The Senior Wrangler's hands shook with nervousness. Ever since the glorious day he had glimpsed Mrs. Whitlow's dress dummy through an open door he had harbored fantasies about her that he couldn't articulate. Through the difficult time when the Senior Faculty had slipped through a Door that took them thousands of years into the past and thousands of miles to the XXXX continent and then finally back via sailing ship to Ankh-Morpork, the very possibility of being in close proximity to the Housekeeper was enough to make him shake. Now, there was a possibility that his longings might have a chance of being requited.
It had begun, he thought, some decades back when that amazing little girl, Eskarina Smith, had essentially forced her way into Unseen University. Unlikely as it seemed at the time, she had begun as a downstairs maid. But then, through a series of impossibly unlikely events, the girl had managed to demonstrate that she was fully capable of mastering the kind of magic hitherto thought only possible to men. She'd graduated, enrolled in graduate studies, attained the degree of DM and then disappeared. That should, the Senior Wrangler thought, have been the end of it. But he was wrong. Now, Phoebe Emergent-Weatherwax, D. Thau., DM, was a member of the faculty and, against all probability, she was marrying Jeremy Barcbeadle, D. Thau., D.M., D.S., B.El.L.,
and doing it with the Archchancellor's approval
!
Precedent. That's what the Lore was all about. If it hadn't been done in the past it wasn't supposed to be done. But if it was, it could be done again. Now the Lore was on the cusp of allowing wizards to not only marry, but remain on faculty after they did. It was a Disc shaking development and one that the faculty either ignored, absently accepted or worried about depending on the nature of the Wizard. The Senior Wrangler was a worrier by inclination but because of his obsession with Mrs. Whitlow was of two minds. Should he worry or try to take advantage of the evident new order? In response, he did both. Having no experience in such matters and being too unsure of himself to ask his equally inexperienced colleagues, the Senior Wrangler did what any sensible Wizard would do. He went to the Library.
Knowledge=Power=Energy=Mass. Mass has gravity and enough of it warps space time. Unseen University's Library contains a thousand years (and 90,00o books) of powerful magical knowledge and so warps the space time around it that though it has a diameter of only a hundred yards, its interior radius is near infinite. Within lies every book ever written, every book ever contemplated and every book that could be. To the Senior Wrangler's surprise, an astounding number of them were written on the subject of attracting the attention and affection of the opposite sex. And most seemed to suggest that flowers made an excellent opening gambit. He certainly hoped they were right as he anxiously carried a bouquet of orchids down the hall to Mrs. Whitlow's quarters.
*****
'Holes' have been a magical phenomenon at Unseen for centuries occurring sporadically and eventually fading away. They seemed to connect two different points in the Multiverse's space time and each time one opened up, the younger Wizards became excited with their potential. Sadly, the total inability to control them always resulted in disappointment and occasionally in hysterics. This was, it had to be admitted, better than catastrophe but hardly merited them being potential objects of study. The negative attitude changed with the discovery that the previous Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography had managed to turn one into a Door leading onto a tropical island. There he spent Ankh-Morpork's miserable winters while the rest of his colleagues froze. When Ponder Stibbons, at the Archchancellor's insistence, turned the immense calculating power of Hex on the problem, steerable 'holes' were soon highly valued perks of faculty membership. Naturally, the Archchancellor got first dibs and opened a Doorway from his quarters onto a mile of virgin chalk stream where he happily spent his time casting trout flies and bringing the results to the kitchen.
Most of the faculty, however, followed the late professor's leadership and preferred palm covered islands surrounded by atolls and crystal lagoons—and, incidentally, covered in orchids. Naturally, the worse the weather outside UU, the more likely that the Wizards would be basking in warm sunshine and consuming vast quantities of fruit flavored rum drinks. Today was no different.
"So the Archchancellor has agreed to give you away and his brother will perform the ceremony?" Jeremy asked Phoebe, as they sat watching a spectacular sunset from a black sand beach.
"Oh, yes. And Mrs. Whitlow has already designed my gown and is industrially stitching away. Have you found a best man?"
"No," Jeremy replied with a wink, "I've decided on a best ape."
"Ook," replied the Librarian placing his hand across his chest and bowing slightly before helping himself to another banana. The Librarian was thrilled at the idea. It meant he could kiss the bridesmaids and they weren't allowed to run away. He had laid aside vast quantities of Grabpot Thundergust's pomade ("The Thaumaturge's Choice") just for the occasion.
"But if Mr. Librarian is your best ape, who will play the organ?"
Jeremy smiled. "I had a spot of good luck with that. The Archchancellor mentioned the issue to Commander Vimes and Lady Sybil graciously arranged for a pair of young goblin musical geniuses to take the Librarian's place at the console. They've even written an original score for the event. And did you know the Patrician is coming? Why, I believe he's even bringing Lady Margolotta. It will be the social event of the year!"
Phoebe blushed with pleasure. Never in all her wildest daydreams could she have imagined a life like this. She'd come to the Big Wahoonie from Lancre hoping against hope for a more interesting life than that of an upstairs maid in Lancre castle. And now here she was, only the second woman in the Disc's long history to attain the ranks of Wizardry and about to be a bride. She kept pinching herself to make sure it wasn't a dream.
*****
One good thing about a big bouquet is that if you aren't too terribly large, you can proffer it while hiding behind it. That was exactly the approach the Senior Wrangler took. Knocking timidly on Mrs. Whitlow's door, he stood quaking in his pointy toed shoes until she opened it and then thrust it forward in near panic.
Mrs. Whitlow blinked in surprise and then parted the blooms to see who was behind them.
Completely forgetting to attempt an upper class accent she beamed and said, "Why Senior Wrangler, 'ese is loverly! Wherever did you get 'm?"
Nearly squeaking in terror, the Senior Wrangler answered, "They're from Bang-bang Duc? And y—you c—can call me Horace?"
Mrs. Whitlow's mouth opened slowly into a soft 'O'. Senior Wrangler may have been a total novice in the courts of love but she, after living through four courtships, marriages and widowhoods recognized total, helpless infatuation when she saw it.
A possible husband number five? On her doorstep? And he was a Wizard, a member of the University Council? Was some god playing silly buggers with her? And yet, it made sense in a crazy kind of way. Through what she considered some silly, male prank she had found herself on a tropical island with warm pools to bathe in and infinite kinds (and amounts) of fruit and fish to enjoy. They'd left the island in a sailboat that looked like some sort of squash and when it broke up had been shipwrecked on XXXX, a place so full of raw magic that it even worried the Archchancellor. There, something had happened that left her permanently rejuvenated. She was not quite the stunning, flame-haired siren of her youth but nor was she the heavily overweight matron she was when Eskarina met her. Instead she had settled into a fine-figured maturity that suggested Time had been exceptionally kind.
