Going Postal (33 page)
“Well, I’m not,” snapped Moist.
“You speak to the gods and the gods listen,” said Miss Dearheart, grinning. “They told you where the treasure was. Now, that’s what
I
call religion. Incidentally, how
did
you know the money was there?”
“You don’t believe in any gods?”
“No, of course not. Not while people like Reacher Gilt walk under the sky. All there is, is us. The money…?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Moist.
“Have you
read
some of these letters?” said Miss Dearheart. “Sick children, dying wives—”
“Some just want cash,” said Moist hurriedly, as if that made it better.
“Whose fault is that, Slick? You’re the man who can tap the gods for a wad of wonga!”
“So what shall I do with all these…prayers?” said Moist.
“Deliver them, of course. You’ve got to. You are the messenger of the gods. And they’ve got stamps on. Some of them are
covered
in stamps! It’s your
job
. Take them to the temples. You promised to do that!”
“I never promised to—”
“
You promised to when you sold them the stamps!
”
Moist almost fell off his chair. She’d wielded the sentence like a fist.
“And it’ll give them hope,” she added, rather more quietly.
“False hope,” said Moist, struggling upright.
“Maybe not this time,” said Miss Dearheart. “That’s the point of hope.” She picked up the battered remains of Anghammarad’s message. “
He
was taking a message across the whole of Time. You think you’ve got it tough?”
“Mr. Lipwig?”
The voice floated up from the hall, and at the same time the background noise subsided like a bad soufflé.
Moist walked over to where a wall had once been. Now, with the scorched floorboards creaking underfoot, he looked right down into the hall. A small part of him thought:
We’ll have to put in a big picture window when we rebuild. This is just too impressive for words
.
There was a buzz of whispering and a few gasps. There were a lot of customers, too, even in the early foggy hours. It’s never too late for a prayer.
“Is everything all right, Mr. Groat?” he called down.
Something white was waved in the air.
“Early copy of the
Times
, sir!” Groat shouted. “Just in! Gilt’s all over the front page, sir! Where you ought to be, sir! You won’t like it, sir!”
I
F
M
OIST VON
L
IPWIG
had been raised to be a clown, he’d have visited shows and circuses and watched the kings of fooldom. He’d have marveled at the elegant trajectory of the custard pie, memorized the new business with the ladder and the bucket of whitewash, and watched with care every carelessly juggled egg. While the rest of the audience watched the display with the appropriate feelings of terror, anger, and exasperation, he’d make notes.
Now, like an apprentice staring at the work of a master, he read Reacher Gilt’s words on the still-damp newspaper.
It was garbage, but it had been cooked by an expert. Oh, yes. You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although “synergistically” had probably been a whore from the start. The Grand Trunk’s problems were clearly the result of some mysterious spasm in the universe and had nothing to do with greed, arrogance, and willful stupidity. Oh, the Grand Trunk management had made mistakes—oops, “well-intentioned judgments which, with the benefit of hindsight, might regrettably have been, in some respects, in error”—but these had mostly occurred, it appeared, while correcting “fundamental systemic errors” committed by the previous management. No one was sorry for anything, because no living creature had done anything wrong; bad things had happened by spontaneous generation in some weird, chilly, geometrical other-world, and “were to be regretted.”
*
The
Times
reporter had made an effort, but nothing short of a stampede could have stopped Reacher Gilt in his crazed assault on the meaning of meaning. The Grand Trunk “was about people” and the reporter had completely failed to ask what that meant,
exactly
? And then there was this piece called “Our Mission”…
Moist felt the acid rise in his throat until he could spit lacework in a sheet of steel.
Meaningless, stupid words, from people without wisdom or intelligence or any skill beyond the ability to water the currency of expression. Oh, the Grand Trunk stood for
everything
, from life and liberty to Mom’s homemade Distressed Pudding. It stood for everything, except anything.
Through a pink mist, his eye caught the line “Safety is our foremost consideration.” Why hadn’t the lead type melted, why hadn’t the paper blazed rather than be part of this obscenity? The press should have buckled, the roller should have cleaved unto the platen…
That was bad. But then he saw Gilt’s reply to a hasty question about the Post Office.
Reacher Gilt
loved
the Post Office and blessed its little cotton socks. He was very grateful for its assistance during this difficult period and looked forward to future cooperation, although, of course, the Post Office, in the real modern world, would never be able to compete on anything other than a very local level. Mind you, someone has to deliver the bills, ho ho…
It was masterly…the
bastard
.
“Er…are you okay? Could you stop shouting?” said Miss Dearheart.
“What?” The mists cleared.
Everyone in the hall was looking at him, their mouths open, their eyes wide. Watery ink dripped from Post Office pens, stamps began to dry on tongues.
“You were shouting,” said Miss Dearheart. “Swearing, in fact.”
Miss Maccalariat pushed her way through the throng, with an expression of determination.
“Mr. Lipwig, I hope never to hear such language in this building again!” she said.
“He was using it about the chairman of the Grand Trunk Company,” said Miss Dearheart, in what was, for her, a conciliatory tone of voice.
“Oh.” Miss Maccalariat hesitated, and then remembered herself. “Er…perhaps a teensy bit quieter, then?”
“Certainly, Miss Maccalariat,” said Moist obediently.
“And perhaps not the K-word?”
“No, Miss Maccalariat.”
“And also not the L-word, the T-word, both of the S-words, the V-word, and the Y-word.”
“Just as you say, Miss Maccalariat.”
“‘Murdering conniving bastard of a weasel’ was acceptable, however.”
“I shall remember that, Miss Maccalariat.”
“Very good, Postmaster.”
Miss Maccalariat turned on her heel and went back to haranguing someone for not using blotting paper.
Moist handed the paper to Miss Dearheart.
“He’s going to walk away with it,” he said. “He’s just throwing words around. The Trunk’s too big to fail. Too many investors. He’ll get more money, keep the system going just this side of disaster, then let it collapse. Buy it up then via another company, maybe, at a knockdown price.”
“I’d suspect him of anything,” said Miss Dearheart. “But you sound
very
certain.”
“That’s what I’d do,” said Moist, “…er…if I was that kind of person. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You get the punt—you get others so deeply involved that they don’t dare fold. It’s the dream, you see? They think if they stay in it’ll all work out. They daren’t think it’s all a dream. You use big words to tell them it’s going to be jam tomorrow and they
hope
. But they’ll never win. Part of them knows that, but the rest of them never listens to it. The house always wins.”
“Why do people like Gilt get away with it?”
“I just told you. It’s because people hope. They’ll believe that someone will sell them a real diamond for a dollar. Sorry.”
“Do you know how I came to work for the Trust?” said Miss Dearheart.
Because clay people are easier to deal with?
Moist thought.
They don’t cough when you talk to them?
“No,” he said.
“I used to work in a bank in Sto Lat. The Cabbage Growers’ Cooperative—”
“Oh, the one on the town square? With the carved cabbage over the door?” said Moist before he could stop himself.
“You know it?” she said.
“Well, yes. I went past it, once…”
Oh no
, he thought, as his mind ran ahead of the conversation,
oh, please, no…
“It wasn’t a bad job,” said Miss Dearheart. “In our office, we had to inspect drafts and checks. Looking for forgeries, you know? And one day, I let four through. Four fakes! It cost the bank two thousand dollars. They were cash drafts, and the signatures were perfect. I got sacked for that. They said they had to do something, otherwise the customers would lose confidence. It’s not fun, having people think you might be a crook. And that’s what happens to people like us. People like Gilt always get away with it. Are you all right?”
“Hmm?” said Moist.
“You look a bit…off-color.”
That
had
been a good day
, Moist thought.
At least, up until now it had been a good day
. He’d been quite pleased with it at the time. You weren’t supposed ever to meet the people afterwards. Gods damn Mr. Pump and his actuarial concept of murder!
He sighed. Oh well, it had come to this. He’d known it would. Him and Gilt, arm-wrestling to see who was the biggest bastard.
“This is the country edition of the
Times
,” he said. “They don’t go to press with the city edition for another ninety minutes, in case of late-breaking news. I think I can wipe the smile off his face, at least.”
“What are you going to do?” said Miss Dearheart.
Moist adjusted the wingéd hat.
“Attempt the impossible,” he said.
The challenge • Moving mountains
• The many uses of cabbage • The board debates
• Mr. Lipwig on his knees • The Smoking Gnu
• The way of the Woodpecker
I
T WAS
the next morning.
Something prodded Moist.
He opened his eyes and stared along the length of a shiny, black cane, past the hand holding the silver Death’s-head knob, and into the face of Lord Vetinari. Behind him, the golem smoldered in the corner.
“Pray, don’t get up,” said the Patrician. “I expect you have had a busy night?”
“Sorry, sir,” said Moist, forcing himself upright. He’d fallen asleep at his desk again; his mouth tasted as though Tiddles had slept in it. Behind Vetinari’s head, he could see Mr. Groat and Stanley, peering anxiously around the door.
Lord Vetinari sat down opposite him, after dusting some ash off a chair.
“You have read this morning’s
Times
?” he said.
“I was there when it was printed, sir.” Moist’s neck seemed to have developed extra bones. He tried to twist his head straight.
“Ah, yes. Ankh-Morpork to Genua is about two thousand miles, Mr. Lipwig. And you say you can get a message there faster than the clacks. You have issued that as a challenge. Most
intriguing
.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Even the fastest coach takes almost two months, Mr. Lipwig, and I’m given to understand that if you traveled nonstop your kidneys would be jolted out of your ears.”
“Yes, sir. I know that,” said Moist, yawning.
“It would be cheating, you know, to use magic.”
Moist yawned again. “I know that, too, sir.”
“Did you
ask
the Archchancellor of Unseen University before you suggested that he should devise the message for this curious race?” Lord Vetinari demanded, unfolding the newspaper. Moist caught sight of the headlines:
THE RACE IS ON!
“Flying Postman” vs. Grand Trunk
“No, my lord. I said the message should be prepared by a well-respected citizen of great probity,
such as
the Archchancellor, sir.”
“Well, he’s hardly likely to say no now, is he?” said Vetinari.
“I’d like to think so, sir. Gilt won’t be able to bribe him, at least.”
“Hmm.” Vetinari tapped the floor once or twice with his cane. “Would it surprise you to know that the feeling in the city this morning is that you’ll win? The Trunk has never been out of commission for longer than a week, a clacks message can get to Genua in a few hours, and yet, Mr. Lipwig, people think you can do this. Don’t you find that amazing?”
“Er…”
“But, of course, you are the man of the moment, Mr. Lipwig,” said Vetinari, suddenly jovial. “You are the golden messenger!” His smile was reptilian. “I do hope you know what you are doing. You
do
know what you are doing, don’t you, Mr. Lipwig?”
“Faith moves mountains, my lord,” said Moist.
“There are a lot of them between here and Genua, indeed,” said Lord Vetinari. “You say in the paper that you’ll leave tomorrow night?”
“That’s right. The weekly coach. But on this run we won’t take paying passengers, to save weight.”
Moist looked into Vetinari’s eyes.
“You wouldn’t like to give me some little clue?” said the Patrician.
“Best all round if I don’t, sir,” said Moist.
“I suppose the gods haven’t left an extremely fast magical horse buried somewhere nearby, have they?”
“Not that I’m aware, sir,” said Moist earnestly. “Of course, you never know until you pray.”
“No-oo,” said Vetinari.
He’s trying the penetrating gaze
, Moist thought.
But we know how to deal with that, don’t we? We let it pass right through
.
“Gilt will have to accept the challenge, of course,” said Vetinari. “But he is a man of…ingenious resource.”
That seemed to Moist to be a very careful way of saying “murderous bastard.” Once again, he let it pass.
His Lordship stood up. “Until tomorrow night, then,” he said. “No doubt there will be some little ceremony for the newspapers?”
“I haven’t actually planned that, sir,” said Moist.
“No, of course you haven’t,” said Lord Vetinari, and gave him what could only be called…
a look
.
M
OIST GOT
very much the same look from Jim Upwright, before the man said: “Well, we can put out the word and call in some favors and we’ll get good horses at the post houses, Mr. Lipwig, but we only go as far as Bonk, you know? Then you’ll have to change. The Genua Express is pretty good, though. We know the lads.”
“You’re sure you want to hire the whole coach?” said Harry, as he rubbed down a horse. “It’ll be expensive, ’cos we’ll have to run another for the passengers. It’s a popular run, that one.”
“Just the mail in that coach,” said Moist. “And some guards.”
“Ah, you think you’ll be attacked?” said Harry, squeezing the towel bone-dry with barely an effort.
“What do
you
think?” said Moist.
The brothers looked at each other.
“I’ll drive it, then,” said Jim. “They don’t call me Lead-pipe for nothing.”
“Besides, I heard there were bandits up in the mountains,” said Moist.
“Used to be,” said Jim. “Not as many now.”
“That’s something less to worry about, then,” said Moist.
“Dunno,” said Jim. “We never found out what wiped them out.”
A
LWAYS REMEMBER
that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.
People like a show…
…and so mail was coming in for Genua, a dollar at a time. A lot of mail.
It was Stanley who explained. He explained several times, because Moist had a bit of a blind spot on this one.
“People are sending envelopes with stamps
inside
envelopes to the coach office in Genua so that the first envelope can be sent back in the second envelope,” was the shape of explanation that finally blew on some sparks in Moist’s brain.
“They want the envelopes back?” he said. “Why?”
“Because they’ve been used, sir.”
“That makes them valuable?”
“I’m not sure how, sir. It’s like I told you, sir. I think some people think that they’re not real stamps until they’ve done the job they were invented to do, sir. Remember the first printing of the one-penny stamps that we had to cut out with scissors? An envelope with one of those on it is worth two dollars to a collector.”
“Two hundred times more than the stamp?”
“That’s how it’s going, sir,” said Stanley, his eyes sparkling. “People post letters to themselves just to get the stamp, er, stamped, sir. So they’ve been used.”
“Er…I’ve got a couple of rather crusty handkerchiefs in my pocket,” said Moist, mystified. “Do you think people might want to buy
them
at two hundred times what they cost?”
“No, sir!” said Stanley.
“Then why should—”
“There’s a lot of interest, sir. I thought we could do a whole set of stamps for the big guilds, sir. All the collectors would want them. What do you think?”
“That’s a very clever idea, Stanley,” said Moist. “We’ll do that. The one of the Seamstresses’ Guild might have to go
inside
a plain brown envelope, eh? Ha ha!”
This time it was Stanley who looked perplexed.
“Sorry, sir?”
Moist coughed. “Oh, nothing. Well, I can see you’re learning fast, Stanley. Some things, anyway.”
“Er…yes, sir. Er…I don’t want to push myself forward, sir—”
“Push away, Stanley, push away,” said Moist cheerfully.
Stanley pulled a small paper folder out of his pocket, opened it, and laid it reverentially in front of Moist.
“Mr. Spools helped me with some of it,” he said. “But I did a lot.”
It was a stamp. It was a yellowy-green color. It showed—Moist peered—a field of cabbages, with some buildings on the horizon.
He sniffed. It smelled of cabbages. Oh, yes.
“Printed with cabbage ink and using gum made from broccoli, sir,” said Stanley, full of pride. “‘A Salute to the Cabbage Industry of the Sto Plains,’ sir. I think it might do very well. Cabbages are so popular, sir. You can make so many things out of them!”
“Well, I can see that—”
“There’s cabbage soup, cabbage beer, cabbage fudge, cabbage cake, cream of cabbage—”
“Yes, Stanley, I think you—”
“—pickled cabbage, cabbage jelly, cabbage salad, boiled cabbage, deep-fried cabbage—”
“Yes, but now can—”
“—fricassee of cabbage, cabbage chutney, cabbage Surprise, sausages—”
“Sausages?”
“Filled with cabbage, sir. You can make practically anything with cabbage, sir. Then there’s—”
“Cabbage stamps,” said Moist terminally. “At fifty pence, I note. You have hidden depths, Stanley.”
“I owe it all to you, Mr. Lipwig!” Stanley burst out. “I have put the childish playground of pins right behind me, sir! The world of stamps, which can teach a young man much about history and geography as well as being a healthy, enjoyable, engrossing, and thoroughly worthwhile hobby that will give him an interest that will last a lifetime, has opened up before me and—”
“Yes, yes, thank you!” said Moist.
“—and I’m putting thirty dollars into the pot, sir. All my savings. Just to show we support you.”
Moist heard all the words, but had to wait for them to make sense.
“Pot?” he said at last. “You mean like a bet?”
“Yes, sir. A
big
bet,” said Stanley happily. “About you racing the clacks to Genua. People think that’s funny. A lot of the bookmakers are offering odds, sir, so Mr. Groat is organizing it, sir! He said the odds aren’t good, though.”
“I shouldn’t think they are,” said Moist weakly. “No one in their right mind would—”
“He said we’d only win one dollar for every eight we bet, sir, but we reckoned—”
Moist shot upright. “Eight to one
odds on
?” he shouted. “The
bookies
think I’m going to
win
? How much are you all betting?”
“Er…about one thousand two hundred dollars at the last count, sir. Is that—”
Pigeons rose from the roof at the sound of Moist von Lipwig’s scream.
“
Fetch Mr. Groat right now!
”
I
T WAS A TERRIBLE THING
to see guile on the face of Mr. Groat. The old man tapped the side of his nose.
“You’re the man that got money out o’ a bunch of gods, sir!” he said, grinning happily.
“Yes,” said Moist desperately. “But supposing I—I just did that with a trick…”
“Damn good trick, sir,” the old man cackled. “
Damn
good. A man who could
trick
money out of the gods’d be capable of anything, I should think!”
“Mr. Groat, there is no way a coach can get to Genua faster than a clacks message. It’s two thousand miles!”
“Yes, I realize you’ve got to say that, sir. Walls have ears, sir. Mum’s the word. But we all had a talk, and we reckoned you’ve been very good to us, sir, you really believe in the Post Office, sir, so we thought it’s time to put our money in our mouth, sir!” said Groat, and now there was a touch of defiance.
Moist gaped once or twice. “You mean ‘where your mouth is’?”
“You’re the man who knows a trick or three, sir! The way you just went into the newspaper and said, we’ll race you! Reacher Gilt walked right into your trap, sir!”
Glass into diamond
, thought Moist. He sighed. “All right, Mr. Groat. Thank you. Eight to one on, eh?”
“We were lucky to get it, sir. They went up to ten to one on, then they closed the books. All they’re accepting now is bets on
how
you’ll win, sir.”
Moist perked up a little.
“Any good ideas?” he asked.
“I’ve got a one-dollar bet on ‘by dropping fire from the sky,’ sir. Er…you wouldn’t like to give me a hint, p’raps?”
“Please go and get on with your work, Mr. Groat,” said Moist severely.
“Yessir, of course, sir, sorry I asked, sir,” said Groat, and crabbed off.
Moist put his head in his hands.
I wonder if it’s like this for mountain climbers
, he thought.
You climb bigger and bigger mountains, and you know that one day one of them’s going to be just that bit too steep. But you go on doing it, because it’s so-oo good when you breathe the air up there. And you know you’ll die falling
.
H
OW COULD PEOPLE
be so stupid? They seemed to cling to ignorance because it smelled familiar. Reacher Gilt sighed.
He had an office in the Tump Tower. He didn’t like it much, because the whole place shook to the movement of the semaphore, but it was necessary for the look of the thing. It did have an unrivaled view of the city, though. And the site alone was worth what they’d paid for the Trunk.
“It takes the best part of two months to get to Genua by coach,” he said, staring across the rooftops to the palace. “He might be able to shave something off that, I suppose. The clacks takes a few hours. What is there about this that frightens you?”
“So what’s his game?” said Greenyham. The rest of the board sat around the table, looking worried.
“I don’t know,” said Gilt. “I don’t care.”
“But the gods are on his side, Reacher,” said Nutmeg.
“Let’s talk about that, shall we?” said Gilt. “Does that claim strike anyone else as odd? The gods are not generally known for no-frills gifts, are they? Especially not ones that you can bite. No, these days they restrict themselves to things like grace, patience, fortitude, and inner strength. Things you can’t see. Things that have no value. Gods tend to be more interested in prophets, not profits, a-ha.”
There were some blank looks from his fellow directors.
“Didn’t quite get that one, old chap,” said Stowley.