Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett [33]
The coach rattled to a halt.
Ridcully opened an eye.
“What’s that?” he said.
Ponder jerked awake from a reverie of lips like mountain streams and looked out of the window.
“I think,” he said, “it’s a very small highwayman.”
The coachman peered down at the figure in the road. It was hard to see much from this angle, because of the short body and the wide hat. It was like looking at a well-dressed mushroom with a feather in it.
“I do apologize for this,” said the very small highwayman. “I find myself a little short.”
The coachman sighed and put down the reins. Properly arranged holdups by the Bandits’ Guild were one thing, but he was blowed if he was going to be threatened by an outlaw that came up to his waist and didn’t even have a crossbow.
“You little bastard,” he said. “I’m going to knock your block off.”
He peered closer.
“What’s that on your back? A hump?”
“Ah, you’ve noticed the stepladder,” said the low highwayman. “Let me demonstrate—”
“What’s happening?” said Ridcully, back in the coach.
“Um, a dwarf has just climbed up a small stepladder and kicked the coachman in the middle of the road,” said Ponder.
“That’s something you don’t see every day,” said Ridcully. He looked happy. Up to now, the journey had been quite uneventful.
“Now he’s coming toward us.”
“Oh, good.”
The highwayman stepped over the groaning body of the driver and marched toward the door of the coach, dragging his stepladder behind him.
He opened the door.
“Your money or, I’m sorry to say, your—”
A blast of octarine fire blew his hat off.
The dwarf’s expression did not change.
“I wonder if I might be allowed to rephrase my demands?”
Ridcully looked the elegantly dressed stranger up and down or, rather, down and further down.
“You don’t look like a dwarf,” he said, “apart from the height, that is.”
“Don’t look like a dwarf apart from the height?”
“I mean, the helmet and iron boots department is among those you are lacking in,” said Ridcully.
The dwarf bowed and produced a slip of pasteboard from one grubby but lace-clad sleeve.
“My card,” he said.
It read:
Ponder peered over Ridcully’s shoulder.
“Are you really an outrageous liar?”
“No.”
“Why are you trying to rob coaches, then?”
“I am afraid I was waylaid by bandits.”
“But it says here,” said Ridcully, “that you are a finest swordsman.”
“I was outnumbered.”
“How many of them were there?”
“Three million.”
“Hop in,” said Ridcully.
Casanunda threw his stepladder into the coach and then peered into the gloom.
“Is that an ape asleep in there?”
“Yes.”
The Librarian opened one eye.
“What about the smell?”
“He won’t mind.”
“Hadn’t you better apologize to the coachman?” said Ponder.
“No, but I could kick him again harder if he likes.”
“And that’s the Bursar,” said Ridcully, pointing to Exhibit B, who was sleeping the sleep of the near-terminally overdosed on dried frog pills. “Hey, Bursar? Bursssaaar? No, he’s out like a light. Just push him under the seat. Can you play Cripple Mr. Onion?”
“Not very well.”
“Capital!”
Half an hour later Ridcully owed the dwarf $8,000.
“But I put it on my visiting card,” Casanunda pointed out. “Outrageous liar. Right there.”
“Yes, but I thought you were lying!”
Ridcully sighed and, to Ponder’s amazement, produced a bag of coins from some inner recess. They were large coins and looked suspiciously realistic and golden.
Casanunda might have been a libidinous soldier of fortune by profession but he was a dwarf by genetics, and there are some things dwarfs know.
“Hmm,” he said. “You don’t have ‘outrageous liar’ on your visiting card, by any chance?”
“No!” said Ridcully excitedly.
“It’s just that I can recognize chocolate money when I see it.”
“You know,” said Ponder, as the coach jolted along a canyon, “this reminds me of that famous logical puzzle.”
“What logical puzzle?” said the Archchancellor.
“Well,” said Ponder, gratified at the attention, “it appears that there was this man, right, who had to choose between going through two doors, apparently, and the guard on one door always told the truth and the