The wizards of Ankh-Morpork had been very firm on the subject of printing. It’s not happening here, they said. Supposing, they said, someone printed a book on magic and then broke up the type again and used it for a book on, say, cookery? The metal would remember. Spells aren’t just words. They have extra dimensions of existence. We’d be up to here in talking soufflés. Besides, someone might print thousands of the damn things, many of which could well be read by unsuitable people.
The Engravers’ Guild was also against printing. There was something pure, they said, about an engraved page of text. It was there, whole, unsullied. Their members could do very fine work at very reasonable rates. Allowing unskilled people to bash lumps of type together showed a disrespect for words and no good would come of it.
The only attempt ever to set up a printing press in Ankh-Morpork had ended in a mysterious fire and the death by suicide of the luckless printer. Everyone knew it was suicide because he’d left a note. The fact that this had been engraved on the head of a pin was considered an irrelevant detail.
And the Patrician was against printing because if people knew too much it would only bother them.
So people relied on word of mouth, which worked very well because the mouths were so close together. A lot of them were just below the noses of the members of the Beggars’ Guild,[11] citizens generally regarded as reasonably reliable and well informed. Some of them were highly thought of for their sports coverage.
Lord Rust looked thoughtfully at Cumbling Michael, a Grade II Mutterer.
‘And what happened next?’
Cumbling Michael scratched his wrist. He’d recently got his extra grade because he’d finally managed to catch a disfiguring but harmless skin disease.
‘Mr Carrot was in there about two minutes, m’lord. Then they all come runnin’ out, right, an’ they—’
‘Who were they?’ said Rust. He fought off an urge to scratch his own arm.
‘There was Carrot an’ Vimes anna dwarf an’ a zombie an’ all of them, m’lord. They ran all the way to the docks, m’lord, and Vimes saw Captain Jenkins and he said—’
‘Ah, Captain Jenkins! This is your lucky day!’
The captain looked up from the rope he was coiling. No one likes being told it’s their lucky day. That sort of thing does not bode well. When someone tells you it’s your lucky day, something bad is about to happen.
‘It is?’ he said.
‘Yes, because you have an unrivalled opportunity to aid the war effort!’
‘I have?’
‘And also to demonstrate your patriotism,’ Carrot added.
‘I do?’
‘We need to borrow your boat,’ said Vimes.
‘Bugger off!’
‘I’m choosing to believe that was a salty nautical expression meaning “Why, certainly,”’ said Vimes. ‘Captain Carrot?’
‘Sir.’
‘You and Detritus go and look behind that false partition in the hold,’ said Vimes.
‘Right, sir,’ said Carrot, walking towards the ladder.
‘There’s no false partition in the hold!’ snapped Jenkins. ‘And I know the law, and you can’t—’
There was a crash of timber from below.
‘If that wasn’t a false partition, our Carrot’s gone and knocked a hole in the side,’ said Vimes calmly, watching the captain.
‘Er…’
‘I know the law too,’ said Vimes. He drew his sword. ‘See this?’ he said, holding it up. ‘This is military law. And military law is a sword. Not a two-edged sword. There’s only one edge, and it’s pointing at you. Found anything, Carrot?’
Carrot appeared over the edge of the hold. There was a crossbow in his hand.
‘I do declare,’ said Vimes, ‘but that looks to me like a Burleigh and Stronginthearm “Viper” Mk 3, which kills people but leaves buildings standing.’{65}
‘There’s crates and crates of stuff,’ said Carrot.
‘’s no law—’ Jenkins began, but he sounded as if the bottom was dropping out of his world.
‘You know, I think there probably is some law against selling weapons to the enemy in times of war,’ said Vimes. ‘Of course, there might not be. Tell you what,’ he added brightly, ‘why don’t we all go along to Sator Square? It’s full of people around this time, all very keen on the war and cheering our brave lads… Why don’t we go along and put it to them? You told me I ought to listen to the voice of the people. Odd thing, ain’t it… you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.’
‘That’s mob rule!’
‘Oh, no, surely not,’ said Vimes. ‘Call it democratic justice.’
‘One man, one rock,’ Detritus volunteered.
Jenkins looked like a man afraid the world was about to drop out of his bottom. He glared at Vimes and then at Carrot, and saw no help there.
‘Of course, you’d have nothing to fear from us,’ said Vimes. ‘Although you might trip on your way down the stairs to the cells.’
‘There’s no stairs down to your cells!’
‘Stairs can be arranged.’
‘Please, Mr Jenkins,’ said Carrot, the good cop.
‘I wasn’t… taking… the weapons to… Klatch,’ Jenkins said slowly, as if he was reading the words very painfully off some interior script. ‘I had… in fact… bought them to… donate them… to…’
‘Yes? Yes?’ said Vimes.
‘… our… brave lads,’ said Jenkins.
‘Well done!’ said Carrot.
‘And you’d be happy to…?’ Vimes prompted.
‘And… I’d be happy to… lend my boat to the war effort,’ said Jenkins, sweating.
‘A true patriot,’ said Vimes.
Jenkins writhed.
‘Who told you there was a false panel in the hold?’ he demanded. ‘It was a guess, right?’
‘Right,’ said Vimes.
‘Aha! I knew you were only guessing!’
‘Patriotic and clever,’ said Vimes. ‘Now… how do you make this thing go fast?’
Lord Rust tapped his fingers on the table.
‘What did he take the boat for?’
‘Dunno, m’lord,’ said Cumbling Michael, scratching his head.
‘Damn! Did anyone else see them?’
‘Oh, there weren’t many people around, m’lord.’
‘That’s a small mercy, at least.’
‘Just me and Foul Ole Ron and the Duck Man and Blind Hugh{66} and Ringo Eyebrows and No Way José and Sidney Lopsides and that bastard Stoolie and Whistling Dick and a few others, m’lord.’
Rust sank back in his chair and put a pale hand over his face. In Ankh-Morpork the night had a thousand eyes and so did the day, and it also had five hundred mouths and nine hundred and ninety-nine ears.[12]
‘The Klatchians must know, then,’ he said. ‘A detachment of Ankh-Morpork soldiery has taken ship for Klatch. An invasion force.’
‘Oh, you could hardly call it—’ Lieutenant Hornett began.
‘The Klatchians will call it that. Besides, the troll Detritus is with them,’ said Rust.
Hornett looked glum. Detritus was an invasion force all by himself.
‘What ships have we commandeered?’ said Rust.
‘There’s more than twenty now, if you include the Indestructible, the Indolence and the…’ Lieutenant Hornett looked at his list again, ‘… and the Prid of Ankh-Morpork, sir.’
11
Except in the particular case of Sidney Lopsides, who was paid two dollars a day from City funds to wear a sack over his head. It wasn’t that he was spectacularly deformed, as such, it was merely that anyone who saw him spent the rest of the day with an unnerving feeling that they were upside down.