“Could you stop holding that rock in such a provocative way?” said Ponder.
“Oook.”
“It'd be a help.”
“The actual bridge, if anyone's interested, is where my whole life took a diff-”
“Why don't we just go on?” said Ponder. “He's got a steep climb.”
“Good thing for him he hasn't got up here, eh?” said Casanunda. Ponder swiveled the Librarian around and pushed him toward the coach.
“This is the bridge, in fact, where-”
Ridcully turned around.
“Are you coming or not?” said Casanunda, with the reins in his hand.
“I was actually having a quality moment of misty nostalgic remembrance,” said Ridcully. “Not that any of you buggers noticed, of course.”
Ponder held the door open.
“Well, you know what they say. You can't cross the same river twice, Archchancellor,” he said.
Ridcully stared at him.
“Why not? This is a bridge.”
On the roof of the coach the Librarian picked up the coach-horn, bit the end of it reflectively - well, you never knew - and then blew it so hard that it uncurled.
It was early morning in Lancre town, and it was more or less deserted. Farmers had got up hours before to curse and swear and throw a bucket at the cows and had then gone back to bed.
The sound of the horn bounced off the houses.
Ridcully leapt out of the coach and took a deep, theatrical breath.
“Can't you smell that?” he said. “That's real fresh mountain air, that is.” He thumped his chest.
“I've just trodden in something rural,” said Ponder. “Where is the castle, sir?”
“I think it could be that huge black towering thing looming over the town,” said Casanunda.
The Archchancellor stood in the middle of the square and turned slowly with his arms spread wide.
“See that tavern?” he said. “Hah! If I had a penny for every time they threw me out of there, I'd have . . . five dollars and thirty-eight pence. And over there is the old forge, and there's Mrs. Persifleur's, where I had lodgings. See that peak up there? That's Copperhead, that is. I climbed that one day with old Carbonaceous the troll. Oh, great days, great days. And see that wood down there, on the hill? That's where she-”
His voice trailed into a mumble. “Oh, my word. It all comes back to me . . . What a summer that was. They don't make 'em like that anymore.” He sighed. “You know,” he said, “I'd give anything to walk through those woods with her again. There were so many things we never - oh, well. Come on.”
Ponder looked around at Lancre. He'd been born and raised in Ankh-Morpork. As far as he was concerned, the countryside was something that happened to other people, and most of them had four legs. As far as he was concerned, the countryside was like raw chaos before the universe, which was to say something with cobbles and walls, something civilized, was created.
“This is the capital city?” he said.
“More or less,” said Casanunda, who tended to feel the same way about places that weren't paved.
“I bet there's not a single delicatessen anywhere,” said Ponder.
“And the beer here,” said Ridcully, “the beer here - well, you'd just better taste the beer here! And there's stuff called scumble, they make it from apples and . . . and damned if I know what else they put in it, except you daren't pour it into metal mugs. You ought to try it, Mr. Stibbons. It'd put hair on your chest. And yours-” he turned to the next one down from the coach, who turned out to be the Librarian.
“Oook?”