Going Postal - Terry Pratchett [32]
Gilt and Vetinari shared a look. It said: While I loathe you and every aspect of your personal philosophy to a depth unplummable by any line, I’ll credit you at least with not being Crispin Horsefry.
“Appearances are deceptive, Crispin,” said Gilt jovially. “A troll player need never lose, if he puts his mind to it.”
“I know I once got a dwarf stuck up my nose and Mummy had to get it out with a hairpin,” said Horsefry, as if this was a source of immense pride.
Gilt put his arm around the man’s shoulders.
“That’s very interesting, Crispin,” he said. “Do you think it’s likely to happen again?”
Vetinari stood at the window after they had left, watching the city below. After a few minutes, Drumknott drifted in.
“There was a brief exchange in the anteroom, my lord,” he said.
Vetinari didn’t turn around but held up a hand. “Let me see…I imagine one of them started saying something like ‘Do you think he—’ and Slant very quickly shushed him? Mr. Horsefry, I suspect.”
Drumknott glanced at the paper in his hand.
“Almost to the word, my lord.”
“It takes no great leap of the imagination,” sighed Lord Vetinari. “Dear Dr. Slant. He’s so…dependable. Sometimes I really think that if he was not already a zombie it would be necessary to have him turned into one.”
“Shall I order a No. 1 Investigation on Mr. Gilt, my lord?”
“Good heavens, no. He is far too clever. Order it on Mr. Horsefry.”
“Really, sir? But you did say yesterday that you believed him to be no more than a greedy fool.”
“A nervous fool, which is useful. He’s a venal coward and a glutton. I’ve watched him sit down to a meal of pot-au-feu with white beans, and that was an impressive sight, Drumknott, which I will not easily forget. The sauce went everywhere. Those pink shirts he wears cost more than a hundred dollars, too. Oh, he acquires other people’s money, in a safe and secret and not very clever way. Send…yes, send Clerk Brian.”
“Brian, sir?” said Drumknott. “Are you sure? He’s wonderful at devices, but quite inept on the street. He’ll be seen.”
“Yes, Drumknott. I know. I would like Mr. Horsefry to become a little…more nervous.”
“Ah, I see, sir.”
Vetinari turned around.
“Tell me, Drumknott,” he said, “would you say I’m a tyrant?”
“Most certainly not, my lord,” said Drumknott, tidying the desk.
“But of course that’s the problem, is it not? Who will tell the tyrant he is a tyrant?”
“That’s a tricky one, my lord, certainly,” said Drumknott, squaring up the files.
“In his Thoughts, which I have always considered to fare badly in translation, Bouffant says that intervening in order to prevent a murder is to curtail the freedom of the murderer and yet that freedom, by definition, is natural and universal, without condition,” said Vetinari. “You may recall his famous dictum: ‘If any man is not free, then I, too, am a small pie made of chicken,’ which has led to a considerable amount of debate. Thus we might consider, for example, that taking a bottle from a man killing himself with drink is a charitable, nay, praiseworthy act, and yet freedom is curtailed once more. Mr. Gilt has studied his Bouffant but, I fear, failed to understand him. Freedom may be mankind’s natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling. On the other hand, Freidegger, in Modal Contextities, claims that all freedom is limited, artificial, and therefore illusory, a shared hallucination at best. No sane mortal is truly free, because true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes. It overwhelms the soul, very much like the state he elsewhere describes as Vonallesvolkommenunverstandlichdasdaskeit. What position would you take here, Drumknott?”
“I’ve always thought, my lord, that what the world really needs are filing boxes which are not so flimsy,” said Drumknott, after a moment’s pause.
“Hmm,” said Lord Vetinari. “A point to think about, certainly.”
He stopped. On the carved decorations over the room’s fireplace, a small