Discworld 30 - Monstrous Regiment (2 page)

 
 
  
‘You know, I had a feeling it was going to be,’ he said. ‘And I see you’re eighteen.’
‘Awake!’
‘Oh, gods . . .’ Commander Samuel Vimes put his hands over his eyes.
‘I beg your pardon, your grace?’ said the Ankh-Morpork consul to Zlobenia. ‘Are you ill,
your grace?’
‘What’s your name again, young man?’ said Vimes. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve been travelling for
two weeks and not getting a lot of sleep and I’ve spent all day being introduced to people
with difficult names. That’s bad for the brain.’
‘It’s Clarence, your grace. Clarence Chinny.’
‘Chinny?’ said Vimes, and Clarence read everything in his expression.
‘I’m afraid so, sir,’ he said.
‘Were you a good fighter at school?’ said Vimes.
‘No, your grace, but no one could beat me over the one-hundred-yard dash.’
Vimes laughed. ‘Well, Clarence, any national anthem that starts “Awake!” is going to lead
to trouble. They didn’t teach you this in the Patrician’s office?’
‘Er . . . no, your grace,’ said Chinny.
‘Well, you’ll find out. Carry on, then.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Chinny cleared his throat. ‘The Borogravian National Anthem,’ he announced,
for the second time.
‘Awake sorry, your grace , ye sons of the Motherland!
Taste no more the wine of the sour apples
Woodsmen, grasp your choppers!
Farmers, slaughter with the tool formerly used for lifting beets the foe!
Frustrate the endless wiles of our enemies
We into the darkness march singing
Against the whole world in arms coming
But see the golden light upon the mountain tops!
The new day is a great big fish!’
‘Er . . .’ Vimes said. ‘That last bit . . . ?’
‘That is a literal translation, your grace,’ said Clarence nervously. ‘It means something like
“an amazing opportunity” or “a glittering prize”, your grace.’
‘When we’re not in public, Clarence, “sir” will do. “Your grace” is just to impress the
natives.’ Vimes slumped back in his uncomfortable chair, chin in his hand, and then winced.

 
 
  
‘Two thousand three hundred miles,’ he said, shifting his position. ‘And it’s freezing on a
broomstick, however low they fly. And then the barge, and then the coach . . .’ He winced
again. ‘I read your report. Do you think it’s possible for an entire nation to be insane?’
Clarence swallowed. He’d been told that he was talking to the second most powerful man
in Ankh-Morpork, even if the man himself acted as though he was ignorant of the fact. His
desk in this chilly tower room was rickety; it had belonged to the head janitor of the Kneck
garrison until yesterday. Paperwork cluttered its scarred surface and was stacked in piles
behind Vimes’s chair.
Vimes himself did not look, to Clarence, like a duke. He looked like a watchman which, in
fact, Clarence understood, he was. This offended Clarence Chinny. People at the top should
look as though they belonged there.
‘That’s a very . . . interesting question, sir,’ he said. ‘You mean the people—’
‘Not the people, the nation,’ said Vimes. ‘Borogravia looks off its head, to me, from what
I’ve read. I expect the people just do the best they can and get on with raising their kids
which, I might say, I’d rather be doing right now, too. Look, you know what I mean. You
take a bunch of people who don’t seem any different from you and me, but when you add
them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an
anthem.’
‘It’s a fascinating idea, sir,’ said Clarence diplomatically.
Vimes looked round the room. The walls were bare stone. The windows were narrow. It
was damn cold, even on a sunny day. All that bad food, and that bumping about and sleeping
on bad beds . . . and all that travelling in the dark, too, on dwarf barges in their secret canals
under the mountains - the gods alone knew what intricate diplomacy Lord Vetinari had pulled
off to get that, although the Low King owed Vimes a few favours . . .
. . . all of that for this cold castle over this cold river between these stupid countries, with
their stupid war. He knew what he wanted to do. If they’d been people, scuffling in the gutter,
he’d have known what to do. He’d have banged their heads together and maybe shoved them
in the cells overnight. You couldn’t bang countries together.
Vimes picked up some paperwork, fiddled with it, and threw it down again. ‘To hell with
this,’ he said. ‘What’s happening out there?’
‘I understand there are a few pockets of resistance in some of the more inaccessible areas
of the keep, but they are being dealt with. For all practical purposes the keep is in our hands.
That was a clever ruse of yours, your gr— sir.’
Vimes sighed. ‘No, Clarence, it was a dull old ruse. It should not be possible to get men
into a fortress dressed as washerwomen. Three of them had moustaches, for goodness’ sake!’
‘The Borogravians are rather . . . old-fashioned about things like that, sir. On that subject,
we appear to have zombies in the lower crypts. Dreadful things. A lot of high-ranking
Borogravian military men were interred down there over the centuries, apparently.’
‘Really? What are they doing now?’
Clarence raised his eyebrows. ‘Lurching, sir, I think. Groaning. Zombie things. Something
seems to have stirred them up.’
‘Us, probably,’ said Vimes. He got up, strode across the room, and pulled open the big
heavy door. ‘Reg!’ he yelled.

 
 
  
After a moment another watchman appeared, and saluted. He was grey-faced, and Clarence
couldn’t help noticing when the man saluted that the hand and fingers were held together
with stitching.
‘Have you met Constable Shoe, Clarence?’ said Vimes cheerfully. ‘One of my staff. Been
dead for more than thirty years, and loves every minute of it, eh, Reg?’
‘Right, Mister Vimes,’ said Reg, grinning and revealing a lot of brown teeth.
‘Some fellow countrymen of yours down in the cellar, Reg.’
‘Oh, dear. Lurching, are they?’
‘ ‘fraid so, Reg.’
‘I shall go and have a word with them,’ said Reg. He saluted again and marched out, with a
hint of lurch.
‘He’s, er, from here?’ said Chinny, who had gone quite pale.
‘Oh, no. The undiscovered country,’ said Vimes. ‘He’s dead. However, credit where it’s
due, he hasn’t let that stop him. You didn’t know we have a zombie in the Watch, Clarence?’
‘Er . . . no, sir. I’ve haven’t been back to the city in five years.’ He swallowed. ‘I gather
things have changed.’
Horribly so, in Clarence Chinny’s opinion. Being consul to Zlobenia had been an easy job,
which left him a lot of time to get on with his business. And then the big semaphore towers
marched through, all along the valley, and suddenly Ankh-Morpork was an hour away.
Before the clacks, a letter from Ankh-Morpork would take more than two weeks to get to
him, and so no one worried if he took a day or two to answer it. Now people expected a reply
overnight. He’d been quite glad when Borogravia had destroyed several of those wretched
towers. And then all hell had been let loose.
‘We’ve got all sorts in the Watch,’ said Vimes. ‘And we bloody well need ‘em now,
Clarence, with Zlobenians and Borogravians scrapping in the streets over some damn quarrel
that began a thousand years ago. It’s worse than dwarfs and trolls! All because someone’s
great-to-the-power-of-umpteen-grandmother slapped the face of someone’s great-ditto-uncle!
Borogravia and Zlobenia can’t even agree on a border. They chose the river, and that changes
course every spring. Suddenly the clacks towers are now on Borogravian soil - or mud,
anyway - so the idiots burn them down for religious reasons.’
‘Er, there is more to it than that, sir,’ said Chinny.
‘Yes, I know. I read the history. The annual scrap with Zlobenia is just the local derby.
Borogravia fights everybody. Why?’
‘National pride, sir.’
‘What in? There’s nothing there! There’s some tallow mines, and they’re not bad farmers,
but there’s no great architecture, no big libraries, no famous composers, no very high
mountains, no wonderful views. All you can say about the place is that it isn’t anywhere else.
What’s so special about Borogravia?’
‘I suppose it’s special because it’s theirs. And of course there’s Nuggan, sir. Their god.
I’ve brought you a copy of the Book of Nuggan.’
‘I looked through one back in the city, Chinny,’ said Vimes. ‘Seemed pretty stu—’

 
 
  
‘That wouldn’t have been a recent edition, sir. And I suspect it wouldn’t be, er, very
current that far from here. This one is more up to date,’ said Chinny, putting a small but thick
book on the desk.
‘Up to date? What do you mean, up to date?’ said Vimes, looking puzzled. ‘Holy writ gets
. . . written. Do this, don’t do that, no coveting your neighbour’s ox . . .’
‘Um . . . Nuggan doesn’t just leave it at that, sir. He, er . . . updates things. Mostly the
Abominations, to be frank.’
Vimes took the new copy. It was noticeably thicker than the one he’d brought with him.
‘It’s what they call a Living Testament,’ Chinny explained. ‘They - well, I suppose you
could say they “die” if they’re taken out of Borogravia. They no longer . . . get added to. The
latest Abominations are at the end, sir,’ said Chinny helpfully.
‘This is a holy book with an appendix?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘In a ring binder ?’
‘Quite so, sir. People put blank pages in and the Abominations . . . turn up.’
‘You mean magically?’
‘I suppose I mean religiously, sir.’
Vimes opened a page at random. ‘Chocolate?’ he said. ‘He doesn’t like chocolate?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s an Abomination.’
‘Garlic? Well, I don’t much like that, so fair enough . . . cats?’
‘Oh, yes. He really doesn’t like cats, sir.’
‘Dwarfs? It says here “The dwarfish race which worships Gold is an Abomination unto
Nuggan”! He must be mad. What happened there?’
‘Oh, the dwarfs that were here sealed their mines and vanished, your grace.’
‘I bet they did. They know trouble when they see it,’ said Vimes. He let ‘your grace’ pass
this time; Chinny clearly derived some satisfaction from talking to a duke.
He leafed through the pages, and stopped. ‘The colour blue?’
‘Correct, sir.’
‘What’s abominable about the colour blue? It’s just a colour! The sky is blue!’
‘Yes, sir. Devout Nugganites try not to look at it these days. Um . . .’ Chinny had been
trained as a diplomat. Some things he didn’t like to say directly. ‘Nuggan, sir . . . um . . . is
rather . . . tetchy,’ he managed.
‘Tetchy?’ said Vimes. ‘A tetchy god? What, he complains about the noise their kids make?
Objects to loud music after nine p.m.?’
‘Um . . . we get the Ankh-Morpork Times here, sir, eventually, and, er, I’d say, er, that
Nuggan is very much like, er, the kind of people who write to its letter column. You know,
sir. The kind who sign their letters “Disgusted of Ankh-Morpork” . . .’
‘Oh, you mean he really is mad,’ said Vimes.
‘Oh, I’d never mean anything like that, sir,’ said Chinny hurriedly.

 
 
  
‘What do the priests do about this?’
‘Not a lot, sir. I think they quietly ignore some of the more, er, extreme Abominations.’
‘You mean Nuggan objects to dwarfs, cats and the colour blue and there’re more insane
commandments?’
Chinny coughed politely.
‘All right, then,’ growled Vimes. ‘More extreme commandments?’
‘Oysters, sir. He doesn’t like them. But that’s not a problem because no one here has ever
seen an oyster. Oh, and babies. He Abominated them, too.’
‘I take it people still make them here?’
‘Oh, yes, your gr— I’m sorry. Yes, sir. But they feel guilty about it. Barking dogs, that was
another one. Shirts with six buttons, too. And cheese. Er . . . people just sort of, er, avoid the
trickier ones. Even the priests seem to have given up trying to explain them.’
‘Yes, I think I can see why. So what we have here is a country that tries to run itself on the
commandments of a god who, the people feel, may be wearing his underpants on his head.
Has he Abominated underpants?’
‘No, sir,’ Chinny sighed. ‘But it’s probably only a matter of time.’
‘So how do they manage?’
‘These days, people mostly pray to the Duchess Annagovia. You see icons of her in every
house. They call her the Little Mother.’
‘Ah, yes, the Duchess. Can I get to see her?’
‘Oh, no one sees her, sir. No one except her servants has seen her for more than thirty
years. To be honest, sir, she’s probably dead.’
‘Only probably?’
‘No one really knows. The official story is that she’s in mourning. It’s rather sad, sir. The
young Duke died a week after they got married. Gored by a wild pig during a hunt, I believe.
She went into mourning at the old castle at PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJoseph-
BernhardtWilhelmsberg and hasn’t appeared in public since. The official portrait was painted
when she was about forty, I believe.’
‘No children?’
‘No, sir. On her death, the line is extinct.’
‘And they pray to her? Like a god?’
Chinny sighed. ‘I did put this in my briefing notes, sir. The royal family in Borogravia
have always had a quasi-religious status, you see. They’re the head of the church and the
peasants, at least, pray to them in the hope that they’ll put in a good word with Nuggan.
They’re like . . . living saints. Celestial intermediaries. To be honest, that’s how these
countries work in any case. If you want something done, you have to know the right people.
And I suppose it’s easier to pray to someone in a picture than to a god you can’t see.’
Vimes sat looking at the consul for some time. When he next spoke, he frightened the man
to his boots.
‘Who’d inherit?’ he said.
‘Sir?’

 
 
  
‘Just following the monarchy, Mr Chinny. If the Duchess isn’t on the throne, who should
be?’
‘Um, it’s incredibly complex, sir, because of the intermarriages and the various legal
systems, which for example—’
‘Who’s the smart money on, Mr Chinny?’
‘Um, Prince Heinrich of Zlobenia.’
To Chinny’s astonishment Vimes laughed. ‘And he’s wondering how auntie’s gettin’ on, I
expect. I met him this morning, didn’t I? Can’t say I took to him.’
‘But he is a friend of Ankh-Morpork,’ said Chinny reproachfully. ‘That was in my report.
Educated. Very interested in the clacks. Got great plans for his country. They used to be
Nugganatic in Zlobenia, but he’s banned the religion and, frankly, hardly anyone objected.
He wants Zlobenia to move forward. He admires Ankh-Morpork very much.’
‘Yes, I know. He sounds almost as insane as Nuggan,’ said Vimes. ‘Okay, so what we’ve
probably got is an elaborate charade to keep Heinrich out. How’s this place governed?’
‘There isn’t much. A bit of tax collecting, and that’s about all. We think some of the senior
court officials just drift on as if the Duchess was alive. The only thing that really works is the
army.’
‘All right, how about coppers? Everyone needs coppers. At least they have their feet on the
ground.’
‘I believe informal citizens’ committees enforce Nugganatic law,’ said Chinny.
‘Oh, gods. Prodnoses, curtain-twitchers and vigilantes,’ said Vimes. He stood up and
peered out through the narrow window at the plain below. It was night-time. Cooking-fires in
the enemy camp made demonic constellations in the darkness.
‘Did they tell you why I’ve been sent here, Clarence?’ he said.
‘No, sir. My instructions were that you would, um, oversee things. Prince Heinrich is not
very happy about it.’
‘Oh, well, the interests of Ankh-Morpork are the interests of all money-lov— oops, sorry,
all freedom-loving people everywhere,’ said Vimes. ‘We can’t have a country that turns back
our mail coaches and keeps cutting down the clacks towers. That’s expensive. They’re
cutting the continent in half, they’re the pinch in the hourglass. I’m to bring things to a
“satisfactory” conclusion. And frankly, Clarence, I’m wondering if it’s even worth attacking
Borogravia. It’ll be cheaper to sit here and wait for it to explode. Although I notice . . . where
was that report . . . ah, yes . . . it will starve first.’ ‘Regrettably so, sir.’
Igor stood mutely in front of the recruiting table.
‘Don’t often see you people these days,’ said Jackrum.
‘Yeah, run out of fresh brains, ‘ave yer?’ said the corporal nastily.
‘Now then, corporal, no call for that,’ said the sergeant, leaning back in his creaking chair.
‘There’s plenty of lads out there walking around on legs they wouldn’t still have if there
hadn’t been a friendly Igor around, eh, Igor?’