Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett [48]
“Nice ancient egg, shogun?”
The bowl in the middle of the tray was full of gold coins. Rincewind’s heart sank. The price of one of Mr. Dibhala’s foul eggs would have bought a street in Ankh-Morpork.
“I suppose you don’t give…credit?” he suggested.
Dibhala gave him a Look.
“I’ll pretend I never heard that, shogun,” he said.
“Tell me,” said Rincewind. “Do you know if you have any relatives overseas?”
This got him another look—a sideways one, full of sudden appraisal.
“What? There’s nothing but evil blood-sucking ghosts beyond the seas. Everyone knows that, shogun. I’m surprised you don’t.”
“Ghosts?” said Rincewind.
“Trying to get here, do us harm,” said Disembowel-Meself-Honorably. “Maybe even steal our merchandise. Give ’em a dose of the old firecracker, that’s what I say. They don’t like a good loud bang, ghosts.”
He gave Rincewind another look, even longer and more calculating.
“Where you from, shogun?” he asked, and his voice suddenly had the little barbed edge of suspicion.
“Bes Pelargic,” said Rincewind quickly. “That explains my strange accent and mannerisms that might otherwise lead people to think I was some sort of foreigner,” he added.
“Oh, Bes Pelargic,” said Disembowel-Meself-Honorably. “Well, in that case, I expect you know my old friend Five Tongs who lives in the Street of Heavens, yes?”
Rincewind was ready for this old trick.
“No,” he said. “Never heard of him, never heard of the street.”
Disembowel-Meself-Honorably Dibhala grinned happily. “If I yell ‘foreign devil’ loud enough you won’t get three steps,” he said in conversational tones. “The guards will drag you off to the Forbidden City where there’s this special thing they do with—”
“I’ve heard about it,” said Rincewind.
“Five Tongs has been the district commissioner for three years and the Street of Heavens is the main street,” said Disembowel-Meself-Honorably. “I’ve always wanted to meet a blood-sucking foreign ghost. Have a rice cake.”
Rincewind’s gaze darted this way and that. But strangely enough the situation didn’t seem dangerous, or at least inevitably dangerous. It seemed that danger was negotiable.
“Supposing I was to admit I was from behind the Wall?” he said, keeping his voice as low as possible.
Dibhala nodded. One hand reached into his robe and, in a quick movement, revealed and then concealed the corner of something which Rincewind was not entirely surprised to see was entitled What I Did…
“Some people say that beyond the Wall there’s nothing but deserts and burning wastes and evil ghosts and terrible monsters,” said Dibhala, “but I say, what about the merchandizing opportunities? A man with the right contacts…Know what I mean, shogun? He could go a long way in the land of blood-sucking ghosts.”
Rincewind nodded. He didn’t like to point out that if you turned up in Ankh-Morpork with a handful of gold then about three hundred people would turn up with a handful of steel.
“The way I see it, what with all this uncertainty about the Emperor and talk of rebels and that—Long Live His Excellency The Son Of Heaven, of course—there might just be a nitch for the open-minded trader, am I right?”
“Nitch?”
“Nitch. Like…we’ve got this stuff”—he leaned closer—“comes out of a caterpillar’s [unidentified pictogram]. ’S called…silk. It’s—”
“Yes, I know. We get it from Klatch,” said Rincewind.
“Or, well, there’s this bush, see, you dry the leaves, but then you put it in hot water and you drin—”
“Tea, yes,” said Rincewind. “That comes from Howondaland.”
D. M. H. Dibhala looked taken aback.
“Well…we’ve got this powder, you put it in tubes—”
“Fireworks? Got fireworks.”
“How about this really fine china, it’s so—”
“In Ankh-Morpork we’ve got dwarfs that can make china you can read a book through,” said Rincewind. “Even if it’s got tiny footnotes in it.”
Dibhala frowned.
“Sounds like you are very clever blood-sucking ghosts,” he said, backing away. “Maybe it’s true and you are dangerous.”
“Us? Don’t worry about us,” said Rincewind. “We hardly ever kill foreigners in Ankh-Morpork. It makes it so