Interesting Times (23 page)

“That means, ‘the glutton dances,’ not, as you seem to think, ‘hello, sailor,’ which is
heus nauta
,” he said. “And eunuchs don’t say it. Not as a matter of course. Look, it’s an
honor
to be a eunuch in the Forbidden City. Many of them occupy very exalted positions in—”

“Then prepare yourself for high office, teacher!” Truckle shouted.

Cohen knocked the sword out of his hand.

“All right, none of that. I don’t like it either,” he said, “but it’s just a disguise. Shouldn’t mean anything to a man who once bit a bear’s head off, should it?”

“Yeah, but…you know…it’s not…I mean, when we went past those young ladies back there they all giggled…”

“Maybe later you can find them and make them laugh,” said Cohen. “But you should’ve told us, Teach.”

“Sorry.”

“Whut? Whatseesay?”

“He said you’re a EUNUCH!” Boy Willie bellowed in Hamish’s ear.

“Yep!” said Hamish happily.

“What?”

“That’s me! The one an’ only!”

“No, he didn’t mean—”

“Whut?”

“Oh, never mind. It’s all pretty much the same to you, Hamish.”

Mr. Saveloy surveyed the wrecked gym. “I wonder what time it is?” he said.

“Ah,” gurgled Six Beneficent Winds, happy to lighten things a little. “Here, you know, we have an amazing demon-powered device that tells you what the time is even when the sun isn’t—”

“Clocks,” said Mr. Saveloy. “We’ve got them in Ankh-Morpork. Only demons evaporate eventually so now they work by—” He paused. “Interesting. You don’t have a word for it. Er. Shaped metal that does work? Toothed wheels?”

The taxman looked frightened. “Wheels with teeth?”

“What do you call the things that grind corn?”

“Peasants.”

“Yes, but what do they grind corn with?”

“I don’t know. Why should I know? Only peasants need to know
that
.”

“Yes, I suppose that says it all, really,” said Mr. Saveloy sadly.

“It’s a long way off dawn,” said Truckle. “Why don’t we go and kill everyone in their beds?”

“No, no, no!” said Mr. Saveloy. “I keep telling you, we’ve got to do it
properly
.”

“I could show you the treasure house,” said Six Beneficent Winds helpfully.

“Never a good idea to give a monkey the key to a banana plantation,” said Mr. Saveloy. “Can you think of anything else to keep them amused for an hour?”

Down in the basement, there was a man who was talking about the government. At the top of his voice.

“You can’t fight for a cause! A cause is just a thing!”

“Then we are fighting for the peasants,” said Butterfly. She’d backed away. Rincewind’s anger was coming off him like steam.

“Oh? Have you ever met them?”

“I—have seen them.”

“Oh, good! And what is it you want to
achieve?
”

“A better life for the people,” said Butterfly coldly.

“You think you having some uprising and hanging a few people will do it? Well, I come from Ankh-Morpork and we’ve had more rebellions and civil wars than you’ve had…lukewarm ducks’ feet, and you know what? The rulers are still in charge! They always are!”

They smiled at him in polite and nervous incomprehension.

“Look,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “All those people out in the fields, the water buffalo people…If you have a revolution it’ll all be better for them, will it?”

“Of course,” said Butterfly. “They will no longer be subject to the cruel and capricious whims of the Forbidden City.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Rincewind. “So they’ll sort of be in charge of themselves, will they?”

“Indeed,” said Lotus Blossom.

“By means of the People’s Committee,” said Butterfly.

Rincewind pressed both hands to his head.

“My word,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I had this predictive flash!”

They looked impressed.

“I had this sudden feeling,” he went on, “that there won’t be all that many water buffalo string holders on the People’s Committee. In fact…I get this kind of…voice telling me that a lot of the People’s Committee, correct me if I’m wrong, are standing in front of me right now?”

“
Initially
, of course,” said Butterfly. “The peasants can’t even read and write.”

“I expect they don’t even know how to farm properly,” said Rincewind, gloomily. “Not after doing it for only three or four thousand years.”

“We certainly believe that there are many improvements that could be made, yes,” said Butterfly. “If we act collectively.”

“I bet they’ll be really glad when you show them,” said Rincewind.

He stared glumly at the floor. He quite liked the job of a water buffalo string holder. It sounded nearly as good as the profession of castaway. He longed for the kind of life where you could really
concentrate
on the squishiness of the mud underfoot, and make up pictures in the clouds; the kind of life where you could let your mind catch up with you and speculate for hours at a time about when your water buffalo was next going to enrich the loam. But it was probably difficult enough as it was without people trying to
improve
it…

He wanted to say: how can you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you can do with the peasants is leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting on behalf of people who can’t, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open.

But this is Hunghung. You can’t think like that in Hunghung. This is where people have learned to do what they’re told. The Horde worked that one out.

The Empire’s got something worse than whips all right. It’s got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different.

You’ll all be killed.

I’m a coward. And even
I
know more about fights than you do. I’ve run away from some really good ones.

“Oh, let’s just get out of here,” he said. He gingerly took the sword from a dead guard and held it the right way round on the second attempt. He weighed it for a second, then shook his head and threw it away.

The cadre looked a lot happier.

“But I’m not leading you,” said Rincewind. “I’m just showing you the way. And it’s the way
out
, do you understand?”

They stood wearing rather bruised looks, as people do who’ve been subject to several minutes’ ranting. No one spoke, until Twoflower whispered:

“He often goes on like this, you know. And then he does something very brave.”

Rincewind snorted.

There was another dead guard at the top of the stairs. Sudden death seemed to be catching.

And, leaning against the wall, was a bundle of swords. Tied to it was a scroll.

“The Great Wizard has shown us the way for only two minutes and already we have extra luck,” said Lotus Blossom.

“Don’t touch the swords,” said Rincewind.

“But supposing we see more guards? Should we not resist them with every drop of our life’s blood?” said Butterfly.

Rincewind looked blank. “No. Run away.”

“Ah, yes,” said Twoflower. “And live to fight another day. That is an Ankh-Morpork saying.”

Rincewind had always assumed that the purpose of running away was to be able to run away another day.

“However,” he said, “people don’t usually find themselves mysteriously let out of prison with a bunch of weapons handily close by and all the guards out of action. Ever thought of that?”

“And with a map!” said Butterfly.

Her eyes shone. She flourished the scroll.

“It’s a map of the way out?” said Rincewind.

“No! To the Emperor’s chambers! Look, it has been marked! That’s what Herb used to talk about sometimes! He must be in the palace! We should assassinate the Emperor!”

“More luck!” said Twoflower. “But look, you know, I’m sure if we talked to him—”

“Haven’t you been listening? We are
not
going to see the Emperor!” hissed Rincewind. “Does it occur to you that guards don’t stab themselves? Cells don’t suddenly become unlocked? You don’t find swords lying around so conveniently and you don’t, you really
don’t
find maps saying ‘This Way, Folks’! And anyway, you can’t talk to someone who’s a plate of prawn crackers short of a Set Meal A for Two!”

“No,” said Butterfly. “We must make the most of this opportunity.”

“There will be lots of guards!”

“Well, Great Wizard, you’ll have a lot of wishing to do.”

“You think I can snap my fingers like
this
, and all the guards would drop dead? Hah! I wish they would!”

“These two out here have,” Lotus Blossom reported, from the entrance to the dungeons. She was already in awe of Rincewind. Now she looked positively terrified.

“Coincidence!”

“Let’s be serious,” said Butterfly. “We have a sympathizer in the palace. Perhaps it is someone risking their lives every moment! We know some of the eunuchs are on our side.”

“They’ve got nothing left to lose, I suppose.”

“You have a better idea, Great Wizard?”

“Yes. Back into the cells.”

“What?”

“This smells wrong. Would you
really
kill the Emperor? I mean,
really?
”

Butterfly hesitated.

“We’ve often talked about it. Two Fire Herb said that if we could assassinate the Emperor we would light the torch of freedom…”

“Yes. It’d be you, burning. Look, get back in the cells. It’s the safest place. I’ll lock you in and…scout.”

“That’s a very brave suggestion,” said Twoflower. “And typical of the man,” he added proudly.

Butterfly gave Rincewind a look he’d come to dread.

“It
is
a good idea,” she said. “And I will accompany you.”

“Oh, but it’s bound to be…very dangerous,” said Rincewind quickly.

“No harm can possibly come to me when I’m with the Great Wizard,” said Butterfly.

“Very true. Very true,” said Twoflower. “No harm ever came to me, I know that.”

“Besides,” his daughter went on, “I have the map. And it would be dreadful if you lost your way and accidentally strayed out of the Forbidden City, wouldn’t it?”

Rincewind gave in. It struck him that Twoflower’s late wife must have been a remarkably intelligent woman.

“Oh, all right,” he said. “But you’re not to get in the way. And you’re to do what I tell you, okay?”

Butterfly bowed.

“Lead on, o Great Wizard,” she said.

“I
knew
it!” said Truckle. “Poison!”

“No, no. You don’t eat it. You rub it on your body,” said Mr. Saveloy. “Watch. And you get what we in civilization call
clean
.”

Most of the Horde stood waist-deep in the warm water, every man with his hands chastely wrapped around his body. Hamish had refused to relinquish his wheelchair, so only his head was above the surface.

“It’s all prickly,” said Cohen. “And my skin’s peeling off and dissolving.”

“That’s
not
skin,” said Mr. Saveloy. “Haven’t
any
of you seen a bath before?”

“Oh, I
seen
one,” said Boy Willie. “I killed the Mad Bishop of Pseudopolis in one. You get”—he furrowed his brow—“bubbles and stuff. And fifteen naked maidens.”

“Whut?”

“Definitely. Fifteen. Remember it well.”

“That’s more
like
it,” said Caleb.

“All
we’ve
got to rub is this soap stuff.”

“The Emperor is ritually bathed by twenty-two bath women,” said Six Beneficent Winds. “I could go and check with the harem eunuchs and wake them up, if you like. It’s probably allowable under Entertaining.”

The taxman was warming to his new job. He’d worked out that although the Horde, as individuals, had acquired mountains of cash in their careers as barbarian heroes they’d lost almost all of it engaging in the other activities (he mentally catalogued these as Public Relations) necessary to the profession, and therefore were entitled to quite a considerable rebate.

The fact that they were registered with no revenue collecting authority
anywhere
^*
was entirely a secondary point. It was the principle that counted. And the interest, too, of course.

“No, no young women, I insist,” said Mr. Saveloy. “You’re having a bath to get clean. Plenty of time for young women later.”

“Gotta date when all this is over,” said Caleb, a little shyly, thinking wistfully of one of the few women he’d ever had a conversation with. “She’s got her own farm, she said. I could be all right for a duck.”

“I bet Teach don’t want you to say that,” said Boy Willie. “I bet he’d say you gotta call it a waterfowl.”

“Huh, huh, hur!”

“Whut?”

Six Beneficent Winds sidled over to the teacher as the Horde experimented with the bath oil, initially by drinking it.

“I’ve worked out what it is you’re going to steal,” he said.

“Oh, yes?” said Mr. Saveloy politely. He was watching Caleb who, having had it brought home to him that he might have been adopting the wrong approach all his life, was trying to cut his nails with his sword.

“It’s the legendary Diamond Coffin of Schz Yu!” said Six Beneficent Winds.

“No. Wrong again.”

“Oh.”

“Out of the baths, gentlemen,” said the teacher. “I think…yes…you’ve mastered commerce, social intercourse—”

“—hur, hur, hur…sorry—”

“—and the principles of taxation,” Mr. Saveloy went on.

“Have we done that? What
are
they, then?” said Cohen.

“You take away almost all the money that the merchants have got,” said Six Beneficent Winds, handing him a towel.

“Oh, is that it? I’ve been doing that for
years
.”

“No, you’ve been taking away
all
the money,” said Mr. Saveloy. “That’s where you go wrong. You kill too many of them, and the ones you don’t kill you leave too poor.”

“Sounds
frightfully
good to me,” said Truckle, excavating the cretaceous contents of an ear. “Poor merchants, rich us.”