Unseen Academicals

Vetinari filled in the silence. ‘Your grandmother used to do people’s thinking for them. That trait runs in families, always on the female side. Capable women, scurrying about in a world where everyone else seems to be seven years old and keeps on falling over in the playground, picking them up and watching them run right out there again. I imagine you run the Night Kitchen? Too many people in the big one. You want spaces you can control, beyond the immediate reach of fools.’

If he’d added ‘Am I right?’ like some windbag seeking applause, she would have hated him. But he was reading her from the inside of her head, in a calm, matter-of-fact way. She had to suppress a shiver, because it was all true.

‘I’m taking nothing from anybody, Miss Sugarbean. I am simply changing the playground,’ the man went on. ‘What skill is there in the mob pushing and shoving? It is nothing more than a way of bringing on a sweat. No, we must move with the times. I know the Times moves with me. The captains will moan, no doubt, but they are getting old. Dying in the game is a romantic idea when you are young, but when you are older the boot is in the other ear. They know this, even if they won’t admit it, and while they will protest, they will take care not to be taken seriously. In fact, far from taking, I am giving much. Acceptance, recognition, a certain standing, a gold-ish cup and the chance to keep what remains of their teeth.’

All she could manage after this was, ‘All right, but you tricked them!’

‘Really? They did not have to drink to excess, did they?’

‘You knew they would!’

‘No. I suspected they might. They could have been more cautious. They should have been more cautious. I’d prefer to say that I led them along the correct path with a little guile rather than drove them along it with sticks. I possess many types of stick, Miss Sugarbean.’

‘And you’ve been spying on me! You knew about the dainties.’

‘Spying? Madam, it was once said of a great prince that his every thought was of his people. Like him, I watch over my people. I am just better at it, that’s all. As for the dainties business, that was a simple deduction from the known facts of human nature.’

There was a lot that Glenda wanted to say, but in some very definite way she sensed that the interview–or at least the part of it that involved her opening her mouth–was over. Nevertheless, she said, ‘Why aren’t you drunk?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You must weigh about half of what they do and all of ’em went home in wheelbarrows. You drank as much as them and you look fresh as a daisy. What is the trick? Did you get the wizards to magic the beer out of your stomach?’

She had stopped pushing her luck a long time ago. Now it was out of control, like a startled carthorse that can’t stop because of the huge load bouncing and rumbling along behind it.

Vetinari frowned. ‘My dear lady, anyone drunk enough to let wizards, who themselves had just been partaking copiously of the fruit of the vine, I might add, take anything out of him would already be so drunk as to be dead. To forestall your next comment, the hop is also, technically, a vine. I am, in fact, drunk. Is this not so, Drumknott?’

‘You did indeed consume some twelve pints of very strong malted beverage, sir. Technically, you must be drunk.’

‘Idiosyncratically put, Drumknott. Thank you.’

‘You don’t act drunk!’

‘No, but I do act sober quite well, don’t you think? And I must confess that this morning’s crossword was something of a tussle. Procatalepsis and pleonasm in one day? I had to use the dictionary! The woman is a fiend! Nevertheless, thank you for coming, Miss Sugarbean. I recall your grandmother’s bubble and squeak with great fondness. If she had been a sculptress, it would have been an exquisite statue, with no arms and an enigmatic smile. It is such a shame that some masterpieces are so transitory.’

The proud cook in Glenda rose unstoppably. ‘But she passed the recipe on to me.’

‘A legacy better than jewels,’ said Vetinari, nodding.

Actually a few jewels would not have gone amiss, Glenda reflected. But there was a secret of Bubble and Squeak, of course, right out there in the open where everyone could miss it. And as for the Truth of Salmagundi…

‘I believe this audience is at an end, Miss Sugarbean,’ said Vetinari. ‘I have so much to do and so have you, I am sure.’ He picked up his pen and turned his attention to the documents in front of him. ‘Goodbye, Miss Sugarbean.’

And that was it. Somehow, she was at the door, and it had almost closed behind her when a voice said, ‘And thank you for your kindnesses to Nutt.’

The door clicked shut, nearly hitting her in the face as she spun round.

‘Was that a wise thing for me to have said, do you think?’ said Vetinari, when she had gone.

‘Possibly not, sir, but she will merely assume it is her that we are watching,’ said Drumknott smoothly.