Raising Steam (Discworld 40)

‘Good,’ said Moist. ‘And now you have two ladies, you lucky man.’ But in his head a voice said to him, ‘But you more than half expected it, didn’t you, Mister Lipwig? Oh, ye of little faith.’ And then there was a sigh of steam.

For the next two hours Moist sat at his desk in Harry’s compound, feeling as if he were a locomotive speeding along watching the scenery blur past. Every so often a boy came up with another pile of paperwork from some part of Harry King’s domain and towards the end of the afternoon he felt himself subtly drifting into a coma, quite a pleasant one at the start: he visualized himself in a pale pink mist and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. And little by little Moist von Lipwig began to unravel, but just as he was sliding under Of the Twilight the Darkness dropped down in front of him out of the evening glow, though exactly where he had dropped from Moist couldn’t work out.

‘Must go to sleep, Mister Lipwig! Burning candle at both ends means man with egg on face and burning bum. When did Mister Lipwig last eat? Not snack! Serious munch! I have some dried mushrooms if you are feeling peckish. No? Acquired taste … more for me, but you must sleep if nothing else. Mister Lipwig can’t do everything. If he can’t eat, can’t do anything. Making money is good, but there is no pockets in a shroud. Give it a rest, Mister Railway! And this will help you big time no mistake.’

The goblin handed Moist a little bottle on which a grubby label proclaimed the contents as ‘RAT POISON’.

‘Label one big lie, Mister Lipwig, bottle cleaned out and rats eaten, yes indeed, and filled with special goblin potion for tired person. Guaranteed no worms and it will give you refreshing sleep and you feel a lot better if you wake up in the morning! Guaranteed! Pure quill. None finer!’

It had been a long day and the heat of the smelters had made him as dry as the smelters themselves and so, what the hell, Moist took a long swig.

‘Well done, Mister Lipwig!’ chuckled the goblin. ‘It will make your hairs curl … everywhere!’

Later, after Moist had finished talking to the dancing toadstools and Mr Whoopee, the man who could amusingly eat his own face, it must have been Moist’s feet alone that found his bed, plodding along like a couple of old donkeys via the good offices of Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobby Nobbs, who apparently found him just outside his house talking to his knees. And, according to Nobby, listening intently to what they had to say.

He awoke lying on his bedroom floor. Somebody had put blankets over him and even tucked him up nicely. He grasped his head and thought Oh no! I drank another goblin concoction! His dismay dwindled when he realized that he felt absolutely fine and not just fine, either, but so full of beans that the world probably had no beans left. When he stepped outside on to the balcony for a breath of fresh air the birds were singing and the sky was a wonderful shade of blue.

The door opened behind him and Adora Belle said, ‘I know we have what might be called an unconventional marriage, what with our jobs and the pressure of work and so on, but I wouldn’t be doing my wifely duty if I didn’t ask you whether you have been firkydoodling with fast and loose women? No pressure. Answer in your own time.’

More or less spinning with the ecstasy of being alive and, of course, all those beans, Moist said joyfully, ‘Now then, just a minute, bear with me now, tell me, is it loose women or is it fast women? Is there a spotter’s guide or does one, as it were, cancel out the other?’

‘Moist von Lipwig, you are rascally drunk. Can you even walk?’

For an answer Moist jumped in the air, clicking his heels, and said, ‘Fast or loose, my girl, or why not both at once?’

Dragging him back into their bedroom and closing the door behind them, Adora Belle said, ‘Well now, husband of mine, in that case let’s find out.’

There was a thunderstorm over Schmaltzberg, but that was ever the case. Thunder rolled around the mountains, like the marbles of the gods. And in the privacy of his office, the Low King was discussing progress with Aeron who was looking more cheerful than usual.

‘Things appear to be calming down,’ Rhys said. ‘They argue and argue and then somebody remembers that he has business to deal with concerning his rat farms, or there’s some trouble over in his goldmine, water coming in, pit props buckling and so on and so forth, things they can’t leave to underlings, and then everything goes quiet.’

‘I know you’re worried,’ said Aeron, ‘but I think … no, I believe, that you have more friends than you ever thought possible. Even the goblins know that you were one of the first who signed up for goblin emancipation. They, whether we like it or not, are becoming the future, Rhys. It was the business with the clacks towers that made even traditional dwarfs angry. The clacks is needed: everybody wants news. People are furious everywhere. After all, they say, goblins and trolls are minding their own business, so why not the dwarfs?’

‘No more news of Ardent?’ asked the King. ‘It’s been months, hasn’t it? No more towers down or idiots trying to destroy the railway? Can I believe that his firebrand has burned out?’

Aeron handed the King his coffee and said, ‘I believe Lord Vetinari said never do anything until you hear the screams. However, Ardent is not one to come back, helmet in hand, to say “sorry”. There is too much pride there by half.’

After a quiet moment while Rhys Rhysson considered the possibilities, Aeron continued.

‘So you will accept the invitation to the summit in Quirm? In these circumstances, Rhys, it does seem to me that it is very important that you are there and seen to be there.’

‘Of course. Diamond King will be chairing proceedings this year and I must mend fences. He’s helpful but I’m in no mood to try his patience. He has always been a most understanding ally.’

‘And the other … thing?’

‘The other thing is satisfactory,’ said the King. He paused. ‘Yes, we should go to Quirm, but I think it would be wise to leave Albrechtson in charge here, just to take care of any business.’

Without his quite knowing how it had come about, and regardless of how little he was actually at the compound, it appeared that Moist was now Mr Railway. If anyone wanted to know anything about it, they asked him. If they’d lost their little child in the queue for Iron Girder, the call went out for Mr Lipwig and if somebody had a new idea for the railway it was sent to Mr Lipwig and after a while it didn’t seem to Moist to matter what time it was or, worse, where he was: the claims on his attention were never-ending.

He was pretty certain that he slept quite often, sometimes back at home, if at all possible, or saving that a mattress and blanket somewhere within the warm and ever enlarging foundries along the route to Uberwald, or, if all else failed, snuggled down under the tarpaulins of whatever railway gang was near by, having shared whatever was in the cooking pot. If you were lucky it was pheasant or possibly grouse

, and if you weren’t so lucky, at least there would be pot luck, which generally meant cabbages and swedes and almost certainly something that was protein, but you wouldn’t want to see what it was in daylight. However, to give them their due, the railway gangs, including the vanguard now bearing down on Slake, were resourceful men, especially in the tradition of setting snares to fill their pots along the permanent way.

Slake was one of those places, Moist thought, that you put on the map because it was embarrassing to have a map with holes in it. There was some mining, forestry and fishing and after a while you got the feeling that those people who chose to live in Slake and the surrounding area were people who didn’t want other people to know where they were. And when you walked around Slake you were always certain that you were being watched. He put it down as a place to avoid unless you liked bad cooking and banjos. Nevertheless, it had a mayor and was nailed to the map as a coaling and water stop.

No longer did Moist wear the snazzy suits and handmade shoes that, along with his collection of official-looking hats, were his calling card back in the city. They didn’t stand up well to the regime of the railway worker and so now he wore the greasy shirt and waistcoat with rough trousers tied at the knee. He loved the huge boots and the flat cap that seemed to go with them, making you feel safe at both ends. But the boots, oh the boots … a troll could drop on your head and you’d be dead, but the boots would be still alive and kicking! They had hobnails and were more or less like tiny fortresses. Nothing could get past a railway worker’s boots.

Messages found Moist wherever he might be, via train, goblin runner or clacks, since there were very few places these days where their towers hadn’t found a niche in the landscape.