The Truth (Discworld 25)

'"... in the attack at the palace on Tuesday morning."' William waited until the dwarf had caught up. It was getting easier and easier to read the words forming in Goodmountain's hands as the fingers jumped from box to box: m-i-g-h-t...

'You got an m for an n there,' he said.

'Oh, yes. Sorry. Carry on.'

'Er... "Evidence suggests that far from attacking his clerk as believed, Lord Vetinari may have discovered a crime in progress."'

The hand flew across the type... c-r-i-m-e-space-i-n...

It stopped.

'Are you sure about this?' said Goodmountain.

'No, but it's as good a theory as any other,' said William. 'That horse hadn't been loaded to escape, it had been loaded to be discovered. Someone had some plan and it went wrong. I'm sure of that at least. Right... new paragraph. "A horse in the stables had been loaded with a third of a ton of coins, but in his current state of health the Patrician--"'

One of the dwarfs had lit the stove. Another was stripping out the formes that contained the last edition. The room was coming alive again.

'That's about eight inches plus the heading,' said Goodmountain, when William had finished. That should rattle people. You want to add any more stuff? Miss Sacharissa did something about Lady Selachii's ball, and there's a few small things.'

William yawned. He didn't seem to be getting enough sleep these days.

Tut them in,' he said.

'And there's this clacks from Lancre that came in when you'd gone home,' said the dwarf. 'That'll cost us another 5Op for the messenger. You remember you sent a clacks this afternoon? About snakes?' he added, in the face of William's blank expression.

William read the flimsy sheet of paper. The message had been carefully transcribed in the neat handwriting of the semaphore operator. It was probably the strangest message yet sent on the new technology.

King Verence of Lancre had also mastered the idea that the clacks charged by the word.

WOMEN OF LANCRE NOT RPT NOT IN HABIT BEARING SNAKES STOP CHILDREN BORN THIS MONTH WILLIAM WEAVER CONSTANCE THATCHER CATASTROPHE CARTER ALL PLUS ARMS LEGS MINUS SCALES FANGS

'Hah! We have them!' said William. 'Give me five minutes and I'll put together a story on this. We shall soon see if the sword of truth can't beat the dragon of lies.'

Boddony gave him a kind look. 'Didn't you say a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on?' he said.

'But this is the truth.'

'So? Where's its boots?'

Goodmountain nodded to the other dwarfs, who were yawning. 'You get back to bed, lads. I'll pull it all together.'

He watched them disappear down the ladder to the cellar. Then he sat down, took out a small silver box and opened it.

'Snuff?' he said, offering the box to William. 'Best thing you humans ever invented. Watson's Red Roasted. Clears the mind a treat. No?'

William shook his head.

'What are you doing all this for, Mr de Worde?' said Goodmountain, taking a monstrous suction of snuff up each nostril.

'What do you mean?'

'I'm not saying we don't appreciate it, mark you,' said Goodmountain. 'It's keeping the money coming in. The jobbing stuff is drying up more every day. Seems like every engraving shop was poised to go over to printing. All we did was give the young rips an opening. They'll get us in the end, though. They've got money behind them. I don't mind saying some of the lads are talking about selling up and going back to the lead mines.'

'You can't do that!'

'Ah, well,' said Goodmountain. 'You mean you don't want us to. I understand that. But we've been putting money by. We should be all right. I daresay we can flog the press to someone. We might have a spot of cash to take back home. That's what this was all about. Money. What were you doing it for?'

'Me? Because--' William stopped. The truth was that he'd never decided to do anything. He'd never really made that kind of decision in his whole life. One thing had just gently led to another, and then the press had to be fed. It was waiting there now. You worked hard, you fed it, and it was still just as hungry an hour later and out in the world all your work was heading for Bin Six in Piss Harry's and that was only the start of its troubles. Suddenly he had a proper job, with working hours, and yet everything he did was only as real as a sandcastle, on a beach where the tide only ever came in.