Snuff (Discworld 39)

Cheery Littlebottom shrugged. “But eating your own child, that’s got to be wrong, yes?”

“Well, sergeant,” said A. E. Pessimal, “I have read about such things and if you think of the outcomes, which are the death of both mother and child or the death of the child but the possible life of the mother, the conclusion must be that her decision is right. In his book A Banquet of Worms Colonel F. J. Massingham does mention this about the goblins and apparently, according to the goblins’ world view, a consumed child, which clearly did emerge from the mother, has been returned whence it came and will, hopefully, be reborn anew at some future date when circumstances are more favorable with, therefore, no actual harm done. You may think that this view does not stand up to scrutiny, but when you’re faced with the dreadful algebra, the world becomes quite a different place.”

There was silence while they all contemplated this.

Carrot said, “You know how it is in a street fight, Cheery. Sometimes if things get hot and you know it’s you or them—that’s when you do the algebra.”

“Fred doesn’t seem to know where he is,” said Cheery. “He wasn’t running a temperature and his bedroom isn’t particularly warm, but he acts as if he’s very hot and he won’t let go of that damn little pot. He shouts if anyone tries even to get near it. Actually, he screamed at me! And that’s another thing, his voice has changed, he sounds like a man who’s gargling rocks. I had a word with Ponder Stibbons at the university, but they don’t appear to have anyone who knows anything much about goblins.”

Captain Carrot raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? I know for a fact that they have a Professor of Dust, Miscellaneous Particles and Filaments, and you tell me that there’s no expert on an entire species of talking humanoids?”

“That’s about right, sir. All we could turn up was stuff about what a bloody nuisance they are—you know the kind of thing.”

“Nobody knows anything about goblins? I mean, stuff worth knowing?”

A. E. Pessimal actually saluted. “Harry King does, captain. There’s quite a few of them downriver. They don’t come into town much, though. You may remember that Lord Vetinari was gracious enough to ask for me to be seconded to the revenue in order that I might go through Mr. King’s returns, given that all the other tax officers were frightened to set foot on his property. I myself, sir, was not frightened,” said A. E. Pessimal proudly, “because I am protected by my badge and the majesty of the law. Harry King might throw a taxman out of the building, but he’s clever enough not to try that with one of Commander Vimes’s men, no indeed!” You could have lit the city with the proud glow from A. E. Pessimal’s face as he tried to puff out a chest that mostly went in.

It became a little more swollen when Carrot said, “Very well done, inspector. You’re a mean man with a smoking abacus indeed. I think I shall pay a visit to our old friend Harry first thing in the morning.”

Vimes did some thinking about the problem of taking Young Sam to a crime scene, but frankly, the lad was showing himself to be up to just about any encounter. Besides, any lad wants to go and see where his dad works. He looked down at his son. “Would you be scared of a long walk in the dark, lad? With me and these ladies?”

Young Sam looked solemn for a moment and then said, “I think I’ll let Mr. Whistle do the being scared and then it won’t bother me.”

The door to the secret tunnel, if indeed it was secret, was in Miss Beedle’s cellar, which had quite a well-appointed wine rack and a general, not unpleasant smell of, well, a cellar. But once through the door there was a smell of distant goblins.

It was a long walk in the dark, especially when you were obliged to walk up quite a steep slope very nearly on hands and knees.

The smell of goblins grew stronger after a while, but during that while, you tended to get used to it. Here and there light shone into the gloom from holes to the outside world, which Vimes thought was sensible engineering until he realized that rabbits used this tunnel too, and had left plenty of droppings as evidence. He wondered whether he should pocket a few samples for Young Sam’s collection and suggested this to Young Sam, toiling manfully behind him, who said, “No, Dad, got rabbits. Want elephant if we find one.”

Rabbit poo, Vimes noticed, was about the size of a chocolate raisin, a thought which instantly dragged him back to his youth, when if by some means, never entirely legal, he had acquired some cash, he would spend it on a ticket to the fleapit music hall and buy a packet of chocolate raisins with the change. Nobody knew, or cared to guess, what the things were that scuttled and scratched down below the seats, but you soon learned a very important rule: if you dropped your chocolate raisins, it was vitally important not to pick them up!

Vimes stopped, causing Miss Beedle to walk into the sack of apples that she had asked him to carry, and got a grip on himself sufficiently to say, “I’d like a moment or two to catch my breath, Miss Beedle. Sorry, not as young as I was and all that. I’ll catch you up. What are we carrying these bags for anyway?”

“Fruit and vegetables, commander.”

“What? To goblins? I’d have thought they found their own food.”

Miss Beedle inched her way around him and climbed on into the dark, saying, over her shoulder, “Yes, they do.”

Vimes sat with Young Sam for a moment until he felt better and said, “How are you doing, lad?”

In the dark a small voice said, “I told Mr. Whistle not to worry, Dad, because he’s a bit silly.”

So is your father, thought Vimes, and is probably going to continue to be so. But he was on the chase. One way or another he was on the chase. Who you were chasing could wait. The chasing was the thing.

Anger helped Vimes up the last leg of the climb. Anger at himself and whoever it was who had punctured his holiday. But it was worrying: he had wanted something to happen and now it had. Somebody was dead. Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.

He found Miss Beedle and Tears of the Mushroom waiting with a dozen or so other…ladies. It was a calculated guess, given that he had yet to find any reliable way of telling one goblin from another—except, of course, that Tears of the Mushroom was wearing her apron with pockets, which he hadn’t seen before, and apparently neither had the other ladies, since Tears of the Mushroom was now the hit of the season as far as her sisters were concerned, given that they currently wore daring little outfits of old sacking, plaited grasses and rabbit skin. They gathered around her chorusing, presumably, the goblin equivalent of “Oh my dear, you look fabulous.”*

Miss Beedle sidled up to Vimes and said, “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s a start. Carrying things, useful things, without having to use your hands—well, that’s a step in the right direction.” She pulled Vimes a little way from the newly formed goblin branch of the Women’s Institute, who had by now attracted the attention of Young Sam, whose cheerful reluctance to be overawed by anything had clearly won over the girls, resulting in his being where he always felt he should be, the center of attention. It was a knack.

Miss Beedle went on, “If you want to change a whole people, then you start with the girls. It stands to reason: they learn faster, and they pass on what they learn to their children. I suppose you’re wondering why we were trekking up here with all the sacks?”

Behind them, the apron was being tried on by one girl after another: this year’s must-have item. Vimes turned back to the woman and said, “Well, this is just a guess, but I see a lot of rabbit bones around the place, and I have heard that you can die if you live only on rabbit, only I don’t know why this is.”

Miss Beedle lit up. “Well, Commander Vimes, you’ve certainly gone up in my estimation! Yes, rabbit has been the scourge of the goblin nation! I understand it depletes the body of some vital nutrient if you don’t eat other things as well. Just about any green stuff will do, but the male goblins think a proper meal is a rabbit on a stick.” She sighed. “Dwarfs know about this, and they’re absolutely fanatical about goo

d food, as you should be if you spend much of your time underground, but nobody cared to tell the goblins, as if they would listen anyway, and so bad health and premature death is their lot. Some survive, of course, mostly those who prefer rat or eat the whole rabbit, not just the more apparently edible bits, or they simply eat their vegetables.”