Jingo - Terry Pratchett [32]
He needn’t have worried. Leonard was his own distraction. He had ended up spending ages designing a special tray so that people could eat their meals in the air.
A truly innocent man. And yet always, always, some little part of him would sketch these wretchedly beguiling engines, with their clouds of smoke and carefully numbered engineering diagrams…
“What’s this?” Vetinari said, pointing to yet another doodle. It showed a man holding a large metal sphere.
“That? Oh, something of a toy, really. Makes use of the strange properties of some otherwise quite useless metals. They don’t like being squeezed. So they go bang. With extreme alacrity.”
“Another weapon…”
“Certainly not, my lord! It would be no possible use as a weapon! I did think it might have a place in the mining industries, though.”
“Really…”
“For when they need to move mountains out of the way.”
“Tell me,” Vetinari said, putting this paper aside as well, “you don’t have any relatives in Klatch, do you?”
“I don’t believe so. My family lived in Quirm for generations.”
“Oh. Good. But…very clever people in Klatch, are they?”
“Oh, in many disciplines they practically wrote the scroll. Fine metalwork, for example.”
“Metalwork…” The Patrician sighed.
“And alchemy, of course. Affir Al-chema’s Principia Explosia has been the seminal work for more than a hundred years.”
“Alchemy,” said the Patrician, glumly. “Sulfur and so forth…”
“Yes, indeed.”
“But the way you put it, these major achievements were some considerable time ago…” Lord Vetinari sounded like a man straining to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
“Certainly! I would be astonished if they haven’t made considerable progress!” said Leonard of Quirm happily.
“Ah?” The Patrician sank a little in his chair. It had turned out that the end of the tunnel was on fire.
“A splendid people with much to recommend them,” said Leonard. “I always thought it was the presence of the desert. It leads to an urgency of thought. It makes you aware of the briefness of life.”
The Patrician glanced at another page. Between a sketch of a bird’s wing and a careful drawing of a ball-joint was a little doodle of something with spiked wheels and spinning blades. And then there was the device for moving mountains aside…
“The desert is not required,” he said. He sighed again and pushed the pages aside. “Have you heard about the lost continent of Leshp?” he said.
“Oh, yes. I did some sketches there a few years ago,” said Leonard. “Some interesting aspects, I recall. More tea? I fear you’ve let that one get cold. Was there anything you particularly wanted?”
The Patrician pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I’m not sure. There is a small problem developing. I thought perhaps you could help. Unfortunately,” the Patrician glanced at the sketches again, “I suspect that you can.” He stood up, straightened his robe and forced a smile. “You have everything you require?”
“Some more wire would be nice,” said Leonard. “And I have run out of Burnt Umber.”
“I shall have some sent along directly,” said Vetinari. “And now, if you will excuse me—”
He let himself out.
Leonard nodded happily as he cleared away the teacups. The infernal combustion engine was carried to the heap of scrap metal beside the small forge, and he fetched a ladder and removed the piston from the ceiling.
He’d just opened out his easel to start work on a new design when he was aware of a distant pattering. It sounded like someone running but also occasionally pausing to hop sideways on one leg.
Then there was a pause, such as might be made by someone adjusting their clothing and getting their breath back.
The door opened and the Patrician returned. He sat down and looked carefully at Leonard of Quirm.
“You did what?” he said.
Vimes turned the clove over and over under