The 9,000 Year Prologue

The flotillas of the dead sailed around the world on underwater rivers.
Very nearly nobody knew about them. But the theory is easy to understand.
It runs: the sea is, after all, in many respects only a wetter form of air. And it is known that air is denser the lower you go and lighter the higher you fly. As a storm-tossed ship founders and sinks, therefore, it must reach a depth where the water below it is just viscous enough to stop its fall.
In short, it stops sinking and ends up floating on an underwater surface, beyond the reach of the storms but far above the ocean floor.
It’s calm there. Dead calm.
Some stricken ships have rigging; some even have sails. Many still have crew, tangled in the rigging or lashed to the wheel.
But the voyages still continue, aimlessly, with no harbour in sight, because there are currents under the ocean and so the dead ships with their skeleton crews sail on around the world, over sunken cities and between drowned mountains, until rot and shipworms eat them away and they disintegrate.
Sometimes an anchor drops, all the way to the dark, cold calmness of the abyssal plain, and disturbs the stillness of centuries by throwing up a cloud of silt.
One nearly hit Anghammarad, where he sat watching the ships drift by, far overhead.
He remembered it, because it was the only really interesting thing to happen for nine thousand years.

 

The One Month Prologue

There was this . . . disease that the clacksmen got. It was like the illness known as ‘calenture’ that sailors experienced when, having been becalmed for weeks under a pitiless sun, they suddenly believed that the ship was surrounded by green fields and stepped overboard.
Sometimes, the clacksmen thought they could fly.
There was about eight miles between the big semaphore towers and when you were at the top you were maybe a hundred and fifty feet above the plains. Work up there too long without a hat on, they said, and the tower you were on got taller and the nearest tower got closer and maybe you thought you could jump from one to the other, or ride on the invisible messages sleeting between them, or perhaps you thought that you were a message. Perhaps, as some said, all this was nothing more than a disturbance in the brain caused by the wind in the rigging. No one knew for sure. People who step on to the air one hundred and fifty feet above the ground seldom have much to discuss afterwards.
The tower shifted gently in the wind, but that was okay. There were lots of new designs in this tower. It stored the wind to power its mechanisms, it bent rather than broke, it acted more like a tree than a fortress. You could build most of it on the ground and raise it into place in an hour. It was a thing of grace and beauty. And it could send messages up to four times faster than the old towers, thanks to the new shutter system and the coloured lights.
At least, it would once they had sorted out a few lingering problems . . .
The young man climbed swiftly to the very top of the tower. For most of the way he was in clinging, grey morning mist, and then he was rising through glorious sunlight, the mist spreading below him, all the way to the horizon, like a sea.
He paid the view no attention. He’d never dreamed of flying. He dreamed of mechanisms, of making things work better than they’d ever done before.
Right now, he wanted to find out what was making the new shutter array stick again. He oiled the sliders, checked the tension on the wires, and then swung himself out over fresh air to check the shutters themselves. It wasn’t what you were supposed to do, but every linesman knew it was the only way to get things done. Anyway, it was perfectly safe if you—
There was a clink. He looked back and saw the snaphook of his safety rope lying on the walkway, saw the shadow, felt the terrible pain in his fingers, heard the scream and dropped . . .
 . . . like an anchor.

Chapter One

The Angel

In which our Hero experiences Hope, the Greatest Gift - The Bacon Sandwich of Regret- Sombre Reflections on Capital Punishment from
the Hangman - Famous Last Words — Our Hero Dies - Angels,
conversations about — Inadvisability of Misplaced Offers regarding
Broomsticks - An Unexpected Ride - A World Free of Honest Men
- A Man on the Hop - There is Always a Choice

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in the morning, is going to be hanged.
The man going to be hanged had been named Moist von Lipwig by doting if unwise parents, but he was not going to embarrass the name, in so far as that was still possible, by being hung under it. To the world in general, and particularly on that bit of it known as the death warrant, he was Albert Spangler.
And he took a more positive approach to the situation and had concentrated his mind on the prospect of not being hanged in the morning, and most particularly on the prospect of removing all the crumbling mortar from around a stone in his cell wall with a spoon. So far the work had taken him five weeks, and reduced the spoon to something like a nail file. Fortunately, no one ever came to change the bedding here, or else they would have discovered the world’s heaviest mattress.
It was the large and heavy stone that was currently the object of his attentions, and at some point a huge staple had been hammered into it as an anchor for manacles.
Moist sat down facing the wall, gripped the iron ring in both hands, braced his legs against the stones on either side, and heaved.
His shoulders caught fire and a red mist filled his vision but the block slid out, with a faint and inappropriate tinkling noise. Moist managed to ease it away from the hole and peered inside.
At the far end was another block, and the mortar around it looked suspiciously strong and fresh.
Just in front of it was a new spoon. It was shiny.
As he studied it, he heard the clapping behind him. He turned his head, tendons twanging a little riff of agony, and saw several of the warders watching him through the bars.
“Well done, Mr Spangler!’ said one of them. ‘Ron here owes me five dollars! I told him you were a sticker! He’s a sticker, I said!’
‘You set this up, did you, Mr Wilkinson?’ said Moist weakly, watching the glint of light on the spoon.
‘Oh, not us, sir. Lord Vetinari’s orders. He insists that all condemned prisoners should be offered the prospect of freedom.’
‘Freedom? But there’s a damn great stone through there!’
‘Yes, there is that, sir, yes, there is that,’ said the warder. ‘It’s only the prospect, you see. Not actual free freedom as such. Hah, that’d be a bit daft, eh?’
‘I suppose so, yes,’ said Moist. He didn’t say ‘you bastards.’ The warders had treated him quite civilly this past six weeks, and he made a point of getting on with people. He was very, very good at it. People skills were part of his stock-in-trade; they were nearly the whole of it.
Besides, these people had big sticks. So, speaking carefully, he added: ‘Some people might consider this cruel, Mr Wilkinson.’
‘Yes, sir, we asked him about that, sir, but he said no, it wasn’t. He said it provided—’ his forehead wrinkled ‘—occ-you-pay-shun-all ther-rap-py, healthy exercise, prevented moping and offered that greatest of all treasures which is Hope, sir.’
‘Hope,’ muttered Moist glumly.
‘Not upset, are you, sir?’
‘Upset? Why should I be upset, Mr Wilkinson?’
‘Only the last bloke we had in this cell, he managed to get down that drain, sir. Very small man. Very agile.’
Moist looked at the little grid in the floor. He’d dismissed it out of hand.
‘Does it lead to the river?’ he said.
The warder grinned. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? He was really upset when we fished him out. Nice to see you’ve entered into the spirit of the thing, sir. You’ve been an example to all of us, sir, the way you kept going. Stuffing all the dust in your mattress? Very clever, very tidy. Very neat. It’s really cheered us up, having you in here. By the way, Mrs Wilkinson says ta very much for the fruit basket. Very posh, it is. It’s got kumquats, even!’
‘Don’t mention it, Mr Wilkinson.’
‘The Warden was a bit green about the kumquats ‘cos he only got dates in his, but I told him, sir, that fruit baskets is like life: until you’ve got the pineapple off’f the top you never know what’s underneath. He says thank you, too.’
‘Glad he liked it, Mr Wilkinson,’ said Moist absent-mindedly. Several of his former landladies had brought in presents for ‘the poor confused boy’, and Moist always invested in generosity. A career like his was all about style, after all.
‘On that general subject, sir,’ said Mr Wilkinson, ‘me and the lads were wondering if you might like to unburden yourself, at this point in time, on the subject of the whereabouts of the place where the location of the spot is where, not to beat about the bush, you hid all that money you stole . . . ?’
The jail went silent. Even the cockroaches were listening.
‘No, I couldn’t do that, Mr Wilkinson,’ said Moist loudly, after a decent pause for dramatic effect. He tapped his jacket pocket, held up a finger and winked.
The warders grinned back.
‘We understand totally, sir. Now I’d get some rest if I was you, sir, ‘cos we’re hanging you in half an hour,’ said Mr Wilkinson.
‘Hey, don’t I get breakfast?’
‘Breakfast isn’t until seven o’clock, sir,’ said the warder reproachfully. ‘But, tell you what, I’ll do you a bacon sandwich, ‘cos it’s you, Mr Spangler.’

And now it was a few minutes before dawn and it was him being led down the short corridor and out into the little room under the scaffold. Moist realized he was looking at himself from a distance, as if part of himself was floating outside his body like a child’s balloon ready, as it were, for him to let go of the string.
The room was lit by light coming through cracks in the scaffold floor above, and significantly from around the edges of the large trapdoor. The hinges of said door were being carefully oiled by a man in a hood.
He stopped when he saw the party arrive and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Spangler.’ He raised the hood helpfully. ‘It’s me, sir, Daniel “One Drop” Trooper. I am your executioner for today, sir. Don’t you worry, sir. I’ve hanged dozens of people. We’ll soon have you out of here.’
‘Is it true that if a man isn’t hanged after three attempts he’s reprieved, Dan?’ said Moist, as the executioner carefully wiped his hands on a rag.
‘So I’ve heard, sir, so I’ve heard. But they don’t call me One Drop for nothing, sir. And will sir be having the black bag today?’
‘Will it help?’
‘Some people think it makes them look more dashing, sir. And it stops that pop-eyed look. It’s more a crowd thing, really. Quite a big one out there this morning. Nice piece about you in the Times yesterday, I thought. All them people saying what a nice young man you were, and everything. Er . . . would you mind signing the rope beforehand, sir? I mean, I won’t have a chance to ask you afterwards, eh?’
‘Signing the rope?’ said Moist.
‘Yessir,’ said the hangman. ‘It’s sort of traditional. There’s a lot of people out there who buy old rope. Specialist collectors, you could say. A bit strange, but it takes all sorts, eh? Worth more signed, of course.’ He flourished a length of stout rope. ‘I’ve got a special pen that signs on rope. One signature every couple of inches? Straightforward signature, no dedication needed. Worth money to me, sir. I’d be very grateful’
‘So grateful that you won’t hang me, then?’ said Moist, taking the pen.
This got an appreciative laugh. Mr Trooper watched him sign along the length, nodding happily.
‘Well done, sir, that’s my pension plan you’re signing there. Now . . . are we ready, everyone?’
‘Not me!’ said Moist quickly, to another round of general amusement.
‘You’re a card, Mr Spangler,’ said Mr Wilkinson. ‘It won’t be the same without you around, and that’s the truth.’
‘Not for me, at any rate,’ said Moist. This was, once again, treated like rapier wit. Moist sighed. ‘Do you really think all this deters crime, Mr Trooper?’ he said.
‘Well, in the generality of things I’d say it’s hard to tell, given that it’s hard to find evidence of crimes not committed,’ said the hangman, giving the trapdoor a final rattle. ‘But in the specificality, sir, I’d say it’s very efficacious.’
‘Meaning what?’ said Moist.
‘Meaning I’ve never seen someone up here more’n once, sir. Shall we go?’
There was a stir when they climbed up into the chilly morning air, followed by a few boos and even some applause. People were strange like that. Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.
Moist stared ahead while the roll call of his crimes was read out. He couldn’t help feeling that it was so unfair. He’d never so much as tapped someone on the head. He’d never even broken down a door. He had picked locks on occasion, but he’d always locked them again behind him. Apart from all those repossessions, bankruptcies and sudden insolvencies, what had he actually done that was bad, as such? He’d only been moving numbers around.
‘Nice crowd turned out today,’ said Mr Trooper, tossing the end of the rope over the beam and busying himself with knots. ‘Lot of press, too. What Gallows? covers ‘em all, o’ course, and there’s the Times and the Pseudopolis Herald, prob’ly because of that bank what collapsed there, and I heard there’s a man from the Sto Plains Dealer, too. Very good financial section - I always keep an eye on the used rope prices. Looks like a lot of people want to see you dead, sir.’
Moist was aware that a black coach had drawn up at the rear of the crowd. There was no coat of arms on the door, unless you were in on the secret, which was that Lord Vetinari’s coat of arms featured a sable shield. Black on black. You had to admit that the bastard had style—
‘Huh? What?’ he said, in response to a nudge.
‘I asked if you have any last words, Mr Spangler?’ said the hangman. ‘It’s customary. I wonder if you might have thought of any?’
‘I wasn’t actually expecting to die,’ said Moist. And that was it. He really hadn’t, until now. He’d been certain that something would turn up.
‘Good one, sir,’ said Mr Wilkinson. ‘We’ll go with that, shall we?’
Moist narrowed his eyes. The curtain on a coach window had twitched. The coach door had opened. Hope, that greatest of all treasures, ventured a little glitter.
‘No, they’re not my actual last words,’ he said. ‘Er . . . let me think . . .’
A slight, clerk-like figure was descending from the coach.
‘Er . . . it’s not as bad a thing I do now . . . er . . .’ Aha, it all made some kind of sense now. Vetinari was out to scare him, that was it. That would be just like the man, from what Moist had heard. There was going to be a reprieve!
‘I . . . er . . . I . . .’
Down below, the clerk was having difficulty getting through the press of people.
‘Do you mind speeding up a bit, Mr Spangler?’ said the hangman. ‘Fair’s fair, eh?’
‘I want to get it right,’ said Moist haughtily, watching the clerk negotiate his way around a large troll.
‘Yes, but there’s a limit, sir,’ said the hangman, annoyed at this breach of etiquette. ‘Otherwise you could go ah, er, um for days! Short and sweet, sir, that’s the style.’
‘Right, right,’ said Spangler. ‘Er . . . oh, look, see that man there? Waving at you?’
The hangman glanced down at the clerk, who’d struggled to the front of the crowd.
‘I bring a message from Lord Vetinari!’ the man shouted.
‘Right!’ said Moist.
‘He says to get on with it, it’s long past dawn!’ said the clerk.
‘Oh,’ said Moist, staring at the black coach. That damn Vetinari had a warder’s sense of humour, too.
‘Come on, Mr Spangler, you don’t want me to get into trouble, do you?’ said the hangman, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Just a few words, and then we can all get on with our lives. Present company excepted, obviously.’
So this was it. It was, in some strange way, rather liberating. You didn’t have to fear the worst that could happen any more, because this was it, and it was nearly over. The warder had been right. What you had to do in this life was get past the pineapple, Moist told himself. It was big and sharp and knobbly, but there might be peaches underneath. It was a myth to live by and so, right now, totally useless.
‘In that case,’ said Moist von Lipwig, ‘I commend my soul to any god that can find it.’
‘Nice,’ said the hangman, and pulled the lever.
Albert Spangler died.
It was generally agreed that they had been good last words.

‘Ah, Mr Lipwig,’ said a distant voice, getting closer. ‘I see you are awake. And still alive, at the present time.’
There was a slight inflection to that last phrase which told Moist that the length of the present time was entirely in the gift of the speaker.
He opened his eyes. He was sitting in a comfortable chair. At a desk opposite him, sitting with his hands steepled reflectively in front of his pursed lips, was Havelock, Lord Vetinari, under whose idio-syncratically despotic rule Ankh-Morpork had become the city where, for some reason, everyone wanted to live.
An ancient animal sense also told Moist that other people were standing behind the comfortable chair, and that it could be extremely uncomfortable should he make any sudden movements. But they couldn’t be as terrible as the thin, black-robed man with the fussy little beard and the pianist’s hands who was watching him.
‘Shall I tell you about angels, Mr Lipwig?’ said the Patrician pleasantly. ‘I know two interesting facts about them.’
Moist grunted. There were no obvious escape routes in front of him, and turning round was out of the question. His neck ached horribly.
‘Oh, yes. You were hanged,’ said Vetinari. ‘A very precise science, hanging. Mr Trooper is a master. The slippage and thickness of the rope, whether the knot is placed here rather than there, the relationship between weight and distance . . . oh, I’m sure the man could write a book. You were hanged to within half an inch of your life, I understand. Only an expert standing right next to you would have spotted that, and in this case the expert was our friend Mr Trooper. No, Albert Spangler is dead, Mr Lipwig. Three hundred people would swear they saw him die.’ He leaned forward. ‘And so, appropriately, it is of angels I wish to talk to you now.’
Moist managed a grunt.
‘The first interesting thing about angels, Mr Lipwig, is that sometimes, very rarely, at a point in a man’s career where he has made such a foul and tangled mess of his life that death appears to be the only sensible option, an angel appears to him, or, I should say, unto him, and offers him a chance to go back to the moment when it all went wrong, and this time do it right. Mr Lipwig, I should like you to think of me as . . . an angel.’
Moist stared. He’d felt the snap of the rope, the choke of the noose! He’d seen the blackness welling up! He’d died!
‘I’m offering you a job, Mr Lipwig. Albert Spangler is buried, but Mr Lipwig has a future. It may, of course, be a very short one, if he is stupid. I am offering you a job, Mr Lipwig. Work, for wages. I realize the concept may not be familiar.’
Only as a form of hell, Moist thought.
‘The job is that of Postmaster General of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office.’
Moist continued to stare.
‘May I just add, Mr Lipwig, that behind you there is a door. If at any time in this interview you feel you wish to leave, you have only to step through it and you will never hear from me again.’
Moist filed that under ‘deeply suspicious’.
‘To continue: the job, Mr Lipwig, involves the refurbishment and running of the city’s postal service, preparation of the international packets, maintenance of Post Office property, et cetera, et cetera—’
‘If you stick a broom up my arse I could probably sweep the floor, too,’ said a voice. Moist realized it was his. His brain was a mess. It had come as a shock to find that the afterlife is this one.
Lord Vetinari gave him a long, long look.
‘Well, if you wish,’ he said, and turned to a hovering clerk. ‘Drumknott, does the housekeeper have a store cupboard on this floor, do you know?’
‘Oh, yes, my lord,’ said the clerk. ‘Shall I—’
‘It was a joke!’ Moist burst out.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized,’ said Lord Vetinari, turning back to Moist. ‘Do tell me if you feel obliged to make another one, will you?’
‘Look,’ said Moist, ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, but I don’t know anything about delivering post!’
‘Mr Moist, this morning you had no experience at all of being dead, and yet but for my intervention you would nevertheless have turned out to be extremely good at it,’ said Lord Vetinari sharply. ‘It just goes to show: you never know until you try’
‘But when you sentenced me—’
Vetinari raised a pale hand. ‘Ah?’ he said.
Moist’s brain, at last aware that it needed to do some work here, stepped in and replied: ‘Er . . . when you . . . sentenced . . . Albert Spangler—’
‘Well done. Do carry on.’
‘—you said he was a natural born criminal, a fraudster by vocation, an habitual liar, a perverted genius and totally untrustworthy!’
‘Are you accepting my offer, Mr Lipwig?’ said Vetinari sharply.
Moist looked at him. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, standing up, ‘I’d just like to check something.’
There were two men dressed in black standing behind his chair. It wasn’t a particularly neat black, more the black worn by people who just don’t want little marks to show. They looked like clerks, until you met their eyes.
They stood aside as Moist walked towards the door which, as promised, was indeed there. He opened it very carefully. There was nothing beyond, and that included a floor. In the manner of one who is going to try all possibilities, he took the remnant of spoon out of his pocket and let it drop. It was quite a long time before he heard the jingle.
Then he went back and sat in the chair.
‘The prospect of freedom?’ he said.
‘Exactly,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘There is always a choice.’
‘You mean . . . I could choose certain death?’
‘A choice, nevertheless,’ said Vetinari. ‘Or, perhaps, an alternative. You see, I believe in freedom, Mr Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based. Now . . . will you take the job? No one will recognize you, I am sure. No one ever recognizes you, it would appear.’
Moist shrugged. ‘Oh, all right. Of course, I accept as natural born criminal, habitual liar, fraudster and totally untrustworthy perverted genius.’
‘Capital! Welcome to government service!’ said Lord Vetinari, extending his hand. ‘I pride myself on being able to pick the right man. The wage is twenty dollars a week and, I believe, the Postmaster General has the use of a small apartment in the main building. I think there’s a hat, too. I shall require regular reports. Good day.’
He looked down at his paperwork. He looked up.
‘You appear to be still here, Postmaster General?’
‘And that’s it?’ said Moist, aghast. ‘One minute I’m being hanged, next minute you’re employing me?’
‘Let me see . . . yes, I think so. Oh, no. Of course. Drumknott, do give Mr Lipwig his keys.’
The clerk stepped forward and handed Moist a huge, rusted keyring full of keys, and proffered a clipboard. ‘Sign here, please, Postmaster General,’ he said.
Hold on a minute, Moist thought, this is only one city. It’s got gates. It’s completely surrounded by different directions to run. Does it matter what I sign?
‘Certainly,’ he said, and scribbled his name.
‘Your correct name, if you please,’ said Lord Vetinari, not looking up from his desk. ‘What name did he sign, Drumknott?’
The clerk craned his head. ‘Er . . . Ethel Snake, my lord, as far as I can make out.’
‘Do try to concentrate, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari wearily, still apparently reading the paperwork.
Moist signed again. After all, what would it matter in the long run? And it would certainly be a long run, if he couldn’t find a horse.
‘And that leaves only the matter of your parole officer,’ said Lord Vetinari, still engrossed in the paper before him.
‘Parole officer?’
‘Yes. I’m not completely stupid, Mr Lipwig. He will meet you outside the Post Office building in ten minutes. Good day.’
When Moist had left, Drumknott coughed politely and said, ‘Do you think he’ll turn up there, my lord?’
‘One must always consider the psychology of the individual,’ said Vetinari, correcting the spelling on an official report. ‘That is what I do all the time and lamentably, Drumknott, you do not always do. That is why he has walked off with your pencil.’

Always move fast. You never know what’s catching you up.
Ten minutes later Moist von Lipwig was well outside the city. He’d bought a horse, which was a bit embarrassing, but speed had been of the essence and he’d only had time to grab one of his emergency stashes from its secret hiding place and pick up a skinny old screw from the Bargain Box in Hobson’s Livery Stable. At least it’d mean no irate citizen going to the Watch.
No one had bothered him. No one had looked at him twice; no one ever did. The city gates had indeed been wide open. The plains lay ahead of him, full of opportunity. And he was good at parlaying nothing into something. For example, at the first little town he came to he’d go to work on this old nag with a few simple techniques and ingredients that’d make it worth twice the price he’d paid for it, at least for about twenty minutes or until it rained. Twenty minutes would be enough time to sell it and, with any luck, pick up a better horse worth slightly more than the asking price. He’d do it again at the next town and in three days, maybe four, he’d have a horse worth owning.
But that would be just a sideshow, something to keep his hand in. He’d got three very nearly diamond rings sewn into the lining of his coat, a real one in a secret pocket in the sleeve, and a very nearly gold dollar stitched cunningly into the collar. These were, to him, what his saw and hammer are to a carpenter. They were primitive tools, but they’d put him back in the game.
There is a saying ‘You can’t fool an honest man’ which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. Moist never knowingly tried it, anyway. If you did fool an honest man, he tended to complain to the local Watch, and these days they were harder to buy off. Fooling dishonest men was a lot safer and, somehow, more sporting. And, of course, there were so many more of them. You hardly had to aim.
Half an hour after arriving in the town of Hapley, where the big city was a tower of smoke on the horizon, he was sitting outside an inn, downcast, with nothing in the world but a genuine diamond ring worth a hundred dollars and a pressing need to get home to Genua, where his poor aged mother was dying of Gnats. Eleven minutes later he was standing patiently outside a jeweller’s shop, inside which the jeweller was telling a sympathetic citizen that the ring the stranger was prepared to sell for twenty dollars was worth seventy-five (even jewellers have to make a living). And thirty-five minutes after that he was riding out on a better horse, with five dollars in his pocket, leaving behind a gloating sympathetic citizen who, despite having been bright enough to watch Moist’s hands carefully, was about to go back to the jeweller to try to sell for seventy-five dollars a shiny brass ring with a glass stone that was worth fifty pence of anybody’s money.
The world was blessedly free of honest men, and wonderfully full of people who believed they could tell the difference between an honest man and a crook.
He tapped his jacket pocket. The jailers had taken the map off him, of course, probably while he was busy being a dead man. It was a good map, and in studying it Mr Wilkinson and his chums would learn a lot about decryption, geography and devious cartography. They wouldn’t find in it the whereabouts of AM$ 150,000 in mixed currencies, though, because the map was a complete and complex fiction. However, Moist entertained a wonderful warm feeling inside to think that they would, for some time, possess that greatest of all treasures, which is Hope.
Anyone who couldn’t simply remember where he’d stashed a great big fortune deserved to lose it, in Moist’s opinion. But, for now, he’d have to keep away from it, while having it to look forward to . . .
Moist didn’t even bother to note the name of the next town. It had an inn, and that was enough. He took a room with a view over a disused alley, checked that the window opened easily, ate an adequate meal, and had an early night.
Not bad at all, he thought. This morning he’d been on the scaffold with the actual noose round his actual neck, tonight he was back in business. All he need do now was grow a beard again, and keep away from Ankh-Morpork for six months. Or perhaps only three.
Moist had a talent. He’d also acquired a lot of skills so completely that they were second nature. He’d learned to be personable, but something in his genetics made him unmemorable. He had the talent of not being noticed, for being a face in the crowd. People had difficulty describing him. He was . . . he was ‘about’. He was about twenty, or about thirty. On Watch reports across the continent he was anywhere between, oh, about six feet two inches and five feet nine inches tall, hair all shades from mid-brown to blond, and his lack of distinguishing features included his entire face. He was about . . . average. What people remembered was the furniture, things like spectacles and moustaches, so he always carried a selection of both. They remembered names and mannerisms, too. He had hundreds of those.
Oh, and they remembered that they’d been richer before they met him.
At three in the morning, the door burst open. It was a real burst; bits of wood clattered off the wall. But Moist was already out of bed and diving for the window before the first of them hit the floor. It was an automatic reaction that owed nothing to thought. Besides, he’d checked before lying down, and there was a large water butt outside that would break his fall.
It wasn’t there now.
Whoever had stolen it had not stolen the ground it stood on, however, and it broke Moist’s fall by twisting his ankle.
He pulled himself up, keening softly in agony, and hopped along the alley, using the wall for support. The inn’s stables were round the back; all he had to do was pull himself up on to a horse, any horse—
‘Mr Lipwig?’ a big voice bellowed.
Oh, gods, it was a troll, it sounded like a troll, a big one too, he didn’t know you got any down here outside the cities—
‘You Can’t Run And You Can’t Hide, Mr Lipwig!’
Hold on, hold on, he hadn’t given his real name to anyone in this place, had he? But all this was background thinking. Someone was after him, therefore he would run. Or hop.
He risked a look behind him when he reached the back gate to the stables. There was a red glow in his room. Surely they weren’t torching the place over a matter of a few dollars? How stupid! Everyone knew that if you got lumbered with a good fake you palmed it off on to some other sucker as soon as possible, didn’t they? There was no helping some people.
His horse was alone in the stable, and seemed unimpressed to see him. He got the bridle on, while hopping on one foot. There was no point in bothering with a saddle. He knew how to ride without a saddle. Hell, once he’d ridden without pants, too, but luckily all the tar and feathers helped him stick to the horse. He was the world champion at leaving town in a hurry.
He went to lead the horse out of the stall, and heard the clink.
He looked down, and kicked some straw away.
There was a bright yellow bar, joining two short lengths of chain with a yellow shackle attached, one for each foreleg. The only way this horse would go anywhere was by hopping, just like him.
They’d clamped it. They’d bloody clamped it . . .
‘Oh, Mr Lipppppwig!’ The voice boomed out across the stable yard. ‘Do You Want To Know The Rules, Mr Lipwig?’
He looked around in desperation. There was nothing in here to use as a weapon and in any case weapons made him nervous, which was why he’d never carried one. Weapons raised the ante far too high. It was much better to rely on a gift for talking his way out of things, confusing the issue and, if that failed, some well-soled shoes and a cry of ‘Look, what’s that over there?’
But he had a definite feeling that while he could talk as much as he liked, out here no one was going to listen. As for speeding away, he’d just have to rely on hop.
There was a yard broom and a wooden feed bucket in the corner. He stuck the head of the broom under his armpit to make a crutch and grabbed the bucket handle as heavy footsteps thudded towards the stable door. When the door was pushed open he swung the bucket as hard as he could, and felt it shatter. Splinters filled the air. A moment later there was the thump of a heavy body hitting the ground.
Moist hopped over it and plunged unsteadily into the dark.
Something as tough and hard as a shackle snapped round his good ankle. He hung from the broom handle for a second, and then collapsed.
‘I Have Nothing But Good Feelings Towards You, Mr Lipwig!’ boomed the voice cheerfully.
Moist groaned. The broom must have been kept as an ornament, because it certainly hadn’t been used much on the accumulations in the stable yard. On the positive side, this meant he had fallen into something soft. On the negative side, it meant that he had fallen into something soft.
Someone grabbed a handful of his coat and lifted him bodily out of the muck.
‘Up We Get, Mr Lipwig!’
‘It’s pronounced Lipvig, you moron,’ he moaned. ‘A v, not a w!’
‘Up Ve Get, Mr Lipvig!’ said the booming voice, as his broom/ crutch was pushed under his arm.
‘What the hell are you?’ Lipwig managed.
‘I Am Your Parole Officer, Mr Lipvig!’
Moist managed to turn round, and looked up, and then up again, into a gingerbread man’s face with two glowing red eyes in it. When it spoke, its mouth was a glimpse into an inferno.
‘A golem? You’re a damn golem?’
The thing picked him up in one hand and slung him over its shoulder. It ducked into the stables and Moist, upside down with his nose pressed against the terracotta of the creature’s body, realized that it was picking up his horse in its other hand. There was a brief whinny.
‘Ve Must Make Haste, Mr Lipvig! You Are Due In Front Of Lord Vetinari At Eight O’clock! And At Vork By Nine!’
Moist groaned.

‘Ah, Mr Lipwig. Regrettably, we meet again,’ said Lord Vetinari.
It was eight o’clock in the morning. Moist was swaying. His ankle felt better, but it was the only part of him that did.
‘It walked all night!’ he said. ‘All damn night! Carrying a horse as well!’
‘Do sit down, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari, looking up from the table and gesturing wearily to the chair. ‘By the way, “it” is a “he”. An honorific in this case, clearly, but I have great hopes of Mr Pump.’
Moist saw the glow on the walls as, behind him, the golem smiled.
Vetinari looked down at the table again, and seemed to lose interest in Moist for a moment. A slab of stone occupied most of the table. Little carved figurines of dwarfs and trolls covered it. It looked like some kind of game.
‘Mr Pump?’ said Moist.
‘Hmm?’ said Vetinari, moving his head to look at the board from a slightly different viewpoint.
Moist leaned towards the Patrician, and jerked a thumb in the direction of the golem.
‘That’, he said, ‘is Mr Pump?’
‘No,’ said Lord Vetinari, leaning forward likewise and suddenly, completely and disconcertingly focusing on Moist. ‘He . . . is Mr Pump. Mr Pump is a government official. Mr Pump does not sleep. Mr Pump does not eat. And Mr Pump, Postmaster General, does not stop.’
‘And that means what, exactly?’
‘It means that if you are thinking of, say, finding a ship headed for Fourecks, on the basis that Mr Pump is big and heavy and travels only at walking pace, Mr Pump will follow you. You have to sleep. Mr Pump does not. Mr Pump does not breathe. The deep abyssal plains of the oceans present no barrier to Mr Pump. Four miles an hour is six hundred and seventy-two miles in a week. It all adds up. And when Mr Pump catches you—’
‘Ah, now,’ said Moist, holding up a finger. ‘Let me stop you there. I know golems are not allowed to hurt people!’
Lord Vetinari raised his eyebrows. ‘Good heavens, wherever did you hear that?’
‘It’s written on . . . something inside their heads! A scroll, or something. Isn’t it?’ said Moist, uncertainty rising.
‘Oh, dear.’ The Patrician sighed. ‘Mr Pump, just break one of Mr Lipwig’s fingers, will you? Neatly, if you please.’
‘Yes, Your Lordship.’ The golem lumbered forward.
‘Hey! No! What?’ Moist waved his hands wildly and knocked game pieces tumbling. ‘Wait! Wait! There’s a rule! A golem mustn’t harm a human being or allow a human being to come to harm!’
Lord Vetinari raised a finger. ‘Just wait one moment, please, Mr Pump. Very well, Mr Lipwig, can you remember the next bit?’
‘The next bit? What next bit?’ said Moist. ‘There isn’t a next bit!’
Lord Vetinari raised an eyebrow. ‘Mr Pump?’ he said.
‘“ . . . Unless Ordered To Do So By Duly Constituted Authority”,’ said the golem.
‘I’ve never heard that bit before!’ said Moist.
‘Haven’t you?’ said Lord Vetinari, in apparent surprise. ‘I can’t imagine who would fail to include it. A hammer can hardly be allowed to refuse to hit the nail on the head, nor a saw to make moral judgements about the nature of the timber. In any case, I employ Mr Trooper the hangman, whom of course you have met, and the City Watch, the regiments and, from time to time . . . other specialists, who are fully entitled to kill in their own defence or in protection of the city and its interests.’ Vetinari started to pick up the fallen pieces and replace them delicately on the slab. ‘Why should Mr Pump be any different just because he is made of clay? Ultimately, so are we all. Mr Pump will accompany you to your place of work. The fiction will be that he is your bodyguard, as befits a senior government official. We alone will know that he has . . . additional instructions. Golems are highly moral creatures by nature, Mr Lipwig, but you may find their morality a shade . . . old-fashioned?’
‘Additional instructions?’ said Moist. ‘And would you mind telling me exactly what his additional instructions are?’
‘Yes.’ The Patrician blew a speck of dust off a little stone troll and put it on its square.
‘And?’ said Moist, after a pause.
Vetinari sighed. ‘Yes, I would mind telling you exactly what they are. You have no rights in this matter. We have impounded your horse, by the way, since it was used in the committing of a crime.’
‘This is cruel and unusual punishment!’ said Moist.
‘Indeed?’ said Vetinari. ‘I offer you a light desk job, comparative freedom of movement, working in the fresh air . . . no, I feel that my offer might well be unusual, but cruel? I think not. However, I believe we do have down in the cellars some ancient punishments which are extremely cruel and in many cases quite unusual, if you would like to try them for the purposes of comparison. And, of course, there is always the option of dancing the sisal two-step.’
‘The what?’ said Moist.
Drumknott leaned down and whispered something in his master’s ear.
‘Oh, I apologize,’ said Vetinari. ‘I meant of course the hemp fandango. It is your choice, Mr Lipwig. There is always a choice, Mr Lipwig. Oh, and by the way . . . do you know the second interesting thing about angels?’
‘What angels?’ said Moist, angry and bewildered.
‘Oh, dear, people just don’t pay attention,’ said Vetinari. ‘Remember? The first interesting thing about angels? I told you yesterday? I expect you were thinking about something else. The second interesting thing about angels, Mr Lipwig, is that you only ever get one.’

Chapter Two

The Post Office

In which we meet the Staff- Glom of Nit - Dissertation on Rhyming
Slang - ‘You should have been there!’ - The Dead Letters - A Golem’s
Life - Book of Regulations

There was always an angle. There was always a price. There was always a way. And look at it like this, Moist thought: certain death had been replaced with uncertain death, and that was an improvement, wasn’t it? He was free to walk around . . . well, hobble, at the moment. And it was just possible that somewhere in all this was a profit. Well, it could happen. He was good at seeing opportunities where other people saw barren ground. So there was no harm in playing it straight for a few days, yes? It’d give his foot a chance to get better, he could spy out the situation, he could make plans. He might even find out how indestructible golems were. After all, they were made of pottery, weren’t they? Things could get broken, maybe.
Moist von Lipwig raised his eyes and examined his future.
The Ankh-Morpork Central Post Office had a gaunt frontage. It was a building designed for a purpose. It was, therefore, more or less, a big box to employ people in, with two wings at the rear which enclosed the big stable yard. Some cheap pillars had been sliced in half and stuck on the outside, some niches had been carved for some miscellaneous stone nymphs, some stone urns had been ranged along the parapet and thus Architecture had been created.
In appreciation of the thought that had gone into this, the good citizens, or more probably their kids, had covered the walls to a height of six feet with graffiti in many exciting colours.
In a band all along the top of the frontage, staining the stone in greens and browns, some words had been set in letters of bronze.
‘ “NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLO M OF NI T CAN STAY THESE MES ENGERS ABO T THEIR DUTY,” ‘ Moist read aloud. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘The Post Office Was Once A Proud Institution,’ said Mr Pump.
‘And that stuff?’ Moist pointed. On a board much further down the building, in peeling paint, were the less heroic words:

DONT ARSK US ABOUT:
rocks
troll’s with sticks
All sorts of dragons
Mrs Cake
Huje green things with teeth
Any kinds of black dogs with orange eyebrows
Rains of spaniel’s
fog
Mrs Cake

‘I Said It Was A Proud Institution,’ the golem rumbled.
‘Who’s Mrs Cake?’
‘I Regret I Cannot Assist You There, Mr Lipvig.’
‘They seem pretty frightened of her.’
‘So It Appears, Mr Lipvig.’
Moist looked around at this busy junction in this busy city. People weren’t paying him any attention, although the golem was getting casual glances that didn’t appear very friendly.
This was all too strange. He’d been - what, fourteen? - when he’d last used his real name. And heavens knew how long it had been since he’d gone out without some easily removable distinguishing marks. He felt naked. Naked and unnoticed.
To the interest of no one whatsoever, he walked up the stained steps and turned the key in the lock. To his surprise it moved easily, and the paint-spattered doors swung open without a creak.
There was a rhythmic, hollow noise behind Moist. Mr Pump was clapping his hands.
‘Vell Done, Mr Lipvig. Your First Step In A Career Of Benefit Both To Yourself And The Veil-being Of The City!’
‘Yeah, right,’ muttered Lipwig.
He stepped into the huge, dark lobby, which was lit only dimly by a big but grimy dome in the ceiling; it could never be more than twilight in here, even at noon. The graffiti artists had been at work in here, too.
In the gloom he could see a long, broken counter, with doors and pigeon-holes behind it.
Real pigeon-holes. Pigeons were nesting in the pigeon-holes. The sour, salty smell of old guano filled the air, and, as marble tiles rang under Moist’s feet, several hundred pigeons took off frantically and spiralled up towards a broken pane in the roof.
‘Oh, shit,’ he said.
‘Bad Language Is Discouraged, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump, behind him.
‘Why? It’s written on the walls! Anyway, it was a description, Mr Pump! Guano! There must be tons of the stuff!’ Moist heard his own voice echo back from the distant walls. ‘When was this place last open?’
‘Twenty years ago, Postmaster!’
Moist looked around. ‘Who said that?’ he said. The voice seemed to have come from everywhere.
There was the sound of shuffling and the click-click of a walking stick and a bent, elderly figure appeared in the grey, dead, dusty air.
‘Groat, sir,’ it wheezed. ‘Junior Postman Groat, sir. At your service, sir. One word from you, sir, and I will leap, sir, leap into action, sir.’ The figure stopped to cough long and hard, making a noise like a wall being hit repeatedly with a bag of rocks. Moist saw that it had a beard of the short bristled type that suggested that its owner had been interrupted halfway through eating a hedgehog.
‘Junior Postman Groat?’ he said.
‘Indeedy, sir. The reason being, no one’s ever bin here long enough to promote me, sir. Should be Senior Postman Groat, sir,’ the old man added meaningfully, and once again coughed volcanically.
Ex-Postman Groat sounds more like it, Moist thought. Aloud he said, ‘And you work here, do you?’
‘Aye, sir, that we do, sir. It’s just me and the boy now, sir. He’s keen, sir. We keeps the place clean, sir. All according to Regulations.’
Moist could not stop staring. Mr Groat wore a toupee. There may actually be a man somewhere on whom a toupee works, but whoever that man might be, Mr Groat was not he. It was chestnut brown, the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong style and, all in all, wrong.
‘Ah, I see you’re admirin’ my hair, sir,’ said Groat proudly, as the toupee spun gently. ‘It’s all mine, you know, not a prunes.’
‘Er . . . prunes?’ said Moist.
‘Sorry, sir, shouldn’t have used slang. Prunes as in “syrup of prunes”, sir. Dimwell slang.* Syrup of prunes: wig. Not many men o’ my age got all their own hair, I expect that’s what you’re thinking. It’s clean living that does it, inside and out.’

* Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang: Various rhyming slangs are known, and have given the universe such terms as ‘apples and pears’ (stairs), ‘rubbity-dub’ (pub) and ‘busy bee’ (General Theory of Relativity). The Dimwell Street rhyming slang is probably unique in that it does not, in fact, rhyme. No one knows why, but theories so far advanced are 1) that it is quite complex and in fact follows hidden rules or 2) Dimwell is well named or 3) it’s made up to annoy strangers, which is the case with most such slangs.

Moist looked around at the fetid air and the receding mounds of guano. ‘Well done,’ he muttered. ‘Well, Mr Groat, do I have an office? Or something?’
For a moment, the visible face above the ragged beard was that of a rabbit in a headlight.
‘Oh, yes, sir, techn’c’ly,’ said the old man quickly. ‘But we don’t go in there any more sir, oh no, ‘cos of the floor. Very unsafe, sir. ‘cos of the floor. Could give way any minute, sir. We uses the staff locker room, sir. If you’d care to follow me, sir?’
Moist nearly burst out laughing. ‘Fine,’ he said. He turned to the golem. ‘Er . . . Mr Pump?’
‘Yes, Mr Lipvig?’ said the golem.
‘Are you allowed to assist me in any way, or do you just wait around until it’s time to hit me on the head?’
‘There Is No Need For Hurtful Remarks, Sir. I Am Allowed To Render Appropriate Assistance.’
‘So could you clean out the pigeon shit and let a bit of light in?’
‘Certainly, Mr Lipvig.’
‘You can?’
‘A Golem Does Not Shy Away From Vork, Mr Lipvig. I Vill Locate A Shovel.’ Mr Pump set off towards the distant counter, and the bearded Junior Postman panicked.
‘No!’ he squeaked, lurching after the golem. ‘It’s really not a good idea to touch them heaps!’
‘Floors liable to collapse, Mr Groat?’ said Moist cheerfully.
Groat looked from Moist to the golem, and back again. His mouth opened and shut as his brain sought for words. Then he sighed.
‘You’d better come down to the locker room, then. Step this way, gentlemen.’

Moist became aware of the smell of Mr Groat as he followed the old man. It wasn’t a bad smell, as such, just . . . odd. It was vaguely chemical, coupled with the eye-stinging aroma of every type of throat medicine you’ve ever swallowed, and with just a hint of old potatoes.
The locker room turned out to be down some steps into the basement where, presumably, the floors couldn’t collapse because there was nothing to collapse into. It was long and narrow. At one end was a monstrous oven which, Moist learned later, had once been part of some kind of heating system, the Post Office having been a very advanced building for its time. Now a small round stove, glowing almost cherry-red at the base, had been installed alongside it. There was a huge black kettle on it.
The air indicated the presence of socks, cheap coal and no ventilation; some battered wooden lockers were ranged along one wall, the painted names flaking off. Light got in, eventually, via grimy windows up near the ceiling.
Whatever the original purpose of the room, though, it was now the place where two people lived; two people who got along but, nevertheless, had a clear sense of mine and thine. The space was divided into two, with a narrow bed against one wall on each side. The dividing line was painted on the floor, up the walls and across the ceiling. My half, your half. So long as we remember that, the line indicated, there won’t be any more . . . trouble.
In the middle, so that it bestrode the boundary line, was a table. A couple of mugs and two tin plates were carefully arranged at either end. There was a salt pot in the middle of the table. The line, at the salt pot, turned into a little circle to encompass it in its own demilitarized zone.
One half of the narrow room contained an over-large and untidy bench, piled with jars, bottles and old papers; it looked like the work space of a chemist who made it up as he went along or until it exploded. The other had an old card table on which small boxes and rolls of black felt had been stacked with slightly worrying precision. There was also the largest magnifying glass Moist had ever seen, on a stand.
That side of the room had been swept clean. The other was a mess that threatened to encroach over the Line. Unless one of the scraps of paper from the grubbier side was a funny shape, it seemed that somebody, with care and precision and presumably a razor blade, had cut off that corner of it which had gone too far.
A young man stood in the middle of the clean half of the floor. He’d obviously been waiting for Moist, just like Groat, but he hadn’t mastered the art of standing to attention or, rather, had only partly understood it. His right side stood considerably more to attention than his left side and, as a result, he was standing like a banana. Nevertheless, with his huge nervous grin and big gleaming eyes he radiated keenness, quite possibly beyond the boundaries of sanity. There was a definite sense that at any moment he would bite. And he wore a blue cotton shirt on which someone had printed ‘Ask Me About Pins!’
‘Er . . .’ said Moist.
‘Apprentice Postman Stanley,’ mumbled Groat. ‘Orphan, sir. Very sad. Came to us from the Siblings of Offler charity home, sir. Both parents passed away of the Gnats on their farm out in the wilds, sir, and he was raised by peas.’
‘Surely you mean on peas, Mr Groat?’
‘By peas, sir. Very unusual case. A good lad if he doesn’t get upset but he tends to twist towards the sun, sir, if you get my meaning.’
‘Er . . . perhaps,’ said Moist. He turned hurriedly to Stanley. ‘So you know something about pins, do you?’ he said, in what he hoped was a jovial voice.
‘Nosir!’ said Stanley. He all but saluted.
‘But your shirt says—’
‘I know everything about pins, sir,’ said Stanley. ‘Everything there is to know!’
‘Well, that’s, er—’ Moist began.
‘Every single fact about pins, sir,’ Stanley went on. ‘There’s not a thing I don’t know about pins. Ask me anything about pins, sir. Anything you like at all. Go on, sir!’
‘Well . . .’ Moist floundered, but years of practice came to his aid. ‘I wonder how many pins were made in this city last ye—’
He stopped. A change had come across Stanley’s face: it smoothed out, lost the vague hint that its owner was about to attempt to gnaw your ear off.
‘Last year the combined workshops (or “pinneries”) of Ankh-Morpork turned out twenty-seven million, eight hundred and eighty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight pins,’ said Stanley, staring into a pin-filled private universe. ‘That includes wax-headed, steels, brassers, silver-headed (and full silver), extra large, machine- and hand-made, reflexed and novelty, but not lapel pins which should not be grouped with the true pins at all since they are technically known as “sports” or “blazons”, sir—’
‘Ah, yes, I think I once saw a magazine, or something,’ said Moist desperately. ‘It was called, er . . . Pins Monthly?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Groat, behind him. Stanley’s face contorted into something that looked like a cat’s bottom with a nose.
‘That’s for hobbyists,’ he hissed. ‘They’re not true “pinheads”! They don’t care about pins! Oh, they say so, but they have a whole page of needles every month now. Needles? Anyone could collect needles! They’re only pins with holes in! Anyway, what about Popular Needles? But they just don’t want to know!’
‘Stanley is editor of Total Pins.’ Groat whispered, behind Moist.
‘I don’t think I saw that one—’ Moist began.
‘Stanley, go and help Mr Lipwig’s assistant find a shovel, will you?’ said Groat, raising his voice. ‘Then go and sort your pins again until you feel better. Mr Lipwig doesn’t want to see one of your Little Moments.’ He gave Moist a blank look.
‘. . . they had an article last month about pincushions.’ muttered Stanley, stamping out of the room. The golem followed him.
‘He’s a good lad,’ said Groat, when they’d gone. ‘Just a bit cup-and-plate in the head. Leave him alone with his pins and he’s no trouble at all. Gets a bit . . . intense at times, that’s all. Oh, and on that subject there’s the third member of our jolly little team, sir—’
A large black and white cat had walked into the room. It paid no attention to Moist, or Groat, but progressed slowly across the floor towards a battered and unravelling basket. Moist was in the way. The cat continued until its head butted gently against Moist’s leg, and stopped.
‘That’s Mr Tiddles, sir,’ said Groat.
‘Tiddles? said Moist. ‘You mean that really is a cat’s name? I thought it was just a joke.’
‘Not so much a name, sir, more of a description,’ said Groat. ‘You’d better move, sir, otherwise he’ll just stand there all day. Twenty years old, he is, and a bit set in his ways.’
Moist stepped aside. Unperturbed, the cat continued to the basket, where it curled up.
‘Is he blind?’ said Moist.
‘No, sir. He has his routine and he sticks to it, sir, sticks to it to the very second. Very patient, for a cat. Doesn’t like the furniture being moved. You’ll get used to him.’
Not knowing what to say, but feeling that he should say something, Moist nodded towards the array of bottles on Groat’s bench.
‘You dabble in alchemy, Mr Groat?’ he said.
‘Nosir! I practise nat’ral medicine!’ said Groat proudly. ‘Don’t believe in doctors, sir! Never a day’s illness in my life, sir!’ He thumped his chest, making a thlap noise not normally associated with living tissue. ‘Flannelette, goose grease and hot bread puddin’, sir! Nothing like it for protecting your tubes against the noxious effluviences! I puts a fresh layer on every week, sir, and you won’t find a sneeze passing my nose, sir. Very healthful, very natural!’
‘Er . . . good,’ said Moist.
‘Worst of ‘em all is soap, sir,’ said Groat, lowering his voice. ‘Terrible stuff, sir, washes away the beneficent humours. Leave things be, I say! Keep the tubes running, put sulphur in your socks and pay attention to your chest protector and you can laugh at anything! Now, sir, I’m sure a young man like yourself will be worrying about the state of his—’
‘What’s this do?’ said Moist hurriedly, picking up a pot of greenish goo.
‘That, sir? Wart cure. Wonderful stuff. Very natural, not like the stuff a doctor’d give you.’
Moist sniffed at the pot. ‘What’s it made of?’
‘Arsenic, sir,’ said Groat calmly.
‘Arsenic?’
‘Very natural, sir,’ said Groat. ‘And green.’
So, Moist thought, as he put the pot back with extreme care, inside the Post Office normality clearly does not have a one-to-one relationship with the outside world. I might miss the cues. He decided that the role of keen but bewildered manager was the one to play here. Besides, apart from the ‘keen’ aspect it didn’t need any effort.
‘Can you help me, Mr Groat?’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about the post!’
‘Well, sir . . . what did you use to do?’
Rob. Trick. Forge. Embezzle. But never - and this was important -using any kind of violence. Never. Moist had always been very careful about that. He tried not to sneak, either, if he could avoid it. Being caught at 1 a.m. in a bank’s deposit vault while wearing a black suit with lots of little pockets in it could be considered suspicious, so why do it? With careful planning, the right suit, the right papers and, above all, the right manner, you could walk into the place at midday and the manager would hold the door open for you when you left. Palming rings and exploiting the cupidity of the rural stupid was just a way of keeping his hand in.
It was the face, that was what it was. He had an honest face. And he loved those people who looked him firmly in the eye to see his inner self, because he had a whole set of inner selves, one for every occasion. As for firm handshakes, practice had given him one to which you could moor boats. It was people skills, that’s what it was. Special people skills. Before you could sell glass as diamonds you had to make people really want to see diamonds. That was the trick, the trick of all tricks. You changed the way people saw the world. You let them see it the way they wanted it to be . . .
How the hell had Vetinari known his name? The man had cracked von Lipwig like an egg! And the Watch here were . . . demonic! As for setting a golem on a man . . .
‘I was a clerk,’ said Moist.
‘What, paperwork, that sort of thing?’ said Groat, looking at him intently.
‘Yes, pretty much all paperwork.’ That was honest, if you included playing cards, cheques, letters of accreditation, bank drafts and deeds.
‘Oh, another one,’ said Groat. ‘Well, there’s not a lot to do. We can shove up and make room for you in here, no problem.’
‘But I am supposed to make it work again as it used to, Mr Groat.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said the old man. ‘You just come along with me, then, Postmaster. I reckon there’s one or two things you ain’t bin tole!’
He led the way out, back into the dingy main hall, a little trail of yellow powder leaking from his boots.
‘My dad used to bring me here when I were a lad,’ he said. ‘A lot of families were Post Office families in those days. They had them big glass drippy tinkling things up in the ceiling, right? For lights?’
‘Chandeliers?’ Moist suggested.
‘Yep, prob’ly,’ said Groat. ‘Two of ‘em. And there was brass an’ copper everywhere, polished up like gold. There was balconies, sir, all round the big hall on every floor, made of iron, like lace! And all the counters was made of rare wood, my dad said. And people? This place was packed! The doors never stopped swinging! Even at night . . . oh, at night, sir, out in the big back yard, you should’ve been there! The lights! The coaches, coming and going, the horses steamin ‘. . . oh, sir, you should’ve seen it, sir! The men running the teams out . . . they had this thing, sir, this device, you could get a coach in and out of the yard in one minute, sir, one minute! The bustle, sir, the bustle and fuss! They said you could come here from Dolly Sisters or even down in the Shambles, and post a letter to yourself, and you’d have to run like the blazes, sir, the very blazes, sir, to beat the postman to your door! And the uniforms, sir, royal blue with brass buttons! You should’ve seen them! And—’
Moist looked over the babbling man’s shoulder to the nearest mountain of pigeon guano, where Mr Pump had paused in his digging. The golem had been prodding at the fetid horrible mess and, as Moist watched him, he straightened up and headed towards them with something in his hand.
‘—and when the big coaches came in, sir, all the way from the mountains, you could hear the horns miles away! You should’ve heard them, sir! And if any bandits tried anything, there was men we had, who went out and—’
‘Yes, Mr Pump?’ said Moist, halting Groat in mid-history.
‘A Surprising Discovery, Postmaster. The Mounds Are Not, As I Surmised, Made Of Pigeon Dung. No Pigeons Could Achieve That Amount In Thousands Of Years, Sir.’
‘Well, what are they made of, then?’
‘Letters, Sir,’ said the golem.
Moist looked down at Groat, who shifted uneasily.
‘Ah, yes,’ said the old man. ‘1 was coming to that.’

Letters . . .
 . . . there was no end to them. They filled every room of the building and spilled out into the corridors. It was, technically, true that the postmaster’s office was unusable because of the state of the floor: it was twelve feet deep in letters. Whole corridors were blocked off with them. Cupboards had been stuffed full of them; to open a door in-cautiously was to be buried in an avalanche of yellowing envelopes. Floorboards bulged suspiciously upwards. Through cracks in the sagging ceiling plaster, paper protruded.
The sorting room, almost as big as the main hall, had drifts reaching to twenty feet in places. Here and there, filing cabinets rose out of the paper sea like icebergs.
After half an hour of exploration Moist wanted a bath. It was like walking through desert tombs. He felt he was choking on the smell of old paper, as though his throat was filled with yellow dust.
‘I was told I had an apartment here,’ he croaked.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Groat. ‘Me and the lad had a look for it the other day. I heard that it was the other side of your office. So the lad went in on the end of a rope, sir. He said he felt a door, sir, but he’d sunk six feet under the mail by then and he was suffering, sir, suffering . . . so I pulled him out.’
‘The whole place is full of undelivered mail?’
They were back in the locker room. Groat had topped up the black kettle from a pan of water, and it was steaming. At the far end of the room, sitting at his neat little table, Stanley was counting his pins.
‘Pretty much, sir, except in the basement and the stables,’ said the old man, washing a couple of tin mugs in a bowl of not very clean water.
‘You mean even the postm— my office is full of old mail but they never filled the basement? Where’s the sense in that?’
‘Oh, you couldn’t use the basement, sir, oh, not the basement,’ said Groat, looking shocked. ‘It’s far too damp down here. The letters’d be destroyed in no time.’
‘Destroyed,’ said Moist flatly.
‘Nothing like damp for destroying things, sir,’ said Groat, nodding sagely.
‘Destroying mail from dead people to dead people,’ said Moist, in the same flat voice.
‘We don’t know that, sir,’ said the old man. ‘I mean, we’ve got no actual proof.’
‘Well, no. After all, some of those envelopes are only a hundred years old!’ said Moist. He had a headache from the dust and a sore throat from the dryness, and there was something about the old man that was grating on his raw nerves. He was keeping something back. ‘That’s no time at all to some people. I bet the zombie and vampire population are still waiting by the letter box every day, right?’
‘No need to be like that, sir,’ said Groat levelly, ‘no need to be like that. You can’t destroy the letters. You just can’t do it, sir. That’s Tampering with the Mail, sir. That’s not just a crime, sir. That’s, a, a—’
‘Sin?’ said Moist.
‘Oh, worse’n a sin,’ said Groat, almost sneering. ‘For sins you’re only in trouble with a god, but in my day if you interfered with the mail you’d be up against Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow. Hah! And there’s a big difference. Gods forgive’.
Moist sought for sanity in the wrinkled face opposite him. The unkempt beard was streaked with different colours, either of dirt, tea or random celestial pigment. Like some hermit, he thought. Only a hermit could wear a wig like that.
‘Sorry?’ he said. ‘And you mean that shoving someone’s letter under the floorboards for a hundred years isn’t tampering with it?’
Groat suddenly looked wretched. The beard quivered. Then he started to cough, great hacking, wooden, crackling lumps of cough, that made the jars shake and caused a yellow mist to rise from his trouser bottoms, “scuse me a moment, sir,’ he wheezed, between hacks, and he fumbled in his pocket for a scratched and battered tin. ‘You suck at all, sir?’ he said, tears rolling down his cheeks. He proffered the tin to Moist. ‘They’re Number Threes, sir. Very mild. I make ‘em meself, sir. Nat’ral remedies from nat’ral ingredients, that’s my style, sir. Got to keep the tubes clear, sir, otherwise they turn against you.’
Moist took a large, violet lozenge from the box and sniffed it. It smelled faintly of aniseed.
‘Thank you, Mr Groat,’ he said, but in case this counted as an attempt at bribery, he added sternly: ‘The mail, Mr Groat? Sticking undelivered mail wherever there’s a space isn’t tampering with it?’
‘That’s more . . . delaying the mail, sir. Just, er . . . slowing it down. A bit. It’s not like there’s any intention of never delivering it, sir.’
Moist stared at Groat’s worried expression. He felt that sense of shifting ground you experience when you realize that you’re dealing with someone whose world is connected with your own only by their fingertips. Not a hermit, he thought, more like a shipwrecked mariner, living in this dry desert island of a building while the world outside moves on and all sanity evaporates.
‘Mr Groat, I don’t want to, you know, upset you or anything, but there’s thousands of letters out there under a thick layer of pigeon guano . . .’ he said slowly.
‘Actually, on that score, sir, things aren’t as bad as they seem,’ Groat said, and paused to suck noisily on his natural cough lozenge. ‘It’s very dry stuff, pigeon doings, and forms quite a hard protective crust on the envelopes . . .’
‘Why are they all here, Mr Groat?’ said Moist. People skills, he remembered. You’re not allowed to shake him.
The Junior Postman avoided his gaze. ‘Well, you know how it is . . .’ he tried.
‘No, Mr Groat. I don’t think I do.’
‘Well . . . maybe a man’s busy, got a full round, maybe it’s Hogswatch, lots of cards, see, and the inspector is after him about his timekeeping, and so maybe he just shoves half a bag of letters somewhere safe . . . but he will deliver ‘em, right? I mean, it’s not his fault if they keeps pushing, sir, pushing him all the time. Then it’s tomorrow and he’s got an even bigger bag, ‘cos they’re pushing all the time, so he reckons, I’ll just drop a few off today, too, ‘cos it’s my day off on Thursday and I can catch up then, but you see by Thursday he’s behind by more’n a day’s work because they keeps on pushing, and he’s tired anyway, tired as a dog, so he says to himself, got some leave coming up soon, but he gets his leave and by then - well, it all got very nasty towards the end. There was . . . unpleasantness. We’d gone too far, sir, that’s what it was, we’d tried too hard. Sometimes things smash so bad it’s better to leave it alone than try to pick up the pieces. I mean, where would you start?’
‘I think I get the picture,’ said Moist. You’re lying, Mr Groat. You’re lying by omission. You’re not telling me everything. And what you’re not telling me is very important, isn’t it? I’ve turned lying into an art, Mr Groat, and you’re just a talented amateur.
Groat’s face, unaware of the internal monologue, managed a smile.
‘But the trouble is - what’s your first name, Mr Groat?’ Moist asked.
‘Tolliver, sir.’
‘Nice name . . . the thing is, Tolliver, that the picture I see in your description is what I might refer to for the purposes of the analogy as a cameo, whereas all this’ - Moist waved his hand to include the building and everything it contained - ‘is a full-sized triptych showing scenes from history, the creation of the world and the disposition of the gods, with a matching chapel ceiling portraying the glorious firmament and a sketch of a lady with a weird smile thrown in for good measure! Tolliver, I think you are not being frank with me.’
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ said Groat, eyeing him with a sort of nervous defiance.
‘I could have you sacked, you know,’ said Moist, knowing that this was a stupid thing to say.
‘You could, sir, you could try doin’ that,’ said Groat, quietly and slowly. ‘But I’m all you got, apart from the lad. And you don’t know nuffin’ about the Post Office, sir. You don’t know nuffin’ about the Regulations, neither. I’m the only one that knows what needs doing round here. You wouldn’t last five minutes without me, sir. You wouldn’t even see that the inkwells get filled every day!’
‘Inkwells? Filling inkwells?’ said Moist. ‘This is just an old building full of . . . of . . . of dead paper! We have no customers!’
‘Got to keep the inkwells filled, sir. Post Office Regulations,’ said Groat in a steely voice. ‘Got to follow Regulations, sir.’
‘For what? It appears we don’t accept any mail or deliver any mail! We just sit here!’
‘No, sir, we don’t just sit here,’ said Groat patiently. ‘We follow the Post Office Regulations. Fill the inkwells, polish the brass—’
‘You don’t sweep up the pigeon shit!’
‘Oddly enough, that’s not in the Regulations, sir,’ said the old man. ‘Truth is, sir, no one wants us any more. It’s all the clacks now, the damn clacks, clack clack clack. Everyone’s got a clacks tower now, sir. That’s the fashion. Fast as the speed of light, they say. Ha! It’s got no soul, sir, no heart. I hates ‘em. But we’re ready, sir. If there was any mail, we’d deal with it, sir. We’d spring into action, sir, spring into action. But there ain’t.’
‘Of course there isn’t! It’s clearly sunk into this town long ago that you might as well throw your letters away as give them to the Post Office!’
‘No, sir, wrong again. They’re all kept, sir. That’s what we do, sir. We keep things as they are. We try not to disturb things, sir,’ said Groat quietly. ‘We try not to disturb anything!
The way he said it made Moist hesitate.
‘What kind of anything?’ he said.
‘Oh, nothing, sir. We just . . . go carefully.’
Moist looked around the room. Did it appear smaller? Did the shadows deepen and lengthen? Was there a sudden cold sensation in the air?
No, there wasn’t. But an opportunity had definitely been missed, Moist felt. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising. Moist had heard that this was because men had been made out of monkeys, and it meant that there was a tiger behind you.
In fact Mr Pump was behind him, just standing there, eyes burning more brightly than any tiger had ever managed. That was worse. Tigers couldn’t follow you across the sea, and they had to sleep.
He gave up. Mr Groat was in some strange, musty little world of his own. ‘Do you call this a life?’ he said.
For the first time in this conversation, Mr Groat looked him squarely in the eye. ‘Much better than a death, sir,’ he said.

Mr Pump followed Moist across the main hall and out of the main doors, at which point Moist turned on him.
‘All right, what are the rules here?’ he demanded. ‘Are you going to follow me everywhere7. You know I can’t run!’
‘You Are Allowed Autonomous Movement Within The City And Environs,’ the golem rumbled. ‘But Until You Are Settled In I Am Also Instructed To Accompany You For Your Own Protection.’
‘Against who? Someone annoyed that their great-granddaddy’s mail didn’t turn up?’
‘I Couldn’t Say, Sir.’
‘I need some fresh air. What happened in there? Why is it so . . . creepy? What happened to the Post Office?’
‘I Couldn’t Say, Sir,’ said Mr Pump placidly.
‘You don’t know? But it’s your city,’ said Moist sarcastically. ‘Have you been stuck at the bottom of a hole in the ground for the last hundred years?’
‘No, Mr Lipvig,’ said the golem.
‘Well, why can’t—’ Moist began.
‘It Was Two Hundred And Forty Years, Mr Lipvig,’ said the golem.
‘What was?’
‘The Time I Spent At The Bottom Of The Hole In The Ground, Mr Lipvig.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Moist.
‘Why, The Time I Spent At The Bottom Of The Hole In The Ground, Mr Lipvig. Pump Is Not My Name, Mr Lipvig. It Is My Description. Pump. Pump 19, To Be Precise. I Stood At The Bottom Of A Hole A Hundred Feet Deep And Pumped Water. For Two Hundred And Forty Years, Mr Lipvig. But Now I Am Ambulating In The Sunlight. This Is Better, Mr Lipvig. This Is Better!’

That night, Moist lay staring at the ceiling. It was three feet from him. Hanging from it, a little distance away, was a candle in a safety lantern. Stanley had been insistent about that, and no wonder. This place would go up like a bomb. It was the boy who’d showed him up here; Groat was sulking somewhere. He’d been right, damn him. He needed Groat. Groat practically was the Post Office.
It had been a long day and Moist hadn’t slept well last night, what with being upside down over Mr Pump’s shoulder and occasionally kicked by the frantic horse.
He didn’t want to sleep here either, heavens knew, but he didn’t have lodgings he could use any more, and they were at a premium in this hive of a city in any case. The locker room did not appeal, no, not at all. So he’d simply scrambled on to the pile of dead letters in what was in theory his office. It was no great hardship. A man of affairs such as he had to learn to sleep in all kinds of situations, often while mobs were looking for him a wall’s thickness away. At least the heaps of letters were dry and warm and weren’t carrying edged weapons.
Paper crackled underneath him as he tried to get comfortable. Idly, he picked up a letter at random; it was addressed to someone called Antimony Parker at 1 Lobbin Clout, and on the back, in capitals, was S.W.A.L.K. He eased it open with a fingernail; the paper inside all but crumbled at his touch.

My Very Dearest Timony,
Yes! Why should a Woman, Sensible of the Great Honour that a Man is Doing Her, play the Coy Minx at such a time! I know you have spoken to Papa, and of course I consent to becoming the Wife of the Kindest, Most Wonderfu—

Moist glanced at the date on the letter. It had been written forty-one years ago.
He was not as a rule given to introspection, it being a major drawback in his line of work, but he couldn’t help wondering if - he glanced back at the letter - ‘Your loving Agnathea’ had ever married Antimony, or whether the romance had died right here in this graveyard of paper.
He shivered, and tucked the envelope into his jacket. He’d have to ask Groat what S.W.A.L.K. meant.
‘Mr Pump!’ he shouted.
There was a faint rumble from the corner of the room where the golem stood, waist-deep in mail.
‘Yes, Mr Lipvig?’
‘Is there no way you can shut your eyes? I can’t sleep with two red glowing eyes watching me. It’s a . . . well, it’s a childhood thing.’
‘Sorry, Mr Lipvig. I Could Turn My Back.’
‘That won’t work. I’d still know they’re there. Anyway, the glow reflects off the wall. Look, where would I run to?’
The golem gave this some thought. ‘I Will Go And Stand In The Corridor, Mr Lipvig,’ he decided, and began to wade towards the door.
‘You do that,’ said Moist. ‘And in the morning I want you to find my bedroom, okay? Some of the offices still have space near the ceiling; you can move the letters into there.’
‘Mr Groat Does Not Like The Mail To Be Moved, Mr Lipvig,’ the golem rumbled.
‘Mr Groat is not the postmaster, Mr Pump. I am.’
Good gods, the madness is catching, Moist thought, as the golem’s glow disappeared into the darkness outside. I am not the postmaster, I’m some poor bastard who’s the victim of some stupid . . . experiment. What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.
He tried to find the angle, the way out . . . but all the time a conversation kept bouncing off the insides of his brain.
Imagine a hole, a hundred feet deep and full of water.
Imagine the darkness. Imagine, at the bottom of the hole, a figure roughly of human shape, turning in that swirling darkness a massive handle once every eight seconds.
Pump . . . Pump . . . Pump . . .
For two hundred and forty years.
‘You didn’t mind?’ Moist had asked.
‘You Mean Did I Harbour Resentment, Mr Lipvig? But I Was Doing Useful And Necessary Work! Besides, There Was Much For Me To Think About.’
‘At the bottom of a hundred feet of dirty water? What the hell did you find to think about?’
‘Pumping, Mr Lipvig.’
And then, the golem said, had come cessation, and dim light, a lowering of levels, a locking of chains, movement upwards, emergence into a world of light and colour . . . and other golems.
Moist knew something about golems. They used to be baked out of clay, thousands of years ago, and brought to life by some kind of scroll put inside their heads, and they never wore out and they worked, all the time. You saw them pushing brooms, or doing heavy work in timber yards and foundries. Most of them you never saw at all. They made the hidden wheels go round, down in the dark. And that was more or less the limit of his interest in them. They were, almost by definition, honest.
But now the golems were freeing themselves. It was the quietest, most socially responsible revolution in history. They were property, and so they saved up and bought themselves.
Mr Pump was buying his freedom by seriously limiting the freedom of Moist. A man could get quite upset about that. Surely that wasn’t how freedom was supposed to work?
Ye gods, thought Moist, back in the here-and-now, no wonder Groat sucked cough sweets all the time, the dust in this place could choke you!
He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out the diamond-shaped cough lozenge the old man had given him. It looked harmless enough.
One minute later, after Mr Pump had lurched into the room and slapped him heavily on the back, the steaming lozenge was stuck to the wall on the far side of the room where, by morning, it had dissolved quite a lot of the plaster.

Mr Groat took a measured spoonful of tincture of rhubarb and cayenne pepper, to keep the tubes open, and checked that he still had the dead mole round his neck, to ward off any sudden attack of doctors. Everyone knew doctors made you ill, it stood to reason. Nature’s remedies were the trick every time, not some hellish potion made of gods knew what. He smacked his lips appreciatively. He’d put fresh sulphur in his socks tonight, too, and he could feel it doing him good.
Two candle lanterns glowed in the velvet, papery darkness of the main sorting office. The light was shining through the outer glass, filled with water so that the candle would go out if it was dropped; it made the lanterns look like the lights of some abyssal fish from the squiddy, iron-hard depths.
There was a little glugging noise in the dark. Groat corked his bottle of elixir and got on with business.
‘Be the inkwells filled, Apprentice Postman Stanley?’ he intoned.
‘Aye, Junior Postman Groat, full to a depth of one-third of one inch from the top as per Post Office Counter Regulations, Daily Observances, Rule C18,’ said Stanley.
There was a rustle as Groat turned the pages of a huge book on the lectern in front of him.
‘Can I see the picture, Mr Groat?’ said Stanley eagerly.
Groat smiled. It had become part of the ceremony, and he gave the reply he gave every time.
‘Very well, but this is the last time. It’s not good to look too often on the face of a god,’ he said. ‘Or any other part.’
‘But you said there used to be a gold statue of him in the big hall, Mr Groat. People must’ve looked on it all the time.’
Groat hesitated. But Stanley was a growing lad. He’d have to know sooner or later.
‘Mind you, I don’t reckon people used to look on the face much,’ he said. ‘They looked more on the . . . wings.’
‘On his hat and his ankles,’ said Stanley. ‘So he could fly the messages at the speed of . . . messages.’
A little bead of sweat dripped off Groat’s forehead. ‘Mostly on his hat and ankles, yes,’ he said. ‘Er . . . but not only there.’
Stanley peered at the picture. ‘Oh, yes. I never noticed them before. He’s got wings on—’
‘The fig leaf,’ said Groat quickly. ‘That’s what we call it.’
‘Why’s he got a leaf there?’ said Stanley.
cOh, they all had ‘em in the olden days, ‘cos of being Classical,’ said Groat, relieved to be shifting away from the heart of the matter. ‘It’s a fig leaf. Off a fig tree.’
‘Haha, the joke’s on them, there’s no fig trees round here!’ said Stanley, in the manner of one exposing the flaw in a long-held dogma.
‘Yes, lad, very good, but it was a tin one anyway,’ said Groat, with patience.
‘And the wings?’ said the boy.
‘We-ell, I s’pose they thought that the more wings, the better,’ said Groat.
‘Yes, but s’posing his hat wings and his ankle wings stopped working, he’d be held up by—’
‘Stanley! It’s just a statue! Don’t get excited! Calm down! You don’t want to upset . . . them’.
Stanley hung his head. ‘They’ve been . . . whispering to me again, Mr Groat,’ he confided in a low voice.
‘Yes, Stanley. They whisper to me, too.’
‘I remember ‘em last time, talking in the night, Mr Groat,’ said Stanley, his voice trembling. ‘I shut my eyes and I keep seeing the writin’ . . .’
‘Yes, Stanley. Don’t worry about it. Try not to think about it. It’s Mr Lipstick’s fault, stirring them up. Leave well alone, I say. They never listen, and then what happens? They find out the hard way’
‘It seems like only yesterday, those watchmen drawing that chalk outline round Mr Mutable,’ said Stanley, beginning to tremble. ‘He found out the hard way!’
‘Calm down, now, calm down,’ said Groat, patting him gently on the shoulder. ‘You’ll set ‘em off. Think about pins.’
‘But it’s a cruel shame, Mr Groat, them never being alive long enough to make you Senior Postman!’
Groat sniffed. ‘Oh, that’s enough of that. That’s not important, Stanley,’ he said, his face like thunder.
‘Yes, Mr Groat, but you’re an old, old man and you’re still only a Junior Postm—’ Stanley persisted.
‘I said that’s enough, Stanley! Now, just raise that lamp again, will you? Good. That’s better. I’ll read a page of the Regulations, that always quietens them down.’ Groat cleared his throat. ‘I shall now read from the Book of Regulations, Delivery Times (Metropolitan) (Sundays and Octedays excepted),’ he announced to the air. ‘As follows: “The hours by which letters should be put into the receiving houses in town for each delivery within the city walls of Ankh-Morpork are as the following: overnight by eight o’clock in the evening, for the first delivery. Morning by eight o’clock, for the second delivery. Morning by ten o’clock, for the third delivery. Morning by twelve o’clock, for the fourth delivery. Afternoon by two o’clock, for the fifth delivery. Afternoon by four o’clock, for the sixth delivery. Afternoon by six o’clock, for the seventh delivery.” These are the hours, and I have read them.’ Groat hung his head for a moment, and then he closed the book with a snap.
‘Why are we doing this, Mr Groat?’ said Stanley meekly.
‘ ‘Cos of hub-riss,’ said Mr Groat. ‘That’s what it was. Hub-riss killed the Post Office. Hub-riss and greed and Bloody Stupid Johnson and the New Pie.’
‘A pie, Mr Groat? How could a pie—’
‘Don’t ask, Stanley. It gets complicated and there’s nothing in it about pins.’
They put out the candles, and left.
When they had gone, a faint whispering started.

Chapter Three

Our Own Hand, Or None

In which our hero discovers the world of pins - The Greengrocer’s
Apostrophe - S.W.A.L.K. - The path of Fate - The Golem Lady - The
Business of Business and the Nature of Freedom Once Again Discussed -
Clerk Brian shows enthusiasm

Rise And Shine, Mr Lipvig. Your Second Day As Postmaster!’
Moist opened one crusted eye and glared at the golem.
‘Oh, so you’re an alarm clock too?’ he said. ‘Aargh. My tongue. It feels like it was caught in a mousetrap.’
He half crawled, half rolled across the bed of letters and managed to stand up just outside the door.
‘I need new clothes,’ he said. ‘And food. And a toothbrush. I’m going out, Mr Pump. You are to stay here. Do something. Tidy the place up. Get rid of the graffiti on the walls, will you? At least we can make the place look clean!’
‘Anything You Say, Mr Lipvig.’
‘Right!’ said Moist, and strode off, for one stride, and then yelped.
‘Be Careful Of Your Ankle, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump.
‘And another thing!’ said Moist, hopping on one leg. ‘How can you follow me? How can you possibly know where I am?’
‘Karmic Signature, Mr Lipvig,’ said the golem.
‘And that means what, exactly?’ Moist demanded.
‘It Means I Know Exactly Where You Are, Mr Lipvig.’
The pottery face was impassive. Moist gave up.
He limped out into what, for this city, was a fresh new morning. There had been a touch of frost overnight, just enough to put some zest into the air and give him an appetite. The leg still hurt, but at least he didn’t need the crutch today.
Here was Moist von Lipwig walking through the city. He’d never done that before. The late Albert Spangler had, and so had Mundo Smith and Edwin Streep and half a dozen other personas that he’d donned and discarded. Oh, he’d been Moist inside (what a name, yes, he’d heard every possible joke), but they had been on the outside, between him and the world.
Edwin Streep had been a work of art. He’d been a lack-of-confidence trickster, and needed to be noticed. He was so patently, obviously bad at running a bent Find The Lady game and other street scams that people positively queued up to trick the dumb trickster and walked away grinning . . . right up to the point when they tried to spend the coins they’d scooped up so quickly.
There’s a secret art to forgery, and Moist had discovered it: in a hurry, or when excited, people will complete the forgery by their own cupidity. They’ll be so keen to snatch the money from the obvious idiot that their own eyes fill in all the little details that aren’t quite there on the coins they so quickly pocket. All you needed to do was hint at them.
But that was just for starters. Some customers never even discovered that they’d put fake coins in their purse, thus revealing to the incompetent Streep in which pocket they kept it. Later on they learned that Streep might be rubbish with a deck of cards but also that this lack was more than made up for by his exceptional skill as a pickpocket.
Now Moist felt like a peeled prawn. He felt as though he’d stepped out naked. And yet, still, no one was taking any notice. There were no cries of’Hey, you’, no shouts of’That’s him!’ He was just another face in the crowd. It was a strange new feeling. He’d never really had to be himself before.
He celebrated by buying a street directory from the Guild of Merchants, and had a coffee and a bacon sandwich while he thumbed, greasily, through it for the list of bars. He didn’t find what he was looking for there but he did find it in the list of hairdressers, and grinned when he did so. It was nice to be right.
He also found a mention of Dave’s Pin Exchange, up in Dolly Sisters, in an alley between a house of negotiable affection and a massage parlour. It bought and sold pins to pin fanciers.
Moist finished his coffee with a look on his face which those who knew him well, a group consisting in fact of absolutely nobody, would have recognized as the formation of a plan. Ultimately, everything was all about people. If he was going to be staying here for a while, he’d make himself comfortable.
He went for a walk to the self-styled ‘Home of Acuphilia!!!’
It was like lifting an unregarded stone and finding a whole new world. Dave’s Pin Exchange was the kind of small shop where the owner knows every single one of his customers by name. It was a wonderful world, the world of pins. It was a hobby that could last you a lifetime. Moist knew this because he expended one dollar on Pins by J. Lanugo Owlsbury, apparently the last word on the subject. Everyone had their funny little ways, Moist conceded, but he wasn’t entirely at home among people who, if they saw a pin-up, would pay attention to the pins. Some of the customers browsing the book racks {Mis-draws, Double Pointers and Flaws, Pins of Uberwald and Genua, First Steps in Pins, Adventures in Acuphilia . . . ) and staring covetously at the rack of pins laid out under glass had an intensity of expression that frightened him. They looked a bit like Stanley. They were all male. Clearly, women weren’t natural ‘pinheads’.
He found Total Pins on the bottom rack. It had a smudgy, home-produced look, and the print was small and dense and lacked such subtleties as paragraphs and, in many cases, punctuation. The common comma had looked at Stanley’s expression and decided not to disturb him.
When Moist put the little magazine on the counter the shop’s owner, a huge bearded man with dreadlocks, a pin through his nose, a beer belly belonging to three other people and the words ‘Death or Pins’ tattooed on a bicep, picked it up and tossed it back down dismissively.
‘Sure about that, sir?’ he said. ‘We’ve got Pins Monthly, New Pins, Practical Pins, Modern Pins, Pins Extra, Pins International, Talking Pins, Pins World, World Pins, World of Pins, Pins and Pinneries . . .’ Moist’s attention wandered off for a while but came back in time to catch ‘. . . the Acuphile Digest, Extreme Pins, $itfte! - that’s from Uberwald, very good if you collect foreign pins - Beginning Pins -that’s a part-work, sir, with a new pin every week - Pin Times and’ - here the big man winked - ‘Back Alley Pins’
‘I noticed that one,’ said Moist. ‘It has lots of pictures of young women in leather.’
‘Yes, sir. But, to be fair, they’re generally holding pins. So, then . . . it’s still Total Pins for you, is it?’ he added, as if giving a fool one last chance to repent of his folly.
‘Yes,’ said Moist. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.’ Dave scratched his stomach thoughtfully. ‘It’s just that the editor is a bit . . . a bit . . .’
‘A bit what?’ said Moist.
‘Well, we think he’s a bit weird about pins, to tell you the truth.’
Moist looked around the shop. ‘Really?’ he said.
Moist went to a nearby cafe and leafed through the magazine. One of the skills of his previous life had been an ability to pick up just enough about anything to sound like an expert, at least to nonexperts. Then he returned to the shop.
Everyone had their levers. Often it was greed. Greed was a reliable old standby. Sometimes it was pride. That was Groat’s lever. He desperately wanted promotion; you could see it in his eyes. Find the lever, and then it was plain sailing.
Stanley, now, Stanley . . . would be easy.
Big Dave was examining a pin under a microscope when Moist returned to the shop. The rush hour for pin buying must have been nearly over, because there were only a few laggards ogling the pins under glass, or thumbing through the racks.
Moist sidled over to the counter and coughed.
‘Yes, sir?’ said Big Dave, looking up from his work. ‘Back again, eh? They get to you, don’t they? Seen anything you like?’
‘A packet of pre-perforated pin papers and a tenpenny lucky dip bag, please,’ said Moist loudly. The other customers looked up for a moment as Dave pulled the packets off their rack, and then looked down again.
Moist leaned over the counter. ‘I was wondering,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘if you’d got anything a bit . . . you know . . . sharper?’
The big man gave him a carefully blank look. ‘How d’you mean, sharper?’ he said.
‘You know,’ said Moist. He cleared his throat. ‘More . . . pointed.’
The doorbell jangled as the last of the customers, sated on pins for one day, stepped out. Dave watched them go and then turned his attention back to Moist.
‘A bit of a connoisseur, are we, sir?’ he said, winking.
‘A serious student,’ said Moist. ‘Most of the stuff here, well . . .’
‘I don’t touch nails,’ said Dave sharply. ‘Won’t have ‘em in the shop! I’ve got a reputation to think about! Little kids come in here, you know!’
‘Oh no! Strictly pins, that’s me!’ said Moist hastily.
‘Good,’ said Dave, relaxing. ‘As it happens, I might have one or two items for the genuine collector.’ He nodded towards a beaded curtain at the back of the shop. ‘Can’t put everything on display, not with youngsters around, you know how it is . . .’
Moist followed him through the clashing curtain and into the crowded little room behind, where Dave, after looking around con-spiratorially, pulled a small black box off a shelf and flipped it open under Moist’s nose.
‘Not something you find every day, eh?’ said Dave.
Gosh, it’s a pin, thought Moist, but said ‘Wow!’ in a tone of well-crafted genuine surprise.
A few minutes later he stepped out of the shop, fighting an impulse to turn his collar up. That was the problem with certain kinds of insanity. They could strike at any time. After all, he’d just spent AM$70 on a damn pin!
He stared at the little packets in his hand and sighed. As he carefully put them in his jacket pocket, his hand touched something papery.
Oh, yes. The S.W.A.L.K. letter. He was about to shove it back when his eye caught sight of the ancient street sign opposite: Lobbin Clout. And as his gaze moved down it also saw, over the first shop in the narrow street:

NO.1 A. PARKER & SON’S
GREENGROCER’S
HIGH CLAS’S FRUIT AND VEGETABLE’S

Well, why not deliver it? Hah! He was the postmaster, wasn’t he? What harm could it do?
He slipped into the shop. A middle-aged man was introducing fresh carrots, or possibly carrot’s, into the life of a bulky woman with a big shopping bag and hairy warts.
‘Mr Antimony Parker?’ said Moist urgently.
‘Be with you in ju’st one moment, s’ir, I’m ju’st—’ the man began.
‘I just need to know if you are Mr Antimony Parker, that’s all,’ said Moist. The woman turned to glare at the intruder, and Moist gave her a smile so winning that she blushed and wished just for a moment she’d worn make-up today.
‘Thats’ father,’ said the greengrocer. ‘He’s out the back, tackling a difficult cabbage—’
‘This is his,’ said Moist. ‘Postal delivery’ He put the envelope on the counter and walked quickly out of the shop.
Shopkeeper and customer stared down at the pink envelope.
‘S’.W.A.L.K?’ said Mr Parker.
‘Ooh, that takes me back, Mr Parker,’ said the woman. ‘In my day we used to put that on our letters when we were courting. Didn’t you? Sealed With A Loving Kiss. There was S.W.A.L.K., and L.A.N.C.R.E. and . . .’ she lowered her voice and giggled, ‘K.L.A.T.C.H., of course. Remember?’
‘All that pas’sed me by, Mrs Goodbody,’ said the greengrocer stiffly. ‘And if it mean’s young men are s’ending our dad pink envelope’s with ‘swalk on them, I’m thankful for that. Modern time’s, eh?’ He turned and raised his voice. ‘Father!’

Well, that was a good deed for the day, Moist thought. Or a deed, in any case.
It looked as though Mr Parker had managed to acquire some sons, one way or another. Still, it was . . . odd to think of all those letters heaped in that old building. You could imagine them as little packets of history. Deliver them, and history went one way. But if you dropped them in the gap between the floorboards, it went the other.
Ha. He shook his head. As if one tiny choice by someone unimportant could make that much difference! History had to be a bit tougher than that. It all sprang back eventually, didn’t it? He was sure he’d read something, somewhere. If it wasn’t like that, no one would ever dare do anything.
He stood in the little square where eight roads met, and chose to go home via Market Street. It was as good a way as any other.

When he was sure that both Stanley and the golem were busy on the mail mountains, Mr Groat crept away through the labyrinth of corridors. Bundles of letters were stacked so high and tightly that it was all he could do to squeeze through, but at last he reached the shaft of the old hydraulic elevator, long disused. The shaft had been filled up with letters.
However, the engineer’s ladder was still clear, and that at least went up to the roof. Of course, there was the fire escape outside, but that was outside, and Groat was not over-keen on going outside at the best of times. He inhabited the Post Office like a very small snail in a very large shell. He was used to gloom.
Now, slowly and painfully, his legs shaking, he climbed up through the floors of mail and forced open the trapdoor at the top.
He blinked and shuddered in the unfamiliar sunlight, and hauled himself out on to the flat roof.
He’d never really liked doing this, but what else could he have done? Stanley ate like a bird and Groat mostly got by on tea and biscuits, but it all cost money, even if you went round the markets just as they closed up, and somewhere in the past, decades ago, the pay had stopped arriving. Groat had been too frightened to go up to the palace to find out why. He was afraid that if he asked for money he’d be sacked. So he’d taken to renting out the old pigeon loft. Where was the harm in that? All the pigeons had joined their feral brethren years ago, and a decent shed was not to be sneezed at in this city, even if it did whiff a bit. There was an outside fire escape and everything. It was a little palace compared to most lodgings.
Besides, these lads didn’t mind the smell, they said. They were pigeon fanciers. Groat wasn’t sure what that entailed, except that they had to use a little clacks tower to fancy them properly. But they paid up, that was the important thing.
He skirted the big rainwater tank for the defunct lift and sidled around the rooftops to the shed, where he knocked politely.
‘It’s me, lads. Just come about the rent,’ he said.
The door was opened and he heard a snatch of conversation: ‘. . . the linkages won’t stand it for more than thirty seconds . . .’
‘Oh, Mr Groat, come on in,’ said the man who had opened the door. This was Mr Carlton, the one with the beard a dwarf would be proud of, no, two dwarfs would be proud of. He seemed more sensible than the other two, although this was not hard.
Groat removed his hat. ‘Come about the rent, sir,’ he repeated, peering around the man. ‘Got a bit o’ news, too. Just thought I’d better mention, lads, we’ve got a new postmaster. If you could be a bit careful for a while? A nod’s as good as a wink, eh?’
‘How long’s this one going to last, then?’ said a man who was sitting on the floor, working on a big metal drum full of what, to Mr Groat, appeared to be very complicated clockwork. ‘You’ll push him off the roof by Saturday, right?’
‘Now, now, Mr Winton, there’s no call to make fun of me like that,’ said Groat nervously. ‘Once he’s been here a few weeks and got settled in I’ll kind of . . . hint that you’re here, all right? Pigeons getting on okay, are they?’ He peered around the loft. Only one pigeon was visible, hunched up high in a corner.
‘They’re out for exercise right now,’ said Winton.
‘Ah, right, that’d be it, then,’ said Groat.
‘Anyway, we’re a bit more interested in woodpeckers at the moment,’ said Winton, pulling a bent metal bar out of the drum. ‘See, Alex? I told you, it’s bent. And two gears are stripped bare . . .’
“Woodpeckers?’ said Groat.
There was a certain lowering of the temperature, as if he’d said the wrong thing.
‘That’s right, woodpeckers,’ said a third voice.
‘Woodpeckers, Mr Emery?’ The third pigeon fancier always made Groat nervous. It was the way his eyes were always on the move, as if he was trying to see everything at once. And he was always holding a tube with smoke coming out of it, or another piece of machinery. They all seemed very interested in tubes and cogwheels, if it came to that. Oddly enough, Groat had never seen them holding a pigeon. He didn’t know how pigeons were fancied, but he’d assumed that it had to be close up.
‘Yes, woodpeckers,’ said the man, while the tube in his hand changed colour from red to blue. ‘Because . . .’ and here he appeared to stop and think for a moment, ‘we’re seeing if they can be taught to . . . oh, yes, tap out the message when they get there, see? Much better than messenger pigeons.’
‘Why?’ said Groat.
Mr Emery stared at the whole world for a moment. ‘Because . . . they can deliver messages in the dark?’ he said.
‘Well done,’ murmured the man dismantling the drum.
‘Ah, could be a lifesaver, I can see that,’ said Groat. ‘Can’t see it beating the clacks, though!’
‘That’s what we want to find out,’ said Winton.
‘But we’d be very grateful if you didn’t tell anyone about this,’ said Carlton quickly. ‘Here’s your three dollars, Mr Groat. We wouldn’t want other people stealing our idea, you see.’
‘Lips are sealed, lads,’ said Groat. ‘Don’t you worry about it. You can rely on Groat.’
Carlton was holding the door open. ‘We know we can. Goodbye, Mr Groat.’
Groat heard the door shut behind him as he walked back across the roof. Inside the shed, there seemed to be an argument starting; he heard someone say, ‘What did you have to go and tell him that for?’
That was a bit hurtful, someone thinking that he couldn’t be trusted. And, as he eased his way down the long ladder, Groat wondered if he ought to have pointed out that woodpeckers wouldn’t fly in the dark. It was amazing that bright lads like them hadn’t spotted this flaw. They were, he thought, a bit gullible.

A hundred feet down and a quarter of a mile away as the woodpecker flies during daylight, Moist followed the path of destiny.
Currently, it was leading him through a neighbourhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you’d bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and rubbish were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality rubbish and the graffiti were close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.
And then he saw it. It was one of those hopeless little shop fronts that house enterprises with a lifetime measured in days, like Giant Clearance Sale!!! of socks with two heels each, tights with three legs and shirts with one sleeve, four feet long. The window was boarded over, but just visible behind the graffiti above it were the words: The Golem Trust.
Moist pushed open the door. Glass crunched under his feet.
A voice said, ‘Hands where I can see them, mister!’
He raised his hands cautiously, while peering into the gloom. There was definitely a crossbow being wielded by a dim figure. Such light as had managed to get round the boards glinted off the tip of the bolt.
‘Oh,’ said the voice in the dark, as if mildly annoyed that there was no excuse to shoot anybody. ‘All right, then. We had visitors last night.’
‘The window?’ said Moist.
‘It happens about once a month. I was just sweeping it up.’ There was the scratch of a match, and a lamp was lit. ‘They don’t generally attack the golems themselves, not now there’s free ones around. But glass doesn’t fight back.’
The lamp was turned up, revealing a tall young woman in a tight grey woollen dress, with coal-black hair plastered down so that she looked like a peg doll and forced into a tight bun at the back. There was a slight redness to her eyes that suggested she had been crying.
‘You’re lucky to have caught me,’ she said. ‘I’d only come in to make sure nothing’s been taken. Are you here to sell or to hire? You can put your hands down now,’ she added, placing the crossbow under the counter.
‘Sell or hire?’ said Moist, lowering his hands with care.
‘A golem,’ she said, in a talking-to-the-hard-of-thinking voice. ‘We are the Go-lem Trust. We buy or hire go-lems. Do you want to sell a go-lem or hire a go-lem?’
‘Nei-ther,’ said Moist. ‘I’ve got a go-lem. I mean, one is work-ing for me.’
‘Really? Where?’ said the woman. ‘And we can probably speed up a little, I think.’
‘At the Post Office.’
‘Oh, Pump 19,’ said the woman. ‘He said it was government service.’
‘We call him Mister Pump,’ said Moist primly.
‘Really? And do you get a wonderful warm charitable feeling when you do?’
‘Pardon? What?’ said Moist, bewildered. He wasn’t sure if she was managing the trick of laughing at him behind her frown.
The woman sighed. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit snappish this morning. A brick landing on your desk does that to you. Let’s just say they don’t see the world in the same way as we do, okay? They’ve got feelings, in their own way, but they’re not like ours. Anyway . . . how can I help you, Mr . . . ?’
‘Von Lipwig,’ said Moist, and added: ‘Moist von Lipwig,’ to get the worst over with. But the woman didn’t even smile.
‘Lipwig, small town in Near Uberwald,’ she said, picking up a brick from the broken glass and debris on her desk, regarding it critically, and then turning to the ancient filing cabinet behind her and filing it under B. ‘Chief export: its famous dogs, of course, second most important export its beer, except during the two weeks of Sektober-fest, when it exports . . . second-hand beer, probably?’
‘I don’t know. We left when I was a kid,’ said Moist. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a funny name.’
‘Try Adora Belle Dearheart some time,’ said the woman.
‘Ah. That’s not a funny name,’ said Moist.
‘Quite,’ said Adora Belle Dearheart. ‘I now have no sense of humour whatsoever. Well, now that we’ve been appropriately human towards one another, what exactly was it you wanted?’
‘Look, Vetinari has sort of lumbered me with Mr— with Pump 19 as an . . . an assistant, but I don’t know how to treat . . .’ Moist sought in the woman’s eyes for some clue as to the politically correct term, and plumped for ‘him.’
‘Huh? Just treat him normally.’
‘You mean normally for a human being, or normally for a pottery man filled with fire?’
To Moist’s astonishment Adora Belle Dearheart took a packet of cigarettes out of a desk drawer and lit one. She mistook his expression, and proffered the pack.
‘No, thanks,’ he said, waving it away. Apart from the occasional old lady with a pipe, he’d never seen a woman smoke before. It was . . . strangely attractive, especially since, as it turned out, she smoked a cigarette as if she had a grudge against it, sucking the smoke down and blowing it out almost immediately.
‘You’re getting hung up about it all, right?’ she said. When Ms Dearheart wasn’t smoking she held the cigarette at shoulder height, the elbow of her left arm cupped in her right hand. There was a definite feel about Adora Belle Dearheart that a lid was only barely holding down an entire womanful of anger.
‘Yes! I mean—’ Moist began.
‘Hah! It’s just like the Campaign for Equal Heights and all that patronizing stuff they spout about dwarfs and why we shouldn’t use terms like “small talk” and “feeling small”. Golems don’t have any of our baggage about “who am I, why am I here”, okay? Because they know. They were made to be tools, to be property, to work. Work is what they do. In a way, it’s what they are. End of existential angst.’
Ms Dearheart inhaled and then blew out the smoke in one nervous movement. ‘And then stupid people go around calling them “persons of clay” and “Mr Spanner” and so on, which they find rather strange. They understand about free will. They also understand that they don’t have it. Mind you, once a golem owns himself, it’s a different matter.’
‘Own? How does property own itself?’ said Moist. ‘You said they were—’
‘They save up and buy themselves, of course! Freehold is the only path to freedom they’ll accept. Actually, what happens is that the free golems support the Trust, the Trust buys golems whenever it can, and the new golems then buy themselves from the Trust at cost. It’s working well. The free golems earn twenty-four/eight and there’s more and more of them. They don’t eat, sleep, wear clothes or understand the concept of leisure. The occasional tube of ceramic cement doesn’t cost much. They’re buying more golems every month now, and paying my wages, and the iniquitous rent the landlord of this dump is charging because he knows he’s renting to golems. They never complain, you know. They pay whatever’s asked. They’re so patient it could drive you nuts.’
Tube of ceramic cement, thought Moist. He tried to fix that thought in case it came in useful, but some mental processes were fully occupied with the growing realization of how well some women could look in a severely plain dress.
‘Surely they can’t be damaged, can they?’ he managed.
‘Certainly they can! A sledgehammer on the right spot would really mess one up. Owned golems will just stand there and take it. But the Trust golems are allowed to defend themselves, and when someone weighing a ton snatches a hammer out of your hand you have to let go really quickly.’
‘I think Mr Pump is allowed to hit people,’ said Moist.
‘Quite possibly. A lot of the frees are against that, but others say a tool can’t be blamed for the use to which it’s put,’ said Ms Dearheart. ‘They debate it a lot. For days and days.’
No rings on her fingers, Moist noted. What kind of attractive girl works for a bunch of clay men?
‘This is all fascinating? he said. ‘Where can I find out more?’
‘We do a pamphlet,’ said almost-certainly-Miss Dearheart, pulling open a drawer and flipping a thin booklet on to the desk. ‘It’s five pence.’
The title on the cover was Common Clay.
Moist put down a dollar. ‘Keep the change,’ he said.
‘No!’ said Miss Dearheart, fumbling for coins in the drawer. ‘Didn’t you read what it said over the door?’
‘Yes. It said “SmasH The Barstuds”,’ said Moist.
Miss Dearheart put a hand to her forehead wearily. ‘Oh, yes. The painter hasn’t been yet. But underneath that . . . look, it’s on the back of the pamphlet . . .’
 , Moist read, or at least looked at.
‘It’s one of their own languages,’ she said. ‘It’s all a bit . . . mystic. Said to be spoken by angels. It translates as “By Our Own Hand, Or None”. They’re fiercely independent. You’ve no idea.’
She admires them, Moist thought. Whoo-ee. And . . . angels?
‘Well, thank you,’ he said. ‘I’d better be going. I’ll definitely . . . well, thank you, anyway.’
‘What are you doing at the Post Office, Mr von Lipwig?’ said the woman, as he opened the door.
‘Call me Moist,’ said Moist, and a bit of his inner self shuddered. ‘I’m the new postmaster.’
‘No kidding?’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Then I’m glad you’ve got Pump 19 with you. The last few postmasters didn’t last long, I gather.’
‘I think I heard something about that,’ said Moist cheerfully. ‘It sounds as though things were pretty bad in the olden days.’
Miss Dearheart’s brow wrinkled. ‘Olden days?’ she said. ‘Last month was olden days?’

Lord Vetinari stood looking out of his window. His office had once had a wonderful view of the city and, technically, it still did, although now the roofline was a forest of clacks towers, winking and twinkling in the sunlight. On the Tump, the old castle mound across the river, the big tower, one end of the Grand Trunk that wound more than two thousand miles across the continent to Genua, glittered with semaphore.
It was good to see the lifeblood of trade and commerce and diplomacy pumping so steadily, especially when you employed clerks who were exceptionally good at decryption. White and black by day, light and dark by night, the shutters stopped only for fog and snow.
At least, until the last few months. He sighed, and went back to his desk.
There was a file open. It contained a report from Commander Vimes of the City Watch, with a lot of exclamation marks. It also contained a more measured report from clerk Alfred, and Lord Vetinari had circled the section headed ‘The Smoking Gnu’.
There was a gentle knock at the door and the clerk Drumknott came in like a ghost.
‘The gentlemen from the Grand Trunk semaphore company are all here now, sir,’ he said. He laid down several sheets of paper covered in tiny, intricate lines. Vetinari gave the shorthand a cursory glance.
‘Idle chitchat?’ he said.
‘Yes, my lord. One might say excessively so. But I am certain that the mouth of the speaking tube is quite invisible in the plasterwork, my lord. It’s hidden in a gilt cherub most cunningly, sir. Clerk Brian has built it into its cornucopia, which apparently collects more sounds and can be swivelled to face whoever—’
‘One does not have to see something to know that it is there, Drumknott.’ Vetinari tapped the paper. ‘These are not stupid men. Well, some of them, at least. You have the files?’
Drumknott’s pale face bore for a moment the pained expression of a man forced to betray the high principles of filing.
‘In a manner of speaking, my lord. We actually have nothing substantial about any of the allegations, we really haven’t. We’re running a Concludium in the Long Gallery, but it’s all hearsay, sir, I’m afraid. There’s . . . hints, here and there, but really we need something more solid . . .’
‘There will be an opportunity,’ said Vetinari. Being an absolute ruler today was not as simple as people thought. At least, it was not simple if your ambitions included being an absolute ruler tomorrow. There were subtleties. Oh, you could order men to smash down doors and drag people off to dungeons without trial, but too much of that sort of thing lacked style and anyway was bad for business, habit-forming and very, very dangerous for your health. A thinking tyrant, it seemed to Vetinari, had a much harder job than a ruler raised to power by some idiot vote-yourself-rich system like democracy. At least they could tell the people he was their fault.
‘. . . we would not normally have started individual folders at this time,’ Drumknott was agonizing. ‘You see, I’d merely have referenced them on the daily—’
‘Your concern is, as ever, exemplary,’ said Vetinari. ‘I see, however, that you have prepared some folders.’
‘Yes, my lord. I have bulked some of them out with copies of clerk Harold’s analysis of pig production in Genua, sir.’ Drumknott looked unhappy as he handed over the card folders. Deliberate misfiling ran fingernails down the blackboard of his very soul.
‘Very good,’ said Vetinari. He put them on his desk, pulled another folder out of a desk drawer to place on top of them, and moved some other papers to cover the small pile. ‘Now please show our visitors in.’
‘Mr Slant is with them, my lord,’ said the clerk.
Vetinari smiled his mirthless smile. ‘How surprising.’
‘And Mr Reacher Gilt,’ Drumknott added, watching his master carefully.
‘Of course,’ said Vetinari.
When the financiers filed in a few minutes later the conference table at one end of the room was clear and gleaming, except for a paper pad and the pile of files. Vetinari himself was standing at the window again.
‘Ah, gentlemen. So kind of you to come for this little chat,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying the view.’
He turned round sharply, and confronted a row of puzzled faces, except for two. One was grey and belonged to Mr Slant, who was the most renowned, expensive and certainly the oldest lawyer in the city. He had been a zombie for many years, although apparently the change in habits between life and death had not been marked. The other face belonged to a man with one eye and one black eye-patch, and it smiled like a tiger.
‘It’s particularly refreshing to see the Grand Trunk back in operation,’ said Vetinari, ignoring that face. T believe it was shut down all day yesterday. I was only thinking to myself that it was such a shame, the Grand Trunk being so vital to us all, and so regrettable that there’s only one of it. Sadly, I understand the backers of the New Trunk are now in disarray, which, of course, leaves the Grand Trunk operating in solitary splendour and your company, gentlemen, unchallenged. Oh, what am I thinking of? Do be seated, gentlemen.’
He gave Mr Slant another friendly smile as he took his seat.
‘I don’t believe I know all these gentlemen,’ he said.
Mr Slant sighed. ‘My lord, let me present Mr Greenyham of Ankh-Sto Associates, who is the Grand Trunk Company’s treasurer, Mr Nutmeg of Sto Plains Holdings, Mr Horsefry of the Ankh-Morpork Mercantile Credit Bank, Mr Stowley of Ankh Futures (Financial Advisers) and Mr Gilt—’
‘—all by himself,’ said the one-eyed man calmly.
‘Ah, Mr Reacher Gilt,’ said Vetinari, looking directly at him. ‘I’m so . . . pleased to meet you at last.’
‘You don’t come to my parties, my lord,’ said Gilt.
‘Do excuse me. Affairs of state take up so much of my time,’ said Lord Vetinari brusquely.
‘We should all make time to unwind, my lord. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as they say.’
Several of the assembly paused in their breathing when they heard this, but Vetinari merely looked blank.
‘Interesting,’ he said.
He riffled through the files and opened one of them. ‘Now, my staff have prepared some notes for me, from information publicly available down at the Barbican,’ he said to the lawyer. ‘Directorships, for example. Of course, the mysterious world of finance is a closed, aha, ledger to me, but it seems to me that some of your clients work, as it were, for each other?’
‘Yes, my lord?’ said Slant.
‘Is that normal?’
‘Oh, it is quite common for people with particular expertise to be on the board of several companies, my lord.’
‘Even if the companies are rivals?’ said Vetinari.
There were smiles from around the table. Most of the financiers settled a little more easily in their chairs. The man was clearly a fool about business matters. What did he know about compound interest, eh? He’d been classically educated. And then they remembered his education had been at the Assassins’ Guild School, and stopped smiling. But Mr Gilt stared intently at Vetinari.
‘There are ways - extremely honourable ways - of assuring confidentiality and avoiding conflicts of interest, my lord,’ said Mr Slant.
‘Ah, this would be . . . what is it now . . . the glass ceiling?’ said Lord Vetinari brightly.
‘No, my lord. That is something else. I believe you may be thinking about the “Agatean Wall”,’ said Mr Slant smoothly. ‘This carefully and successfully ensures that there will be no breach of confidentiality should, for example, one part of an organization come into possession of privileged information which could conceivably be used by another department for unethical gain.’
‘This is fascinating! How does it work, exactly?’ said Vetinari.
‘People agree not to do it,’ said Mr Slant.
‘I’m sorry? I thought you said there is a wall—’ said Vetinari.
‘That’s just a name, my lord. For agreeing not to do it.’
‘Ah? And they do? How wonderful. Even though in this case the invisible wall must pass through the middle of their brains?’
‘We have a Code of Conduct, you know!’ said a voice.
All eyes except those belonging to Mr Slant turned to the speaker, who had been fidgeting in his chair. Mr Slant was a long-time student of the Patrician, and when his subject appeared to be a confused civil servant asking innocent questions it was time to watch him closely.
‘I’m very glad to hear it, Mr . . . ?’ Vetinari began.
‘Crispin Horsefry, my lord, and I don’t like the tone of your questioning!’
For a moment it seemed that even the chairs themselves edged away from him. Mr Horsefry was a youngish man, not simply running to fat but vaulting, leaping and diving towards obesity. He had acquired at thirty an impressive selection of chins, and now they wobbled with angry pride.*

* It is wrong to judge by appearances. Despite his expression, which was that of a piglet having a bright idea, and his mode of speech, which might put you in mind of a small, breathless, neurotic but ridiculously expensive dog, Mr Horsefry might well have been a kind, generous and pious man In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in the wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wandered in out of the rain Snap judgements can be so unfair.

‘I do have a number of other tones,’ said Lord Vetinari calmly.
Mr Horsefry looked around at his colleagues, who were somehow, suddenly, on the distant horizon.
‘I just wanted to make it clear that we’ve done nothing wrong,’ he muttered. ‘That’s all. There is a Code of Conduct.’
‘I’m sure I’ve not suggested that you have done anything wrong,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘However, I shall make a note of what you tell me.’
He pulled a sheet of paper towards him and wrote, in a careful copperplate hand, ‘Code of Conduct’. The shifting of the paper exposed a file marked ‘Embezzlement’. The title was of course upside down to the rest of the group and, since presumably it was not intended to be read by them, they read it. Horsefry even twisted his head for a better view.
‘However,’ Vetinari went on, ‘since the question of wrongdoing has been raised by Mr Horsefry,’ and he gave the young man a brief smile, ‘I am sure you are aware of talk suggesting a conspiracy amongst yourselves to keep rates high and competition non-existent.’ The sentence came out fast and smooth, like a snake’s tongue, and the swift flick on the end of it was: ‘And, indeed, some rumours about the death of young Mr Dearheart last month.’
A stir among the semicircle of men said that the shoe had been dropped. It wasn’t a welcome shoe, but it was a shoe they had been expecting and it had just gone thud.
‘An actionable falsehood,’ said Slant.
‘On the contrary, Mr Slant,’ said Vetinari, ‘merely mentioning to you the existence of a rumour is not actionable, as I am sure you are aware.’
‘There is no proof that we had anything to do with the boy’s murder,’ snapped Horsefry.
‘Ah, so you too have heard people saying he was murdered?’ said Vetinari, his eyes on Reacher Gilt’s face. ‘These rumours just fly around, don’t they . . .’
‘My lord, people talk,’ said Slant wearily. ‘But the facts are that Mr Dearheart was alone in the tower. No one else went up or down. His safety line was apparently not clipped to anything. It was an accident, such as happens often. Yes, we know people say his fingers were broken, but with a fall of that distance, hitting the tower on the way, can that really be surprising? Alas, the Grand Trunk Company is not popular at the moment and so these scurrilous and baseless accusations are made. As Mr Horsefry pointed out, there is no evidence whatsoever that what happened was anything more than a tragic accident. And, if I may speak frankly, what exactly is the purpose of calling us here? My clients are busy men.’
Vetinari leaned back and placed his fingers together.
‘Let us consider a situation in which some keen and highly inventive men devise a remarkable system of communication,’ he said. ‘What they have is a kind of passionate ingenuity, in large amounts. What they don’t have is money. They are not used to money. So they meet some . . . people, who introduce them to other people, friendly people, who for, oh, a forty per cent stake in the enterprise give them the much-needed cash and, very important, much fatherly advice and an introduction to a really good firm of accountants. And so they proceed, and soon money is coming in and money is going out but somehow, they learn, they’re not quite as financially stable as they think and really do need more money. Well, this is all fine because it’s clear to all that the basic enterprise is going to be a money tree one day, and does it matter if they sign over another fifteen per cent? It’s just money. It’s not important in the way that shutter mechanisms are, is it? And then they find out that yes, it is. It is everything. Suddenly the world’s turned upside down, suddenly those nice people aren’t so friendly any more, suddenly it turns out that those bits of paper they signed in a hurry, were advised to sign by people who smiled all the time, mean that they don’t actually own anything at all, not patents, not property, nothing. Not even the contents of their own heads, indeed. Even any ideas they have now don’t belong to them, apparently. And somehow they’re still in trouble about money. Well, some run and some hide and some try to fight, which is foolish in the extreme, because it turns out that everything is legal, it really is. Some accept low-level jobs in the enterprise, because one has to live and in any case the enterprise even owns their dreams at night. And yet actual illegality, it would appear, has not taken place. Business is business.’
Lord Vetinari opened his eyes. The men around the table were staring at him.
‘Just thinking aloud,’ he said. ‘I am sure you will point out that this is not the business of the government. I know Mr Gilt will. However, since you acquired the Grand Trunk at a fraction of its value, I note that breakdowns are increasing, the speed of messages has slowed down and the cost to customers has risen. Last week the Grand Trunk was closed for almost three days. We could not even talk to Sto Lat! Hardly “As Fast as Light”, gentlemen.’
‘That was for essential maintenance—’ Mr Slant began.
‘No, it was for repairs,’ snapped Vetinari. ‘Under the previous management the system shut down for an hour every day. That was for maintenance. Now the towers run until they break down. What do you think you are doing, gentlemen?’
‘That, my lord, and with respect, is none of your business.’
Lord Vetinari smiled. For the first time that morning, it was a smile of genuine pleasure.
‘Ah, Mr Reacher Gilt, I was wondering when we’d hear from you. You have been so uncharacteristically silent. I read your recent article in the Times with great interest. You are passionate about freedom, I gather. You used the word “tyranny” three times and the word “tyrant” once.’
‘Don’t patronize me, my lord,’ said Gilt. ‘We own the Trunk. It is our property. You understand that? Property is the foundation of freedom. Oh, customers complain about the service and the cost, but customers always complain about such things. We have no shortage of customers at whatever cost. Before the semaphore, news from Genua took months to get here, now it takes less than a day. It is affordable magic. We are answerable to our shareholders, my lord. Not, with respect, to you. It is not your business. It is our business, and we will run it according to the market. I hope there are no tyrannies here. This is, with respect, a free city.’
‘Such a lot of respect is gratifying,’ said the Patrician. ‘But the only choice your customers have is between you and nothing.’
‘Exactly,’ said Reacher Gilt calmly. ‘There is always a choice. They can ride a horse a few thousand miles, or they can wait patiently until we can send their message.’
Vetinari gave him a smile that lasted as long as a lightning flash.
‘Or fund and build another system,’ he said. ‘Although I note that every other company that has lately tried to run a clacks system in opposition has failed quite quickly, sometimes in distressing circumstances. Falls from the tops of clacks towers, and so on.’
‘Accidents do happen. It is most unfortunate,’ said Mr Slant stiffly.
‘Most unfortunate,’ Vetinari echoed. He pulled the paper towards him once again, dislodging the files slightly, so that a few more names were visible, and wrote ‘Most unfortunate’.
‘Well, I believe that covers everything,’ he said. ‘In fact, the purpose of this meeting was to tell you formally that I am, at last, reopening the Post Office as planned. This is just a courtesy announcement, but I felt I should tell you because you are, after all, in the same business. I believe the recent string of accidents is now at an en—’
Reacher Gilt chuckled. ‘Sorry, my lord? Did I understand you correctly? You really intend to continue with this folly, in the face of everything? The Post Office? When we all know that it was a lumbering, smug, overstaffed, overweight monster of a place? It barely earned its keep! It was the very essence and exemplar of public enterprise!’
‘It never made much of a profit, it is true, but in the business areas of this city there were seven deliveries a day,’ said Vetinari, cold as the depths of the sea.
‘Hah! Not at the end!’ said Mr Horsefry. ‘It was bloody useless!’
‘Indeed. A classic example of a corroded government organization dragging on the public purse,’ Gilt added.
‘Too true!’ said Mr Horsefry. ‘They used to say that if you wanted to get rid of a dead body you should take it to the Post Office and it’d never be seen again!’
‘And was it?’ said Lord Vetinari, raising an eyebrow.
‘Was what?’
‘Was it seen again?’
There was a sudden hunted look in Mr Horsefry’s eyes. ‘What? How would I know?’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘It was a joke. Ah, well.’ He shuffled the papers. ‘Unfortunately the Post Office came to be seen not as a system for moving the mail efficiently, to the benefit and profit of all, but as a money box. And so it collapsed, losing both mail and money. A lesson for us all, perhaps. Anyway, I have high hopes of Mr Lipwig, a young man full of fresh ideas. A good head for heights, too, although I imagine he will not be climbing any towers.’
‘I do hope this resurrection will not prove to be a drain on our taxes,’ said Mr Slant.
‘I assure you, Mr Slant, that apart from the modest sum necessary to, as it were, prime the pump, the postal service will be self-supporting as, indeed, it used to be. We cannot have a drag on the public purse, can we? And now, gentlemen, I am conscious that I am keeping you from your very important business. I do trust that the Trunk will be back in commission very shortly’
As they stood up, Reacher Gilt leaned across the table and said: ‘May I congratulate you, my lord?’
‘I am delighted that you feel inclined to congratulate me on anything, Mr Gilt,’ said Vetinari. ‘To what do we owe this unique occurrence?’
‘This, my lord,’ said Gilt, gesturing to the little side table on which had been set the rough-hewn piece of stone. ‘Is this not an original Hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl slab? Llamedos bluestone, isn’t it? And the pieces look like basalt, which is the very devil to carve. A valuable antique, I think.’
‘It was a present to me from the Low King of the Dwarfs,’ said Vetinari. ‘It is, indeed, very old.’
‘And you have a game in progress, I see. You’re playing the dwarf side, yes?’
‘Yes. I play by clacks against an old friend in Uberwald,’ said Vetinari. ‘Happily for me, your breakdown yesterday has given me an extra day to think of my next move.’
Their eyes met. Reacher Gilt laughed hugely. Vetinari smiled. The other men, who badly needed to laugh, laughed too. See, we’re all friends, we’re like colleagues really, nothing bad is going to happen.
The laughter died away, a little uneasily. Gilt and Vetinari maintained smiles, maintained eye contact.
‘We should play a game,’ said Gilt. ‘I have a rather nice board myself. I play the troll side, for preference.’
‘Ruthless, initially outnumbered, inevitably defeated in the hands of the careless player?’ said Vetinari.
‘Indeed. Just as the dwarfs rely on guile, feint and swift changes of position. A man can learn all of an opponent’s weaknesses on that board,’ said Gilt.
‘Really?’ said Vetinari, raising his eyebrows. ‘Should he not be trying to learn his own?’
‘Oh, that’s just Thud! That’s easy!’ yapped a voice.
Both men turned to look at Horsefry, who had been made perky by sheer relief.
‘I used to play it when I was a kid,’ he burbled. ‘It’s boring. The dwarfs always win!’
Gilt and Vetinari shared a look. It said: while I loathe you and every aspect of your personal philosophy to a depth unplumbable by any line, I’ll credit you at least with not being Crispin Horsefry.
‘Appearances are deceptive, Crispin,’ said Gilt jovially. ‘A troll player need never lose, if he puts his mind to it.’
‘I know I once got a dwarf stuck up my nose and Mummy had to get it out with a hairpin,’ said Horsefry, as if this was a source of immense pride.
Gilt put his arm round the man’s shoulders. ‘That’s very interesting, Crispin,’ he said. ‘Do you think it’s likely to happen again?’
Vetinari stood at the window after they had left, watching the city below. After a few minutes, Drumknott drifted in.
‘There was a brief exchange in the ante-room, my lord,’ he said.
Vetinari didn’t turn round, but held up a hand. ‘Let me see . . . I imagine one of them started saying something like “Do you think he—” and Slant very quickly shushed him? Mr Horsefry, I suspect.’
Drumknott glanced at the paper in his hand. ‘Almost to the word, my lord.’
‘It takes no great leap of the imagination,’ sighed Lord Vetinari. ‘Dear Mr Slant. He’s so . . . dependable. Sometimes I really think that if he was not already a zombie it would be necessary to have him turned into one.’
‘Shall I order a Number One Investigation on Mr Gilt, my lord?’
‘Good heavens, no. He is far too clever. Order it on Mr Horsefry.’
‘Really, sir? But you did say yesterday that you believed him to be no more than a greedy fool.’
A nervous fool, which is useful. He’s a venal coward and a glutton. I’ve watched him sit down to a meal of pot au feu with white beans, and that was an impressive sight, Drumknott, which I will not easily forget. The sauce went everywhere. Those pink shirts he wears cost more than a hundred dollars, too. Oh, he acquires other people’s money, in a safe and secret and not very clever way. Send . . . yes, send clerk Brian.’
‘Brian, sir?’ said Drumknott. ‘Are you sure? He’s wonderful at devices, but quite inept on the street. He’ll be seen.’
‘Yes, Drumknott. I know. I would like Mr Horsefry to become a little . . . more nervous.’
‘Ah, I see, sir.’
Vetinari turned back to the window. ‘Tell me, Drumknott,’ he said, ‘would you say I’m a tyrant?’
‘Most certainly not, my lord,’ said Drumknott, tidying the desk.
‘But of course that’s the problem, is it not? Who will tell the tyrant he is a tyrant?’
‘That’s a tricky one, my lord, certainly,’ said Drumknott, squaring up the files.
‘In his Thoughts, which I have always considered fare badly in translation, Bouffant says that intervening in order to prevent a murder is to curtail the freedom of the murderer and yet that freedom, by definition, is natural and universal, without condition,’ said Vetinari. ‘You may recall his famous dictum: “If any man is not free, then I too am a small pie made of chicken”, which has led to a considerable amount of debate. Thus we might consider, for example, that taking a bottle from a man killing himself with drink is a charitable, nay, praiseworthy act, and yet freedom is curtailed once more. Mr Gilt has studied his Bouffant but, I fear, failed to understand him. Freedom may be mankind’s natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling. On the other hand, Freidegger, in Modal Contextities, claims that all freedom is limited, artificial and therefore illusory, a shared hallucination at best. No sane mortal is truly free, because true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes. It overwhelms the soul, very much like the state he elsewhere describes as Vonallesvolkommenunverstandlic hdasdaskeit. What position would you take here, Drumknott?’
‘I’ve always thought, my lord, that what the world really needs are filing boxes which are not so flimsy,’ said Drumknott, after a moment’s pause.
‘Hmm,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘A point to think about, certainly.’
He stopped. On the carven decorations over the room’s fireplace a small cherub began to turn, with a faint squeaking noise. Vetinari raised an eyebrow at Drumknott.
‘I shall have a word with clerk Brian immediately, my lord,’ said the clerk.
‘Good. Tell him it’s time he got out into the fresh air more.’

Chapter Four

A Sign

Dark Clerks and dead Postmasters - A Werewolf in the Watch - The
wonderful pin - Mr Lipwig reads letters that are not there — Hugo the
hairdresser is surprised — Mr Parker buys fripperies — The Nature of
Social Untruths - Princess in the Tower - A man is not dead while his
name is still spoken.’

‘Ntow Then, Mr Lipvig, What Good Will Violence Do?’ Mr Pump rumbled. He rocked on his huge feet as Moist struggled in his grip.
Groat and Stanley were huddled at the far end of the locker room.
One of Mr Groat’s natural remedies was bubbling over on to the floor, where the boards were staining purple.
‘They were all accidents, Mr Lipwig! All accidents!’ Groat babbled. ‘The Watch was all over the place by the fourth one! They were all accidents, they said!’
‘Oh, yes!’ screamed Moist. ‘Four in five weeks, eh? I bet that happens all the time around here! Ye gods, I’ve been done up good and brown! I’m dead, right? Just not lying down yet! Vetinari? There’s a man who knows how to save the price of a rope! I’m done for!’
‘You’ll feel better for a nice cup o’ bismuth and brimstone tea, sir,’ Groat quavered. ‘I’ve got the kettle boiling—’
‘A cup of tea is not going to be sufficient!’ Moist got a grip on himself, or at least began to act as if he had, and took a deep, theatrical breath. ‘Okay, okay, Mr Pump, you can let go now.’
The golem released his grip. Moist straightened up. ‘Well, Mr Groat?’ he said.
‘Looks like you’re genuine after all, then,’ the old man said. ‘One of the dark clerks wouldn’t have gone bursar like that. We thought you was one of his lordship’s special gentlemen, see.’ Groat fussed around the kettle. ‘No offence, but you’ve got a bit more colour than the average penpusher.’
‘Dark clerks?’ said Moist, and then recollection dawned. ‘Oh . . . do you mean those stocky little men in black suits and bowler hats?’
‘The very same. Scholarship boys at the Assassins’ Guild, some of ‘em. I heard that they can do some nasty things when they’ve a mind.’
‘I thought you called them penpushers?’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t say where, heehee.’ Groat caught Moist’s expression and coughed. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean it, just my little joke. We reckon the last new postmaster we had, Mr Whobblebury, he was a dark clerk. Can’t hardly blame him, with a name like that. He was always snooping around.’
‘And why do you think that was?’ said Moist.
‘Well, Mr Mutable, he was the first, decent chap, he fell down into the big hall from the fifth floor, smack, sir, smack on to the marble. Head first. It was a bit . . . splashy, sir.’
Moist glanced at Stanley, who was starting to tremble.
‘Then there was Mr Sideburn. He fell down the back stairs and broke his neck, sir. Excuse me, sir, it’s eleven forty-three.’ Groat walked over to the door and opened it, Tiddles walked through, Groat shut the door again. ‘At three in the morning, it was. Right down five flights. Broke just about every bone you could break, sir.’
‘You mean he was wandering around without a light?’
‘Dunno, sir. But I know about the stairs. The stairs have lamps burning all night, sir. Stanley fills them every day, regular as Tiddles.’
‘Use those stairs a lot, then, do you?’ said Moist.
‘Never, sir, except for the lamps. Nearly everywhere on that side is bunged up with mail. But it’s a Post Office Regulation, sir.’
‘And the next man?’ said Moist, a little hoarsely. ‘Another accidental fall?’
‘Oh, no, sir. Mr Ignavia, that was his name. They said it was his heart. He was just lyin’ dead on the fifth floor, dead as a doorknob, face all contorted like he’d seen a ghost. Natural causes, they said. Werrrl, the Watch was all over the place by then, you may depend on it. No one had been near him, they said, and there was not a mark on him. Surprised you didn’t know about all this, sir. It was in the paper.’
Except you don’t get much chance to keep up with the news in a condemned cell, Moist thought.
‘Oh yes?’ he said. ‘And how would they know no one had been near him?’
Groat leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘Everyone knows there’s a werewolf in the Watch and one of them could bloody nearly smell what colour clothes someone was wearing.’
‘A werewolf,’ said Moist, flatly.
‘Yes. Anyway, the one before him—’
‘A werewolf.’
‘That’s what I said, sir,’ said Groat.
‘A damn werewolf.’
‘Takes all sorts to make a world, sir. Anyway—’
‘A werewolf.’ Moist awoke from the horror. ‘And they don’t tell visitors?’
‘Now, how’d they do that, sir?’ said Groat, in a kindly voice. ‘Put it on a sign outside? “Welcome To Ankh-Morpork, We Have A Werewolf”, sir? The Watch’s got loads of dwarfs and trolls and a golem - a free golem, savin’ your presence, Mr Pump - and a couple of gnomes and a zombie . . . even a Nobbs.’
‘Nobbs? What’s a Nobbs?’
‘Corporal Nobby Nobbs, sir. Not met him yet? They say he’s got an official chitty saying he’s human, and who needs one of those, eh? Fortunately there’s only one of him so he can’t breed. Anyway, we’ve got a bit of everything, sir. Very cosmopolitan. You don’t like werewolves?’
They know who you are by your smell, thought Moist. They’re as bright as a human and can track you better than any wolf. They can follow a trail that’s days old, even if you cover yourself with scent - especially if you cover yourself with scent. Oh, there’s ways around, if you know there is going to be a werewolf on your tail. No wonder they caught up with me. There should be a law!
‘Not a lot,’ he said aloud, and glanced at Stanley again. It was useful to watch Stanley when Groat was talking. Now the boy had his eyes turned up so much that they were practically all whites.
‘And Mr Whobblebury?’ he said. ‘He was investigating for Vetinari, eh? What happened to him?’
Stanley was shaking like a bush in a high wind.
‘Er, you did get given the big keyring, sir?’ Groat enquired, his voice trembling with innocence.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I bet there is one key missing,’ said Groat. ‘The Watch took it. It was the only one. Some doors ought to stay closed, sir. It’s all over and done with, sir. Mr Whobblebury died of an industrial accident, they said. Nobody near him. You don’t want to go there, sir. Sometimes things get so broke it’s best to walk away, sir.’
‘I can’t,’ said Moist. ‘I am the Postmaster General. And this is my building, isn’t it? I’ll decide where I go, Junior Postman Groat.’
Stanley shut his eyes.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Groat, as if talking to a child. ‘But you don’t want to go there-, sir.’
‘His head was all over the wall!’ Stanley quavered.
‘Oh dear, now you’ve set him off, sir,’ said Groat, scuttling across to the boy. ‘It’s all right, lad, I’ll just get you your pills—’
‘What is the most expensive pin ever made commercially, Stanley?’ said Moist quickly.
It was like pulling a lever. Stanley’s expression went from agonized grief to scholarly cogitation in an instant.
‘Commercially? Leaving aside those special pins made for exhibitions and trade shows, including the Great Pin of 1899, then probably it is the Number Three Broad-headed “Chicken” Extra Long made for the lace-making market by the noted pinner Josiah Doldrum, I would say. They were hand-drawn and had his trademark silver head with a microscopic engraving of a cockerel. It’s believed that fewer than a hundred were made before his death, sir. According to Hubert Spider’s Pin Catalogue, examples can fetch between fifty and sixty-five dollars, depending on condition. A Number Three Broad-headed Extra Long would grace any true pinhead’s collection.’
‘Only . . . I spotted this in the street,’ said Moist, extracting one of that morning’s purchases from his lapel. ‘I was walking down Market Street and there it was, between two cobblestones. I thought it looked unusual. For a pin.’
Stanley pushed away the fussing Groat and carefully took the pin from Moist’s fingers. A very large magnifying glass appeared as if by magic in his other hand.
The room held its breath as the pin was subjected to serious scrutiny. Then Stanley looked up at Moist in amazement.
‘You knew?’ he said. ‘And you spotted this in the street? I thought you didn’t know anything about pins!’
‘Oh, not really, but I dabbled a bit as a boy,’ said Moist, waving a hand deprecatingly to suggest that he had been too foolish to turn a schoolboy hobby into a lifetime’s obsession. ‘You know . . . a few of the old brass Imperials, one or two oddities like an unbroken pair or a double-header, the occasional cheap packet of mixed pins on approval . . .’ Thank the gods, he thought, for the skill of speed-reading.
‘Oh, there’s never anything worthwhile in those,’ said Stanley, and slid again into the voice of the academic: ‘While most pinheads do indeed begin with a casually acquired flashy novelty pin, followed by the contents of their grandmothers’ pincushions, haha, the path to a truly worthwhile collection lies not in the simple disbursement of money in the nearest pin emporium, oh no. Any dilettante can become “king pin” with enough expenditure, but for the true pinhead the real pleasure is in the joy of the chase, the pin fairs, the house clearances and, who knows, a casual glint in the gutter that turns out to be a well-preserved Doublefast or an unbroken two-pointer. Well is it said: “See a pin and pick it up, and all day long you’ll have a pin”.’
Moist nearly applauded. It was word for word what J. Lanugo Owlsbury had written in the introduction to his work. And, much more important, he now had an unshakable friend in Stanley. That was to say, his darker regions added, Stanley was friends with him. The boy, his panic subsumed by the joy of pins, was holding his new acquisition up to the light.
‘Magnificent,’ he breathed, all terrors fled. ‘Clean as a new pin! I have a place ready and waiting for this in my pin folder, sir!’
‘Yes, I thought you might.’
His head was all over the wall . . .
Somewhere there was a locked door, and Moist didn’t have the key. Four of his predecessors had predeceased in this very building. And there was no escape. Being Postmaster General was a job for life - one way or the other. That was why Vetinari had put him here. He needed a man who couldn’t walk away, and who was incidentally completely expendable. It didn’t matter if Moist von Lipwig died. He was already dead.
And then he tried not to think about Mr Pump.
How many other golems had worked their way to freedom in the service of the city? Had there been a Mr Saw, fresh from a hundred years in a pit of sawdust? Or Mr Shovel? Mr Axe, maybe?
And had there been one here when the last poor guy had found the key to the locked door, or a good lockpick, and was about to open it when behind him someone called maybe Mr Hammer, yes, oh gods, yes, raised his fist for one sudden, terminal blow?
No one had been near him? But they weren’t people, were they . . . they were tools. It’d be an industrial accident.
His head was all over the wall . . .
I’m going to find out about this. I have to, otherwise it’ll lie in wait for me. And everyone will tell me lies. But I am the fibbermeister.
‘Hmm?’ he said, aware that he’d missed something.
‘I said, could I go and put this in my collection, Postmaster?’ said Stanley.
‘What? Oh. Yes. Fine. Yes. Give it a really good polish, too.’
As the boy gangled off to his end of the locker room, and he did gangle, Moist caught Groat looking at him shrewdly.
‘Well done, Mr Lipwig,’ he said. ‘Well done.’
‘Thank you, Mr Groat.’
‘Good eyesight you’ve got there,’ the old man went on.
‘Well, the light was shining off it—’
‘Nah, I meant to see cobbles in Market Street, it being all brick-paving up there.’
Moist returned his blank stare with one even blanker. ‘Bricks, cobbles, who cares?’ he said.
‘Yeah, right. Not important, really,’ said Groat.
‘And now,’ said Moist, feeling the need for some fresh air, ‘there’s a little errand I have to run. I’d like you to come with me, Mr Groat. Can you find a crowbar anywhere? Bring it, please. And I’ll need you, too, Mr Pump.’
Werewolves and golems, golems and werewolves, Moist thought. I’m stuck here. I might as well take it seriously.
I will show them a sign.

‘There’s a little habit I have,’ said Moist, as he led the way through the streets. ‘It’s to do with signs.’
‘Signs, sir?’ said Groat, trying to keep close to the walls.
‘Yes, Junior Postman Groat, signs,’ said Moist, noticing the way the man winced at ‘Junior’. ‘Particularly signs with missing letters. When I see one, I automatically read what the missing letters say.’
‘And how can you do that, sir, when they’re missing?’ said Groat.
Ah, so there’s a clue as to why you’re still sitting in a run-down old building making tea from rocks and weeds all day, Moist thought. Aloud he said: ‘It’s a knack. Now, I could be wrong, of course, but— Ah, we turn left here . . .’
This was quite a busy street, and the shop was in front of them. It was everything that Moist had hoped.
‘Voila,’ he said and, remembering his audience, he added: ‘That is to say, there we have it.’
‘It’s a barber’s shop,’ said Groat uncertainly. ‘For ladies.’
‘Ah, you’re a man of the world, Tolliver, there’s no fooling you,’ said Moist. And the name over the window, in those large, blue-green letters, is . . . ?’
‘Hugos,’ said Groat. ‘And?’
‘Yes, Hugo’s,’ said Moist. ‘No apostrophe present in fact, and the reason for this is . . . you could work with me a little here, perhaps . . . ?’
‘Er . . .’ Groat stared frantically at the letters, defying them to reveal their meaning.
‘Close enough,’ said Moist. ‘There is no apostrophe there because there was and is no apostrophe in the uplifting slogan that adorns our beloved Post Office, Mr Groat.’ He waited for light to dawn. ‘Those big metal letters were stolen from our facade, Mr Groat. I mean, the front of the building. They’re the reason for Glom of Nit, Mr Groat.’
It took a little time for Mr Groat’s mental sunrise to take place, but Moist was ready when it did.
‘No, no, no!’ he said, grabbing the old man’s greasy collar as he lurched forward, and almost pulling Groat off his feet. ‘That’s not how we deal with this, is it?’
‘That’s Post Office property! That’s worse’n stealing, that is! That’s treason!’ Groat yelled.
‘Quite so,’ said Moist. ‘Mr Pump, if you would just hold on to our friend here, I will go and . . . discuss the matter.’ Moist handed over the furious Junior Postman and brushed himself off. He looked a bit rumpled but it would have to do.
‘What are you going to do, then?’ said Groat.
Moist smiled his sunshine smile. ‘Something I’m good at, Mr Groat. I’m going to talk to people.’
He crossed the road and opened the shop door. The bell jangled.
Inside the hairdresser’s shop was an array of little booths, and the air smelled sweet and cloying and, somehow, pink; right by the door was a little desk with a big open diary. There were lots of flowers around, and the young woman at the desk gave him a haughty look that was going to cost her employer a lot of money.
She waited for Moist to speak.
Moist put on a grave expression, leaned down and said in a voice that had all the characteristics of a whisper but also seemed to be able to carry quite a long way, ‘Can I see Mr Hugo, please? It is very important.’
‘On what business would that be?’
‘Well . . . it’s a little delicate . . .’ said Moist. He could see the tops of permed heads turning. ‘But you can tell him it’s good news.’
‘Well, if it’s good news . . .’
‘Tell him I think I can persuade Lord Vetinari that this can be settled without charges being brought. Probably,’ said Moist, lowering his voice just enough to increase the curiosity of the customers while not so much as to be inaudible.
The woman stared at him in horror.
‘You can? Er . . .’ She groped for an ornate speaking tube, but Moist took it gently from her hand, whistled expertly down it, lifted it to his ear and flashed her a smile.
‘Thank you,’ he said. For what did not matter; smile, say the right kinds of words in the right kind of voice, and always, always radiate confidence like a supernova.
A voice in his ear, faint as a spider trapped in a matchbox, said: ‘Scitich wabble nabnab?’
‘Hugo?’ said Moist. ‘It’s good of you to make time for me. It’s Moist, Moist von Lipwig. Postmaster General.’ He glanced at the speaking tube. It disappeared into the ceiling. ‘So kind of you to assist us, Hugo. It’s these missing letters. Five missing letters, to be exact.’
‘Scrik? Shabadatwik? Scritch vit bottofix!’
‘Don’t really carry that kind of thing, Hugo, but if you’d care to look out of your window you’ll see my personal assistant, Mr Pump. He’s standing on the other side of the street.’
And he’s eight feet tall and carrying a huge crowbar, Moist added mentally. He winked at the lady sitting at the desk, who was watching him in a kind of awe. You had to keep people skills polished at all times.
He heard the muffled expletive through the floor. Via the speaking tube it became ‘Vugrs nickbibble!’
‘Yes,’ said Moist. ‘Perhaps I should come up and speak to you directly . . .’

Ten minutes later Moist crossed the road with care and smiled at his staff. ‘Mr Pump, if you would be so good as to step over there and pry out our letters, please?’ he said. ‘Try not to damage anything. Mr Hugo has been very co-operative. And Tolliver, you’ve lived here a long time, haven’t you? You’ll know where to hire men with ropes, steeplejacks, that sort of thing? I want those letters back on our building by midday, okay?’
‘That’ll cost a lot of money, Mr Lipwig,’ said Groat, staring at him in amazement. Moist pulled a bag out of his pocket, and jingled it.
‘One hundred dollars should more than cover it?’ he said. ‘Mr Hugo was very apologetic and very, very inclined to be helpful. Says he bought them years ago off a man in a pub and is only too happy to pay for them to be returned. It’s amazing how nice people can be, if approached in the right way.’
There was a clang from the other side of the street. Mr Pump had already removed the H, without any apparent effort.
Speak softly and employ a huge man with a crowbar, thought Moist. This might be bearable after all.

The weak sunlight glinted on the S as it was swung into position. There was quite a crowd. People in Ankh-Morpork always paid attention to people on rooftops, in case there was a chance of an interesting suicide. There was a cheer, just on general principles, when the last letter was hammered back into place.
Four dead men, Moist thought, looking up at the roof. I wonder if the Watch would talk to me? Do they know about me? Do they think I’m dead? Do I want to speak to policemen? No! Damn! The only way I can get out of this is by running forward, not going back. Bloody, bloody Vetinari. But there’s a way to win.
He could make money!
He was part of the government, wasn’t he? Governments took money off people. That’s what they were for.
He had people skills, hadn’t he? He could persuade people that brass was gold that had got a bit tarnished, that glass was diamond, that tomorrow there was going to be free beer.
He’d outfox them all! He wouldn’t try to escape, not yet! If a golem could buy its freedom, then so could he! He’d buckle down and bustle and look busy and he’d send all the bills to Vetinari, because this was government work! How could the man object?
And if Moist von Lipwig couldn’t cream a little somethi— a big something off the top, and the bottom, and maybe a little off the sides, then he didn’t deserve to! And then, when it was all going well and the cash was rolling in . . . well, then there’d be time to make plans for the big one. Enough money bought a lot of men with sledgehammers.
The workmen pulled themselves back on to the flat roof. There was another ragged cheer from a crowd that reckoned it hadn’t been bad entertainment even if no one had fallen off.
‘What do you think, Mr Groat?’ he said.
‘Looks nice, sir, looks nice,’ said Groat, as the crowd dispersed and they walked back to the Post Office building.
‘Not disturbing anything, then?’ said Moist.
Groat patted the surprised Moist on the arm. ‘I don’t know why his lordship sent you, sir, really I don’t,’ he whispered. ‘You mean well, I can see. But take my advice, sir, and get out of here.’
Moist glanced towards the building’s doors. Mr Pump was standing beside them. Just standing, with his arms hanging down. The fire in his eyes was a banked glow.
‘I can’t do that,’ he said.
‘Nice of you to say so, sir, but this place isn’t for a young man with a future,’ said Groat. ‘Now, Stanley, he’s all right if he’s got his pins, but you, sir, you could go far.’
‘No-o, I don’t think I can,’ said Moist. ‘Honestly. My place, Mr Groat, is here.’
‘Gods bless you for saying that, sir, gods bless you,’ said Groat. Tears were beginning to roll down his face. ‘We used to be heroes,’ he said. ‘People wanted us. Everyone watched out for us. Everyone knew us. This was a great place, once. Once, we were postmen!
‘Mister!’
Moist turned. Three people were hurrying towards him, and he had to quell an automatic urge to turn and run, especially when one of them shouted, ‘Yes, that’s him!’
He recognized the greengrocer from this morning. An elderly couple were trailing behind him. The older man, who had the determined face and upright bearing of a man who subdued cabbages daily, stopped an inch in front of Moist and bellowed: ‘Are you the po’stman, young man?’
‘Yes, sir, I suppose I am,’ said Moist. ‘How can I—’
‘You delivered me this letter from Aggie here! I’m Tim Parker!’ the man roared. ‘Now, there’s s’ome people’d say it wa’s a little bit on the late side!’
‘Oh,’ said Moist. ‘Well, I—’
‘That took a bit of nerve, young man!’
‘I’m very sorry that—’ Moist began. People skills weren’t much good in the face of Mr Parker. He was one of the impervious people, whose grasp of volume control was about as good as his understanding of personal space.
‘S’orry?’ Parker shouted. ‘What’ve you got to be s’orry about? Not your fault, lad. You weren’t even born! More fool me for thinking she didn’t care, eh? Hah, I wa’s so downhearted, lad, I went right out and joined the . . .’ His red face wrinkled. ‘You know . . . camel’s, funny hat’s, sand, where you go to forget . . .’
‘The Klatchian Foreign Legion?’ said Moist.
‘That wa’s it! And when I came back I met Sadie, and Aggie had met her Frederick, and we both got s’ettled and forgot the other one was alive and then blow me down if this letter didn’t arrive from Aggie! Me and my lad have s’pent half the morning tracking her down! And to cut a long s’tory short, lad, we’re getting married Sat’day! ‘co’s of you, boy!’
Mr Parker was one of those men who turn into teak with age. When he slapped Moist on the back it was like being hit with a chair.
‘Won’t Frederick and Aggie object—’ Moist wheezed.
‘I doubt it! Frederick pas’sed away ten years ago and Sadie’s been buried up in S’mall God’s for the last five!’ Mr Barker bellowed cheerfully. ‘And we were s’orry to see them go but, as Aggie say’s, it was all meant to be and you wa’s sent by a higher power. And I say it took a man with real backbone to come and deliver that letter after all this time. There’s many that would have tos’sed it aside like it was of no account! You’d do me and the future second Mrs Parker a great favour if you wa’s to be a guest of honour at our wedding, and I for one won’t take no for an ans’wer! I’m Grand Ma’ster of the Guild of Merchant’s this year, too! We might not be posh like the Assassins or the Alchemists but there’s a lot of us and I shall put in a word on your behalf, you can depend on that! My lad George here will be down later on with the invitation’s for you to deliver, now you’re back in busines’s! It will be a great honour for me, my boy, if you would shake me by the hand . . .’
He thrust out a huge hand. Moist took it, and old habits died hard. Firm grip, steady gaze . . .
‘Ah, you’re an honest man, all right,’ said Parker. ‘I’m never mis’taken!’ He clapped his hand on Moist’s shoulder, causing a knee joint to crunch. ‘What’s your name, lad?’
‘Lipwig, sir. Moist von Lipwig,’ Moist said. He was afraid he’d gone deaf in one ear.
‘A von, eh,’ said Parker. ‘Well, you’re doing damn well for a foreigner, and I don’t care who know’s it! Got to be going now. Aggie want’s to buy fripperie’s!’
The woman came up to Moist, stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. ‘And I know a good man when I see one,’ she said. ‘Do you have a young lady?’
‘What? No! Not at all! Er . . . no!’ said Moist.
‘I’m sure you shall,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘And while we’re very grateful to you, I would advise you to propose in person. We do so much look forward to seeing you on Saturday!’
Moist watched her scurry away after her long-lost swain.
‘You delivered a letter?’ said Groat, horrified.
‘Yes, Mr Groat. I didn’t mean to, but I just happened to be—’
‘You took one of the old letters and you delivered it?’ said Groat, as if the concept was something he could not fit into his head—
His head was all over the wall . . .
Moist blinked.
‘We are supposed to deliver the mail, man! That’s our job! Remember?’
‘You delivered a letter . . .’ breathed Groat. ‘What was the date on it?’
‘I can’t remember! More than forty years ago?’
‘What was it like? Was it in good condition?’ Groat insisted.
Moist glared at the little postman. A small crowd was forming around them, as was the Ankh-Morpork way.
‘It was a forty-year-old letter in a cheap envelope!’ he snarled. ‘And that’s what it looked like! It never got delivered and it upset the lives of two people. I delivered it and it’s made two people very happy. What is the problem, Mr Groat— Yes, what is it?’
This was to a woman who was tugging at his sleeve.
‘I said is it true you’re opening the old place again?’ she repeated. ‘My grandad used to work there!’
‘Well done him,’ said Moist.
‘He said there was a curse!’ said the woman, as if the idea was rather pleasing.
‘Really?’ said Moist. ‘Well, I could do with a good curse right now, as a matter of fact.’
‘It lives under the floor and drives you maaad!’ she went on, enjoying the syllable so much that she seemed loath to let it go. ‘Maaad!’
‘Really,’ said Moist. ‘Well, we do not believe in going crazy in the postal service, do we, Mr Gro—’ He stopped. Mr Groat had the expression of one who did believe in going crazy.
‘You daft old woman!’ Groat yelled. ‘What did you have to tell him that for?’
‘Mr Groat!’ snapped Moist. ‘I wish to speak to you inside!’
He grabbed the old man by the shoulder and very nearly carried him through the amused crowd, dragged him into the building and slammed the door.
‘I’ve had enough of this!’ he said. ‘Enough of dark comments and mutterings, do you understand? No more secrets. What’s going on here? What went on here? You tell me right now or—’
The little man’s eyes were full of fear. This is not me, Moist thought. This is not the way. People skills, eh?
‘You tell me right now, Senior Postman Groat!’ he snapped.
The old man’s eyes widened. ‘Senior Postman?’
‘I am the postmaster in this vicinity, yes?’ said Moist. ‘That means I can promote, yes? Senior Postman, indeed. On probation, of course. Now, will you tell me what—’
‘Don’t you hurt Mr Groat, sir!’ said a ringing voice behind Moist.
Groat looked past Moist into the gloom and said: ‘It’s all right, Stanley, there’s no need for that, we don’t want a Little Moment.’ To Moist he whispered: ‘Best you put me down gently, sir . . .’
Moist did so, with exaggerated care, and turned round.
The boy was standing behind him with a glazed look on his face and the big kettle raised. It was a heavy kettle.
‘You mustn’t hurt Mr Groat, sir,’ he said hoarsely.
Moist pulled a pin out of his lapel. ‘Of course not, Stanley. By the way, is this a genuine Clayfeather Medium Sharp?’
Stanley dropped the kettle, suddenly oblivious of everything but the inch of silvery steel between Moist’s fingers. One hand was already pulling out his magnifying glass.
‘Let me see, let me see,’ he said, in a level, thoughtful voice. ‘Oh, yes. Ha. No, sorry. It’s an easy mistake to make. Look at the marks on the shoulder, here. See? And the head was never coiled. This is machine-made. Probably by one of the Happily brothers. Short run, I imagine. Hasn’t got their sigil, though. Could have been done by a creative apprentice. Not worth much, I’m afraid, unless you find someone who specializes in the minutiae of the Happily pinnery.’
‘I’ll, er, just make a cup of tea, shall I?’ said Groat, picking up the kettle as it rolled backwards and forwards on the floor. ‘Well done again, Mr Lipwig. Er . . . Senior Postman Groat, right?’
‘Off you go with, yes, probationary Senior Postman Groat, Stanley,’ said Moist, as kindly as he could manage. He looked up and added sharply: ‘I just want to talk to Mr Pump here.’
Stanley looked round at the golem, who was right behind him. It was astonishing how quietly a golem could move; he’d crossed the floor like a shadow and now stood with one still fist raised like the wrath of gods.
‘Oh, I didn’t see you standing there, Mr Pump,’ said Stanley cheerfully. “Why is your hand up?’
The holes in the golem’s face bathed the boy in red light. ‘I . . . Wanted To Ask The Postmaster A Question?’ said the golem slowly.
‘Oh. All right,’ said Stanley, as if he hadn’t been about to brain Moist a moment before. ‘Do you want your pin back, Mr Lipwig?’ he added, and when Moist waved him away he went on, ‘All right, I’ll put it in next month’s charity pin auction.’
When the door had shut behind him, Moist looked up at the golem’s impassive face.
‘You lied to him. Are you allowed to lie, Mr Pump?’ he said. ‘And you can lower that arm, by the way.’
‘I Have Been Instructed As To The Nature Of Social Untruths, Yes.’
‘You were going to smash his brains out!’ said Moist.
‘I Would Have Endeavoured Not To,’ the golem rumbled. ‘However, I Cannot Allow You To Come To Inappropriate Harm. It Was A Heavy Kettle.’
‘You can’t do that, you idiot!’ said Moist, who’d noticed the use of ‘inappropriate’.
‘I Should Have Let Him Kill You?’ said the golem. ‘It Would Not Have Been His Fault. His Head Is Not Right.’
‘It would be even less right if you walloped it. Look, I sorted it out!’
‘Yes,’ Pump said. ‘You Have A Talent. It Is A Pity You Misuse It.’
‘Do you understand anything I’m saying?’ shouted Moist. ‘You can’t just go around killing people!’
‘Why Not? You Do.’ The golem lowered his arm.
‘What?’ snapped Moist. ‘I do not! Who told you that?’
‘I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three Eight People,’ said the golem calmly.
‘I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be— all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!’
‘No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And. Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.’
Moist’s mouth had dropped open. It shut. It opened again. It shut again. You can never find repartee when you need it.
‘You’re nothing but a walking flowerpot, Pump 19,’ he snapped. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘I Have Read The Details Of Your Many Crimes, Mr Lipvig. And Pumping Water Teaches One The Value Of Rational Thought. You Took From Others Because You Were Clever And They Were Stupid.’
‘Hold on, most of the time they thought they were swindling me!’
‘You Set Out To Trap Them, Mr Lipvig,’ said Mr Pump.
Moist went to prod the golem meaningfully, but decided against it just in time. A man could break a finger that way.
‘Well, think about this,’ he said. ‘I’m paying for all that! I was nearly hanged, godsdammit!’
‘Yes. But Even Now You Harbour Thoughts Of Escape, Of Somehow Turning The Situation To Your Advantage. They Say The Leopard Does Not Change His Shorts.’
‘But you have to obey my orders, yes?’ snarled Moist.
‘Yes.’
‘Then screw your damn head off!’
For a moment the red eyes flickered. When Pump spoke next, it was in the voice of Lord Vetinari.
‘Ah, Lipwig. Despite everything, you do not pay attention. Mr Pump cannot be instructed to destroy himself. I would have thought you at least could have worked this out. If you instruct him to do so again, punitive action will be taken.’
The golem blinked again.
‘How did you—’ Moist began.
‘I Have Perfect Recall Of Legal Verbal Instructions,’ said the golem, in his normal rumbling tone. ‘I Surmise That Lord Vetinari, Mindful Of Your Way Of Thinking, Left That Message Because—’
‘I meant the voice!’
‘Perfect Recall, Mr Lipvig,’ Pump replied. ‘I Can Speak With All The Voices Of Men.’
‘Really? How nice for you.’ Moist stared up at Mr Pump. There was never any animation in that face. There was a nose, of sorts, but it was just a lump in the clay. The mouth moved when he spoke, and the gods knew how baked clay could move like that - indeed, they probably did know. The eyes never closed, they merely dimmed.
‘Can you really read my thoughts?’ he said.
‘No, I Merely Extrapolate From Past Behaviour.’
‘Well . . .’ Moist, most unusually, was stuck for words. He glared up at the expressionless face, which nevertheless contrived to be disapproving. He was used to looks of anger, indignation and hatred. They were part of the job. But what was a golem? Just . . . dirt. Fired earth. People looking at you as though you were less than the dust beneath their feet was one thing, but it was strangely unpleasant when even the dust did that too.
‘. . . don’t,’ he finished lamely. ‘Go and . . . work. Yes! Go on! That’s what you do! That’s what you’re for!’

It was called the lucky clacks tower, Tower 181. It was close enough to the town of Bonk for a man to be able to go and get a hot bath and a good bed on his days off, but since this was Uberwald there wasn’t too much local traffic and - this was important - it was way, way up in the mountains and management didn’t like to go that far. In the good old days of last year, when the Hour of the Dead took place every night, it was a happy tower because both the up-line and the down-line got the Hour at the same time, so there was an extra pair of hands for maintenance. Now Tower 181 did maintenance on the fly or not at all, just like all the others, but it was still, proverbially, a good tower to man.
Mostly man, anyway. Back down on the plains it was a standing joke that 181 was staffed by vampires and werewolves. In fact, like a lot of towers, it was often manned by kids.
Everyone knew it happened. Actually, the new management probably didn’t, but wouldn’t have done anything about it if they’d found out, apart from carefully forgetting that they’d known. Kids didn’t need to be paid.
The - mostly - young men on the towers worked hard in all weathers for just enough money. They were loners, hard dreamers, fugitives from the law that the law had forgotten, or just from everybody else. They had a special kind of directed madness; they said the rattle of the clacks got into your head and your thoughts beat time with it so that sooner or later you could tell what messages were going through by listening to the rattle of the shutters. In their towers they drank hot tea out of strange tin mugs, much wider at the bottom so that they didn’t fall over when gales banged into the tower. On leave, they drank alcohol out of anything. And they talked a gibberish of their own, of donkey and nondonkey, system overhead and packet space, of drumming it and hotfooting, of a 181 (which was good) or flock (which was bad) or totally flocked (really not good at all) and plug-code and hog-code and jacquard . . .
And they liked kids, who reminded them of the ones they’d left behind or would never have, and kids loved the towers. They’d come and hang around and do odd jobs and maybe pick up the craft of semaphore just by watching. They tended to be bright, they mastered the keyboard and levers as if by magic, they usually had good eyesight and what they were doing, most of them, was running away from home without actually leaving.
Because, up on the towers, you might believe you could see to the rim of the world. You could certainly see several other towers, on a good clear day. You pretended that you too could read messages by listening to the rattle of the shutters, while under your fingers flowed the names of faraway places you’d never see but, on the tower, were somehow connected to . . .
She was known as Princess to the men on Tower 181, although she was really Alice. She was thirteen, could run a line for hours on end without needing help, and later on would have an interesting career which . . . but anyway, she remembered this one conversation, on this day, because it was strange. Not all the signals were messages. Some were instructions to towers. Some, as you operated your levers to follow the distant signal, made things happen in your own tower. Princess knew all about this. A lot of what travelled on the Grand Trunk was called the Overhead. It was instructions to towers, reports, messages about messages, even chatter between operators, although this was strictly forbidden these days. It was all in code. It was very rare you got Plain in the Overhead. But now . . .
‘There it goes again,’ she said. ‘It must be wrong. It’s got no origin code and no address. It’s Overhead, but it’s in Plain.’
On the other side of the tower, sitting in a seat facing the opposite direction because he was operating the up-line, was Roger, who was seventeen and already working for his tower-master certificate.
His hand didn’t stop moving as he said: ‘What did it say?’
‘There was GNU, and I know that’s a code, and then just a name. It was John Dearheart. Was it a—’
‘You sent it on?’ said Grandad. Grandad had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shutter box in this cramped shed halfway up the tower. Grandad was the tower-master and had been everywhere and knew everything. Everyone called him Grandad. He was twenty-six. He was always doing something in the tower when she was working the line, even though there was always a boy in the other chair. She didn’t work out why until later.
‘Yes, because it was a G code,’ said Princess.
‘Then you did right. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Yes, but I’ve sent that name before. Several times. Upline and downline. Just a name, no message or anything!’
She had a sense that something was wrong, but she went on: ‘I know a U at the end means it has to be turned round at the end of the line, and an N means Not Logged.’ This was showing off, but she’d spent hours reading the cypher book. ‘So it’s just a name, going up and down all the time! Where’s the sense in that?’
Something was really wrong. Roger was still working his line, but he was staring ahead with a thunderous expression.
Then Grandad said: ‘Very clever, Princess. You’re dead right.’
‘Hah!’ said Roger.
‘I’m sorry if I did something wrong,’ said the girl meekly. ‘I just thought it was strange. Who’s John Dearheart?’
‘He . . . fell off a tower,’ said Grandad.
‘Hah!’ said Roger, working his shutters as if he suddenly hated them.
‘He’s dead?’ said Princess.
‘Well, some people say—’ Roger began.
‘Roger!’ snapped Grandad. It sounded like a warning.
‘I know about Sending Home,’ said Princess. ‘And I know the souls of dead linesmen stay on the Trunk.’
‘Who told you that?’ said Grandad.
Princess was bright enough to know that someone would get into trouble if she was too specific.
‘Oh, I just heard it,’ she said airily. ‘Somewhere.’
‘Someone was trying to scare you,’ said Grandad, looking at Roger’s reddening ears.
It hadn’t sounded scary to Princess. If you had to be dead, it seemed a lot better to spend your time flying between the towers than lying underground. But she was bright enough, too, to know when to drop a subject.
It was Grandad who spoke next, after a long pause broken only by the squeaking of the new shutter bars. When he did speak, it was as if something was on his mind. ‘We keep that name moving in the Overhead,’ he said, and it seemed to Princess that the wind in the shutter arrays above her blew more forlornly, and the everlasting clicking of the shutters grew more urgent. ‘He’d never have wanted to go home. He was a real linesman. His name is in the code, in the wind in the rigging and the shutters. Haven’t you ever heard the saying “A man’s not dead while his name is still spoken”?’

Chapter Five

Lost in the Post

In which Stanley experiences the joy of sacks - Mr Groat’s ancestral
fears - Horsefry is worried - Reacher Gilt, a man of Society - The
Stairway of Letters - Mailslide! - Mr Lipwig Sees It - Hoodwinked
- The Postman’s Walk - The Hat

Stanley polished his pins. He did so with a look of beatific concentration, like a man dreaming with his eyes open.
The collection sparkled on the folded strips of brown paper and the rolls of black felt that made up the landscape of the true pinhead’s world. Beside him was his large desktop magnifying glass and, by his feet, a sack of miscellaneous pins bought last week from a retiring needlewoman.
He was putting off the moment of opening it to savour it all the more. Of course, it’d almost certainly turn out to be full of everyday brassers, with maybe the occasional flathead or line flaw, but the thing was, you never knew. That was the joy of sacks. You never knew. Non-collectors were woefully unconcerned about pins, treating them as if they were no more than thin pointy bits of metal for sticking things to other things. Many a wonderful pin of great worth had been found in a sack of brassers.
And now he had a No. 3 Broad-headed ‘Chicken’ Extra Long, thanks to kind Mr Lipwig. The world shone like the pins so neatly ranged on the felt rolled out in front of him. He might smell faintly of cheese, and have athlete’s foot extending to the knee, but just now Stanley soared through glittering skies on wings of silver.
Groat sat by the stove, chewing his fingernails and muttering to himself. Stanley paid no attention, since pins were not the subject.
‘. . . appointed, right? Never mind what the Order says! He can promote anyone, right? That means I get the extra gold button on m’sleeve and the pay, right? None of the others called me Senior Postman! And when all’s said and done, he delivered a letter. Had the letter, saw the address, delivered it just like that! Maybe he has got postman’s blood! And he got them metal letters put back! Letters again, see? That’s a sign, sure enough. Hah, he can read words that ain’t there!’ Groat spat out a fragment of fingernail, and frowned. ‘But . . . then he’ll want to know about the New Pie. Oh yeah. But . . . it’d be like scratching at a scab. Could be bad. Very bad. But . . . hah, the way he got them letters back for us . . . very good. Maybe it’s true that one day we’ll get a true postmaster again, just like they say. “Yea, he will tread the Abandoned Roller Skates beneath his Boots, and Lo! the Dogs of the World will Break their Teeth upon Him.” And he did show us a sign, right? Okay, it was over a posh haircut shop for ladies, but it was a sign, you can’t argue with that. I mean, if it was obvious, anyone could show it to us.’ Another sliver of fingernail hit the side of the glowing stove, where it sizzled. ‘And I ain’t getting any younger, that’s a fact. Probationary, though, that’s not good, that’s not good. What’d happen if I popped my clogs tomorrow, eh? I’d stand there before my forefathers, and they’d say “Art thou Senior Postal Inspector Groat?” and I’d say no, and they’d say “Art thou then Postal Inspector Groat?” and I’d say not as such, and they’d say “Then surely thou art Senior Postman Groat?” and I’d say not in point of fact, and they’d say “Stone the crows, Tolliver, are you telling us you never got further than Junior Postman? What kind of Groat are you?” and my face will be red and I will be knee deep in the ignominy. Dun’t matter that I’ve been runnin’ this place for years, oh no. You got to have that gold button!’
He stared at the fire, and somewhere in his matted beard a smile struggled to get out.
‘He can try walking the Walk,’ he said. ‘No one can argue if he walks the Walk. An’ then I can tell him everything! So it’ll be all right! An’ if he don’t walk to the end, then he ain’t postmaster material anyway! Stanley? Stanley!’
Stanley awoke from a dream of pins. ‘Yes, Mr Groat?’
‘Got a few errands for you to run, lad.’ And if he ain’t postmaster material, Groat added in the privacy of his creaking brain, I’ll die a junior postman . . .

It was hard to knock at a door whilst trying desperately not to make a sound, and in the end Crispin Horsefry gave up on the second aim and just swung on the doorknocker.
The noise echoed through the empty street, but no one came to their window. No one in this select street would have come to the window even if a murder was going on. At least in the poorer districts people would have come out to watch, or join in.
The door opened.
‘Good evening, thur—’
Horsefry pushed past the stumpy figure and into the dark hallway, waving frantically to the servant to close the door.
‘Shut it, man, shut it! I may have been followed— Good grief, you’re an Igor, aren’t you? Gilt can afford an Igor?’
‘Well done, thur!’ said the Igor. He peered out into the early evening darkness. ‘All clear, thur.’
‘Shut the door, for gods’ sakes!’ moaned Horsefry. ‘I must see Mr Gilt!’
‘The marthter ith having one of hith little thoireeth, thur,’ said Igor. ‘I will thee if he can be dithturbed.’
‘Are any of the others here? Have they— What’s a thwawreath?’
‘A little get-together, thur,’ said Igor, sniffing. The man reeked of drink.
‘A soiree?’
‘Exactly tho, thur,’ said Igor impassively. ‘May I take your highly notitheable long hooded cloak, thur? And be tho kind ath to follow me into the withdrawing room . . .’
And suddenly Horsefry was alone in a big room full of shadows and candlelight and staring eyes, with the door closing behind him.
The eyes belonged to the portraits in the big dusty frames that filled the walls, edge to edge. Rumour was that Gilt had bought them outright, and not only the pictures; it was said that he’d bought all the rights in the long dead as well, deed-polled their names, and thus equipped himself with a proud pedigree overnight. That was slightly worrying, even for Horsefry. Everyone lied about their ancestors, and that was fair enough. Buying them was slightly disconcerting, but in its dark, original stylishness it was so very Reacher Gilt.
A lot of rumours had begun concerning Reacher Gilt, just as soon as people had noticed him and started asking, “Who is Reacher Gilt? What kind of a name is Reacher, anyway?’ He threw big parties, that was certain. They were the kind of parties that entered urban mythology (Was it true about the chopped liver? Were you there? What about the time when he brought in a troll stripper and three people jumped out of the window? Were you there? And that story about the bowl of sweets? Were you there? Did you see it? Was it true? Were you there?) Half of Ankh-Morpork had been, it seemed, drifting from table to buffet to dance floor to gaming tables, every guest seemingly followed by a silent and obliging waiter with a laden drinks tray. Some said he owned a gold mine, others swore that he was a pirate. And he certainly looked like a pirate, with his long curly black hair, pointed beard and eyepatch. He was even said to have a parrot. Certainly the piracy rumour might explain the apparently bottomless fortune and the fact that no one, absolutely no one, knew anything about him prior to his arrival in the city. Perhaps he’d sold his past, people joked, just like he’d bought himself a new one.
He was certainly piratical in his business dealing, Horsefry knew. Some of the things—
‘Twelve and a half per cent! Twelve and a half per cent!’
When he was sure that he hadn’t in fact had the heart attack he had been expecting all day, Horsefry crossed the room, swaying just like a man who’s had a little drink or two to steady his nerves, and lifted the dark red cloth that, it turned out, concealed the parrot cage. It was in fact a cockatoo, and danced frantically up and down its perch.
‘Twelve and a half per cent! Twelve and a half per cent!’
Horsefry grinned.
‘Ah, you’ve met Alphonse,’ said Reacher Gilt. ‘And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Crispin?’ The door swung slowly behind him into its felt-lined frame, shutting out the sound of distant music.
Horsefry turned, the brief moment of amusement evaporating instantly into the fearful turmoil of his soul. Gilt, one hand in the pocket of a beautiful smoking jacket, gave him a quizzical look.
‘I’m being spied on, Readier!’ Horsefry burst out. “Vetinari sent one of—’
‘Please! Sit down, Crispin. I think you require a large brandy.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Another large brandy, should I say?’
‘I wouldn’t say no! Had to have a little snifter, you know, just to calm m’nerves! What a day I’ve had!’ Horsefry plumped down into a leather armchair. ‘Did you know there was a watchman on duty outside the bank almost all afternoon?’
‘A fat man? A sergeant?’ said Gilt, handing him a glass.
‘Fat, yes. I didn’t notice his rank.’ Horsefry sniffed. ‘I’ve never had anything to do with the Watch.’
‘I, on the other hand, have,’ said Gilt, wincing to see very fine brandy drunk in the way Horsefry was drinking it. ‘And I gather that Sergeant Colon is in the habit of loitering near large buildings not in case they are stolen, but in fact simply because he enjoys a quiet smoke out of the wind. He is a clown, and not to be feared.’
‘Yes, but this morning one of the revenue officers came to see that old fool Cheeseborough—’
‘Is that unusual, Crispin?’ said Gilt soothingly. ‘Let me top up your glass there . . .’
‘Well, they come once or twice a month,’ Horsefry conceded, thrusting out the empty brandy glass. ‘But—’
‘Not unusual, then. You’re shying at flies, my dear Crispin.’
‘Vetinari is spying on me!’ Horsefry burst out. ‘There was a man in black spying on the house this evening! I heard a noise and I looked out and I could see him standing in the corner of the garden!’
‘A thief, perhaps?’
‘No, I’m fully paid up with the Guild! I’m sure someone was in the house this afternoon, too. Things were moved in my study. I’m worried, Reacher! I’m the one who stands to lose here! If there’s an audit—’
‘You know there won’t be, Crispin.’ Gilt’s voice was like honey.
‘Yes, but I can’t get my hands on all the paperwork, not yet, not until old Cheeseborough retires. And Vetinari’s got lots of little, you know, what are they called . . . clerks, you know, who do nothing but look at li’l bits of paper! They’ll work it out, they will! We bought the Grand Trunk wi’ its own money!’
Gilt patted him on the shoulder. ‘Calm yourself, Crispin. Nothing is going to go wrong. You think about money in the old-fashioned way. Money is not a thing, it is not even a process. It is a kind of shared dream. We dream that a small disc of common metal is worth the price of a substantial meal. Once you wake up from that dream, you can swim in a sea of money.’
The voice was almost hypnotic, but Horsefry’s terror was driving him on. His forehead glistened.
‘Then Greenyham’s pissing in it!’ he snapped, his little eyes aglint with desperate malice. ‘You know that tower widdershins of Lancre that was giving all that trouble a coupla months ago? When we were tol’ it was all due to witches flying into the towers? Hah! It w’s only a witch the firs’ time! Then Greenyham bribed a couple of the new men in the tower to call in a breakdown, and one of them rode like hell for the downstream tower and sen’ him the Genua market figures a good two hours before everyone else got them! That’s how he cornered dried prawns, you know. And dried fish maw and dried ground shrimp. It’s not the firs’ time he’s done it, either! The man is coining it!’
Gilt looked at Horsefry, and wondered whether killing him now would be the best option. Vetinari was clever. You didn’t stay ruler of a fermenting mess of a city like this one by being silly. If you saw his spy, it was a spy he wanted you to see. The way you’d know that Vetinari was keeping an eye on you would be by turning round very quickly and seeing no one at all.
Godsdamn Greenyham, too. Some people had no grasp, no grasp at all. They were so . . . small.
Using the clacks like that was stupid, but allowing a bottom-feeder like Horsefry to find out about it was indefensible. It was silly. Silly small people with the arrogance of kings, running their little swindles, smiling at the people they stole from, and not understanding money at all.
And stupid, pig-like Horsefry had come running here. That made it a little tricky. The door was soundproofed, the carpet was easily replaceable and, of course, Igors were renowned for their discretion, but almost certainly someone unseen had watched the man walk in and therefore it was prudent to ensure that he walked out.
‘Y’r a goo’ man, Reacher Gilt,’ Horsefry hiccuped, waving the brandy glass unsteadily now that it was almost empty again. He put it down on a small table with the exaggerated care of a drunk, but since it was the wrong one of three images of the table sliding back and forth across his vision the glass smashed on the carpet.
‘Sor’ ‘bout that,’ he slurred. ‘Y’r a goo’ man, so I’m goin’ to gi’ you this. Can’t keep it inna house, can’t keep it, not wi’ Vetininararari’s spies on to me. Can’t burn it neither, ‘sgot everything in it. All the little . . . transactions. Ver’ important. Can’t trust the others, they hate me. You take care of it, eh?’
He pulled out a battered red journal and proffered it unsteadily. Gilt took it, and flicked it open. His eye ran down the entries.
‘You wrote everything down, Crispin?’ he said. ‘Why?’
Crispin looked appalled. ‘Got to keep records, Reacher,’ he said. ‘Can’t cover y’tracks if you don’t know where y’left ‘em. Then . . . can put it all back, see, hardly a crime at all.’ He tried to tap the side of his nose, and missed.
‘I shall look after it with great care, Crispin,’ said Gilt. ‘You were very wise to bring it to me.’
‘That means a lot t’me, Reacher,’ said Crispin, now heading for the maudlin stage. ‘You take me serioussoussly, not like Greenyham and his pals. I take the risks, then they treat me like drit. I mean dirt. Bloody goo’ chap, you are. ‘sfunny, y’know, you havin’ an Igor, bloody goo’ chap like you, ‘cos—’ He belched hugely, “cos I heard that Igors only worked for mad chaps. Tot’ly bonkers chaps, y’know, and vampires and whatnot, people who’re a few pennies short of a picnic. Nothing against your man, mark you, he looks a bloody fine fellow, hahaha, several bloody fine fellows . . .’
Readier Gilt pulled him up gently. ‘You’re drunk, Crispin,’ he said. ‘And too talkative. Now, what I’m going to do is call Igor—’
‘Yeth, thur?’ said Igor behind him. It was the kind of service few could afford.
‘—and he’ll take you home in my coach. Make sure you deliver him safely to his valet, Igor. Oh, and when you’ve done that could you locate my colleague Mr Gryle? Tell him I have a little errand for him. Goodnight, Crispin.’ Gilt patted the man on a wobbly cheek. ‘And don’t worry. Tomorrow you’ll find all these little anxieties will have just . . . disappeared.’
‘Ver’ good chap,’ Horsefry mumbled happily. ‘F’r a foreigner . . .’

Igor took Crispin home. By that time the man had reached the ‘jolly drunk’ stage and was singing the kind of song that’s hilarious to rugby players and children under the age of eleven, and getting him into his house must have awoken the neighbours, especially when he kept repeating the verse about the camel.
Then Igor drove back home, put the coach away, saw to the horse, and went to the little pigeon loft behind the house. These were big, plump pigeons, not the diseased roof rats of the city, and he selected a fat one, expertly slipped a silver message ring round its leg, and tossed it up into the night.
Ankh-Morpork pigeons were quite bright, for pigeons. Stupidity had a limited life in this city. This one would soon find Mr Gryle’s rooftop lodgings, but it annoyed Igor that he never got his pigeons back.

Old envelopes rose up in drifts as Moist strode angrily, and sometimes waded angrily, through the abandoned rooms of the Post Office. He was in the mood to kick holes in walls. He was trapped. Trapped. He’d done his best, hadn’t he? Perhaps there really was a curse on this place. Groat would be a good name for it—
He pushed open a door and found himself in the big coachyard round which the Post Office was bent like the letter U. It was still in use. When the postal service had collapsed the coach part had survived, Groat had said. It was useful and established and, besides, it owned scores of horses. You couldn’t squash horses under the floor or bag them up in the attic. They had to be fed. More or less seamlessly, the coachmen had taken it over and run it as a passenger service.
Moist watched a laden coach roll out of the yard, and then movement up above caught his eye.
He had got used to the clacks towers now. Sometimes it seemed as though every roof sprouted one. Most were the new shutter boxes installed by the Grand Trunk Company, but old-fashioned arm semaphores and even signal flags were still well in evidence. Those, though, only worked slowly and by line-of-sight, and there was precious little space for that in the thrusting forest of towers. If you wanted more than the basic service, you went to one of the little clacks companies, and rented a small shutter tower with resident gargoyle to spot incoming messages and access to the bounce towers and, if you were really rich, a trained operator as well. And you paid. Moist had no grasp of or interest in technology, but as he understood it the price was something like an arm or a leg or both.
But these observations orbited his brain, as it were, like planetary thoughts around one central, solar thought: why the hell have we got a tower?
It was definitely on the roof. He could see it and he could hear the distant rattle of the shutters. And he was sure he’d seen a head, before it ducked out of sight.
Why have we got a tower up there, and who is using it?
He ran back inside. He’d never spotted a staircase to the roof, but then, who knew what was hidden behind some pile of letters at the end of some blocked corridor . . .
He squeezed his way along yet another passage lined with mail sacks, and came out into a space where big, bolted double doors led back to the yard. There were stairs there, leading upwards. Little safety lamps bled little pools of light into the blackness above. That was the Post Office for you, Moist thought - the Regulations said the stairs must be lit and lit they were, decades after anyone ever used them except for Stanley, the lamplighter.
There was an old freight elevator here, too, one of those dangerous ones that worked by pumping water in and out of a big rainwater tank on the roof, but he couldn’t work out how to make it go and wouldn’t have trusted it if he could. Groat had said it was broken.
At the foot of the stairs, scuffed but still recognizable, was a chalk outline. The arms and legs were not in comfortable positions.
Moist swallowed, but gripped the banister.
He climbed.
There was a door on the first floor. It opened easily. It burst open at the mere touch of the handle, spilling pent-up mail out into the stairwell like some leaping monster. Moist swayed and whimpered as the letters slithered past him, shoal after shoal, and cascaded down the stairs.
Woodenly, he climbed up another flight, and found another dimly lit door, but this time he stood to one side as he opened it. The force of the letters still rammed it against his legs, and the noise of the dead letters was a dry whispering as they poured away into the gloom. Like bats, perhaps. This whole building full of dead letters, whispering to one another in the dark as a man fell to his death—
Any more of this and he’d end up like Groat, mad as a spoon. But there was more to this place. Somewhere there had to be a door—
His head was all over the wall . . .
Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you’re going to behave, I shan’t bring you again.
But, with its usual treachery, it went on working. He’d never, ever, laid a finger on anyone. He’d always run rather than fight. And murder, now, surely murder was an absolute? You couldn’t commit 0.021 of a murder, could you? But Pump seemed to think you could murder with a ruler. Okay, perhaps somewhere downstream people were . . . inconvenienced by a crime, but . . . what about bankers, landlords, even barmen? ‘Here’s your double brandy, sir, and I’ve 0.0003 killed you’? Everything everyone did affected everyone, sooner or later.
Besides, a lot of his crimes weren’t even crimes. Take the ring trick, now. He never said it was a diamond ring. Besides, it was depressing how quickly honest citizens warmed to an opportunity to take advantage of a poor benighted traveller. It could ruin a man’s faith in human nature, if he had one. Besides . . .
The third floor yielded another avalanche of letters, but when they subsided there was still a wall of paper plugging the corridor beyond. One or two rustling envelopes fell out, threatening a further fall as Moist advanced.
In fact it was retreat that was at the top of his mind, but the stairs were now layered with sliding envelopes and this was not the time to learn dry-slope skiing.
Well, the fifth floor would have to be clear, wouldn’t it? How else could Sideburn have got to the stairs in order to meet his appointment with eternity? And, yes, there was still a piece of black and yellow rope on the fourth-floor landing, on a drift of letters. The Watch had been here. Nevertheless, Moist opened the door with care, as a watchman must have done.
One or two letters fell out, but the main slide had already taken place. A few feet beyond there was the familiar wall of letters, packed as tight as rock strata. A watchman had been in here, too. Someone had tried to break through the wordface, and Moist could see the hole. They’d put in their arm, full length, just as Moist was doing. Just like his, their fingertips had brushed against yet more compacted envelopes.
No one had got on to the stairs here. They would have had to walk through a wall of envelopes at least six feet thick . . .
There was one more flight. Moist climbed the stairs, cautiously, and was halfway up when he heard the slide begin, below him.
He must have disturbed the wall of letters on the floor below, somehow. It was emerging from the corridor with the unstoppability of a glacier. As the leading edge reached the stairwell, chunks of mail broke off and plunged into the depths. Far below, wood creaked and snapped. The stairway shivered.
Moist ran up the last few steps to the fifth floor, grabbed the door there, pulled it open and hung on as another mailslide poured past him. Everything was shaking now. There was a sudden crack as the rest of the staircase gave way and left Moist swinging from the handle, letters brushing past.
He swung there, eyes shut, until the noise and movement had more or less died away, although there was still the occasional creak from below.
The stairs had gone.
With great care, Moist brought his feet up until he could feel the edge of the new corridor. Without doing anything so provocative as breathing, he changed his grip on the door so that now he had hold of the handle on both sides. Slowly, he walked his heels through the drift of letters on the corridor floor, thus pulling the door closed, while at the same time getting both hands on to the inner handle.
Then he took a deep breath of the stale, dry air, scrabbled madly with his feet, bent his body like a hooked salmon and ended up with just enough of himself on the corridor floor to prevent a fall through sixty feet of letters and broken woodwork.
Barely thinking, he unhooked the lamp from the doorpost and turned to survey the task ahead.
The corridor was brightly lit, richly carpeted and completely free of mail. Moist stared.
There had been letters in there, wedged tight from floor to ceiling. He’d seen them, and felt them fall past him into the stairwell. They hadn’t been a hallucination; they’d been solid, musty, dusty and real. To believe anything else now would be madness.
He turned back to look at the wreckage of the stairs and saw no doorway, no stairs. The carpeted floor extended all the way to the far wall.
Moist realized that there had to be an explanation for this, but the only one he could think of now was: it’s strange. He reached down gingerly to touch the carpet where the stairwell should be, and felt a chill on his fingertips as they passed through it.
And he wondered: did one of the other new postmasters stand here, just where I am? And did he walk out over what looked like solid floor and end up rolling down five flights of pain?
Moist inched his way along the corridor in the opposite direction, and sound began to grow. It was vague and generalized, the noise of a big building hard at work, shouts, conversations, the rattle of machinery, the crowded susurrus of a thousand voices and wheels and footfalls and stampings and scribblings and slammings all woven together in a huge space to become the pure audible texture of commerce.
The corridor opened out ahead of him, where it met a T-junction. The noise was coming from the brightly lit space beyond. Moist walked towards the shining brass railing of the balcony ahead—
—and stopped.
All right, the brain has been carried all the way up here at great expense; now it’s time for it to do some work.
The hall of the Post Office was a dark cavern filled with mountains of mail. There were no balconies, no shining brasswork, no bustling staff and as sure as hell there were no customers.
The only time the Post Office could have looked like this was in the past, yes?
There was balconies, sir, all round the big hall on every floor, made of iron, like lace!
But they weren’t in the present, not in the here and now. But he wasn’t in the past, not exactly. His fingers had felt a stairwell when his eyes had seen carpeted floor.
Moist decided that he was standing in the here and now but seeing in the here and then. Of course, you’d have to be mad to believe it, but this was the Post Office.
Poor Mr Sideburn had stepped out on to a floor that wasn’t there any more.
Moist stopped before stepping out on to the balcony, reached down, and felt the chill on his fingertips once again as they went through the carpet. Who was it - oh, yes, Mr Mutable. He’d stood here, rushed to look down and—
—smack, sir, smack on to the marble.
Moist stood up carefully, steadied himself against the wall, and peered gingerly into the big hall.
Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, but they were unlit because sunlight was pouring through the sparkling dome on to a scene innocent of pigeon droppings but alive with people, scuttling across the chequerboard floor or hard at work behind the long polished counters made of rare wood, my dad said. Moist stood and stared.
It was a scene made up of a hundred purposeful activities that fused happily into a great anarchy. Below him big wire baskets on wheels were being manhandled across the floor, sacks of letters were being tipped on moving belts, clerks were feverishly filling the pigeon-holes. It was a machine, made of people, sir, you should’ve seen it!
Away to Moist’s left, at the far end of the hall, was a golden statue three or four times life size. It was of a slim young man, obviously a god, wearing nothing more than a hat with wings on, sandals with wings on and - Moist squinted - a fig leaf with wings on? He’d been caught by the sculptor as he was about to leap into the air, carrying an envelope and wearing an expression of noble purpose.
It dominated the hall. It wasn’t there in the present day; the dais was unoccupied. If the counters and the chandeliers had gone, a statue that even looked like gold must’ve stood no chance. It had probably been The Spirit of the Post, or something.
Meanwhile, the mail down there was moving more prosaically.
Right under the dome was a clock with a face pointing in each of the four directions. As Moist watched it, the big hand clanked to the top of the hour.
A horn blew. The frantic ballet ceased as, somewhere below Moist, some doors opened and two lines of men in the uniforms, sir, royal blue with brass buttons! You should’ve seen them! marched into the hall in two lines and stood to attention in front of the big doors. A large man, in a rather grander version of the uniform and with a face like toothache, was waiting there for them; he wore a large hourglass hanging in a gimballed brass cage at his belt, and he looked at the waiting men as if he had seen worse sights but not often and even then only on the soles of his enormous boots.
He held up the hourglass with an air of evil satisfaction, and took a deep breath before roaring: ‘Numbahhh Four Delivereeee . . . stand!’
The words reached Moist’s ears slightly muffled, as though he was hearing them through cardboard. The postmen, already at attention, contrived to look even more alert. The big man glared at them and took another huge gulp of air.
‘Numbahhh Four Delivereeee wait for it, wait for it! . . . DELIVAAAAAAAH!’
The two lines marched past him and out into the day.
Once, we were postmen . . .
I’ve got to find a real stairway, Moist thought, pushing himself away from the edge. I’m . . . hallucinating the past. But I’m standing in the present. It’s like sleepwalking. I don’t want to walk out on to fresh air and end up as one more chalk outline.
He turned round, and someone walked right through him.
The sensation was unpleasant, like a sudden snap of fever. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is seeing someone’s head walk through yours. The view is mostly grey, with traces of red and hollow hints of sinus. You would not wish to know about the eyeballs.
 . . . face all contorted like he’d seen a ghost . . .
Moist’s stomach heaved, and as he turned with his hand over his mouth he saw a young postman looking in his general direction with a look of horror that probably reflected the one on the unseen Moist’s face. Then the boy shivered, and hurried away.
So Mr Ignavia had got this far, too. He’d been smart enough to work out the floor but seeing another head going through your own, well, that could take you the wrong way . . .
Moist ran after the boy. Up here, he was lost; he must have toured less than a tenth of the building with Groat, the way constantly being blocked by glaciers of mail. There were other stairs, he knew, and they still existed in the present. Ground level, that was the goal: a floor you could rely on.
The boy went through a door and into what looked like a room full of parcels, but Moist could see an open doorway at the far end, and a hint of banister. He speeded up, and the floor disappeared from under his feet.
The light vanished. He was briefly and horribly aware of dry letters all around him, falling with him. He landed on more letters, choking as dry, ancient mail piled up about him. For a moment, through the rain of paper, he caught a glimpse of a dusty window half covered with letters, and then he was submerged again. The heap under him began to move, slipping down and sideways. There was the crack of what could have been a door being burst off its hinges and the sideways flow increased noticeably. He struck out madly for the surface in time for his head to hit the top of a door jamb and then the current dragged him under.
Helpless now, tumbling in the river of paper, Moist dimly felt the jolt as a floor gave way. The mail poured through, taking him with it and slamming him into another drift of envelopes. Sight disappeared as thousands of letters thudded down on top of him, and then sound died, too.
Darkness and silence squeezed him in a fist.
Moist von Lipwig knelt with his head resting on his arms. There was air here but it was warm and stale and wouldn’t last long. He couldn’t move more than a finger.
He could die here. He would die here. There must be tons of mail around him.
‘I commend my soul to any god who can find it,’ he mumbled, in the stifling air.
A line of blue danced across his inner vision.
It was handwriting. But it spoke.

‘Dear Mother, I have arived safely and found good lodgings at . . . .

The voice sounded like a country boy but it had a . . . a scritchy quality to it. If a letter could talk, it would sound like that. The words rambled on, the characters curving and slanting awkwardly under the pen of a reluctant writer—
—and as it ran on another line also began to write across the dark, crisply and neatly:

Dear Sir, I have the honour to inform you that I am the sole executer of the estate of the late Sir Davie Thrill, of The Manor, Mixed Blessings, and it appears that you are the sole . . . .’

The voice continued in words so clipped that you could hear the shelves full of legal books behind the desk, but a third line was beginning.

Dear Mrs Clarck, I much regret to inform you that in an engagement with the enemy yesterday your husband, C. Clark, fought valiantly but was . . .

And then they all wrote at once. Voices in their dozens, their hundreds, their thousands, filled his ears and squiggled across his inner vision. They didn’t shout, they just unrolled the words until his head was full of sound, which formed new words, just as all the instruments of an orchestra tinkle and scrape and blast to produce one climax—
Moist tried to scream, but envelopes filled his mouth.
And then a hand closed on his leg and he was in the air and upside down.
‘Ah, Mr Lipvig!’ boomed the voice of Mr Pump. ‘You Have Been Exploring! Welcome To Your New Office!’

Moist spat out paper and sucked air into stinging lungs.
‘They’re . . . alive!’ he gasped. ‘They’re all alive! And angry! They talk! It was not a hallucination! I’ve had hallucinations and they don’t hurt! I know how the others died!’
‘I Am Happy For You, Mr Lipvig,’ said Pump, turning him the right way up and wading waist deep across the room, while behind them more mail trickled through a hole in the ceiling.
‘You don’t understand! They talk! They want . . .’ Moist hesitated. He could still hear the whispering in his head. He said, as much to himself as for the benefit of the golem, ‘It’s as though they want to be . . . read.’
‘That Is The Function Of A Letter,’ said Pump calmly. ‘You Will See That I Have Almost Cleared Your Apartment.’
‘Listen, they’re just paper! And they talked!’
‘Yes,’ rumbled the golem ponderously. ‘This Place Is A Tomb Of Unheard Words. They Strive To Be Heard.’
‘Oh, come on! Letters are just paper. They can’t speak!’
‘I Am Just Clay, And I Listen,’ said Pump, with the same infuriating calm.
‘Yes, but you’ve got added mumbo-jumbo—’
The red fire rose behind Pump’s eyes as he turned to stare at Moist.
‘I went . . . backwards in time, I think,’ Moist mumbled, backing away. ‘In . . . my head. That’s how Sideburn died. He fell down stairs that weren’t there in the past. And Mr Ignavia died of fright. I’m sure of it! But I was inside the letters! And there must have been a . . . a hole in the floor, or something, and that . . . I fell, and I . . .’ He stopped. ‘This place needs a priest, or a wizard. Someone who understands this kind of stuff. Not me!’
The golem scooped up two armfuls of the mail that had so recently entombed his client.
‘You Are The Postmaster, Mr Lipvig,’ he said.
‘That’s just Vetinari’s trick! I’m no postman, I’m just a fraud—’
‘Mr Lipwig?’ said a nervous voice from the doorway behind him. He turned and saw the boy Stanley, who flinched at his expression.
‘Yes?’ snapped Moist. ‘What the hell do you— What do you want, Stanley? I’m a little busy right now.’
‘There’s some men,’ said Stanley, grinning uncertainly. ‘They’re downstairs. Some men.’
Moist glared at him, but Stanley seemed to have finished for now.
‘And these men want . . . ?’ he prompted.
‘They want you, Mr Lipwig,’ said Stanley. ‘They said they want to see the man who wants to be postmaster.’
‘I don’t want to be—’ Moist began, but gave up. There was no point in taking it out on the boy.
‘Excuse Me, Postmaster,’ said the golem behind him. ‘I Wish To Complete My Allotted Task.’
Moist stood aside as the clay man walked out into the corridor, the old boards groaning under his enormous feet. Outside, you could see how he’d managed to clean out the office. The walls of other rooms were bowed out almost to the point of exploding. When a golem pushes things into a room, they stay pushed.
The sight of the plodding figure calmed Moist down a little. There was something intensely . . . well, down-to-earth about Mr Pump.
What he needed now was normality, normal people to talk to, normal things to do to drive the voices out of his head. He brushed fragments of paper off his increasingly greasy suit.
‘All right,’ he said, trying to find his tie, which had ended up hanging down his back. ‘I shall see what they want.’

They were waiting on the half-landing on the big staircase. They were old men, thin and bowed, like slightly older copies of Groat. They had the same ancient uniform, but there was something odd about them.
Each man had the skeleton of a pigeon wired on to the top of his peaked hat.
‘Be you the Unfranked Man?’ growled one of them, as he approached.
‘What? Who? Am I?’ said Moist. Suddenly, the idea of normality was ebbing again.
‘Yes, you are, sir,’ whispered Stanley beside him. ‘You have to say yes, sir. Gosh, sir, I wish it was me doing this.’
‘Doing what?’
‘For the second time: be you the Unfranked Man?’ said the old man, looking angry. Moist noticed that he was missing the top joints on the middle fingers of his right hand.
‘I suppose so. If you insist,’ he said. This didn’t meet with any approval at all.
‘For the last time: be you the Unfranked Man?’ This time there was real menace in the voice.
‘Yes, all right! For the purposes of this conversation, yes! I am the Unfranked Man!’ Moist shouted. ‘Now can we—’
Something black was dropped over his head from behind and he felt strings pulled tightly round his neck.
‘The Unfranked Man is tardy,’ crackled another elderly voice, in his ear, and unseen but tough hands took hold of him. ‘No postman he.’
‘You’ll be fine, sir,’ said the voice of Stanley, as Moist struggled. ‘Don’t worry. Mr Groat will guide you. You’ll do it easily, sir.’
‘Do what?’ said Moist. ‘Let go of me, you daft old devils!’
‘The Unfranked Man dreads the Walk,’ one assailant hissed.
‘Aye, the Unfranked Man will be Returned to Sender in no short order,’ said another.
‘The Unfranked Man must be weighed in the balance,’ said a third.
‘Stanley, fetch Mr Pump right now!’ shouted Moist, but the hood was thick and clinging.
‘Mustn’t do that, sir,’ said Stanley. ‘Mustn’t do that at all, sir. It will be all right, sir. It’s just a . . . a test, sir. It’s the Order of the Post, sir.’
Funny hats, Moist thought, and began to relax. Hoodwinks and threats . . . I know this stuff. It’s mysticism for tradesmen. There’s not a city in the world without its Loyal and Ancient and Justified and Hermetic Order of little men who think they can reap the secrets of the ancients for a couple of hours every Thursday night and don’t realize what prats they look in a robe. I should know - I must have joined a dozen of ‘em myself. I bet there’s a secret handshake. I know more secret handshakes than the gods. I’m in about as much danger as I would be in a class of five-year-olds. Less, probably. Unfranked Man . . . good grief.
He relaxed. He let himself be led down the stairs, and turned round. Ah, yes, that’s right. You’ve got to make the initiate fear, but everyone knows it’s just a party game. It’ll sound bad, it might even feel bad, but it won’t be bad. He remembered joining - what was it?
Oh yes - the Men of the Furrow, in some town out in the stalks.* He had been blindfolded, of course, and the Men had made all the horrific noises they could imagine, and then a voice in the darkness had said, ‘Shake hands with the Old Master!’ and Moist had reached out and shaken a goat’s foot. Those who got out of there with clean pants won.

* In areas more wooded, areas less dominated by the cabbage and general brassica industry, it would of course have been in the sticks.

Next day he’d swindled three of his trusting new Brothers out of eighty dollars. That didn’t seem quite so funny now.
The old postmen were taking him into the big hall. He could tell by the echoes. And there were other people there, according to those little hairs on the back of his neck. Not just people, maybe; he thought he heard a muffled growl. But that was how it went, right? Things had to sound worrying. The key was to be bold, to act brave and forthright.
His escorts left him. Moist stood in darkness for a moment, and then felt a hand grasp his elbow.
‘It’s me, sir. Probationary Senior Postman Groat, sir. Don’t you worry about a thing, sir. I’m your Temporary Deacon for tonight, sir.’
‘Is this necessary, Mr Groat?’ sighed Moist. ‘I was appointed postmaster, you know.’
‘Appointed, yes. Accepted, not yet, sir. Proof of posting is not proof of delivery, sir.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Can’t tell secrets to an Unfranked Man, sir,’ said Groat piously. ‘You’ve done well to get this far, sir.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Moist, trying to sound jovial. ‘What’s the worst that can happen, eh?’
Groat was silent.
‘I said—’ Moist began.
‘I was just working that out, sir,’ said Groat. ‘Let’s see . . . yes, sir. The worst that can happen is you lose all your fingers on one hand, are crippled for life, and break half the bones in your body. Oh, and then they don’t let you join. But don’t you worry about a thing, sir, not a thing!’
Up ahead, a voice boomed: ‘Who brings the Unfranked Man?’
Beside Moist, Groat cleared his throat and, when he spoke, his voice actually shook.
‘I, probationary Senior Postman Tolliver Groat, do bring the Unfranked Man.’
‘You did say that about the bones to frighten me, right?’ hissed Moist.
‘And does he stand in the Gloom of Night?’ the voice demanded.
‘He does now, Worshipful Master!’ shouted Groat happily, and whispered to the hooded Moist, ‘Some of the old boys are really happy about you getting the sign back.’
‘Good. Now, these broken bones you mentioned—’
‘Then let him walk the Walk!’ the unseen voice commanded.
‘We’re just going to walk forward, sir. Easy does it,’ Groat whispered urgently. ‘That’s it. Stop here.’
‘Look,’ said Moist, ‘all that stuff . . . that was just to scare me, right?’
‘You leave it to me, sir,’ Groat whispered.
‘But listen, the—’ Moist began, and had a mouthful of hood.
‘Let him don the Boots!’ the voice went on.
Amazing how you can hear the capital letters, Moist thought, trying not to choke on the cloth.
‘Pair of boots right in front of you, sir,’ came Groat’s hoarse whisper. ‘Put ‘em on. No problem, sir.’
‘Pff! Yes, but listen—’
‘The boots, sir, please!’
Moist removed his shoes, very clumsily, and slid his feet into the invisible boots. They turned out to be as heavy as lead.
‘The Walk of the Unfranked Man is Heavy,’ the booming voice intoned. ‘Let him continue!’
Moist took another step forward, trod on something which rolled, stumbled headlong and felt a stab of agony as his shins hit metal.
‘Postmen,’ the booming voice demanded again, ‘what is the First Oath?’
Voices sang out from the darkness, in chorus: ‘Strewth, would you bleedin’ credit it? Toys, prams, garden tools . . . they don’t care what they leaves out on the path on these dark mornings!’
‘Did the Unfranked Man cry out?’ the voice said.
I think I’ve broken my chin, Moist thought, as Groat dragged him to his feet. I think I’ve broken my chin! The old man hissed: ‘Well done, sir,’ and then raised his voice to add for the benefit of the unseen watchers: ‘He crydeth out not, Worshipful Master, but was resolute!’
‘Then give unto him the Bag!’ boomed the distant voice. Moist was beginning to loathe it.
Unseen hands put a strap round Moist’s neck. When they let go, the weight on it bent him double.
‘The Postman’s Bag is Heavy, but soon it shall be Light!’ echoed off the walls. No one had said anything about pain, Moist thought. Well, actually they had, but they didn’t say they meant it—
‘On we go, sir,’ Groat urged, invisible at his side. ‘This is the Postman’s Walk, remember!’
Moist edged forward, very carefully, and felt something rattle away.
‘He trod not upon the Roller Skate, Worshipful Master!’ Groat reported to the invisible watchers.
Moist, aching but heartened, tried two more hesitant steps, and there was another rattle as something bounced off his boot.
‘The Carelessly Abandoned Beer Bottle impeded him not!’ Groat yelled triumphantly.
Emboldened, Moist essayed a further step, trod on something slippery, and felt his foot head off and up without him. He landed heavily on his back, his head thumping on the floor. He was sure he heard his own skull crack.
‘Postmen, what is the Second Oath?’ the echoing voice commanded.
‘Dogs! I tell you, there’s no such thing as a good one! If they don’t bite they all crap! It’s as bad as stepping on machine oil!’
Moist got to his knees, head spinning.
‘That’s right, that’s right, you keeps goin’!’ hissed Groat, grabbing his elbow. ‘You get through, come rain or shine!’ He lowered his voice even further. ‘Remember what it says on the building!’
‘Mrs Cake?’ Moist mumbled, and then thought: was it rain or snow? Or sleet? He heard movement and hunched over the heavy bag as the water drenched him and an over-enthusiastic bucket bounced off his head.
Rain, then. He straightened up just in time to feel biting coldness slither down the back of the neck, and nearly screamed.
‘That was ice cubes,’ Groat whispered. ‘Got ‘em from the mortuary but don’t you worry, sir, they was hardly used . . . best we can do for snow, this time of year. Sorry! Don’t you worry about a thing, sir!’
‘Let the Mail be tested!’ bellowed the all-commanding voice.
Groat’s hand plunged into the bag while Moist staggered in a circle, and he raised a letter triumphantly.
‘I, probationary Senior— Oh, excuse me just a tick, Worshipful Master . . .’ Moist felt his head being pulled down to the level of Groat’s mouth, and the old man whispered: ‘Was that probationary or full Senior Postman, sir?’
‘What? Oh, full, yes, full!’ said Moist, as iced water filled his shoes. ‘Definitely!’
‘I, Senior Postman Groat, do declare the mail to be as dry as a bone, Worshipful Master!’ shouted Groat triumphantly.
This time the cracked voice of authority held a hint of gleeful menace.
‘Then let him . . . deliver it!
In the stifling gloom of the hood, Moist’s sense of danger barred the door and hid in the cellar. This was where the unseen chanters leaned forward. This was where it stopped being a game.
‘I haven’t actually written anything down, mark you,’ he began, swaying.
‘Careful now, careful,’ hissed Groat, ignoring him. ‘Nearly there! There’s a door right in front of you, there’s a letter box— Could he take a breather, Worshipful Master? He caught his head a nasty crack—’
‘A breather, Brother Groat? So’s you can give him another hint or two, maybe?’ said the presiding voice, with scorn.
‘Worshipful Master, the rituals says that the Unfranked Man is allowed a—’ Groat protested.
‘This Unfranked Man walketh alone! On his tod, Tolliver Groat! He doesn’t want to be a Junior Postman, oh no, nor even a Senior Postman, not him! He wants to achieve the rank of Postmaster all in one go! We’re not playing Postman’s Knock here, Junior Postman Groat! You talked us into this! We are not mucking about! He’s got to show he’s worth it!’
‘That’s Senior Postman Groat, thank you so very much!’ Groat yelled.
‘You ain’t a proper Senior Postman, Tolliver Groat, not if he fails the test!’
‘Yeah? And who says you’re Worshipful Master, George Aggy? You’re only Worshipful Master ‘cos you got first crack at the robes!’
The Worshipful Master’s voice become a little less commanding. ‘You’re a decent bloke, Tolliver, I’ll give you that, but all this stuff you spout about a real postmaster turning up one day and making it all better is just . . . silly! Look at this place, will you? It’s had its day. We all have. But if you’re going to be pig-headed, we’ll do it according to the book of rules!’
‘Right, then!’ said Groat.
‘Right, then!’ echoed the Worshipful Master.
A secret society of postmen, Moist thought. I mean, why?
Groat sighed, and leaned closer. ‘There’s going to be a bloody row after we’re finished,’ he hissed to Moist. ‘Sorry about this, sir. Just post the letter. I believe in you, sir!’
He stepped back.
In the dark night of the hood, stunned and bleeding, Moist shuffled forward, arms outstretched. His hands found the door, and ran across it in a vain search for the slot. Eventually they found it a foot above the ground.
Okay, okay, ram a damn letter in there and get this stupid pantomime over with.
But it wasn’t a game. This wasn’t one of those events where everyone knew that old Harry just had to mouth the right words to be the latest member of the Loyal Order of Chair Stuffers. There were people out there taking it seriously.
Well, he just had to post a letter through a slot, didn’t he? How hard could that b— Hold on, hold on . . . wasn’t one of the men who’d led him down here missing the tips of his fingers on one hand?
Suddenly, Moist was angry. It even sheared through the pain from his chin. He didn’t have to do this! At least, he didn’t have to do it like this. It would be a poor lookout if he wasn’t a better player of les buggeures risibles than this bunch of old fools!
He straightened up, stifling a groan, and pulled off the hood. There was still darkness all around him, but it was punctuated by the glow from the doors of a dozen or so dark lanterns.
‘ ‘ere, ‘e’s taken the hood off!’ someone shouted.
‘The Unfranked Man may choose to remain in darkness,’ said Moist. ‘But the Postman loves the Light.’
He pitched the voice right. It was the key to a thousand frauds. You had to sound right, sound like you knew what you were doing, sound like you were in charge. And, while he’d spoken gibberish, it was authentic gibberish.
The door of a lantern opened a little wider and a plaintive voice said, ‘ ‘ere, I can’t find that in the book. Where’s he supposed to say that?’
You had to move quickly, too. Moist wrapped the hood round his hand and levered up the flap of the letter box. With his other hand he grabbed a random letter out of the bag, flicked it through the slot and then pulled his makeshift glove away. It ripped as though cut by shears.
‘Postmen, what is the Third Oath?’ shouted Groat triumphantly. ‘All together, lads: Strewth, what do they make these flaps out of, razor blades?’
There was a resentful silence.
‘He never had ‘is ‘ood on,’ muttered a robed figure.
‘Yes he did! He wrapped it round his hand! Tell me where it says he can’t do that!’ screamed Groat. ‘I told you! He’s the One we’ve been waiting for!’
‘There’s still the final test,’ said the Worshipful Master.
‘What final test are you goin’ on about, George Aggy? He delivered the mail!’ Groat protested. ‘Lord Vetinari appointed him postmaster and he’s walked the Walk!’
‘Vetinari? He’s only been around five minutes! Who’s he to say who’s postmaster? Was his father a postman? No! Or his grandfather? Look at the men he’s been sending! You said they were sneaky devils who didn’t have a drop of Post Office ink in their blood!’
‘I think this one might be able to—’ Groat began.
‘He can take the ultimate test,’ said the Worshipful Master sternly. ‘You know what that is.’
‘It’ll be murder!’ said Groat. ‘You can’t—’
‘I ain’t telling you again, young Tolly, you just shut your mouth! Well, Mister Postmaster? Will you face the postman’s greatest challenge? Will you face . . .’ the voice paused for effect and just in case there might be a few bars of portentous music, ‘the Enemy at the Gate?’
‘Face it and o’ercome it, if you demand it!’ said Moist. The fool had called him Postmaster! It was working! Sound as if you’re in charge and they start to believe it! Oh, and ‘o’er’ had been a good touch, too.
‘We do! Oh yes, we do!’ chorused the robed postmen.
Groat, a bearded shadow in the gloom, took Moist’s hand and, to his amazement, shook it.
‘Sorry about this, Mr Lipwig,’ he said. ‘Din’t expect this at all. They’re cheating. But you’ll be fine. You just rely on Senior Postman Groat, sir.’
He drew his hand away, and Moist felt something small and cold in his palm. He closed his fist over it. Didn’t expect it at all?’
‘Right, Postmaster,’ said the Worshipful Master. ‘This is a simple test. All you have to do, right, is still be standing here, on your feet, in one minute’s time, all right? Run for it, lads!’
There was a swishing of robes and scurrying of feet and a distant door slammed. Moist was left standing in silent, pigeon-smelling gloom.
What other test could there be? He tried to remember all the words on the front of the building. Trolls? Dragons? Green things with teeth? He opened his hand to see what it was that Groat had slipped him.
It looked very much like a whistle.
Somewhere in the darkness a door opened, and shut again. It was followed by the distant sound of paws moving purposefully.
Dogs.
Moist turned and ran down the hall to the plinth, and scrambled on to it. It wouldn’t be much of a problem for large dogs, but at least it would put their heads at kicking height.
Then there was a bark, and Moist’s face broke into a smile. You only ever needed to hear that bark once. It wasn’t a particularly aggressive one, because it was made by a mouth capable of crushing a skull. You didn’t need too much extra advertising when you could do that. News got around.
This was going to be . . . ironic. They’d actually got hold of Lipwigzers!
Moist waited until he could see the eyes in the lantern light before hesaid,’Schlat!’
The dogs stopped, and stared at Moist. Clearly, they were thinking, something is wrong here. He sighed, and slipped down off the pedestal.
‘Look,’ he said, placing a hand on each rump and exerting downward pressure. ‘One fact everyone knows is that no female Lipwigzers have ever been let out of the country. That keeps the breed price high . . . Schlat! I said! . . . and every puppy is trained to Lipwigzian commands! This is the old country talking, boys! Schlat!’
The dogs sat down instantly.
‘Good boys,’ said Moist. It was true what people like his grandfather said: once you got past their ability to bite through a whole leg in one go, they were very nice animals.
He cupped his hands and shouted: ‘Gentlemen? It’s safe for you to come in now!’ The postmen would be listening, that was certain. They’d be waiting for snarls and screams.
The distant door opened.
‘Come forward!’ snapped Moist. The dogs turned to look at the huddle of approaching postmen. They growled, too, in one long, uninterrupted rumble.
Now he could see the mysterious Order clearly. They were robed, of course, because you couldn’t have a secret order without robes. They had pushed the hoods back now, and each man* was wearing a peaked cap with a bird skeleton wired to it.

* Women are always significantly under-represented in secret orders.

‘Now, sir, we knew Tolliver’d slip you the dog whistle—’ one of them began, looking nervously at the Lipwigzers.
‘This?’ said Moist, opening his hand. ‘I didn’t use it. It only makes ‘em angry.’
The postmen stared at the sitting dogs.
‘But you got ‘em to sit—’ one began.
‘I can get them to do other things,’ said Moist levelly. ‘I just have to say the word.’
‘Er . . . there’s a couple of lads outside with muzzles, if it’s all the same to you, sir,’ said Groat, as the Order backed away. ‘We’re heridititerrilyly wary of dogs. It’s a postman thing.’
‘I can assure you that the control my voice has over them at the moment is stronger than steel,’ said Moist. This was probably garbage, but it was good garbage.
The growl from one of the dogs had taken on the edge it tended to get just before the creature became a tooth-tipped projectile.
‘Vodit!’ shouted Moist. ‘Sorry about this, gentlemen,’ he added. ‘I think you make them nervous. They can smell fear, as you probably know.’
‘Look, we’re really sorry, all right?’ said the one whose voice suggested to Moist that he had been the Worshipful Master. ‘We had to be sure, all right?’
‘I’m the postmaster, then?’ said Moist.
‘Absolutely, sir. No problem at all. Welcome, O Postmaster!’
Quick learner, Moist thought.
‘I think I’ll just—’ he began, as the double doors opened at the other end of the hall.
Mr Pump entered, carrying a large box. It should be quite hard to open a big pair of doors while carrying something in both hands, but not if you’re a golem. They just walk at them. The doors can choose to open or try to stay shut, it’s up to them.
The dogs took off like fireworks. The postmen took off in the opposite direction, climbing on to the dais behind Moist with commendable speed for such elderly men.
Mr Pump plodded forward, crushing underfoot the debris of the Walk. He rocked as the creatures struck him, and then patiently put down the box and picked up the dogs by the scruff of their necks.
‘There Are Some Gentlemen Outside With Nets And Gloves And Extremely Thick Clothing, Mr Lipvig,’ he said. ‘They Say They Work For A Mr Harry King. They Want To Know If You Have Finished With These Dogs.’
‘Harry King?’ said Moist.
‘He’s a big scrap merchant, sir,’ said Groat. ‘I expect the dogs was borrowed off of him. He turns ‘em loose in his yards at night.’
‘No burglar gets in, eh?’
‘I think he’s quite happy if they get in, sir. Saves having to feed the dogs.’
‘Hah! Please take them away, Mr Pump,’ said Moist. Lipwigzers! It had been so easy.
As they watched the golem turn round with a whimpering dog under each arm, he added: ‘Mr King must be doing well, then, to run Lipwigzers as common guard dogs!’
‘Lipwigzers? Harry King? Bless you, sir, old Harry wouldn’t buy posh foreign dogs when he can buy crossbreeds, not him!’ said Groat. ‘Probably a bit of Lipwigzer in ‘em, I dare say, probably the worst bits. Hah, a purebred Lipwigzer prob’ly wouldn’t last five minutes against some of the mongrels in our alleys. Some of’em has got crocodile in ‘em.’
There was a moment of silence and then Moist said, in a faraway voice: ‘So . . . definitely not imported purebreds, you think?’
‘Bet your life on it, sir,’ said Groat cheerfully. ‘Is there a problem, sir?’
‘What? Urn . . . no. Not at all.’
‘You sounded a bit disappointed, sir. Or something.’
‘No. I’m fine. No problem.’ Moist added, thoughtfully: ‘You know, I really have got to get some laundry done. And perhaps some new shoes . . .’
The doors swung open again to reveal, not the return of the dogs, but Mr Pump once more. He picked up the box he’d left and headed on towards Moist.
‘Well, we’ll be off,’ said the Worshipful Master. ‘Nice to have met you, Mr Lipwig.’
‘That’s it?’ said Moist. ‘Isn’t there a ceremony or something?’
‘Oh, that’s Tolliver, that is,’ said the Worshipful Master. ‘I like to see the old place still standing, really I do, but it’s all about the clacks these days, isn’t it? Young Tolliver thinks it can all be got going again, but he was just a lad when it all broke down. You can’t fix some things, Mr Lipwig. Oh, you can call yourself postmaster, but where’d you start to get this lot back working? It’s an old fossil, sir, just like us.’
‘Your Hat, Sir,’ said Pump.
‘What?’ said Moist, and turned to where the golem was standing by the dais, patiently, with a hat in his hands.
It was a postman’s peaked hat, in gold, with golden wings. Moist took it, and saw how the gold was just paint, cracked and peeling, and the wings were real dried pigeon wings and almost crumbled to the touch. As the golem had held it up in the light it had gleamed like something from some ancient tomb. In Moist’s hands, it crackled and smelled of attics and shed golden flakes. Inside the brim, on a stained label, were the words ‘Boult & Locke, Military and Ceremonial Outfitters, Peach Pie Street, A-M. Size: 7 1/4.
‘There Is A Pair Of Boots With Wings, Too,’ said Mr Pump, ‘And Some Sort Of Elasticated—’
‘Don’t bother about that bit!’ said Groat excitedly. ‘Where did you find that stuff? We’ve been looking everywhere! For years!’
‘It Was Under The Mail In The Postmaster’s Office, Mr Groat.’
‘Couldn’t have been, couldn’t have been!’ Groat protested. ‘We’ve sifted through there dozens of times! I seen every inch o’ carpet in there!’
‘A lot of mail, er, moved about today,’ said Moist.
‘That Is Correct,’ said the golem. ‘Mr Lipvig Came Through The Ceiling.’
‘Ah, so he found it, eh?’ said Groat triumphantly. ‘See? It’s all coming true! The prophecy!’
‘There is no prophecy, Tolliver,’ said the Worshipful Master, shaking his head sadly. ‘I know you think there is, but wishing that someone will come along and sort this mess out one day is not the same as a prophecy. Not really.’
‘We’ve been hearing the letters talking again!’ said Groat. ‘They whisper in the night. We have to read them the Regulations to keep ‘em quiet. Just like the wizard said!’
‘Yes, well, you know what we used to say: you do have to be mad to work here!’ said the Worshipful Master. ‘It’s all over, Tolliver. It really is. The city doesn’t even need us any more.’
‘You put that hat on, Mr Lipwig!’ said Groat. ‘It’s fate, that turning up like this. You just put it on and see what happens!’
‘Well, if everyone’s happy about it . . .’ Moist mumbled. He held the hat above his head, but hesitated.
‘Nothing is going to happen, is it?’ he said. ‘Only I’ve had a very strange day . . .’
‘No, nothing’s going to happen,’ said the Worshipful Master. ‘It never does. Oh, we all thought it would, once. Every time someone said they’d put the chandeliers back or deliver the mail we thought, maybe it’s ended, maybe it really is going to work this time. And young Tolliver there, you made him happy when you put the sign back. Got him excited. Made him think it’d work this time. It never does, though, ‘cos this place is cursèd.’
‘That’s cursed with an extra ed?’
‘Yes, sir. The worst kind. No, put your hat on, sir. It’ll keep the rain off, at least.’
Moist prepared to lower the hat, but as he did so he was aware that the old postmen were drawing back.
‘You’re not sure!’ Moist yelled, waving a finger. ‘You’re not actually sure, are you! All of you! You’re thinking, hmm, maybe this time it will work, right? You’re holding your breath! I can tell! Hope is a terrible thing, gentlemen!’
He lowered the hat.
‘Feeling anything?’ said Groat, after a while.
‘It’s a bit . . . scratchy,’ said Moist.
‘Ah, that’d be some amazing mystic force leakin’ out, eh?’ said Groat desperately.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Moist. ‘Sorry.’
‘Most of the postmasters I served under hated wearing that thing,’ said the Worshipful Master, as everyone relaxed. ‘Mind you, you’ve got the height to carry it off. Postmaster Atkinson was only five feet one, and it made him look broody.’ He patted Moist on the shoulder. ‘Never mind, lad, you did your best.’
An envelope bounced off his head. As he brushed it away another one landed on his shoulder, and slid off.
Around the group, letters started to land on the floor like fish dropped by a passing tornado.
Moist looked up. The letters were falling down from the darkness, and the drizzle was turning into a torrent.
‘Stanley? Are you . . . messing about up there?’ Groat ventured, almost invisible in the paper sleet.
‘I always said those attics didn’t have strong enough floors,’ moaned the Worshipful Master. ‘It’s just a mailstorm again. We made too much noise, that’s all. C’mon, let’s get out while we can, eh?’
‘Then put those lanterns out! They ain’t safety lights!’ shouted Groat.
‘We’ll be groping around in the dark, lad!’
‘Oh, you’d rather see by the light of a burning roof, would you?’
The lanterns winked out . . . and by the darkness they now shed Moist von Lipwig saw the writing on the wall or, at least, hanging in the air just in front of it. The hidden pen swooped through the air in loops and curves, drawing its glowing blue letters behind it.
Moist von Lipwig? it wrote.
‘Er . . . yes?’
You are the Postmaster!
‘Look, I’m not the One you’re looking for!’
Moist von Lipwig, at a time like this any One will do!
‘But . . . but . . . I am not worthy!’
Acquire worth with speed. Moist von Lipwig! Bring back the light! Open the doors! Stay not the messengers about their business!
Moist looked down at the golden light coming up from around his feet. It sparkled off his fingertips and began to fill him up from inside, like fine wine. He felt his feet leave the dais as the words lifted him up and spun him gently.
In the beginning was a Word, but what is a word without it’s messenger, Moist Von Lipwig? You are the Postmaster!
‘I am the Postmaster!’ Moist shouted.
The mail must move, Moist von Lipwig! Too long have we been bound here.
‘I will move the mail!’
You will move the mail?
‘I will! I will!
Moist von Lipwig?
‘Yes?’
The words came like a gale, whirling the envelopes in the sparkling light, shaking the building to its foundations.
Deliver us!

Chapter Six

Little Pictures

The Postmen Unmasked - A terrible Engine - The New Pie - Mr Lipwig
thinks about stamps — the Messenger from the Dawn of Time

‘Mr Lipvig?’ said Mr Pump.
Moist looked up into the golem’s glowing eyes. There had to be a better way of waking up in the morning. Some people managed with a clock, for heavens’ sake.
He was lying on a bare mattress under a musty blanket in his newly excavated apartment, which smelled of ancient paper, and every bit of him ached.
In a clouded kind of way, he was aware of Pump saying: ‘The Postmen Are Waiting, Sir. Postal Inspector Groat Said That You Would Probably Wish To Send Them Out Properly On This Day.’
Moist blinked at the ceiling. ‘Postal Inspector? I promoted him all the way to Postal Inspector?’
‘Yes, Sir. You Were Very Ebullient.’
Memories of last night flocked treacherously to tap-dance their speciality acts on the famous stage of the Grand Old Embarrassing Recollection.
‘Postmen?’ he said.
‘The Brotherhood Of The Order Of The Post. They’re Old Men, Sir, But Wiry. They’re Pensioners Now, But They All Volunteered. They’ve Been Here For Hours, Sorting The Mail.’
I hired a bunch of men even older than Groat . . .
‘Did I do anything else?’
‘You Gave A Very Inspirational Speech, Sir. I Was Particularly Impressed When You Pointed Out That “Angel” Is Just A Word For Messenger. Not Many People Know That.’
On the bed, Moist slowly tried to cram his fist into his mouth.
‘Oh, And You Promised To Bring Back The Big Chandeliers And The Fine Polished Counter, Sir. They Were Very Impressed. No One Knows Where They Got To.’
Oh, gods, thought Moist.
‘And The Statue Of The God, Sir. That Impressed Them Even More, I Would Say, Because Apparently It Was Melted Down Many Years Ago.’
‘Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?’
‘I Am Sorry, Sir?’ said the golem.
But Moist remembered the light, and the whispering of the mail. It’d filled his mind with . . . knowledge, or memories that he didn’t remember ever acquiring.
‘Unfinished stories,’ he said.
‘Yes, Sir,’ said the golem calmly. ‘You Talked About Them At Length, Sir.’
‘I did?’
‘Yes, Sir. You Said—’
—that every undelivered message is a piece of space-time that lacks another end, a little bundle of effort and emotion floating freely. Pack millions of them together and they do what letters are meant to do. They communicate, and change the nature of events. When there’s enough of them, they distort the universe around them.
It had all made sense to Moist. Or, at least, as much sense as anything else.
‘And . . . did I actually rise up in the air, glowing gold?’ said Moist.
‘I Think I Must Have Missed That, Sir,’ said Mr Pump.
‘You mean I didn’t, then.’
‘In A Manner Of Speaking You Did, Sir,’ said the golem.
‘But in common, everyday reality I didn’t?’
‘You Were Lit, As It Were, By An Inner Fire, Sir. The Postmen Were Extremely Impressed.’
Moist’s eye lit on the winged hat, which had been thrown carelessly on the desk.
‘I’m never going to live up to all this, Mr Pump,’ he said. ‘They want a saint, not someone like me.’
‘Perhaps A Saint Is Not What They Need, Sir,’ said the golem.
Moist sat up, and the blanket dropped away. ‘What happened to my clothes?’ he said. ‘I’m sure I hung them neatly on the floor.’
‘I Did In Fact Try To Clean Your Suit With Spot Remover, Sir,’ said Mr Pump. ‘But Since It Was Effectively Just One Large Spot, It Removed The Whole Suit.’
‘I liked that suit! At least you could have saved it for dusters, or something.’
‘I’m Sorry, Sir, I’d Assumed That Dusters Had Been Saved For Your Suit. But In Any Case, I Obeyed Your Order, Sir.’
Moist paused. ‘What order?’ he said suspiciously.
‘Last Night You Asked Me To Obtain A Suit Fit For A Postmaster, Sir. You Gave Me Very Precise Instructions,’ said the golem. ‘Fortunately My Colleague Stitcher 22 Was Working At The Theatrical Costumiers. It Is Hanging On The Door.’
And the golem had even found a mirror. It wasn’t very big, but it was big enough to show Moist that if he were dressed any sharper he’d cut himself as he walked.
‘Wow,’ he breathed. ‘El Dorado or what?’
The suit was cloth of gold, or whatever actors used instead. Moist was about to protest, but second thoughts intervened quickly.
Good suits helped. A smooth tongue was not much use in rough trousers. And people would notice the suit, not him. He’d certainly be noticed in this suit; it’d light up the street. People would have to shade their eyes to look at him. And apparently he’d asked for this.
‘It’s very . . .’ He hesitated. The only word was ‘. . . fast. I mean, it looks as if it’s about to speed away at any moment!’
‘Yes, Sir. Stitcher 22 Has A Skill. Note Also The Gold Shirt And Tie. To Match The Hat, Sir.’
‘Er, you couldn’t get him to knock up something a little more sombre, could you?’ said Moist, covering his eyes to stop himself being blinded by his own lapels. ‘For me to wear when I don’t want to illuminate distant objects?’
‘I Shall Do So Immediately, Sir.’
‘Well,’ Moist said, blinking in the light of his sleeves. ‘Let’s speed the mail, then, shall we?’
The formerly retired postmen were waiting in the hall, in a space cleared from last night’s maildrop. They all wore uniforms, although since no two uniforms were exactly alike they were not, in fact, uniform and therefore not technically uniforms. The caps all had peaks, but some were high-domed and some were soft and the old men themselves had ingrown their clothes, too, so that jackets hung like drape coats and trousers looked like concertinas. And, as is the wont of old men, they wore their medals and the determined looks of those ready for the final combat.
‘Delivery ready for inspection, sah!’ said Postal Inspector Groat, standing at attention so hard that sheer pride had lifted his feet a full inch off the floor.
‘Thank you. Er . . . right.’
Moist wasn’t sure what he was inspecting, but he did his best. Wrinkled face after wrinkled face stared back at him.
The medals, he realized, weren’t all for military service. The Post Office had medals of its own. One was a golden dog’s head, worn by a little man with a face like a packet of weasels.
‘What’s this, er . . .’ he began.
‘Senior Postman George Aggy, sir. The badge? Fifteen bites and still standin’, sir!’ said the man proudly.
‘Well, that is a . . . a . . . a lot of bites, isn’t it . . .’
‘Ah, but I foxed ‘em after number nine, sir, and got meself a tin leg, sir!’
‘You lost your leg?’ said Moist, horrified.
‘No, sir. Bought a bit of ol’ armour, didn’t I?’ said the wizened man, grinning artfully. ‘Does m’heart good to hear their teeth squeaking, sir!’
‘Aggy, Aggy . . .’ Moist mused, and then memory sparked. ‘Weren’t you—’
‘I’m the Worshipful Master, sir,’ said Aggy. ‘I hope you won’t take last night the wrong way, sir. We all used to be like young Tolliver, sir, but we gave up hope, sir. No hard feelings?’
‘No, no,’ said Moist, rubbing the back of his head.
‘And I’d like to add my own message of congratulations as chairman of the Ankh-Morpork Order of Postal Workers Benevolent and Friendly Society,’ Aggy went on.
‘Er . . . thank you,’ said Moist. ‘And who are they, exactly?’
‘That was us last night, sir,’ said Aggy, beaming.
‘But I thought you were a secret society!’
‘Not secret, sir. Not exactly secret. More . . . ignored, you might say. These days it’s just about pensions and making sure your ol’ mates get a proper funeral when they’re Returned to Sender, really.’
‘Well done,’ said Moist vaguely, which seemed to cover everything. He stood back, and cleared his throat. ‘Gentlemen, this is it. If we want the Post Office back in business, we must start by delivering the old mail. It is a sacred trust. The mail gets through. It may take fifty years, but we get there in the end. You know your walks. Take it steady. Remember, if you can’t deliver it, if the house has gone . . . well, it comes back here and we’ll put it into the Dead Letter office and at least we’ll have tried. We just want people to know the Post Office is back again, understand?’
A postman raised a hand.
‘Yes?’ Moist’s skill at remembering names was better than his skill at remembering anything else about last night. ‘Senior Postman Thompson, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir! So what do we do when people give us letters, sir?’
Moist’s brow wrinkled. ‘Sorry? I thought you deliver the mail, don’t you?’
‘No, Bill’s right, sir,’ said Groat. ‘What do we do if people give us new mail?’
‘Er . . . what did you use to do?’ said Moist.
The postmen looked at one another.
‘Get one penny off ‘em for the stamping, bring it back here to be stamped with the official stamp,’ said Groat promptly. ‘Then it gets sorted and delivered.’
‘So . . . people have to wait until they see a postman? That seems rather—’
‘Oh, in the old days there was dozens of smaller offices, see?’ Groat added. ‘But when it all started going bad we lost ‘em.’
‘Well, let’s get the mail moving again and we can work things out as we go along,’ said Moist. ‘I’m sure ideas will occur. And now, Mr Groat, you have a secret to share . . .’

Groat’s key ring jingled as he led Moist through the Post Office’s cellars and eventually to a metal door. Moist noted a length of black and yellow rope on the floor: the Watch had been here, too.
The door clicked open. There was a blue glow inside, just faint enough to be annoying, leave purple shadows on the edge of vision and make the eyes water.
‘Voil-ah,’ said Groat.
‘It’s a . . . is it some kind of theatre organ?’ said Moist. It was hard to see the outlines of the machine in the middle of the floor, but it stood there with all the charm of a torturer’s rack. The blue glow was coming from somewhere in the middle of it. Moist’s eyes were streaming already.
‘Good try, sir! Actually it is the Sorting Engine,’ said Groat. ‘It’s the curse of the Post Office, sir. It had imps in it for the actual reading of the envelopes, but they all evaporated years ago. Just as well, too.’
Moist’s gaze took in the wire racks that occupied a whole wall of the big room. It also found the chalk outlines on the floor. The chalk glowed in the strange light. The outlines were quite small. One of them had five fingers.
‘Industrial accident,’ he muttered. ‘All right, Mr Groat. Tell me.’
‘Don’t go near the glow, sir,’ said Groat. ‘That’s what I said to Mr Whobblebury. But he snuck down here all by hisself, later on. Oh, dear, sir, it was poor young Stanley that went and found him, sir, after he saw poor little Tiddles dragging something along the passage. A scene of carnage met his eyes. You just can’t imagine what it was like in here, sir.’
‘I think I can,’ said Moist.
‘I doubt if you can, sir.’
‘I can, really.’
‘I’m sure you can’t, sir.’
‘I can! All right?’ shouted Moist. ‘Do you think I can’t see all those little chalk outlines? Now can we get on with it before I throw up?’
‘Er . . . right you are, sir,’ said Groat. ‘Ever heard of Bloody Stupid Johnson? Quite famous in this city.’
‘Didn’t he build things? Wasn’t there always something wrong with them? I’m sure I read something about him—’
‘That’s the man, sir. He built all kinds of things, but, sad to say, there was always some major flaw.’
In Moist’s brain, a memory kicked a neuron. ‘Wasn’t he the man who specified quicksand as a building material because he wanted a house finished fast?’ he said.
‘That’s right, sir. Usually the major flaw was that the designer was Bloody Stupid Johnson. Flaw, you might say, was part of the whole thing. Actually, to be fair, a lot of the things he designed worked quite well, it was just that they didn’t do the job they were supposed to. This thing, sir, did indeed begin life as an organ, but it ended up as a machine for sorting letters. The idea was that you tipped the mail sack in that hopper, and the letters were speedily sorted into those racks. Postmaster Cowerby meant well, they say. He was a stickler for speed and efficiency, that man. My grandad told me the Post Office spent a fortune on getting it to work.’
‘And lost their money, eh?’ said Moist.
‘Oh no, sir. It worked. Oh yes, it worked very well. So well that people went mad, come the finish.’
‘Let me guess,’ said Moist. ‘The postmen had to work too hard?’
‘Oh, postmen always work too hard, sir,’ said Groat, without blinking. ‘No, what got people worried was finding letters in the sorting tray a year before they were due to be written.’
There was a silence. In that silence, Moist tried out a variety of responses, from ‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on’ to ‘That’s impossible’, and decided they all sounded stupid. Groat looked deadly serious. So instead he said: ‘How?’
The old postman pointed to the blue glow. ‘Have a squint inside, sir. You can just see it. Don’t get right above it, whatever you do.’
Moist moved a little closer to the machine and peered into the machinery. He could just make out, at the heart of the glow, a little wheel. It was turning, slowly.
‘I was raised in the Post Office,’ said Groat, behind him. ‘Born in the sorting room, weighed on the official scales. Learned to read from envelopes, learned figuring from old ledgers, learned jography from looking at the maps of the city and history from the old men. Better than any school. Better than any school, sir. But never learned jommetry, sir. Bit of a hole in my understanding, all that stuff about angles and suchlike. But this, sir, is all about pie.’
‘Like in food?’ said Moist, drawing back from the sinister glow.
‘No, no, sir. Pie like in jommetry.’
‘Oh, you mean pi the number you get when . . .’ Moist paused. He was erratically good at maths, which is to say he could calculate odds and currency very, very fast. There had been a geometry section in his book at school, but he’d never seen the point. He tried, anyway.
‘It’s all to do with . . . it’s the number you get when the radius of a circle . . . no, the length of the rim of a wheel is three and a bit times the . . . er . . .’
‘Something like that, sir, probably, something like that,’ said Groat. ‘Three and a bit, that’s the ticket. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson said that was untidy, so he designed a wheel where the pie was exactly three. And that’s it, in there.’
‘But that’s impossible!’ said Moist. ‘You can’t do that! Pi is like . . . built in! You can’t change it. You’d have to change the universe!’
‘Yes, sir. They tell me that’s what happened,’ said Groat calmly. ‘I’ll do the party trick now. Stand back, sir.’
Groat wandered out into the other cellars and came back with a length of wood.
‘Stand further back, sir,’ he suggested, and tossed the piece of wood on top of the machine.
The noise wasn’t loud. It was a sort of ‘clop’. It seemed to Moist that something happened to the wood when it went over the light. There was a suggestion of curvature—
Several pieces of timber clattered on to the floor, along with a shower of splinters.
‘They had a wizard in to look at it,’ said Groat. ‘He said the machine twists just a little bit of the universe so pie could be three, sir, but it plays hob with anything you put too near it. The bits that go missing get lost in the . . . space-time-continuememememem, sir. But it doesn’t happen to the letters because of the way they travel through the machine, you see. That’s the long and short of it, sir. Some letters came out of that machine fifty years before they were posted!’
‘Why didn’t you switch it off?’
‘Couldn’t, sir. It kept on going like a siphon. Anyway, the wizard said if we did that terrible things might happen! ‘cos of, er, quantum, I think.’
‘Well, then, you could just stop feeding it mail, couldn’t you?’
‘Ah, well, sir, there it is,’ said Groat, scratching his beard. ‘You have positioned your digit right on the nub or crux, sir. We should’ve done that, sir, we should’ve, but we tried to make it work for us, you see. Oh, the management had schemes, sir. How about delivering a letter in Dolly Sisters thirty seconds after it had been posted in the city centre, eh? Of course, it wouldn’t be polite to deliver mail before we’d actually got it, sir, but it could be a close run thing, eh? We were good, so we tried to be better . . .’
And, somehow, it was all familiar . . .
Moist listened glumly. Time travel was only a kind of magic, after all. That’s why it always went wrong.
That’s why there were postmen, with real feet. That’s why the clacks was a string of expensive towers. Come to that, it was why farmers grew crops and fishermen trawled nets. Oh, you could do it all by magic, you certainly could. You could wave a wand and get twinkly stars and a fresh-baked loaf. You could make fish jump out of the sea ready cooked. And then, somewhere, somehow, magic would present its bill, which was always more than you could afford.
That’s why it was left to wizards, who knew how to handle it safely. Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards - not ‘not doing magic’ because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you know how easy it is. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn’t been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again.
Anyway, there was a sense of inevitability about the whole business. People wanted to be fooled. They really believed that you found gold nuggets lying on the ground, that this time you could find the Lady, that just for once the glass ring might be real diamond.
Words spilled out of Mr Groat like stashed mail from a crack in the wall. Sometimes the machine had produced a thousand copies of the same letter, or filled the room with letters from next Tuesday, next month, next year. Sometimes they were letters that hadn’t been written, or might have been written, or were meant to have been written, or letters which people had once sworn that they had written and hadn’t really, but which nevertheless had a shadowy existence in some strange invisible letter world and were made real by the machine.
If, somewhere, any possible world can exist, then somewhere there is any letter that could possibly be written. Somewhere, all those cheques really are in the post.
They poured out - letters from the present day which turned out not to be from this present day, but ones that might have happened if only some small detail had been changed in the past. It didn’t matter that the machine had been switched off, the wizards said. It existed in plenty of other presents and so worked here owing to . . . a lengthy sentence which the postmen didn’t understand but had words like ‘portal’, ‘multidimensional’ and ‘quantum’ in it, quantum being in it twice. They didn’t understand, but they had to do something. No one could deliver all that mail. And so the rooms began to fill up . . .
The wizards from Unseen University had been jolly interested in the problem, like doctors being really fascinated by some new virulent disease; the patient appreciates all the interest, but would very much prefer it if they either came up with a cure or stopped prodding.
The machine couldn’t be stopped and certainly shouldn’t be destroyed, the wizards said. Destroying the machine might well cause this universe to stop existing, instantly.
On the other hand, the Post Office was filling up, so one day Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow had gone into the room with a crowbar, had ordered all the wizards out, and belted the machine until things stopped whirring.
The letters ceased, at least. This came as a huge relief, but nevertheless the Post Office had its regulations and so the Chief Postal Inspector was brought before Postmaster Cowerby and asked why he had decided to risk destroying the whole universe in one go.
According to Post Office legend, Mr Rumbelow had replied: ‘Firstly, sir, I reasoned that if I destroyed the universe all in one go no one would know; secondly, when I walloped the thing the first time the wizards ran away, so I surmised that unless they had another universe to run to they weren’t really certain; and lastly, sir, the bloody thing was getting on my nerves. Never could stand machinery, sir.’
‘And that was the end of it, sir,’ said Mr Groat, as they left the room. ‘Actually, I heard where the wizards were saying that the universe was destroyed all in one go but instantly came back all in one go. They said they could tell by lookin’, sir. So that was okay and it let old Rumbelow off’f the hook, on account it’s hard to discipline a man under Post Office Regulations for destroying the universe all in one go. Mind you - hah - there’ve been postmasters that would have given it a try. But it knocked the stuffing out of us, sir. It was all downhill after that. The men had lost heart. It broke us, to tell you the truth.’
‘Look,’ said Moist, ‘the letters we’ve just given the lads, they’re not from some other dimension or—’
‘Don’t worry, I checked ‘em last night,’ said Groat. ‘They’re just old. Mostly you can tell by the stamp. I’m good at telling which ones are prop’ly ours, sir. Had years to learn. It’s a skill, sir.’
‘Could you teach other people?’
‘I dare say, yes,’ said Groat.
‘Mr Groat, the letters have talked to me,’ Moist burst out.
To his surprise, the old man grabbed his hand and shook it. ‘Well done, sir!’ he said, tears rising in his eyes. ‘I said it’s a skill, didn’t I? Listen to the whispers, that’s half the trick! They’re alive, sir, alive. Not like people, but like . . . ships are alive, sir. I’ll swear, all them letters pressed together in here, all the . . . the passion of ‘em, sir, why, I do think this place has got something like a soul, sir, indeed I do . . .’
The tears coursed down Groat’s cheeks. It’s madness, of course, thought Moist. But now I’ve got it, too.
‘Ah, I can see it in your eyes, sir, yes I can!’ said Groat, grinning wetly. ‘The Post Office has found you! It’s enfolded you, sir, yes it has. You’ll never leave it, sir. There’s families that’ve worked here for hundreds and hundreds of years, sir. Once the postal service puts its stamp on you, sir, there’s no turning back . . .’
Moist disentangled his hand as tactfully as he could.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Do tell me about stamps.’

Thump.
Moist looked down at the piece of paper. Smudgy red letters, chipped and worn, spelled out: ‘Ankh-Morpork Post Office.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Groat, waving the heavy metal and wood stamper in the air. ‘I bang the stamp on the ink pad here, then bang it, sir, bang it on the letter. There! See? Done it again. Same every time. Stamped.’
‘And this is worth a penny?’ said Moist. ‘Good grief, man, a kid could forge this with half a potato!’
‘That was always a bit of a problem, sir, yes,’ said Groat.
‘Why does a postman have to stamp the letters, anyway?’ said Moist. ‘Why don’t we just sell people a stamp?’
‘But they’d pay a penny and then go on stamping for ever, sir,’ said Groat, reasonably.
In the machinery of the universe, the wheels of inevitability clicked into position . . .
‘Well, then,’ said Moist, staring thoughtfully at the paper, ‘how about . . . how about a stamp you can use only once?’
‘You mean, like, not much ink?’ said Groat. His brow wrinkled, causing his toupee to slip sideways.
‘I mean . . . if you stamped the stamper lots of times on paper, then cut out all the stampings . . .’ Moist stared at an inner vision, if only to avoid the sight of the toupee slowly crawling back. ‘The rate for delivery anywhere in the city is a penny, isn’t it?’
‘Except for the Shades, sir. That’s five pence ‘cos of the armed guard,’ said Groat.
‘Right. O-kay. I think I might have something here . . .’ Moist looked up at Mr Pump, who was smouldering in the corner of the office. ‘Mr Pump, would you be so good as to go along to the Goat and Spirit Level over at Hen-and-Chickens and ask the publican for “Mr Robinson’s box”, please? He may want a dollar. And while you’re over there, there’s a printing shop over that way, Teemer and Spools. Leave a message to say that the Postmaster General wishes to discuss a very large order.’
‘Teemer and Spools? They’re very expensive, sir,’ said Groat. ‘They do all the posh printing for the banks.’
‘They’re the very devil to forge, I know that,’ said Moist. ‘Or so I’ve been told,’ he added quickly. ‘Watermarks, special weaves in the paper, all kinds of tricks. Ahem. So . . . a penny stamping, and a fivepenny stamping . . . what about post to the other cities?’
‘Five pence to Sto Lat,’ said Groat. ‘Ten or fifteen to the others. Hah, three dollars for all the way to Genua. We used to have to write those out.’
‘We’ll need a one-dollar stamp, then.’ Moist started to scribble on the scrap of paper.
‘A dollar stamp! Who’d buy one of those?’ said Groat.
Anyone who wants to send a letter to Genua,’ said Moist. ‘They’ll buy three, eventually. But for now I’m dropping the price to one dollar.’
‘One dollar! That’s thousands of miles, sir!’ Groat protested.
‘Yep. Sounds like a bargain, right?’
Groat looked torn between exultation and despair. ‘But we’ve only got a bunch of old men, sir! They’re pretty spry, I’ll grant you, but . . . well, you’ve got to learn to walk before you try to run, sir!’
‘No!’ Moist’s fist thumped the table. ‘Never say that, Tolliver! Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely. All or nothing, Mr Groat!’
‘Wow, sir!’ said Groat.
Moist grinned his bright, sunny smile. It very nearly reflected off his suit.
‘Let’s get busy. We’re going to need more staff, Postal Inspector Groat. A lot more staff. Smarten up, man. The Post Office is back!’
‘Yessir!’ said Groat, drunk on enthusiasm. ‘We’ll . . . we’ll do things that are quite new, in interestin’ ways!’
‘You’re getting the hang of it already,’ said Moist, rolling his eyes.

Ten minutes later, the Post Office received its first delivery.
It was Senior Postman Bates, blood streaming down his face. He was helped into the office by two Watch officers, carrying a makeshift stretcher.
‘Found him wandering in the street, sir,’ said one of them. ‘Sergeant Colon, sir, at your service.’
‘What happened to him?’ said Moist, horrified.
Bates opened his eyes. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he murmured. ‘I held on tight, but they belted me over the bonce with a big thing!’
‘Coupla toughs jumped him,’ said Sergeant Colon. ‘They threw his bag in the river, too.’
‘Does that normally happen to postmen?’ said Moist. ‘I thought— Oh, no . . .’
The new, painfully slow arrival was Senior Postman Aggy, dragging one leg because it had a bulldog attached to it.
‘Sorry about this, sir,’ he said, limping forward. ‘I think my official trousers is torn. I stunned the bugger with my bag, sir, but they’re a devil to get to let go.’ The bulldog’s eyes were shut; it appeared to be thinking of something else.
‘Good job you’ve got your armour, eh?’ said Moist.
‘Wrong leg, sir. But not to worry. I’m nat’rally imp-ervious around the calfy regions. It’s all the scar tissue, sir, you could strike matches on it. Jimmy Tropes is in trouble, though. He’s up a tree in Hide Park.’

Moist von Lipwig strode up Market Street, face set with grim purpose. The boards were still up on the Golem Trust, but had attracted another layer of graffiti. The paint on the door was burnt and bubbled, too.
He opened the door, and instinct made him duck. He felt the crossbow bolt zip between the wings of his hat.
Miss Dearheart lowered the bow. ‘My gods, it’s you! For a minute I thought a second sun had appeared in the sky!’
Moist rose cautiously as she laid the bow aside.
‘We had a fire-bomb last night,’ she said, by way of explanation for attempting to shoot him in the head.
‘How many golems are for hire right now, Miss Dearheart?’ said Moist.
‘Huh? Oh . . . about . . . a dozen or so—’
‘Fine. I’ll take them. Don’t bother to wrap them up. I want them down at the Post Office as soon as possible.’
‘What?’ Miss Dearheart’s normal expression of perpetual annoyance returned. ‘Look, you can’t just walk in, snap your fingers and order a dozen people like this—’
‘They think they’re property!’ said Moist. ‘That’s what you told me.’
They glared at one another. Then Miss Dearheart fumbled distractedly in a filing tray.
‘I can let you ha— employ four right now,’ she said. ‘That’d be Doors 1, Saw 20, Campanile 2 and . . . Anghammarad. Only Anghammarad can talk at the moment; the frees haven’t helped the others yet—’
‘Helped?’
Miss Dearheart shrugged. ‘A lot of the cultures that built golems thought tools shouldn’t talk. They have no tongues.’
‘And the Trust gives them some extra clay, eh?’ said Moist cheerfully.
She gave him a look. ‘It’s a bit more mystical than that,’ she said solemnly.
‘Well, dumb is okay so long as they’re not stupid,’ said Moist, trying to look serious. ‘This Anghammarad’s got a name? Not just a description?’
‘A lot of the very old ones have. Tell me, what do you want them to do?’ said the woman.
‘Be postmen,’ said Moist.
‘Working in public?’
‘I don’t think you can have secret postmen,’ said Moist, briefly seeing shadowy figures skulking from door to door. ‘Anything wrong with that?’
‘Well . . . no. Certainly not! It’s just that people get a bit nervous, and set fire to the shop. I’ll bring them down as soon as possible.’ She paused. ‘You do understand that owned golems have to have a day off every week? You did read the pamphlet, didn’t you?’
‘Er . . . time off?’ said Moist. ‘What do they need time off for? A hammer doesn’t get time off, does it?’
‘In order to be golems. Don’t ask what they do - I think just go and sit in a cellar somewhere. It’s . . . it’s a way to show they’re not a hammer, Mr Lipwig. The buried ones forget. The free golems teach them. But don’t worry, the rest of the time they won’t even sleep.’
‘So . . . Mr Pump has a day off coming?’ said Moist.
‘Of course,’ said Miss Dearheart, and Moist filed this one under ‘useful to know’.
‘Good. Thank you,’ he said. Would you like to have dinner tonight? Moist normally had no trouble with words, but these stuck to his tongue. There was something pineapple-prickly about Miss Dearheart. There was something about her expression, too, which said: there’s no possible way you could surprise me. I know all about you.
‘Is there anything else?’ she said. ‘Only you’re standing there with your mouth open.’
‘Er . . . no. That’s fine. Thank you,’ mumbled Moist.
She smiled at him, and bits of Moist tingled.
‘Well, off you go then, Mr Lipwig,’ she said. ‘Brighten up the world like a little sunbeam.’

Four out of the five postmen were what Mr Groat called horse de combat and were brewing tea in the mail-stuffed cubbyhole that was laughingly called their Rest Room. Aggy had been sent home after the bulldog had been prised from his leg; Moist had a big basket of fruit sent round. You couldn’t go wrong with a basket of fruit.
Well, they’d made an impression, at least. So had the bulldog. But some mail had been delivered, you had to admit it. You had to admit, too, that it was years and years late, but the post was moving. You could sense it in the air. The place didn’t feel so much like a tomb. Now Moist had retired to his office, where he was getting creative.
‘Cup of tea, Mr Lipwig?’
He looked up from his work into the slightly strange face of Stanley.
‘Thank you, Stanley,’ he said, laying down his pen. ‘And I see you got nearly all of it in the cup this time! Nicely done!’
‘What’re you drawing, Mr Lipwig?’ said the boy, craning his neck. ‘It looks like the Post Office!’
‘Well done. It’s going to be on a stamp, Stanley. Here, what do you think of the others?’ He passed over the other sketches.
‘Coo, you’re a good draw-er, Mr Lipwig. That looks just like Lord Vetinari!’
‘That’s the penny stamp,’ said Moist. ‘I copied the likeness off a penny. City coat-of-arms on the twopenny, Morporkia with her fork on the fivepenny, Tower of Art on the big one-dollar stamp. I was thinking of a tenpenny stamp, too.’
‘They look very nice, Mr Lipwig,’ said Stanley. ‘All that detail. Like little paintings. What’s all those tiny lines called?’
‘Cross-hatching. Makes them hard to forge. And when the letter with the stamp on it comes into the Post Office, you see, we take one of the old rubber stamps and stamp over the new stamps so they can’t be used again, and the—’
‘Yes, ‘cos they’re like money, really,’ said Stanley cheerfully.
‘Pardon?’ said Moist, tea halfway to his lips.
‘Like money. These stamps’ll be like money, ‘cos a penny stamp is a penny, when you think about it. Are you all right, Mr Lipwig? Only you’ve gone all funny. Mr Lipwig?’
‘Er . . . what?’ said Moist, who was staring at the wall with a strange, faraway grin.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘What? Oh. Yes. Yes, indeed. Er . . . do we need a bigger stamp, do you think? Five dollars, perhaps?’
‘Hah, I should think you could send a big letter all the way to Fourecks for that, Mr Lipwig!’ said Stanley cheerfully.
‘Worth thinking ahead, then,’ said Moist. ‘I mean, since we’re designing the stamps and everything . . .’
But now Stanley was admiring Mr Robinson’s box. It was an old friend to Moist. He never used ‘Mr Robinson’ as an alias except to get it stored by some halfway-honest merchant or publican, so that it’d be somewhere safe even if he had to leave town quickly. It was for a con-man and forger what a set of lock picks is to a burglar, but with the contents of this box you could open people’s brains.
It was a work of art in its own right, the way all the little compartments lifted up and fanned out when you opened it. There were pens and inks, of course, but also little pots of paints and tints, stains and solvents. And, kept carefully flat, thirty-six different types of paper, some of them quite hard to obtain. Paper was important. Get the weight and translucence wrong, and no amount of skill would save you. You could get away with bad penmanship much more easily than you could with bad paper. In fact, rough penmanship often worked better than a week of industrious midnights spent getting every little thing right, because there was something in people’s heads that spotted some little detail that wasn’t quite right but at the same time would fill in details that had merely been suggested by a few careful strokes. Attitude, expectation and presentation were everything.
Just like me, he thought.
The door was knocked on and opened in one movement.
‘Yes?’ snapped Moist, not looking up. ‘I’m busy designing mon— stamps here, you know!’
‘There’s a lady,’ panted Groat. ‘With golems!’
‘Ah, that’ll be Miss Dearheart,’ said Moist, laying down his pen.
‘Yessir. She said “Tell Mr Sunshine I’ve brought him his postmen”, sir! You’re going to use golems as postmen, sir?’
‘Yes. Why not?’ said Moist, giving Groat a severe look. ‘You get on okay with Mr Pump, don’t you?’
‘Well, he’s all right, sir,’ the old man mumbled. ‘I mean, he keeps the place tidy, he’s always very respectful . . . I speak as I find, but people can be a bit odd about golems, sir, what with them glowing eyes and all, and the way they never stops. The lads might not take to ‘em, sir, that’s all I’m saying.’
Moist stared at him. Golems were thorough, reliable and by gods they took orders. He’d get another chance to be smiled at by Miss Dearheart— Think about golems! Golems, golems, golems!
He smiled, and said, ‘Even if I can prove they’re real postmen?’

Ten minutes later the fist of the golem called Anghammarad smashed through a letter box and several square inches of splintering wood.
‘Mail Delivered,’ it announced, and went still. The eyes dulled.
Moist turned to the cluster of human postmen and gestured towards the impromptu Postman’s Walk he’d set up in the big hall.
‘Note the flattened roller skate, gentlemen. Note the heap of ground glass where the beer bottle was. And Mr Anghammarad did it all with a hood on his head, I might add.’
‘Yeah, but his eyes burned holes in it,’ Groat pointed out.
‘None of us can help the way we’re made,’ said Adora Belle Dearheart primly.
‘I’ve got to admit, it did my heart good to see him punch through that door,’ said Senior Postman Bates. ‘That’ll teach ‘em to put ‘em low and sharp.’
‘And no problem with dogs, I expect,’ said Jimmy Tropes. ‘He’d never get the arse bitten out of his trousers.’
‘So you all agree a golem is suitable to become a postman?’ said Moist.
Suddenly all the faces twisted up as the postmen shuffled into a chorus.
‘Well, it’s not us, you understand . . .’
‘. . . people can be a bit funny about, er, clay folk . . .’
‘. . . all that stuff about taking jobs away from real people . . .’
‘. . . nothing against him at all, but . . .’
They stopped, because the golem Anghammarad was beginning to speak again. Unlike Mr Pump, it took him some time to get up to speed. And when his voice arrived it seemed to be coming from long ago and far away, like the sound of surf in a fossil shell.
He said: ‘What Is A Post Man?’
‘A messenger, Anghammarad,’ said Miss Dearheart. Moist noticed that she spoke to golems differently. There was actual tenderness in her voice.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said to the postmen, ‘I know you feel—’
‘I Was A Messenger,’ Anghammarad rumbled.
His voice was not like Mr Pump’s, and neither was his clay. He looked like a crude jigsaw puzzle of different clays, from almost black through red to light grey. Anghammarad’s eyes, unlike the furnace glow of those of the other golems, burned a deep ruby red. He looked old. More than that, he felt old. The chill of time radiated off him.
On one arm, just above the elbow, was a metal box on a corroded band that had stained the clay.
‘Running errands, eh?’ said Groat nervously.
‘Most Recently I Delivered The Decrees Of King Het Of Thut,’ said Anghammarad.
‘Never heard of any King Het,’ said Jimmy Tropes.
‘I Expect That Is Because The Land Of Thut Slid Under The Sea Nine Thousand Years Ago,’ said the golem solemnly. ‘So It Goes.’
‘Blimey! You’re nine thousand years old?’ said Groat.
‘No. I Am Almost Nineteen Thousand Years Old, Having Been Born In The Fire By The Priests Of Upsa In The Third Ning Of The Shaving Of The Goat. They Gave Me A Voice That I Might Carry Messages. Of Such Things Is The World Made.’
‘Never heard of them either,’ said Tropes.
‘Upsa Was Destroyed By The Explosion Of Mount Shiputu. I Spent Two Centuries Under A Mountain Of Pumice Before It Eroded, Whereupon I Became A Messenger For The Fishermen Kings Of The Holy Ult. It Could Have Been Worse.’
‘You must’ve seen lots of things, sir!’ said Stanley.
The glowing eyes turned to him, lighting up his face. ‘Sea Urchins. I Have Seen Many Sea Urchins. And Sea Cucumbers. And The Dead Ships, Sailing. Once There Was An Anchor. All Things Pass.’
‘How long were you under the sea?’ said Moist.
‘It Was Almost Nine Thousand Years.’
‘You mean . . . you just sat there?’ said Aggy.
‘I Was Not Instructed To Do Otherwise. I Heard The Song Of The Whales Above Me. It Was Dark. Then There Was A Net, And Rising, And Light. These Things Happen.’
‘Didn’t you find it . . . well, dull?’ said Groat. The postmen were staring.
‘Dull,’ said Anghammarad blankly, and turned to look at Miss Dearheart.
‘He has no idea what you mean,’ she said. ‘None of them have. Not even the younger ones.’
‘So I expect you’ll be keen to deliver messages again, then!’ said Moist, far more jovially than he’d intended. The golem’s head turned towards Miss Dearheart again.
‘Keen?’ said Anghammarad.
She sighed. ‘Another tough one, Mr Moist. It’s as bad as “dull”. The closest I can come is: you will satisfy the imperative to perform the directed action.’
‘Yes,’ said the golem. ‘The Messages Must Be Delivered. That Is Written On My Chem.’
‘And that’s the scroll in his head that gives a golem his instructions,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘In Anghammarad’s case it’s a clay tablet. They didn’t have paper in those days.’
‘You really used to deliver messages for kings?’ said Groat.
‘Many Kings,’ said Anghammarad. ‘Many Empires. Many Gods. Many Gods. All Gone. All Things Go.’ The golem’s voice got deeper, as if he was quoting from memory. ‘Neither Deluge Nor Ice Storm Nor The Black Silence Of The Netherhells Shall Stay These Messengers About Their Sacred Business. Do Not Ask Us About Sabre-Tooth Tigers, Tar Pits, Big Green Things With Teeth Or The Goddess Czol’
‘You had big green things with teeth back then?’ said Tropes.
‘Bigger. Greener. More Teeth,’ rumbled Anghammarad.
‘And the goddess Czol?’ said Moist.
‘Do Not Ask.’
There was a thoughtful silence. Moist knew how to break it.
‘And you will decide if he is a postman?’ he said softly.
The postmen went into a brief huddle, and then Groat turned back to Moist.
‘He’s a postman and a half, Mr Lipwig. We never knew. The lads say - well, it’d be an honour, sir, an honour to work with him. I mean, it’s like . . . it’s like history, sir. It’s like . . . well . . .’
‘I always said the Order goes back a long way, didn’t I?’ said Jimmy Tropes, aglow with pride. ‘There was postmen back inna dawn o’ time! When they hears we’ve got a member who goes all that way back the other secret societies are gonna be as green as . . . as . . .’
‘Something big with teeth?’ Moist suggested.
‘Right! And no problem with his chums neither, if they can take orders,’ said Groat generously.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said Moist. And now all that remains’ - he nodded to Stanley, who held up two big tins of royal blue paint - ‘is their uniform.’
By general agreement Anghammarad was given the unique rank of Extremely Senior Postman. It seemed . . . fair.

Half an hour later, still tacky to the touch, each one accompanied by a human postman, the golems took to the streets. Moist watched heads turn. The afternoon sunlight glinted off royal blue and Stanley, gods bless him, had found a small pot of gold paint too. Frankly, the golems were impressive. They gleamed.
You had to give people a show. Give them a show, and you were halfway to where you wanted to be.
A voice behind him said: ‘The Postman came down like a wolf on the fold / His cohorts all gleaming in azure and gold . . .’
Just for a moment, a flicker of time, Moist thought: I’ve been made, she knows. Somehow, she knows. Then his brain took over. He turned to Miss Dearheart.
‘When I was a kid I always thought that a cohort was a piece of armour, Miss Dearheart,’ he said, giving her a smile. ‘I used to imagine the troops sitting up all night, polishing them.’
‘Sweet,’ said Miss Dearheart, lighting a cigarette. ‘Look, I’ll get you the rest of the golems as soon as possible. There may be trouble, of course. The Watch will be on your side, though. There’s a free golem in the Watch and they rather like him, although here it doesn’t much matter what you’re made of when you join the Watch because Commander Vimes will see to it that you become solid copper through and through. He’s the most cynical bastard that walks under the sun.’
‘Yow think he’s cynical?’ said Moist.
‘Yes,’ she said, blowing smoke. ‘As you suspect, that’s practically a professional opinion. But thank you for hiring the boys. I’m not sure they understand what “liking” something means, but they like to work. And Pump 19 seems to hold you in some regard.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I personally think you are a phoney.’
‘Yes, I expect you do,’ said Moist. Ye gods, Miss Dearheart was hard work. He’d met women he couldn’t charm, but they’d been foothills compared to the icy heights of Mount Dearheart. It was an act. It had to be. It was a game. It had to be.
He pulled out his packet of stamp designs. ‘What do you think of these, Miss D— Look, what do your friends call you, Miss Dearheart?’
And in his head Moist said to himself I don’t know just as the woman said: ‘I don’t know. What’s this? You carry your etchings with you to save time?’
So it was a game, and he was invited to play.
‘They will be copper-engraved, I hope,’ he said meekly. ‘They’re my designs for the new stamps.’ He explained about the stamps idea, while she looked at the pages.
‘Good one of Vetinari,’ she said. ‘They say he dyes his hair, you know. What’s this one? Oh, the Tower of Art . . . how like a man. A dollar, eh? Hmm. Yes, they’re quite good. When will you start using them?’
‘Actually, I was planning to slip along to Teemer and Spools while the lads are out now and discuss the engraving,’ said Moist.
‘Good. They’re a decent firm,’ she said. ‘Sluice 23 is turning the machinery for them. They keep him clean and don’t stick notices on him. I go and check on all the hired golems every week. The frees are very insistent on that.’
‘To make sure they’re not mistreated?’ said Moist.
‘To make sure they’re not forgotten. You’d be amazed at how many businesses in the city have a golem working somewhere on the premises. Not the Grand Trunk, though,’ she added. ‘I won’t let them work there.’
There was an edge to that statement.
‘Er . . . why not?’ said Moist.
‘There’s some shit not even a golem should work in,’ said Miss Dearheart, in the same steel tone. ‘They are moral creatures.’
O-kay, thought Moist, bit of a sore point there, then?
His mouth said: ‘Would you like to have dinner tonight?’ For just the skin of a second, Miss Dearheart was surprised, but not half as surprised as Moist. Then her natural cynicism reinflated.
‘I like to have dinner every night. With you? No. I have things to do. Thank you for asking.’
‘No problem,’ said Moist, slightly relieved.
The woman looked around the echoing hall. ‘Doesn’t this place give you the creeps? You could perhaps do something with some floral wallpaper and a fire-bomb.’
‘It’s all going to be sorted out,’ said Moist quickly. ‘But it’s best to get things moving as soon as possible. To show we’re in business.’
They watched Stanley and Groat, who were patiently sorting at the edge of a pile, prospectors in the foothills of the postal mountain. They were dwarfed by the white hillocks.
‘It will take you for ever to deliver them, you know,’ said Miss Dearheart, turning to go.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Moist.
‘But that’s the thing about golems,’ added Miss Dearheart, standing in the doorway. The light caught her face oddly. ‘They’re not frightened of “for ever”. They’re not frightened of anything.’

Chapter Seven

Tomb of Words

The Invention of the Hole - Mr Lipwig Speaks Out — The Wizard in a
Jar - A discussion of Lord Vetinari’s back side — A Promise to Deliver —
Mr Hobson’s Boris

Mr Spools, in his ancient office smelling of oil and ink, was impressed by this strange young man in the golden suit and winged hat.
‘You certainly know your papers, Mr Lipwig,’ he said, as Moist thumbed through the samples. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet a customer who does. Always use the right paper for the job, that’s what I say.’
‘The important thing is to make stamps hard to forge,’ said Moist, leafing through the samples. ‘On the other hand, it mustn’t cost us anything like a penny to produce a penny stamp!’
‘Watermarks are your friend there, Mr Lipwig,’ said Mr Spools.
‘Not impossible to fake, though,’ said Moist, and then added, ‘so I’ve been told.’
‘Oh, we know all the tricks, Mr Lipwig, don’t you worry about that!’ said Mr Spools. ‘We’re up to scratch, oh yes! Chemical voids, thaumic shadows, timed inks, everything. We do paper and engraving and even printing for some of the leading figures in the city, although of course I am not at liberty to tell you who they are.’
He sat back in his worn leather chair and scribbled in a notebook for a moment.
‘Well, we could do you twenty thousand of the penny stamps, uncoated stock, gummed, at two dollars a thousand plus setup,’ said Mr Spools. ‘Ten pence less for ungummed. You’ll have to find someone to cut them out, of course.’
‘Can’t you do that with some kind of machine?’ said Moist.
‘No. Wouldn’t work, not with things as small as this. Sorry, Mr Lipwig.’
Moist pulled a scrap of brown paper out of his pocket and held it up. ‘Do you recognize this, Mr Spools?’
‘What, is that a pin paper?’ Mr Spools beamed. ‘Hah, that takes me back! Still got my old collection in the attic. I’ve always thought it must be worth a bob or two if only—’
‘Watch this, Mr Spools,’ said Moist, gripping the paper carefully. Stanley was almost painfully precise in placing his pins; a man with a micrometer couldn’t have done it better.
Gently, the paper tore down the line of holes. Moist looked at Mr Spools and raised his eyebrows.
‘It’s all about holes,’ he said. ‘It ain’t nothing if it ain’t got a hole . . .’
Three hours went past. Foremen were sent for. Serious men in overalls turned things on lathes, other men soldered things together, tried them out, changed this, reamed that, then dismantled a small hand press and built it in a different way. Moist loitered on the periphery of all this, clearly bored, while the serious men fiddled, measured things, rebuilt things, tinkered, lowered things, raised things and, eventually, watched by Moist and Mr Spools, tried out the converted press officially—
Chonk . . .
It felt to Moist that everyone was holding their breath so hard that the windows were bending inwards. He reached down, eased the sheet of little perforated squares off the board, and lifted it up.
He tore off one stamp.
The windows snapped outwards. People breathed again. There wasn’t a cheer. These weren’t men to cheer and whoop at a job well done. Instead, they lit their pipes and nodded to one another.
Mr Spools and Moist von Lipwig shook hands over the perforated paper.
‘The patent is yours, Mr Spools,’ said Moist.
‘You’re very kind, Mr Lipwig. Very kind indeed. Oh, here’s a little souvenir . . .’
An apprentice had bustled up with a sheet of paper. To Moist’s astonishment, it was already covered with stamps - ungummed, unperforated, but perfect miniature copies of his drawing for the one penny stamp.
‘Iconodiabolic engraving, Mr Lipwig!’ said Spools, seeing his face. ‘No one can say we’re behind the times! Of course there’ll be a few little flaws this time round, but by early next week we’ll—’
‘I want penny and twopenny ones tomorrow, Mr Spools, please,’ said Moist firmly. ‘I don’t need perfect, I want quick.’
‘My word, you’re hot off the mark, Mr Lipwig!’
‘Always move fast, Mr Spools. You never know who’s catching up!’
‘Hah! Yes! Er . . . good motto, Mr Lipwig. Nice one,’ said Mr Spools, grinning uncertainly.
‘And I want the fivepennies and one dollars the day after, please.’
‘You’ll scorch your boots, Mr Lipwig!’ said Spools.
‘Got to move, Mr Spools, got to fly!’
Moist hurried back to the Post Office as fast as decently possible, feeling slightly ashamed.
He liked Teemer and Spools. He liked the kind of business where you could actually speak to the man whose name was over the door; it meant it probably wasn’t run by crooks. And he liked the big, solid, unflappable workmen, recognizing in them all the things he knew he lacked, like steadfastness, solidarity and honesty. You couldn’t lie to a lathe or fool a hammer. They were good people, and quite unlike him . . .
One way in which they were quite unlike him was that none of them, right now, probably had wads of stolen paper stuffed into their jacket.
He really shouldn’t have done it, he really shouldn’t. It was just that Mr Spools was a kind and enthusiastic man and the desk had been covered with examples of his wonderful work, and when the perforation press was being made people had been bustling around and not really paying Moist much attention and he’d . . . tidied up. He couldn’t help himself. He was a crook. What did Vetinari expect?
The postmen were arriving back as he walked into the building. Mr Groat was waiting for him with a worried smile on his face.
‘How’s it going, Postal Inspector?’ said Moist cheerfully.
‘Pretty well, sir, pretty well. There’s good news, sir. People have been giving us letters to post, sir. Not many yet and some of them are a bit, er, jokey, but we got a penny off’f them every time. That’s seven pence, sir,’ he added proudly, proffering the coins.
‘Oh boy, we eat tonight!” said Moist, taking the coins and pocketing the letters.
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘Oh, nothing, Mr Groat. Well done. Er . . . you said there was good news. Is there any of the other sort, perhaps . . . ?’
‘Um . . . some people didn’t like getting their mail, sir.’
‘Things got posted through the wrong doors?’ said Moist.
‘Oh, no, sir. But old letters ain’t always welcome. Not when they’re, as it might be, a will. A will. As in Last Will and Testament, sir,’ the old man added meaningfully. ‘As in, it turns out the wrong daughter got mum’s jewellery twenty years ago. As it were.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Moist.
‘The Watch had to be called in, sir. There was what they call in the papers a “rumpus” in Weaver Street, sir. There’s a lady waiting for you in your office, sir.’
‘Oh gods, not one of the daughters?’
‘No, sir. She’s a writing lady from the Times. You can’t trust ‘em, sir, although they do a very reasonable crossword,’ Groat added conspiratorially.
‘What does she want me for?’
‘Couldn’t say, sir. I expect it’s ‘cos you’re postmaster?’
‘Go and . . . make her some tea or something, will you?’ said Moist, patting his jacket. ‘I’ll just go and . . . pull myself together . . .’
Two minutes later, with the stolen paper tucked safely away, Moist strode into his office.
Mr Pump was standing by the door, fiery eyes banked, in the stance of a golem with no current task other than to exist, and a woman was sitting in the chair by Moist’s desk.
Moist weighed her up. Attractive, certainly, but dressing apparently to play down the fact while artfully enhancing it. Bustles were back in fashion in the city for some inexplicable reason, but her only concession there was a bum-roll, which achieved a certain perkiness in the rear without the need to wear twenty-seven pounds of dangerously spring-loaded underwear. She was blonde but wore her hair in a bag net, another careful touch, while a small and quietly fashionable hat perched on top of her head to no particular purpose. A large shoulder bag was by her chair, a notebook was on her knee, and she wore a wedding ring.
‘Mr Lipwig?’ she said brightly. ‘I am Miss Cripslock. From the Times!
Okay, wedding ring but nevertheless ‘Miss’, thought Moist. Handle with care. Probably has Views. Do not attempt to kiss hand.
‘And how can I assist the Times?’ he said, sitting down and giving her a non-condescending smile.
‘Do you intend to deliver all the backlog of mail, Mr Lipwig?’
‘If at all possible, yes,’ said Moist.
‘Why?’
‘It’s my job. Rain, snow, gloom of night, just as it says over the door.’
‘Have you heard about the fracas in Weaver Street?’
‘I heard it was a rumpus.’
‘I’m afraid it’s got worse. There was a house on fire when I left. Doesn’t that worry you?’ Miss Cripslock’s pencil was suddenly poised.
Moist’s face remained expressionless as he thought furiously. ‘Yes, it does, of course,’ he said. ‘People shouldn’t set fire to houses. But I also know that Mr Parker of the Merchants’ Guild is marrying his boyhood sweetheart on Saturday. Did you know that?’
Miss Cripslock hadn’t, but she scribbled industriously as Moist told her about the greengrocer’s letter.
‘That’s very interesting,’ she said. ‘I will go and see him immediately. So you’re saying that delivering the old mail is a good thing?’
‘Delivering the mail is the only thing,’ said Moist, and hesitated again. Just on the edge of hearing was a whispering.
‘Is there a problem?’ said Miss Cripslock.
‘What? No! What was I— Yes, it’s the right thing. History is not to be denied, Miss Cripslock. And we are a communicating species, Miss Cripslock!’ Moist raised his voice to drown out the whispering. ‘The mail must get through! It must be delivered!’
‘Er . . . you needn’t shout, Mr Lipwig,’ said the reporter, leaning backwards.
Moist tried to get a grip, and the whispering died down a little.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and cleared his throat. ‘Yes, I intend to deliver all the mail. If people have moved, we will try to find them. If they have died, we’ll try to deliver to their descendants. The post will be delivered. We are tasked to deliver it, and deliver it we will. What else should we do with it? Burn it? Throw it in the river? Open it to decide if it’s important? No, the letters were entrusted to our care. Delivery is the only way.’
The whispering had almost died away now, so he went on: ‘Besides, we need the space. The Post Office is being reborn!’ He pulled out the sheet of stamps. ‘With these!’
She peered at them, puzzled. ‘Little pictures of Lord Vetinari?’ she said.
‘Stamps, Miss Cripslock. One of those stuck on a letter will ensure delivery anywhere within the city. These are early sheets, but tomorrow we will be selling them gummed and perforated for ease of use. I intend to make it easy to use the post. Obviously we are still finding our feet, but soon I intend that we should be capable of delivering a letter to anyone, anywhere in the world.’
It was a stupid thing to say, but his tongue had taken over.
‘Aren’t you being rather ambitious, Mr Lipwig?’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know any other way to be,’ said Moist.
‘I was thinking that we do have the clacks now.’
‘The clacks?’ said Moist. ‘I dare say the clacks is wonderful if you wish to know the prawn market figures from Genua. But can you write S.W.A.L.K. on a clacks? Can you seal it with a loving kiss? Can you cry tears on to a clacks, can you smell it, can you enclose a pressed flower? A letter is more than just a message. And a clacks is so expensive in any case that the average man in the street can just about afford it in a time of crisis: GRANDADS DEAD FUNERAL TUES. A day’s wages to send a message as warm and human as a thrown knife? But a letter is real.’
He stopped. Miss Cripslock was scribbling like mad, and it’s always worrying to see a journalist take a sudden interest in what you’re saying, especially when you half suspect it was a load of pigeon guano. And it’s worse when they’re smiling.
‘People are complaining that the clacks is becoming expensive, slow and unreliable,’ said Miss Cripslock. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘All I can tell you is that today we’ve taken on a postman who is eighteen thousand years old,’ said Moist. ‘He doesn’t break down very easily.’
‘Ah, yes. The golems. Some people say—’
‘What is your first name, Miss Cripslock?’ said Moist.
For a moment, the woman coloured. Then she said: ‘It’s Sacharissa.’
‘Thank you. I’m Moist. Please don’t laugh. The golems— You’re laughing, aren’t you . . .’
‘It was just a cough, honestly,’ said the reporter, raising a hand to her throat and coughing unconvincingly.
‘Sorry. It sounded a bit like a laugh. Sacharissa, I need postmen, counter clerks, sorters - I need lots of people. The mail will move. I need people to help me move it. Any kind of people. Ah, thanks, Stanley.’
The boy had come in with two mismatched mugs of tea. One had an appealing little kitten on it, except that erratic collisions in the washing-up bowl had scratched it so that its expression was that of a creature in the final stages of rabies. The other had once hilariously informed the world that clinical insanity wasn’t necessary for employment, but most of the words had faded, leaving:

 

He put them down with care on Moist’s desk; Stanley did everything carefully.
‘Thank you,’ Moist repeated. ‘Er . . . you can go now, Stanley. Help with the sorting, eh?’
‘There’s a vampire in the hall, Mr Lipwig,’ said Stanley.
‘That will be Otto,’ said Sacharissa quickly. ‘You don’t have a . . . a thing about vampires, do you?’
‘Hey, if he’s got a pair of hands and knows how to walk I’ll give him a job!’
‘He’s already got one,’ said Sacharissa, laughing. ‘He’s our chief iconographer. He’s been taking pictures of your men at work. We’d very much like to have one of you. For the front page.’
‘What? No!’ said Moist. ‘Please! No!’
‘He’s very good.’
‘Yes, but . . . but . . . but . . .’ Moist began, and in his head the sentence went on: but I don’t think that even a talent for looking like half the men you see in the street would survive a picture.
What actually came out was: ‘I don’t want to be singled out from all the hard-working men and golems who are putting the Post Office back on its feet! After all, there’s no “me” in team, eh?’
‘Actually, there is,’ said Sacharissa. ‘Besides, you’re the one wearing the winged hat and the golden suit. Come on, Mr Lipwig!’
‘All right, all right, I really didn’t want to go into this, but it’s against my religion,’ said Moist, who’d had time to think. ‘We’re forbidden to have any image made of us. It removes part of the soul, you know.’
‘And you believe that?’ said Sacharissa. ‘Really?’
‘Er, no. No. Of course not. Not as such. But . . . but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. It’s table d’hote or nothing, otherwise . . . well, it would be silly.’
Miss Cripslock looked at him with her head on one side. ‘You work for his lordship, don’t you?’ she said.
‘Well, of course. This is an official job.’
‘And I expect you’ll tell me that your previous job was as a clerk, nothing special?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Although your name probably is Moist von Lipwig, because I can’t believe anyone would choose that as an assumed name,” she went on.
‘Thank you very much!’
‘It sounds to me as though you’re issuing a challenge, Mr Lipwig. There’s all sorts of problems with the clacks right now. There’s been a big stink about the people they’ve been sacking and how the ones that’re left are being worked to death, and up you pop, full of ideas.’
‘I’m serious, Sacharissa. Look, people are already giving us new letters to post!’
He pulled them out of his pocket and fanned them out. ‘See, there’s one here to go to Dolly Sisters, another to Nap Hill, one for . . . Blind Io . . .’
‘He’s a god,’ said the woman. ‘Could be a problem.’
‘No,’ said Moist briskly, putting the letters back in his pocket. “We’ll deliver to the gods themselves. He has three temples in the city. It’ll be easy.’ And you’ve forgotten about the pictures, hooray . . .
‘A man of resource, I see. Tell me, Mr Lipwig, do you know much about the history of this place?’
‘Not too much. I’d certainly like to find out where the chandeliers went to!’
‘You haven’t spoken to Professor Pelc?’
‘Who’s he?’
‘I’m amazed. He’s at the University. He wrote a whole chapter on this place in his book on . . . oh, something to do with big masses of writing thinking for themselves. I suppose you do know about the people who died?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘He said the place drove them mad in some way. Well, actually, we said that. What he said was a lot more complicated. I have to hand it to you, Mr Lipwig, taking on a job that has killed four men before you. It takes a special kind of man to do that.’
Yes, thought Moist. An ignorant one.
‘You haven’t noticed anything strange yourself?’ she went on.
‘Well, I think my body travelled in time but the soles of my feet didn’t, but I’m not sure how much of it was hallucination; I was nearly killed in a mailslide and the letters keep talking to me,’ were the words that Moist didn’t say, because it’s the kind of thing you don’t say to an open notebook. What he did say was, ‘Oh, no. It’s a fine old building, and I fully intend to bring it back to its former glory.’
‘Good. How old are you, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Twenty-six. Is that important?’
‘We like to be thorough.’ Miss Cripslock gave him a sweet smile. ‘Besides, it’s useful if we have to write your obituary.’

Moist marched through the hall, with Groat sidling after him.
He pulled the new letters out of his pocket and thrust them into Groat’s crabby hands. ‘Get these delivered. Anything for a god goes to his or her or its temple. Any other strange ones put on my desk.’
‘We picked up another fifteen just now, sir. People think it’s funny!’
‘Got the money?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
‘Then we’re the ones who’re laughing,’ said Moist firmly. ‘I won’t be long. I’m off to see the wizard.’

By law and tradition the great Library of Unseen University is open to the public, although they aren’t allowed as far as the magical shelves. They don’t realize this, however, since the rules of time and space are twisted inside the Library and so hundreds of miles of shelving can easily be concealed inside a space roughly the thickness of paint.
People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered to be able to answer, such as ‘Is this the laundry?’ ‘How do you spell surreptitious?’ and, on a regular basis: ‘Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins.’
And, strictly speaking, the Library will have it . . . somewhere. Somewhere it has every book ever written, that ever will be written and, notably, every book that it is possible to write. These are not on the public shelves lest untrained handling cause the collapse of everything that it is possible to imagine.*

* Again.

Moist, like everyone else who entered the Library, stared up at the dome. Everyone did. They always wondered why a library that was technically infinite in size was covered by a dome a few hundred feet across, and they were allowed to go on wondering.
Just below the dome, staring down from their niches, were statues of the Virtues: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, Tubso, Bissonomy * and Fortitude.

* Many cultures practise neither of these in the hustle and bustle of the modern world,
because no one can remember what they are.

Moist couldn’t resist removing his hat and giving a little salute to Hope, to whom he owed so much. Then, as he wondered why the statue of Bissonomy was carrying a kettle and what looked like a bunch of parsnips, he collided with someone who grabbed him by the arm and hurried him across the floor.
‘Don’t say a word, don’t say a word, but you are looking for a book, yes?’
‘Well, actually—’ He seemed to be in the clutches of a wizard.
‘—you are not sure what book!’ said the wizard. ‘Exactly. It is the job of a librarian to find the right book for the right person. If you would just sit here, we can proceed. Thank you. Please excuse the straps. This will not take long. It is practically painless.’
‘Practically?’
Moist was pushed, firmly, into a large and complex swivel chair. His captor, or helper or whatever he might turn out to be, gave him a reassuring smile. Other, shadowy figures helped him strap Moist into the chair which, while basically an old horseshoe-shaped one with a leather seat, was surrounded by . . . stuff. Some of it was clearly magical, being of the stars-and-skulls variety, but what about the jar of pickles, the pair of tongs and the live mouse in a cage made of—
Panic gripped Moist and, not at all coincidentally, so did a pair of padded paddles, which closed over his ears. Just before all sound was silenced, he heard: ‘You may experience a taste of eggs and the sensation of being slapped in the face with some sort of fish. This is perfectly—’
And then thlabber happened. It was a traditional magic term, although Moist didn’t know this. There was a moment in which everything, even the things that couldn’t be stretched, felt stretched. And then there was the moment when everything suddenly went back to not being stretched, known as the moment of thlabber.
When Moist opened his eyes again, the chair was facing the other ‘way. There was no sign of the pickles, the tongs or the mouse, but in their place was a bucket of clockwork pastry lobsters and a boxed set of novelty glass eyes.
Moist gulped, and muttered: ‘Haddock.’
‘Really? Most people say cod,’ said someone. ‘No accounting for taste, I suppose.’ Hands unbuckled Moist and helped him to his feet. These hands belonged to an orang-utan, but Moist didn’t pass comment. This was a university of wizards, after all.
The man who had shoved him into the chair was now standing by a desk staring at some wizardly device.
‘Any moment now,’ he said. ‘Any moment. Any moment now. Any second . . .’
A bundle of what appeared to be hosepipes led from the desk into the wall. Moist was certain they bulged for a moment, like a snake eating in a hurry; the machine stuttered, and a piece of paper dropped out of a slot.
‘Ah . . . here we are,’ said the wizard, snatching it up. ‘Yes, the book you were after was A History of Hats, by F. G. Smallfinger, am I right?’
‘No. I’m not after a book, in fact—’ Moist began.
‘Are you sure? We have lots.’
There were two striking things about this wizard. One was . . . well, Grandfather Lipwig had always said that you could tell the honesty of a man by the size of his ears, and this was a very honest wizard. The other was that the beard he was wearing was clearly false.
‘I was looking for a wizard called Pelc,’ Moist ventured.
The beard parted slightly to reveal a wide smile.
‘I knew the machine would work!’ said the wizard. ‘You are looking, in fact, for me.’

The sign on the outside of the office door said: Ladislav Pelc, D.M.Phil, Prehumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy.
On the inside of the door was a hook, on which the wizard hung his beard.
It was a wizard’s study, so of course had the skull with a candle in it and a stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling. No one, least of all wizards, knows why this is, but you have to have them.
It was also a room full of books and made of books. There was no actual furniture; that is to say, the desk and chairs were shaped out of books. It looked as though many of them were frequently referred to, because they lay open with other books used as bookmarks.
‘You want to know about your Post Office, I expect?’ said Pelc, as Moist settled on to a chair carefully put together from volumes 1 to 41 of Synonyms for the word ‘Plimsoll’
‘Yes, please,’ said Moist.
‘Voices? Strange events?’
‘Yes!’
‘How can I put this . . .’ mused Pelc. ‘Words have power, you understand? It is in the nature of our universe. Our Library itself distorts time and space on quite a grand scale. Well, when the Post Office started accumulating letters it was storing words. In fact what was being created was what we call a gevaisa, a tomb of living words. Are you of a literary persuasion, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Not as such.’ Books were a closed book to Moist.
‘Would you burn a book?’ said Pelc. ‘An old book, say, battered, almost spineless, found in a box of rubbish?’
‘Well . . . probably not,’ Moist admitted.
‘Why not? Would the thought make you uncomfortable?’
‘Yes, I suppose it would. Books are . . . well, you just don’t do that. Er . . . why do you wear a false beard? I thought wizards had real ones.’
‘It’s not compulsory, you know, but when we go outside the public expect beards,’ said Pelc. ‘It’s like having stars on your robes. Besides, they’re far too hot in the summer. Where was I? Gevaisas. Yes. All words have some power. We feel it instinctively. Some, like magical spells and the true names of the gods, have a great deal. They must be treated with respect. In Klatch there is a mountain with many caves, and in those caves are entombed more than a hundred thousand old books, mostly religious, each one in a white linen shroud. That is perhaps an extreme approach, but intelligent people have always known that some words at least should be disposed of with care and respect.’
‘Not just shoved in sacks in the attic,’ said Moist. ‘Hold on . . . a golem called the Post Office “a tomb of unheard words”.’
‘I’m not at all surprised,’ said Professor Pelc calmly. ‘The old gevaisas and libraries used to employ golems, because the only words that have the power to influence them are the ones in their heads. Words are important. And when there is a critical mass of them, they change the nature of the universe. Did you have what seemed to be hallucinations?’
‘Yes! I was back in time! But also in the present!’
‘Ah, yes. That’s quite common,’ said the wizard. ‘Enough words crammed together can affect time and space.’
‘And they spoke to me!’
‘I told the Watch the letters wanted to be delivered,’ said Professor Pelc. ‘Until a letter is read, it’s not complete. They will try anything to be delivered. But they don’t think, as you understand it, and they’re not clever. They just reach out into any available mind. I see you’ve already been turned into an avatar.’
‘I can’t fly!’
‘Avatar: the living likeness of a god,’ said the professor patiently. ‘The hat with wings. The golden suit.’
‘No, they happened by accident—’
‘Are you sure?’
The room went quiet.
‘Urn . . . I was until right now,’ said Moist.
‘They’re not trying to hurt anyone, Mr Lipwig,’ said Pelc. “They just want deliverance.’
‘We’ll never be able to deliver them all,’ said Moist. ‘That’d take years.’
‘The mere fact you’re delivering any will help, I’m sure,’ said Professor Pelc, smiling like a doctor telling a man not to worry, the disease is only fatal in 87 per cent of cases. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ He stood up, to indicate that a wizard’s time is valuable.
‘Well, I’d quite like to know where the chandeliers went,’ said Moist. ‘It’d be nice to get them back. Symbolic, you could say’
‘I can’t help you, but I’m sure Professor Goitre can. He’s the Posthumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy. We could drop in and see him on the way out, if you like. He’s in the Wizards’ Pantry.’
‘Why’s he “posthumous”?’ Moist asked, as they stepped out into the corridor.
‘He’s dead,’ said Pelc.
‘Ah . . . I was kind of hoping that it was going to be a little more metaphorical than that,’ said Moist.
‘Don’t worry, he decided to take Early Death. It was a very good package.’
‘Oh,’ said Moist. The important thing at a time like this was to spot the right moment to run, but they’d got here through a maze of dark passages and this was not a place you’d want to get lost in. Something might find you.
They stopped outside a door, through which came the muffled sound of voices and the occasional clink of glassware. The noise stopped as soon as the professor pushed the door open, and it was hard to see where it could have come from. This was, indeed, a pantry, quite empty of people, its walls lined with shelves, the shelves filled with little jars. There was a wizard in each one.
Now would be the right time to run, Moist’s hindbrain thought, as Pelc reached for a jar, unscrewed the lid and rummaged around in it for the tiny wizard.
‘Oh, this isn’t him,’ said the professor cheerfully, seeing Moist’s expression. ‘The housekeeper puts these little knitted wizard dolls in just to remind the kitchen staff that the jars shouldn’t be used for anything else. There was an incident with some peanut butter, I believe. I just have to take it out so that he doesn’t sound muffled.’
‘So . . . er, where is the professor, in fact?’
‘Oh, in the jar, for a certain value of “in”,’ said Professor Pelc. ‘It’s very hard to explain to the layman. He’s only dead for—’
‘—a given value of dead?’ said Moist.
‘Exactly! And he can come back at a week’s notice. A lot of the older wizards are opting for it now. Very refreshing, they say, just like a sabbatical. Only longer.’
‘Where do they go?’
‘No one’s sure, exactly, but you can hear the sounds of cutlery,’ said Pelc, and raised the jar to his mouth.
‘Excuse me, Professor Goitre? Can you by any chance recall what happened to the chandeliers in the Post Office?’
Moist was expecting a tinny little voice to reply, but a sprightly if elderly voice a few inches away from his ear said: ‘What? Oh! Yes indeed! One ended up in the Opera House and the other was acquired by the Assassins’ Guild. Here comes the pudding trolley! Goodbye!’
‘Thank you, Professor,’ said Pelc solemnly. ‘All is well here—’
‘Fat lot I care!’ said the disembodied voice. ‘Be off, please, we’re eating!’
‘There you have it, then,’ said Pelc, putting the wizard doll back in the jar and screwing the lid on. ‘The Opera House and the Assassins’ Guild. Might be quite hard to get them back, I fancy.’
‘Yes, I think I shall put that off for a day or two,’ said Moist, stepping out of the door. ‘Dangerous people to tangle with.’
‘Indeed,’ said the professor, shutting the door behind them, which was the signal for the buzz of conversation to start up again. ‘I understand some of those sopranos can kick like a mule.’

Moist dreamed of bottled wizards, all shouting his name.
In the best traditions of awaking from a nightmare, the voices gradually became one voice, which turned out to be that of Mr Pump, who was shaking him.
‘Some of them were covered in jam!’ Moist shouted, and then focused. ‘What?’
‘Mr Lipvig, You Have An Appointment With Lord Vetinari.’
This sank in, and sounded worse than wizards in jars. ‘I don’t have any appointment with Vetinari! Er . . . do I?’
‘He Says You Do, Mr Lipvig,’ said the golem. ‘Therefore, You Do. We’ll Leave By The Coach Yard. There Is A Big Crowd Outside The Front Doors.’
Moist stopped with his trousers halfway on. ‘Are they angry? Are any of them carrying buckets of tar? Feathers of any kind?’
‘I Do Not Know. I Have Been Given Instructions. I Am Carrying Them Out. I Advise You To Do The Same.’
Moist was hustled out into the back streets, where some shreds of mist were still floating. ‘What time is this, for heavens’ sake?’ he complained.
‘A Quarter To Seven, Mr Lipvig.’
‘That’s still night time! Doesn’t the man ever sleep? What’s so important that I’ve got to be dragged off my nice warm pile of letters?’

The clock in Lord Vetinari’s ante-room didn’t tick right. Sometimes the tick was just a fraction late, sometimes the tock was early. Occasionally, one or the other didn’t happen at all. This wasn’t really noticeable until you’d been in there for five minutes, by which time small but significant parts of the brain were going crazy.
Moist was not good at early mornings in any case. That was one of the advantages of a life of crime: you didn’t have to get up until other people had got the streets aired.
The clerk Drumknott glided in on hushed feet, so soundlessly that he came as a shock. He was one of the most silent people Moist had ever encountered.
‘Would you like some coffee, Postmaster?’ he said quietly.
‘Am I in trouble, Mr Drumknott?’
‘I wouldn’t care to say, sir. Have you read the Times this morning?’
‘The paper? No. Oh . . .’ Moist’s mind ran back furiously over yesterday’s interview. He hadn’t said anything wrong, had he? It had all been good, positive stuff, hadn’t it? Vetinari wanted people to use the post, didn’t he?
‘We always get a few copies straight off the press,’ said Drumknott. ‘I shall fetch you one.’
He returned with the paper. Moist unfolded it, took in the front page in one moment of agony, read a few sentences, put his hand over his eyes and said, ‘Oh, gods.’
‘Did you notice the cartoon, Postmaster?’ said Drumknott innocently. ‘It may be thought quite droll.’
Moist risked another glance at the terrible page. Perhaps in unconscious self-defence his gaze had skipped over the cartoon, which showed two ragged street urchins. One of them was holding a strip of penny stamps. The text below read:

First urchin (having acquired some of the newly minted ‘Stampings’): ’ ‘ere, ‘ave you seen Lord Vetinari’s back side?’
Second urchin: ‘Nah, and I wouldn’t lick it for a penny, neiver!’

Moist’s face went waxen. ‘He’s seen this?’ he croaked.
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
Moist stood up quickly. ‘It’s still early,’ he said. ‘Mr Trooper is probably still on duty. If I run he can probably fit me in. I’ll go right away. That will be okay, won’t it? It’ll cut out the paperwork. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. I’ll even—’
‘Now, now, Postmaster,’ said Drumknott, pushing him gently back into his chair, ‘don’t distress yourself unduly. In my experience, his lordship is a . . . complex man. It is not wise to anticipate his reactions.’
‘You mean you think I’m going to live?’
Drumknott screwed up his face in thought, and stared at the ceiling for a moment. ‘Hmm, yes. Yes, I think you might,’ he said.
‘I mean, in the fresh air? With everything attached?’
‘Quite probably, sir. You may go in now, sir.’
Moist tiptoed into the Patrician’s office.
Only Lord Vetinari’s hands were visible on either side of the Times. Moist reread the headlines with dull horror.

WE DON’T BREAK DOWN,
POSTMASTER VOWS
Amazing Attack On Clacks
Pledges: We’ll Deliver Anywhere
Using Remarkable New ‘Stamps’

That was the main story. It was alongside a smaller story which nevertheless drew the eye. The headline was:

Grand Trunk Down Again:
Continent Cut Off

 . . . and at the bottom, in a heavier typeface to show it was meant to be light-hearted, and under the headline:

History Cannot Be Denied

 . . . were a dozen stories about the things that had happened when the ancient post turned up. There was the rumpus that had turned into a fracas, Mr Parker and his bride-to-be and others too. The post had changed unremarkable lives in small ways. It was like cutting a window into History and seeing what might have been.
That seemed to be the entirety of the front page, except for a story about the Watch hunting for the ‘mystery killer’ who had mauled some banker to death in his house. They were baffled, it said. That cheered Moist up a little; if their infamous werewolf officer couldn’t sniff out a bloody murderer, then maybe they wouldn’t find Moist, when the time came. A brain could surely beat a nose.
Lord Vetinari seemed oblivious of Moist’s presence, and Moist wondered what effect a polite cough might have.
At which point, the newspaper rustled.
‘It says here in the Letters column,’ said the voice of the Patrician, ‘that the phrase “stick it up your jumper” is based on an ancient Ephebian saying that is at least two thousand years old, thus clearly pre-dating jumpers but not, presumably, the act of sticking.’ He lowered the paper and looked at Moist over the top of it. ‘I don’t know if you have been following this interesting little etymological debate?’
‘No, sir,’ said Moist. ‘If you remember, I spent the past six weeks in a condemned cell.’
His lordship put down the paper, steepled his fingers, and looked at Moist over the top of them.
‘Ah, yes. So you did, Mr Lipwig. Well, well, well.’
‘Look, I’m really sorr—’ Moist began.
‘Anywhere in the world? Even to the gods? Our postmen don’t break down so easily? History is not to be denied? Very impressive, Mr Lipwig. You have made quite a splash,’ Vetinari smiled, ‘as the fish said to the man with the lead weight tied to his feet.’
‘I didn’t exactly say—’
‘In my experience Miss Cripslock tends to write down exactly what one says,’ Vetinari observed. ‘It’s a terrible thing when journalists do that. It spoils the fun. One feels instinctively that it’s cheating, somehow. And I gather you are selling promissory notes, too?’
‘What?’
‘The stamps, Mr Lipwig. A promise to carry a penny’s worth of mail. A promise that must be kept. Do come and look at this.’ He stood up and walked across to the window, where he beckoned. ‘Do come, Mr Lipwig.’
Fearing that he might be hurled down on to the cobbles, Moist nevertheless did so.
‘See the big clacks tower over there on the Tump?’ said Vetinari, gesturing. ‘Not much activity on the Grand Trunk this morning. Problems with a tower out on the plains, I gather. Nothing is getting to Sto Lat and beyond. But now, if you look down . . .’
It took Moist a moment to understand what he was seeing, and then—
‘That’s a queue outside the Post Office?’ he said.
‘Yes, Mr Lipwig,’ said Vetinari, with dark glee. ‘For stamps, as advertised. Ankh-Morpork citizens have an instinct for, you might say, joining in the fun. Go to it, Mr Lipwig. I’m sure you’re full of ideas. Don’t let me detain you.’
Lord Vetinari returned to his desk and picked up the paper.
It’s right there on the front page, Moist thought, he can’t have not seen it . . .
‘Er . . . about the other thing . . .’ he ventured, staring at the cartoon.
‘What other thing would that be?’ said Lord Vetinari.
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Er . . . nothing, really,’ said Moist. ‘I’ll be off, then.’
‘Indeed you will, Postmaster. The mail must get through, must it not?’
Vetinari listened to distant doors shut, and then went and stood at the window until he saw a golden figure hurry across the courtyard.
Drumknott came and tidied up the ‘Out’ tray. ‘Well done, sir,’ he said quietly.
‘Thank you, Drumknott.’
‘I see Mr Horsefry has passed away, sir.’
‘So I understand, Drumknott.’

There was a stir in the crowd as Moist crossed the street. To his unspeakable relief he saw Mr Spools, standing with one of the serious men from his printery. Spools hurried over to him.
‘I, er, have several thousand of both of the, er, items,’ he whispered, pulling out a package from under his coat. ‘Pennies and twopennies. They’re not the best we can do but I thought you might be in want of them. We heard the clacks was down again.’
‘You’re a life saver, Mr Spools. If you could just take them inside. By the way, how much is a clacks message to Sto Lat?’
‘Even a very short message would be at least thirty pence, I think,’ said the engraver.
‘Thank you.’ Moist stood back and cupped his hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ he shouted. ‘The Post Office will be open in five minutes for the sale of penny and twopenny stamps! In addition, we will be taking mail for Sto Lat! First express delivery to Sto Lat leaves on the hour, ladies and gentlemen, to arrive this morning. The cost will be ten pence per standard envelope! I repeat, ten pence! The Royal Mail, ladies and gentlemen! Accept no substitutes! Thank you!’
There was a stir from the crowd, and several people hurried away.
Moist led Mr Spools into the building, politely closing the door in the face of the crowd. He felt the tingle he always felt when the game was afoot. Life should be made of moments like this, he decided. With his heart singing, he poured out orders.
‘Stanley!’
‘Yes, Mr Lipwig?’ said the boy, behind him.
‘Run along to Hobson’s Livery Stable and tell them I want a good fast horse, right? Something with a bit of fizz in its blood! Not some feagued-up old screw, and I know the difference! I want it here in half an hour! Off you go! Mr Groat?’
‘Yessir!’ Groat actually saluted.
‘Rig up some kind of table for a counter, will you?’ said Moist. ‘In five minutes, we open to accept mail and sell stamps! I’m taking letters to Sto Lat while the clacks is down and you’re Acting Postmaster while I’m gone! Mr Spools!’
‘I’m right here, Mr Lipwig. You really don’t have to shout,’ said the engraver reproachfully.
‘Sorry, Mr Spools. More stamps, please. I’ll need some to take with me, in case there’s mail to come back. Can you do that? And I’ll need the fives and the dollar stamps as soon as— Are you all right, Mr Groat?’
The old man was swaying, his lips moving soundlessly.
‘Mr Groat?’ Moist repeated.
‘Acting Postmaster . . .’ mumbled Groat.
‘That’s right, Mr Groat.’
‘No Groat has ever been Acting Postmaster . . .’ Suddenly Groat dropped to his knees and gripped Moist round the legs. ‘Oh, thank you, sir! I won’t let you down, Mr Lipwig! You can rely on me, sir! Neither rain nor snow nor glom of—’
‘Yes, yes, thank you, Acting Postmaster, thank you, that’s enough, thank you,’ said Moist, trying to pull away. ‘Please get up, Mr Groat. Mr Groat, please!’
‘Can I wear the winged hat while you’re gone, sir?’ Groat pleaded. ‘It’d mean such a lot, sir—’
‘I’m sure it would, Mr Groat, but not today. Today, the hat flies to Sto Lat.’
Groat stood up. ‘Should it really be you that takes the mail, sir?’
‘Who else? Golems can’t move fast enough, Stanley is . . . well, Stanley, and the rest of you gentlemen are ol— rich in years.’ Moist rubbed his hands together. ‘No argument, Acting Postmaster Groat! Now - let’s sell some stamps!’
The doors were opened, and the crowd flocked in. Vetinari had been right. If there was any action, the people of Ankh-Morpork liked to be a part of it. Penny stamps flowed over the makeshift counter. After all, the reasoning went, for a penny you got something worth a penny, right? After all, even if it was a joke it was as safe as buying money! And envelopes came the other way. People were actually writing letters in the Post Office. Moist made a mental note: envelopes with a stamp already on them and a sheet of folded paper inside them: Instant Letter Kit, Just Add Ink! That was an important rule of any game: always make it easy for people to give you money.
To his surprise, although he realized it shouldn’t have been, Drumknott elbowed his way through the crowd with a small but heavy leather package, sealed with a heavy wax seal bearing the city crest and a heavy V. It was addressed to the mayor of Sto Lat.
‘Government business,’ he announced pointedly, as he handed it over.
‘Do you want to buy any stamps for it?’ said Moist, taking the packet.
‘What do you think, Postmaster?’ said the clerk.
‘I definitely think government business travels free,’ said Moist.
‘Thank you, Mr Lipwig. The lord likes a fast learner.’
Other mail for Sto Lat did get stamped, though. A lot of people had friends or business there. Moist looked around. People were scribbling everywhere, even holding the notepaper up against walls. The stamps, penny and twopenny, were shifting fast. At the other end of the hall, the golems were sorting the endless mail mountains . . .
In fact, in a small way, the place was bustling.
You should’ve seen it, sir, you should’ve seen it!
‘Lipwig, are yer?’
He snapped out of a dream of chandeliers to see a thickset man in front of him. Recognition took “a moment, and then said that this was the owner of Hobson’s Livery Stable, at once the most famous and the most notorious such enterprise in the city. It was probably not the hive of criminal activity that popular rumour suggested, although the huge establishment often seemed to contain grubby-looking men with not much to do apart from sit around and squint at people. And he was employing an Igor, everyone knew, which of course was sensible when you had such a high veterinary overhead, but you heard stories . . . *

* That, for example, stolen horses got dismantled at dead of night and might well turn up with a dye job and two different legs. And it was said that there was one horse in Ankh-Morpork that had a longitudinal seam from head to tail, being sewn together from what was left of two horses that had been involved in a particularly nasty accident.
 
‘Oh, hello, Mr Hobson,’ said Moist.
‘Seems yer think I hire tired old horses, sir, do you?’ said Willie Hobson. His smile was not entirely friendly. A nervous Stanley stood behind him. Hobson was big and heavy-set but not exactly fat; he was probably what you’d get if you shaved a bear.
‘I have ridden some that—’ Moist began, but Hobson raised a hand.
‘Seems yer want fizz,’ said Hobson. His smile widened. ‘Well, I always give the customer what I want, you know that. So I’ve brought yer Boris.’
‘Oh, yes?’ said Moist. ‘And he’ll get me to Sto Lat, will he?’
‘Oh, at the very least, sir,’ said Hobson. ‘Good horseman, are yer?’
‘When it comes to riding out of town, Mr Hobson, there’s no one faster.’
‘That’s good, sir, that’s good,’ said Hobson, in the slow voice of someone carefully urging the prey towards the trap. ‘Boris does have a few faults, but I can see a skilled horseman like you should have no trouble. Ready, then? He’s right outside. Got a man holding him.’
It turned out that there were in fact four men holding the huge black stallion in a network of ropes, while it danced and lunged and kicked and tried to bite. A fifth man was lying on the ground. Boris was a killer.
‘Like I said, sir, he’s got a few faults, but no one could call him a . . . now what was it . . . oh, yeah, a feagued-up old screw. Still want a horse with fizz?’ Hobson’s grin said it all: this is what I do to snooty buggers who try to mess me around. Let’s see you try to ride this one, Mister-I-Know-All-About-Horses!
Moist looked at Boris, who was trying to trample the fallen man, and at the watching crowd. Damn the gold suit. If you were Moist von Lipwig, there was only one thing to do now, and that was raise the stakes.
‘Take his saddle off,’ he said.
‘You what?’ said Hobson.
‘Take his saddle off, Mr Hobson,’ said Moist firmly. ‘This bag’s quite heavy, so let’s lose the saddle.’
Hobson’s smile remained, but the rest of his face tried to sidle away from it. ‘Had all the kids you want, have yer?’ he said.
‘Just give me a blanket and a bellyband, Mr Hobson.’
Now Hobson’s smile vanished completely. This was going to look too much like murder. ‘You might want to think again, sir,’ he said. ‘Boris took a couple of fingers off a man last year. He’s a trampler, too, and a snaffler and a scraper and he’ll horlock if he can get away with it. He’s got demons in him, and that’s a fact.’
‘Will he run?’
‘Not so much run as bolt, sir. Born evil, that one,’ said Hobson. ‘You need a crowbar to get him round corners, too. Look, sir, fair play to yer for a game ‘un, but I’ve got plenty of other—’
Hobson flinched as Moist gave him a special grin.’ You chose him, Mr Hobson. I’ll ride him. I’d be grateful if you could get your gentlemen to point him up Broadway for me while I go and conclude a few items of business.’
Moist went into the building, ran up the stairs to his office, shut the door, crammed his handkerchief in his mouth and whimpered gently for a few seconds, until he felt better. He’d ridden bareback a few times, when things had been really hot, but Boris had the eyes of a crazy thing.
But back off now and he’d be . . . just a fool in a shiny suit. You had to give them a show, an image, something to remember. All he had to do was stay on until he left the city and then find a suitable bush to jump off into. Yes, that’d do. And then stagger into Sto Lat hours later, still with the mail, having valiantly fought off bandits. He’d be believed, because it would feel right . . . because people wanted to believe things, because it’d make a good tale, because if you made it glitter sufficiently glass could appear more like a diamond than a diamond did.
There was a cheer when he strode out on to the steps again. The sun, on cue, decided to appear from the mists, and sparkled off his wings.
Boris was looking apparently docile now, chewing his bit. This didn’t fool Moist; if a horse like Boris was quiet it was because he was planning something.
‘Mr Pump, I shall need you to give me a leg up,’ he said, slinging the post bag round his neck.
‘Yes, Mr Lipvig,’ said the golem.
‘Mr Lipwig!’
Moist turned round to see Sacharissa Cripslock hurrying up the street, notebook in hand.
‘Always a pleasure to see you, Sacharissa,’ said Moist, ‘but I am a little busy right now—’
‘You are aware that the Grand Trunk is shut again?’ she said.
‘Yes, it was in the paper. Now I must—’
‘So you are challenging the clacks company?’ The pencil hung poised over her notebook.
‘Simply delivering the mail, Miss Cripslock, just like I said I’d do,’ said Moist in firm, manly tones.
‘But it’s rather strange, is it not, that a man on horseback is more reliable than a—’
‘Please, Miss Cripslock! We are the Post Office!’ said Moist, in his best high-minded voice. ‘We don’t go in for petty rivalry. We’re sorry to hear that our colleagues in the clacks company are experiencing temporary difficulties with their machinery, we fully sympathize with their plight, and if they would like us to deliver their messages for them we would of course be happy to sell them some stamps - soon to be available in penny, twopenny, fivepenny, tenpenny and one dollar values, available here at your Post Office, ready gummed. Incidentally, we intend eventually to flavour the gum in liquorice, orange, cinnamon and banana flavours, but not strawberry because I hate strawberries.’
He could see her smile as she wrote this down. Then she said: ‘I did hear you correctly, did I? You are offering to carry clacks messages?
‘Certainly. Ongoing messages can be put on the Trunk in Sto Lat. Helpfulness is our middle name.’
‘Are you sure it’s not “cheekiness”?’ said Sacharissa, to laughter from the crowd.
‘I don’t understand you, I’m sure,’ said Moist. ‘Now, if you will—’
‘You’re cocking a snook at the clacks people again, aren’t you?’ said the journalist.
‘Ah, that must be a journalistic term,’ said Moist. ‘I’ve never owned a snook, and even if I did I wouldn’t know how to cock it. And now, if you will excuse me, I have the mail to deliver and ought to leave before Boris eats somebody. Again.’
‘Can I ask you just one last thing? Will your soul be unduly diminished if Otto takes a picture of you departing?’
‘I suppose I can’t stop you out here, provided my face isn’t very clear,’ said Moist, as Mr Pump cupped his pottery hands to make a step. ‘The priest is very hot on that, you know.’
‘Yes, I expect “the priest” is,’ said Miss Cripslock, making sure the inverted commas clanged with irony. ‘Besides, by the look of that creature, it may be the last chance we get. It looks like death on four legs, Mr Lipwig.’
The crowd fell silent as Moist mounted. Boris merely shifted his weight a little.
Look at it like this, Moist thought, what have you got to lose? Your life? You’ve already been hanged. You’re into angel time. And you’re impressing the hell out of everybody. Why are they buying stamps? Because you’re giving them a show—
‘Just say the word, mister,’ said one of Hobson’s men, hauling on the end of a rope. ‘When we let him go, we ain’t hanging around!’
‘Wait a moment—’ said Moist quickly.
He’d seen a figure at the front of the crowd. It was wearing a figure-hugging grey dress and, as he watched, it blew a neurotic cloud of smoke at the sky, gave him a look, and shrugged.
‘Dinner tonight, Miss Dearheart?’ he shouted.
Heads turned. There was a ripple of laughter, and a few cheers. For a moment she flashed him a look that should have left his shadow on the smoking remains of the wall opposite, and then she gave a curt nod.
Who knows, it could be peaches underneath . . .
‘Let him go, boys!’ said Moist, his heart soaring.
The men dived away. The world was still for a breath, and then Boris sprang from docility into a mad rearing dance, back legs clattering across the flagstones, hooves pawing at the air.
‘Vunderful! Hold it!’
The world went white. Boris went mad.

Chapter Seven

A Post Haste

The Nature of Boris the Horse - Foreboding Tower - Mr Lipwig
cools off- The Lady with Buns on Her Ears - Invitation Accepted —
Mr Robinsons Box — A mysterious stranger

Hobson had tried Boris as a racehorse and he would have been a very good one were it not for his unbreakable habit, at the off, of attacking the horse next to him and jumping the railings at the first bend. Moist clapped one hand on to his hat, wedged his toes into the belly band and hung on to the reins as Broadway came at him all at once, carts and people blurring past, his eyeballs pressing into his head.
There was a cart across the street but there was no possibility of steering Boris. Huge muscles bunched and there was a long, slow, silent moment as he drifted over the cart.
Hooves slid over the cobbles ahead of a trail of sparks when he landed again, but he recovered by sheer momentum and accelerated.
The usual crowd around the Hubwards Gate scattered and there, filling the horizon, were the plains. They did something to Boris’s mad horse brain. All that space, nice and flat with only a few easily jumped obstacles, like trees . . .
He found extra muscle and speeded up again, bushes and trees and carts flying towards him.
Moist cursed the bravado with which he’d ordered the saddle taken away. Every part of his body already hated him. But in truth Boris, once you got past the pineapple, wasn’t too bad a ride. He’d hit his rhythm, a natural single-footed gait, and his burning eyes were focused on the blueness. His hatred of everything was for the moment subsumed in the sheer joy of space. Hobson was right, you couldn’t steer him with a mallet, but at least he was headed in the right direction, which was away from his stable. Boris didn’t want to spend the days kicking the bricks out of his wall while waiting to throw the next bumptious idiot. He wanted to bite the horizon. He wanted to run.
Moist carefully removed his hat and gripped it in his mouth. He didn’t dare imagine what’d happen if he lost it, and he’d need to have it on his head at the end of the journey. It was important. It was all about style.
One of the towers of the Grand Trunk was ahead and slightly to the left. There were two in the twenty miles between Ankh-Morpork and Sto Lat, because they were taking almost all the traffic of lines that stretched right across the continent. Beyond Sto Lat the Trunk began to split into tributaries, but here, flashing overhead, the words of the world were flowing—
—should be flowing. But the shutters were still. As he drew level, Moist saw men working high up on the open wooden tower; by the look of it, a whole section had broken off.
Ha! So long, suckers! That’d take some repairing! Worth an overnight attempt at a delivery to Pseudopolis, maybe? He’d talk to the coachmen. It wasn’t as if they’d ever paid the Post Office for their damn coaches. And it wouldn’t matter if the clacks got repaired in time, either, because the Post Office would have made the effort. The clacks company was a big bully, sacking people, racking up the charges, demanding lots of money for bad service. The Post Office was the underdog, and an underdog can always find somewhere soft to bite.
Carefully, he eased more of the blanket under him. Various organs were going numb.
The towering fumes of Ankh-Morpork were falling far behind. Sto Lat was visible between Boris’s ears, a plume of lesser smokes. The tower disappeared astern and already Moist could see the next one. He’d ridden more than a third of the way in twenty minutes, and Boris was still eating up the ground.
About halfway between the cities was an old stone tower, all that remained of a heap of ruins surrounded by woodland. It was almost as high as a clacks tower and Moist wondered why they hadn’t simply used it as one. It was probably too derelict to survive in a gale under the weight of the shutters, he thought. The area looked bleak, a piece of weedy wilderness in the endless fields.
If he’d had spurs, Moist would have spurred Boris on at this point, and would probably have been thrown, trampled and eaten for his pains.* Instead, he lay low over the horse’s back and tried not to think about what this ride was doing to his kidneys.

* Which would have been agonizing.

Time passed.
The second tower went by, and Boris dropped into a canter. Sto Lat was clearly visible now; Moist could make out the city walls and the turrets of the castle.
He’d have to jump off; there was no other way. Moist had tried out half a dozen scenarios as the walls loomed, but nearly all of them involved haystacks. The one that didn’t was the one where he broke his neck.
But it didn’t seem to occur to Boris to turn aside. He was on a road, the road was straight, it went through this gateway and Boris had no problem with that. Besides, he wanted a drink.
The city streets were crowded with things that couldn’t be jumped or trampled, but there was a horse trough. He was only vaguely aware of something falling off his back.
Sto Lat wasn’t a big city. Moist had once spent a happy week there, passing a few dud bills, pulling off the Indigent Heir trick twice and selling a glass ring on the way out, not so much for the money as out of a permanent fascination with human deviousness and gullibility.
Now he staggered up the steps of the town hall, watched by a crowd. He pushed open the doors and slammed the mailbag on the desk of the first clerk he saw.
‘Mail from Ankh-Morpork,’ he growled. ‘Started out at nine, so it’s fresh, okay?’
‘But it’s only just struck a quarter past ten! What mail?’
Moist tried not to get angry. He was sore enough as it was.
 ‘See this hat?’ he said, pointing. ‘You see it? That means I’m the Postmaster General of Ankh-Morpork! This is your mail! In an hour I’m going back again, understand? If you want mail delivered to the big city by two p.m.— Ouch. Make that three p.m. - then put it in this bag. These,’ he waved a wad of stamps under the young man’s nose, ‘are stamps! Red ones tuppence, black ones a penny. It’ll cost ten - ow - eleven pence per letter, got it? You sell the stamps, you give me the money, you lick the stamps and put them on the letters! Express Delivery guaranteed! I’m making you Acting Postmaster for an hour. There’s an inn next door. I’ve going to find a bath. I want a cold bath. Really cold. Got an ice house here? As cold as that. Colder. Ooooh, colder. And a drink and a sandwich and by the way there’s a big black horse outside. If your people can catch him, please put a saddle on him and a cushion and drag him round to face Ankh-Morpork. Do it!’

It was only a hip bath, but at least there was an ice house in the city. Moist sat in a state of bliss amongst the floating ice, drinking a brandy, and listened to the commotion outside.
After a while there was a knock at the door, and a male voice enquired: ‘Are you decent, Mr Postmaster?’
‘Thoroughly decent, but not dressed,’ said Moist. He reached down beside him and put his winged hat on again. ‘Do come in.’
The mayor of Sto Lat was a short, bird-like man, who’d either become mayor very recently and immediately after the post had been held by a big fat man, or thought that a robe that trailed several feet behind you and a chain that reached to the waist was the look for civic dignitaries this year.
‘Er . . . Joe Camels, sir,’ he said nervously. ‘I’m the mayor here . . .’
‘Really? Good to meet you, Joe,’ said Moist, raising his glass. ‘Excuse me if I don’t get up.’
‘Your horse, er, has run away after kicking three men, I’m sorry to say.’
‘Really? He never usually does that,’ said Moist.
‘Don’t worry, sir, we’ll catch him, and anyway we can let you have a horse to get back on. Not as fast, though, I dare say.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Moist, easing himself into a new position amongst the floating ice. ‘That’s a shame.’
‘Oh, I know all about you, Mr Lipwig,’ said the mayor, winking conspiratorially. ‘There were some copies of the Times in the mailbag! A man who wants to be up and doing, you are. A man full of vim, you are! A man after my own heart, you are! You aim for the moon, you do! You see your target and you go for it hell for leather, you do! That’s how I does business, too! You’re a go-getter, just like me! I’d like you to put it here, sir!’
‘What where?’ said Moist, stirring uneasily in his rapidly-becoming-lukewarm tub. ‘Oh.’ He shook the proffered hand. “What is your business, Mr Camels?’
‘I make parasols,’ said the mayor. ‘And it’s about time that clacks company was told what’s what! It was all fine up until a few months ago - I mean, they made you pay through the nose but at least stuff got where it was going fast as an arrow, but now it’s all these breakdowns and repairs and they charge even more, mark you! And they never tell you how long you’re going to be waiting, it’s always “very shortly”. They’re always “sorry for the inconvenience” - they even got that written on a sign they hang up on the office! As warm and human as a thrown knife, just like you said. So you know what we just done? We went round to the clacks tower in the city and had a serious word with young Davey, who’s a decent lad, and he gave us back all the overnight clacks for the big city that never got sent. How about that, eh?’
‘Won’t he get into trouble?’
‘He says he’s quitting anyway. None of the boys like the way the company’s run now. They’ve all been stamped for you, just like you said. Well, I’ll let you get dressed, Mr Lipwig. Your horse is ready.’ He stopped at the door. ‘Oh, just one thing, sir, about them stamps . . .’
‘Yes? Is there a problem, Mr Camels?’ said Moist.
‘Not as such, sir. I wouldn’t say anything against Lord Vetinari, sir, or Ankh-Morpork’ - said a man living within twenty miles of a proud and touchy citizenry - ‘but, er, it doesn’t seem right, licking . . . well, licking Ankh-Morpork stamps. Couldn’t you print up a few for us? We’ve got a Queen, nice girl. She’d look good on a stamp. We’re an important city, you know!’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Mr Camels. Got a picture of her, by any chance?’
They’ll all want one, he thought, as he got dressed. Having your own stamps could be like having your own flag, your own crest. It could be big! And I bet I could do a deal with my friend Mr Spools, oh yes. Doesn’t matter if you haven’t got your own post office, you’ve got to have your own stamp . . .
An enthusiastic crowd saw him off on a horse which, while no Boris, did his best and seemed to know what reins were for. Moist gratefully accepted the cushion on the saddle, too. That added more glitter to the glass: he’d ridden so hard he needed a cushion!
He set off with a full mailbag. Amazingly, once again, people had bought stamps just to own them. The Times had got around. Here was something new, so people wanted to be part of it.
Once he was cantering over the fields, though, he felt the fizz die away. He was employing Stanley, a bunch of game but creaky old men, and some golems. He couldn’t keep this up.
But the thing was, you added sparkle. You told people what you intended to do and they believed you could do it. Anyone could have done this ride. No one had. They kept waiting for the clacks to be repaired.
He took things gently along the road, speeding up as he passed the clacks tower that had been under repair. It was still under repair, in fact, but he could see more men around it and high up on the tower. There was a definite suggestion that repair work was suddenly going a lot faster.
As he watched, he was sure he saw someone fall off. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go over there and see if he could help, though, not if he wanted to continue to go through life with his own teeth. Besides, it was a long, long drop all the way down to the cabbage fields, handily combining death and burial at the same time.
He speeded up again when he reached the city. Somehow trotting up to the Post Office steps was not an option. The queue - still a queue - cheered when he cantered up.
Mr Groat came running out, insofar as a crab can run.
‘Can you make another delivery to Sto Lat, sir?’ he shouted. ‘Got a full bag already! And everyone’s asking when you’ll be taking ‘em to Pseudopolis and Quirm! Got one here for Lancre, too!’
“What? That’s five hundred damn miles, man!’ Moist dismounted, although the state of his legs turned the action into more of a drop.
‘It’s all got a bit busy since you were away,’ said Groat, steadying him. ‘Oh, yes indeed! Ain’t got enough people! But there’s people wanting jobs, too, sir, since the paper came out! People from the old postal families, just like me! Even some more workers out of retirement! I took the liberty of taking them on pro tern for the time being, seeing as I’m Acting Postmaster. I hope that’s all right with you, sir? And Mr Spools is running off more stamps! I’ve twice had to send Stanley up for more. I hear we’ll have the early fivepennies and the dollars out tonight! Great times, eh, sir?’
‘Er . . . yes,’ said Moist. Suddenly the whole world had turned into a kind of Boris - moving fast, inclined to bite and impossible to steer. The only way not to be ground down was to stay on top.
Inside the hall extra makeshift tables had been set up. They were crowded with people.
‘We’re selling them the envelopes and paper,’ said Groat. ‘The ink is free gratis.’
‘Did you think that up yourself?’ said Moist.
‘No, it’s what we used to do,’ said Groat. ‘Miss Maccalariat got a load of cheap paper from Spools.’
‘Miss Maccalariat?’ said Moist. ‘Who is Miss Maccalariat?’
‘Very old Post Office family, sir,’ said Groat. ‘She’s decided to work for you.’ He looked a little nervous.
‘Sorry?’ said Moist. ‘She has decided to work for me?’
‘Well, you know what it’s like with Post Office people, sir,’ said Groat. ‘We don’t like to—’
‘Are you the postmaster?’ said a withering voice behind Moist.
The voice went into his head, bored down through his memories, riffled through his fears, found the right levers, battened on to them and pulled. In Moist’s case, it found Frau Shambers. In the second year at school you were precipitated out of the warm, easy-going kindergarten of Frau Tissel, smelling of finger paint, salt dough and inadequate toilet training, and on to the cold benches governed by Frau Shambers, smelling of Education. It was as bad as being born, with the added disadvantage that your mother wasn’t there.
Moist automatically turned and looked down. Yes, there they were, the sensible shoes, the thick black stockings that were slightly hairy, the baggy cardigan - oh, yes, arrgh, the cardigan; Frau Shambers used to stuff the sleeves with handkerchiefs, arrgh, arrgh -and the glasses and the expression like an early frost. And her hair was plaited and coiled up on either side of her head in those discs that back home in Uberwald had been called ‘snails’ but in Ankh-Morpork put people in mind of a woman with a curly iced bun clamped to each ear.
‘Now look here, Miss Maccalariat,’ he said firmly. ‘I am the postmaster here, and I am in charge, and I do not intend to be browbeaten by a member of the counter staff just because their ancestors worked here. I do not fear your clumpy shoes, Miss Maccalariat, I smile happily in the teeth of your icy stare. Fie on you! Now I am a grown man, Frau Shambers, I will quake not at your sharp voice and will control my bladder perfectly however hard you look at me, oh yes indeed! For I am the Postmaster and my word here is law!’
That was the sentence his brain said. Unfortunately it got routed through his trembling backbone on the way to his mouth and issued from his lips as: ‘Er, yes!’ which came out as a squeak.
‘Mr Lipwig, I ask you: I have nothing against them, but are these golems you are employing in my Post Office gentlemen or ladies?’ the terrible woman demanded.
This was sufficiently unexpected to jolt Moist back into something like reality. ‘What?’ he said. ‘I don’t know! What’s the difference? A bit more clay . . . less clay? Why?’
Miss Maccalariat folded her arms, causing both Moist and Mr Groat to shy backwards.
‘I hope you’re not funning with me, Mr Lipwig?’ she demanded.
‘What? Funning? I never fun!’ Moist tried to pull himself together. Whatever happened next, he could not be made to stand in the corner. ‘I do not fun, Miss Maccalariat, and have no history of funning, and even if I were inclined to funning, Miss Maccalariat, I would not dream of funning with you. What is the problem?’
‘One of them was in the ladies’ . . . rest room, Mr Lipwig,’ said Miss Maccalariat.
‘Doing what? I mean, they don’t eat, so—’
‘Cleaning it, apparently,’ said Miss Maccalariat, contriving to suggest that she had dark suspicions on this point. ‘But I have heard them referred to as “Mister”.’
‘Well, they do odd jobs all the time, because they don’t like to stop working,’ said Moist. ‘And we prefer to give them Mister as an honorific because, er, “it” seems wrong and there are some people, yes, some people for whom the word “Miss” is not appropriate, Miss Maccalariat.’
‘It is the principle of the thing, Mr Lipwig,’ said the woman firmly. ‘Anyone called Mister is not allowed in the Ladies. That sort of thing can only lead to hanky-panky. I will not stand for it, Mr Lipwig.’
Moist stared at her. Then he looked up at Mr Pump, who was never far away.
‘Mr Pump, is there any reason why one of the golems can’t have a new name?’ he asked. ‘In the interest of hanky-panky avoidance?’
‘No, Mr Lipvig,’ the golem rumbled.
Moist turned back to Miss Maccalariat. ‘Would “Gladys” do, Miss Maccalariat?’
‘Gladys will be sufficient, Mr Lipwig,’ said Miss Maccalariat, more than a hint of triumph in her voice. ‘She must be properly clothed, of course.’
‘Clothed?’ said Moist weakly. ‘But a golem isn’t— it doesn’t— they don’t have . . .’ He quailed under the glare, and gave up. ‘Yes, Miss Maccalariat. Something gingham, I think, Mr Pump?’
‘I Shall Arrange It, Postmaster,’ said the golem.
‘Will that be all right, Miss Maccalariat?’ said Moist meekly.
‘For the present,’ said Miss Maccalariat, as if she regretted that there were currently no further things to complain of. ‘Mr Groat knows my particulars, Postmaster. I will now return to the proper execution of my duties, otherwise people will try to steal the pens again. You have to watch them like hawks, you know.’
‘A good woman, that,’ said Groat, as she strode away. ‘Fifth generation of Miss Maccalariats. Maiden name kept for professional purposes, o’ course.’
‘They get married?’ From the mob around the makeshift counter came the ringing command: ‘Put that pen back this minute! Do you think I’m made of pens?’
‘Yessir,’ said Groat.
‘Do they bite their husbands’ heads off on their wedding night?’ said Moist.
‘I wouldn’t know about that sort of thing, sir,’ said Groat, blushing.
‘But she’s even got a bit of a moustache!’
‘Yessir. There’s someone for everyone in this wonderful world, sir.’
‘And we’ve got other people looking for work, you say?’
Groat beamed. ‘That’s right, sir. ‘cos of the bit in the paper, sir.’
‘You mean this morning?’
‘I expect that helped, sir,’ said Groat. ‘But I reckon it was the lunchtime edition that did it.’
‘What lunchtime edition?’
‘We’re all over the front page!’ said Groat proudly. ‘I put a copy on your desk upstairs—’
Moist pushed the Sto Lat mailbag into the man’s arms. ‘Get this . . . sorted,’ he said. ‘If there’s enough mail for another delivery to go, find some kid who’s mad for a job and put him on a horse and get him to take it. Doesn’t have to be fast; we’ll call it the overnight delivery. Tell him to see the mayor and come back in the morning with any fresh mail.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ said Groat. ‘We could do an overnight to Quirm and Pseudopolis too, sir, if we could change horses like the mail coaches do—’
‘Hang on . . . why can’t the mail coaches take it?’ said Moist. ‘Hell, they’re still called mail coaches, right? We know they take stuff from anyone, on the quiet. Well, the Post Office is back in business. They take our mail. Go and find whoever runs them and tell him so!’
‘Yessir,’ said Groat, beaming. ‘Thought about how we’re going to send post to the moon yet, sir?’
‘One thing at a time, Mr Groat!’
‘That’s not like you, sir,’ said Groat cheerfully. ‘All at once is more your style, sir!’
I wish it wasn’t, Moist thought, as he eased his way upstairs. But you had to move fast. He always moved fast. His whole life had been movement. Move fast, because you never know what’s trying to catch you up—
He paused on the stairs.
Not Mr Pump!
The golem hadn’t left the Post Office! He hadn’t tried to catch him up! Was it that he’d been on postal business? How long could he be away on postal business? Could he fake his death, maybe? The old pile-of-clothes-on-the-seashore trick? Worth remembering. All he needed was a long enough start. How did a golem’s mind actually work? He’d have to ask Miss—
Miss Dearheart! He’d been flying so high that he’d asked her out! That might be a problem now, because most of the lower part of his body was on fire, not especially for Miss Dearheart. Oh, well, he thought as he entered the office, perhaps he could find a restaurant with really soft seats—

FASTER THAN THE ‘SPEED OF LIGHT’
‘Old-fashioned’ Mail Beats Clacks
Postmaster delivers, says: Snook Not Cocked
Amazing Scenes at Post Office

The headlines screamed at him as soon as he saw the paper. He almost screamed back.
Of course he’d said all that. But he’d said it to the innocent smiling face of Miss Sacharissa Cripslock, not to the whole world! And then she’d written it down all truthfully, and suddenly . . . you got this.
Moist had never much bothered with newspapers. He was an artist. He wasn’t interested in big schemes. You swindled the man in front of you, looking him sincerely in the eyes.
The picture was good, though, he had to admit. The rearing horse, the winged hat and above all the slight blurring with speed. It was impressive.
He relaxed a little. The place was operating, after all. Letters were being posted. Mail was being delivered. Okay, so a major part of it all was that the clacks wasn’t working properly, but maybe in time people would see that a letter to your sister in Sto Lat didn’t need to cost thirty pence to maybe get there in an hour but might as well cost a mere five pence to be there in the morning.
Stanley knocked at the door and then pushed it open.
‘Cup of tea, Mr Lipwig?’ he said. ‘And a bun, sir.’
‘You’re an angel in heavy disguise, Stanley,’ said Moist, sitting back with care, and wincing.
‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ said Stanley solemnly. ‘Got some messages for you, sir.’
‘Thank you, Stanley,’ said Moist. There was a lengthy pause until he remembered that this was Stanley he was talking to and added: ‘Please tell me what they are, Stanley.’
‘Er . . . the golem lady came in and said . . .’ Stanley closed his eyes, ‘ “Tell the Streak of Lightning he’ll have another eight golems in the morning and if he’s not too busy working miracles I’ll accept his invitation to dine at eight at Le Foie Heureux, meeting at the Mended Drum at seven.”‘
‘The Happy Liver? Are you sure?’ But of course it would be correct. This was Stanley. ‘Ha, even the damn soup there is fifteen dollars!’ said Moist. ‘And you have to wait three weeks for an appointment to be considered for a booking! They weigh your wallet! How does she think I—’
His eye fell on ‘Mr Robinson’s box’, sitting innocently in the corner of the office. He liked Miss Dearheart. Most people were . . . accessible. Sooner or later you could find the springs that worked them; even Miss Maccalariat would have a lever somewhere, although it was a horrible thought. But Adora Belle fought back, and to make sure fought back even before she was attacked. She was a challenge, and therefore fascinating. She was so cynical, so defensive, so spiky. And he had a feeling she could read him much, much better than he read her. All in all, she was intriguing. And looked good in a severely plain dress, don’t forget that bit.
‘Okay. Thank you, Stanley,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’
The boy put a sheet of slightly damp greeny-grey stamps on the desk. ‘The first dollar stamps, sir!’ he announced.
‘My word, Mr Spools has done a good job here!’ said Moist, staring at the hundreds of little green pictures of the university’s Tower of Art. ‘It even looks worth a dollar!’
‘Yes, sir. You hardly notice the little man jumping from the top,’ said Stanley.
Moist snatched the sheet from the boy’s hand. ‘What? Where?’
‘You need a magnifying glass, sir. And it’s only on a few of them. In some of them he’s in the water. Mr Spools is very sorry, sir. He says it may be some kind of induced magic. You know, sir? Like, even a picture of a wizards’ tower might be a bit magical itself? There’s a few faults on some of the others, too. The printing went wrong on some of the black penny ones and Lord Vetinari’s got grey hair, sir. Some haven’t got gum on, but they’re all right because some people have asked for them that way’
‘Why?’
‘They say they’re as good as real pennies and a whole lot lighter, sir.’
‘Do you like stamps, Stanley?’ said Moist kindly. He was feeling a lot better in a seat that didn’t go up and down.
Stanley’s face lit up. ‘Oh, yes, sir. Really, sir. They’re wonderful, sir! Amazing, sir!’
Moist raised his eyebrows. ‘As good as that, eh?’
‘It’s like . . . well, it’s like being there when they invented the first pin, sir!’ Stanley’s face glowed.
‘Really? The first pin, eh?’ said Moist. ‘Outstanding! Well, in that case, Stanley, you are Head of Stamps. The whole department. Which is, in fact, you. How do you like that? I imagine you already know more about them than anyone else.’
‘Oh, I do, sir! For example, on the very first run of the penny stamps they used a different type of—’
‘Good!’ said Moist hurriedly. ‘Well done! Can I keep this first sheet? As a souvenir?’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Stanley. ‘Head of Stamps, sir? Wow! Er . . . is there a hat?’
‘If you like,’ said Moist generously, folding up the sheet of stamps and putting them in his inside pocket. So much more convenient than dollars. Wow, indeed. ‘Or perhaps a shirt?’ he added. ‘You know . . . “Ask Me About Stamps”?’
‘Good idea, sir! Can I go and tell Mr Groat, sir? He’d be so proud of me!’
‘Off you go, Stanley,’ said Moist. ‘But come back in ten minutes, will you? I’ll have a letter for you to deliver - personally.’
Stanley ran off.
Moist opened the wooden box, which fanned out its trays obediently, and flexed his fingers.
Hmm. It seemed that anyone who was, well, anyone in the city had their paper printed by Teemer and Spools. Moist thumbed through his recently acquired paper samples, and spotted:

THE GRAND TRUNK COMPANY
‘AS FAST AS LIGHT’
From the Office of the Chairman

It was tempting. Very tempting. They were rich, very rich. Even with the current trouble, they were still very big. And Moist had never met a head waiter who hated money.
He found a copy of yesterday’s Times. There’d been a picture . . . yes, here. There was a picture of Reacher Gilt, chairman of the Grand Trunk, at some function. He looked like a better class of pirate, a buccaneer maybe, but one who took the time to polish his plank. That flowing black hair, that beard, that eyepatch and, oh gods, that cockatoo . . . that was a Look, wasn’t it?
Moist hadn’t paid much attention to the Grand Trunk Company. It was too big, and from what he’d heard it practically employed its own army. Things could be tough in the mountains, where you were often a long way from anything that resembled a watchman. It wasn’t a good idea to steal things from people who did their own law enforcement. They tended to be very definite.
But what he was intending wouldn’t be stealing. It might not even be breaking the law. Fooling a maitre d’ was practically a public service.
He looked at the picture again. Now, how would a man like that sign his name?
Hmm . . . flowing yet small, that would be the handwriting of Reacher Gilt. He was so florid, so sociable, so huge a personality that one who was good at this sort of thing might wonder if another shard of glass was trying to sparkle like a diamond. And the essence of forgery is to make, by misdirection and careful timing, the glass look so much more like a diamond than a diamond does.
Well, it was worth a try. It was not as though he was going to swindle anyone, as such.
Hmm. Small yet flowing, yes . . . but someone who’d never seen the man’s writing would expect it to be extravagantly big and curly, just like him . . .
Moist poised the pen over the headed paper, and then wrote:

Maître d’,
Le foie Heuieux,
I would be most grateful if you could find a table for my good friend Mr. Lipwig and his lady at eight o’clock tonight.
Reacher Gilt

Most grateful, that was good. The Reacher Gilt persona probably tipped like a drunken sailor.
He folded the letter, and was addressing the envelope when Stanley and Groat came in.
‘You’ve got a letter, Mr Lipwig,’ said Stanley proudly.
‘Yes, here it is,’ said Moist,
‘No, I mean here’s one for you,’ said the boy. They exchanged envelopes. Moist glanced cursorily at the envelope, and opened it with a thumb.
‘I’ve got bad news, sir,’ said Groat, as Stanley left.
‘Hmm?’ said Moist, looking at the letter.

Postmaster,
The Pseudopolis clacks line will break down at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
The Smoking Gnu

‘Yessir. I went round to the coach office,’ Groat went on, ‘and told them what you said and they said you stick to your business, thank you very much, and they’ll stick to theirs.’
‘Hmm,’ said Moist, still staring at the letter. ‘Well, well. Have you heard of someone called “The Smoking Gnu”, Mr Groat?’
‘What’s a gernue, sir?’
‘A bit like a dangerous cow, I think,’ said Moist. ‘Er . . . what were you saying about the coach people?’
‘They give me lip, sir, that’s what they give me,’ said Groat. ‘I told ‘em, I told ‘em I was the Assistant Head Postmaster and they said “so what?” sir. Then I said I’d tell you, sir, and they said— you want to know what they said, sir?’
‘Hmm. Oh, yes. I’m agog, Tolliver.’ Moist’s eyes were scanning the strange letter over and over again.
‘They said “yeah, right”,’ said Groat, a beacon of righteous indignation.
‘I wonder if Mr Trooper can still fit me in . . .’ mused Moist, staring at the ceiling.
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘Oh, nothing. I suppose I’d better go and talk to them. Go and find Mr Pump, will you? And tell him to bring a couple of the other golems, will you? I want to . . . impress people.’

Igor opened the front door in answer to the knock.
There was no one there. He stepped outside and looked up and down the street.
There was no one there.
He stepped back inside, closing the door behind him - and no one was standing in the hall, his black cloak dripping rain, removing his wide, flat-brimmed hat.
‘Ah, Mithter Gryle, thur,’ Igor said to the tall figure, ‘I thould have known it wath you.’
‘Readier Gilt asked for me,’ said Gryle. It was more a breath than a voice.
The clan of the Igors had had any tendency to shuddering bred out of it generations ago, which was just as well. Igor felt uneasy in the presence of Gryle and his kind.
‘The marthter ith expecting—’ he began.
But there was no one there.
It wasn’t magic, and Gryle wasn’t a vampire. Igors could spot these things. It was just that there was nothing spare about him - spare flesh, spare time, or spare words. It was impossible to imagine Gryle collecting pins, or savouring wine or even throwing up after a bad pork pie. The picture of him cleaning his teeth or sleeping completely failed to form in the mind. He gave the impression of restraining himself, with difficulty, from killing you.
Thoughtfully, Igor went down to his room off the kitchen and checked that his little leather bag was packed, just in case.
In his study, Reacher Gilt poured a small brandy. Gryle looked around him with eyes that seemed not at home with the limited vistas of a room.
‘And for yourself?’ said Gilt.
‘Water,’ said Gryle.
‘I expect you know what this is about?’
‘No.’ Gryle was not a man for small talk or, if it came to it, any talk at all.
‘You’ve read the newspapers?’
‘Do not read.’
‘You know about the Post Office.’
‘Yes.’
‘How, may I ask?’
‘There is talk.’
Gilt accepted that. Mr Gryle had a special talent, and if that came as a package with funny little ways then so be it. Besides, he was trustworthy; a man without middle grounds. He’d never blackmail you, because such an attempt would be the first move in a game that would almost certainly end in death for somebody; if Mr Gryle found himself in such a game he’d kill right now, without further thought, in order to save time, and assumed that anyone else would, too. Presumably he was insane, by the usual human standards, but it was hard to tell; the phrase ‘differently normal’ might do instead. After all, Gryle could probably defeat a vampire within ten seconds, and had none of a vampire’s vulnerabilities, except perhaps an inordinate fondness for pigeons. He’d been a real find.
‘And you have discovered nothing about Mr Lipwig?’ Gilt said.
‘No. Father dead. Mother dead. Raised by grandfather. Sent away to school. Bullied. Ran away. Vanished,’ said the tall figure.
‘Hmm. I wonder where he’s been all this time? Or who he has been?’
Gryle didn’t waste breath on rhetorical questions.
‘He is . . . a nuisance.’
‘Understood.’ And that was the charm. Gryle did understand. He seldom needed an order, you just had to state the problem. The fact that it was Gryle that you were stating it to went a long way towards ensuring what the solution was likely to be.
‘The Post Office building is old and full of paper. Very dry paper,’ said Gilt. ‘It would be regrettable if the fine old place caught fire.’
‘Understood.’
And that was another thing about Gryle. He really did not talk much. He especially did not talk about old times, and all the other little solutions he had provided for Reacher Gilt. And he never said things like ‘What do you mean?’ He understood.
‘Require one thousand, three hundred dollars,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ said Gilt. ‘I will clacks it to your account in—’
‘Will take cash,’ said Gryle.
‘Gold? I don’t keep that much around,’ said Gilt. ‘I can get it in a few days, of course, but I thought you preferred—’
‘I do not trust the semaphore now.’
‘But our ciphers are very well—’
‘I do not trust the semaphore now,’ Gryle repeated.
‘Very well.’
‘Description,’ said Gryle.
‘No one seems to remember what he looks like,’ said Gilt. ‘But he always wears a big golden hat, with wings, and he has an apartment in the building.’
For a moment something flickered around Gryle’s thin lips. It was a smile panicking at finding itself in such an unfamiliar place.
‘Can he fly?’ he said.
‘Alas, he doesn’t seem inclined to venture into high places,’ said Gilt.
Gryle stood up. ‘I will do this tonight.’
‘Good man. Or, rather—’
‘Understood,’ said Gryle.