Pyramids - Terry Pratchett [114]
He got over the problem by sidling around it. Sidling had stood him in good stead all his life; he wasn’t going to desert it now. He put the mask down very carefully on a stool.
“It is the First Hour,” he said. “Your majesty will wish to conduct the Ritual of the Ibis, and then graciously grant an audience to the military commanders of the Tsortean and Ephebian armies. Both are seeking permission to cross the kingdom. Your majesty will forbid this. At the Second Hour, there will—”
Ptraci sat drumming her fingers on the arms of the throne. Then she took a deep breath. “I’m going to have a bath,” she said.
Koomi rocked back and forth a bit.
“It is the First Hour,” he repeated, unable to think of anything else. “Your majesty will wish to conduct—”
“Koomi?”
“Yes, O noble queen?”
“Shut up.”
“—the Ritual of the Ibis—” Koomi moaned.
“I’m sure you’re capable of doing it yourself. You look like a man who does things himself, if ever I saw one,” she added sourly.
“—the commanders of the Tsortean—”
“Tell them,” Ptraci began, and then paused. “Tell them,” she repeated, “that they may both cross. Not one or the other, you understand? Both.”
“But—” Koomi’s understanding managed at last to catch up with his ears—“that means they’ll end up on opposite sides.”
“Good. And after that you can order some camels. There’s a merchant in Ephebe with a good stock. Check their teeth first. Oh, and then you can ask the captain of the Unnamed to come and see me. He was explaining to me what a ‘free port’ is.”
“In your bath, O queen?” said Koomi weakly. He couldn’t help noticing, now, how her voice was changing with each sentence as the veneer of upbringing burned away under the blowlamp of heredity.
“Nothing wrong with that,” she snapped. “And see about plumbing. Apparently pipes are the thing.”
“For the asses’ milk?” said Koomi, who was now totally lost in the desert.*
“Shut up, Koomi.”
“Yes, O queen,” said Koomi, miserably.
He’d wanted changes. It was just that he’d wanted things to stay the same, as well.
The sun dropped to the horizon, entirely unaided. For some people, it was turning out to be quite a good day.
The reddened light lit up the three male members of the Ptaclusp dynasty, as they pored over plans for—
“It’s called a bridge,” said IIb.
“Is that like an aqueduct?” said Ptaclusp.
“In reverse, sort of thing,” said IIb. “The water goes underneath, we go over the top.”
“Oh. The k—the queen won’t like that,” said Ptaclusp. “The royal family’s always been against chaining the holy river with dams and weirs and suchlike.”
IIb gave a triumphant grin. “She suggested it,” he said. “And she graciously went onto say, could we see to it there’s places for people to stand and drop rocks on the crocodiles.”
“She said that?”
“Large pointy rocks, she said.”
“My word,” said Ptaclusp. He turned to his other son.
“You sure you’re all right?” he said.
“Feeling fine, dad,” said IIa.
“No—” Ptaclusp groped—“headaches or anything?”
“Never felt better,” said IIa.
“Only you haven’t asked about the cost,” said Ptaclusp. “I thought perhaps you were still feeling fl—ill.”
“The queen has been pleased to ask me to have a look at the royal finances,” said IIa. “She said priests can’t add up.” His recent experiences had left him with no ill effects other than a profitable tendency to think at right angles to everyone else, and he sat wreathed in smiles while his mind constructed tariff rates, docking fees and a complex system of value added tax which would shortly give the merchant venturers of Ankh-Morpork a nasty shock.
Ptaclusp thought about all the miles of the virgin Djel, totally unbridged. And there was plenty of dressed stone around now, millions of tons of the stuff. And you never knew, perhaps on some of those bridges there’d be room for a statue or two. He had the very thing.
He put his arms around his sons’ shoulders.
“Lads,” he said proudly. “It’s looking really quantum.”
The setting sun also shone on Dil and Gern, although in this case it was by a roundabout route through the lightwell of the palace