Making Money (16 page)

And then one day he’d read in some book or other: “If you want to understand a man, walk a mile in his shoes.”

And he’d had a great and glorious idea…

He sighed happily, and tugged at the black glove.

He’d been sent to the Assassins’ school as a matter of course. It was the natural destination for young men of a certain class and accent. He’d survived, and had made study of poisons, because he believed that was Vetinari’s specialty, but the place had bored him. It was so stylized now. They’d got so wrapped up in some ridiculous concepts of honor and elegance that they seemed to forget what it was an assassin was supposed to do…

The glove came free, and there it was.

Oh yes…

Heretofore had done magnificently.

Cosmo stared at the wondrous thing, moving his hand so that it caught the light. Light did strange things to stygium: sometimes it reflected silver, sometimes an oily yellow, sometimes it remained resolutely black. And it was warm, even here. In direct sunlight it would burst into flame. It was a metal that might have been intended for those who move in shadow…

The ring of Vetinari. Vetinari’s signet ring. Such a small thing, and yet so powerful.

It was entirely without ornamentation, unless you counted the tiny border to the cartouche that surrounded the sharply incised and serifed single letter:

V

He could only guess at all the things his secretary had to do to get it. He’d had a replica made, “reverse-devised,” whatever that was, from the wax seals it had so impressively stamped. And there had been bribes (expensive ones) and hints of hasty meetings and cautious exchanges and last-minute changes to get the replica exactly right—

And here the real one was, on his finger. Very much on his finger, in fact. From Cosmo’s point of view, Vetinari also had very small fingers for a man, and getting the ring over the knuckle had been a real effort. Heretofore had fretted about getting it enlarged, foolishly not realizing that this would completely ruin it. The magic—and surely Vetinari had a magic all his own—would leak out. It wouldn’t be totally the real thing anymore.

Yes, it had hurt like hell for a few days, but now he was floating above the pain, in a clear blue sky.

He prided himself on being no fool. He’d have known at once if his secretary had tried to palm off a mere copy on him. The shock that went up his arm when he slid the ring—all right, forced the ring over the knuckle—was enough to tell him that he had got the real thing. Already he could feel his thoughts getting sharper and faster.

He brushed a forefinger across the deeply cut V and looked up at Drumk—at Heretofore.

“You seem concerned, Heretofore,” he said kindly.

“The finger has gone very white, sir. Almost pale blue. Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”

“Not a bit. I feel…utterly in control. You seem very…worried lately, Heretofore. Are you well?”

“Um…fine, sir,” said Heretofore.

“You must understand I sent Mr. Cranberry with you for the best of reasons,” said Cosmo. “Morpeth would have told someone, sooner or later, however much you paid him.”

“But the boy in the hat shop—”

“Exactly the same situation. And it was a fair fight. Was that not so, Cranberry?”

Cranberry’s shiny bald head looked up from his book. “Yes, sir. He was armed.”

“Bu—” Heretofore began.

“Yes?” said Cosmo calmly.

“Er…nothing, sir. You are right, of course.” In possession of a small knife and very drunk. Heretofore wondered how much that counted against a professional killer.

“I am, aren’t I,” said Cosmo in a kindly voice, “and you are excellent at what you do. As is Cranberry. I shall have another little quest for you soon, I feel it. Now do go and get your supper.”

As Heretofore opened the door, Cranberry glanced up at Cosmo, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. Unfortunately for Heretofore, he had excellent peripheral vision.

He’s going to find out, he’s going to find out, he’s going to find oouuuttt!!! he moaned to himself, as he scurried along the corridors. It’s the damn ring, that’s what it is! It’s not my fault Vetinari has thin fingers! He would have smelled a rat if the bloody thing had fitted! Why didn’t he let me have it made bigger? Hah, and if I had he’d have sent Cranberry along later to murder the jeweler! I know he’ll send him after me, I know it!

Cranberry frightened Heretofore. The man was soft-spoken and modestly dressed. And when Cosmo did not require his services he sat and read books all day. That upset Heretofore. If the man was an illiterate thug, things would, in some strange way, have been better, more…understandable. The man apparently had no body hair, either, and the gleam from his head could blind you in sunlight.

And it had all begun with a lie. Why had Cosmo believed him? Because he was mad, but regrettably not all the time; he was a sort of hobby madman. He had this…thing about Lord Vetinari.

Heretofore didn’t spot that at first, he just wondered why Cosmo had fussed about his height at the job interview. And when Heretofore had told him he’d worked at the palace, he was hired on the spot.

And that was the lie, right there, although Heretofore preferred to think of it as an unfortunate conjunction of two truths.

Heretofore had indeed been employed for a while at the palace, and thus far Cosmo had not found out that this was as a gardener. He had been a minor secretary at the Armorers’ Guild before that, which was why he’d felt confident in saying “I was a minor secretary and I was employed at the palace,” a phrase that he felt Lord Vetinari would have examined with more care than the delighted Cosmo had done. And now here he was, advising a very important and clever man on the basis of as much rumor as he could remember or, in desperation, make up. And he was getting away with it. In his everyday business dealings, Cosmo was cunning, ruthless, and sharp as a tack, but when it came to anything to do with Vetinari, he was as credulous as a child.

Heretofore noticed that his boss occasionally called him by the name of the Patrician’s secretary, but he was being paid fifty dollars a month, food and his own bed thrown in, and for that kind of money he’d answer to “Daisy.” Well, perhaps not Daisy, but certainly Clive.

And then the nightmare had begun, and in the way of nightmares, everyday objects took on a sinister importance.

Cosmo had asked for an old pair of Vetinari’s boots.

That had been a poser. Heretofore had never been inside the actual palace, but he’d got into the grounds that night by scaling the fence next to the old green garden gate, met one of his old mates, who had to stay up all night to keep the hothouse boilers going, had a little chat, and the following night returned for a pair of old but serviceable black boots, size eight, and information from the boot boy that his lordship wore down the left heel slightly more than the right.

Heretofore couldn’t see any difference in the boots presented, and no one was actually claiming as a fact that these were the fabled Boots Of Vetinari, but well-worn but still-useful boots floated down from the upper floors to the servants’ quarters on a tide of noblesse oblige, and if these weren’t the boots of the man himself then they had almost certainly, at the very least, sometimes been in the same room as his feet.

Heretofore handed over ten dollars for them and spent an evening wearing down the left heel enough to be noticeable. Cosmo paid him fifty dollars without flinching, although he did wince when he tried them on.

“If you want to understand a man, walk a mile in his shoes,” he’d said, hobbling the length of his office. What insight he’d glean if they were the man’s under-butler’s shoes, Heretofore couldn’t guess at, but after half an hour, Cosmo rang for a basin of cold water and some soothing herbs and the shoes had not made an appearance since.

And then there had been the black skullcap. That one had been the one stroke of luck in this whole business. It was even genuine. It was a safe bet that Vetinari bought them from Bolters in the Maul, and Heretofore had cased the place, entered when the senior partners were at lunch, spoke to the impecunious youth who worked the steamy cleaning and stretching machines in the back room—and found that one had been sent in for cleaning. Heretofore walked out with it, uncleaned, leaving the young man extremely pecunious and with instructions to wash a new cap for return to the palace.

Cosmo was beside himself, and wanted to know all the details.

Next evening, it turned out that the pecunious youth spent the evening in a bar and died outside in a drunken brawl around midnight, short of money and even shorter of breath. Heretofore’s room was next to Cranberry’s. On reflection, he’d heard the man come in late that night.

And now there was the signet ring. Heretofore had told Cosmo that he could get a replica made and use his contacts—his very expensive contacts—at the palace to get it swapped for the real thing. He’d been paid five thousand dollars!

Five thousand dollars!

And the boss was overjoyed. Overjoyed and mad. He’d got a fake ring but he swore it had the spirit of Vetinari flowing in it. Perhaps it did, because Cranberry became part of the arrangement. If you got drawn into Cosmo’s little hobby, Heretofore realized too late, you died.

He reached his room, darted inside, and shut the door. Then he leaned on it.

He ought to run, right now. His savings by now could buy a lot of distance. But the fear subsided a little as he collected his thoughts.

They told him: Relax, relax. The Watch hadn’t come knocking yet, had they? Cranberry was a professional, and the boss was full of gratitude.

So…why not one last trick? Make some real money! What could he “obtain” that the boss would pay him another five thousand for?

Something simple but impressive, that would be the trick, and by the time he found out—if he ever did—Heretofore would be on the other side of the continent, with a new name and suntanned beyond recognition.

Yes…the very thing…

T
HE SUN WAS HOT,
and so were the dwarfs. They were mountain dwarfs and were not at home under open skies.

And what were they here for? The king wanted to know if anything valuable was taken out the hole that the golems were digging for the mad smoking woman, but they weren’t allowed to set foot on it, because that would be trespassing. So they sat in the shade and sweated, while, about once a day, the mad smoking woman who smoked all the time came and laid…things on a crude trestle table in front of them. The things had this in common: they were dull.

There was nothing to mine here, everyone knew. It was barren silt and sand all the way down. There was no fresh water. Such plants as survived here stored winter rain in swollen, hollow roots, or lived off the moisture in the sea mist. The place contained nothing of interest. And what came out of the long sloping tunnel bore this out to the point of boredom.

There were bones of old ships, and occasionally the bones of old sailors. There were a couple of coins, one silver, one gold, which were not dull enough and were duly confiscated. There were broken pots and pieces of statue, which were puzzled over, part of an iron cauldron, an anchor with a few links of chain.

It was clear, the dwarfs considered as they sat in the shade, that nothing came here but by boat. But remember: in matters of commerce and gold, never trust anyone who could see over your helmet.

And then there were the golems. They hated golems, because they moved silently, for all their weight, and looked like trolls. They arrived and departed all the time, fetching timbers from who knew where, marching down into the dark…

And then one day golems came pouring out of the hole; there was a lengthy discussion, and the smoking woman marched over to the watchers. They watched her nervously, as fighters do when approached by a self-confident civilian they know they’re not allowed to kill.

In broken dwarfish she told them that the tunnel had collapsed, and she was going to leave. Everything they’d dug out, she said, were gifts for the king. And she left, taking the wretched golems with her.
*

That was last week. Since then the tunnel had completely fallen in and the blowing sand had covered everything.

T
HE MONEY LOOKED
after itself. It sailed down the centuries, buried in paperwork, hidden behind lawyers, groomed, invested, diverted, converted, laundered, dried, ironed and polished, and kept safe from harm and taxes, and, above all, kept safe from the Lavishes themselves. They knew their descendents—they’d raised them, after all—and so, the money came with bodyguards of trustees, managers, and covenants, disgorging only a measured amount of itself to the next generation, enough to maintain the lifestyle with which their name had become synonymous and with a bit left over for them to indulge in the family tradition of fighting among themselves over, yes, the money.

Now they were arriving, each family branch and often each individual with their own lawyer and bodyguards, being careful about who they deigned to notice, just in case they inadvertently smiled at someone they were currently suing. As a family, people said, the Lavishes got along like a bagful of cats. Cosmo had watched them at the funeral, and they spent all their time watching one another, very much like cats, each one waiting for someone else to attack. But even so, it would have been a decently dignified occasion if only that moron nephew the old bitch had allowed to live in the cellar hadn’t turned up in a grubby white coat and a yellow rain hat and kept on blubbing all through the ceremony. He had completely spoiled the occasion for everyone.

But now the funeral was over and the Lavishes were doing what they always did after funerals, which was talk about The Money.

You couldn’t sit Lavishes around a table. Cosmo had set out small tables in a pattern that represented to the best of his knowledge the current state of the alliances and minor fratricidal wars, but there was a lot of shifting and scraping and threats of legal action before people settled down. Behind, the alert ranks of their lawyers paid careful attention, earning a total of a dollar every four seconds.