Snuff (Discworld 39)

“I can’t see any way out,” Feeney volunteered. “I suppose he drags the ore out through the main entrance.”

“I don’t think that the goblins are stupid enough to live in a set of caves that have just one entrance. There’s probably one that doesn’t even show up on the outside. Look, you can see where somebody’s been lugging heavy weights across the stone—” Vimes stopped. There was another human in the cave. Well, thank you, darkness, he thought. I suppose asking who it is might be in order?

“Sir, I don’t think it’s just mining that goes on here. Take a look at these,” said Feeney, behind Vimes.

Feeney held out some books, children’s books, by the look of it. They were grubby—this was, after all, the home of goblins—but Vimes turned to the first page of the first book and was not surprised to see an unfeasibly large red apple, currently somewhat soiled by the pressure of many dirty hands.

A voice in the gloom, a female voice, said, “Not all questions are answered, commander, but fortunately some answers are questioned. I’m attempting to teach the goblin children. Of course, I had to bring in an apple for the young ones to see,” the woman in the shadows added. “Not many knew what one was, and certainly not what they were called. Troll language is unbelievably complex compared with what these poor devils have got. “Good day to you too, Mr. Upshot. Not cowering away from the truth in your lockup?”

Vimes had spun round when he first heard that voice, and was now staring with his mouth open. “You? Aren’t you the, er…”

“The poo lady, yes, Commander Vimes. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how people remember?”

“Well, you must admit that it does—how can I put it?—stick in the mind, Miss Felicity Beedle.”

“Very well done, commander, considering that we’ve met only once!”

And now Vimes noticed that with her there was a goblin, a young one by the size of it, but more noticeable because it was staring directly at him with a keen and interested gaze, quite uncharacteristic of the goblins that he had seen so far, apart from the wretched Stinky. Feeney, on the other hand, was taking great care not to catch the lady’s eye, Vimes noticed.

Vimes smiled at Miss Beedle. “Madam, I reckon I see your name at least once every day. When I was putting my lad to bed yesterday, do you know what he said? He said ‘Dad, do you know why cows do big wet sloppy poos and horses do them all nice and soft and smelling of grass? Because it’s weird, isn’t it? That you get two different kinds of poo when they’re both about the same size and it’s the same grass, isn’t it, Dad? Well, the poo lady says it’s because cows have room in ants, and the ants help them get, sort of, more food out of their food, but because horses don’t have room in ants, they don’t sort of chew all that much, so that their poo is still very much like grass and doesn’t smell too bad.’ ”

Vimes saw that the woman was grinning, and went on, “I believe that tomorrow he is going to ask his mother if he may chew his dinner very hard one day, and the next day not do it very much, and see if he gets different smells. What do you think of that, madam?”

Miss Beedle laughed. It was a very enjoyable laugh. “Well, commander, it would seem that your son combines your analytical thinking with the inherited Ramkin talent for experimentation. You must be very proud? I certainly hope you are.”

“You can bet on that, madam.” The child standing in Miss Beedle’s shadow was smiling too, the first smile he’d seen on a goblin. But before he could say anything, Miss Beedle directed a disapproving look at Feeney and went on, “I only wish I could find you in better company, commander. I wonder if you know where my friend Jethro is, officer?”

Even in the lamplight, Feeney looked furious, but if you read people, and Vimes was a ferocious reader, it was clear the fury was spiced with shame and dread. Then Vimes looked down at the little bench, where there were a few tools and some more brightly covered books. It was the streets that had taught Vimes that there were times when you would find it best to let a nervous person get really nervous, and so he picked up a book as if the previous dreadful exchange had not taken place, and said, “Oh, here’s Where’s My Cow?! Young Sam loves it. Are you teaching it to the goblins, Miss?”

With her eyes still on the agitated Feeney, Miss Beedle said, “Yes, for what it’s worth. It’s hard work. Incidentally, technically I’m Mrs. Beedle. My husband was killed in the Klatchian war. I went back to ‘Miss’ because, well, it’s more authory, and besides, it wasn’t as though I’d had much time to get accustomed to ‘Mrs.’ ”

“I’m sorry about that, madam, Had I known I’d have been a lot less flippant,” said Vimes.

Miss Beedle gave him a wan smile. “Don’t worry, flippant sometimes does the trick.” Beside the teacher the little goblin said, “Flip-ant? The ant is turned over?”

“Tears of the Mushroom is my star pupil. You’re wonderful, aren’t you, Tears of the Mushroom?”

“Wonderful is good,” said the goblin girl, as though tasting every word. “Gentle is good, the mushroom is good. Tears are soft. I am Tears of the Mushroom, this much is now said.”

It was a strange little speech: the girl spoke as if she were pulling words out of a rack and then tidily putting them back in their places as soon as they had been said. It sounded very solemn and it came from an odd, flat, pale face. In a way, Tears of the Mushroom looked handsome, if not exactly pretty, in what looked like a wraparound apron, and Vimes wondered how old she was. Thirteen? Fourteen, maybe? And he wondered if they would all look as smart as this if they got their hands on some decent clothing and did som

ething about their godawful hair. The girl’s hair was long and braided and pure white. Amazingly, in this place, she looked like a piece of fragile porcelain.

Not knowing what to say, he said it anyway: “Pleased to meet you, Tears of the Mushroom.” Vimes held out his hand. The goblin girl looked at it, then looked at him, and then turned to Miss Beedle, who said, “They don’t shake hands, commander. For people who seem so simple they’re astoundingly complicated.”

She turned to Vimes. “It would seem, commander, that providence has brought you here in time to solve the murder of the goblin girl, who was an excellent pupil. I came up here as soon as I heard, but the goblins are used to undeserved and casual death. I’ll walk with you to the entrance, and then I’ve got a class to teach.”

Vimes tugged at Feeney to make him keep up as they followed Miss Beedle and her charge toward the surface and blessed fresh air. He wondered what had become of the corpse. What did they do with their dead? Bury them, eat them, throw them on the midden? Or was he just not thinking right, a thought which itself had been knocking at his brain for some time. Without thinking, he said, “What else do you teach them, Miss Beedle? To be better citizens?”

The slap caught him on the chin, probably because even in her anger Miss Beedle realized that he still had his steel helmet on. It was a corker, nonetheless, and out of the corner of his stinging gaze he saw Feeney take a step back. At least the boy had some sense.

“You are the gods’ own fool, Commander Vimes! No, I’m not teaching them to be fake humans, I’m teaching them how to be goblins, clever goblins! Do you know that they have only five names for colors? Even trolls have around sixty, and a lot more than that if they find a paint salesman! Does this mean goblins are stupid? No, they have a vast number of names for things that even poets haven’t come up with, for things like the way colors shift and change, the melting of one hue into another. They have single words for the most complicated of feelings; I know about two hundred of them, I think, and I’m sure there are a lot more! What you may think are grunts and growls and snarls are in fact carrying vast amounts of information! They’re like an iceberg, commander: most of them is where you can’t see or understand, and I’m teaching Tears of the Mushroom and some of her friends so that they may be able to speak to people like you, who think they are dumb. And do you know what, commander? There isn’t much time! They’re being slaughtered! It’s not called that, of course, but slaughter is how it ends, because they’re just dumb nuisances, you see. Why don’t you ask Mr. Upshot what happened to the rest of the goblins three years ago, Commander Vimes?”

And with that Miss Beedle turned on her heel and disappeared down into the darkness of the cave with Tears of the Mushroom bobbing along behind her, leaving Vimes to walk the last few yards out into the glorious sunlight.

The feeling that hit Samuel Vimes when he stepped into the vivid light of day was as if somebody had pushed an iron wire through his body and then, in one moment, pulled it out again. It was all he could do to keep his balance and the boy grabbed him by the arm. Full marks, Vimes thought, for being either smart enough to see how the land lay, or at least smart enough not to make a run for it just now.

He sat down on the turf, relishing the breeze through the gorse bushes and sucking in pure fresh air. Whatever you thought about goblins, their cave had the kind of atmosphere about which people say, “I should wait two minutes before going in there, if I was you.”