“Just you trot down there, why don’t you, and see if it’s just a lot of hot air. But walk, please.”
William felt drawn back to the sheds behind the Bucket next day. Apart from anything else, he had nothing to do and he didn’t like being useless.
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don’t think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who’s been pinching my beer?
And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass), or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman’s eye.
William was one of the glassless. And this was odd, because he’d been born into a family that not only had a very large glass indeed but could afford to have people discreetly standing around with bottles to keep it filled up.
It was self-imposed glasslessness, and it had started at a fairly early age when he’d been sent away to school.
William’s brother, Rupert, being the elder, had gone to the Assassins’ School in Ankh-Morpork, widely regarded as being the best school in the world for the full-glass class. William, as the less important son, had been sent to Hugglestones, a boarding school so bleak and spartan that only the upper glasses would send their sons there.
Hugglestones was a granite building on a rain-soaked moor, and its stated purpose was to make men from boys. The policy employed involved a certain amount of wastage, and consisted, in William’s recollection at least, of very simple and violent games in the healthy outdoor sleet. The small, slow, fat, or merely unpopular were mown down, as nature intended, but natural selection operates in many ways and William found that he had a certain capacity for survival. A good way to survive on the playing fields of Hugglestones was to run very fast and shout a lot while inexplicably always being a long way from the ball. This had earned him, oddly enough, a reputation for being keen, and keenness was highly prized at Hugglestones, if only because actual achievement was so rare.
He had been truly keen on anything involving words. At Hugglestones this had not counted for a great deal, since most of its graduates never expected to have to do much more with a pen than sign their names, a feat that most of them could manage after three or four years, but it had meant long mornings peacefully reading anything that took his fancy while the hulking front-row forwards who would one day be at least the deputy-leaders of the land learned how to hold a pen without crushing it.
William left with a good report, which tends to be the case with pupils that most of the teachers could only vaguely remember. Those who could recall William had a hazy picture of someone always arriving just too late at some huge and painful collision of bodies. A keen boy, they decided. The staff at Hugglestones prized keenness, believing that in sufficient quantities it could take the place of lesser attributes like intelligence, foresight, and training.
Afterwards, his father had faced the problem of what to do with him.
He was the younger son in any case, and family tradition sent youngest sons into some church or other, where they couldn’t do much harm on a physical level. But too much reading had taken its toll. William found that he now thought of prayer as a sophisticated way of pleading with thunderstorms.
Going into land management was just about acceptable, but it seemed to William that land managed itself pretty well, on the whole. He was all in favor of the countryside, provided that it was on the other side of a window.
A military career somewhere was unlikely. William had a rooted objection to killing people he didn’t know.
He enjoyed reading and writing. He liked words. Words didn’t shout or make loud noises, which pretty much defined the rest of his family. They didn’t involve getting muddy in the freezing cold. They didn’t hunt inoffensive animals, either. They did what he told them to. So, he’d said, he wanted to write.
His father had erupted. In his personal world, a scribe was only one step higher than a teacher. Good gods, man, they didn’t even ride a horse! So there had been Words.
As a result, William had gone off to Ankh-Morpork, the usual destination for the lost and the aimless. There he’d made words his living, in a quiet sort of way, and considered that he’d got off easy compared to brother Rupert, who was big and good-natured and a Hugglestones natural apart from the accident of birth.
And then there had been the war against Klatch…
It was an insignificant war, which was over before it started, the kind of war that both sides pretended hadn’t really happened, but one of the things that did happen in the few confused days of wretched turmoil was the death of Rupert de Worde. He had died for his beliefs; chief among them was the very Hugglestonian one that bravery could replace armor, and that Klatchians would turn and run if you shouted loud enough.
William’s father, during their last meeting, had gone on at some length about the proud and noble traditions of the de Wordes. They had mostly involved unpleasant deaths, preferably of foreigners, but somehow, William gathered, the de Wordes had always considered that it was a decent second prize to die themselves. A de Worde was always to the fore when the city called. That was why they existed. Wasn’t the family motto Le Mot Juste? The Right Word in the Right Place, said Lord de Worde. He simply could not understand why William did not want to embrace this fine tradition and he dealt with it, in the manner of his kind, by not dealing with it.
And now a great frigid silence had descended between the de Wordes, which made the winter chill seem like a sauna.
In this gloomy frame of mind, it was positively cheering to wander into the print room to find the Bursar arguing the theory of words with Goodmountain.
“Hold on, hold on,” said the Bursar. “Yes, indeed, figuratively a word is made up of individual letters but they have only a—” he waved his long fingers gracefully “—theoretical existence, if I may put it that way. They are, as it were, words partis in potentia, and it is, I am afraid, unsophisticated in the extreme to imagine that they have any real existence unis et separato. Indeed, the very concept of letters having their own physical existence is, philosophically, extremely worrying. Indeed, it would be like noses and fingers running around the world all by themselves—”
That’s three “indeeds,” thought William, who noticed things like this. Three “indeeds” used by a person in one brief speech generally meant an internal spring was about to break.
“We got whole boxes of letters,” said Goodmountain flatly. “We can make any words you want.”
“That’s the trouble, you see,” said the Bursar. “Supposing the metal remembers the words it has printed? At least engravers melt down their plates, and the cleansing effect of fire will—”
“’Scuse me, Your Reverence,” said Goodmountain. One of the dwarfs had tapped him gently on the shoulder and handed him a square of paper. He passed it up to the Bursar.
“Young Caslong here thought you might like this as a souvenir,” he said. “He took it down directly from the case and pulled it off on the stone. He’s very quick like that.”
The Bursar tried to look the young dwarf sternly up and down, although this was a pretty pointless intimidatory tactic to use on dwarfs, since they had very little up to look down from.
“Really?” he said. “How very…” His eyes scanned the paper.
And then bulged.
“But these are…when I said…I only just said…how did you know I was going to say…I mean, my actual words…” he stuttered.
“Of course they’re not properly justified,” said Goodmountain.
“Now just a moment—” the
Bursar began.
William left them to it. The stone he could work out—even the engravers used a big flat stone as a workbench. And he’d seen dwarfs pulling paper sheets off the metal letters, so that made sense too. And what the Bursar said had been unjustified. It wasn’t as if metal had a soul.
He looked over the head of a dwarf who was busily assembling letters in a little metal hod, the stubby fingers darting from box to box in the big tray of type in front of him. Capital letters all in the top, small letters all in the bottom. It was even possible to get an idea of what the dwarf was assembling, just by watching the movements of his hands across the tray.
“M-a-k-e-$-$-$-I-n-n-Y-o-u-r-e-S-p-a-r-e-T-y-m—” he murmured.
A certainty formed. He glanced down at the sheets of grubby paper beside the tray.
They were covered with the dense spiky handwriting that identified its owner as an anal retentive with a poor grip.
There were no flies on C.M.O.T. Dibbler. He would have charged them rent.
With barely a conscious thought, William pulled out his notebook, licked his pencil, and wrote, very carefully, in his private shorthand:
“Amzg scenes hv ocrd in the Ct with the Openg o t Prntg Engn at the Sgn o t Bucket by G. Goodmountain, Dwf, which hs causd mch intereƒt amng all prts inc. chfs of comerƒe.”
He paused. The conversation at the other end of the room was definitely taking a more conciliatory turn.
“How much a thousand?” said the Bursar.
“Even cheaper for bulk rates,” said Goodmountain. “Small runs no problem.”
The Bursar’s face had that warm glaze of someone who deals in numbers and can see one huge and inconvenient number getting smaller in the very near future, and in those circumstances philosophy doesn’t stand much of a chance. And what was visible of Goodmountain’s face had the cheerful scowl of someone who’s worked out how to turn lead into still more gold.
“Well, of course, a contract of this size would have to be ratified by the Archchancellor himself,” said the Bursar, “but I can assure you that he listens very carefully to everything I say.”
“I’m sure he does, Your Lordship,” said Goodmountain cheerfully.
“Uh, by the way,” said the Bursar, “do you people have an Annual Dinner?”
“Oh, yes. Definitely,” said the dwarf.
“When is it?”
“When would you like it?”
William scribbled: “Mch businƒs sms likly wth a Certain Educational Body in t Ct,” and then, because he had a truly honest nature, he added, “we hear.”
Well, that was pretty good going. He’d got one letter away only this morning and already he had an important note for the next one—
—except, of course, the customers weren’t expecting another one for almost a month. He had another certain feeling that by then no one would be very interested. On the other hand, if he didn’t tell them about it, someone would be bound to complain. There had been all that trouble with the rain of dogs in Treacle Mine Road last year, and it wasn’t as if that had even happened.
But even if he got the dwarfs to make the type really big, one item of gossip wasn’t really going to go very far.
Blast.
He’d have to scuttle around a bit and find some more.
On an impulse, he wandered over to the departing Bursar.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said.
The Bursar, who was feeling in a very cheerful mood, raised an eyebrow in a good-humored way.
“Hmm?” he said. “It’s Mr. de Worde, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. I—”
“I’m afraid we do all our own writing down at the University,” said the Bursar.
“I wonder if I could just ask you what you think of Mr. Goodmountain’s new printing engine, sir?” said William.
“Why?”
“Er…Because I’d quite like to know? And I’d like to write it down for my newsletter. You know? Views of a leading member of Ankh-Morpork’s thaumaturgical establishment?”
“Oh?” The Bursar hesitated. “This is the little thing you send out to the Duchess of Quirm and the Duke of Sto Helit and people like that, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” said William. Wizards were terrible snobs.
“Er. Well, then…you can say that I said it is a step in the right direction that will…er…be welcomed by all forward-thinking people and will drag the city kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat.” He watched eagle-eyed as William wrote this down. “And my name is Dr. A. A. Dinwiddie, D.M. (7th), D. Thau., B.Occ., M.Coll., B.F. That’s Dinwiddie with an O.”
“Yes, Dr. Dinwiddie. Er…the Century of the Fruitbat is nearly over, sir. Would you like the city to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the Century of the Fruitbat?”
“Indeed.”
William wrote this down. It was a puzzle why things were always dragged kicking and screaming. No one ever seemed to want to, for example, lead them gently by the hand.
“And I’m sure you will send me a copy when it comes out, of course,” said the Bursar.
“Yes, Dr. Dinwiddie.”
“And if you want anything from me at any other time, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you, sir. But I’d always understood, sir, that Unseen University was against the use of movable type?”
“Oh, I think it’s time to embrace the exciting challenges presented to us by the Century of the Fruitbat,” said the Bursar.
“We…that’s the one we’re just about to leave, sir.”
“Then it’s high time we embraced them, don’t you think?”
“Good point, sir.”
“And now I must fly,” said the Bursar. “Except that I mustn’t.”
Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, poked at the ink in his inkwell. There was ice in it.
“Don’t you even have a proper fire?” said Hughnon Ridcully, High Priest of Blind Io and unofficial spokesman for the city’s religious establishment. “I mean, I’m not one for stuffy rooms, but it’s freezing in here!”
“Brisk, certainly,” said Lord Vetinari. “It’s odd, but the ice isn’t as dark as the rest of the ink. What causes that, do you think?”
“Science, probably,” said Hughnon vaguely. Like his wizardly brother, Archchancellor Mustrum, he didn’t like to bother himself with patently silly questions. Both gods and magic required solid, sensible men, and the brothers Ridcully were solid as rocks. And, in some respects, as sensible.
“Ah. Anyway…you were saying?”
“You must put a stop to this, Havelock. You know the…understanding.”
Vetinari seemed engrossed in the ink.
“Must, Your Reverence?” he said calmly, without looking up.
“You know why we’re all against this movable type nonsense!”
“Remind me again…look, it bobs up and down…”
Hughnon sighed. “Words are too important to be left to machinery. We’ve got nothing against engraving, you know that. We’ve nothing against words being nailed down properly. But words that can be taken apart and used to make other words…well, that’s downright dangerous. And I thought you weren’t in favor, either?”
“Broadly, yes,” said the Patrician. “But many years of ruling this city, Your Reverence, have taught me that you cannot apply brakes to a volcano. Sometimes it is best to let these things run their course. They generally die down again after a while.”
“You have not always taken such a relaxed approach, Havelock,” said Hughnon.
The Patrician gave him a cool stare that went on for a couple of seconds beyond the comfort barrier.
“Flexibility and understanding have always been my watchwords,” he said.
“My god, have they?”
“Indeed. And what I would like you and your brother to understand now, Your Reverence, in a flexible way, is that this enterprise is being undertaken by dwarfs. And do you know where the largest dwarf city is, Your Reverence?”
“What? Oh…let’s see…there’s that place in—”
“Yes, everyone starts by saying that. But it’s Ankh-Morpork, in fact. There are more than fifty thousand dwarfs here now.”
“Surely not?”
“I assure you. We have currently very good relationships with the dwarf communities in Copperhead and Uberwald. In dealings with the dwarfs, I have seen to it that the city’s hand of friendship is permanently outstretched in a slightly downward direction. And in this current cold snap I am sure we are all very glad that bargeloads of coal and lamp oil are coming down from the dwarf mines every day. Do you catch my meaning?”
Hughnon glanced at the fireplace. Against all probability, one lump of coal was smoldering all by itself.
“And of course,” the Patrician went on, “it is increasingly hard to ignore this new type, aha, of printing when vast printeries now exist in the Agatean Empire and, as I am sure you are aware, in Omnia. And from Omnia, as you no doubt know, the Omnians import vast amounts of their holy Book of Om and these pamphlets they’re so keen on.”
“Evangelical nonsense,” said Hughnon. “You should have banned them long ago.”
Once again the stare went on a good deal too long.
“Ban a religion, Your Reverence?”
“Well, when I say ban, I mean—”
“I’m sure no one could call me a despot, Your Reverence,” said Lord Vetinari severely.
Hughnon Ridcully made a misjudged attempt to lighten the mood. “Not twice at any any rate, ahaha.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said…not twice at any rate…ahaha.”
“I do apologize, but you seem to have lost me there.”
“It was, uh, a minor witticism, Hav—my lord.”
“Oh. Yes. Ahah,” said Vetinari, and the words withered in the air. “No, I’m afraid you will find that the Omnians are quite free to distribute their good news about Om. But take heart! Surely you have some good news about Io.”
“What? Oh. Yes, of course. He had a bit of a cold last month, but he’s up and about again.”
“Capital. That is good news. No doubt these printers will happily spread the word on your behalf. I’m sure they will work to your exacting requirements.”