Unseen Academicals (19 page)

‘Oh well, if that’s how it’s done, then I suppose we shall have to do it that way,’ said the Archchancellor with bad grace. ‘Stibbons, it will be your task to penalize the opposing side for any infringements they make.’

‘Don’t you mean that I should penalize either side for any
infringements they make, Archchancellor?’ he said. ‘It has to be fair.’

Ridcully looked at him with his mouth open as if Ponder had mentioned a concept that was totally alien. ‘Oh yes, I suppose it has to be like that.’

A variety of wizards had turned out this afternoon from curiosity, a suspicion that being there might turn out to be a good career move, and the prospect of maybe seeing some colleagues travelling across the lawn on their noses.

Oh dear
, thought Ponder as the choosing began. It was just like school again, but at school nobody wanted the fat boy. Here, of course, it had to be a case of nobody wanted the fattest boy, which, since the departure of the Dean, was a matter of fine judgement.

Ponder reached into his robes and pulled out a whistle or, perhaps, the grandfather of all whistles, eight inches long and as thick as a generous pork sausage.

‘Where did that come from, Mister Stibbons?’ said Ridcully.

‘As a matter of fact, Archchancellor, I found it in the study of the late Evans the Striped.’

‘It’s a fine whistle,’ said Ridcully.

It was an innocent sentence that managed to hint quite silently that such a fine whistle should not be in the hands of Ponder Stibbons when it could be in the ownership of, for example, the Archchancellor of a university. Ponder spotted this because he had been expecting it. ‘I shall need this to alert and control the behaviour of both teams,’ he said haughtily. ‘You made me the referee, Archchancellor, and I’m afraid that for the duration of the game I am, as it were,’ he hesitated, ‘in charge.’

‘This university is a hierarchy, you understand, Stibbons?’

‘Yes, sir, and this is a game of football. I believe that the procedure is to put the football down and when the whistle is blown each side will attempt to hit the goal of the opposing side with the ball while trying to prevent the ball hitting their own goal. Have we all understood that?’

‘It seems pretty clear to me,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. There was a murmur of agreement.

‘Nevertheless, before the game I demand a blow on the whistle.’

‘Of course, Archchancellor, but then you must give it me back. I am the custodian of the game.’ He handed over the whistle.

On Ridcully’s first attempt at blowing he dislodged a spider that had been living a blameless yet frugal life for the last twenty years and deposited him in the beard of the Professor of Natural Studies, who was just passing.

The second blow shook free the fossilized pea inside and filled the air with echoes of liquid brass. And then…

Ridcully froze. His face flushed from the neck upwards at speed. The sound of his next drawn breath was like the vengeance of the gods. His stomach expanded, his eyes became pinpoints, thunder rolled overhead and he roared, ‘WHY HAVEN’T YOU BOYS BROUGHT YOUR KIT?!’

St Elmo’s fire roared along the length of the whistle. The sky darkened and fear gripped every watching soul as time reversed and there stood the giant, maniacally screaming Evans the Striped. The instigator of badly forged notes from your mother, the enthusiast for long runs in the sleet, the promoter of communal showers as a cure for adolescent shyness and the one who, if you didn’t bring your proper gear, would make you PLAY IN YOUR PANTS. Venerable wizards who had faced down the most cunning of monsters through the decades trembled in damp adolescent fear as the scream went on and on, to be halted as sharply as it started.

Ridcully fell forward on to the turf.

‘I do apologize for that,’ said Dr Hix, lowering his staff. ‘A slightly evil deed, of course, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it was necessary in the circumstances. The skull ring, remember? University statute? And that was a clear case of possession by artefact if ever I saw one.’

The collected wizards, the cold sweat beginning to evaporate, nodded sagely. Oh, yes. It was regrettably necessary, they agreed. For his own good, they agreed. Had to be done, they agreed. And this verdict was echoed by Ridcully himself when he opened his eyes and said, ‘What the hell was that?’

‘Er, the soul of Evans the Striped, I think, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder.

‘In the whistle, was it?’ Ridcully rubbed his head.

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Ponder.

‘And who hit me?’

A general shuffling and murmuring indicated that by democratic agreement this was a question that could best be answered by Dr Hix.

‘It was acceptable treachery under college statute, sir. Wouldn’t mind the whistle for the Dark Museum, if nobody objects.’

‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Ridcully. ‘Saw the problem, sorted it out. Well done that man.’

‘Do you think I could be allowed an evil chuckle, sir?’

Ridcully brushed himself down. ‘No. We shall forgo the whistle, Mister Stibbons. And now, gentlemen, let the game commence.’

And thus, after a certain amount of bickering, Unseen University’s first football match in decades began. Instantly, from Ponder Stibbons’s point of view, various problems arose. The most pressing one was that all the wizards were dressed as wizards, which was to say alike. Ponder ordered the teams to play hats on and hats off, which caused another row. And that particular problem was exacerbated further because there were so many collisions that even the officially hatted kept losing theirs. And then the game was paused because it was declared that the statue commemorating Archchancellor Scrubbs’s discovery of blit was in fact three inches narrower than the venerable statue of Archchancellor Flanker discovering the Third Breakfast, thus giving an unfair advantage to the hatless squad.

But all these problems, foreseeable and inescapable, paled into insignificance compared with the problem of the ball. It was an official ball–Ponder had made certain of that. But pointy shoes, even if they have a very long point, cannot absorb the impact of the human foot kicking what is, when all is said and screamed, a piece of wood with a thin cloth and leather wrapping. Eventually, as another wizard was helped away with a sprained ankle, even Ridcully was moved to say, ‘This is damn nonsense, Stibbons! There has got to be something better than this.’

‘Bigger boots?’ suggested the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘The kind of boots you need for kicking this would slow you right down,’ said Ponder.

‘Besides, the men on the urn had nothing at all on their feet. I suggest we consider this research. What do we need, Stibbons?’

‘A better ball, sir. And some attempt at running about. And a general consensus that it is not a good idea to stop to re-light your pipe in the middle of play. A more sensible type of goal, because running into a stone statue is painful. Some grasp, however small, of the notion of teamwork in a gaming situation. A resolution not to run away if a member of the opposing team is rushing towards you. An understanding of the fact that you do not handle the ball in
any
circumstances; may I remind you that I gave up stopping play because of this since you gentlemen, when you were excited, persisted in picking it up and, in one case, hiding it behind your back, and standing on it. I would like to point out at this juncture that a sense of direction is worth cultivating vis-à-vis the goal that is yours and the goal that is theirs; inviting as it may be, there is no point in kicking the ball into your own goal, and nor should you congratulate and pat on the back anyone who achieves this feat. Out of the three goals scored in our match, the number scored by players into their own goal was’-he paused and looked down at his clipboard-‘three. This is a commendably high level of scoring, compared with football as currently played, though once again I must stress that issues of direction and goal ownership are of pivotal importance. A tactic, which I admit looked promising, was for the players to cluster thickly around their own goal so there was no possibility of anything getting past them. I regret, however, that if both teams do this you do not have a game so much as a tableau. A more promising tactic, which seemed to be adopted by one or two of you, was to lurk near the opponents’ goal so that if the ball came in your direction you would be ideally placed to get it past the custodian of the goal. The fact that in some cases you and the opposing custodian leaned companionably against the goal, sharing a cigarette and watching the play up-field, showed a decent spirit and may possibly be a good starting point for some more advanced tactics, but I do not think this should be
encouraged. On this general topic, I have to assume that retiring from the field of play for the call of nature or a breather is acceptable, but doing so for a snack is not. My feeling, Archchancellor, is that our colleagues’ general desire to be never more than twenty minutes from some savouries may be satisfactorily catered for by a pause in the middle of the game. Happily, if they changed ends at that point, that would satisfy the complaints about one goal being larger than the other. Yes?’ This was to the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

‘If we change ends,’ said the Chair, who had put his hand up, ‘will that then mean that the goals that were scored into our own goal will now become goals scored against the opposing team since that goal is now physically theirs?’

Ponder considered the metaphysics of answering this one and settled for, ‘No, of course not. I have a whole list of other notes, Archchancellor, and regrettably they add up to us not being very good at football.’

The wizards fell silent. ‘Let’s start with the ball,’ said Ridcully. ‘I’ve got an idea about the ball.’

‘Yes, sir. I thought you would.’

‘Then come and see me after dinner.’

Juliet had been sucked into the manic circus that was the backstage area of Shatta, and no one was paying Glenda any attention whatsoever. Just for now, she was a hindrance, surplus, no use to anyone, an obstruction to be worked around, an onlooker in the game. A little way away, a handsome young dwarf with a double ponytail beard was waiting patiently while a temporary rivet was put into what looked like a silver cuirass. She was surrounded by workers in much the same way as a knight is when his vassals must dress him for combat. Standing a little apart from them were two taller dwarfs, whose weaponry looked slightly more functional than beautiful. They were male. Glenda knew this simply because any female of any sapient species knows the look of a man who has nothing very much to do in an environment that, for this time, is clearly occupied by and totally under the
control of females. It looked as though they were on guard.

Propelled by the sherry, she wandered over. ‘That must cost a lot of money,’ she said to the nearest guard. He looked slightly embarrassed by the approach.

‘You’re telling me. Moonsilver, they call it. We’re even having to walk down the catwalk with her. They say it’s the coming thing, but I dunno. It won’t take an edge and it wouldn’t stop a decent blade. You need Igors to help you smelt it, too. They say it’s worth even more than platinum. Looks good, though, and they say you hardly know you’re wearing it. It’s not what my granddad would have called a metal, but they say that we have to move with the times. Personally, I wouldn’t even hang it on the wall, but there you go.’

‘Girl’s armour,’ said the other guard.

‘What about this micromail stuff?’ said Glenda.

‘Ah, different pocketful of rats entirely, miss,’ said the first guard. ‘I hear they set up and forge it right here in the city, ’cos the best craftsmen are here. Just the job, eh? Chain mail as fine as cloth and strong as steel! It’ll get cheaper, too, they say, and most of all it doesn’t—’

‘Wotcher, Glendy, guess who?’

Someone tapped Glenda on the shoulder. She turned round and saw a vision of heavily but tastefully armoured beauty. It was Juliet, but Glenda only knew this because of the milky-blue eyes. Juliet was wearing a beard.

‘Madame says I’d better wear this,’ she said. ‘It’s not dwarf if it don’t include a beard. What d’you think?’

This time the sherry got in first.

‘It’s actually rather attractive,’ said Glenda, still in mild shock. ‘It’s very–silvery.’

It was a female beard, she could tell. It looked styled and stylish and didn’t have bits of rat in it.

‘Madame says there’s a place saved for you in the front row,’ said Juliet.

‘Oh, I couldn’t sit in the front row—’ Glenda began, on automatic, but the sherry cut in with, ‘Shut up, stop thinking like
your mother, will you, and go and sit down in the damn front row.’

One of the ever-present young ladies chose this exact moment to take Glenda by the hand and lead her slightly unsteady feet through the settling chaos, out through the door and back into fairyland. There was indeed a seat waiting for her.

Fortunately, although in the front row it was off to one side. She would have died of shame had it been right in the middle. She clutched her handbag in both hands and risked a look along the row. It was packed. It wasn’t exclusively dwarf, either; there were a number of human ladies, smartly dressed, a little on the skinny side (in her opinion), almost offensively at ease and all talking.

Another sherry mystically appeared in her hand and, as the noise stopped with rat-trap sharpness, Madame Sharn came out through the curtain and began to address the crowded hall. Glenda thought, I wish I’d worn a better coat…At which point the sherry tucked her up and put her to bed.

Glenda only started to think properly again some time later, when she was hit on the head by a bunch of flowers. They struck her just over the ear and as expensive petals rained around her she looked up at the beaming, radiant face of Juliet, at the very edge of the catwalk, halfway through the motions of shouting ‘Duck!’

…And there were more flowers flying and people standing and cheering, and music, and in general the feeling of being under a waterfall with no water but inexhaustible torrents of sound and light.

Out of it all Juliet exploded, throwing herself at Glenda and flinging her arms around her neck.