Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

Ridcully drained the sherry. That at least was palatable.

It's a short walk from the palace to Unseen University; positions of power like to keep an eye on one another.

Ridcully walked back through the crowds, occasionally nodding at people he knew, which, in this part of the city, was practically everyone.

Trolls, he thought, we get along with trolls, now that they remember to look where they're putting their feet. Got 'em in the Watch and everything. Jolly decent types, bar a few bad apples, and gods know we have enough of those of our own. Dwarfs? Been here for ages. Can be a bit tricky, can be as tight as a duck's arse¨Chere he paused to think and edited that thought to 'drive a hard bargain'. You always know where you are with them, anyway, and of course they are short, which is always a comfort provided you know what they are doing down there. Vampires? Well, the Uberwald League of Temperance seemed to be working. Word on the street¨Cor in the vault or whatever¨Cwas that they policed their own. Any unreformed bloodsucker who tried to make a killing in the city would be hunted down by people who knew exactly how they thought and where they hung out.

Lady Margolotta was behind all that. She was the person who, by diplomacy, and probably more direct means, had got things moving again in Uberwald, and she had some sort of... relationship with Vetinari. Everyone knew it, and that was all everyone knew. A dot dot dot relationship. One of those. And nobody had been able to join up the dots.

She had been to the city on diplomatic visits, and not even the well-practised dowagers of Ankh-Morpork had been able to detect a whisper of anything other than a businesslike amiability and international cooperation between the two of them.

And he played endless and complex games with her, via the clacks system, and apart from that, that was, well, that... until now.

And she'd sent him this Nutt to keep safe. Who knew why, apart from them? Politics, probably.

Ridcully sighed. One of the monsters, all alone. It was hard to think of it. They came in thousands, like lice, killing everything and eating the dead, including theirs. The Evil Empire had bred them in huge cellars, grey demons without a hell.

The gods alone knew what had happened to them when the Empire collapsed. But there was convincing evidence now that some still lived up in the far hills. What might they do? And one, right now, was making candles in Ridcully's cellars. What might he become?

'A bloody nuisance?' said Ridcully aloud.

''ere, 'oo are you calling a nuisance, mister? It's my road, same as yours!'

The wizard looked down at a young man who appeared to have stolen his clothes only from the best washing lines, though the tattered black and red scarf around his neck was probably his own. There was an edginess to him, a continual shifting of weight, as though he might at any moment run off in a previously unguessable direction. And he was throwing a tin can up in the air and catching it again. For Ridcully it brought back memories so sharp that they stung, but he pulled himself together.

'I am Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor and Master of Unseen University, young man, and I see you are sporting colours. For some game? A game of football, I suggest?'

'As it happens, yes. So what?' said the urchin, then realized that his hand was empty when it should now, under normal gravitational rules, be full again. The tin had not fallen back from its last ascent, and was in fact turning gently twenty feet up in the air.

'Childish of me, I know,' said Ridcully, 'but I did want your full attention. I want to witness a game of football.'

'Witness? Look, I never saw nuffin' - '

Ridcully sighed. 'I mean I want to watch a game, okay? Today, if possible.'

'You? Are you sure? It's your funeral, mister. Got a shilling?'

There was a clink, high above.

'The tin will come back down with a sixpence in it. Time and place, please.'

''ow do I know I can trust you?' said the urchin.

'I don't know,' said Ridcully. 'The subtle workings of the brain are a mystery to me, too. But I'm glad that is your belief.'

'What?' With a shrug, the boy decided to gamble, what with having had no breakfast.

'Loop Alley off the Scours, 'arp arsed one, an' I've never seen you before in my life, got it?'

'That is quite probable,' said Ridcully, and snapped his fingers.

The tin dropped into the urchin's waiting hand. He shook out the silver coin and grinned. 'Best o' luck to you, guv.'

'Is there anything to eat at these affairs?' said Ridcully, for whom lunchtime was a sacrament.

'There's pies, guv, pease pudding, jellied eel pies, pie and mash, lobster... pies, but mostly they are just pies. Just pies, sir. Made of pie.'

'What kind?'