Equal Rites (Discworld 3)

“Lots of things have never happened before. We're only born once.”

Cutangle gave her a look of mute appeal. “But it's against the I-”

He began to say “lore”, but the word mumbled into silence.

“Where does it say it?” said Granny triumphantly. “Where does it say women can't be wizards?”

The following thoughts sped through Cutangle's mind:

. . . It doesn't say it anywhere, it says it everywhere.

. . . But young Simon seemed to say that everywhere is so much like nowhere that you can't really tell the difference .

. . . Do I want to be remembered as the first Archchancellor to allow women into the University? Still . . . I'd be remembered, that's for sure .

. . . She really is a rather impressive woman when she stands in that sort of way .

. . . That staff has got ideas of its own .

. . . There's a sort of sense to it .

. . . I would be laughed at .

. . . It might not work .

. . . It might work.

She couldn't trust them. But she had no choice.

Esk stared at the terrible faces peering down at her, and the lanky bodies, mercifully cloaked.

uelched up the steps, lit by a particularly impressive flash of lightning. He had a cold certainty that while of course no one could possibly blame him for all this, everybody would. He seized the hem of his robe and wrung it out wretchedly, then he reached for his tobacco pouch.

It was a nice green waterproof one. That meant that all the rain that had got into it couldn't get out again. It was indescribable.

He found his little clip of papers. They were fused into one lump, like the legendary pound note found in the back pockets of trousers after they have been washed, spun, dried and ironed.

“Bugger,” he said, with feeling.

“I say! Treatle!”

Treatle looked around. He had been the last to leave the hall, where even now some of the benches were beginning to float. Whirlpools and patches of bubble marked the spots where magic was leaking from the cellars, but there was no one to be seen.

Unless, of course, one of the statues had spoken. They had been too heavy to move, and Trestle remembered telling the students that a thorough wash would probably do them good.

He looked at their stern faces and regretted it. The statues of very powerful dead mages were sometimes more lifelike than statues had any right to be. Maybe he should have kept his voice down.

“Yes?” he ventured, acutely aware of the stony stares.

“Up here, you fool!”

He looked up. The broomstick descended heavily through the rain in a series of swoops and jerks. About five feet above the water it lost its few remaining aerial pretensions, and flopped noisily into a whirlpool.

“Don't stand there, idiot!”

Treatle peered nervously into the gloom.

“I've got to stand somewhere,” he said.