Raising Steam (Discworld 40)

‘Well, do so for my sake, will you, please? Roll around on the flowers and neigh a bit and gallop about and have some kind of fun. If not for your own pleasure, then for my sanity, please.’

He watched the horse disappear into the meadow.

Behind him Of the Twilight the Darkness cackled. ‘What a piece of work you are, Mister Slightly Damp, freeing the slaves and all. What you think his lordship will say about that?’

Moist shrugged. ‘He might be acerbic, but a little acerbic isn’t all that bad. He’s quite a one for freedom is Vetinari, though not necessarily mine.’

Turning his attention to the railway, Moist was pleased to see that the work gangs, under the tutelage of Mr Simnel’s young men, were evidently making steady progress laying down the next stage of track towards Quirm.

To travel onwards, Moist and Of the Twilight the Darkness hitched a ride on a handcar operated with gusto by two young railway workers, a curiously amusing contraption whose wheels ran along the newly laid rails still waiting to be fully bedded in.

They passed the border with only a brief stop to deal with the formalities which were, in fact, nothing more than nodding at the guards and saying, ‘Is it okay if we cross, lads?’ Whereupon they briefly stopped digging their respective allotments and waved him through.

Where the handcar ran out of track, they found an old man with a horse and cart waiting, as arranged, to take them the rest of the distance to the chateau. He was clearly very sniffy about having a goblin in his nice clean vehicle, even though it was only a cart.

The Marquis was waiting for them at the chateau and beamed at Moist. His nose wrinkled at the sight of Moist’s companion.

‘Who is this?’ he asked in a tone a society lady might take upon finding half of something bristling in her soup.

‘This is Of the Twilight the Darkness.’

Of the Twilight the Darkness gave the Marquis a smart salute. ‘Of the Twilight the Darkness, Mister Mar-keee. Nice place you got here. Veeery nice. Don’t worry about smell. I’ll get used to it.’

After an awkward silence, the Marquis said, ‘Mon Dieu.’

‘Not a god, Mister Mar-keee,’ said Of the Twilight the Darkness, ‘just goblin, best there is, oh yes. Very useful, you know.’ The goblin continued in ringing sarcasm, ‘And not only that, Mister Mar-keee, I’m real. If you cut me, do I not bleed? And if you do, I bleeding well cuts you too, no offence meant.’

The Marquis’s laughter bounced off the scenery. There was no doubt about it. The goblin knew how to break the ice. Even an iceberg.

The Marquis held out a hand and said, ‘Enchanté, Monsieur Of the Twilight the Darkness. Do you drink wine?’

The goblin hesitated. ‘Are there snails in it?’

As they climbed the wide stone steps up to the terrace, the Marquis said, ‘Regrettably we don’t include snail. I know your people like snail wine but I’m afraid I ’ave none to offer you.’

‘Never mind, squire, will have it as it comes, please. And for record, Mister Mar-keee, they ain’t my people, they your people. I’m an Ankh-Morpork lad. Have seen the big horsefn42 and all that stuff.’

The view in the late afternoon sun over the maquis from the ter

race was wonderful.

‘You have many goblins in Ankh-Morpork, Mister Lipwig?’ the Marquis asked as he poured Moist a glass of chilled wine. ‘I’ve ’eard, of course, of Milord Vetinari’s famous melting pot. And yet I am informed zat many people in Ankh-Morpork still feel very unsure about them and think that getting involved with goblins shows that ze owner is dirty! So much for the prejudices of your countrymen who are, one ’as to say, a fairly dirty lot in any case. Whereas ’ere in Quirm notre logique points out that we are cleaner. After all, Quirm is the ’ome of Monsieur Bidet! Yet another apparatus for keeping clean and yet you in Ankh-Morpork sneer at us for being dirty.’

‘Yes, I know, it’s deplorable,’ said Moist. ‘I did meet Monsieur Bidet, although regrettably I didn’t shake him by the hand. Excuse me? Is something wrong?’

The Marquis suddenly looked preoccupied. ‘Someone was watching us from the tree over zere. I must ’ave spoken too loudly because ’oever it is has made ’aste to get down to the cover of the ground. He’s small, but larger than a goblin; you ’ardly ever see zem in ze trees.’

There was a movement in the air as Of the Twilight the Darkness vaulted over the parapet and disappeared into the landscape below. He reappeared almost as quickly, saying, ‘Dwarf bugger. Have it away on toes. I spit me of him!’

The Marquis topped up Moist’s glass and said, ‘A dwarf? Something to do with you, Mister Lipwig? Industrial espionage? One would expect the dwarfs to be keen on something like a railway … they are, after all, metalworkers and traders in ore.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Moist. ‘The clacks saw a bit of trouble a few months ago with extremist factions knocking down some of their towers, but that seems to have died down now. And there don’t seem to be many dwarfs interested in working on the railway. Something to do with the grags, I expect. The grags don’t seem to like anybody of importance in Ankh-Morpork.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the Marquis. ‘The famous Koom Valley Accord and all zat business. I believed it to be sorted out.’

‘So did everybody else. You must know how it is. Can’t please absolutely everybody. And you certainly can’t please the grags, however hard you try.’

Fully refreshed, Moist and Of the Twilight the Darkness set off into the maquis to find the goblin denizens, who even if they did not, strictly speaking, own the land through which the railway would go, needed to be informed and consulted. As squatters on unclaimed land, Moist thought, they surely must have some claim to it.