Terry Pratchett - Discworld 29 - Monstrous Regiment

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Monstrous
Regiment
by
TERRY PRATCHETT
Polly cut off her hair in front of the mirror, feeling slightly guilty about not feeling
very guilty about doing so. It was supposed to be her crowning glory, and everyone
said it was beautiful, but she generally wore it in a net when she was working. She’d
always told herself it was wasted on her. But she was careful to see that the long
golden coils all landed on the small sheet spread out for the purpose.
If she would admit to any strong emotion at all at this time, it was sheer annoyance
that a haircut was all she needed to pass for a young man. She didn’t even need to
bind up her bosom, which she’d heard was the normal practice. Nature had seen to it
that she had barely any problems in this area.
The effect that the scissors had was . . . erratic, but it was no worse than other male
haircuts here. It’d do. She did feel cold on the back of her neck, but that was only
partly because of the loss of her long hair. It was also because of the Stare.
The Duchess watched her from above the bed.
It was a poor woodcut, hand-coloured mostly in blue and red. It was of a plain,
middle-aged woman whose sagging chin and slightly bulging eyes gave the cynical
the feeling that someone had put a large fish in a dress, but the artist had managed to
capture something extra in that strange, blank expression. Some pictures had eyes that
followed you around the room; this one looked right through you. It was a face you
found in every home. In Borogravia, you grew up with the Duchess watching you.
Polly knew her parents had one of the pictures in their room, and knew also that
when her mother was alive she used to curtsy to it every night. She reached up and
turned this picture round so that it faced the wall. A thought in her head said No. It
was overruled. She’d made up her mind.
Then she dressed herself in her brother’s clothes, tipped the contents of the sheet
into a small bag which went into the bottom of her pack along with the spare clothes,
put the note on her bed, picked up the pack and climbed out of the window. At least,
Polly climbed out of the window, but it was Oliver’s feet that landed lightly on the
ground.
Dawn was just turning the dark world into monochrome when she slipped across
the inn’s yard. The Duchess watched her from the inn sign, too. Her father had been a
great loyalist, at least up to the death of her mother. The sign hadn’t been repainted
this year, and a random bird-dropping had given the Duchess a squint.
Polly checked that the recruiting sergeant’s cart was still in front of the bar, its
bright banners now drab and heavy with last night’s rain. By the look of that big fat
sergeant, it would be hours before it was on the road again. She had plenty of time. He
looked like a slow breakfaster.
She let herself out of the door in the back wall and headed uphill. At the top, she
turned back and looked at the waking town. Smoke was rising from a few chimneys,
but since Polly was always the first to wake, and had to yell the maids out of their
beds, the inn was still sleeping. She knew that the Widow Clambers had stayed
overnight (it had been ‘raining too hard for her to go home’, according to Polly’s
father) and, personally, she hoped for his sake that she’d stay every night. The town
had no shortage of widows, and Eva Clambers was a warm-hearted lady who baked
like a champion. His wife’s long illness and Paul’s long absence had taken a lot out of
her father. Polly was glad some of it was being put back. The old ladies who spent
their days glowering from their windows might spy and peeve and mumble, but they
had been doing that for too long. No one listened any more.
She raised her gaze. Smoke and steam was already rising from the laundry of the
Girls’ Working School. It hung over one end of the town like a threat, big and grey
with tall, thin windows. It was always silent. When she was small, she’d been told
that that was where the Bad Girls went. The nature of ‘badness’ was not explained,
and at the age of five Polly had received the vague idea that it consisted of not going
to bed when you were told. At the age of eight she’d learned it was where you were
lucky not to go for buying your brother a paint box. She turned her back and set off
between the trees, which were full of birdsong.
Forget you were ever Polly. Think young male, that was the thing. Fart loudly and
with self-satisfaction at a job well done, move like a puppet that’d had a couple of
random strings cut, never hug anyone and, if you meet a friend, punch them. A few
years working in the bar had provided plenty of observational material. No problem
about not swinging her hips, at least. Nature had been pretty sparing there, too.
And then there was the young male walk to master. At least women swung only
their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to
occupy a lot of space, she thought. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his
tail. She’d seen it a lot in the inn. The boys tried to walk big in self-defence against all
those other big boys out there. I’m bad, I’m fierce, I’m cool, I’d like a pint of shandy
and me mam wants me home by nine . . .
Let’s see, now . . . arms out from the body as though holding a couple of bags of
flour . . . check. Shoulders swaying as though she was elbowing her way through a
crowd . . . check. Hands slightly bunched and making rhythmical circling motions as
though turning two independent handles attached to the waist • . . check. Legs moving
forward loosely and ape-like . . . check . . .
It worked fine for a few yards until she got something wrong and the resultant
muscular confusion somersaulted her into a holly bush. After that, she gave up.
The thunderstorm came back as she hurried along the trail; sometimes one would
hang around the mountains for days. But at least up here the path wasn’t a river of
mud, and the trees still had enough leaves to give her some protection. There was no
time to wait out the weather, anyway. She had a long way to go. The recruiting party
would cross at the ferry, but Polly was known to all the ferrymen by sight and the
guard would want to see her permit to travel, which Oliver Perks certainly didn’t
have. So that meant a long diversion all the way to the troll bridge at Tiibz. To the
trolls all humans looked alike and any piece of paper would do as a permit, since they
didn’t read. Then she could walk down through the pine forests to Plün. The cart
would have to stop there for the night, but the place was one of those nowhere
villages that existed only in order to avoid the embarrassment of having large empty
spaces on the map. No one knew her in Plün. No one ever went there. It was a dump.
It was, in fact, just the place she needed. The recruiting party would stop there, and
she could enlist. She was pretty certain the big fat sergeant and his greasy little
corporal wouldn’t notice the girl who’d served them last night. She was not, as they
said, conventionally beautiful. The corporal had tried to pinch her bottom, but
probably out of habit, like swatting a fly, and there was not enough for a big pinch, at
that.
She sat on the hill above the ferry and had a late breakfast of cold potato and
sausage while she watched the cart cross over. No one was marching behind it. No
lads had been recruited back in Munz this time. People had kept away. Too many
young men had left over the last few years, and not enough had come back. And, of
the ones who’d come back, sometimes not enough of each man had come back. The
corporal could bang his big drum all he liked. Munz was running out of sons almost
as fast as it accumulated widows.
The afternoon hung heavy and humid, and a yellow pine warbler followed her
from bush to bush. Last night’s mud was steaming when Polly reached the troll
bridge, which crossed the river in a narrow gorge. It was a thin, graceful affair, put
together, it was said, with no mortar at all. And it was said that the weight of the
bridge anchored it ever more deeply into the rock on either side. It was said to be a
wonder of the world, except that very few people around here ever wondered much
about anything and were barely aware of the world. It cost one penny to cross, or one
hundred gold pieces if you had a billygoat.* Halfway across Polly peered over the
parapet and saw the cart far, far below, working its way along the narrow road just
above the white water.
* Trolls might not be quick thinkers but they dont forget in a hurry, either.
The afternoon’s journey was downhill all the way, through dark pines on this side
of the gorge. She didn’t hurry and, towards sunset, she spotted the inn. The cart had
already arrived, but by the looks of it the recruiting sergeant had not even bothered to
make an effort. There was no drum-banging like there had been last night, no cries of
‘Roll up, my young shavers! It’s a great life in the Ins-and-Outs!’
There was always a war. Usually it was a border dispute, the national equivalent of
complaining that the neighbour was letting his hedge grow too long. Sometimes it was
bigger. Borogravia was a peace-loving country in the midst of treacherous, devious,
warlike enemies. They had to be treacherous, devious and warlike, otherwise we
wouldn’t be fighting them, eh? There was always a war.
Polly’s father had been in the army before he took over The Duchess from Polly’s
grandfather. He didn’t talk about it much. He’d brought his sword back with him, but
instead of hanging it over the fireplace he used it to poke the fire. Sometimes old
friends would turn up and, when the bars were shut for the night, they’d gather round
the fire and drink and sing. The young Polly found excuses to stay up and listen to the
songs they sang, but that had stopped when she’d got into trouble for using one of the
more interesting words in front of her mother; now she was older, and served the beer,
it was presumably assumed that she knew the words or would find out what they
meant soon enough. Besides, her mother had gone where bad words would no longer
offend and, in theory, never got said.
The songs had been part of her childhood. She knew all the words of ‘The World
Turned Upside Down’ and ‘The Devil Shall Be My Sergeant’ and ‘Johnny Has Gone
For A Soldier’ and ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’ and, after the drink had been flowing
for a while, she’d memorized ‘Colonel Crapski’ and ‘I Wish I’d Never Kissed Her’.
And then, of course, there had been ‘Sweet Polly Oliver’. Her father used to sing it
when she was small and fretful or sad, and she’d laughed to hear it simply because it
had her name in it. She was word perfect on the words before she’d known what most
of them meant. And now . . .
. . . Polly pushed open the door. The recruiting sergeant and his corporal looked up
from the stained table where they were sitting, beer mugs halfway to their lips. She
took a deep breath, marched over, and made an attempt at saluting.
‘What do you want, kid?’ growled the corporal.
‘Want to join up, sir!’
The sergeant turned to Polly and grinned, which made his scars move oddly and
caused a tremor to shake all his chins. The word ‘fat’ could not honestly be applied to
him, not when the word ‘gross’ was lumbering forward to catch your attention. He
was one of those people who didn’t have a waist. He had an equator. He had gravity.
If he fell over, in any direction, he would rock. Sun and drink had burned his face red.
Small dark eyes twinkled in the redness like the sparkle on the edge of a knife. Beside
him, on the table, were a couple of old-fashioned cutlasses, weapons that had more in
common with a meat cleaver than a sword.
‘Just like that?’ he said.
‘Yessir!’
‘Really?’
‘Yessir!’
‘You don’t want us to get you stinking drunk first? It’s traditional, you know.’
‘Nosir!’
‘I haven’t told you about the wonderful opportunities for advancement and good
fortune, have I?’
‘Nosir!’
‘Did I mention how the spanking red uniform will mean you’ll have to beat the
girls off with a stick?’
‘Don’t think so, sir!’
‘Or the grub? Every meal’s a banquet when you march along with us!’ The
sergeant smacked his belly, which caused tremors in outlying regions. ‘I’m the living
proof!’
‘Yes, sir. No, sir. I just want to join up to fight for my country and the honour of
the Duchess, sir!’
‘You do?’ said the corporal incredulously, but the sergeant appeared not to hear
this. He looked Polly up and down, and Polly got the definite impression that the man
was neither as drunk nor as stupid as he looked.
‘Upon my oath, Corporal Strappi, it seems that what we’ve got ourselves here is
nothin’ less than a good, old-fashioned patriot,’ he said, his eyes searching Polly’s
face. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place, my lad!’ He pulled a sheaf of papers
towards him with an air of bustle. ‘You know who we are?’
‘The Tenth Foot, sir. Light infantry, sir. Known as the “Ins-and-Outs”, sir,’ said
Polly, relief bubbling through her. She’d clearly passed some sort of test.
‘Right, lad. The jolly old Cheesemongers. Finest regiment there is, in the finest
army in the world. Keen to join, then, are yer?’
‘Keen as mustard, sir!’ said Polly, aware of the corporal’s suspicious eyes on her.
‘Good lad!’
The sergeant unscrewed the top from a bottle of ink and dipped a nib pen in it. His
hand hovered over the paperwork. ‘Name, lad?’ he said.
‘Oliver, sir. Oliver Perks,’ said Polly.
‘Age?’
‘Seventeen come Sunday, sir.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said the sergeant. ‘You’re seventeen and I’m the Grand Duchess
Annagovia. What’re you running away from, eh? Got a young lady in the family
way?’
‘ ‘e’d ‘ave ‘ad to ‘ave ‘elp,’ said the corporal, grinning. ‘He squeaks like a little
lad.’
Polly realized she was starting to blush. But then, young Oliver would blush too,
wouldn’t he? It was very easy to make a boy blush. Polly could do it just by staring.
‘Don’t matter anyway,’ said the sergeant. ‘You make your mark on this here
document and kiss the Duchess and you’re my little lad, you understand? My name is
Sergeant Jackrum. I will be your mother and your father and Corporal Strappi here
will be just like your big brother. And life will be steak and bacon every day, and
anyone who wants to drag you away’ll have to drag me away too, because I’ll be
holding on to your collar. And you might well be thinking there’s no one that can drag
that much, Mr Perks.’ A thick thumb jabbed at the paper. ‘Just there, right?’
Polly picked up the pen and signed.
‘What’s that?’ said the corporal.
‘My signature,’ said Polly.
She heard the door open behind her, and spun round. Several young men— she
corrected herself, several other young men had clattered into the bar, and were
looking around warily.
‘You can read and write, too?’ said the sergeant, glancing up at them and then back
to her. ‘Yeah, I see. A nice round hand, as well. Officer material, you are. Give him
the shilling, corporal. And the picture, of course.’
‘Right, sergeant,’ said Corporal Strappi, holding up a picture frame on a handle,
like a looking-glass.’ ‘Pucker up, Private Parts.’
‘It’s Perks, sir,’ said Polly.
‘Yeah, right. Now kiss the Duchess.’
It was not a good copy of the famous picture. The painting behind the glass was
faded and something, some kind of moss or something, was growing on the inside of
the cracked glass itself. Polly let her lips brush it while holding her breath.
‘Huh,’ said Strappi, and pressed something into her hand.
‘What’s this?’ said Polly, looking at the small square of paper.
‘An IOU. Bit short of shillings right now,’ said the sergeant, while Strappi
smirked. ‘But the innkeeper’ll stand you a pint of ale, courtesy of her grace.’
He turned and looked up at the newcomers. ‘Well, it never rains but it pours. You
boys here to join up too? My word, and we didn’t even have to bang the drum. It must
be Corporal Strappi’s amazin’ charisma. Step up, don’t be shy. Who’s the next likely
lad?’
Polly looked at the next recruit with horror that she hoped she was concealing. She
hadn’t really noticed him in the gloom, because he was wearing black - not cool,
styled black, but a dusty black, the kind of suit people got buried in. By the look of it,
that person had been him. There were cobwebs all over it. The boy himself had
stitches across his forehead.
‘Your name, lad?’ said Jackrum.
‘Igor, thur.’
Jackrum counted the stitches.
‘You know, I had a feeling it was going to be,’ he said. ‘And I see you’re
eighteen.’
‘Awake!’
‘Oh, gods . . .’ Commander Samuel Vimes put his hands over his eyes.
‘I beg your pardon, your grace?’ said the Ankh-Morpork consul to Zlobenia. ‘Are
you ill, your grace?’
‘What’s your name again, young man?’ said Vimes. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve been
travelling for two weeks and not getting a lot of sleep and I’ve spent all day being
introduced to people with difficult names. That’s bad for the brain.’
‘It’s Clarence, your grace. Clarence Chinny.’
‘Chinny?’ said Vimes, and Clarence read everything in his expression.
‘I’m afraid so, sir,’ he said.
‘Were you a good fighter at school?’ said Vimes.
‘No, your grace, but no one could beat me over the one-hundred-yard dash.’
Vimes laughed. ‘Well, Clarence, any national anthem that starts “Awake!” is going
to lead to trouble. They didn’t teach you this in the Patrician’s office?’
‘Er . . . no, your grace,’ said Chinny.
‘Well, you’ll find out. Carry on, then.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Chinny cleared his throat. ‘The Borogravian National Anthem,’ he
announced, for the second time.
Awake sorry, your grace, ye sons of the Motherland!
Taste no more the wine of the sour apples
Woodsmen, grasp your choppers!
Farmers, slaughter with the tool formerly used for lifting beets the foe!
Frustrate the endless wiles of our enemies
We into the darkness march singing
Against the whole world in arms coming
But see the golden light upon the mountain tops!
The new day is a great big fish!
‘Er . . .’ Vimes said. ‘That last bit . . . ?’
‘That is a literal translation, your grace,’ said Clarence nervously. ‘It means
something like “an amazing opportunity” or “a glittering prize”, your grace.’
‘When we’re not in public, Clarence, “sir” will do. “Your grace” is just to impress
the natives.’ Vimes slumped back in his uncomfortable chair, chin in his hand, and
then winced.
‘Two thousand three hundred miles,’ he said, shifting his position. ‘And it’s
freezing on a broomstick, however low they fly. And then the barge, and then the
coach . . .’ He winced again. ‘I read your report. Do you think it’s possible for an
entire nation to be insane?’
Clarence swallowed. He’d been told that he was talking to the second most
powerful man in Ankh-Morpork, even if the man himself acted as though he was
ignorant of the fact. His desk in this chilly tower room was rickety; it had belonged to
the head janitor of the Kneck garrison until yesterday. Paperwork cluttered its scarred
surface and was stacked in piles behind Vimes’s chair.
Vimes himself did not look, to Clarence, like a duke. He looked like a watchman
which, in fact, Clarence understood, he was. This offended Clarence Chinny. People
at the top should look as though they belonged there.
•’That’s a very . . . interesting question, sir,’ he said. ‘You mean the people—’
‘Not the people, the nation,’ said Vimes. ‘Borogravia looks off its head, to me,
from what I’ve read. I expect the people just do the best they can and get on with
raising their kids which, I might say, I’d rather be doing right now, too. Look, you
know what I mean. You take a bunch of people who don’t seem any different from
you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving
maniac with national borders and an anthem.’
‘It’s a fascinating idea, sir,’ said Clarence diplomatically.
Vimes looked round the room. The walls were bare stone. The windows were
narrow. It was damn cold, even on a sunny day. All that bad food, and that bumping
about and sleeping on bad beds . . . and all that travelling in the dark, too, on dwarf
barges in their secret canals under the mountains - the gods alone knew what intricate
diplomacy Lord Vetinari had pulled off to get that, although the Low King owed
Vimes a few favours . . .
. . . all of that for this cold castle over this cold river between these stupid
countries, with their stupid war. He knew what he wanted to do. If they’d been
people, scuffling in the gutter, he’d have known what to do. He’d have banged their
heads together and maybe shoved them in the cells overnight. You couldn’t bang
countries together.
Vimes picked up some paperwork, fiddled with it, and threw it down again. ‘To
hell with this,’ he said. ‘What’s happening out there?’
‘I understand there are a few pockets of resistance in some of the more inaccessible
areas of the keep, but they are being dealt with. For all practical purposes the keep is
in our hands. That was a clever ruse of yours, your gr— sir.’
Vimes sighed. ‘No, Clarence, it was a dull old ruse. It should not be possible to get
men into a fortress dressed as washerwomen. Three of them had moustaches, for
goodness’ sake!’
‘The Borogravians are rather . . . old-fashioned about things like that, sir. On that
subject, we appear to have zombies in the lower crypts. Dreadful things. A lot of high-
ranking Borogravian military men were interred down there over the centuries,
apparently.’
‘Really? What are they doing now?’
Clarence raised his eyebrows. ‘Lurching, sir, I think. Groaning. Zombie things.
Something seems to have stirred them up.’
‘Us, probably,’ said Vimes. He got up, strode across the room, and pulled open the
big heavy door. ‘Reg!’ he yelled.
After a moment another watchman appeared, and saluted. He was grey-faced, and
Clarence couldn’t help noticing when the man saluted that the hand and fingers were
held together with stitching.
‘Have you met Constable Shoe, Clarence?’ said Vimes cheerfully. ‘One of my
staff. Been dead for more than thirty years, and loves every minute of it, eh, Reg?’
‘Right, Mister Vimes,’ said Reg, grinning and revealing a lot of brown teeth.
‘Some fellow countrymen of yours down in the cellar, Reg.’
‘Oh, dear. Lurching, are they?’
‘ ‘fraid so, Reg.’
‘I shall go and have a word with them,’ said Reg. He saluted again and marched
out, with a hint of lurch.
‘He’s, er, from here?’ said Chinny, who had gone quite pale.
‘Oh, no. The undiscovered country,’ said Vimes. ‘He’s dead. However, credit
where it’s due, he hasn’t let that stop him. You didn’t know we have a zombie in the
Watch, Clarence?’
‘Er . . . no, sir. I’ve haven’t been back to the city in five years.’ He swallowed. ‘I
gather things have changed.’
Horribly so, in Clarence Chinny’s opinion. Being consul to Zlobenia had been an
easy job, which left him a lot of time to get on with his business. And then the big
semaphore towers marched through, all along the valley, and suddenly Ankh-Morpork
was an hour away. Before the clacks, a letter from Ankh-Morpork would take more
than a two weeks to get to him, and so no one worried if he took a day or two to
answer it. Now people expected a reply overnight. He’d been quite glad when
Borogravia had destroyed several of those wretched towers. And then all hell had
been let loose.
‘We’ve got all sorts in the Watch,’ said Vimes. ‘And we bloody well need ‘em
now, Clarence, with Zlobenians and Borogravians scrapping in the streets over some
damn quarrel that began a thousand years ago. It’s worse than dwarfs and trolls! All
because someone’s great-to-the-power-of-umpteen-grandmother slapped the face of
someone’s great-ditto-uncle! Borogravia and Zlobenia can’t even agree a border.
They chose the river, and that changes course every spring. Suddenly the clacks
towers are now on Borogravian soil - or mud, anyway -so the idiots burn them down
for religious reasons.’
‘Er, there is more to it than that, sir,’ said Chinny.
‘Yes, I know. I read the history. The annual scrap with Zlobenia is just the local
derby. Borogravia fights everybody. Why?’
‘National pride, sir.’
‘What in? There’s nothing there! There’s some tallow mines, and they’re not bad
farmers, but there’s no great architecture, no big libraries, no famous composers, no
very high mountains, no wonderful views. All you can say about the place is that it
isn’t anywhere else. What’s so special about Borogravia?’
‘I suppose it’s special because it’s theirs. And of course there’s Nuggan, sir. Their
god. I’ve brought you a copy of the Book of Nuggan.’
‘I looked through one back in the city, Chinny,’ said Vimes. ‘Seemed pretty stu—’
‘That wouldn’t have been a recent edition, sir. And I suspect it wouldn’t be, er,
very current that far from here. This one is more up to date,’ said Chinny, putting a
small but thick book on the desk.
‘Up to date? What do you mean, up to date?’ said Vimes, looking puzzled. ‘Holy
writ gets . . . written. Do this, don’t do that, no coveting your neighbour’s ox . . .’
‘Um . . . Nuggan doesn’t just leave it at that, sir. He, er . . . updates things. Mostly
the Abominations, to be frank.’
Vimes took the new copy. It was noticeably thicker than the one he’d brought with
him.
‘It’s what they call a Living Testament,’ Chinny explained. ‘They - well, I suppose
you could say they “die” if they’re taken out of Borogravia. They no longer . . . get
added to. The latest Abominations are at the end, sir,’ said Chinny helpfully.
‘This is a holy book with an appendix?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘In a ring binder ?’
‘Quite so, sir. People put blank pages in and the Abominations . . . turn up.’
‘You mean magically?’
‘I suppose I mean religiously, sir.’
摘要:

MonstrousRegimentbyTERRYPRATCHETTPollycutoffherhairinfrontofthemirror,feelingslightlyguiltyaboutnotfeelingveryguiltyaboutdoingso.Itwassupposedtobehercrowningglory,andeveryonesaiditwasbeautiful,butshegenerallyworeitinanetwhenshewasworking.She’dalwaystoldherselfitwaswastedonher.Butshewascarefultoseeth...

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