Snuff (Discworld 39)

She began to unfasten a sack of cabbages and continued, “I was well in with the wife of the head man here, because he got sick and I made certain he got a few good meals. Of course he swears it was because he did the magic, but his wife was remarkably sensible, and the other males don’t worry about what the girls get up to, so they slip fruit and veg into their stews, saying they’re magical, and so they have children who survive and thus we change the world one meal at a time. That is if the goblins get a chance to live at all.” She looked sadly at the gossiping girls and said, “What they really need is a first-class theologian, because, you see, they agree with the rest of the world: they think they’re rubbish! They think they did something very bad, a long time ago, and because of it they’ve lived like they do. They think they have it coming to them, as you might say.”

Vimes frowned. He couldn’t remember ever going into a church or temple or one of the numerous other places of more or less spirituality for any other reason than the occasional requirements of the job. These days he tended to go in for reasons of Sybil, i.e., his wife dragging him along so that he could be seen, and, if possible, seen remaining awake.

No, the world of next worlds, afterlives and purgatorial destinations simply did not fit into his head. Whether you wanted it or not, you were born, you did the best you could, and then, whether you really wanted to or not, you died. They were the only certainties, and so the best thing for a copper to do was to get on with the job. And it was about time that Sam Vimes got back to doing his.

Young Sam at this point had tired of petticoat company and had drifted over to an elderly goblin man who was working on a pot, and was watching with extreme fascination, to the apparent pleasure, as far as Vimes could tell, of the elderly goblin. That’s a lesson to us…I don’t know what kind of lesson, but it’s a lesson, he thought.

Vimes waited until Miss Beedle returned from discussing the possible new fashion explosion with the girls, then politely asked her, “Did the victim have any unggue pots on her?”

“I would be amazed if she hadn’t,” said Miss Beedle. “One or two at the very least, but probably the quite small ones for use during the day.”

“I see,” said Vimes, “but were any found on her, er, afterward, I mean, if she was laid out?” He didn’t know what the protocol was and continued, “Look, Miss Beedle, is it possible that she had an unggue pot on her that’s now missing? I know they’re valuable, of course—they’re shiny.”

“I don’t know, but I’ll go and ask the Cold Bone Wakes. He’s the head goblin. He’ll know.”

That reminded Vimes. Feeling embarrassed, he delved into his pocket and took out a small package very, very carefully wrapped, and handed it to Miss Beedle with a pleading look. “I believe this belonged to the dead girl,” he said. “A stone ring with a little blue bead in it? Can you see that it gets to someone here who’ll value it?” All she had was a stone ring, he thought, and even that got taken away.

There were times when the world did not need policemen, because what it really did need was for somebody who knew what they were doing to shut it all down and start it all up again so that this time it could be done properly…

But before despair could entirely set in, Miss Beedle was back, and excited. “How apposite that you should ask that question, Commander! One of them was missing! Unggue cat!”

Vimes could register absolute flat-faced incomprehension as well as any copper born. It radiated a searchlight of ignorance, but that was fine because Miss Beedle was prepared to be a fountainhead of information. “I’m sure you know what everybody knows, commander, which is that goblins do, I might say religiously, store certain bodily secretions in pots, in the belief that these must be reunited with their corpse when they are buried. This obligation is called unggue. All goblins must, by custom, which is very strict among goblins, maintain the Unggue Had, the trinity of snot, nail clippings and earwax. The missing pot in this case is the pot of cat, which contains nail clippings. Don’t get misled by the word ‘cat.’ Felines don’t come into the picture…it’s simply that there are only so many syllables in the world.”

“And this is the first time you’ve heard that it’s missing, Miss Beedle?”

“Well, this is my first time down here since yesterday, and it’s a difficult time to talk to her family, as you may imagine…”

“I see,” said Vimes, though he didn’t, not very much—although he could sense a tiny bead of light growing in the darkness of his mind. He glanced again at Young Sam, who was studying the potmaker with every sign of forensic interest. That’s my boy. He continued, “Did they look for the pot?”

“Looked everywhere, commander, even outside. And it’ll be quite small. You see, every goblin makes a set of pots which are kept deep inside the cave. I don’t know where they are, though in most other things they trust me. This is because humans steal pots. For this reason, most goblins make other comparatively small pots for daily use and for when they leave the cave, and decant them into the larger pots later, in secret.” She tried to smile, and said, “I’m sure this seems quite outlandish to you, commander, but the making and maintaining of the pots is to them a religion in itself.”

At this point Samuel Vimes was not keen to be heard giving his views about pots, so he contented himself with saying, “Is it possible that another goblin might have stolen the pot? Anyway, what size is ‘quite small’?”

Miss Beedle gave him a surprised look. “If you trust me on anything, commander, trust me on this. No goblin would dream of stealing another goblin’s pot. The concept of doing so would be totally alien to them, I assure you. The size? Oh, usually similar to a lady’s compact or perhaps a snuffbox. They have a shine on them like opals.”

“Yes,” said Vimes, “I know,” and he thought bright colors in the dark. He said, “I don’t want to be difficult, but could I borrow another of the poor lady’s pots? I might need one to show people what it is I’m looking for.”

Miss Beedle looked surprised again. “That would be impossible, but I think that if I talk to Tears of the Mushroom she might, just might, loan you one of hers, in which case I may say you will be a very special person, commander. A pot usually changes hands only because of distress, but Tears of the Mushroom spends a lot of time with me and has learned, shall I say, the uses of flexible thinking and, if I may say so, she has taken a little bit of a shine to you.”

She walked away, leaving the startled Vimes and Young Sam to their own devices. Here and there, goblins were doing whatever they did, tending small fires, sleeping, or in many cases fussing with their pots. And a few just sat there staring blankly at nothing at all, like a policeman wondering how you spell phantasmagorical.

And a new image dragged itself out of Vimes’s memory. It was of a lot of little blue men shouting, “Crivens!” Ah yes, the Nac Mac Feegle! They lived in holes in the ground as well. Admittedly, these were said to be rather more salubrious than this midden-ridden cave system, but however you looked at it, they were in the same situation as the goblins. They lived on the edge too, but they—they danced on the edge, they jumped up and down on it, made faces at it, thumbed their snotty noses at it, refused to see the peril of their situation and, in general, seemed to have a huge appetite for life, alcohol, adventure and alcohol. As a copper, he shouldn’t say it, because they could be a bloody nuisance, but there was something commendable about the cheerfully feisty way they faced, well, everything…

Somebody tugged at his sleeve. He looked down into the face of Tears of the Mushroom, with Miss Beedle standing over her like a chaperone. The other goblin girls stood behind the pair of them like an Ephebian chorus.

The solemn voice from the little face said, “Hearts must give, Mr. Po-leess-man.”

With dreadfully bad timing, Miss Beedle broke in like an overactive schoolteacher, and Vimes was privately overjoyed to see a brief look of annoyance on Tears of the Mushroom’s face.

“She means that if she is to trust you with a pot, then you must trust her with something equally valuable. I suppose you would call it a hostage situation.”

No, I wouldn’t, Vimes thought, looking into the dark eyes of the goblin girl. That was a strange thing: when he got past the features, which at best could be considered homely, depending on what kind of home you had in mind, the eyes were as human as you could imagine. They had a depth that not even the brightest animal could achieve. He reached for his wallet, and Miss Beedle said sharply, “Money won’t do!”

He ignored her and finished pulling out the picture of Young Sam that he took everywhere and carefully passed it to Tears of the Mushroom, who took it as if holding a rare and delicate object—which, from the point of view of Vimes, it certainly was. She looked at it, then down at the boy himself, who gave her a cheery smile, and her eyes confirmed that the grimace on her face was in fact an answering smile. For Young Sam, the goblin cave was an interesting fairyland. You had to admire his ability not to be immediately frightened of anything.

Tears of the Mushroom looked back at the picture and then back at Young Sam and then at the face of Vimes. She tucked the picture carefully into her apron and pulled out her hand, holding a small, iridescent pot. She held it out to Vimes, her hand trembling slightly, and he found himself taking it gingerly in both hands. Then Tears of the Mushroom said in her strange voice, like a living filing cabinet, “Hearts have given.” Which almost brought Vimes to his knees.

He thought: it could just as well have been her head grinning on the pub wall! Som