Interesting Times (Discworld 17)

'Yes, lad?'

'What the hell's going on?' Lord Hong was watching the tea ceremony. It took three hours, but you couldn't hurry a good cuppa. He was also playing chess, against himself. It was the only way he could find an opponent of his calibre but, currently, things were stalemated because both sides were adopting a defensive strategy which was, admittedly, brilliant. Lord Hong sometimes wished he could have an enemy as clever as himself. Or, because Lord Hong was indeed very clever, he sometimes wished for an enemy almost as clever as himself, one perhaps given to flights of strategic genius with nevertheless the occasional fatal flaw. As it was, people were so stupid. They seldom thought more than a dozen moves ahead. Assassination was meat and drink to the Hunghung court; in fact, meat and drink were often the means. It was a game that everyone played. It was just another kind of move. It was not considered good manners to assassinate the Emperor, of course. The correct move was to put the Emperor in a position where you had control. But moves at this level were very dangerous; happy as the warlords were to squabble amongst themselves, they could be relied upon to unite against any who looked in danger of rising above the herd. And Lord Hong had risen like bread, by making everyone else believe that, while they were the obvious candidate for the Emperorship, Lord Hong would be better than any of the alternatives. It amused him to know that they thought he was plotting for the Imperial pearl . . . He glanced up from the board and caught the eye of the young woman who was busy at the tea table. She blushed and looked away. The door slid back. One of his men entered, on his knees. 'Yes?' said Lord Hong. 'Er . . . O lord . . .' Lord Hong sighed. People seldom began like this when the news was good.

'What happened?' he said. 'The one they call the Great Wizard arrived, o lord. Up in the mountains. Riding on a dragon of wind. Or so they say,' the messenger added quickly, aware of Lord Hong's views about superstition. 'Good. But? I assume there is a but.'

'Er . . . one of the Barking Dogs has been lost. The new batch? That you commanded should be tested? We don't quite . . . that is to say . . . we think Captain Three High Trees was ambushed, perhaps . . . our information is somewhat confused . . . the, um, the informant says the Great Wizard magicked it away . . .' The messenger crouched lower. Lord Hong merely sighed again. Magic. It had fallen out of favour in the Empire, except for the most mundane purposes. It was uncultured. It put power in the hands of people who couldn't write a decent poem to save their lives, and sometimes hadn't. He believed in coincidence a lot more than he did in magic. 'This is most vexing,' said Lord Hong. He stood up and took his sword off the rack. It was long and curved and had been made by the finest sword-maker in the Empire, who was Lord Hong. He'd heard it took twenty years to learn the art, so he had stretched himself a little. It had taken him three weeks. People never concentrated, that was their trouble . . . The messenger grovelled. 'The officer concerned has been executed?' he said. The messenger tried to scrabble through the floor and decided to let truth stand in for honesty. 'Yes!' he piped. Lord Hong swung. There was a hiss like the fall of silk, a thump and clatter as of a coconut hitting the ground, and the tinkle of crockery. The messenger opened his eyes. He concentrated on his neck region, fearful that the slightest movement might leave him a good deal shorter. There were dire stories about Lord Hong's swords. 'Oh, do get up,' said Lord Hong. He wiped the blade carefully and replaced the sword. Then he reached across and pulled a small black bottle from the robe of the tea girl. Uncorked, it produced a few drops that hissed when they hit the floor. 'Really,' said Lord Hong. 'I wonder why people bother.' He looked up. 'Lord Tang or Lord McSweeney has probably stolen the Dog to vex me. Did the Wizard escape?'

'So it seems, o lord.'

'Good. See that harm almost comes to him. And send me another tea girl. One with a head.' There was this to be said about Cohen. If there was no reason for him to kill you, such as you having any large amount of treasure or being between him and somewhere he wanted to get to, then he was good company. Rincewind had met him a few times before, generally while running away from something. Cohen didn't bother overmuch with questions. As far as Cohen was concerned, people appeared, people disappeared. After a five-year gap he'd just say, 'Oh, it's you.' He never added, 'And how are you?' You were alive, you were upright, and beyond that he didn't give a damn. It was a lot warmer beyond the mountains. To Rincewind's relief a spare horse didn't have to be eaten because a leopardly sort of creature dropped off a tree branch and tried to disembowel Cohen. It had a rather strong flavour. Rincewind had eaten horse. Over the years he'd nerved himself to eat anything that couldn't actually wriggle off his fork. But he was feeling shaken enough without eating something you could call Dobbin. 'How did they catch you?' he said, when they were riding again. 'I was busy.'

'Cohen the Barbarian? Too busy to fight?'

'I didn't want to upset the young lady. Couldn't help meself. Went down to a village to pick up some news, one thing led to another, next thing a load of soldiers were all over the place like cheap armour, and I can't fight that well with my arms shackled behind my back. Real nasty bugger in charge, face I won't forget in a hurry. Half a dozen of us were rounded up, made to push the Barking Dog thing all the way out here, then we were chained to that tree and someone lit the bit of string and they all legged it behind a snowdrift. Except you came along and vanished it.'

'I didn't vanish it. Not exactly, anyway.' Cohen leaned across towards Rincewind. 'I reckon I know what it was,' he said, and sat back looking pleased with himself. 'Yes?'

'I reckon it was some kind of firework. They're very big on fireworks here.'

'You mean the sort of things where you light the blue touch paper and stick it up your nose?'[14] 'They use 'em to drive evil spirits away. There's a lot of evil spirits, see. Because of all the slaughtering.'

'Slaughtering?' Rincewind had always understood that the Agatean Empire was a peaceful place. It was civilized. They invented things. In fact, he recalled, he'd been instrumental in introducing a few of their devices to Ankh-Morpork. Simple, innocent things, like clocks worked by demons, and boxes that painted pictures, and extra glass eyes you could wear over the top of your own eyes to help you see better, even if it did mean you made a spectacle of yourself. It was supposed to be dull. 'Oh, yeah. Slaughtering,' said Cohen. 'Like, supposing the population is being a bit behind with its taxes. You pick some city where people are being troublesome and kill everyone and set fire to it and pull down the walls and plough up the ashes. That way you get rid of the trouble and all the other cities are suddenly really well behaved and polite and all your back taxes turn up in a big rush, which is handy for governments, I understand. Then if they ever give trouble you just have to say “Remember Nangnang?” or whatever, and they say “Where's Nangnang?” and you say, “My point exactly.” '

'Good grief! If that sort of thing was tried back home—'

'Ah, but this place has been going a long time. People think that's how a country is supposed to run. They do what they're told. The people here are treated like slaves.' Cohen scowled. 'Now, I've got nothing against slaves, you know, as slaves. Owned a few in my time. Been a slave once or twice. But where there's slaves, what'll you expect to find?' Rincewind thought about this. 'Whips?' he said at last. 'Yeah. Got it in one. Whips. There's something honest about slaves and whips. Well. . . they ain't got whips here. They got something worse than whips.'

'What?' said Rncewind, looking slightly panicky. 'You'll find out.' Rincewind found himself looking around at the half-dozen other prisoners, who had trailed after them and were watching in awe from a distance. He'd given them a bit of leopard, which they'd looked at initially as if it was poison and then eaten as if it was food. 'They're still following us,' he said. 'Yeah, well . . . you did give 'em meat,' cackled Cohen, starting to roll a post-prandial cigarette. 'Shouldn't have done that. Should've let 'em have the whiskers and the claws and you'd've been amazed at what they'd cook up. You know their big dish down on the coast?'

'No.'

'Pig's ear soup. Now, what's that tell you about a place, eh?' Rincewind shrugged. 'Very provident people?'

'Some other bugger pinches the pig.' He turned in the saddle. The group of ex-prisoners shrank back. 'Now, see here,' he said. 'I told you. You're free. Understand?' One of the braver men spoke up. 'Yes, master.'

'I ain't your master. You're free. You can go where-ever you like, excepting if you follow me I'll kill the lot of you. And now - go away!'

'Where, master?'

'Anywhere! Somewhere not here!' The men gave one another some worried looks and then the whole group, as one man, turned and trotted away along the path. 'Probably go straight back to their village,' he said, rolling his eyes. 'Worse than whips, I tell you.' He waved a scrawny hand at the landscape as they rode on. 'Strange bloody country,' he said. 'Did you know there's a wall all round the Empire?'

'That's to keep . . . barbarian invaders . . . out . . .'

'Oh, yes, very defensive,' said Cohen sarcastically. 'Like, oh my goodness, there's a twenty- foot wall, dear me, I suppose we'd just better ride off back over a thousand miles of steppe and not, e.g., take a look at the ladder possibilities inherent in that pine wood over there. Nah. It's to keep the people in. And rules? They've got rules for everything. No-one even goes to the privy without a piece of paper.'

'Well, as a matter of fact I myself—'

'A piece of paper saying they can go, is what I meant. Can't leave your village without a chit. Can't get married without a chit. Can't even have a sh - Ah, we're here.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Rincewind. Cohen glared at him. 'How did you know?' he demanded.

Rincewind tried to think. It had been a long day. In fact it had, because of the thaumic equivalent of jetlag, been several hours longer than most other days he'd experienced and had contained two lunchtimes, neither of which had contained anything worth eating. 'Er . . . I thought you were making a general philosophical point,' he hazarded. 'Er. Like, “We'd better make the best of it”?'

'I meant we're here at my hideout,' said Cohen. Rincewind stared around them. There were scrubby bushes, a few rocks, and a sheer cliff face. 'I can't see anything,' he said. 'Yep. That's how you can tell it's mine.' Art of War was the ultimate basis of diplomacy in the Empire. Clearly war had to exist. It was a cornerstone of the processes of government. It was the way the Empire got its leaders. The competitive examination system was how it got its bureaucrats and public officials, and warfare was for its leaders, perhaps, only a different kind of competitive examination. Admittedly, if you lost you probably weren't allowed to re- sit next year. But there had to be rules. Otherwise it was just a barbaric scuffle. So, hundreds of years ago, the Art of War had been formulated. It was a book of rules. Some were very specific: there was to be no fighting within the Forbidden City, the person of the Emperor was sacrosanct . . . and some were more general guidelines for the good and civilized conduct of warfare. There were the rules of position, of tactics, of the enforcement of discipline, of the correct organization of supply lines. The Art laid down the optimum course to take in every conceivable eventuality. It meant that warfare in the Empire had become far more sensible, and generally consisted of short periods of activity followed by long periods of people trying to find things in the index. No-one remembered the author. Some said it was One Tzu Sung, some claimed it was Three Sun Sung. Possibly it was even some unsung genius who had penned, or rather painted, the very first principle: Know the enemy, and know yourself. Lord Hong felt that he knew himself very well, and seldom had trouble knowing his enemies. And he made a point of keeping his enemies alive and healthy. Take the Lords Sung, Fang, Tang and McSweeney. He cherished them. He cherished their adequacy. They had adequate military brains, which was to say that they had memorized the Five Rules and Nine Principles of the Art of War. They wrote adequate poetry, and were cunning enough to counter such coups as were attempted in their own ranks. They occasionally sent against him assassins who were sufficiently competent to keep Lord Hong interested and observant and entertained.

?'

'No future in one-man barbarianing,' said Cohen. 'Got myself a . . . Well, you'll see.' Rincewind turned to look at the trailing party, and at the snow, and at Cohen. 'Er. Do you know where Hunghung is?'