Unseen Academicals (22 page)

She settled for: ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

Gloing! Gloing!

The new ball was magic, that’s what it was. It bounced back to Trev’s waiting hand as if by its own free will. For two pins he’d risk kicking it, but he and Nutt and the ball were already picking up a trail of curious street urchins such that he would be guaranteed never to see it again.

‘Are you really sure you know ’ow it works?’ he said to Nutt.

‘Oh, yes, Mister Trev. It’s a lot simpler than it looks, although the polyhedrons will need some work, but overall—’

A hand landed on Trev’s shoulder. ‘Well, now. Trev Likely,’ said Andy. ‘And his little pet, harder to kill than a cockroach, by all accounts. Something’s going on, ain’t it, Trev? And you’re going to tell me what it is. Here, what’s that you’re holding?’

‘Not today, Andy,’ said Trev, backing away. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t end up in the Tanty with Mister One Drop measurin’ you up for a hemp collar.’

‘Me?’ said Andy innocently. ‘I didn’t do a thing! Can’t blame me for what a thicko Stollop does, but something is going on with the football, ain’t it? Vetinari wants to muck it about.’

‘Just leave it alone, will you?’ said Trev.

There was more than the usual gang behind Andy. The Stollop
brothers had sensibly spared the streets their presence lately, but people like Andy could always find followers. Like they said, it was better to be beside Andy than in front of him. And with Andy you never knew just when he was—

The cutlass was out in one movement. That was Andy. Whatever it was inside that held back the primeval rage could flick off just like that. And here came the blade with Trev’s future written on it in very short words. And it stopped in mid air and Nutt’s voice said, ‘I believe I could squeeze with enough pressure, Andy, to make your bones grind and flow. There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand. I truly believe that I could make every one of them useless with the slightest extra pressure. However, I would like to give you a chance to revise your current intentions.’

Andy’s face was a mix of colours: a white that was almost blue and a rage that was almost crimson. He was trying to pull away and Nutt stood calmly and was completely immoveable. ‘Get ’im!’ Andy hissed at the world in general.

‘Could I regretfully remind you gentlemen that I have another hand?’ said Nutt.

He must have squeezed because Andy yelped as his hand ground against the weapon’s handle.

Trev knew all too well that Andy did not have friends, he had followers. They were looking at their stricken leader and they were looking at Nutt, and they could see very clearly not only that Nutt had a spare hand, but what he was capable of doing with it. They did not move.

‘Very well,’ said Nutt. ‘Perhaps this has been nothing more than an unfortunate misunderstanding. I am about to release my grip just enough for you to drop the cutlass, Mister Andy, please.’

There was another intake of breath from Andy as the cutlass landed on the stones.

‘Now, if you would excuse us, Mister Trev and I are going to walk away.’

‘Take the bloody cutlass! Don’t leave the cutlass on the ground,’ said Trev.

‘I am sure Mister Andy would not come after us,’ said Nutt.

‘Are you bloody mad?’ said Trev. He reached down, snatched up the cutlass and said, ‘Let ’im go and let’s get a move on.’

‘Very well,’ said Nutt. He must have squeezed a little harder because now Andy slumped to his knees.

Trev pulled Nutt away and towed him through the permanent city crowd. ‘That’s Andy!’ he said, hurrying them along. ‘You don’t expect logic with Andy. You don’t expect him to “learn the error of his ways”. Don’t look for any sense when Andy’s after you. Got that? Don’t try talkin’ to ’im as if ’e’s a human being. Now, keep up with me.’

Dwarf shops were doing well these days, largely because they understood the first rule of merchandising, which is this: I have got goods for sale and the customer has got money. I should have the money and, regrettably, that involves the customer having my goods. To this end, therefore, I will not say ‘The one in the window is the last one we have, and we can’t sell it to you, because if we did no one would know we have them for sale’, or ‘We’ll probably have some more on Wednesday’, or ‘We just can’t keep them on the shelves’, or ‘I’m fed up with telling people there’s no demand for them’ I will make a sale by any means short of physical violence, because without one I am a waste of space.

Glang Snorrisson lived by this rule, but he didn’t like people much, an affliction that affects many who have to deal with the general public over a long period, and the two people on the other side of his counter were making him edgy. One was small and looked harmless, but something so deep down in Glang’s psyche that it was probably stuffed in his genes was making him nervous. The other intru—customer was not much more than a boy and therefore likely to commit a crime any moment.

Glang dealt with the situation by not understanding anything they said and uttering silly insults in his native tongue. There was hardly a risk. Only the Watch learned Dwarfish, and it came as a surprise when the worryingly harmless one said, in better Llamedos Dwarfish than Glang himself spoke these days: ‘Such incivility to the amiable stranger
shames your beard and erases the writings of Tak, ancient merchant.’

‘What did you say to him?’ Trev asked, as Glang spluttered out apologies.

‘Oh, just a traditional greeting,’ said Nutt. ‘Could you pass me the ball, please?’ He took the football and bounced it on the floor.

Gloing!

‘I suspect you might know the trick of making brimstoned rubber?’

‘That was my…my grandfather’s name,’ Glang stuttered.

‘Ah, a good omen,’ said Trev quickly. He caught the ball and batted it down again.

Gloing!

‘I can cut out and stitch the outer cover if you will work on the bladder,’ said Nutt, ‘and we will pay you fifteen dollars and allow you a licence to make as many more as you wish.’

‘You’ll make a fortune,’ said Trev encouragingly.

Gloing! Gloing!
went the ball, and Trev added, ‘That’d be a university licence, too. No one would dare mess with it.’

‘How come you know about brimstoned rubber?’ said Glang. He had the look about him of someone who knows that he is outnumbered but will go down fighting.

‘Because King Rhys of the dwarfs presented a dress of brimstoned rubber and leather to Lady Margolotta six months ago, and I’m pretty sure I understand the principle.’

‘Her? The Dark Lady? She can kill people with a thought!’

‘She is my friend,’ said Nutt calmly, ‘and I will help you.’

Glenda wasn’t quite sure why she tipped the troll tuppence. He was elderly and slow, but his upholstery was well kept and he had twin umbrellas and it was no fun for trolls to come this far, because the kid gangs would have graffitied them to the waist by the time they got out of there.

She felt hidden eyes on her as she walked up to her door, and it didn’t matter.

‘All right,’ she said to Juliet. ‘Have a night off, okay?’

‘I’ll go back to work with you,’ said Juliet, to her surprise. ‘We need the money and I can’t tell Dad about the fifty dollars, can I?’

There was a small collision of expectations in Glenda’s head as Juliet went on: ‘You’re right, it’s a steady job and I want to keep it an’ I’m so fick I’d prob’ly muck up the other one. I mean, it was fun and all that, but then, I thought, well, you always gave me good advice, an’ I remembered that time you kicked Greasy Damien in the goolies so hard when he was messin’ me around, he walked bent double for a week. Besides, if I go away with them it means leaving the street, and Dad and the lads. That’s really scary. An’ you said be careful about fairy stories, and you’re right, half the time it’s goblins. An’ I don’t know how I’d get on without you puttin’ me right. You are solid, you are. I can’t remember you not bein’ around, and when one of the girls sniggered about your old coat I told her you work very hard.’

Glenda thought, I used to be able to read you like a book–one with big colourful pages and not many words. And now I can’t. What’s happening? You’re agreeing with me and I ought to feel smug about it, but I don’t. I feel bad about it, and I don’t know why, and that hurts.

‘Maybe you ought to sleep on it,’ she suggested.

‘No, I’d mess it up, I know I would.’

‘Do you feel all right?’ Something inside Glenda was shouting at her.

‘I’m okay,’ said Juliet. ‘Oh, it was fun and that, but it’s for nobby girls, not me. It’s all glitter, nuffin’ you can hold. But a pie’s a pie, right? Solid! Besides, who’d look after Dad and the lads?’

No, no, no
, screamed Glenda’s voice in her own head,
not that! I didn’t want that
. Oh, didn’t I? Then what did I think I was doing, passing on all that old toot? She looks to me, and I’ve gone and given her a good example! Why? Because I wanted to protect her. She’s so…vulnerable. Oh dear, I’ve taught her to be me, and I’ve even made a bad mess of that chore!

‘All right, then, you can head back with me.’

‘Will we see the banquet? Our dad has been fretting about the banquet. He reckons Lord Vetinari is going to have everyone murdered.’

‘Does he do that a lot?’

‘Yes, but it gets hushed up, our dad says.’

‘There’s going to be hundreds of people there. That would need a lot of hush.’ And if I don’t like what I hear, there won’t be enough hush in all the world, she thought.

Trev mooched aimlessly around the shop while Nutt and the dwarf put their heads together over the ball. For some reason there was a faint scrabbling on the roof. It sounded like claws. Just a bird, he told himself. Even Andy wouldn’t come in through the roof. There was another pressing matter. This place would have a privy, wouldn’t it? There was at least a back door and that would inevitably lead to a back alley and, well, what is a back alley for except for sleeping tramps and the call of nature? Possibly in the same place if you were feeling cruel.

Trev unbuckled his belt, faced a noisome wall and stared upwards nonchalantly, as a man does in these circumstances. However, most men don’t look up into the astonished faces of two birdlike women who were standing, no,
perching
on the roof. They screeched
Awk! Awk!
and flew up into the darkness.

Trev scuttled quickly and damply back into the shop. This city got bloody stranger every day.

After that, time flew past for Trev, and every second stank of sulphur. He’d seen Nutt dribbling candles, but that was at snail’s pace compared with the speed at which the leather was cut for the ball. But that wasn’t creepy, that was just Nutt. What was creepy was that he didn’t measure anything. Eventually, Trev couldn’t stand it any more, and stopped leaning against the wall, pointed to one of the multi-sided little leather strips and said, ‘How long is that?’

‘One and fifteen sixteenths of an inch.’

‘How can you tell without measuring?’

‘I do measure, with my eyes. It is a skill. It can be learned.’

‘An’ that makes you worthy?’

‘Yes.’

‘An’ who judges?’

‘I do.’

‘Here we are, Mister Nutt, still warm,’ said Glang, arriving from the back of the shop holding something that looked like something taken from an animal that was now, you hoped for its own sake, dead.

‘Of course, I could do a lot better with more time,’ he continued, ‘but if you blow down this little tube…’

Trev watched in wonder, and it occurred to him that in all his life he’d made a few candles and a lot of mess. How much was he worth?

Gloing! Gloing!

Two balls in harmony, thought Trev, but clapped as Nutt and Glang shook hands, then, while they were still admiring their handiwork, he reached behind him and slipped a dagger off the bench and into his pocket.

He wasn’t a thief. Oh, fruit off stalls, but everyone knew that didn’t count, and picking a toff’s pocket was just a case of social redistribution, everyone knew that, too, and maybe you found something that looked lost, well, someone would pick it up, so why not you?

Weapons got you killed, often because you were holding one. But things were going too far. He had heard Andy’s bones creak and Nutt had brought the man to his knees without sweating. And there were two reasons for taking precautions right there. One was that if you put Andy down you’d better put him out, right out, because he would come back, blood around the corner of his mouth. And two, the worst, was that right now Nutt was more worrying than Andy. At least he knew what Andy was…

Carrying a ball each, they hurried back to the university, with Trev keeping a watchful eye on high buildings. ‘It’s amazin’ what’s turnin’ up in this city,’ he said. ‘There were a couple of vampire types back there, did you know?’

‘Oh, those? They work for Ladyship. They are there for protection.’

‘Whose?’ said Trev.

‘Do not worry about them.’

‘Hah! And do you know something even stranger has happened this evening?’ said Trev, as the university hove into sight. ‘You offered that
dwarf fifteen dollars and he didn’t even haggle. Like, that’s unheard of. Must be the power of
gloing!
’

‘Yes, but I actually gave him twenty dollars,’ said Nutt.

‘Why? He didn’t ask for anythin’ more.’

‘No, but he did work very hard and the extra five dollars will more than repay him for the dagger you stole while our backs were turned.’

‘I never did!’ said Trev hotly.

‘Your automatic, unthinking and spring-loaded reply is noted, Mister Trev. As was the sight of the dagger on the bench, shortly followed by the sight of the empty space where the dagger had been. I am not angry, because I saw you most sensibly toss Mister Shank’s wretched cutlass over a wall and I understand your nervousness, but nevertheless I must point out that this is stealing. And so I ask you, as my friend, to take the dagger back in the morning.’

‘But that will leave ’im up by five dollars
and
his dagger back.’ Trev sighed. ‘But at least we’ve got a few dollars each,’ he said, as they entered the back door of the university.