Moist could feel Trouble’s glare on the back of his neck as he walked through, and asked, ‘Harry, does Trouble have an official Watch record?’
Harry King stared for a moment at Moist and said, ‘Of course he’s got a Watch record! He’s a security guard! And I need him. People have been hanging around, trying to break in, especially at night, and the official security – the Watch, the golems and guard dogs – generates a whole lot of paperwork whereas Trouble deals with trouble. Don’t trouble Trouble and Trouble won’t trouble you, as my granny always said.’ Harry chuckled and added, ‘Don’t you worry, Mister Lipwig, I’ve expressly told him not to kill you … today.’
Moist took this under advisement and turned for a last brief look at Trouble, who made up a new scowl just for him, a reminder that there were oh so many painful things you could do to a person without actually killing them.
Harry nodded to the giant, who began to pull at a large tarpaulin in the middle of the floor – and clearly when Trouble pulled something it definitely remained pulled – to reveal an engine much larger than Iron Girder or any of Simnel’s creations Moist had so far seen.
Harry slapped Moist on the back and said, ‘Well now, Mister Lipwig, while you’ve been wining and dining with the nobs and diddling them out of their fortunes, I, and of course Mister Simnel, have been very busy boys, oh yes indeedy! The lad is up finishing off in the drawing office right now, but this new engine is the bee’s knees, I don’t mind telling you.’
‘It’s not exactly fun, what I’ve been doing—’ began Moist indignantly, but Harry cut in.
‘Yes, I know, we’re all doing our bit towards Vetinari’s dash for Quirm, although personally I don’t have much time for the lobsters; but I can see it’s showing the flag of Ankh-Morpork and all that, and of course, if we can get really fresh fish and seafood into the city, then we’ll be on the hog’s back or, as they’d say, “the snail’s shell”. And Dick says this new baby,’ he slapped the gleaming sides of the new engine as though it were a prize racehorse, ‘will haul more freight and get there more quickly than any of the others!’
Moist thought about this and said, ‘You know what, I bet you that as soon as our boy Simnel finishes this new Flyer he’ll make sure that Iron Girder goes just that little bit faster. Harry, he’s not going to let her be eclipsed even if it means constant tinkering until she’s up to scratch. There’s so many workers on the job these days, he spends most of his time on her in any case. She’s the prototype of all of them, and he keeps changing the prototype.’
‘And he wants to walk out with our Emily! Well, he’s a smart lad and she’ll always know where he is.’
The thought flitted across Moist’s mind I wonder what Iron Girder thinks about that. And even as he dismissed the ridiculous notion he fancied he could hear a slight hiss.
Harry was still admiring the latest locomotive. ‘I reckon the lobsters will be like chiens with deux tails to be the first real foreigners to have the famous railway. And our Emily tells me that the Quirmian for “railway” means “card game” so that would be right up your ruelle, yes? Make sure you keep an ace up your manche, Mister Lipwig, okay?’
‘Manche?’
‘Effie is learning me to talk lobster, she thinks it’s a lovely and romantic language.’
Moist was moved to point out that he had hardly seen his own wife in the last month and had completed over fifty complex negotiations just to get to the border with Quirm.
‘Capital, so you’ve really got your eye in now, yes? Anyway, Quirm ain’t so far away and you’ll enjoy the sunshine when you get there. And I tell you what! Before you go you can have a day off in lieu! And I don’t say that to many people.’
Moist cleared his throat. ‘Actually, er, Harry, you don’t in fact employ me. The city does.’
‘Does that mean I can’t sack you?’
‘I’m afraid so, Harry.’
Harry snorted with laughter. ‘I hate having people around I can’t sack. It’s unnatural.’
It had been a long day after some long weeks and even longer months and that evening Moist was grateful to step into his own house, looking forward to his big four-poster bed which had a mattress that wasn’t stuffed with straw, and pillows – actual pillows! Very few of the hostelries that Moist had stayed at during his travels considered pillows necessary or useful. Right now, metaphorically singing, he let himself in before Crossly could get there, and went not into the main part of the house but into the little corridor that led to Adora Belle’s study, where his beloved was talking to Of the Twilight the Darkness.
The clacks was an equal opportunities employer, especially when it came to people who could swarm their way up the skeletal ribs of a clacks tower and once at the top sit down in a little chair and code like a demon, without actually being one, despite their appearance.
Adora Belle was going through clacks reports with a suspicious eye while the goblin crouched like a nightmare on the end of her desk. She waved her fingers to indicate that she couldn’t afford to let go her concentration, then rolled up a script, handed it to the goblin and snapped, ‘Get that out now, please, to tower ninety-seven. Someone there isn’t coding accurately. Might be a trainee. I want to know, okay?’
The goblin snatched the scroll in a claw, sprang off the desk like a frog, headed for a little door near the floor and disappeared through it. Moist could hear rattling all the way up the wall as the goblin clambered up the panelling and scuttled to the private clacks tower on the roof. He shuddered, but before he could say anything Adora Belle looked up and said, ‘Look, he’s punctual, fast, reliable and codes more accurately even than me and all he wants from us is to be allowed to live with his family on the roof. Now don’t you give me all that again about being traumatized by seeing the picture of a grinning goblin in that children’s book when you were little, okay? Get over it, Moist. The goblins are the best thing that has happened to the clacks since, well, you know – us! They love running it and, what’s more, with them around the place we don’t have those nasty rat and mouse infestations that we used to have.’
Adora Belle stood up, walked around the desk to Moist and gave him a big kiss, and said, ‘How was your latest marathon, mister? I got reports of your progress throughout, of course, as you may imagine.’
Moist took a step back. ‘Reports? How?’
Adora Belle laughed. ‘What is a clacks tower but an enormous watchtower? And every clacksman has a very expensive pair of Herr Fleiss’s binoculars, made using the very best in Uberwald technology. There are lots of towers, so I made certain they kept a friendly eye on you – well, a lot of friendly eyes on you. After all, every clacksman knows your face and even the top of your head, and I thought it was my duty as a wife …’
‘What, spying on your husband! Supposing I was messing about with other women?’
‘That’s all right, I know you weren’t and if you had been I’d have had you killed – no offence meant – but you didn’t and so I didn’t and so everything is al
l right, yes? Mrs Crossly is doing a wonderful beef and oyster pie. See? Aren’t you glad I knew exactly when you were coming home?’
Moist smiled, and then the smile broadened as he realized what it was he had been told, and he added thoughtfully, ‘Are you telling me, my love, that you could spot and follow anybody?’