Thief of Time

The rumour is that the monks have some kind of duty to see that tomorrow happens according to some mystic plan devised by some man who kept on being surprised.

In fact, for some time now, and it would be impossible and ridiculous to say how long, the truth has been stranger and more dangerous.

The job of the History Monks is to see that tomorrow happens at all.

The Master of Novices met with Rinpo, chief acolyte to the abbot. At the moment, at least, the position of chief acolyte was a very important post. In his current condition the abbot needed many things done for him, and his attention span was low. In circumstances like this, there is always someone willing to carry the load. There are Rinpos everywhere.

“It's Ludd again,” said the Master of Novices.

“Oh, dear. Surely one naughty child can't trouble you?”

“One ordinary naughty child, no. Where is this one from?”

“Master Soto sent him. You know? Of our Ankh-Morpork section? He found him in the city. The boy has a natural talent, I understand,” said Rinpo.

The Master of Novices looked shocked. “Talent! He is a wicked thief! He'd been apprenticed to the Guild of Thieves!” he said.

“Well? Children sometimes steal. Beat them a little, and they stop stealing. Basic education,” said Rinpo.

“Ah. There is a problem.”

“Yes?”

“He is very, very fast. Around him, things go missing. Little things. Unimportant things. But even when he is watched closely, he is never seen to take them.”

“Then perhaps he does not?”

“He walks through a room and things vanish!” said the Master of Novices.

“He's that fast? It's just as well Soto did find him, then. But a thief is—”

“They turn up later, in odd places,” said the Master of Novices, apparently grudging the admission. “He does it out of mischief, I'm sure.”

The breeze blew the scent of cherry blossom across the terrace.

“Look, I am used to disobedience,” said the Master of Novices. “That is part of a novice's life. But he is also tardy.”

“Tardy?”

“He turns up late for his lessons.” “How can a pupil be tardy here?”

“Mr Ludd doesn't seem to care. Mr Ludd seems to think he can do as he pleases. He is also… smart.”

The acolyte nodded. Ah. Smart. The word had a very specific meaning here in the valley. A smart boy thought he knew more than his tutors, and answered back, and interrupted. A smart boy was worse than a stupid one.

“He does not accept discipline?” said the acolyte.

“Yesterday, when I was taking the class for Temporal Theory in the Stone Room, I caught him just staring at the wall. Clearly not paying attention. But when I called out to him to answer the problem I'd chalked on the blackboard, knowing full well that he could not, he did so. Instantly. And correctly.”

“Well? You did say he was a smart boy.”

The Master of Novices looked embarrassed. “Except… it was not the right problem. I had been instructing the Fifth Djim field agents earlier and had left part of the test on the board. An extremely complex phase-space problem involving residual harmonics in n histories. None of them got it right. To be honest, even I had to look up the answer.”

“So I take it you punished him for not answering the right question?”

“Obviously. But that sort of behaviour is disruptive. Most of the time I think he's not all there. He never pays attention, he always knows the answers, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can't keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There's no educating a smart boy.”

The acolyte thoughtfully watched a flight of white doves circle the monastery roofs. “We cannot send him away now,” he said at last. “Soto said he saw him perform the Stance of the Coyote! That's how he was found! Can you imagine that? He'd had no training at all! Can you imagine what would happen if someone with that kind of skill ran around loose? Thank goodness Soto was alert.”

“But he has turned him into my problem. The boy disrupts tranquillity.”

Rinpo sighed. The Master of Novices was a good and conscientious man, he knew, but it had been a long time since he'd been out in the world. People like Soto spent every day in the world of time. They learned flexibility, because if you were stiff out there you were dead. People like Soto… now, there was an idea…

He looked towards the other end of the terrace, where a couple of servants were sweeping up the fallen cherry blossom.

“I see a harmonious solution,” he said.

“Oh, yes?”

“An unusually talented boy like Ludd needs a master, not the discipline of the schoolroom.”

“Possibly, but—”

The Master of Novices followed Rinpo's gaze.

“Oh,” he said, and he smiled in a way that was not entirely nice. It contained a certain anticipatory element, a hint that trouble might be in store for someone who, in his opinion, richly deserved it.

“A name occurs,” said Rinpo.

“To me also,” said the Master of Novices.

“A name I've heard too often,” Rinpo went on.