Lords And Ladies

"You don't want to eat me," said the Bursar. "You want to eat my brother, he's much mfmfph mfmfph . . ."

"Well, now," said the troll, "seems to me that-" He spotted Casanunda.

"Oh-ho," he said, "dwarf smuggling, eh?"

"Don't be ridiculous, man," said Ridcully, "there's no such thing as dwarf smuggling."

"Yeah? Then what's that you've got there?"

"I'm a giant," said Casanunda.

"Giants are a lot bigger."

"I've been ill."

The troll looked perplexed. This was post-graduate thinking for a troll. But he was looking for trouble. He found it on the roof of the coach, where the Librarian had been sunbathing.

"What's in that sack up there?"

"That's not a sack. That's the Librarian."

The troll prodded the large mass of red hair.

"Ook. . ."

"What? A monkey?"

"Oook?"

Several minutes later, the travellers leaned on the parapet, looking down reflectively at the river far below.

"Happen often, does it?" said Casanunda.

"Not so much these days," said Ridcully. "It's like – what's that word, Stibbons? About breedin' and passin' on stuff to yer kids?"

"Evolution," said Ponder. The ripples were still sloshing against the banks.

"Right. Like, my father had a waistcoat with embroidered peacocks on it, and he left it to me, and now I've got it. They call it hereditarery-"

"No, that's not-" Ponder began, with no hope whatsoever that Ridcully would listen.

"-so anyway, most people left back home know the difference between apes and monkeys now," said Ridcully. "Evolution, that is. It's hard to breed when you've got a headache from being bounced up and down on the pavement."

The ripples had stopped now.

"Do you think trolls can swim?" said Casanunda.

"No. They just sink and walk ashore," said Ridcully He turned, and leaned back on his elbows. "This really takes me back, you know. The old Lancre River. There's trout down there that'd take your arm off."

"Not just trout," said Ponder, watching a helmet emerge from the water.

"And limpid pools further up," said Ridcully. "Full of, of, of . . . limpids, stuff like that. And you can bathe naked and no one'd see. And water meadows full of . . . water, don'tyerknow, and flowers and stuff." He sighed. "You know, it was on this very bridge that she told me she-"

"He's got out of the river," said Ponder. But the troll wasn't moving very fast, because the Librarian was nonchalantly levering one of the big stones out of the parapet.

"On this very bridge I asked-"

"That's a big club he's got," said Casanunda.

"This bridge, I may say, was where I nearly-"

"Could you stop holding that rock in such a provocative way?" said Ponder.

"Oook."

"It'd be a help."

"The actual bridge, if anyone's interested, is where my whole life took a diff-"

"Why don't we just go on?" said Ponder. "He's got a steep climb."

"Good thing for him he hasn't got up here, eh?" said Casanunda. Ponder swiveled the Librarian around and pushed him toward the coach.

"This is the bridge, in fact, where-"

Ridcully turned around.

"Are you coming or not?" said Casanunda, with the reins in his hand.

"I was actually having a quality moment of misty nostalgic remembrance," said Ridcully. "Not that any of you buggers noticed, of course."

Ponder held the door open.

"Well, you know what they say. You can't cross the same river twice, Archchancellor," he said.

Ridcully stared at him.

"Why not? This is a bridge."

On the roof of the coach the Librarian picked up the coach-horn, bit the end of it reflectively – well, you never knew – and then blew it so hard that it uncurled.

It was early morning in Lancre town, and it was more or less deserted. Farmers had got up hours before to curse and swear and throw a bucket at the cows and had then gone back to bed.

The sound of the horn bounced off the houses.

Ridcully leapt out of the coach and took a deep, theatrical breath.

"Can't you smell that?" he said. "That's real fresh mountain air, that is." He thumped his chest.

"I've just trodden in something rural," said Ponder. "Where is the castle, sir?"

"I think it could be that huge black towering thing looming over the town," said Casanunda.

The Archchancellor stood in the middle of the square and turned slowly with his arms spread wide.

"See that tavern?" he said. "Hah! If I had a penny for every time they threw me out of there, I'd have . . . five dollars and thirty-eight pence. And over there is the old forge, and there's Mrs. Persifleur's, where I had lodgings. See that peak up there? That's Copperhead, that is. I climbed that one day with old Carbonaceous the troll. Oh, great days, great days. And see that wood down there, on the hill? That's where she-"

His voice trailed into a mumble. "Oh, my word. It all comes back to me . . . What a summer that was. They don't make 'em like that anymore." He sighed. "You know," he said, "I'd give anything to walk through those woods with her again. There were so many things we never – oh, well. Come on."