Pyramids - Terry Pratchett [8]
Perspective. He glanced down, at seventy feet of infinity. Splat City, man, get a grip on yourself. On the wall. His right foot found a worn section of mortar, into which his toes planted with barely a conscious instruction from a brain now feeling too fragile to take more than a distant interest in the proceedings.
He took a breath, tensed, and then dropped one hand to his belt, seized a dagger, and thrust it between the bricks beside him before gravity worked out what was happening. He paused, panting, waiting for gravity to lose interest in him again, and then swung his body sideways and tried the same thing a second time.
Down below one of the bakers told a suggestive joke, and brushed a speck of mortar from his ear. As his colleagues laughed Teppic stood up in the moonlight, balancing on two slivers of Klatchian steel, and gently walked his palms up the wall to the window whose sill had been his brief salvation.
It was wedged shut. A good blow would surely open it, but only at about the same moment as it sent him reeling back into empty air. Teppic sighed and, moving with the delicacy of a watchmaker, drew his diamond compasses from their pouch and dragged a slow, gentle circle on the dusty glass…
“You carry it yourself,” said Chidder “That’s the rule around here.”
Teppic looked at the trunk. It was an intriguing notion.
“At home we’ve people who do that,” he said. “Eunuchs and so on.”
“You should of brought one with you.”
“They don’t travel well,” said Teppic. In fact he’d adamantly refused all suggestions that a small retinue should accompany him, and Dios had sulked for days. That was not how a member of the royal blood should go forth into the world, he said. Teppic had remained firm. He was pretty certain that assassins weren’t expected to go about their business accompanied by handmaidens and buglers. Now, however, the idea seemed to have some merit. He gave the trunk an experimental heave, and managed to get it across his shoulders.
“Your people are pretty rich, then?” said Chidder, ambling along beside him.
Teppic thought about this. “No, not really,” he said. “They mainly grow melons and garlic and that kind of thing. And stand in the streets and shout ‘hurrah.’”
“This is your parents you’re talking about?” said Chidder, puzzled.
“Oh, them? No, my father’s a pharaoh. My mother was a concubine, I think.”
“I thought that was some sort of vegetable.”
“I don’t think so. We’ve never really discussed it. Anyway, she died when I was young.”
“How dreadful,” said Chidder cheerfully.
“She went for a moonlight swim in what turned out to be a crocodile.” Teppic tried politely not to be hurt at the boy’s reaction.
“My father’s in commerce,” said Chidder, as they passed through the archway.
“That’s fascinating,” said Teppic dutifully. He felt quite broken by all these new experiences, and added, “I’ve never been to Commerce, but I understand they’re very fine people.”
Over the next hour or two Chidder, who ambled gently through life as though he’d already worked it all out, introduced Teppic to the various mysteries of the dormitories, the classrooms and the plumbing. He left the plumbing until last, for all sorts of reasons.
“Not any?” he said.
“There’s buckets and things,” said Teppic vaguely, “and lots of servants.”
“Bit old fashioned, this kingdom of yours?”
Teppic nodded. “It’s the pyramids,” he said. “They take all the money.”
“Expensive things, I should imagine.”
“Not particularly. They’re just made of stone.” Teppic sighed. “We’ve got lots of stone,” he said, “and sand. Stone and sand. We’re really big on them. If you ever need any stone and sand, we’re the people for you. It’s fitting out the insides that is really expensive. We’re still avoiding paying for grandfather’s, and that wasn’t very big. Just three chambers.”
Teppic turned and looked out of the window; they were back in the dormitory at this point.
“The whole kingdom’s in debt,” he said, quietly. “I mean even our debts are in debt. That’s why I’m here, really.