Unseen Academicals

The shop’s door was rattling. It had a small sliding aperture by which the staff could determine whether they wanted to let a prospective customer in, because when you are a posh shop like Shatta, you don’t sell things to just anyone. Pairs of eyeballs zigzagged back and forth across his vision as people clustered on the other side of the door and fought for attention. Somebody said, ‘We’re here to see Jewels.’

‘She’s resting,’ said Pepe. That was always a good line and could mean anything.

‘Have you seen the picture in the Times?’ said a voice. Then, ‘Look,’ as a vision of Juliet was held up in front of the door.

Blimey, he said to himself. ‘She had a very tiring day,’ he said.

‘The public wants to know all about her,’ said a sterner voice.

And a rather less aggressive female voice said, ‘She seems to be rather amazing.’

‘She is. She is,’ said Pepe, inventing desperately, ‘but a very private person and a bit artistic too, if you know what I mean.’

‘Well, I’ve got a big order to place,’ said yet another voice as the owner managed to shuffle for slot space.

‘Oh, well, we don’t have to wake her up for that. Just give me a moment and I’ll be right with you.’ He took another swig of the port. When he turned around, Madame, in a nightshirt that could have accommodated a platoon, at least if they were very friendly, was bearing down on him with a glass in one hand and the champagne bottle in the other.

‘This stuff’s gone horribly flat,’ she said.

‘I’ll go and find some fresh,’ he replied, snatching it from her quickly. ‘We’ve got newspaper people and customers out there and they all want Jools. Can you remember where she lives?’

‘I’m sure she told me,’ said Madame, ‘but it all seems a long time ago. That other one, Glenda I think, works at some big place in the city, as a cook. Anyway, why do they want to see her?’

‘There’s a wonderful picture in the Times,’ said Pepe. ‘You know when you said you thought we’d get rich? Well, it looks like you weren’t thinking big enough.’

‘What do you suggest, dear?’

‘Me?’ said Pepe. ‘Take the order, because that’s good business, and tell the others that Jools will see them later.’

‘Do you think they’ll go for that?’

‘They’ll have to, because we don’t know where the hell she is. There’s a million dollars walking around this city on legs.’

Rhys, Low King of the Dwarfs, paid particular attention to the picture of the wonderful girl. The definition wasn’t too bad at all. The technique of translating the clacks semaphore signal into a black-and-white picture was quite well advanced these days. Even so, his people in Ankh-Morpork must have thought this particularly interesting to merit the expense of the bandwidth required. Certainly, it was exercising a lot of other dwarfs, but in the Low King’s experience, it was possible to find someone, somewhere, who objected to anything. He looked at the grags in front of him. So simple for people like Vetinari, he thought. He just has religions to deal with. We don’t have religions. Being a dwarf is a religion in itself, and no two priests ever agree, and sometimes it seems that every other dwarf is a priest. ‘I see nothing here to disturb me,’ he said.

‘We believe the beard to be a false one,’ said one of the grags.

‘That is perfectly acceptable,’ said the King. ‘There is absolutely nothing in any precedent that bans false beards. They are a great salvation to those who find beards hard to grow.’

‘But she looks, well, alluring,’ said one of the other grags. They were indistinguishable under their tall, pointed leather cowls.

‘Attractive, certainly,’ said the King. ‘Gentlemen, is this going to take long?’

‘It must be stopped. It’s not dwarfish.’

‘Oh, but it manifestly is, is it not?’ said the King. ‘Micromail is one hundred per cent mail and you don’t get any more dwarfish than that. She is smiling and while I would agree that dwarfs do not appear to smile very much, certainly not when they come to see me, I think we could profit from her example.’

‘It’s positively an offence against morality.’

‘How? Where? Only in your heads, I feel.’

The tallest grag said, ‘So you intend to do nothing?’

The King paused for a moment, staring at the ceiling. ‘No, I intend to do something,’ he said. ‘First of all, I shall see to it that my staff find out just how many orders there have been for micromail originating from here in Bonk today. I’m sure Shatta would not object to them seeing their records, especially since I intend to tell Madame Sharn that she can come back and establish her premises here.’

‘You would do that?’ said a grag.

‘Yes, of course. We have nearly concluded the Koom Valley Accord, a peace with the trolls that no one ever thought they would see. And I am fed up, gentlemen, with your whining, moaning and endless, endless attempts to re-fight battles that you have already lost. As far as I am concerned, this young lady is showing us a better future and now, if you are not out of my office in ten seconds, I will charge you rent.’

‘There will be trouble over this.’