Interesting Times

questions?' he added, to a chorus of gasps.

'Er… the Emperor… that is to say, the last Emperor… had some very special guards…'

There was a tinkling sound. Something small and multi-pointed rolled down the steps and spun round on the floor. It was a throwing star.

'Met them,' said Boy Willie.

'Fine, fine,' said the little man. 'That all seems in order. Ten Thousand Years to the Emperor!'

The shout was taken up, a little raggedly.

'What's your name, young man?' said Mr Saveloy.

'Four Big Horns, my lord.'

'Very good. Very good. I can see that you will go a long way. What is your job?'

'I am Grand Assistant to the Lord Chamberlain, my lord.'

'Which one of you is the Lord Chamberlain?'

Four Big Horns pointed to the man who had preferred to die.

'There we are, you see,' said Mr Saveloy. 'Promotion comes fast to adaptable people, Lord Chamberlain. And now, the Emperor will breakfast.'

'And what-is his pleasure?' said the new Lord Chamberlain, endeavouring to look bright and adaptable.

'All sorts of things. But right now, big lumps of meat and lots of beer. You will find the Emperor very easy to cater for.' Mr Saveloy smiled the knowing little smile he sometimes smiled when he knew he was the only one seeing the joke. 'The Emperor doesn't favour what he calls 'fiddly foreign muck full of eyeballs and suchlike' and much prefers simple, wholesome food like sausages, which are made of miscellaneous animal organs minced up in a length of intestine. Ahaha. But if you want to please him, just keep up the big lumps of meat. Isn't that so, my lord?'

Cohen had been gazing at the assembled courtiers. When you've survived for ninety years all the attacks that can be thrown at you by men, women, trolls, dwarfs, giants, green things with lots of legs and, on one occasion, an enraged lobster, you can learn a lot by looking at faces.

'Eh?' said Cohen. 'Oh. Yep. Right enough. Big lumps. Here, Mr Taxman… what do these people do all day?'

'What would you like them to do?'

'I'd like them to bugger off.'

'Sorry, my lord?'

'[Complicated pictogram],' said Mr Saveloy. The new Lord Chamberlain looked a little startled.

'What, here?'

'It's a figure of speech, lad. He just means he wants everyone to go away quickly.'

The court scurried out. A sufficiently complicated pictogram is worth a thousand words.

After the stampede the artist Three Solid Frogs got to his feet, retrieved his brush from his nostril, pulled his easel out of a tree, and tried to think placid thoughts.

The garden was not what it had been.

The willow tree was bent. The pagoda had been demolished by an out-of-control wrestler, who had eaten the roof. The doves had flown. The little bridge had been broken. His model, the concubine Jade Fan, had run off crying after she'd managed to scramble out of the ornamental pond.

And someone had stolen his straw hat.

Three Solid Frogs adjusted what remained of his dress and endeavoured to compose himself.

The plate with his sketch on had been smashed, of course.

He pulled another one out of his bag and reached for his palette.

There was a huge footprint in the middle of it…

He wanted to cry. He'd had such a good feeling about this picture. He just knew it would be one that people would remember for a long time. And the colours? Did anyone understand how much vermilion cost these days?

He pulled himself together. So there was only blue left. Well, he'd show them…

He tried to ignore the devastation in front of him and concentrated on the picture in his mind.

'Let me see, now,' he thought. 'Jade Fan being pursued over a bridge by man waving his arms and screaming, 'Get out of the way!' followed by man with prod, three guards, five laundry men and a wrestler unable to stop.'

He had to simplify it a bit, of course.

The pursuers rounded a corner, except for the wrestler, who wasn't built for such a difficult manoeuvre.

'Where'd he go?'

They were in a courtyard. There were pigsties on one side, and middens on the other.

And, in the middle of the courtyard, a pointy hat.

One of the guards reached out and grabbed a colleague's arm before the man stepped forward.

'Steady now,' he said.

'It's just a hat.'

'So where's the rest of him? He couldn't have just… disappeared… into…'

They backed away.

'You heard about him too?'

'They said he blew a hole in the wall just by waving his hands!'

'That's nothing! I heard he appeared on an invisible dragon up in the mountains!'

'What shall we tell Lord Hong?'

'I don't want to be blown to pieces!'

'I don't want to tell Lord Hong we lost him. We're in enough trouble already. And I've only just paid for this helmet.'

'Well… we could take the hat. That'd be evidence.'

'Right. You pick it up.'

'Me? You pick it up!'

'It might be surrounded by terrible spells.'

'Really? So it's all right for me to touch it? Thank you! Get one of them to pick it up!'

The laundry men backed away, the Hunghungese habit of obedience evaporating like morning dew. The soldiers weren't the only ones to have heard rumours.

'Not us!'

'Got a rush order for socks!'

The guard turned. A peasant was stumbling out of one of the pigsties, carrying a sack, his face covered by his big straw hat.

'Hey, you!'

The man dropped to his knees and banged his head on the ground.

'Don't kill me!'

The guards exchanged a glance.

'We ain't going to kill you,' said one of them. 'We just want you to try and pick up that hat over there.'

'What hat, o mighty warrior?'

'That hat there! Right now!'

The man crawled crabwise across the cobbles.

'This hat, o great lord?'

'Yes!'

The man's fingers crept over the stones and prodded the hat's ragged brim.

Then he screamed.

'Your wife is a big hippo! My face is melting! My face is meltinnnnggg!'

Rincewind waited until the sound of fleeing sandals had quite faded, and then stood up, dusted off his hat,