Terry Pratchett - Discworld 21 - Jingo

v1.0. 15/11/2000 Scanned and spellchecked with Word2000 by 4i Publications.

It was a moonless night, which was good for the purposes of Solid Jackson.

He fished for Curious Squid, so called because, as well as being squid, they were

curious. That is to say, their curiosity was the curious thing about them.

Shortly after they got curious about the lantern that Solid had hung over the stern

of his boat, they started to become curious about the way in which various of their

number suddenly vanished skywards with a splash.

Some of them even became curious – very briefly curious about the sharp barbed

thing that was coming very quickly towards them.

The Curious Squid were extremely curious. Unfortunately, they weren't very good

at making connections.

It was a very long way to this fishing ground, but for Solid the trip was usually well

worth it. The Curious Squid were very small, harmless, difficult to find and reckoned

by connoisseurs to have the foulest taste of any creature in the world. This made

them very much in demand in a certain kind of restaurant where highly skilled chefs

made, with great care, dishes containing no trace of the squid whatsoever.

Solid Jackson's problem was that tonight, a moonless night in the spawning

season, when the squid were especially curious about everything, the chef seemed to

have been at work on the sea itself.

There was not a single interested eyeball to be seen. There weren't any other fish

either, and usually there were a few attracted to the light. He'd caught sight of one.

It had been making through the water extremely fast in a straight line.

He laid down his trident and walked to the other end of the boat, where his son

Les was also gazing intently at the torchlit sea.

'Not a thing in half an hour,' said Solid.

'You sure we're in the right spot, Dad?'

Solid squinted at the horizon. There was a faint glow in the sky that indicated the

city of Al–Khali, on the Klatchian coast. He turned round. The other horizon

glowed, too, with the lights of AnkhMorpork. The boat bobbed gently halfway

between the two.

‘ ‘Course we are,' he said, but certainty edged away from his words.

Because there was a hush on the sea. It didn't look right. The boat rocked a little,

but that was with their movement, not from any motion of the waves.

It felt as if there was going to be a storm. But the stars twinkled softly and there

was not a cloud in the sky.

The stars twinkled on the surface of the water, too. Now that was something you

didn't often see.

'I reckon we ought to be getting out of here,' Solid said.

Les pointed at the slack sail. 'What're we going to use for wind, Dad?'

It was then that they heard the splash of oars,

Solid, squinting hard, could just make out the shape

of another boat, heading towards him. He grabbed his boathook.

'I knows that's you, you thieving foreign bastard!'

The oars stopped. A voice sang over the water.

'May you be consumed by a thousand devils, you damned person!'

The other boat glided closer. It looked foreign, with eyes painted on the prow,

'Fished 'ern all out, have you? I'll take my trident to you, you bottom–feedin' scum

that y'are!'

'My curvy sword at your neck, you unclean son of a dog of the female persuasion!'

Les looked over the side. Little bubbles fizzed on the surface of the sea.

'Dad?' he said.

'That's Greasy Arif out there!' snapped his father, 'You take a good look at him!

He's been coming out here for years, stealing our squid, the evil lying little devil!'

'Dad, there's–'

'You get on them oars and I'll knock his black teeth out!'

Les could hear a voice saying from the other boat, '–see, my son, how the

underhanded fish thief–'

'Row!' his father shouted.

'To the oars!' shouted someone in the other boat.

'Whose squid are they, Dad?' said Les.

'Ours!'

'What, even before we've caught them?'

'Just you shut up and row!'

'I can't move the boat, Dad, we're stuck on something!'

'It's a hundred fathoms deep here, boy! What's there to stick on?'

Les tried to disentangle an oar from the thing rising slowly out of the fizzing sea.

'Looks like a... a chicken, Dad!'

There was a sound from below the surface. It sounded like sonic bell or gong,

slowly swinging.

'Chickens can't swim!'

'It's made of iron, Dad!'

Solid scrambled to the rear of the boat.

It was a chicken, made of iron. Seaweed and shells covered it and water dripped

off it as it rose against the stars.

It stood on a cross–shaped perch.

There seemed to be a letter on each of the four ends of the cross.

Solid held the torch closer.

'What the–'

Then he pulled the oar free and sat down beside his son.

'Row like the blazes, Les!'

'What's happening, Dad?'

'Shut up and row! Get us away from it!'

'Is it a monster, –Dad?'

'It's worse than a monster, son!' shouted Solid, as the oars bit into the water.

The thing was quite high now, standing on some kind of tower...

'What is it, Dad! What is it?'

'It's a damned weathercock!'

There was not, on the whole, a lot of geological excitement. The sinking of

continents is usually accompanied by volcanoes, earthquakes and armadas of little

boats containing old men anxious to build pyramids and mystic stone circles in

sonic new land where

being the possessor of genuine ancient occult wisdom might be expected to

attract girls. But the rising of this one caused barely a ripple in the purely physical

scheme of things. It more or less sidled back, like a cat who's been away for a few

days and knows you've been worrying.

Around the shores of the Circle Sea a large wave, only five or six feet high by the

time it reached them, caused some comment. And in some of the very low–lying

swamp areas the water swamped some villages of people that no–one else cared

about very much. But in a purely geological sense, nothing very much happened.

In a purely geological sense.

‘It’s a city, Dad! Look, you can see all the windows and––'

'I told you to shut up and keep rowing!'

The seawater surged down the streets. On either side, huge, weed–encrusted

buildings boiled slowly out of the surf.

Father and son fought to keep some way on the boat as it was dragged along.

And, since lesson one in the art of rowing is that you do it while looking the wrong

way, they didn't see the other boat...

'You lunatic!'

'Foolish man!'

'Don't you touch that building! This country belongs to Ankh–Morpork!'

The two boats spun in a temporary whirlpool.

'I claim this land in the name of the Seriph of Al–Khali!'

'We saw it first! Les, you tell him we saw it first!'

'We saw it first before you saw it first!'

'Les, you saw him, he tried to hit me with that oar!'

'But Dad, you're waving that trident–'

'See the untrustworthy way he attacks us, Akhan!'

There was a grinding noise from under the keel of both boats and they began to

tip as they settled into the sea–bottom ooze.

'Look, Father, there is an interesting statue–'

'He has set his foot on Klatchian soil! The squid thief!'

'Get those filthy sandals off Ankh–Morporkian territory!'

'Oh, Dad–'

The two fishermen stopped screaming at each other, mainly in order to get their

breath back. Crabs scuttled away. Water drained between the patches of weed,

carving runnels in the grey silt.

'Father, look, there's still coloured tiles on the––'

'Mine!'

Les caught Akhan's eye. They exchanged a very brief glance which was

nevertheless modulated with a considerable amount of information, beginning with

the sheer galactic–sized embarrassment of having parents and working up from

there.

'Dad, we don't have to–' Les began.

'You shut up! It's your future fro thinking about, my lad–'

'Yes, but who cares who saw it first, Dad? We're both hundreds of miles from

home! I mean, who's going to know, Dad?'

The two squid fishermen glared at one another.

The dripping buildings rose above them. There were holes that might well have

been doorways, and glassless apertures that could have been windows, but

all was darkness within. Now and again, Les fancied he could hear something

slithering.

Solid Jackson coughed. 'The lad's right,' he muttered. 'Daft to argue. just the four

of us.'

'Indeed,' said Arif.

They backed away, each man carefully watching the other. Then, so closely that it

was a chorus, they both yelled: 'Grab the boat!'

There was a confused couple of moments and then each pair, boat carried over

their heads, ran and slithered along the muddy streets.

They had to stop and come back, with mutual cries of 'A kidnapper as well, eh?', to

get the right sons.

As every student of exploration knows, the prize goes not to the explorer who first

sets foot upon the virgin soil but to the one who gets that foot home first. If it is

still attached to his leg, this is a bonus.

The weathercocks of Ankh–Morpork creaked around in the wind.

Very few of them were in fact representations of Avis domestica. There were various

dragons, fish and miscellaneous animals. On the roof of the Assassins' Guild a

silhouette of one of the members squeaked into a new position, cloak and dagger at

the ready. On the Beggars' Guild a tin beggar's hand asked the wind for a quarter.

On the Butchers' Guild a copper pig sniffed the air. On the roof of the Thieves'

Guild a real if rather decreased unlicensed thief turned gently, which shows what you

are capable of if you try, or at least if you try stealing without a licence.

The one on the library dome of Unseen University was running slow and wouldn't

show the change for

half an hour yet, but the smell of the sea drifted over the city.

There was a tradition of soap–box public speaking in Sator Square. 'Speaking' was

stretching a point to cover the ranters, haranguers and occasional selfabsorbed

mumblers that spaced themselves at intervals amongst the crowds. And,

traditionally, people said whatever was on their minds and at the top of their voices.

The Patrician, it was said, looked kindly on the custom. He did. And very closely,

too. He probably had someone make notes.

So did the Watch.

It wasn't spying Commander Vimes told himself. Spying was when you crept

around peeking in windows. It wasn't spying when you had to stand back a bit so

that you weren't deafened.

He reached out without paying attention and struck a match on Sergeant Detritus.

'Dat was me, sir,' said the troll reproachfully.

'Sorry, sergeant,' said Vimes, lighting his cigar.

'It not a problem.'

They returned their attention to the speakers.

It's the wind, thought Vimes. It's bringing something new...

Usually the speakers dealt with all kinds of subjects, many of them on the cusp of

sanity or somewhere in the peaceful valleys on the other side. But now they were all

monomaniacs.

'–time they were taught a lesson!' screamed the nearest one. 'Why don't our

so–called masters listen to the voice of the people? Ankh–Morpork has had enough

of these swaggering brigands! They steal our fish, they steal our trade and now

they're stealing our land!'

It would have been better if people had cheered, Vimes thought. People generally

cheered the speakers

indiscriminately, to egg them on. But the crowd around this man just seemed to

nod approval. He thought: they're actually thinking about what he said...

'They stole my merchandise!' shouted a speaker opposite him. 'It's a pirate bloody

empire! I was boarded! In Ankh–Morpork waters!'

There was a general self–righteous muttering.

'What did they steal, Mr Jenkins?' said a voice from the crowd.

'A cargo of fine silks!'

The crowd hissed.

'Ah? Not dried fish offal and condemned meat, then? That's your normal cargo, I

believe.'

Mr Jenkins strained to look for the speaker.

'Fine silks!' he said. 'And what does the city care about that? Nothing!'

There were shouts of 'Shame!'

'Has the city been told?' said the enquiring voice.

People started to crane their heads. And then the crowd opened a little, to reveal

the figure of Commander Vimes of the City Watch.

'Well, it's... I...' Jenkins began. 'Er... I...'

'I care,' said Vimes calmly. 'Shouldn't be too hard to track down a cargo of fine

silks that stink of fish guts.' There was laughter. Ankh–Morpork people always like

some variety in their street theatre.

Vimes apparently spoke to Sergeant Detritus, while keeping his gaze locked on

Jenkins. 'Detritus, just you go along with Mr Jenkins here, will you? His ship is the

Milka, I believe. He'll show you all the lading bills and manifests and receipts and

things, and then we can sort him out in jig time.'

There was a clang as Detritus's huge hand came to rest against his helmet.

'Yessir!'

'Er... er... you can't,' said Jenkins quickly. 'They... er... stole the paperwork as well...'

'Really? So they can take the stuff back to the shop if it doesn't fit?'

'Er... anyway, the ship's sailed. Yes! Sailed! Got to try and recoup my losses, you

know!'

'Sailed? Without its captain?' said Vimes. 'So Mr Scoplett is in charge? Your first

officer?'

'Yes, yes–'

'Damn!' said Vimes, snapping his fingers theatrically. 'That man we've got in the

cells on a charge of being Naughtily Drunk last night... we're going to have to charge

him with impersonation as well, then? I don't know, more blasted paperwork, the

stuff just piles up...'

Mr Jenkins tried to look away but Vimes's stare kept pulling him back. The

occasional tremble of a lip suggested that he was preparing a riposte, but he was

bright enough to spot that Vimes's grin was as funny as the one that moves very

fast towards drowning men. And has a fin on top.

Mr Jenkins made a wise decision, and got down. 'I'll.... er... I'll go and sort... I'd

better go and... er...' he said, and pushed his Way through the mob, which waited a

little while to see if anything interesting was going to happen and then,

disappointed, sought out other entertainment.

'You want I should go ad have a look at his boat?' said Detritus.

'No, sergeant. There won't be any silk, and there won't be any paperwork. There

won't be anything except a lingering aroma of fish guts.'

'Wow, dem damn Klatchians steals everything that ain't nailed down, right?'

Vimes shook his head and strolled on. 'They don't have trolls in Klatch, do they?'

he said.

'Nossir. It's der heat. Troll brains don't work in der heat. If I was to go to Klatch,'

said Detritus, his knuckles making little bink–bink noises as he dragged them over

the cobbles, 'I'd be really stoopid.'

'Detritus?'

'Yessir?'

'Never go to Klatch.'

'Nossir.'

Another speaker was attracting a much larger crowd. He stood in front of a large

banner that proclaimed: GREASY FORANE HANDS OFF LESHP.

'Leshp,' said Detritus. 'Now dere's a name that ain't got its teef in.'

'It's the land that came back up from under the sea last week,' said Vimes

despondently. . ,

They listened while the speaker proclaimed that Ankh–Morpork had a duty to

protect its kith and kin on the new land. Detritus looked puzzled.

'How come dere's dese kiff and kin on dere when it only just come up from under

der water?' he said.

'Good question,' said Vimes.

'Dey been holding dere breath?'

'I doubt it.'

There was more in the air than the salt of the sea, Vimes thought. There was some

other current. He could sense it. Suddenly, the problem was Klatch.

Ankh–Morpork had been at peace with Klatch, or at least in a state of non–war,

for almost a century. It was, after all, the neighbouring country.

Neighbours... hah! But what did that mean? The Watch could tell you a thing or

two about neighbours. So could lawyers, especially the real rich ones to whom

'neighbour' meant a man who'd sue for twenty

years over a strip of garden two inches wide. Peopled live for ages side by side,

nodding at one another amicably on their way to work every day, and then some

trivial thing would happen and someone would he having a garden fork removed

from their ear.

And now some damn rock had risen up out of the sea and everyone was acting as

if Klatch had let its dog bark all night.

'Aagragaah,' said Detritus, mournfully.

'Don't mind me, just don't spit it on my boot,' said Vimes.

'It mean–' Detritus waved a huge hand, 'like... dem things, what only comes in...' he

paused and looked at his fingers, while his lips moved'... fours. Aagragaah. It mean

lit'rally der time when you see dem little pebbles and you jus' know dere's gonna be a

great big landslide on toppa you and it already too late to run. Dat moment, dat's

aagragaah.'

Vimes's own lips moved. 'Forebodings?'

'Dat's der bunny.'

'Where does the word come from?'

Detritus shrugged. 'Maybe it named after der soun' you make just as a t'ousand ton

of rock hit you.'

'Forebodings...' Vimes rubbed his chin. 'Yeah. Well, I've got plenty of them...'

Landslides and avalanches, he thought. All the little snowflakes land, light as a

feather – and suddenly the whole side of a mountain is moving...

Detritus looked at him slyly. 'I know everyone say "Dem two short planks, dey're

as fick as Detritus",' he said, 'but I know which way der wind is blowin'.'

Vimes looked at his sergeant with a new respect.

'You can spot it, can you?'

The troll's finger tapped his helmet twice, knowingly.

'It pretty obvious,' he said. 'You see up on der roofs dem little chickies and dragons

and stuff? And dat poor bugger on der Fieves' Guild? You just has to watch 'em.

Dey know. Beats me how dey always pointin' der right way.'

Vimes relaxed a little. Detritus's intelligence wasn't too bad for a troll, falling

somewhere between a cuttlefish and a linedancer, but you could rely on him not to

let it slow him down.

Detritus winked. 'An' it look to me like dat time when you go an' find a big club

and listen to grandad tellin' you how he beat up all dem dwarfs when he was a boy,'

he said. 'Somethin' in der wind, right?'

'Er... yes...' said Vimes.

There was a fluttering above him. He sighed. A message was coming in.

On a pigeon.

But they'd tried everything else, hadn't they? Swamp dragons tended to explode in

the air, imps ate the messages and the semaphore helmets had not been a success,

especially in high winds. And then Corporal Littlebottom had pointed out that

Ankh–Morpork's pigeons were, because of many centuries of depredation by the

city's gargoyle population, considerably more intelligent than most pigeons, although

Vimes considered that this was not difficult because there were things growing on

old damp bread that were more intelligent than most pigeons.

He took a handful of corn out of his pocket. The pigeon, obedient to its careful

training, settled on his shoulder. In obedience to internal pressures, it relieved itself.

'You know, we've got to find something better,' said Vimes, as he unwrapped the

message. 'Every

time we send a message to Constable Downspout he eats it.'

'Well, he are a gargoyle,' said Detritus. 'He fink it lunch arriving.'

'Oh,' said Vimes, 'his lordship requires my attendance. How nice.'

Lord Vetinari looked attentive, because he'd always found that listening keenly to

people tended to put them off.

And at meetings Eke this, when he was advised by the leaders of the city, he

listened with great care because what people said was what they wanted him to

hear. He paid a lot of attention to the spaces outside the words, though. That's

where the things were that they hoped he didn't know and didn't want him to find

out.

Currently he was paying attention to the things that Lord Downey of the

Assassins' Guild was failing to say in a lengthy exposition of the Guild's high level of

training and value to the city. The voice, eventually, came to a stop in the face of

Vetinari's aggressive listening.

'Thank you, Lord Downey,' he said. 'I'm sure we shall all he able to sleep a lot more

uneasily for knowing all that. just one minor point... I believe the word "assassin"

actually comes from Klatch?'

'Well... indeed...'

'And I believe also that many of your students are, as it turns out, from Klatch and

its neighbouring countries?'

'The unrivalled quality of our education. .

'Quite so. What you are telling me, in point of fact, is that their assassins have been

doing it longer, know

their way around our city and have had their traditional skills honed by you?'

'Er...'

The Patrician turned to Mr Burleigh.

'We surely have superiority in weapons, Mr BurIeigh?'

'Oh, yes. Say what you like about dwarfs, but we've been turning out some superb

stuff lately,' said the President of the Guild of Armourers.

'Ah. That at least is some comfort.'

'Yes,' said Burleigh. He looked wretched. 'However, the thing about weapons

manufacture... the important thing... '

'I believe you are about to say that the important thing about the business of

weaponry is that it is a business,' said the Patrician.

Burleigh looked as though he'd been let off the hook on to a bigger hook.

'Er... yes.'

'That, in fact, the weapons are for selling.'

'Er... exactly.'

'To anyone who wishes to buy them.'

'Er... yes.'

'Regardless of the use to which they are going to be put?'

The armaments manufacturer looked affronted.

'Pardon me? Of course. They're weapons.'

'And I suspect that in recent years a very lucrative market has been Klatch?'

'Well, yes... the Seriph needs them to pacify the outlying regions...'

The Patrician held up his hand. Drumknott, his clerk, gave him a piece of paper.

'The "Great Leveller" Cart–Mounted Ten–Bank 500–pound Crossbow?' he said.

'And, let me see... the

"Meteor" Automated Throwing Star Hurler, Decapitates at Twenty Paces, Money

Back If Not Completely Decapitated?'

'Have you ever heard of the D'regs, my lord?' said Burleigh. 'They say the only way

to pacify one of them is to hit him repeatedly with an axe and bury what's left under

a rock. And even then, choose a heavy rock.'

The Patrician seemed to be staring at a large drawing of the 'Dervish` Mk III

Razor–Wire Bolas. There was a painful silence. Burleigh tried to fill it up, always a

bad mistake.

'Besides, we provide much–needed jobs in AnkhMorpork,' he murmured.

'Exporting these weapons to other countries,' said Lord Vetinari. He handed the

paper back and fixed Burleigh with a friendly smile.

'I'm very pleased to see that the industry has done so well,' he said. 'I will bear this

particularly in mind.'

He placed his hands together carefully. 'The situation is grave, gentlemen.'

'Whose?' said Mr Burleigh.

'I'm sorry?'

'What? Oh... I was thinking about something else, my lord...'

'I was referring to the fact that a number of our citizens have gone out to this

wretched island. As have, I understand, a number of Klatchians.'

'Why are our people going out there?' said Mr Boggis of the Thieves' Guild.

'Because they are showing a brisk pioneering spirit and seeking wealth and...

additional wealth in a new land,' said Lord Vetinari.

'What's in it for the Klatchians?' said Lord Downey.

'Oh, they've gone out there because they are a

bunch of unprincipled opportunists always ready to grab something for nothing,'

said Lord Vetinari.

'A masterly summation, if I may say so, my lord,' said Mr Burleigh, who felt he had

some ground to make up.

The Patrician looked down again at his notes. 'Oh, I do beg your pardon,' he said,

'I seem to have read those last two sentences in the wrong order... Mr Slant, I

believe you have something to say here?'

The president of the Guild of Lawyers cleared his throat. The sound was like a

death rattle and technically it was, since the man had been a zombie for several

hundred years although historical accounts suggested that the only difference dying

had made to W Slant was that he'd started to work through his lunch break.

'Yes, indeed,' he said, opening a large legal tome. 'The history of the city of Leshp

and its surrounding country is a little obscure. It is known to have been above the

sea almost a thousand years ago, however, when records suggest that it was

considered part of the Ankh–Morpork empire––

'What is the nature of these records and do they tell us who was doing the

considering?' said the Patrician. The door opened and Vimes stepped in. 'Ah,

commander, do take a seat. Continue, Mr Slant.'

The zombie did not like interruptions. He coughed again. 'The records relating to

the lost country date back several hundred years, my lord. And they are of course our

records.'

'Only ours?'

'I hardly see how any others could apply,' said Mr Slant severely.

Terry Pratchett - Discworld 21 - Jingo

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