More Tales From The Guilds Ch 32

More Tales From the Guilds, Ch. 32

One morning in the year of the Anxious Anteater, when young Sam and Li were about fourteen, Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, sat down to Second Breakfast. His day normally began with a thirty minute jog, fifty push-ups, a shower and a clean set of clothes under his academic robes. Then he would go into the usually vacant dining hall for a First Breakfast buffet. By the time he was ready for Second Breakfast, the rest of the faculty began to groggily filter in and the kitchen staff started serving. This morning the Archchancellor helped himself to a halved, peeled and seeded avocado that he liberally doused with Wow-wow Sauce and then turned with a smile to a pair of split, broiled tomatoes, a pot of beans, a large slab of ham, six eggs over easy, and a pile of hash browned potatoes. It would, he thought, carry him through to Early Luncheon if he poured enough Wow-wow over the lot. Wow-wow went especially well with the eggs which in turn chopped well into the potatoes.

Diagonally across the table from him the New Dean looked down at the generous spread before him and rubbed his hands together in anticipation, a light of pure gluttony in his eyes.

"Dean," the Archchancellor asked, "that's quite the stylish new set of robes you have on. Did something happen to your usuals?"

The Dean looked a bit sheepish. The garments wizards wore under their robes got washed regularly and replaced periodically but the academic robes tended to be worn until they disintegrated. It was Tradition!

"Well, Archchancellor, I was walking down the hall when Mrs. Whitlow caught my eye and held up a hand. When I stopped, she walked a small circle around me, tugged on my sleeves and shoulders a bit, frowned and tsked. She told me that my robes (and my suit under them) simply no longer fit and I should report that afternoon to her grace-and-favor apartment for a new tailoring. Did you know that she has hired several more young needlewomen? It seems that this new idea of Peak Bagging has caught on rather thoroughly with the faculty and some of us have lost so much weight that we are in need of new garments."

Ridcully's facial expression remained unchanged but if you had looked closely you just might have detected a twinkle in his eye.

"Have you now? It does seem that the consumption at Second Breakfast is up. One might even be convinced that a gentle hill in the morning has perked up some appetites."

He looked aside towards Rincewind who had apparently put in an order the evening before as he was now preparing to tuck into a breakfast of a substantial steak (smothered in mushrooms), accompanied by two large potatoes, mashed with lots of butter, sliced oranges and a very large mug of coffee. The Archchancellor blinked in surprise. Rincewind had spent his entire life fleeing at top speed from--almost everything. Because of that he was wiry and slim and had, to Ridcully's belief, not an spare ounce of fat on him. And yet, the order that all members of the faculty engage in physical activity had somehow gotten down to the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography with the result that even Rincewind was eating more now. It was most gratifying.

As he savored his second meal of the day, the Archchancellor reflected on his years since accepting the position. He'd attained the rank of 7

th

level wizard at the remarkably young age of twenty-seven but instead of settling into the hurly-burly of the university's politics of the time, had gone home to his family's vast estates in the countryside around the Ramtops. His father had met an untimely death while out deer stalking and so young Mustrum had taken over management of the extensive holdings and had run them very profitably, even teaching his eldest nephew how to go about it. Those had been very good years, full of shooting, ferreting, angling and wild-game dinners. Then came the letter from Unseen that upset the entire thing. Mustrum had not been pleased but when Duty calls, a Ridcully must answer--so he went to the kitchen garden and pulled off the scarecrow garb from his staff and set out.

Unseen University was

not

prepared for Mustrum Ridcully! The senior faculty were looking for someone who could hold the position long enough for the others to recover from the effects of having a Sourcerer in their midst and who, if he became an annoyance, could be 'dealt with'. In other words, they thought they were getting a country wizard who was at one with nature and spoke to the birds. What they got instead was a

force

of nature who

shot

at the birds--and everything else. For centuries the customary method of advancing through the ranks had been by 'dead men's pointy shoes', that is to say murdering the wizard above you. With Ridcully in the Archchancellor's office, this custom came to a sudden, painful halt. The man simply could not be killed. One wizard after another had his head repeatedly slammed in a door, his ears pinned to a wall by pistol crossbow bolts, been stabbed with his own knife or left with a permanent limp until, at last, the faculty just gave up and relaxed into the calm of a permanent hierarchy--with Ridcully at the top.

Once that was settled, the new Archchancellor set about a series of what he considered badly needed reforms. Convincing his 'peers' that sending a nastily worded memo was just as satisfying as shooting a fireball, a cross-bow bolt or thrown dagger (while still leaving both parties able to meet later for one of the dining hall's sumptuous meals) wasn't terribly hard. However, getting them to arise at dawn for some healthy exercise had heretofore simply been impossible, even with the University 'helpfully' providing them with a very complete gymnasium. Though many of the students were delighted, it turned out that the only way Ridcully could get the faculty to follow his example was to make them believe that they were somehow outsmarting him. It had taken years but at last success seemed to be peeking over the horizon.

Feeling rather proud of himself, the Archchancellor happily accepted a proffered quartet of sausages, topped them with more Wow-wow and finished with a flagon of ale. His day was off to a good start.

*****

In the dining room of Ramkin Manor, (AKA Crundells) Sammy and Lethality indulged themselves with hearty breakfasts of their own. Eggs, bacon, butter and jam-topped scones and juicy slices of melon disappeared to their parents' approval. The senior Vimes weren't surprised. Sammy was having a growth spurt and had entered The Hungry Years which are normal for a boy of his age. Having Li match him plate for plate was a bit more unusual but the swimming pond had been getting a lot of use lately and one can only expend so many calories before the need to refuel catches up with you.

"My goodness, you two," Lady Sybil exclaimed with delight, "It's a good thing the estate is productive. At the rate you're going, the larder might need replenishing early. So what is on the schedule for today?"

Sammy cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow at Li.

"I went down to the Game Room last night and aside from more crossbows than I've ever seen in one place outside of Burleigh and Stronginthearm, it has an enormous number of different kinds of fishing rods and reels. I thought it might be fun to take the carpets out over the river and see what we might be able to catch."

"Coo," Li replied, "I've never been fishing before. The only river I've ever been to is the Ankh and it's only a river, people say, because the mud flows a little faster than the banks. I'm not sure I'd want to catch anything that could live in that but since the Quire is a lot cleaner, it might be fun. Let's do it!"

*****

*****

Most of his life the Duke of Ankh, Commander of the Watch, Sir Samuel Vimes had centered his attention on crime and the City Watch. Hobbies, he felt, were something that nobs with no particular reason to exist used as an excuse to take up space and consume oxygen. This attitude continued through the first years of his marriage and he basically tolerated Lady Sybil's devotion to her swamp dragons--until one fateful day when Deep Downer dwarfs invaded his home and attacked his family. On that dark evening a dwarf had gone to the dragon barn to kill his wife while she was feeding coke to the cocks. The fire weapon he totted had had no effect on her dragon breeders' armor but as he pumped it up for another try, all down the lines of pens, dragon heads rose on long dragon necks.

Their nostrils flared. They breathed in. They'd been challenged. They'd been

offended

. And they'd just had their supper.

Twenty-six streams of answering dragon fire rose to the occasion and reduced the attacker to a pair of iron boots cooling from white heat in a glassy puddle of molten sand. They had drawn a line that day that brooked no passing. Maybe, Vimes thought later, there was something good to say about the concept of 'hobby', especially when it came to the defense of his home.

Then, about five years later, Lady Sybil, the Patrician and Captain Carrot had conspired to make the Commander take a vacation. He hadn't liked the idea and knew full well that if he went someplace, a crime was guaranteed to happen and he would have to investigate. It turned out that not only was he right but that the crime was monstrous. A scapegrace son of one of the city's oldest aristocratic families had embarked on a smuggling endeavor. The tobacco end of it involved enslaving members of the goblin community who lived in the caves beneath the Ramkin estates and using the tobacco barrels to conceal hard drugs headed to the trolls in the mountains. It had ended with young Gravid Rust being exiled to XXXX, his right-hand henchman dying under the knife of Vimes' butler, Willikins, and the goblins being recognized as sapient species by the rest of the population of the Disc. Just incidentally, Vimes had discovered that he really,

really

enjoyed skippering a paddle-wheeler up and down the Quire. He, too, had found a hobby.

When the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway arrived in Ankh-Morpork, its steam power lit a bulb over the Commander's head. If you could enable a locomotive with a steam engine, why could you not do the same with a river boat? And so the paddle wheeler

Lady Sybil

was launched. Ever since then the Vimes-Ramkin and Wiggs families had made a point of spending the pleasantest months of the year at Ramkin Manor. This let Sir Samuel go, if not yachting, then at least steaming the navigable lengths of the Quire. B.A. Wiggs acted a First Officer, the wives drank tea, gardened and chatted happily and both offspring spent a lot of time either swimming or packing in the calories to fuel more swimming. Lethality would have preferred more intimate physical activities with Sammy but since she still hadn't been able to convince her mother to tell her how to go about such things, she patiently behaved herself. Well, make that

im

patiently behaved herself.

As Sammy loaded up on angling gear he heard a snicker behind him so he turned around.

"Hmmm?"

"Sammy, look," Li held up a eight foot pole with a trident head, "it's a frog gig."

"Frog gig?"

"Hm-mmm. We learned about them in the Guild school and were warned, very emphatically, that they were forbidden for use on clients."

"Okay, so what do you use them on? Frogs?"

"Yeah. You go out at night with a light, shine the light in the frog's eyes and then when it's blinded and immobilized you stick the gig in them. It's not complicated, you just have to move slowly and jab accurately. We could take the carpets out after dark and see if we can gather up a mess of them. Frog legs in the Quirmian manner are a real treat. Have you ever had them?"

"Uh, no. What do frog legs taste like?"

"Kind of like chicken breast with a slight overlay of trout. I love 'em."

"Hmpf! Well if we tried to serve them for dinner Dad would probably complain that there was too much

avec

for his taste but they sound interesting. Let's go fishing this morning and then after dinner we can go out to the swimming pond and see if we can scare up some frogs. If we wade out neck deep we should be able to sneak up close."

Loading their Cloudsplitter carpets with rods, reels, lures of multiple kinds, a cold box and quite a hearty lunch, the pair set off through the air accompanied by their Kh'olli dogs, Rolf and Fluffles, and pet swamp dragons, Twyla and Stanley. Approaching the Quire they saw smoke billowing out of the stacks of the

Lady Sybil

as the engineer fired up the boilers. Swinging by the bridge they looked in to see their fathers checking gauges and preparing to embark for a round trip to Quiremouth. They waved, their fathers waved back and the pair set off upstream.

Sammy had gone into the manor house's library and found a signed copy of

Ye Totale Anglore

, a renowned treatise by the legendary Isaak Walden. Antiquarian book collectors in Ankh-Morpork would have considered it a treasure to be handled with white cotton gloves and kept in a dedicated, acid-free box. The Marquess of Quire looked on it as a reference work and planned on using it to teach Li how to fish. Isaak had not been a fly angler nor had he been obsessed with trout. If it swam, he'd try and catch it and if he succeeded, he'd eat it. His approach to fishing had been very direct and purposeful. Things that swam could be caught and if caught could be cooked and once cooked could be consumed--simple and to the point.

Sammy on the other hand, had come under the tutelage of Archchancellor Ridcully. The Archchancellor was equally direct and straightforward in his approach and would cast to anything from a perch to a crocodile with gastronomy aforethought. He was, though, an ardent fly angler and disdained to use either natural bait or metallic lures. Sammy, like Walden, was more catholic in his approach. The goal of fishing was to catch fish, he believed, and how one went about it was a matter of personal choice. He enjoyed casting flies but today's goal was for his 'little friend' to catch some fish and bring them home to the cook for supper. Hence the inclusion of several boxes of live bait in the tackle. Red worms, mealworms, night crawlers, maggots, crayfish, and a large jar of minnows ought, in the Marquess' opinion, to provide enough variety to attract the attention of some sort of scaley denizen of the Quire. He also had a box of brightly colored and shiny spoons and spinners. Whatever the fish wanted, the pair would just keep throwing until something down in the water could no longer resist and bit, if only from sheer exasperation.

As they floated above the river, Lethality suddenly raised a hand and stopped her Cloudsplitter. Putting her hands behind her ears for a moment, she turned to Sammy and asked, "What's that music? It's wonderful!"

Sammy grinned. "That's Tears of the Mushroom playing her harp. She lives in the caverns under the hill with the rest of her tribe. She may be the most brilliant musician on the Disc. Mother had her play a concert in Ankh-Morpork and the entire audience was so overwhelmed with the beauty that they unanimously agreed that goblins were a sentient species and welcomed them into society. That's why you see so many of them working on the clacks and the railroad. Tears of the Mushroom is a friend of mine. We can go visit while we're here. Dad isn't going to be in any hurry to leave the

Lady Sybil

, now that he knows she works so we have plenty of time. C'mon, let's go catch some fish. We could even drop some off for the goblins."

According to

Ye Totale Anglore,

one should look for dead trees extending out into the water, low overhanging branches with shade and the outer banks of oxbows where reeds and grasses rose above the surface. These provided places where small fish could hide and large fish could hunt for small fish. Tying a hook on the end of a gut leader he threaded a red worm on and gently lobbed it near some exposed branches.

"Now you do the same thing with a mealworm," he told Li, "and we'll just keep changing baits until we find one that works. If nothing does, we'll go fish somewhere else."

No sooner had he finished when the tip of his rod took a sudden jerk and began bouncing around.

"Fish on!" Li squealed in delight, "It looks like red worms are the ticket. Give me that carton."

The following hour provided much excitement until the bite stopped. Changing baits had no effect but the pair were quite happy with their morning's sport and the resulting cool box full of fat perch.

"Well, that takes care of supper tonight," Li remarked, "and probably breakfast tomorrow. I guess we'd better head back for the manor house and start cleaning these."

"Yup," Sammy answered, "It's the house rule. The one who bags the game, cleans the game. Cook has always been quite firm about that and Dad agrees."

*****

Lance Corporal Cuddi was on the front desk that same day and quizzically watched the rather-worse-for-wear citizen limp out of the Watch headquarters and down the steps. She then looked down at the complaint he'd made. It was strange and slightly unbelievable on paper, but the man's condition was so dilapidated and broken down that it seemed it must be true. So when Sgt Colon came by, she showed it to him.

Fred's eyes opened wide as he slowly ran his fingers under the words on the report, mouthing them as he read. He handed it back with a gob-smacked expression on his round, placid face.

"You haven't been here in the city all that long, Lance Corporal, so I'm not surprised that y' don't understan' this. I'm a little confused about it meself and it's somethin' I've got to go tell Captain Carrot about, what with the Commander bein' out visitin' the countryside an' all. We used to get these pretty reg'lar back when I was young but I haven't seen one in years. Two old ladies beatin' up some guy? With a purse and an umbrella? That has t' be Sadie and Dotsie. I thought they were dead! We used to call 'em the Agony Aunts and they were the enforcement branch of the Seamstresses. Mistreat one of the girls and you were guaranteed a visit from them. If you were lucky, you might even survive, but it could be a near thing. This citizen must have been misbehaving in one of the Houses of Negotiable Affection."

"Really? He didn't say anything about a Seamstress, just that these two old ladies had come out of a tea shop, dragged him into an alley and laid into him."

Fred nodded. "I believe that. It's embarrassin' enough to get pounded by a pair of ancient ladies but to admit that you had it comin'? Well, as I said, I believe it. I've got to tell the Captain. Steady as you go, Lance Corporal."

Captain Carrot pursed his lips, furrowed his forehead and read the report again. As Colon had said, no reports about the Agony Aunts has been filed with the Watch in years and years. That

could

mean that no-one the two old ladies had 'disciplined' in recent years had survived to tell the tale

or

that the clients on the Street of Negotiable Affection had learned to treat the Seamstresses with a lot more respect than had once been the case. It could, on the other hand, also mean that Sadie and Dotsie had always been either some kind of demigoddesses and immortal or that the Guild of Seamstresses had decided that their role needed refilling. In any case, it really wasn't Watch business. If you didn't want to have your sexual misbehavior shoved up your nose, so to speak, you just should mind your P's and Q's.