Raising Steam (10 page)

‘They want us to be frightened of one another, thinking there must be an enemy, but the only enemy now is the grags and those poor fools like your brother, who set fire to a clacks tower and got badly burned for his trouble. They are the victims of the sneaking bastards in the darkness.’

Far away in the Oblong Office Drumknott put the midday edition of the
Times
in front of Lord Vetinari and looked down at Mr Cheerysson’s latest frantic petition, saying, ‘They’ve torched two more clacks towers, my lord, but so far no one has died. Except on their side, of course. Young dwarfs, badly advised. They should have known better.’

The silence enveloped Lord Vetinari. ‘Indeed,’ said his lordship, ‘but it is easy to be an idiot when you are seventeen and I would warrant that the grags who put them up to it are much older. There is no sense in breaking the arrow if, by acting sensibly, you may capture the archer. I’ll leave the Cheerysson boy thinking about his fortune in the Tanty for a while and will make a note to have him brought over to talk to me in a month or two. If he’s clever, his parents won’t be grieving, and I’ll have a number of names and, above all, the goodwill of his parents. Always worth thinking about, don’t you agree, Drumknott?’

‘Damage to property,’ said Drumknott speculatively.

‘Yes,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘That’s it.’

A few days later, Crossly quietly entered the master bedroom of the house in Scoone Avenue, nudged Moist, and, when that had no effect, finally pinched his ear in order to get his attention.

He whispered, ‘Excuse me, sir, but his lordship requires your presence at the palace
immediately
, and I am sure that neither of us would like to see the mistress troubled at this time, yes?’

At home and, for once, in bed at the same time as Moist, Adora Belle Dearheart was gently snoring, although she was certain that she did not.

Moist groaned. It was the crack of seven and he was allergic to the concept of two seven o’clocks in one day. Nevertheless he dressed with a speed and silence trained by experience, walked noiselessly downstairs, left the house and got a trolley bus to the
palace. He ran up the steps to the Oblong Office, reflecting that, day or night, he had never seen it empty. This time Lord Vetinari was at his desk, looking, if the word could be applied to Lord Vetinari, chipper.

‘Good morning, good morning, Mister Lipwig! Rather speedier than last time, yes? I imagine you haven’t had time to look at your newspaper today? Something rather droll has happened.’

‘Is it something interesting to do with the railway, perhaps, my lord?’

Lord Vetinari looked puzzled for a moment and then said, ‘Well, there is something, yes, since you ask.’

He sniffed as if what he was dealing with was not in the great scheme of things all that important and continued, ‘I am being told that everybody is going to Harry King’s compound to see the marvel of the steaming train, which seems to have caught the public fancy. I understand that Sir Harry, with his usual business acumen, is already turning this into a commercial enterprise.

‘Of course, that is news, but when you do indeed get hold of a newspaper you might notice a small apology from the editor of the
Times
to the effect that the crossword has been removed, as the compiler is stepping down for a while owing to the pressures of keeping up the standard of achievable games that are nevertheless sufficiently taxing. Of course, as a rule I do not gloat, but I fear she has met her match. I shall ask Drumknott to arrange for a box of chocolates to be sent to her, from a secret admirer. After all, I am generous in victory!’

Lord Vetinari cleared his throat again and said solemnly, ‘Alas, Drumknott has taken the morning off to go and have another look at the engine. A morning off. Whoever heard of such a thing? I have to say that I’m somewhat surprised, as the only other time he has ever requested time away from my service was to attend the paperclip, stapler and desktop aids symposium three years ago. He got very excited about that one, too. One wonders what the
attraction of this engine can be. Does it not seem rather strange to you?’

Moist was a little nervous of the use of ‘strange’ and ‘Drumknott’ in the same sentence, and instead volunteered to visit the site of the train to escort Drumknott back to the palace.

‘Since you will be there, Mister Lipwig, I shall be pleased to hear your … impressions on the economic opportunities for my city.’

Ah-ha, thought Moist, so that’s why he’s dragged me out of bed … again. Nothing to do with the crossword, nothing to do with Drumknott, but
everything
to do with
his
city getting an interest in the railway.

His lordship gave Moist a brisk nod and waved the paper, suggesting that it was time for him to be on his way.

It took Moist a long time to push his way through the throng anxious to see the modern miracle of the age. Harry King’s business compound was at the very end of the queue that seemed to straggle halfway back to the city. There was no sign of Drumknott but Moist wasn’t surprised. When Drumknott was standing in front of you, he was so retiring as not to be there.

There were guards on the gates all round the compound, Harry’s own and City Watch, watching like hawks as one by one the citizens queueing up parted with a whole dollar a time to ride behind the locomotive. And a dollar was a dollar, possibly a day’s food for a family, and yet, as far as Moist could ascertain, flying over the rails on the wonderful train was worth tightening your belt for. It was better than the circus, better than everything, to be speeding along with the wind in your face and black smuts that made the eyes water, but were, well, the badge of the train riders, who nevertheless didn’t seem to notice it, given the amount of unpleasantness that could slap, splat, spit or fly into your face when you stepped into the street, or even when you walked into your own house, if you lived anywhere near the Shades.

Moist was well versed in the people of Ankh-Morpork’s love of novelty, and, he had to admit it, Iron Girder, pulling her train like the queen she was, was novelty in the extreme. She came trundling around the corner with people in the carts behind screaming and waving to friends still waiting in the queue. And as a connoisseur of the madness of crowds he watched carefully, and noted that some passengers disembarked and scuttled away to the man who was handing out little tokens in exchange for another dollar, and then ran all the way to the back of the very, very long queue for another go.

There was a click near by and then a flash, and he turned to see the perennially cheerful face of Otto Chriek, lead iconographer of the
Ankh-Morpork Times
, who gave him a friendly wave.

‘Vell now, Mister Lipvig, surely you’re behind zis in your cheeky little vay?’

Moist laughed and said, ‘No, not me, Otto, but it’s
very
popular, isn’t it!’ And I want to be at the very centre of it all, he said to himself.

He noticed that periodically the man collecting the money hurried away carrying huge leather pouches, with a troll bodyguard fore and aft, and was instantly replaced with another showman ready for the moneys of the mob. And so Moist, as he told himself in his own cheeky vay, followed the money. He followed it in between the great noisome heaps and stinking lagoons of Harry’s empire until the man with the large pouches of coin walked into a large shed. He followed him inside and froze, because he was immediately surrounded by the kind of men who have their noses splashed against one side of their face, little in the way of conversation and, he noticed now, very bad halitosis.

Fortunately, the shed also contained Sir Harry, who was bright enough to wave a hand in the air and say, ‘Okay, boys, loosen those sphincters. It’s only Mister von Lipwig, my old chum and bank manager. He’s practically one of us, ain’t you, Moist?’

Moist grinned, thankful that sphincters were, right now, not in
play, and said, ‘Well now, Harry, you know, as your bank manager I of course make it my duty to look after your interests, and I gather that you’re looking after the interests of Mister Simnel too?’

That hung in the air like a sickle, a sharp one at that, and he watched Harry’s face, which hadn’t moved one single muscle. And then, abruptly, Harry burst out laughing and said, ‘Oh my, Mister Lipwig, I always said you was a sharp card and, if it comes to that, a card sharp!’

He nodded to his bodyguards and said, ‘Go and have a little break, lads. Me and my old friend here’ll be having a little chinwag, such as old friends do. Go on, bugger off, the lot of you.’

And indeed they did, all except one, the very largest, a troll who glittered strangely and was watching Moist most intently, but not as intently as Moist watched him. And, Moist thought, the troll was … a gentleman. He couldn’t think of him in any other way; he was well dressed, which was remarkable in itself as most trolls viewed clothes as optional.

Somewhat embarrassed at this interest, Moist felt rude enough to say, ‘Okay, Harry, but there’s one bodyguard still here. D’you think I’m going to try anything?’

Harry King guffawed. ‘That, Mister Lipwig, is my lawyer. His name is Mister Thunderbolt, got the letters after his name and everything, ain’t you, Thunderbolt?’

Lawyer! Bingo!

Harry was laughing all the way from his belly now and said, ‘Mister Lipwig, the look on your face! Don’t worry, though. Mister Thunderbolt takes everybody that way. That isn’t to say I ain’t glad to see you, but you could be of service to both me and our friend the engineer. Shall we go somewhere a bit more private? Coffee?’

Harry waved at a clerk, who bustled away swiftly, and then ushered Moist and Thunderbolt up to his office overlooking the compound. Harry sat down and beckoned to Thunderbolt and Moist to do the same.

‘Now then, you know me, Mister Lipwig, like I know you. We’re a pair, eh? Not exactly crooks, not exactly, well, not now anyway, ’cos we’ve grown up and know how to do business properly, don’t we?’ He concluded with a wink. ‘And we both know a once-in-a-lifetime deal when we see it, I’m sure. Tell me if I’m wrong, yes?’

There was somebody who was a lawyer in the room, moreover a lawyer who could presumably kill you with one punch, and it was always worth thinking about anything that you were going to say in front of a lawyer because you never knew if you really could trust the weasels, but Moist nodded at Mr Thunderbolt and said, with careful diction, ‘Sir Harry, Lord Vetinari has set me the task of assessing this wonderful new invention on behalf of the city.’

Harry King opened a box of big cigars, sniffed them and chose one before proffering the box to Moist and Thunderbolt. The troll declined, of course, but Moist was never one to turn down one of Harry King’s finest cigars. They came from far-off places and were truly excellent. Harry puffed out a big cloud of smoke, leaving him for a moment looking just like Iron Girder, and it occurred to Moist that Harry, who knew that symbols were important, was definitely hoping to be the first railway baron.

‘Mister Lipwig, Iron Girder is peacefully, for want of a better word, transporting eager citizens around the track regular as clockwork. Round and round they go, happy as you like, you must agree? Mister Simnel says he built her as a proof of concept and he needs a lot of money to build a full-size version that can pull even more people and, above all, freight, because he reckons that’s where the money is to be made, although looking out of the window at all those smiling faces I’m not so sure of that.’

Sir Harry sent another plume of smoke into the air and looked smug, which, Moist considered, was probably the case, before adding, ‘Since I know you, Mister Lipwig, and I know that you can read me, yes, I’m prepared to bankroll the lad in exchange for a slice of the profits, a
big and fair
slice. I understand that he’s now all but
skint, totally boracic, with the arse nearly out of his trousers, and if he’s ever going to get his ambition to run bigger trains to here, there and bloody everywhere then he needs a partner with experience of the world, and I have that experience from the bottom up, as it were.

‘But, you know how it is, gents … when a man gets older and he’s made his pile he starts caring a bit more about what people think about him, so I ain’t no dwarf, I won’t steal an advantage on a young man with prospects. That’s why I’m happy to say that with the help of Mister Thunderbolt here I’ve struck a fair deal with the young lad. Ain’t that so, Mister Thunderbolt?’

The air seemed to glitter as the troll stood up, shimmering as he spoke. His voice appeared to come from twilight canyons far away. It wasn’t just sound, it had a presence in its own right.

‘Yes, that is so. Sir Harry, I suggest now that even though you have a handshake deal with Mister Simnel, there should be three shares in this enterprise, to avoid deadlock, with the third and very small share in the hands of the city, to wit, Lord Vetinari. The purpose of the arrangement is in case Mister Simnel and you, Sir Harry, are unable to agree on a matter connected with what we are all calling the “railway”. Lord Vetinari will have the casting vote to end that deadlock. But the city will not take any dividends; its income will come, as always, from straightforward taxation, which I am sure Lord Vetinari will consider an important part of this enterprise.

‘The small print will be a little more complicated, and of course if Mister Simnel’s locomotives catch on there will be opportunities to sell extra shares in the future. If you both agree, gentlemen, I will deal with that aspect and you may be certain that in compliance with Sir Harry’s instructions Mister Simnel and his family will have a significant share in the business.’

As slowly as he had stood up, Mr Thunderbolt sat down again, and Moist von Lipwig and Sir Harry King looked at one another.

Harry, beaming, said, ‘I suppose I’d better get the lad in, then,’ and nodded to Thunderbolt to open the door.

A few minutes later Dick Simnel sat uncomfortably in his seat, trying not to make anything greasy, without much hope and even less success.

Harry appeared not to notice and said cheerfully, ‘Now then, lad, it’s like this. You reckon that with enough money you could make engines larger and more powerful than Iron Girder, right? And with long enough, er, rails, you could get to all the other cities? Well, lad, I’ll bankroll you in this enterprise until you’re in a position to prove that this is possible.’