of new choices? In truth, we should act as sapient creatures should! If we don’t move with the future, the future will twist and roll right over us.’
Rhys paused to accommodate the inevitable outburst of Shame! and Not so! and all the other detritus of rotted debate, and then spoke again. ‘Yes, I recognize you, Albrecht Albrechtson. The floor is yours.’
The elderly dwarf, who had once been favourite to win the last election for Low King, said courteously, ‘Your majesty, you know I have no particular liking for the way that the world is going, nor some of your more modern ideas, but I have been shocked to discover that some of the more headstrong grags are still orchestrating attacks on the clacks system.’
The King said, ‘Are they mad?! We made it clear to this council and all dwarfs, after the message we received from Ankh-Morpork about their clacks being attacked, that this stupidity must cease at once. It’s even worse than the Nugganites,fn22 who were, to be sensible about this, totally and absolutely bloody insane.’
Albrecht coughed and said, ‘Your majesty, in this instance I find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with you. I am appalled to see things go this far. What are we but creatures of communication and communication accurately communicated is a benison to be cherished by all species everywhere. I never thought I would say this, but the news I am hearing lately, and am expected to delight in, makes me ashamed to call myself a dwarf. We have our differences and it’s right and proper that we should have them, and discourse and compromise are cornerstones in the proper world of politics, but here and now, your majesty, you have my full and unequivocal support. And as for those who stand in our way, I call down a murrain on them. I say, a murrain!’
There are uproars and there are uproars and this uproar stayed up for a very long time.
Eventually Albrecht Albrechtson brought his axe down on to the table, splitting the wood from top to bottom, bringing terrified silence across the gathered dwarfs, and said, ‘I support my King. That is what a King is for. A murrain, I said. A murrain. And a Ginnungagap for those that say different.’
Rhys Rhysson bowed in the direction of the old dwarf. ‘I thank you, my old friend, for your support. You have my undying gratitude and you leave me in your debt.’
Then, to some onlookers, the Low King might have looked a little taller. Over the hubbub, and there is no hubbub as bubbling as a dwarf hubbub, the King felt strangely buoyant, lifted, like the strange gases found around the crater of the Fifth Elephant. It seemed to the King that some of his councillors were suddenly thinking, actually thinking, and they had listened, actually listened. And now they were trying to think creatively.
Rhys continued, ‘Not for nothing is Ankh-Morpork the residence of even more dwarfs than live here in Uberwald; and we now know that quite a large number of our dwarfs are emigrating to the lands of Diamond King of Trolls. So it is that our traditional enemy is now a friend to the many fleeing from the agents of the grags.’
As he expected, the hubbub bubbled even more: wilful bubbled hatred, bubbled misunderstanding, bubbled spitefulness.
He said, ‘I tell you now that history will run straight over us squabbling dwarfs and I will not stand by and allow that history to end with our race brought down to the status of angry b’zugda-hiara! I am the King, by right, duly elected with all the proper observances. I was anointed on the Scone of Stone in accordance with traditions going back to the time of B’hrian Bloodaxe and I will serve the sacred duty by all means necessary. I declare these grags and their puppets are d’hrarak and I will not suffer their pernicious doctrines any more. I am the King, and I will be King!’
The uproar returned, as it always did, but Rhys thought he could see some comfort in the faces around the table and then his gaze ran into Ardent and triumph wobbled a little and he thought softly: sooner or later, my friend Mister Ardent, I will have to deal with you.
Lord Vetinari’s expression did not alter as he read the headline in the Ankh-Morpork Times: ‘LOCOMOTIVE PROJECT DANGEROUS FOR HEALTH’ followed in a much smaller font by ‘SO IT IS CLAIMED’. And it wouldn’t alter until he had had a word with the editor. Of course, the Patrician knew that any change was an affront to somebody, and quite clearly the proposed locomotive undertaking couldn’t hope to be anything other than a target.
‘Apparently,’ Vetinari remarked to Drumknott, ‘the pounding rhythm of the railway wagons will lead to immorality. This from a Mister Reginald Stibbings of Dolly Sisters.’ He signalled to one of the dark clerks. ‘Geoffrey, what do we know about this Mister Stibbings? Does he have a particular expertise in immorality?’
‘The one at Loose Chippings, my lord? I am informed that he has a very young mistress, sir. A young lady formerly employed at the Pink PussyCat, and very highly thought of there, I believe.’
‘Does he? An expert indeed, then.’ Vetinari sighed and continued, ‘Though of course I do not imagine it is in my remit to monitor the private doings of my people.’
‘My lord,’ interjected Drumknott. ‘As a tyrant that is, in fact, exactly what you do.’
Vetinari gave him a look that did not actually employ a raised eyebrow but which implied that one might be forthcoming if the recipient of the look pushed his luck. He shook the paper in front of him and continued. ‘A Mrs Baskerville from Peach Pie Street says that young ladies travelling on the train might find any kind of gentlemen sitting next to them.’ He thought for a moment and said, ‘In this city, expecting to encounter any kind of gentleman seems somewhat optimistic. But perhaps she has a point. It might be prudent to have compartments for ladies only. I rather think that Effie King would approve that.’
‘Excellent idea as always, sir.’
‘And what do we have here? A Captain Slope is very concerned about noxious gases around the lines of the railway.’
Lord Vetinari snapped his paper shut and exclaimed, ‘The people of Ankh-Morpork are already at home to noxious gases. It’s their birthright. Not only are they at home with them, they quietly persist in making more. It seems that Captain Slope is one of those people who won’t like the railway at any price. Suggesting that sheep will miscarry and horses will run until they die of exhaustion … Indeed, it seems that Captain Slope thinks the railway will be the end of the worl
d. Well, Drumknott, you know my motto: vox populi, vox deorum.’
Curious, the Patrician thought, as Drumknott hurried away to dispatch a clacks to the editor of the Times, that people in Ankh-Morpork professed not to like change while at the same time fixating on every new entertainment and diversion that came their way. There was nothing the mob liked better than novelty. Lord Vetinari sighed again. Did they actually think? These days everybody used the clacks, even little old ladies who used it to send him clacks messages complaining about all these new-fangled ideas, totally missing the irony. And in this doleful mood he ventured to wonder if they ever thought back to when things were just old-fangled or not fangled at all as against the modern day when fangled had reached its apogee. Fangling was indeed, he thought, here to stay. Then he wondered: had anyone ever thought of themselves as a fangler?
However, on the other hand, his lordship quite saw the point of the coach drivers and the others who even now, according to the Times, could see their business falling away if the railway were to be introduced, and he pondered, in such circumstances, what is the careful prince to do?
He thought, how many lives had been saved by the clacks, and not just lives: marriages and reputations and possibly thrones? The clacks towers now spanned the continent this side of the Hub and Adora Belle Dearheart had provided evidence that the clacksmen had several times spotted nascent fires, and on one occasion, outside Quirm, a shipwreck a little way out to sea – when they had clacksed that information to the nearest harbour master, saving all hands.
There was nothing for it but to follow the wave. New things, new ideas arrived and strutted their stuff and were vilified by some and then lo! that which had been a monster was suddenly totally important to the world. All the time the fanglers and artificers were coming up with even more useful things that hadn’t been foreseen and suddenly became essential. And the pillars of the world remained unshaken.
As a responsible tyrant, Lord Vetinari regularly audited his actions fearsomely and without favour. Trolls in Ankh-Morpork were rarely talked about these days because, amazingly, people barely thought of them as trolls any more, just as, well, large people. Much the same, although different. And then there was the position of the dwarfs, the Ankh-Morpork dwarfs. Dwarfish? Yes, but now on their own terms. The Low King was certainly aware that in Ankh-Morpork there was a large population of dwarfs that had taken a look at the future and decided to grab a slice of it. Tradition? they had thought. Well, if it suits us then every so often we’ll have a parade of all things dwarfish. Sons and daughters of our parents but, as it were, augmented. We have seen the city. The city where almost anything is plausible, if not possible, including, for the ladies, a better class of lingerie.
Far away in a small mine at Copperhead, Maelog Cheerysson the cobbler put down his hammer and tacks.
‘Look here, my boy,’ he said to his son, who was leaning on his work bench. ‘I’ve heard what you said about the grags being the salvation of dwarfs, and this morning I found this: it’s an iconograph of me in Koom Valley. The last time. Oh, yes, I was there, nearly everybody was there. We’d been told by the grags that the trolls were our enemies and I thought of them as nothing more than nasty big lumps of rock out to crush us! Well, we were all lined up facing the buggers, and then somebody shouted, “Trolls, put down your weapons! Dwarfs, put down your weapons! Humans, put down your weapons!”
‘And there we stood and we could all hear other voices in different languages and right in front of me there was this bloody big troll, oh my! He had his great big hammer ready to pulverize me. That was not to say that my axe wasn’t about to take his bloody knees off at the same time, but the voices were so loud that everybody stopped and looked around and he looked at me and I looked at him and he said, “What’s happening here, mister?” and I said, “I’m damned if I know!”
‘But I could see the other side of the valley and there was a great big kerfuffle between the top brass, all screaming about dropping our weapons, and I looked at the troll and he looked at me, and he said, “Are we going to have a war, or what?” and I said, “Oh, and I’m pleased to meet you, my name is Maelog Cheerysson,” and he sort of grinned and said, “They call me Smack, and I’m pleased to meet you.”
‘And all around us people were wandering around and asking one another what the hell was going on and were we fighting or were we not fighting and if we were fighting what were we fighting for? So some of the lads sat down and lit a fire for a brew-up, while at the other end of the valley the flags were fluttering and everybody was walking around like it was a holiday or something.
‘And then a dwarf came up to us and said, “Good fortune, lads, you’re going to see something that no one else has seen for millions of years,” and we did, I reckon. We were some way away from the front of the queue because trolls and humans and dwarfs were coming back out of the cavern, and every single one of them going past us looked as if he’d been hypnotized.
‘Now, I’ve told you about the miracle of Koom Valley before, my lad, but you haven’t seen this iconograph of me and Smack. It was took at the time just after we realized we weren’t going to be fighting that day and we all went in ones and twos into that cavern and saw the two kings: the king of the dwarfs and the king of the trolls, entombed in shining rock, playing Thud! And we saw it! And it was true! They’d been friends in death. And that gave us the signal that we needn’t be enemies in life.
‘And that was it until later Smack and me tried to find something both of us could drink. A lot of the people were doing the same thing, but the potion he gave me nearly blew my bloody head off. It certainly made my boots burn. Smack has got two kids now, you see, doing all right, working in Ankh-Morpork. Trolls ain’t all that good at writing, but I think of him and I think of Koom Valley every day.’
The old cobbler looked sideways at his son’s face and said, ‘You’re a smart boy. Smarter than your brother was … and I reckon you’ve got a question to ask me.’
The boy coughed and said, ‘If you saw them playing Thud, Dad, can you remember which one was about to win?’
The old dwarf laughed. ‘I asked that when I met Commander Vimes, and he wouldn’t tell me. We reckoned he probably broke a few pieces off so no one knew who the winner would be so some curious little fellow like you wouldn’t go off and try to start the whole damn war again.’
‘Commander Vimes? The Blackboard Monitor?’
‘Yes, it was him all right. Shook my hand. Shook both our hands.’
The boy’s tone was suddenly reverential. ‘You actually shook hands with the actual Commander Vimes!’
‘Oh, yes,’ said his father nonchalantly, as if meeting the famed Blackboard Monitor was all in a day’s work. ‘I suspect you have another question, my lad.’
And the boy frowned. ‘So, Dad, what’s going to happen to my brother?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. I sent a petition to Lord Vetinari, saying that Llevelys is a good lad who got into bad company. And I received a reply, and his lordship said that a young dwarf set fire to a clacks tower while people were working on it. And his punishment will be at his lordship’s leisure. And so I sent him another letter, saying that I had fought at Koom Valley. And I received another reply, and his lordship said that he understood that I didn’t fight at Koom Valley because fortunately nobody did, but he understood that I must do what I can for my eldest son, and as his lordship said, he will cogitate.’
The old dwarf sighed. ‘I’m still waiting, but as your mother says, while we’re not hearing anything, then he’s still alive. Now don’t tell me, my lad, that the grag extremists are on our side, because they ain’t. They’re the ones that’ll tell you that the dead kings have been made up in Ankh-Morpork and were dummies and so were we if we thought they were real. And, my boy, the dumb believe it! But I was there. What I touched I felt, and so did everybody else on that day and that’s why I get angry when the grags start preaching about the horrible humans and the terrible trolls.
Far away in the Oblong Office Drumknott put the midday edition of the Times in front of Lord Vetinari and looked down at Mr Cheerysson’s latest frantic petition, saying, ‘They’ve torched two more clacks towers, my lord, but so far no one has died. Except on their side, of course. Young dwarfs, badly advised. They should have known better.’
The silence enveloped Lord Vetinari. ‘Indeed,’ said his lordship, ‘but it is easy to be an idiot when you are seventeen and I would warrant that the grags who put them up to it are much older. There is no sense in breaking the arrow if, by acting sensibly, you may capture the archer. I’ll leave the Cheerysson boy thinking about his fortune in the Tanty for a while and will make a note to have him brought over to talk to me in a month or two. If he’s clever, his parents won’t be grieving, and I’ll have a number of names and, above all, the goodwill of his parents. Always worth thinking about, don’t you agree, Drumknott?’
‘Damage to property,’ said Drumknott speculatively.
‘Yes,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘That’s it.’
A few days later, Crossly quietly entered the master bedroom of the house in Scoone Avenue, nudged Moist, and, when that had no effect, finally pinched his ear in order to get his attention.
He whispered, ‘Excuse me, sir, but his lordship requires your presence at the palace immediately, and I am sure that neither of us would like to see the mistress troubled at this time, yes?’
At home and, for once, in bed at the same time as Moist, Adora Belle Dearheart was gently snoring, although she was certain that she did not.
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