Interesting Times (26 page)

There was shouting in the distance.

The voice of reason could see that if it wasn’t careful it was going to end up as dead as the rest of Rincewind and added sarcastically: all right, keep our wretched hat. Our damn hat is why we’re in this mess in the first place. Perhaps you think you’re going to have a head left to wear it on?

Rincewind’s hands, also aware that times were going to be extremely interesting and very short unless they took matters into themselves, reached out slowly and removed a pair of pants and a shirt and rammed them inside his robe.

The door burst open. There were
still
guards behind him, and a couple of the
tsimo
herders had joined in the chase. One of them waved a prod in Rincewind’s direction.

He plunged towards an archway and out into a garden.

It had a little pagoda. It had willow trees, and a pretty lady on a bridge feeding the birds.

And a man painting a plate.

Cohen rubbed his hands together.

“No one? Good. That’s all sorted, then.”

“Ahem.”

A small man at the front of the crowd made a great play of keeping his hands to himself, but said:

“Excuse me, but…what would happen in the hypothetical situation of us calling the guards and denouncing you?”

“We’d kill you all before they were halfway through the door,” said Cohen, matter-of-factly. “Any more questions?” he added, to a chorus of gasps.

“Er…the Emperor…that is to say, the
last
Emperor…had some very special guards…”

There was a tinkling sound. Something small and multi-pointed rolled down the steps and spun round on the floor. It was a throwing star.

“Met them,” said Boy Willie.

“Fine, fine,” said the little man. “That all seems in order. Ten Thousand Years to the Emperor!”

The shout was taken up, a little raggedly.

“What’s your name, young man?” said Mr. Saveloy.

“Four Big Horns, my lord.”

“Very good. Very good. I can see that you will go a long way. What is your job?”

“I am Grand Assistant to the Lord Chamberlain, my lord.”

“Which one of you is the Lord Chamberlain?”

Four Big Horns pointed to the man who had preferred to die.

“There we are, you see?” said Mr. Saveloy. “Promotion comes fast to adaptable people, Lord Chamberlain. And now, the Emperor will breakfast.”

“And what is his pleasure?” said the new Lord Chamberlain, endeavoring to look bright and adaptable.

“All sorts of things. But right now, big lumps of meat and lots of beer. You will find the Emperor very easy to cater for.” Mr. Saveloy smiled the knowing little smile he sometimes smiled when he knew he was the only one seeing the joke. “The Emperor doesn’t favor what he calls ‘fiddly foreign muck full of eyeballs and suchlike’ and much prefers simple, wholesome food like sausages, which are made of miscellaneous animal organs minced up in a length of intestine. Ahaha. But if you want to please him, just keep up the big lumps of meat. Isn’t that so, my lord?”

Cohen had been gazing at the assembled courtiers. When you’ve survived for ninety years all the attacks that can be thrown at you by men, women, trolls, dwarfs, giants, green things with lots of legs, and, on one occasion, an enraged lobster, you can learn a lot by looking at faces.

“Eh?” said Cohen. “Oh. Yep. Right enough. Big lumps. Here, Mr. Taxman…what do these people
do
all day?”

“What would you like them to do?”

“I’d like them to bugger off.”

“Sorry, my lord?”

“[Complicated pictogram],” said Mr. Saveloy. The new Lord Chamberlain looked a little startled.

“What,
here?
”

“It’s a figure of speech, lad. He just means he wants everyone to go away quickly.”

The court scurried out. A sufficiently complicated pictogram is worth a thousand words.

After the stampede the artist Three Solid Frogs got to his feet, retrieved his brush from his nostril, pulled his easel out of a tree, and tried to think placid thoughts.

The garden was not what it had been.

The willow tree was bent. The pagoda had been demolished by an out-of-control wrestler, who had eaten the roof. The doves had flown. The little bridge had been broken. His model, the concubine Jade Fan, had run off crying after she’d managed to scramble out of the ornamental pond.

And
someone had stolen his straw hat.

Three Solid Frogs adjusted what remained of his dress and endeavored to compose himself.

The plate with his sketch on had been smashed, of course.

He pulled another one out of his bag and reached for his palette.

There was a huge footprint in the middle of it…

He wanted to cry. He’d had such a
good
feeling about this picture. He just
knew
it would be one that people would remember for a long time. And the colors? Did anyone
understand
how much vermilion cost these days?

He pulled himself together. So there was only blue left. Well, he’d show them…

He tried to ignore the devastation in front of him and concentrated on the picture in his mind.

“Let me see, now,” he thought. “Jade Fan being pursued over a bridge by man waving his arms and screaming, ‘Get out of the way!’ followed by man with prod, three guards, five laundry men, and a wrestler unable to stop.”

He had to simplify it a bit, of course.

The pursuers rounded a corner, except for the wrestler, who wasn’t built for such a difficult maneuver.

“Where’d he go?”

They were in a courtyard. There were pigsties on one side, and middens on the other.

And, in the middle of the courtyard, a pointy hat.

One of the guards reached out and grabbed a colleague’s arm before the man stepped forward.

“Steady now,” he said.

“It’s just a hat.”

“So where’s the rest of him? He couldn’t have just…disappeared…into…”

They backed away.

“You heard about him too?”

“They said he blew a hole in the wall just by waving his hands!”

“That’s nothing! I heard he appeared on an invisible dragon up in the mountains!”

“What shall we tell Lord Hong?”

“I don’t want to be blown to pieces!”

“
I
don’t want to tell Lord Hong we lost him. We’re in enough trouble already. And I’ve only just paid for this helmet.”

“Well…we could take the hat. That’d be evidence.”

“Right. You pick it up.”

“Me?
You
pick it up!”

“It might be surrounded by terrible spells.”

“Really? So it’s all right for
me
to touch it? Thank you! Get one of them to pick it up!”

The laundry men backed away, the Hunghungese habit of obedience evaporating like morning dew. The soldiers weren’t the only ones to have heard rumors.

“Not us!”

“Got a rush order for socks!”

The guard turned. A peasant was stumbling out of one of the pigsties, carrying a sack, his face covered by his big straw hat.

“Hey, you!”

The man dropped to his knees and banged his head on the ground.

“Don’t kill me!”

The guards exchanged a glance.

“We ain’t going to kill you,” said one of them. “We just want you to try and pick up that hat over there.”

“What hat, o mighty warrior?”

“That hat there! Right now!”

The man crawled crabwise across the cobbles.

“This hat, o great lord?”

“Yes!”

The man’s fingers crept over the stones and prodded the hat’s ragged brim.

Then he screamed.

“Your wife is a big hippo! My face is melting! My face is meltinnnnggg!”

Rincewind waited until the sound of fleeing sandals had quite faded, and then stood up, dusted off his hat, and put it in the sack.

That had gone a lot better than he’d expected. So there was another valuable thing to know about the Empire: no one looked at peasants. It must be the clothes and the hat. No one but the common people dressed like that, so anyone dressed like that must be a common person. It was the advertising principle of a wizard’s hat, but in reverse. You were careful and polite around people in a pointy hat, in case they took a very physical offense, whereas someone in a big straw hat was a suitable target for a “Hey, you!” and a—

It was at exactly this point that someone behind him shouted, “Hey, you!” and hit Rincewind across the shoulders with a stick.

The irate face of a servant appeared in front of him. The man waved a finger in front of Rincewind’s nose.

“You are late! You are a bad man! Get inside right now!”

“I—”

The stick hit Rincewind again. The servant pointed at a distant doorway.

“Insolence! Shame! Go to work!”

Rincewind’s brain prepared the words: Oh, so we think we’re Clever-san just because we’ve got a big stick, do we? Well, I happen to be a great wizard and you know what you can do with your big stick.

Somewhere between the brain and his mouth they became:

“Yessir! Right away!”

The Horde were left alone.

“Well, gentlemen, we did it,” said Mr. Saveloy eventually. “You have the world on a plate.”

“All the treasure we want,” said Truckle.

“That’s right.”

“Let’s not hang around, then,” said Truckle. “Let’s get some sacks.”

“There’s no
point
,” said Mr. Saveloy. “You’d only be stealing from yourselves. This is an
Empire
. You don’t just shove it in a bag and divvy it up at the next campfire!”

“How about the ravishing?”

Mr. Saveloy sighed. “There are, I understand, three hundred concubines in the imperial harem. I’m sure they will be very pleased to see you, although matters will be improved if you take your boots off.”

The old men wore the puzzled look such as might be worn by fish trying to understand the concept of the bicycle.

“We ought to take just small stuff,” said Boy Willie at last. “Rubies and emeralds, for preference.”

“And chuck a match on the place as we go out,” said Vincent. “These paper walls and all this lacquered wood should go up a treat.”

“No, no, no!” said Mr. Saveloy. “The vases in this room alone are priceless!”

“Nah, too big to carry. Can’t get ’em onna horse.”

“But I’ve shown you civilization!” said Mr. Saveloy.

“Yeah. It’s all right to visit. Ain’t that so, Cohen?”

Cohen was hunched down in the throne, glaring at the far wall.

“What’s that?”

“I’m saying we take everything we can carry and head off back home, right?”

“Home…yeah…”

“That was the Plan, yeah?”

Cohen didn’t look at Mr. Saveloy’s face.

“Yeah…the Plan…” he said.

“It’s a good plan,” said Truckle. “Great idea. You move in as boss? Fine. Great scam. Saves trouble. None of that fiddling with locks and things. So we’ll all be off home, okay? With all the treasure we can carry?”

“What for?” said Cohen.

“What for? It’s
treasure
.”

Cohen seemed to reach a decision.

“What did you spend your last haul on, Truckle? You said you got three sacks of gold and gems from that haunted castle.”

Truckle looked puzzled, as if Cohen had asked what purple smelled like.

“Spend it on?
I
dunno. You know how it is. What’s it matter what you spend it on? It’s
loot
. Anyway…what do you spend yours on?”

Cohen sighed.

Truckle gaped at him.

“You’re not thinking of
really
staying here?” He glared at Mr. Saveloy. “Have you two been cooking up something?”

Cohen drummed his fingers on the arm of the throne. “You said go home,” he said. “Where to?”

“Well…wherever…”

“And Hamish there—”

“Whut? Whut?”

“I mean…he’s a hundred and five, right? Time to settle down, maybe?”

“Whut?”

“Settle down?” said Truckle. “
You
tried it once. Stole a farm and said you was goin’ to raise pigs! Gave it up after…What was it?…three hours?”

“Whutzeesayin’? Whutzeesayin’?”

“He said IT’S TIME YOU SETTLED DOWN, Hamish.”

“Bugrthat!”

The kitchens were in uproar. Half the court had ended up there, in most cases for the first time. The place was as crowded as a street market, through which the servants tried to go about their business as best they could.

The fact that one of them seemed a little unclear as to what his business actually consisted of was quite unnoticed in the turmoil.

“Did you
smell
him?” said Lady Two Streams. “The
stink!
”

“Like a hot day in a pig yard!” said Lady Peach Petal.

“
I’m
pleased to say I have never experienced that,” said Lady Two Streams haughtily.

Lady Jade Night, who was rather younger than the other two, and who had been rather attracted to Cohen’s smell of unwashed lion, said nothing.

The head cook said: “Just that? Big lumps? Why doesn’t he just eat a cow while he’s about it?”

“You wait till you hear about this devil food called
sausage
,” said the Lord Chamberlain.

“Big lumps.” The cook was almost in tears. “Where’s the skill in big lumps of meat? Not even sauce? I’d rather die than simply heat up big lumps of meat!”

“Ah,” said the new Lord Chamberlain, “I should think very carefully about that. The new Emperor, may he have a bath for ten thousand years, tends to interpret that as a request—”

The babble of voices stopped. The cause of the sudden silence was one small, sharp noise. It was a cork, popping.

Lord Hong had a Grand Vizier’s talent for apparently turning up out of nowhere. His gaze swept the kitchens. It was certainly the only housework that he had ever done.

He stepped forward. He’d taken a small black bottle from out of the sleeve of his robe.

“Bring me the meat,” he said. “The sauce will take care of itself.”

The assembled people watched with horrified interest. Poison was all part of the Hunghungese court etiquette but people generally did it while hidden from sight somewhere, out of good manners.

“Is there anyone,” said Lord Hong, “who has anything they would like to say?”

His gaze was like a scythe. As it swung around the room people wavered, and hesitated, and fell.

“Very well,” said Lord Hong. “I would rather die than see a…
barbarian
on the Imperial throne. Let him have his…big lumps. Bring me the meat.”

There was movement in the ground, and the sound of shouting and the thump of a stick. A peasant scuttled forward, reluctantly wheeling a huge covered dish on a trolley.

At the sight of Lord Hong he pushed the trolley aside, flung himself forward and grovelled.

“I avert my gaze from your…an orchard in a favorable position…
damn…
countenance, o lord.”

Lord Hong prodded the prone figure with his foot.

“It is good to see the arts of respect maintained,” he observed. “Remove the lid.”

The man got up and, still bowing and ducking, lifted the cover.

Lord Hong upended the bottle and held it there until the last drop had hissed out. His audience was transfixed.

“And now let it be taken to the barbarians,” he said.

“Certainly, your celestial…ink brush…willow frond…righteousness.”

“Where are you from, peasant?”

“Bes Pelargic, o lord.”

“Ah. I thought so.”

The big bamboo doors slid back. The new Lord Chamberlain stepped in, followed by a caravan of trolleys.

“Breakfast, o lord of a thousand years,” he said. “Big lumps of pig, big lumps of goat, big lumps of ox, and seven fried rice.”

One of the servants lifted the lid of a dish. “But take my tip and don’t go for this pork,” he said. “It’s been poisoned.”

The Chamberlain spun around.

“Insolent pig! You will die for this.”

“It’s Rincewind, isn’t it?” said Cohen. “
Looks
like Rincewind—”

“Got my hat here somewhere,” said Rincewind. “Had to stuff it down my trousers—”

“Poison?” said Cohen. “You sure?”

“Well, okay, it was a black bottle and it had a skull and crossbones on it and when he tipped it out it smoked,” said Rincewind, as Mr. Saveloy helped him up. “Was it anchovy essence? I don’t
think
so.”

“Poison,” said Cohen. “I
hate
poisoners. Just about the worst sort, poisoners. Creeping around, putting muck in a man’s grub…”

He glared at the Chamberlain.

“Was it you?” He looked at Rincewind and jerked a thumb towards the cowering Chamberlain. “Was it him? Because if it was he’s going to get done to him what I did to the mad Snake Priests of Start, and this time I’ll use both thumbs!”

“No,” said Rincewind. “It was someone they called Lord Hong. But they all watched him do it.”

A little scream erupted from the Lord Chamberlain. He threw himself to the floor and was about to kiss Cohen’s foot until he realized that this would have about the same effect as eating the pork.

“Mercy, o celestial being! We are all pawns in the hands of Lord Hong!”

“What’s so special about Lord Hong, then?”

“He’s…a fine man!” the Chamberlain gibbered. “I won’t say a word against Lord Hong! I certainly don’t believe it’s true that he has spies everywhere! Long life to Lord Hong, that’s what I say!”

He risked looking up and found the point of Cohen’s sword just in front of his eyes.

“Yeah, but right now who’re you more frightened of? Me or this Lord Hong?”

“Uh…Lord Hong!”

Cohen raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. Spies everywhere, eh?”

He looked around the huge room and his gaze came to rest on a very large vase. He sauntered over to it and raised the lid.

“You okay in there?”

“Er…yes?” said a voice from the depths of the vase.

“Got everythin’ you want? Spare notebook? Potty?”

“Er…yes?”

“Would you like, oh, let’s say about sixty gallons of boiling water?”