Monstrous Regiment (Discworld 31)

"Oh, the dwarfs that were here sealed their mines and vanished, your grace."

"I bet they did. They know trouble when they see it," said Vimes. He let "your grace" pass this time; Chinny clearly derived some satisfaction from talking to a duke. He leafed through the pages, and stopped. "The colour blue?"

"Correct, sir."

"What's abominable about the colour blue? It's just a colour! The sky is blue!"

"Yes, sir. Devout Nugganites try not to look at it these days. Um..." Chinny had been trained as a diplomat. Some things he didn't like to say directly. "Nuggan, sir... um... is rather... tetchy," he managed.

"Tetchy?" said Vimes. "A tetchy god? What, he complains about the noise their kids make? Objects to loud music after nine p.m.?"

"Um... we get the Ankh-Morpork Times here, sir, eventually, and, er, I'd say, er, that Nuggan is very much like, er, the kind of people who write to its letter column. You know, sir. The kind who sign their letters 'Disgusted of Ankh-Morpork'..."

"Oh, you mean he really is mad," said Vimes.

"Oh, I'd never mean anything like that, sir," said Chinny hurriedly.

"What do the priests do about this?"

"Not a lot, sir. I think they quietly ignore some of the more, er, extreme Abominations."

"You mean Nuggan objects to dwarfs, cats and the colour blue and there're more insane commandments?"

Chinny coughed politely.

"All right, then," growled Vimes. "More extreme commandments?"

"Oysters, sir. He doesn't like them. But that's not a problem because no one there has ever seen an oyster. Oh, and babies. He Abominated them, too."

"I take it people still make them here?"

"Oh, yes, your gr - I'm sorry. Yes, sir. But they feel guilty about it. Barking dogs, that was another one. Shirts with six buttons, too. And cheese. Er... people just sort of, er, avoid the trickier ones. Even the priests seem to have given up trying to explain them."

"Yes, I think I can see why. So what we have here is a country that tries to run itself on the commandments of a god who, the people feel, may be wearing his underpants on his head. Has he Abominated underpants?"

"No, sir," Chinny sighed. "But it's probably only a matter of time."

"So how do they manage?"

"These days, people mostly pray to the Duchess Annagovia. You see icons of her in every house. They call her the Little Mother."

"Ah, yes, the Duchess. Can I get to see her?"

"Oh, no one sees her, sir. No one except her servants has seen her for more than thirty years. To be honest, sir, she's probably dead."

"Only probably?"

"No one really knows. The official story is that she's in mourning. It's rather sad, sir. The young Duke died a week after they got married. Gored by a wild pig during a hunt, I believe. She went into mourning at the old castle at PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg and hasn't appeared in public since. The official portrait was painted when she was about forty, I believe."

"No children?"

"No, sir. On her death, the line is extinct."

"And they pray to her? Like a god?"

Chinny sighed. "I did put this in my briefing notes, sir. The royal family in Borogravia have always had a quasi-religious status, you see. They're the head of the church and the peasants, at least, pray to them in the hope that they'll put in a good word with Nuggan. They're like... living saints. Celestial intermediaries. To be honest, that's how these countries work in any case. If you want something done, you have to know the right people. And I suppose it's easier to pray to someone in a picture than to a god you can't see."

Vimes sat looking at the consul for some time. When he next spoke, he frightened the man to his boots.