Terry Pratchett - Discworld 33 - Going Postal

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Gebundene Ausgabe – 329 Seiten – Doubleday Erscheinungsdatum: 7. Oktober
2004 ISBN: 0385603428 Gebundene Ausgabe - 377 Seiten – HarperCollins
Publishers Erscheinungsdatum: 1. Oktober 2004 ISBN: 0060013133
British fantasist Pratchett's latest special-delivery delight, set in his
wonderfully crazed city of Ankh-Morpork, hilariously reflects the plight of
post offices the world over as they struggle to compete in an era when
e-mail has stolen much of the glamour from the postal trade. Soon after
Moist von Lipwig (aka Alfred Spangler), Pratchett's not-quite-hapless,
accidental hero, barely avoids hanging, Lord Havelock Vetinari, the
despotic but pretty cool ruler of Ankh-Morpork, makes him a job offer he
can't refuse—postmaster general of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office. The
post office hasn't been open for 20 years since the advent of the
Internet-like clacks communication system. Moist's first impulse is to try to
escape, but Mr. Pump, his golem parole officer, quickly catches him. Moist
must then deal with the musty mounds of undelivered mail that fill every
room of the decaying Post Office building maintained by ancient and smelly
Junior Postman Groat and his callow assistant, Apprentice Postman
Stanley. The place is also haunted by dead postmen and guarded by Mr.
Tiddles, a crafty cat.
Readers will cheer Moist on as he eventually finds himself in a race with the
dysfunctional clacks system to see whose message can be delivered first.
Thanks to the timely subject matter and Pratchett's effervescent wit, this
29th Discworld novel (after 2003's Monstrous Regiment) may capture
more of the American audience he deserves.
Going Postal by
Terry Pratchett A
Diskworld Novel (No. 29)
5
The 9,000 Year Prologue
The flotillas of the dead sailed around the world on underwater rivers.
Very nearly nobody knew about them. But the theory is easy to understand.
It runs: the sea is, after all, in many respects only a wetter form of air. And it is known that air is denser the lower you go and lighter the higher you
fly. As a storm-tossed ship founders and sinks, therefore, it must reach a depth where the water below it is just viscous enough to stop its fall.
In short, it stops sinking and ends up floating on an underwater surface, beyond the reach of the storms but far above the ocean floor.
It’s calm there. Dead calm.
Some stricken ships have rigging; some even have sails. Many still have crew, tangled in the rigging or lashed to the wheel.
But the voyages still continue, aimlessly, with no harbour in sight, because there are currents under the ocean and so the dead ships with their
skeleton crews sail on around the world, over sunken cities and between drowned mountains, until rot and shipworms eat them away and they
disintegrate.
Sometimes an anchor drops, all the way to the dark, cold calmness of the abyssal plain, and disturbs the stillness of centuries by throwing up a cloud
of silt.
One nearly hit Anghammarad, where he sat watching the ships drift by, far overhead.
He remembered it, because it was the only really interesting thing to happen for nine thousand years.
6 The One Month Prologue There was this . . . disease that the clacksmen got. It was like the illness known as ‘calenture’ that sailors experienced
when, having been becalmed for weeks under a pitiless sun, they suddenly believed that the ship was surrounded by green fields and stepped
overboard.
Sometimes, the clacksmen thought they could fly.
There was about eight miles between the big semaphore towers and when you were at the top you were maybe a hundred and fifty feet above the
plains. Work up there too long without a hat on, they said, and the tower you were on got taller and the nearest tower got closer and maybe you
thought you could jump from one to the other, or ride on the invisible messages sleeting between them, or perhaps you thought that you were a
message. Perhaps, as some said, all this was nothing more than a disturbance in the brain caused by the wind in the rigging. No one knew for sure.
People who step on to the air one hundred and fifty feet above the ground seldom have much to discuss afterwards.
The tower shifted gently in the wind, but that was okay. There were lots of new designs in this tower. It stored the wind to power its mechanisms, it
bent rather than broke, it acted more like a tree than a fortress. You could build most of it on the ground and raise it into place in an hour. It was a
thing of grace and beauty. And it could send messages up to four times faster than the old towers, thanks to the new shutter system and the coloured
lights.
At least, it would once they had sorted out a few lingering problems . . .
The young man climbed swiftly to the very top of the tower. For most of the way he was in clinging, grey morning mist, and then he was rising
through glorious sunlight, the mist spreading below him, all the way to the horizon, like a sea.
7 He paid the view no attention. He’d never dreamed of flying.
He dreamed of mechanisms, of making things work better than they’d ever done before.
Right now, he wanted to find out what was making the new shutter array stick again. He oiled the sliders, checked the tension on the wires, and then
swung himself out over fresh air to check the shutters themselves. It wasn’t what you were supposed to do, but every linesman knew it was the only
way to get things done.
Anyway, it was perfectly safe if you— There was a clink. He looked back and saw the snaphook of his safety rope lying on the walkway, saw the
shadow, felt the terrible pain in his fingers, heard the scream and dropped . . .
. . . like an anchor.
8 Chapter One The Angel In which our Hero experiences Hope, the Greatest Gift - The Bacon Sandwich of Regret- Sombre Reflections on Capital
Punishment from the Hangman - Famous Last Words — Our Hero Dies - Angels, conversations about — Inadvisability of Misplaced Offers regarding
Broomsticks - An Unexpected Ride - A World Free of Honest Men - A Man on the Hop - There is Always a Choice They say that the prospect of being
hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in
the morning, is going to be hanged.
The man going to be hanged had been named Moist von Lipwig by doting if unwise parents, but he was not going to embarrass the name, in so far as
that was still possible, by being hung under it. To the world in general, and particularly on that bit of it known as the death warrant, he was Albert
Spangler.
And he took a more positive approach to the situation and had concentrated his mind on the prospect of not being hanged in the morning, and most
particularly on the prospect of removing all the crumbling mortar from around a stone in his cell wall with a spoon.
So far the work had taken him five weeks, and reduced the spoon to something like a nail file. Fortunately, no one ever came to change the bedding
here, or else they would have discovered the world’s heaviest mattress.
9 It was the large and heavy stone that was currently the object of his attentions, and at some point a huge staple had been hammered into it as an
anchor for manacles.
Moist sat down facing the wall, gripped the iron ring in both hands, braced his legs against the stones on either side, and heaved.
His shoulders caught fire and a red mist filled his vision but the block slid out, with a faint and inappropriate tinkling noise. Moist managed to ease it
away from the hole and peered inside.
At the far end was another block, and the mortar around it looked suspiciously strong and fresh.
Just in front of it was a new spoon. It was shiny.
As he studied it, he heard the clapping behind him. He turned his head, tendons twanging a little riff of agony, and saw several of the warders
watching him through the bars.
“Well done, Mr Spangler!’ said one of them. ‘Ron here owes me five dollars! I told him you were a sticker! He’s a sticker, I said!’ ‘You set this up, did
you, Mr Wilkinson?’ said Moist weakly, watching the glint of light on the spoon.
‘Oh, not us, sir. Lord Vetinari’s orders. He insists that all condemned prisoners should be offered the prospect of freedom.’
‘Freedom? But there’s a damn great stone through there!’ ‘Yes, there is that, sir, yes, there is that,’ said the warder. ‘It’s only the prospect, you see.
Not actual free freedom as such. Hah, that’d be a bit daft, eh?’ ‘I suppose so, yes,’ said Moist. He didn’t say ‘you bastards.’
The warders had treated him quite civilly this past six weeks, and he made a point of getting on with people. He was very, very good at it. People
skills were part of his stock-in-trade; they were nearly the whole of it.
Besides, these people had big sticks. So, speaking carefully, he added: ‘Some people might consider this cruel, Mr Wilkinson.’
10 ‘Yes, sir, we asked him about that, sir, but he said no, it wasn’t.
He said it provided—’ his forehead wrinkled ‘—occ-you-pay-shun-all ther-rap-py, healthy exercise, prevented moping and offered that greatest of all
treasures which is Hope, sir.’
‘Hope,’ muttered Moist glumly.
‘Not upset, are you, sir?’ ‘Upset? Why should I be upset, Mr Wilkinson?’ ‘Only the last bloke we had in this cell, he managed to get down that drain,
sir. Very small man. Very agile.’
Moist looked at the little grid in the floor. He’d dismissed it out of hand.
‘Does it lead to the river?’ he said.
The warder grinned. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? He was really upset when we fished him out. Nice to see you’ve entered into the spirit of the thing,
sir. You’ve been an example to all of us, sir, the way you kept going. Stuffing all the dust in your mattress?
Very clever, very tidy. Very neat. It’s really cheered us up, having you in here. By the way, Mrs Wilkinson says ta very much for the fruit basket.
Very posh, it is. It’s got kumquats, even!’ ‘Don’t mention it, Mr Wilkinson.’
‘The Warden was a bit green about the kumquats ‘cos he only got dates in his, but I told him, sir, that fruit baskets is like life: until you’ve got the
pineapple off’f the top you never know what’s underneath. He says thank you, too.’
‘Glad he liked it, Mr Wilkinson,’ said Moist absent-mindedly.
Several of his former landladies had brought in presents for ‘the poor confused boy’, and Moist always invested in generosity. A career like his was all
about style, after all.
‘On that general subject, sir,’ said Mr Wilkinson, ‘me and the lads were wondering if you might like to unburden yourself, at this point in time, on the
subject of the whereabouts of the place where 11 the location of the spot is where, not to beat about the bush, you hid all that money you stole . . . ?’
The jail went silent. Even the cockroaches were listening.
‘No, I couldn’t do that, Mr Wilkinson,’ said Moist loudly, after a decent pause for dramatic effect. He tapped his jacket pocket, held up a finger and
winked.
The warders grinned back.
‘We understand totally, sir. Now I’d get some rest if I was you, sir, ‘cos we’re hanging you in half an hour,’ said Mr Wilkinson.
‘Hey, don’t I get breakfast?’ ‘Breakfast isn’t until seven o’clock, sir,’ said the warder reproachfully. ‘But, tell you what, I’ll do you a bacon sandwich,
‘cos it’s you, Mr Spangler.’
And now it was a few minutes before dawn and it was him being led down the short corridor and out into the little room under the scaffold. Moist
realized he was looking at himself from a distance, as if part of himself was floating outside his body like a child’s balloon ready, as it were, for him to
let go of the string.
The room was lit by light coming through cracks in the scaffold floor above, and significantly from around the edges of the large trapdoor. The hinges
of said door were being carefully oiled by a man in a hood.
He stopped when he saw the party arrive and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Spangler.’ He raised the hood helpfully. ‘It’s me, sir, Daniel “One Drop” Trooper.
I am your executioner for today, sir.
Don’t you worry, sir. I’ve hanged dozens of people. We’ll soon have you out of here.’
‘Is it true that if a man isn’t hanged after three attempts he’s reprieved, Dan?’ said Moist, as the executioner carefully wiped his hands on a rag.
‘So I’ve heard, sir, so I’ve heard. But they don’t call me One Drop for nothing, sir. And will sir be having the black bag today?’ 12 ‘Will it help?’ ‘Some
people think it makes them look more dashing, sir. And it stops that pop-eyed look. It’s more a crowd thing, really. Quite a big one out there this
morning. Nice piece about you in the Times yesterday, I thought. All them people saying what a nice young man you were, and everything. Er . . .
would you mind signing the rope beforehand, sir? I mean, I won’t have a chance to ask you afterwards, eh?’ ‘Signing the rope?’ said Moist.
‘Yessir,’ said the hangman. ‘It’s sort of traditional. There’s a lot of people out there who buy old rope. Specialist collectors, you could say. A bit
strange, but it takes all sorts, eh? Worth more signed, of course.’ He flourished a length of stout rope. ‘I’ve got a special pen that signs on rope. One
signature every couple of inches? Straightforward signature, no dedication needed. Worth money to me, sir. I’d be very grateful’ ‘So grateful that you
won’t hang me, then?’ said Moist, taking the pen.
This got an appreciative laugh. Mr Trooper watched him sign along the length, nodding happily.
‘Well done, sir, that’s my pension plan you’re signing there.
Now . . . are we ready, everyone?’ ‘Not me!’ said Moist quickly, to another round of general amusement.
‘You’re a card, Mr Spangler,’ said Mr Wilkinson. ‘It won’t be the same without you around, and that’s the truth.’
‘Not for me, at any rate,’ said Moist. This was, once again, treated like rapier wit. Moist sighed. ‘Do you really think all this deters crime, Mr Trooper?’
he said.
‘Well, in the generality of things I’d say it’s hard to tell, given that it’s hard to find evidence of crimes not committed,’ said the hangman, giving the
trapdoor a final rattle. ‘But in the specificality, sir, I’d say it’s very efficacious.’
13 ‘Meaning what?’ said Moist.
‘Meaning I’ve never seen someone up here more’n once, sir.
Shall we go?’ There was a stir when they climbed up into the chilly morning air, followed by a few boos and even some applause. People were strange
like that. Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.
Moist stared ahead while the roll call of his crimes was read out.
He couldn’t help feeling that it was so unfair. He’d never so much as tapped someone on the head. He’d never even broken down a door. He had
picked locks on occasion, but he’d always locked them again behind him. Apart from all those repossessions, bankruptcies and sudden insolvencies,
what had he actually done that was bad, as such? He’d only been moving numbers around.
‘Nice crowd turned out today,’ said Mr Trooper, tossing the end of the rope over the beam and busying himself with knots. ‘Lot of press, too. What
Gallows? covers ‘em all, o’ course, and there’s the Times and the Pseudopolis Herald, prob’ly because of that bank what collapsed there, and I heard
there’s a man from the Sto Plains Dealer, too. Very good financial section - I always keep an eye on the used rope prices. Looks like a lot of people
want to see you dead, sir.’
Moist was aware that a black coach had drawn up at the rear of the crowd. There was no coat of arms on the door, unless you were in on the secret,
which was that Lord Vetinari’s coat of arms featured a sable shield. Black on black. You had to admit that the bastard had style— ‘Huh? What?’ he
said, in response to a nudge.
‘I asked if you have any last words, Mr Spangler?’ said the hangman. ‘It’s customary. I wonder if you might have thought of any?’ ‘I wasn’t actually
expecting to die,’ said Moist. And that was it.
He really hadn’t, until now. He’d been certain that something would turn up.
14 ‘Good one, sir,’ said Mr Wilkinson. ‘We’ll go with that, shall we?’ Moist narrowed his eyes. The curtain on a coach window had twitched. The coach
door had opened. Hope, that greatest of all treasures, ventured a little glitter.
‘No, they’re not my actual last words,’ he said. ‘Er . . . let me think . . .’
A slight, clerk-like figure was descending from the coach.
‘Er . . . it’s not as bad a thing I do now . . . er . . .’ Aha, it all made some kind of sense now. Vetinari was out to scare him, that was it. That would be
just like the man, from what Moist had heard.
There was going to be a reprieve!
‘I . . . er . . . I . . .’
Down below, the clerk was having difficulty getting through the press of people.
‘Do you mind speeding up a bit, Mr Spangler?’ said the hangman. ‘Fair’s fair, eh?’ ‘I want to get it right,’ said Moist haughtily, watching the clerk
negotiate his way around a large troll.
‘Yes, but there’s a limit, sir,’ said the hangman, annoyed at this breach of etiquette. ‘Otherwise you could go ah, er, um for days!
Short and sweet, sir, that’s the style.’
‘Right, right,’ said Spangler. ‘Er . . . oh, look, see that man there?
Waving at you?’ The hangman glanced down at the clerk, who’d struggled to the front of the crowd.
‘I bring a message from Lord Vetinari!’ the man shouted.
‘Right!’ said Moist.
‘He says to get on with it, it’s long past dawn!’ said the clerk.
‘Oh,’ said Moist, staring at the black coach. That damn Vetinari had a warder’s sense of humour, too.
15 ‘Come on, Mr Spangler, you don’t want me to get into trouble, do you?’ said the hangman, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Just a few words, and then
we can all get on with our lives. Present company excepted, obviously.’
So this was it. It was, in some strange way, rather liberating.
You didn’t have to fear the worst that could happen any more, because this was it, and it was nearly over. The warder had been right. What you had
to do in this life was get past the pineapple, Moist told himself. It was big and sharp and knobbly, but there might be peaches underneath. It was a
myth to live by and so, right now, totally useless.
‘In that case,’ said Moist von Lipwig, ‘I commend my soul to any god that can find it.’
‘Nice,’ said the hangman, and pulled the lever.
Albert Spangler died.
It was generally agreed that they had been good last words.
‘Ah, Mr Lipwig,’ said a distant voice, getting closer. ‘I see you are awake. And still alive, at the present time.’
There was a slight inflection to that last phrase which told Moist that the length of the present time was entirely in the gift of the speaker.
He opened his eyes. He was sitting in a comfortable chair. At a desk opposite him, sitting with his hands steepled reflectively in front of his pursed
lips, was Havelock, Lord Vetinari, under whose idio-syncratically despotic rule Ankh-Morpork had become the city where, for some reason, everyone
wanted to live.
An ancient animal sense also told Moist that other people were standing behind the comfortable chair, and that it could be extremely uncomfortable
should he make any sudden movements.
But they couldn’t be as terrible as the thin, black-robed man with the fussy little beard and the pianist’s hands who was watching him.
16 ‘Shall I tell you about angels, Mr Lipwig?’ said the Patrician pleasantly. ‘I know two interesting facts about them.’
Moist grunted. There were no obvious escape routes in front of him, and turning round was out of the question. His neck ached horribly.
‘Oh, yes. You were hanged,’ said Vetinari. ‘A very precise science, hanging. Mr Trooper is a master. The slippage and thickness of the rope, whether
the knot is placed here rather than there, the relationship between weight and distance . . . oh, I’m sure the man could write a book. You were hanged
to within half an inch of your life, I understand. Only an expert standing right next to you would have spotted that, and in this case the expert was our
friend Mr Trooper. No, Albert Spangler is dead, Mr Lipwig.
Three hundred people would swear they saw him die.’ He leaned forward. ‘And so, appropriately, it is of angels I wish to talk to you now.’
Moist managed a grunt.
‘The first interesting thing about angels, Mr Lipwig, is that sometimes, very rarely, at a point in a man’s career where he has made such a foul and
tangled mess of his life that death appears to be the only sensible option, an angel appears to him, or, I should say, unto him, and offers him a
chance to go back to the moment when it all went wrong, and this time do it right. Mr Lipwig, I should like you to think of me as . . . an angel.’
Moist stared. He’d felt the snap of the rope, the choke of the noose! He’d seen the blackness welling up! He’d died!
‘I’m offering you a job, Mr Lipwig. Albert Spangler is buried, but Mr Lipwig has a future. It may, of course, be a very short one, if he is stupid. I am
offering you a job, Mr Lipwig. Work, for wages. I realize the concept may not be familiar.’
Only as a form of hell, Moist thought.
‘The job is that of Postmaster General of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office.’
Moist continued to stare.
17 ‘May I just add, Mr Lipwig, that behind you there is a door. If at any time in this interview you feel you wish to leave, you have only to step
through it and you will never hear from me again.’
Moist filed that under ‘deeply suspicious’.
‘To continue: the job, Mr Lipwig, involves the refurbishment and running of the city’s postal service, preparation of the international packets,
maintenance of Post Office property, et cetera, et cetera—’ ‘If you stick a broom up my arse I could probably sweep the floor, too,’ said a voice.
Moist realized it was his. His brain was a mess. It had come as a shock to find that the afterlife is this one.
Lord Vetinari gave him a long, long look.
‘Well, if you wish,’ he said, and turned to a hovering clerk.
‘Drumknott, does the housekeeper have a store cupboard on this floor, do you know?’ ‘Oh, yes, my lord,’ said the clerk. ‘Shall I—’ ‘It was a joke!’
Moist burst out.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized,’ said Lord Vetinari, turning back to Moist. ‘Do tell me if you feel obliged to make another one, will you?’ ‘Look,’ said
Moist, ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, but I don’t know anything about delivering post!’ ‘Mr Moist, this morning you had no experience at all of
being dead, and yet but for my intervention you would nevertheless have turned out to be extremely good at it,’ said Lord Vetinari sharply.
‘It just goes to show: you never know until you try’ ‘But when you sentenced me—’ Vetinari raised a pale hand. ‘Ah?’ he said.
Moist’s brain, at last aware that it needed to do some work here, stepped in and replied: ‘Er . . . when you . . . sentenced . . . Albert Spangler—’ ‘Well
done. Do carry on.’
18 ‘—you said he was a natural born criminal, a fraudster by vocation, an habitual liar, a perverted genius and totally untrustworthy!’ ‘Are you
accepting my offer, Mr Lipwig?’ said Vetinari sharply.
Moist looked at him. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, standing up, ‘I’d just like to check something.’
There were two men dressed in black standing behind his chair.
It wasn’t a particularly neat black, more the black worn by people who just don’t want little marks to show. They looked like clerks, until you met their
eyes.
They stood aside as Moist walked towards the door which, as promised, was indeed there. He opened it very carefully. There was nothing beyond, and
that included a floor. In the manner of one who is going to try all possibilities, he took the remnant of spoon out of his pocket and let it drop. It was
quite a long time before he heard the jingle.
Then he went back and sat in the chair.
‘The prospect of freedom?’ he said.
‘Exactly,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘There is always a choice.’
‘You mean . . . I could choose certain death?’ ‘A choice, nevertheless,’ said Vetinari. ‘Or, perhaps, an alternative. You see, I believe in freedom, Mr
Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the
freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based. Now . . . will you take the job? No one will recognize
you, I am sure. No one ever recognizes you, it would appear.’
Moist shrugged. ‘Oh, all right. Of course, I accept as natural born criminal, habitual liar, fraudster and totally untrustworthy perverted genius.’
19 ‘Capital! Welcome to government service!’ said Lord Vetinari, extending his hand. ‘I pride myself on being able to pick the right man. The wage is
twenty dollars a week and, I believe, the Postmaster General has the use of a small apartment in the main building. I think there’s a hat, too. I shall
require regular reports.
Good day.’
He looked down at his paperwork. He looked up.
‘You appear to be still here, Postmaster General?’ ‘And that’s it?’ said Moist, aghast. ‘One minute I’m being hanged, next minute you’re employing
me?’ ‘Let me see . . . yes, I think so. Oh, no. Of course. Drumknott, do give Mr Lipwig his keys.’
The clerk stepped forward and handed Moist a huge, rusted keyring full of keys, and proffered a clipboard. ‘Sign here, please, Postmaster General,’ he
said.
Hold on a minute, Moist thought, this is only one city. It’s got gates. It’s completely surrounded by different directions to run.
Does it matter what I sign?
‘Certainly,’ he said, and scribbled his name.
‘Your correct name, if you please,’ said Lord Vetinari, not looking up from his desk. ‘What name did he sign, Drumknott?’ The clerk craned his head.
‘Er . . . Ethel Snake, my lord, as far as I can make out.’
‘Do try to concentrate, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari wearily, still apparently reading the paperwork.
Moist signed again. After all, what would it matter in the long run? And it would certainly be a long run, if he couldn’t find a horse.
‘And that leaves only the matter of your parole officer,’ said Lord Vetinari, still engrossed in the paper before him.
‘Parole officer?’ ‘Yes. I’m not completely stupid, Mr Lipwig. He will meet you outside the Post Office building in ten minutes. Good day.’
20 When Moist had left, Drumknott coughed politely and said, ‘Do you think he’ll turn up there, my lord?’ ‘One must always consider the psychology
of the individual,’ said Vetinari, correcting the spelling on an official report. ‘That is what I do all the time and lamentably, Drumknott, you do not
always do. That is why he has walked off with your pencil.’
Always move fast. You never know what’s catching you up.
Ten minutes later Moist von Lipwig was well outside the city.
He’d bought a horse, which was a bit embarrassing, but speed had been of the essence and he’d only had time to grab one of his emergency stashes
from its secret hiding place and pick up a skinny old screw from the Bargain Box in Hobson’s Livery Stable.
At least it’d mean no irate citizen going to the Watch.
No one had bothered him. No one had looked at him twice; no one ever did. The city gates had indeed been wide open. The plains lay ahead of him,
full of opportunity. And he was good at parlaying nothing into something. For example, at the first little town he came to he’d go to work on this old nag
with a few simple techniques and ingredients that’d make it worth twice the price he’d paid for it, at least for about twenty minutes or until it rained.
Twenty minutes would be enough time to sell it and, with any luck, pick up a better horse worth slightly more than the asking price.
He’d do it again at the next town and in three days, maybe four, he’d have a horse worth owning.
But that would be just a sideshow, something to keep his hand in. He’d got three very nearly diamond rings sewn into the lining of his coat, a real one
in a secret pocket in the sleeve, and a very nearly gold dollar stitched cunningly into the collar. These were, to him, what his saw and hammer are to a
carpenter. They were primitive tools, but they’d put him back in the game.
There is a saying ‘You can’t fool an honest man’ which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. Moist never
knowingly tried it, anyway. If you did fool an 21 honest man, he tended to complain to the local Watch, and these days they were harder to buy off.
Fooling dishonest men was a lot safer and, somehow, more sporting. And, of course, there were so many more of them. You hardly had to aim.
Half an hour after arriving in the town of Hapley, where the big city was a tower of smoke on the horizon, he was sitting outside an inn, downcast, with
nothing in the world but a genuine diamond ring worth a hundred dollars and a pressing need to get home to Genua, where his poor aged mother was
dying of Gnats. Eleven minutes later he was standing patiently outside a jeweller’s shop, inside which the jeweller was telling a sympathetic citizen that
the ring the stranger was prepared to sell for twenty dollars was worth seventy-five (even jewellers have to make a living). And thirty-five minutes
after that he was riding out on a better horse, with five dollars in his pocket, leaving behind a gloating sympathetic citizen who, despite having been
bright enough to watch Moist’s hands carefully, was about to go back to the jeweller to try to sell for seventy-five dollars a shiny brass ring with a
glass stone that was worth fifty pence of anybody’s money.
The world was blessedly free of honest men, and wonderfully full of people who believed they could tell the difference between an honest man and a
crook.
He tapped his jacket pocket. The jailers had taken the map off him, of course, probably while he was busy being a dead man. It was a good map, and
in studying it Mr Wilkinson and his chums would learn a lot about decryption, geography and devious cartography. They wouldn’t find in it the
whereabouts of AM$ 150,000 in mixed currencies, though, because the map was a complete and complex fiction. However, Moist entertained a
wonderful warm feeling inside to think that they would, for some time, possess that greatest of all treasures, which is Hope.
Anyone who couldn’t simply remember where he’d stashed a great big fortune deserved to lose it, in Moist’s opinion. But, for now, he’d have to keep
away from it, while having it to look forward to . . .
22 Moist didn’t even bother to note the name of the next town. It had an inn, and that was enough. He took a room with a view over a disused alley,
checked that the window opened easily, ate an adequate meal, and had an early night.
Not bad at all, he thought. This morning he’d been on the scaffold with the actual noose round his actual neck, tonight he was back in business. All he
need do now was grow a beard again, and keep away from Ankh-Morpork for six months. Or perhaps only three.
Moist had a talent. He’d also acquired a lot of skills so completely that they were second nature. He’d learned to be personable, but something in his
genetics made him unmemorable.
He had the talent of not being noticed, for being a face in the crowd.
People had difficulty describing him. He was . . . he was ‘about’.
He was about twenty, or about thirty. On Watch reports across the continent he was anywhere between, oh, about six feet two inches and five feet
nine inches tall, hair all shades from mid-brown to blond, and his lack of distinguishing features included his entire face. He was about . . . average.
What people remembered was the furniture, things like spectacles and moustaches, so he always carried a selection of both. They remembered names
and mannerisms, too. He had hundreds of those.
Oh, and they remembered that they’d been richer before they met him.
At three in the morning, the door burst open. It was a real burst; bits of wood clattered off the wall. But Moist was already out of bed and diving for the
window before the first of them hit the floor.
It was an automatic reaction that owed nothing to thought. Besides, he’d checked before lying down, and there was a large water butt outside that
would break his fall.
It wasn’t there now.
Whoever had stolen it had not stolen the ground it stood on, however, and it broke Moist’s fall by twisting his ankle.
23 He pulled himself up, keening softly in agony, and hopped along the alley, using the wall for support. The inn’s stables were round the back; all he
had to do was pull himself up on to a horse, any horse— ‘Mr Lipwig?’ a big voice bellowed.
Oh, gods, it was a troll, it sounded like a troll, a big one too, he didn’t know you got any down here outside the cities— ‘You Can’t Run And You Can’t
Hide, Mr Lipwig!’ Hold on, hold on, he hadn’t given his real name to anyone in this place, had he? But all this was background thinking. Someone was
after him, therefore he would run. Or hop.
He risked a look behind him when he reached the back gate to the stables. There was a red glow in his room. Surely they weren’t torching the place
over a matter of a few dollars? How stupid!
Everyone knew that if you got lumbered with a good fake you palmed it off on to some other sucker as soon as possible, didn’t they? There was no
helping some people.
His horse was alone in the stable, and seemed unimpressed to see him. He got the bridle on, while hopping on one foot. There was no point in
bothering with a saddle. He knew how to ride without a saddle. Hell, once he’d ridden without pants, too, but luckily all the tar and feathers helped him
stick to the horse. He was the world champion at leaving town in a hurry.
He went to lead the horse out of the stall, and heard the clink.
He looked down, and kicked some straw away.
There was a bright yellow bar, joining two short lengths of chain with a yellow shackle attached, one for each foreleg. The only way this horse would go
anywhere was by hopping, just like him.
They’d clamped it. They’d bloody clamped it . . .
‘Oh, Mr Lipppppwig!’ The voice boomed out across the stable yard. ‘Do You Want To Know The Rules, Mr Lipwig?’ 24 He looked around in desperation.
There was nothing in here to use as a weapon and in any case weapons made him nervous, which was why he’d never carried one. Weapons raised
the ante far too high. It was much better to rely on a gift for talking his way out of things, confusing the issue and, if that failed, some well-soled
shoes and a cry of ‘Look, what’s that over there?’ But he had a definite feeling that while he could talk as much as he liked, out here no one was going
to listen. As for speeding away, he’d just have to rely on hop.
There was a yard broom and a wooden feed bucket in the corner.
He stuck the head of the broom under his armpit to make a crutch and grabbed the bucket handle as heavy footsteps thudded towards the stable
door. When the door was pushed open he swung the bucket as hard as he could, and felt it shatter. Splinters filled the air.
A moment later there was the thump of a heavy body hitting the ground.
Moist hopped over it and plunged unsteadily into the dark.
Something as tough and hard as a shackle snapped round his good ankle. He hung from the broom handle for a second, and then collapsed.
‘I Have Nothing But Good Feelings Towards You, Mr Lipwig!’ boomed the voice cheerfully.
Moist groaned. The broom must have been kept as an ornament, because it certainly hadn’t been used much on the accumulations in the stable yard.
On the positive side, this meant he had fallen into something soft. On the negative side, it meant that he had fallen into something soft.
Someone grabbed a handful of his coat and lifted him bodily out of the muck.
‘Up We Get, Mr Lipwig!’ ‘It’s pronounced Lipvig, you moron,’ he moaned. ‘A v, not a w!’ ‘Up Ve Get, Mr Lipvig!’ said the booming voice, as his broom/
crutch was pushed under his arm.
25 ‘What the hell are you?’ Lipwig managed.
‘I Am Your Parole Officer, Mr Lipvig!’ Moist managed to turn round, and looked up, and then up again, into a gingerbread man’s face with two glowing
red eyes in it.
When it spoke, its mouth was a glimpse into an inferno.
‘A golem? You’re a damn golem?’ The thing picked him up in one hand and slung him over its shoulder. It ducked into the stables and Moist, upside
down with his nose pressed against the terracotta of the creature’s body, realized that it was picking up his horse in its other hand. There was a brief
whinny.
‘Ve Must Make Haste, Mr Lipvig! You Are Due In Front Of Lord Vetinari At Eight O’clock! And At Vork By Nine!’ Moist groaned.
‘Ah, Mr Lipwig. Regrettably, we meet again,’ said Lord Vetinari.
It was eight o’clock in the morning. Moist was swaying. His ankle felt better, but it was the only part of him that did.
‘It walked all night!’ he said. ‘All damn night! Carrying a horse as well!’ ‘Do sit down, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari, looking up from the table and gesturing
wearily to the chair. ‘By the way, “it” is a “he”.
An honorific in this case, clearly, but I have great hopes of Mr Pump.’
Moist saw the glow on the walls as, behind him, the golem smiled.
Vetinari looked down at the table again, and seemed to lose interest in Moist for a moment. A slab of stone occupied most of the table. Little carved
figurines of dwarfs and trolls covered it. It looked like some kind of game.
‘Mr Pump?’ said Moist.
26 ‘Hmm?’ said Vetinari, moving his head to look at the board from a slightly different viewpoint.
Moist leaned towards the Patrician, and jerked a thumb in the direction of the golem.
‘That’, he said, ‘is Mr Pump?’ ‘No,’ said Lord Vetinari, leaning forward likewise and suddenly, completely and disconcertingly focusing on Moist.
‘He . . . is Mr Pump. Mr Pump is a government official. Mr Pump does not sleep. Mr Pump does not eat. And Mr Pump, Postmaster General, does not
stop.’
‘And that means what, exactly?’ ‘It means that if you are thinking of, say, finding a ship headed for Fourecks, on the basis that Mr Pump is big and
heavy and travels only at walking pace, Mr Pump will follow you. You have to sleep. Mr Pump does not. Mr Pump does not breathe. The deep abyssal
plains of the oceans present no barrier to Mr Pump. Four miles an hour is six hundred and seventy-two miles in a week. It all adds up. And when Mr
Pump catches you—’ ‘Ah, now,’ said Moist, holding up a finger. ‘Let me stop you there. I know golems are not allowed to hurt people!’ Lord Vetinari
raised his eyebrows. ‘Good heavens, wherever did you hear that?’ ‘It’s written on . . . something inside their heads! A scroll, or something. Isn’t it?’
said Moist, uncertainty rising.
‘Oh, dear.’ The Patrician sighed. ‘Mr Pump, just break one of Mr Lipwig’s fingers, will you? Neatly, if you please.’
‘Yes, Your Lordship.’ The golem lumbered forward.
‘Hey! No! What?’ Moist waved his hands wildly and knocked game pieces tumbling. ‘Wait! Wait! There’s a rule! A golem mustn’t harm a human being
or allow a human being to come to harm!’ Lord Vetinari raised a finger. ‘Just wait one moment, please, Mr Pump. Very well, Mr Lipwig, can you
remember the next bit?’ 27 ‘The next bit? What next bit?’ said Moist. ‘There isn’t a next bit!’ Lord Vetinari raised an eyebrow. ‘Mr Pump?’ he said.
‘“ . . . Unless Ordered To Do So By Duly Constituted Authority”,’ said the golem.
‘I’ve never heard that bit before!’ said Moist.
‘Haven’t you?’ said Lord Vetinari, in apparent surprise. ‘I can’t imagine who would fail to include it. A hammer can hardly be allowed to refuse to hit the
nail on the head, nor a saw to make moral judgements about the nature of the timber. In any case, I employ Mr Trooper the hangman, whom of course
you have met, and the City Watch, the regiments and, from time to time . . . other specialists, who are fully entitled to kill in their own defence or in
protection of the city and its interests.’ Vetinari started to pick up the fallen pieces and replace them delicately on the slab. ‘Why should Mr Pump be
any different just because he is made of clay?
Ultimately, so are we all. Mr Pump will accompany you to your place of work. The fiction will be that he is your bodyguard, as befits a senior
government official. We alone will know that he has . . . additional instructions. Golems are highly moral creatures by nature, Mr Lipwig, but you may
find their morality a shade . . .
old-fashioned?’ ‘Additional instructions?’ said Moist. ‘And would you mind telling me exactly what his additional instructions are?’ ‘Yes.’ The Patrician
blew a speck of dust off a little stone troll and put it on its square.
‘And?’ said Moist, after a pause.
Vetinari sighed. ‘Yes, I would mind telling you exactly what they are. You have no rights in this matter. We have impounded your horse, by the way,
since it was used in the committing of a crime.’
‘This is cruel and unusual punishment!’ said Moist.
‘Indeed?’ said Vetinari. ‘I offer you a light desk job, comparative freedom of movement, working in the fresh air . . . no, 28 I feel that my offer might
well be unusual, but cruel? I think not.
However, I believe we do have down in the cellars some ancient punishments which are extremely cruel and in many cases quite unusual, if you would
like to try them for the purposes of comparison. And, of course, there is always the option of dancing the sisal two-step.’
‘The what?’ said Moist.
Drumknott leaned down and whispered something in his master’s ear.
‘Oh, I apologize,’ said Vetinari. ‘I meant of course the hemp fandango. It is your choice, Mr Lipwig. There is always a choice, Mr Lipwig. Oh, and by the
way . . . do you know the second interesting thing about angels?’ ‘What angels?’ said Moist, angry and bewildered.
‘Oh, dear, people just don’t pay attention,’ said Vetinari.
‘Remember? The first interesting thing about angels? I told you yesterday? I expect you were thinking about something else. The second interesting
thing about angels, Mr Lipwig, is that you only ever get one.’
29 Chapter Two The Post Office In which we meet the Staff- Glom of Nit - Dissertation on Rhyming Slang - ‘You should have been there!’ - The Dead
Letters - A Golem’s Life - Book of Regulations There was always an angle. There was always a price. There was always a way. And look at it like this,
Moist thought: certain death had been replaced with uncertain death, and that was an improvement, wasn’t it? He was free to walk around . . . well,
hobble, at the moment. And it was just possible that somewhere in all this was a profit. Well, it could happen. He was good at seeing opportunities
where other people saw barren ground. So there was no harm in playing it straight for a few days, yes? It’d give his foot a chance to get better, he
could spy out the situation, he could make plans. He might even find out how indestructible golems were.
After all, they were made of pottery, weren’t they? Things could get broken, maybe.
Moist von Lipwig raised his eyes and examined his future.
The Ankh-Morpork Central Post Office had a gaunt frontage. It was a building designed for a purpose. It was, therefore, more or less, a big box to
employ people in, with two wings at the rear which enclosed the big stable yard. Some cheap pillars had been sliced in half and stuck on the outside,
some niches had been carved for some miscellaneous stone nymphs, some stone urns had been ranged along the parapet and thus Architecture had
been created.
30 In appreciation of the thought that had gone into this, the good citizens, or more probably their kids, had covered the walls to a height of six feet
with graffiti in many exciting colours.
In a band all along the top of the frontage, staining the stone in greens and browns, some words had been set in letters of bronze.
‘ “NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLO M OF NI T CAN STAY THESE MES ENGERS ABO T THEIR DUTY,” ‘ Moist read aloud. ‘What the hell does
that mean?’ ‘The Post Office Was Once A Proud Institution,’ said Mr Pump.
‘And that stuff?’ Moist pointed. On a board much further down the building, in peeling paint, were the less heroic words: DONT ARSK US ABOUT: rocks
troll’s with sticks All sorts of dragons Mrs Cake Huje green things with teeth Any kinds of black dogs with orange eyebrows Rains of spaniel’s fog Mrs
Cake ‘I Said It Was A Proud Institution,’ the golem rumbled.
‘Who’s Mrs Cake?’ ‘I Regret I Cannot Assist You There, Mr Lipvig.’
‘They seem pretty frightened of her.’
‘So It Appears, Mr Lipvig.’
31 Moist looked around at this busy junction in this busy city.
People weren’t paying him any attention, although the golem was getting casual glances that didn’t appear very friendly.
This was all too strange. He’d been - what, fourteen? - when he’d last used his real name. And heavens knew how long it had been since he’d gone out
without some easily removable distinguishing marks. He felt naked. Naked and unnoticed.
To the interest of no one whatsoever, he walked up the stained steps and turned the key in the lock. To his surprise it moved easily, and the
paint-spattered doors swung open without a creak.
There was a rhythmic, hollow noise behind Moist. Mr Pump was clapping his hands.
‘Vell Done, Mr Lipvig. Your First Step In A Career Of Benefit Both To Yourself And The Veil-being Of The City!’ ‘Yeah, right,’ muttered Lipwig.
He stepped into the huge, dark lobby, which was lit only dimly by a big but grimy dome in the ceiling; it could never be more than twilight in here, even
at noon. The graffiti artists had been at work in here, too.
In the gloom he could see a long, broken counter, with doors and pigeon-holes behind it.
Real pigeon-holes. Pigeons were nesting in the pigeon-holes.
The sour, salty smell of old guano filled the air, and, as marble tiles rang under Moist’s feet, several hundred pigeons took off frantically and spiralled
up towards a broken pane in the roof.
‘Oh, shit,’ he said.
‘Bad Language Is Discouraged, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump, behind him.
‘Why? It’s written on the walls! Anyway, it was a description, Mr Pump! Guano! There must be tons of the stuff!’ Moist heard his own voice echo back
from the distant walls. ‘When was this place last open?’ ‘Twenty years ago, Postmaster!’ 32 Moist looked around. ‘Who said that?’ he said. The voice
seemed to have come from everywhere.
There was the sound of shuffling and the click-click of a walking stick and a bent, elderly figure appeared in the grey, dead, dusty air.
‘Groat, sir,’ it wheezed. ‘Junior Postman Groat, sir. At your service, sir. One word from you, sir, and I will leap, sir, leap into action, sir.’ The figure
stopped to cough long and hard, making a noise like a wall being hit repeatedly with a bag of rocks. Moist saw that it had a beard of the short bristled
type that suggested that its owner had been interrupted halfway through eating a hedgehog.
‘Junior Postman Groat?’ he said.
‘Indeedy, sir. The reason being, no one’s ever bin here long enough to promote me, sir. Should be Senior Postman Groat, sir,’ the old man added
meaningfully, and once again coughed volcanically.
Ex-Postman Groat sounds more like it, Moist thought. Aloud he said, ‘And you work here, do you?’ ‘Aye, sir, that we do, sir. It’s just me and the boy
now, sir. He’s keen, sir. We keeps the place clean, sir. All according to Regulations.’
Moist could not stop staring. Mr Groat wore a toupee. There may actually be a man somewhere on whom a toupee works, but whoever that man might
be, Mr Groat was not he. It was chestnut brown, the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong style and, all in all, wrong.
‘Ah, I see you’re admirin’ my hair, sir,’ said Groat proudly, as the toupee spun gently. ‘It’s all mine, you know, not a prunes.’
‘Er . . . prunes?’ said Moist.
‘Sorry, sir, shouldn’t have used slang. Prunes as in “syrup of prunes”, sir. Dimwell slang.* Syrup of prunes: wig. Not many men o’ my age got all their
own hair, I expect that’s what you’re thinking. It’s clean living that does it, inside and out.’
33 * Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang: Various rhyming slangs are known, and have given the universe such terms as ‘apples and pears’ (stairs),
‘rubbity-dub’ (pub) and ‘busy bee’ (General Theory of Relativity). The Dimwell Street rhyming slang is probably unique in that it does not, in fact,
rhyme. No one knows why, but theories so far advanced are 1) that it is quite complex and in fact follows hidden rules or 2) Dimwell is well named or
3) it’s made up to annoy strangers, which is the case with most such slangs.
Moist looked around at the fetid air and the receding mounds of guano. ‘Well done,’ he muttered. ‘Well, Mr Groat, do I have an office? Or something?’
For a moment, the visible face above the ragged beard was that of a rabbit in a headlight.
‘Oh, yes, sir, techn’c’ly,’ said the old man quickly. ‘But we don’t go in there any more sir, oh no, ‘cos of the floor. Very unsafe, sir. ‘cos of the floor.
Could give way any minute, sir. We uses the staff locker room, sir. If you’d care to follow me, sir?’ Moist nearly burst out laughing. ‘Fine,’ he said.
He turned to the golem. ‘Er . . . Mr Pump?’ ‘Yes, Mr Lipvig?’ said the golem.
‘Are you allowed to assist me in any way, or do you just wait around until it’s time to hit me on the head?’ ‘There Is No Need For Hurtful Remarks, Sir.
I Am Allowed To Render Appropriate Assistance.’
‘So could you clean out the pigeon shit and let a bit of light in?’ ‘Certainly, Mr Lipvig.’
34 ‘You can?’ ‘A Golem Does Not Shy Away From Vork, Mr Lipvig. I Vill Locate A Shovel.’ Mr Pump set off towards the distant counter, and the
bearded Junior Postman panicked.
‘No!’ he squeaked, lurching after the golem. ‘It’s really not a good idea to touch them heaps!’ ‘Floors liable to collapse, Mr Groat?’ said Moist
cheerfully.
Groat looked from Moist to the golem, and back again. His mouth opened and shut as his brain sought for words. Then he sighed.
‘You’d better come down to the locker room, then. Step this way, gentlemen.’
Moist became aware of the smell of Mr Groat as he followed the old man. It wasn’t a bad smell, as such, just . . . odd. It was vaguely chemical,
coupled with the eye-stinging aroma of every type of throat medicine you’ve ever swallowed, and with just a hint of old potatoes.
The locker room turned out to be down some steps into the basement where, presumably, the floors couldn’t collapse because there was nothing to
collapse into. It was long and narrow. At one end was a monstrous oven which, Moist learned later, had once been part of some kind of heating
system, the Post Office having been a very advanced building for its time. Now a small round stove, glowing almost cherry-red at the base, had
been installed alongside it. There was a huge black kettle on it.
The air indicated the presence of socks, cheap coal and no ventilation; some battered wooden lockers were ranged along one wall, the painted names
flaking off. Light got in, eventually, via grimy windows up near the ceiling.
Whatever the original purpose of the room, though, it was now the place where two people lived; two people who got along but, nevertheless, had a
clear sense of mine and thine. The space was 35 divided into two, with a narrow bed against one wall on each side.
The dividing line was painted on the floor, up the walls and across the ceiling. My half, your half. So long as we remember that, the line indicated,
there won’t be any more . . . trouble.
In the middle, so that it bestrode the boundary line, was a table.
A couple of mugs and two tin plates were carefully arranged at either end. There was a salt pot in the middle of the table. The line, at the salt pot,
turned into a little circle to encompass it in its own demilitarized zone.
One half of the narrow room contained an over-large and untidy bench, piled with jars, bottles and old papers; it looked like the work space of a
chemist who made it up as he went along or until it exploded. The other had an old card table on which small boxes and rolls of black felt had been
stacked with slightly worrying precision. There was also the largest magnifying glass Moist had ever seen, on a stand.
That side of the room had been swept clean. The other was a mess that threatened to encroach over the Line. Unless one of the scraps of paper from
the grubbier side was a funny shape, it seemed that somebody, with care and precision and presumably a razor blade, had cut off that corner of it
which had gone too far.
A young man stood in the middle of the clean half of the floor.
He’d obviously been waiting for Moist, just like Groat, but he hadn’t mastered the art of standing to attention or, rather, had only partly understood it.
His right side stood considerably more to attention than his left side and, as a result, he was standing like a banana. Nevertheless, with his huge
nervous grin and big gleaming eyes he radiated keenness, quite possibly beyond the boundaries of sanity. There was a definite sense that at any
moment he would bite. And he wore a blue cotton shirt on which someone had printed ‘Ask Me About Pins!’ ‘Er . . .’ said Moist.
‘Apprentice Postman Stanley,’ mumbled Groat. ‘Orphan, sir.
Very sad. Came to us from the Siblings of Offler charity home, sir.
36 Both parents passed away of the Gnats on their farm out in the wilds, sir, and he was raised by peas.’
‘Surely you mean on peas, Mr Groat?’ ‘By peas, sir. Very unusual case. A good lad if he doesn’t get upset but he tends to twist towards the sun, sir, if
you get my meaning.’
‘Er . . . perhaps,’ said Moist. He turned hurriedly to Stanley. ‘So you know something about pins, do you?’ he said, in what he hoped was a jovial
voice.
‘Nosir!’ said Stanley. He all but saluted.
‘But your shirt says—’ ‘I know everything about pins, sir,’ said Stanley. ‘Everything there is to know!’ ‘Well, that’s, er—’ Moist began.
‘Every single fact about pins, sir,’ Stanley went on. ‘There’s not a thing I don’t know about pins. Ask me anything about pins, sir.
Anything you like at all. Go on, sir!’ ‘Well . . .’ Moist floundered, but years of practice came to his aid. ‘I wonder how many pins were made in this city
last ye—’ He stopped. A change had come across Stanley’s face: it smoothed out, lost the vague hint that its owner was about to attempt to gnaw
your ear off.
‘Last year the combined workshops (or “pinneries”) of Ankh-Morpork turned out twenty-seven million, eight hundred and eighty thousand, nine hundred
and seventy-eight pins,’ said Stanley, staring into a pin-filled private universe. ‘That includes wax-headed, steels, brassers, silver-headed (and full
silver), extra large, machine- and hand-made, reflexed and novelty, but not lapel pins which should not be grouped with the true pins at all since they
are technically known as “sports” or “blazons”, sir—’ ‘Ah, yes, I think I once saw a magazine, or something,’ said Moist desperately. ‘It was called, er .
. . Pins Monthly?’ 37 ‘Oh dear,’ said Groat, behind him. Stanley’s face contorted into something that looked like a cat’s bottom with a nose.
‘That’s for hobbyists,’ he hissed. ‘They’re not true “pinheads”!
They don’t care about pins! Oh, they say so, but they have a whole page of needles every month now. Needles? Anyone could collect needles!
They’re only pins with holes in! Anyway, what about Popular Needles? But they just don’t want to know!’ ‘Stanley is editor of Total Pins.’ Groat
whispered, behind Moist.
‘I don’t think I saw that one—’ Moist began.
‘Stanley, go and help Mr Lipwig’s assistant find a shovel, will you?’ said Groat, raising his voice. ‘Then go and sort your pins again until you feel
better. Mr Lipwig doesn’t want to see one of your Little Moments.’ He gave Moist a blank look.
‘. . . they had an article last month about pincushions.’ muttered Stanley, stamping out of the room. The golem followed him.
‘He’s a good lad,’ said Groat, when they’d gone. ‘Just a bit cup-and-plate in the head. Leave him alone with his pins and he’s no trouble at all. Gets a
bit . . . intense at times, that’s all. Oh, and on that subject there’s the third member of our jolly little team, sir—’ A large black and white cat had walked
into the room. It paid no attention to Moist, or Groat, but progressed slowly across the floor towards a battered and unravelling basket. Moist was in the
way.
The cat continued until its head butted gently against Moist’s leg, and stopped.
‘That’s Mr Tiddles, sir,’ said Groat.
‘Tiddles? said Moist. ‘You mean that really is a cat’s name? I thought it was just a joke.’
‘Not so much a name, sir, more of a description,’ said Groat.
‘You’d better move, sir, otherwise he’ll just stand there all day.
Twenty years old, he is, and a bit set in his ways.’
38 Moist stepped aside. Unperturbed, the cat continued to the basket, where it curled up.
‘Is he blind?’ said Moist.
‘No, sir. He has his routine and he sticks to it, sir, sticks to it to the very second. Very patient, for a cat. Doesn’t like the furniture being moved.
You’ll get used to him.’
Not knowing what to say, but feeling that he should say something, Moist nodded towards the array of bottles on Groat’s bench.
‘You dabble in alchemy, Mr Groat?’ he said.
‘Nosir! I practise nat’ral medicine!’ said Groat proudly. ‘Don’t believe in doctors, sir! Never a day’s illness in my life, sir!’ He thumped his chest,
making a thlap noise not normally associated with living tissue. ‘Flannelette, goose grease and hot bread puddin’, sir! Nothing like it for protecting your
tubes against the noxious effluviences! I puts a fresh layer on every week, sir, and you won’t find a sneeze passing my nose, sir. Very healthful,
very natural!’ ‘Er . . . good,’ said Moist.
‘Worst of ‘em all is soap, sir,’ said Groat, lowering his voice.
‘Terrible stuff, sir, washes away the beneficent humours. Leave things be, I say! Keep the tubes running, put sulphur in your socks and pay attention
to your chest protector and you can laugh at anything! Now, sir, I’m sure a young man like yourself will be worrying about the state of his—’ ‘What’s
this do?’ said Moist hurriedly, picking up a pot of greenish goo.
‘That, sir? Wart cure. Wonderful stuff. Very natural, not like the stuff a doctor’d give you.’
Moist sniffed at the pot. ‘What’s it made of?’ ‘Arsenic, sir,’ said Groat calmly.
‘Arsenic?’ ‘Very natural, sir,’ said Groat. ‘And green.’
39 So, Moist thought, as he put the pot back with extreme care, inside the Post Office normality clearly does not have a one-to-one relationship with
the outside world. I might miss the cues. He decided that the role of keen but bewildered manager was the one to play here. Besides, apart from the
‘keen’ aspect it didn’t need any effort.
‘Can you help me, Mr Groat?’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about the post!’ ‘Well, sir . . . what did you use to do?’ Rob. Trick. Forge. Embezzle. But
never - and this was important -using any kind of violence. Never. Moist had always been very careful about that. He tried not to sneak, either, if he
could avoid it. Being caught at 1 a.m. in a bank’s deposit vault while wearing a black suit with lots of little pockets in it could be considered suspicious,
so why do it? With careful planning, the right suit, the right papers and, above all, the right manner, you could walk into the place at midday and the
manager would hold the door open for you when you left. Palming rings and exploiting the cupidity of the rural stupid was just a way of keeping his hand
in.
It was the face, that was what it was. He had an honest face.
And he loved those people who looked him firmly in the eye to see his inner self, because he had a whole set of inner selves, one for every occasion.
As for firm handshakes, practice had given him one to which you could moor boats. It was people skills, that’s what it was. Special people skills. Before
you could sell glass as diamonds you had to make people really want to see diamonds.
That was the trick, the trick of all tricks. You changed the way people saw the world. You let them see it the way they wanted it to be . . .
How the hell had Vetinari known his name? The man had cracked von Lipwig like an egg! And the Watch here were . . .
demonic! As for setting a golem on a man . . .
‘I was a clerk,’ said Moist.
40 ‘What, paperwork, that sort of thing?’ said Groat, looking at him intently.
‘Yes, pretty much all paperwork.’ That was honest, if you included playing cards, cheques, letters of accreditation, bank drafts and deeds.
‘Oh, another one,’ said Groat. ‘Well, there’s not a lot to do. We can shove up and make room for you in here, no problem.’
‘But I am supposed to make it work again as it used to, Mr Groat.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said the old man. ‘You just come along with me, then, Postmaster. I reckon there’s one or two things you ain’t bin tole!’ He led the way
out, back into the dingy main hall, a little trail of yellow powder leaking from his boots.
‘My dad used to bring me here when I were a lad,’ he said. ‘A lot of families were Post Office families in those days. They had them big glass drippy
tinkling things up in the ceiling, right? For lights?’ ‘Chandeliers?’ Moist suggested.
‘Yep, prob’ly,’ said Groat. ‘Two of ‘em. And there was brass an’ copper everywhere, polished up like gold. There was balconies, sir, all round the big
hall on every floor, made of iron, like lace!
And all the counters was made of rare wood, my dad said. And people? This place was packed! The doors never stopped swinging!
Even at night . . . oh, at night, sir, out in the big back yard, you should’ve been there! The lights! The coaches, coming and going, the horses steamin
‘. . . oh, sir, you should’ve seen it, sir! The men running the teams out . . . they had this thing, sir, this device, you could get a coach in and out of
the yard in one minute, sir, one minute! The bustle, sir, the bustle and fuss! They said you could come here from Dolly Sisters or even down in the
Shambles, and post a letter to yourself, and you’d have to run like the blazes, sir, the very blazes, sir, to beat the postman to your door! And the 41
uniforms, sir, royal blue with brass buttons! You should’ve seen them! And—’ Moist looked over the babbling man’s shoulder to the nearest mountain
of pigeon guano, where Mr Pump had paused in his digging. The golem had been prodding at the fetid horrible mess and, as Moist watched him, he
straightened up and headed towards them with something in his hand.
‘—and when the big coaches came in, sir, all the way from the mountains, you could hear the horns miles away! You should’ve heard them, sir! And if
any bandits tried anything, there was men we had, who went out and—’ ‘Yes, Mr Pump?’ said Moist, halting Groat in mid-history.
‘A Surprising Discovery, Postmaster. The Mounds Are Not, As I Surmised, Made Of Pigeon Dung. No Pigeons Could Achieve That Amount In
Thousands Of Years, Sir.’
‘Well, what are they made of, then?’ ‘Letters, Sir,’ said the golem.
Moist looked down at Groat, who shifted uneasily.
‘Ah, yes,’ said the old man. ‘1 was coming to that.’
Letters . . .
. . . there was no end to them. They filled every room of the building and spilled out into the corridors. It was, technically, true that the postmaster’s
office was unusable because of the state of the floor: it was twelve feet deep in letters. Whole corridors were blocked off with them. Cupboards had
been stuffed full of them; to open a door in-cautiously was to be buried in an avalanche of yellowing envelopes. Floorboards bulged suspiciously
upwards.
Through cracks in the sagging ceiling plaster, paper protruded.
The sorting room, almost as big as the main hall, had drifts reaching to twenty feet in places. Here and there, filing cabinets rose out of the paper sea
like icebergs.
42 After half an hour of exploration Moist wanted a bath. It was like walking through desert tombs. He felt he was choking on the smell of old paper, as
though his throat was filled with yellow dust.
‘I was told I had an apartment here,’ he croaked.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Groat. ‘Me and the lad had a look for it the other day. I heard that it was the other side of your office. So the lad went in on the end of
a rope, sir. He said he felt a door, sir, but he’d sunk six feet under the mail by then and he was suffering, sir, suffering . . . so I pulled him out.’
‘The whole place is full of undelivered mail?’ They were back in the locker room. Groat had topped up the black kettle from a pan of water, and it was
steaming. At the far end of the room, sitting at his neat little table, Stanley was counting his pins.
‘Pretty much, sir, except in the basement and the stables,’ said the old man, washing a couple of tin mugs in a bowl of not very clean water.
‘You mean even the postm— my office is full of old mail but they never filled the basement? Where’s the sense in that?’ ‘Oh, you couldn’t use the
basement, sir, oh, not the basement,’ said Groat, looking shocked. ‘It’s far too damp down here. The letters’d be destroyed in no time.’
‘Destroyed,’ said Moist flatly.
‘Nothing like damp for destroying things, sir,’ said Groat, nodding sagely.
‘Destroying mail from dead people to dead people,’ said Moist, in the same flat voice.
‘We don’t know that, sir,’ said the old man. ‘I mean, we’ve got no actual proof.’
‘Well, no. After all, some of those envelopes are only a hundred years old!’ said Moist. He had a headache from the dust and a sore throat from the
dryness, and there was something about the old man that was grating on his raw nerves. He was keeping something 43 back. ‘That’s no time at all to
some people. I bet the zombie and vampire population are still waiting by the letter box every day, right?’ ‘No need to be like that, sir,’ said Groat
levelly, ‘no need to be like that. You can’t destroy the letters. You just can’t do it, sir.
That’s Tampering with the Mail, sir. That’s not just a crime, sir.
That’s, a, a—’ ‘Sin?’ said Moist.
‘Oh, worse’n a sin,’ said Groat, almost sneering. ‘For sins you’re only in trouble with a god, but in my day if you interfered with the mail you’d be up
against Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow. Hah! And there’s a big difference. Gods forgive’.
Moist sought for sanity in the wrinkled face opposite him. The unkempt beard was streaked with different colours, either of dirt, tea or random celestial
pigment. Like some hermit, he thought.
Only a hermit could wear a wig like that.
‘Sorry?’ he said. ‘And you mean that shoving someone’s letter under the floorboards for a hundred years isn’t tampering with it?’ Groat suddenly
looked wretched. The beard quivered. Then he started to cough, great hacking, wooden, crackling lumps of cough, that made the jars shake and
caused a yellow mist to rise from his trouser bottoms, “scuse me a moment, sir,’ he wheezed, between hacks, and he fumbled in his pocket for a
scratched and battered tin.
‘You suck at all, sir?’ he said, tears rolling down his cheeks. He proffered the tin to Moist. ‘They’re Number Threes, sir. Very mild.
I make ‘em meself, sir. Nat’ral remedies from nat’ral ingredients, that’s my style, sir. Got to keep the tubes clear, sir, otherwise they turn against
you.’
Moist took a large, violet lozenge from the box and sniffed it. It smelled faintly of aniseed.
‘Thank you, Mr Groat,’ he said, but in case this counted as an attempt at bribery, he added sternly: ‘The mail, Mr Groat? Sticking undelivered mail
wherever there’s a space isn’t tampering with it?’ 44 ‘That’s more . . . delaying the mail, sir. Just, er . . . slowing it down. A bit. It’s not like there’s any
intention of never delivering it, sir.’
Moist stared at Groat’s worried expression. He felt that sense of shifting ground you experience when you realize that you’re dealing with someone
whose world is connected with your own only by their fingertips. Not a hermit, he thought, more like a shipwrecked mariner, living in this dry desert
island of a building while the world outside moves on and all sanity evaporates.
‘Mr Groat, I don’t want to, you know, upset you or anything, but there’s thousands of letters out there under a thick layer of pigeon guano . . .’ he said
slowly.
‘Actually, on that score, sir, things aren’t as bad as they seem,’ Groat said, and paused to suck noisily on his natural cough lozenge.
‘It’s very dry stuff, pigeon doings, and forms quite a hard protective crust on the envelopes . . .’
‘Why are they all here, Mr Groat?’ said Moist. People skills, he remembered. You’re not allowed to shake him.
The Junior Postman avoided his gaze. ‘Well, you know how it is . . .’ he tried.
‘No, Mr Groat. I don’t think I do.’
‘Well . . . maybe a man’s busy, got a full round, maybe it’s Hogswatch, lots of cards, see, and the inspector is after him about his timekeeping, and
so maybe he just shoves half a bag of letters somewhere safe . . . but he will deliver ‘em, right? I mean, it’s not his fault if they keeps pushing, sir,
pushing him all the time. Then it’s tomorrow and he’s got an even bigger bag, ‘cos they’re pushing all the time, so he reckons, I’ll just drop a few off
today, too, ‘cos it’s my day off on Thursday and I can catch up then, but you see by Thursday he’s behind by more’n a day’s work because they
keeps on pushing, and he’s tired anyway, tired as a dog, so he says to himself, got some leave coming up soon, but he gets his leave and by then -
well, it all got very nasty towards the end.
There was . . . unpleasantness. We’d gone too far, sir, that’s what it 45 was, we’d tried too hard. Sometimes things smash so bad it’s better to leave it
alone than try to pick up the pieces. I mean, where would you start?’ ‘I think I get the picture,’ said Moist. You’re lying, Mr Groat.
You’re lying by omission. You’re not telling me everything. And what you’re not telling me is very important, isn’t it? I’ve turned lying into an art, Mr
Groat, and you’re just a talented amateur.
Groat’s face, unaware of the internal monologue, managed a smile.
‘But the trouble is - what’s your first name, Mr Groat?’ Moist asked.
‘Tolliver, sir.’
‘Nice name . . . the thing is, Tolliver, that the picture I see in your description is what I might refer to for the purposes of the analogy as a cameo,
whereas all this’ - Moist waved his hand to include the building and everything it contained - ‘is a full-sized triptych showing scenes from history, the
creation of the world and the disposition of the gods, with a matching chapel ceiling portraying the glorious firmament and a sketch of a lady with a
weird smile thrown in for good measure! Tolliver, I think you are not being frank with me.’
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ said Groat, eyeing him with a sort of nervous defiance.
‘I could have you sacked, you know,’ said Moist, knowing that this was a stupid thing to say.
‘You could, sir, you could try doin’ that,’ said Groat, quietly and slowly. ‘But I’m all you got, apart from the lad. And you don’t know nuffin’ about the
Post Office, sir. You don’t know nuffin’ about the Regulations, neither. I’m the only one that knows what needs doing round here. You wouldn’t last
five minutes without me, sir. You wouldn’t even see that the inkwells get filled every day!’ ‘Inkwells? Filling inkwells?’ said Moist. ‘This is just an old
building full of . . . of . . . of dead paper! We have no customers!’ 46 ‘Got to keep the inkwells filled, sir. Post Office Regulations,’ said Groat in a
steely voice. ‘Got to follow Regulations, sir.’
‘For what? It appears we don’t accept any mail or deliver any mail! We just sit here!’ ‘No, sir, we don’t just sit here,’ said Groat patiently. ‘We follow
the Post Office Regulations. Fill the inkwells, polish the brass—’ ‘You don’t sweep up the pigeon shit!’ ‘Oddly enough, that’s not in the Regulations,
sir,’ said the old man. ‘Truth is, sir, no one wants us any more. It’s all the clacks now, the damn clacks, clack clack clack. Everyone’s got a clacks
tower now, sir. That’s the fashion. Fast as the speed of light, they say. Ha! It’s got no soul, sir, no heart. I hates ‘em. But we’re ready, sir. If there
was any mail, we’d deal with it, sir. We’d spring into action, sir, spring into action. But there ain’t.’
‘Of course there isn’t! It’s clearly sunk into this town long ago that you might as well throw your letters away as give them to the Post Office!’ ‘No, sir,
wrong again. They’re all kept, sir. That’s what we do, sir. We keep things as they are. We try not to disturb things, sir,’ said Groat quietly. ‘We try not
to disturb anything!
The way he said it made Moist hesitate.
‘What kind of anything?’ he said.
‘Oh, nothing, sir. We just . . . go carefully.’
Moist looked around the room. Did it appear smaller? Did the shadows deepen and lengthen? Was there a sudden cold sensation in the air?
No, there wasn’t. But an opportunity had definitely been missed, Moist felt. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising. Moist had heard that this
was because men had been made out of monkeys, and it meant that there was a tiger behind you.
In fact Mr Pump was behind him, just standing there, eyes burning more brightly than any tiger had ever managed. That was 47 worse. Tigers couldn’t
follow you across the sea, and they had to sleep.
He gave up. Mr Groat was in some strange, musty little world of his own. ‘Do you call this a life?’ he said.
For the first time in this conversation, Mr Groat looked him squarely in the eye. ‘Much better than a death, sir,’ he said.
Mr Pump followed Moist across the main hall and out of the main doors, at which point Moist turned on him.
‘All right, what are the rules here?’ he demanded. ‘Are you going to follow me everywhere7. You know I can’t run!’ ‘You Are Allowed Autonomous
Movement Within The City And Environs,’ the golem rumbled. ‘But Until You Are Settled In I Am Also Instructed To Accompany You For Your Own
Protection.’
‘Against who? Someone annoyed that their great-granddaddy’s mail didn’t turn up?’ ‘I Couldn’t Say, Sir.’
‘I need some fresh air. What happened in there? Why is it so . . .
creepy? What happened to the Post Office?’ ‘I Couldn’t Say, Sir,’ said Mr Pump placidly.
‘You don’t know? But it’s your city,’ said Moist sarcastically.
‘Have you been stuck at the bottom of a hole in the ground for the last hundred years?’ ‘No, Mr Lipvig,’ said the golem.
‘Well, why can’t—’ Moist began.
‘It Was Two Hundred And Forty Years, Mr Lipvig,’ said the golem.
‘What was?’ ‘The Time I Spent At The Bottom Of The Hole In The Ground, Mr Lipvig.’
48 ‘What are you talking about?’ said Moist.
‘Why, The Time I Spent At The Bottom Of The Hole In The Ground, Mr Lipvig. Pump Is Not My Name, Mr Lipvig. It Is My Description. Pump. Pump
19, To Be Precise. I Stood At The Bottom Of A Hole A Hundred Feet Deep And Pumped Water. For Two Hundred And Forty Years, Mr Lipvig. But Now
I Am Ambulating In The Sunlight. This Is Better, Mr Lipvig. This Is Better!’ That night, Moist lay staring at the ceiling. It was three feet from him.
Hanging from it, a little distance away, was a candle in a safety lantern. Stanley had been insistent about that, and no wonder. This place would go up
like a bomb. It was the boy who’d showed him up here; Groat was sulking somewhere. He’d been right, damn him. He needed Groat. Groat practically
was the Post Office.
It had been a long day and Moist hadn’t slept well last night, what with being upside down over Mr Pump’s shoulder and occasionally kicked by the
frantic horse.
He didn’t want to sleep here either, heavens knew, but he didn’t have lodgings he could use any more, and they were at a premium in this hive of a
city in any case. The locker room did not appeal, no, not at all. So he’d simply scrambled on to the pile of dead letters in what was in theory his
office. It was no great hardship. A man of affairs such as he had to learn to sleep in all kinds of situations, often while mobs were looking for him a
wall’s thickness away. At least the heaps of letters were dry and warm and weren’t carrying edged weapons.
Paper crackled underneath him as he tried to get comfortable.
Idly, he picked up a letter at random; it was addressed to someone called Antimony Parker at 1 Lobbin Clout, and on the back, in capitals, was
S.W.A.L.K. He eased it open with a fingernail; the paper inside all but crumbled at his touch.
49 My Very Dearest Timony, Yes! Why should a Woman, Sensible of the Great Honour that a Man is Doing Her, play the Coy Minx at such a time! I
know you have spoken to Papa, and of course I consent to becoming the Wife of the Kindest, Most Wonderfu— Moist glanced at the date on the letter.
It had been written forty-one years ago.
He was not as a rule given to introspection, it being a major drawback in his line of work, but he couldn’t help wondering if - he glanced back at the
letter - ‘Your loving Agnathea’ had ever married Antimony, or whether the romance had died right here in this graveyard of paper.
He shivered, and tucked the envelope into his jacket. He’d have to ask Groat what S.W.A.L.K. meant.
‘Mr Pump!’ he shouted.
There was a faint rumble from the corner of the room where the golem stood, waist-deep in mail.
摘要：

GebundeneAusgabe–329Seiten–DoubledayErscheinungsdatum:7.Oktober2004ISBN:0385603428GebundeneAusgabe-377Seiten–HarperCollinsPublishersErscheinungsdatum:1.Oktober2004ISBN:0060013133BritishfantasistPratchett'slatestspecial-deliverydelight,setinhiswonderfullycrazedcityofAnkh-Morpork,hilariouslyreflectsth...

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