Going Postal (22 page)
“Rig up some kind of table for a counter, will you?” said Moist. “In five minutes, we open to accept mail and sell stamps! I’m taking the mail to Sto Lat while the clacks is down, and you’re acting postmaster while I’m gone! Mr. Spools!”
“I’m right here, Mr. Lipwig, you really don’t have to shout,” said the engraver reproachfully.
“Sorry, Mr. Spools. More stamps, please. I’ll need some to take with me, in case there’s mail to come back. Can you do that? And I’ll need the fives and the dollar stamps as soon as—are you all right, Mr. Groat?”
The old man was swaying, his lips moving soundlessly.
“Mr. Groat?” Moist repeated
“Acting postmaster…” mumbled Groat.
“That’s right, Mr. Groat.”
“No Groat has ever been acting postmaster…” Suddenly Groat dropped to his knees and gripped Moist around the legs. “Oh, thank you, sir! I won’t let you down, Mr. Lipwig! You can rely on me, sir! Neither rain nor snow nor glom of—”
“Yes, yes, thank you, Acting Postmaster, thank you, that’s enough, thank you,” said Moist, trying to pull away. “Please get
up
, Mr. Groat. Mr. Groat, please!”
“Can I wear the wingéd hat while you’re gone, sir?” Groat pleaded. “It’d mean such a lot, sir—”
“I’m sure it would, Mr. Groat, but not today. Today, the hat flies to Sto Lat.”
Groat stood up. “Should it really be you that takes the mail, sir?”
“Who else? Golems can’t move fast enough, Stanley is…well, Stanley, and the rest of you gentlemen are ol—rich in years.” Moist rubbed his hands together. “No argument, Acting Postmaster Groat! Now—let’s sell some stamps!”
The doors were open, and the crowd flocked in. Vetinari had been right. If there was any action, the people of Ankh-Morpork liked to be a part of it. Penny stamps flowed over makeshift counter. After all, the reasoning went, for a penny you got something worth a penny, right? After all, even if it was a joke, it was as safe as buying money! And envelopes came the other way. People were actually writing letters in the Post Office. Moist made a mental note: envelopes with a stamp already on, and a sheet of folded paper inside them: Instant Letter Kit, Just Add Ink! That was an important rule of any game: always make it easy for people to give you money.
To his surprise, although he realized it shouldn’t have been, Drumknott elbowed his way through the crowd with a small but heavy leather package, sealed with a wax seal bearing the city crest and a “V.” It was addressed to the mayor of Sto Lat.
“Government business,” he announced pointedly, as he handed it over.
“Do you want to buy any stamps for it?” said Moist, taking the packet.
“What do
you
think, Postmaster?” asked the clerk.
“I definitely think government business travels free,” said Moist.
“Thank you, Mr. Lipwig. The Lord likes a fast learner.”
Other mail for Sto Lat did get stamped, though. A lot of people had friends or business there. Moist looked around. People were scribbling everywhere, even holding the notepaper up against walls. The stamps, penny and two-penny, were shifting fast. At the other end of the hall, the golems were sorting the endless mountains of mail…
In fact, in a small way, the place was bustling.
You should’ve seen it, sir, you should’ve seen it!
“Lipwig, are yer?”
He snapped out of a dream of chandeliers to see a thickset man in front of him. Recognition took a moment, and then said that this was the owner of Hobson’s Livery Stable, at once the most famous and notorious such establishment in the city. It was probably not the hive of criminal activity that popular rumor suggested, although the huge establishment often seemed to contain grubby-looking men with not much to do apart from sit around and squint at people. And he was employing an Igor, everyone knew, which
of course
was sensible when you had such a high veterinary overhead, but you heard stories…
*
“Oh, hello, Mr. Hobson,” said Moist.
“Seems yer think I hire tired old horses, sir, do you?” said Willie Hobson. His smile was not entirely friendly. A nervous Stanley stood behind him. Hobson was big and heavyset, but not exactly fat; he was probably what you’d get if you shaved a bear.
“I have ridden some that—” Moist began, but Hobson raised a hand.
“Seems yer want fizz,” said Hobson. His smile widened. “Well, I always give the customer what I want, you know that. So I’ve brought yer Boris.”
“Oh yes?” said Moist. “And he’ll get me to Sto Lat, will he?”
“Oh, at the very least, sir,” said Hobson. “Good horseman, are yer?”
“When it comes to riding out of town, Mr. Hobson, there’s no one faster.”
“That’s good, sir, that’s good,” said Hobson, in the slow voice of someone carefully urging the prey toward the trap. “Boris does have a few faults, but I can see a skilled horseman like you should have no trouble. Ready, then? He’s right outside. Got a man holding him.”
It turned out that there were, in fact, four men holding the huge black stallion in a network of ropes, while it danced and lunged and kicked and tried to bite. A fifth man was lying on the ground. Boris was a killer.
“Like I said, sir, he’s got a few faults, but no one could call him a…now, what was it…oh, yeah, a feagued-up old screw. Still want a horse with fizz?” Hobson’s grin said it all: This is what I do to snooty buggers who try to mess me around. Let’s see you try to ride this one, Mister-I-Know-All-About-Horses!
Moist looked at Boris, who was trying to trample the fallen man, and at the watching crowd. Damn the gold suit. If you were Moist von Lipwig, there was only one thing to do now, and that was raise the stakes.
“Take his saddle off,” he said.
“You what?” said Hobson.
“Take his saddle off, Mr. Hobson,” said Moist firmly. “This bag’s quite heavy, so let’s lose the saddle.”
Hobson’s smile remained, but the rest of his face tried to sidle away from it.
“Had all the kids you want, have yer?” he said.
“Just give me a blanket and a bellyband, Mr. Hobson.”
Now Hobson’s smile vanished completely. This was going to look too much like murder. “You might want to think again, sir,” he said. “Boris took a couple of fingers off a man last year. He’s a trampler, too, and a snaffler, and a scraper, and he’ll horlock if he can get away with it. He’s got demons in him, and that’s a fact.”
“Will he run?”
“Not so much
run
as bolt, sir. Born evil, that one,” said Hobson. “You need a crowbar to get him round corners, too. Look, sir, fair play to yer for a game ’un, but I’ve got plenty of other—”
Hobson flinched as Moist gave him a special grin. “
You
chose him, Mr. Hobson. I’ll ride him. I’d be grateful if you could get your gentlemen to point him up Broadway for me while I go and conclude a few items of business.”
Moist went into the building, ran up the stairs to his office, shut the door, crammed his handkerchief in his mouth, and whimpered gently for a few seconds, until he felt better. He’d ridden bareback a few times, when things had been really hot, but Boris had the eyes of a crazy thing.
But back off now and he’d be…just a fool in a shiny suit. You had to give them a show, an image, something to remember. All he had to do was stay until he left the city and then find a suitable bush to jump off into. Yes, that’d do. And then stagger into Sto Lat hours later, still with the mail, having valiantly fought off bandits. He’d be believed, because it would feel right…because people wanted to believe things, because it’d make a good tale, because if you made it glitter sufficiently glass could appear more like a diamond than a diamond did.
There was a cheer when he stepped out onto the steps again. The sun, on cue, decided to appear from the mists, and sparkled off his wings.
Boris was looking apparently docile now, chewing his bit. This didn’t fool Moist; if a horse like Boris was quiet, it was because he was plotting something.
“Mr. Pump, I shall need you to give me a leg up,” he said, slinging the post bag around his neck.
“Yes, Mr. Lipvig,” said the golem.
“Mr. Lipwig!”
Moist turned around to see Sacharissa Cripslock hurrying up the street, notebook in hand.
“Always a pleasure to see you, Sacharissa,” said Moist, “but I am a little busy right now—”
“You are aware that the Grand Trunk is shut again?” she said.
“Yes, it was in the paper…Now I must—”
“So you
are
challenging the clacks company?” The pencil hung poised over her notebook.
“Just delivering the mail, Miss Cripslock, just like I said I’d do,” said Moist in firm, manly tones.
“But it’s rather strange, is it not, that a man on horseback is more reliable than a—”
“Please, Miss Cripslock! We are the Post Office!” said Moist, in his best high-minded voice. “We don’t go in for petty rivalry. We’re sorry to hear that our colleagues in the clacks company are experiencing temporary difficulties with their machinery, we fully sympathize with their plight, and if they would like us to deliver their messages for them we would
of course
be happy to sell them some stamps—soon to be available in penny, two-penny, five-penny, ten-penny, and one-dollar values—here at your post office, ready gummed. Incidentally, we intend eventually to flavor the gum in licorice, orange, cinnamon, and banana flavors, but not strawberry, because I hate strawberries.”
He could see her smile as she wrote this down. Then she said: “I did hear you correctly, did I?
You
are offering to carry
clacks messages
?”
“Certainly. Ongoing messages can be put on the Trunk in Sto Lat. Helpfulness is our middle name.”
“Are you sure it’s not ‘cheekiness’?” said Sacharissa, to laughter from the crowd.
“I don’t understand you, I’m sure,” said Moist. “Now, if you will—”
“You’re cocking a snook at the clacks people again, aren’t you?” said the journalist.
“Ah, that must be a journalistic term,” said Moist. “I’ve never owned a snook, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to cock it. And now, if you
will
excuse me, I have the mail to deliver and ought to leave before Boris eats somebody. Again.”
“Can I ask you just one last thing? Will your soul be unduly diminished if Otto takes a picture of you departing?”
“I suppose I can’t stop you out here, provided my face isn’t very clear,” said Moist, as Mr. Pump cupped his pottery hands to make a step. “The priest is very hot on that, you know.”
“Yes, I expect ‘the priest’ is,” said Miss Cripslock, making sure the inverted commas clanged with irony. “Besides, by the look of that creature, it may be the last chance we get. It looks like death on four legs, Mr. Lipwig.”
The crowd fell silent as Moist mounted. Boris merely shifted his weight a little.
Look at it like this
, Moist thought,
what have you got to lose? Your life? You’ve already been hanged. You’re into angel time. And you’re impressing the hell out of everybody. Why are they buying stamps? Because you’re giving them a show—
“Just say the word, mister,” said one of Hobson’s men, hauling on the end of a rope. “When we let him go, we ain’t hanging around!”
“Wait a moment—” said Moist quickly.
He’d seen a figure at the front of the crowd. It was wearing a figure-hugging gray dress, and as he watched, it blew a neurotic cloud of smoke at the sky, gave him a look, and shrugged.
“Dinner
tonight
, Miss Dearheart?” he shouted.
Heads turned. There was a ripple of laughter, and a few cheers. For a moment she flashed him a look that should have left his shadow on the smoking remains of the wall opposite, and then she gave a curt nod.
Who knows, it could be peaches underneath…
“Let him go, boys!” said Moist, his heart soaring.
The men dived away. The world was still for a breath, and then Boris sprang from docility into a mad rearing dance, back legs clattering across the flagstones, hooves pawing at the air.
“Vunderful! Hold it!”
The world went white. Boris went mad.
The nature of Boris the horse • Foreboding tower
• Mr. Lipwig cools off • The lady with buns on her ears
• Invitation accepted • Mr. Robinson’s box
• A mysterious stranger
H
OBSON HAD TRIED
Boris as a racehorse, and he would have been a very good one were it not for his unbreakable habit, at the off, of attacking the horse next to him and jumping the railings at the first bend. Moist clapped his hand onto his hat, wedged his toes into the bellyband, and hung onto the reins as Broadway came at him all at once, carts and people blurring past, his eyeballs pressing into his head.
There was a cart across the street but there was no possibility of steering Boris. Huge muscles bunched, and there was a long, slow, silent moment as he
drifted
over the cart.
Hooves slid over the cobbles ahead of a trail of sparks when he landed again, but he recovered by sheer momentum and
accelerated
.
The usual crowd around the Hubwards Gate scattered, and then, filling the horizon, there were the plains. They did something to Boris’s mad horse brain. All that space, nice and flat, with only a few easily jumped obstacles, like trees.
He found extra muscle and speeded up again, bushes and trees and carts flying toward him.
Moist cursed the bravado with which he’d ordered the saddle taken away. Every part of his body already hated him. But, in truth, Boris—once you got past the pineapple—wasn’t too bad a ride. He’d hit his rhythm, a natural, single-footed gait, and his burning eyes were focused on the blueness. His hatred of everything was for the moment subsumed by the sheer joy of space. Hobson was right, you couldn’t steer him with a mallet, but at least he was headed in the right direction, which was away from his stable. Boris didn’t want to spend the days kicking the bricks out of his wall while waiting to throw the next bumptious idiot. He wanted to bite the horizon. He wanted to run.
Moist carefully removed his hat and gripped it in his mouth. He didn’t dare imagine what’d happen if he lost it, and he’d need to have it on his head at the end of the journey. It was important. It was all about style.
One of the towers of the Grand Trunk was ahead and slightly to the left. There were two in the twenty miles between Ankh-Morpork and Sto Lat, because they were taking almost all the traffic of lines that stretched right across the continent. Beyond Sto Lat, the Trunk began to split into tributaries, but here, flashing overhead, the words of the world were flowing—
—should be flowing. But the shutters were still. As he drew level, Moist saw men working high up on the open wooden tower; by the look of it, a whole section had broken off.
Ha! So long, suckers! That’d take some repairing! Worth an overnight attempt at a delivery to Pseudopolis, maybe? He’d talk to the coachmen; it was not as if they’d ever paid the Post Office for their damn coaches. And if wouldn’t matter if the clacks got repaired in time, either, because the Post Office would have
made the effort
. The clacks company was a big bully, sacking people, racking up the charges, demanding lots of money for bad service. The Post Office was the underdog, and an underdog can always find somewhere soft to bite.
Carefully, he eased more of the blanket under him. Various organs were going numb.
The towering fumes of Ankh-Morpork were falling far behind. Sto Lat was visible between Boris’s ears, a plume of lesser smokes. The tower disappeared astern, and already Moist could see the next one. He’d ridden more than a third of the way in twenty minutes, and Boris was still eating up the ground.
About halfway between the cities was an old stone tower, all that remained of a heap of ruins surrounded by woodland. It was almost as high as a clacks tower, and Moist wondered why they hadn’t simply used it as one. It was probably too derelict to survive in a gale under the weight of the shutters, he thought. The area looked bleak, a piece of weedy wilderness in the endless fields.
If he’d had spurs, Moist would have spurred Boris on at this point, and would probably have been thrown, trampled, and eaten for his pains.
*
Instead, he lay low over the horse’s back and tried not to think about what this ride was doing to his kidneys.
Time passed.
The second tower went by, and Boris dropped into a canter. Sto Lat was clearly visible now; Moist could make out the city walls and the turrets of the castle.
He’d have to jump off, there was no other way. Moist had tried out half a dozen scenarios as the walls loomed, but nearly all of them involved haystacks. The one that didn’t was the one where he broke his neck.
But it didn’t seem to occur to Boris to turn aside. He was on a road, the road was straight, it went through this gateway, and Boris had no problem with that. Besides, he wanted a drink.
The city streets were crowded with things that couldn’t be jumped or trampled, but there
was
a horse trough. He was only vaguely aware of something falling off his back.
Sto Lat wasn’t a big city. Moist had once spent a happy week there, passing a few dud bills, pulling off the Indigent Heir trick twice, and selling a glass ring on the way out, not so much for the money as out of a permanent fascination with human deviousness and gullibility.
Now he staggered up the steps of the town hall, watched by a crowd. He pushed open the doors and slammed the mailbag on the desk of the first clerk he saw.
“Mail from Ankh-Morpork,” he growled. “Started out at nine, so it’s fresh, okay?”
“But it’s only just struck a quarter past ten! What mail?”
Moist tried not to get angry. He was sore enough as it was.
“See this hat?” he said, pointing. “You see it? That means I’m the postmaster general of Ankh-Morpork!
This
is your mail! In an hour, I’m going back again, understand? If you want mail de-livered to the big city by two p.m.—ouch—make that three p.m., then put it in this bag.
These
”—he waved a wad of stamps under the young man’s nose—“are stamps! Red ones two-pence, black ones a penny. It’ll cost ten—ow—eleven pence per letter, got it? You sell the stamps, you give me the money, you lick the stamps and put them on the letters! Express Delivery guaranteed! I’m making you acting postmaster for an hour. There’s an inn next door. I’m going to find a bath. I want a cold bath. Really cold. Got an ice house here? As cold as that. Colder. Ooooh, colder. And a drink, and a sandwich, and, by the way, there’s a big black horse outside. If your people can catch him, please put a saddle on him, and a cushion, and drag him around to face Ankh-Morpork. Do it!”
I
T WAS ONLY A HIP BATH
, but at least there was an ice house in the city. Moist sat in a state of bliss among the floating ice, drinking a brandy, and listened to the commotion outside.
After a while, there was a knock at the door, and a male voice inquired: “Are you decent, Mr. Postmaster?”
“Thoroughly decent, but not dressed,” said Moist. He reached down beside him and put his wingéd hat on again. “Do come in.”
The mayor of Sto Lat was a short, birdlike man, who’d either become mayor very recently and immediately after the post had been held by a big fat man, or thought that a robe that trailed several feet behind you and a chain that reached to the waist was
the
look for civic dignitaries this year.
“Er…Joe Camels, sir,” he said nervously. “I’m the mayor here…”
“Really? Good to meet you, Joe,” said Moist, raising his glass. “Excuse me if I don’t get up.”
“Your horse, er, has run way after kicking three men, I’m sorry to say.”
“Really? He never usually does that,” said Moist.
“Don’t worry, sir, we’ll catch him, and anyway, we can let you have a horse to get back on. Not as fast, though, I daresay.”
“Oh dear,” said Moist, easing himself into a new position among the floating ice. “That’s a shame.”
“Oh, I know all about
you
, Mr. Lipwig,” said the mayor, winking conspiratorially. “There were some copies of the
Times
in the mailbag! A man who wants to be up and doing, you are. A man full of vim, you are! A man after my own heart, you are! You aim for the moon, you do! You see your target and you go for it hell for leather, you do! That’s how I does business, too! You’re a go-getter, just like me! I’d like you to put it here, sir!”
“What where?” said Moist, stirring uneasily in his rapidly-becoming-lukewarm tub. “Oh.” He shook the proffered hand. “What
is
your business, Mr. Camels?”
“I make parasols,” said the mayor. “And it’s about time that clacks company was told what’s what! It was all fine up until a few months ago—I mean, they made you pay through the nose but at least stuff got where it was fast as a arrow, but now it’s all these breakdowns and repairs and they charge even more, mark you! And they never tell you how long we’re going to be waiting, it’s always ‘very shortly.’ They’re always ‘sorry for the inconvenience,’ they even got that written on a sign they hang up on the office! As warm and human as a thrown knife, just like you said. So you know what we just done? We went around to the clacks tower in the city and had a serious word with young Davey, who’s a decent lad, and he gave us back all the overnight clacks for the big city that never got sent. How about that, eh?”
“Won’t he get into trouble?”
“He says he’s quitting anyway. None of the boys like the way the company’s run now. They’ve all been stamped for you, just like you said. Well, I’ll let you get dressed, Mr. Lipwig. Your horse is ready.” He stopped at the door. “Oh, just one thing, sir, about them stamps…”
“Yes? Is there a problem, Mr. Camels?” said Moist.
“Not as such, sir. I wouldn’t say anything against Lord Vetinari, sir, or Ankh-Morpork”—said a man living within twenty miles of a proud and touchy citizenry—“but, er, it doesn’t seem right, licking…well, licking Ankh-Morpork stamps. Couldn’t you print up a few for us? We’ve got a queen. She’d look good on a stamp. We’re an important city, you know!”
“I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Camels. Got a picture of her, by any chance?”
They’ll all want one
, he thought, as he got dressed.
Having your own stamps could be like having your own flag, your own crest. It could be big! And I bet I could do a deal with my friend Mr. Spools, oh yes. Doesn’t matter if you haven’t got your own post office, you’ve got to have your own stamp…
An enthusiastic crowd saw him off on a horse which, while no Boris, did his best and seemed to know what reins were for. Moist gratefully accepted the cushion on the saddle, too. That added more glitter to the glass:
He’d ridden so hard he needed a cushion!
He set off with a full mailbag. Amazingly, once again, people had bought stamps just to own them. The
Times
had got around. Here was something new, so people wanted to be part of it.
Once he was cantering over the fields, though, he felt the fizz die away. He was employing Stanley, a bunch of game but creaky old men, and some golems. He couldn’t keep this up.
But the thing was, you added sparkle. You told people what you intended to do and they believed you
could
do it. Anyone could have done this ride. No one had. They kept waiting for the clacks to be repaired.
He took things gently along the road, speeding up when he passed the clacks tower that had been under repair. It was still under repair, in fact, but he could see more men around it and high up on the tower. There was a definite suggestion that repair work was suddenly going a lot faster.
As he watched, he was sure he saw someone fall off. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go over there and see if he could help, though, not if he wanted to continue to go through life with his own teeth. Besides, it was a long, long drop all the way down to the cabbage fields, handily combining death and burial at the same time.
He speeded up again when he reached the city. Somehow trotting up to the Post Office steps was not an option. The queue—
still
a queue—cheered when he cantered up.
Mr. Groat came running out, insofar as a crab can run.
“Can you make another delivery to Sto Lat, sir?” he shouted. “Got a full bag already! And everyone’s asking when you’ll be taking ’em to Pseudopolis and Quirm! Got one here for Lancre, too!”
“What? That’s five hundred damn miles, man!”
Moist dismounted, although the state of his legs turned the action into more of a drop.
“It’s all got a bit busy since you were away,” said Groat, steadying him. “Oh, yes indeed! Ain’t got enough people! But there’s people wanting jobs, too, sir, since the paper came out! People from the old postal families, just like me! Even some more workers out of retirement! I took the liberty of taking them on pro tem for the time being, seeing as I’m acting postmaster. I hope that’s all right with you, sir? And Mr. Spools is running off more stamps! I’ve twice had to send Stanley up for more. I hear we’ll have the early five-pennies and the dollars out tonight! Great times, eh, sir?”
“Er…yes,” said Moist. Suddenly the whole world had turned into a kind of Boris—moving fast, inclined to bite, and impossible to steer. The only way not to be ground down was to stay on top.
Inside the hall, extra makeshift tables had been set up. They were crowded with people.
“We’re selling them the envelopes and paper,” said Groat. “The ink is free gratis.”
“Did you think that up yourself?” said Moist.
“No, it’s what we used to do,” said Groat. “Miss Maccalariat got a load of cheap paper from Spools.”
“Miss Maccalariat?” said Moist. “Who is Miss Maccalariat?”
“Very old Post Office family, sir,” said Groat. “She’s decided to work for you.” He looked a little nervous.
“Sorry?” said Moist. “
She
has decided to work for
me
?”