Raising Steam (47 page)

Moist’s fleeting thought about traditional representations of goddesses in diaphanous nighties with maybe an urn or two was banished as the voice continued a little more sharply.

‘Am I not beautiful? And I tell you, my children will be even better! More sleek and more handsome and more powerful! Even now Mister Simnel is making my children for me. In time I will become ubiquitous, part of the landscape which is ennobled by my fleeting passage. I hear the worship every day that tells me that I am power personified and those who think to oppose me and put out my fire will find themselves thwarted, and swiftly. I, Mister Lipwig, I will rule on the up line and I will rule on the down line.’

In the twilight Moist saw a skinny figure walk up to Iron Girder. Dick Simnel shut down some hissing mechanism or other and the voice, the beautiful voice, was silenced.

‘Aye, she’s gradely all right! Come to see her for the last time before we head back to the city, have you? I can’t blame you. Everyone’s been wanting to see ’er, and I won’t lie, Mister Lipwig, it’s a wrench to leave her behind, for all she’s got good work to do ’ere. Iron Girder, she’s turned out to be a great lass. She was the power and she was ’arnessed, by gum. Oh, yes! ’arnessed by the sine and the cosine, and even the tangent had its little ’and in there somewhere! But not least she was tamed by my sliding rule.’

Dick grinned at Moist and continued. ‘People see Iron Girder
and they’re gobsmacked by what can be done with mathematics! Don’t you go thinking she’ll burn you with living steam because she won’t. I’ve seen to it that she won’t. She’ll always be my favourite engine, Mister Lipwig, the queen of them all. She lives. How could anyone say she doesn’t?’

Moist looked around and saw that they were surrounded by goblins sitting quietly in a big circle like worshippers at the shrine, and once again Dick Simnel said, ‘Power, Mister Lipwig, power under control.’

Moist was seldom speechless, but this time all he could say was, ‘Good luck with that, Mister Simnel. Good luck.’

And the driver made his magic and the fire box opened and spilled dancing red shadows all around the footplate. And then came the rattle and jerk as Iron Girder took the strain and breathed steam for one more turn around the track as the goblins whooped and cackled and scrambled up her sides. And then came the first chuff and the second chuff and then the chuff bucket overflowed as Iron Girder escaped the pull of friction and gravity and flew along the rails.

Dick Simnel lit his pipe from a hot coal and said to the night, ‘Aye, gradely.’

When Drumknott entered the Oblong Office a few days later there was a familiarity to the silence, interrupted only by the scratch of a pencil as the austere figure behind the desk filled in a word on that day’s crossword. Drumknott coughed.

‘Yes?’

The face of the Patrician was forbidding. An eyebrow shifted quizzically, a characteristic known and feared by many. Drumknott smiled.

‘Many congratulations! You have that expression down to a T and the accent never faltered. And, of course, the frown! You’ve always been very good at the frown. Quite frankly, if
he was standing next to you I wouldn’t know whom from which.’

Suddenly the face of the Patrician disappeared, leaving only Charlie the Clown in Lord Vetinari’s clothes, looking embarrassed.

‘It wasn’t very difficult, Mister Drumknott, with you giving me those little signs and everything.’

‘Oh no,’ said Drumknott. ‘Your performance was perfect. You’ve impersonated his lordship for two weeks and not put a foot wrong! But now to business. The sum we agreed will be deposited in your special account at the Royal Bank tomorrow.’ Drumknott smiled again and said, like a cheerful uncle, ‘How is your wife these days, Charlie?’

‘Oh, Henrietta’s fine, Mister Drumknott, thank you for asking.’

‘And your little boy – Rupert? He must be out of school now, yes?’

Charlie laughed uncertainly and said, ‘Not so little, sir, he’s growing up like a weed and wants to be an engine driver.’

And Drumknott said, ‘Well now, Charlie, you already have enough money to put him through a trade anywhere in the city and give your daughter a dowry fit for a queen. And, of course, you’re still in the same house? Excellent!’

‘Oh, yessir, and thanks to you we’ve got much better bedrooms for the kids now and are saving up for a granny flat for when we can afford a granny. And Henrietta is overjoyed at the amount of money I’m bringing in these days and can even afford to get her hair cut at Mister Fornacite’s, just like the posh ladies do. She’s over the moon about it.’ He grunted and said, ‘I don’t earn that much from the puppet shows and clowning business.’

And now Drumknott beamed once again and said, ‘I’m sure his lordship will be glad to hear that your family is so happy and … alive. Long may it continue. I’ll be recommending to him that you could be promoted, as it were, to higher things. And now, since his lordship is expected back within the hour, if you don’t mind I’ll
take you out through the back door. We really don’t want to see two Vetinaris in one place, do we?’

Charlie went almost white and said, ‘Oh, no sir, we don’t want that.’

‘Well, we shan’t, shall we,’ said Drumknott. ‘Off you go and I’ll lock the door behind you.’

When Charlie had disappeared, happy but in haste, Drumknott, after a moment’s thought, said to Dark Clerk Ishmael, ‘I’m sure his lordship will want to know that we’ve checked the location of this Mister Fornacite’s salon and the school that our friend’s children go to. Is it the same as last year?’

And the clerk replied, ‘Yes, it is, sir, I checked again the other day.’

‘Well done.’

As his lordship had pointed out: ‘If you take enough precautions, you never need to take precautions.’ It was just a matter of making sure that Charlie didn’t get … well, creative about his future.

Never had Moist been more happy to see his front door than when he got home and his wife opened it before he did, saying, ‘Oh, it’s you. Not dead? Good. How did it go?’

‘Pretty well. The golems were incredible. Sad that we’ve had to leave Iron Girder there until the bridge is repaired. Still, we’ve got so many of Harry’s golems and workers on it now it’s not going to be long before Vetinari can have a special train of his own, if he likes.’

‘To make sure relationships between Uberwald and Ankh-Morpork proceed in a … cordial fashion, no doubt,’ said his wife with a smile.

Behind him, Of the Twilight the Darkness said, ‘Already Uberwald goblins giving themselves railway name. Speaks funny, those ones, but quick clever, like all goblin.’

‘Yes,’ said Adora Belle, ‘that reminds me. We got reports while you were away from clacksmen along the road from the Shires
about some rather odd occurrences. Strange rumblings, steam coming out of molehills, that sort of thing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’

Of the Twilight the Darkness reassembled his features into the closest approximation of innocence that a goblin can muster. ‘No ideas, missus. Steaming molehill? Maybe cow eat bad grass. Course, maaany goblin interest in steaming things. Some even practises own little engine. Educational! Clever goblins.’

It was clearly a conversation for another day. Moist headed for the fluffy pillows with a grateful sigh. ‘I’ll have a rest and tomorrow I’ll dally with the Bank. There must be some paperwork for me to sign. It would be nice to have a simple job for a while.’

Adora Belle snorted. ‘How long would that be?’

Moist hesitated. ‘Maybe a fortnight? There might be a
lot
of paperwork.’

‘Yes, and you won’t do it,’ said Adora Belle. ‘You know Mister Bent keeps everything shipshape. All you have to do is go around being friendly to everybody.’

‘And nobody’s trying to kill me, Spike.’

And Adora Belle said, ‘We can but hope.’

At breakfast, Lady Sybil said to her husband, ‘It sounds quite an adventure, Sam. I hear the Queen has changed her name to Blodwen. It means “fair flower” in Llamedos. Isn’t that nice? I must write to her.’

‘She’ll like that,’ said Vimes, whose wife’s capacity to remain in touch with everybody she had ever met was well known and sometimes quite useful. Especially in political circumstances. The commander looked down at his muesli and said, ‘You know, that Lipwig character isn’t quite as bad as I thought. Acts like a scoundrel, but reasonably helpful when the chips are down. Mind you, I’m not going to tell him so.’

He pushed the healthy fibre around his bowl, wistfully recalling
the stoker’s fry-ups. ‘But he does like being the centre of attention, of course.’

‘Yes, some men are like that, dear.’

Lady Sybil was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Sam, I know you’re going to be busy what with the backlog and everything, but can I ask a favour?’

‘Anything, dear.’

‘When they have the line to Uberwald running, I’d love to go to visit the Queen, and most of all I’d like a holiday by the train. And Young Sam’s mad about trains, you know. He’s nearly filled up his first notebook already.’

‘Well,’ said Vimes, ‘you know if I have a holiday I walk into a crime.’

Lady Sybil finished her egg and said, ‘Jolly good, dear, you’ll like that.’

Harry King was not entirely surprised when Drumknott arrived at the compound the following day and said, ‘His lordship commands you and Lady King to present yourselves to him within the hour.’ And the secretary winked uncharacteristically at Harry, and his wife when he told her was, according to her, all of a tizzy at the news.

‘The palace in one hour! How can a girl look her best inside an hour?’

‘Come on, Duchess,’ said Harry. ‘You look a treat as always and getting younger every day.’

‘Oh, you teaser, Harry King!’

But Harry said, ‘The coach is here and clean as a whistle and his lordship believes that punctuality is the politeness of Princes and that applies to you, too, young Emily. I expect your boy wouldn’t want you to be late. That’s not the railway … way.’

Harry hadn’t told his wife what to expect, preferring to keep it as a surprise, and so as the coach arrived at the palace, his wife nearly
had another tizzy to contend with because there were the great and good of Ankh-Morpork, and presumably some of the silly and nasty as well, just to see Harry King being turned into a Lord.
Lord King of the Permanent Way
. And in the wonderful ceremony that followed, Lord Harry’s old Dutch did indeed become a Duchess.

Dick Simnel was made a knight, and a master engineer too, courtesy of the Chief Mining Engineer himself, and now stood hand in hand with the beaming Emily. Commander Vimes, resplendent in his ceremonial pantaloons and looking furious about them, was already burdened with every title it was his lordship’s pleasure to bestow, but was given another medal anyway, struck in sorortanium and featuring Iron Girder herself. In fact there was a medal for every watchman who had been on the train, and every crew member, goblins included.

Later, there came the inevitable interview in the Oblong Office with Drumknott at a side table taking notes.

‘I understand, Mister Lipwig,’ said the Patrician, surveying the city below them from the window, ‘that there were some remarkable events along the journey.’

Moist kept a straight face but around his neck he felt the prickle of a phantom noose.

The Patrician continued. ‘A fog which became conveniently solid, a train which apparently flew across a gorge, and I’m still getting reports of subterranean phenomena all the way from the city to Bonk. The Archchancellor has assured me that no magic was involved in any of these events. You will recall, I am sure, Mister von Lipwig, that I expressly forbade the use of the buried golems in the railway enterprise, and that any evidence of their use would send you to the kittens?’ He moved towards the fire, which was getting low in the grate, and gave it a prod with the poker – rather too pointedly, Moist thought.

‘Excuse me, my lord, but did you find any such evidence?’

Vetinari turned to his secretary. ‘Did we find any evidence, Drumknott?’

Drumknott looked at Moist. ‘No, sir, we did not.’

‘Well then, there is nothing more to say,’ said the Patrician. ‘After all, strange and inexplicable things turn up around here almost every week.’

Drumknott cleared his throat. ‘Yes, sir. There was that fall of pianos in the Fish Market last week. It’s just a part of being Ankh-Morpork.’

‘Indeed, we are no strangers to strangeness. And frankly some things can be written down as phenomena without cause or issue,’ said Vetinari, looking as benevolent as it was possible to do whilst holding a red-hot poker, and whilst being Vetinari.

‘Incidentally, Mister Lipwig, your prowess in that fight on the train was excellent! Of course you needed a
little
assistance.’

Moist looked up at the Patrician, silhouetted by the flames behind him, and inside his head there was the horrible tinkle of a penny dropping. He gulped.

‘You! You were Stoker Blake! That’s impossible!’

‘Really?’ said the Patrician. ‘As impossible as a train travelling on free air? Do you not believe that I could throw coal into the fire box? After all, what is that compared to dealing with Ankh-Morpork with its myriad demanding problems every day? I assure you of this, Mister Lipwig, I am a man of many talents and you should hope never to encounter some of them. Compared with them, Stoker Blake was a mere babe in arms.’

‘What,’ said Moist, ‘fighting with shovels?’

‘Dear dear, Mister Lipwig, you
are
easily impressed. You surely remember that I was schooled in the Assassins’ Guild. After that experience, my predecessor on the footplate, Killer John Wagstaff, was, as they say, a pussycat in comparison. Indeed, I enjoyed my life as Mister Blake and all the new little skills it has taught me. Excellent implement, the shovel. And as for the other stokers, I
think I made friends there, yes, there was a certain camaraderie among us. All said, a little holiday from the weighty business of the city, and I dare say I might be predisposed to travel on the footplate again when the mood takes me.’

‘But why?’

‘Why, Mister Lipwig? You of all people ask me why? The man who danced on the train roof, the man who actually looks for trouble if it appears to be the kind of trouble which is associated with the term derring-do? Though in your case a few more derring-don’ts might be a good idea. Sometimes, Mister Lipwig, the young you that you lost many years ago comes back and taps you on the shoulder and says, “This is the moment when civilization does not matter, when rules no longer hold sway. You have given the world all you can give and now it’s the time that is just for you, the chance to go for broke in the last hurrah. Hurrah!”