On the Hunt
“Ma’am.”
Ginger saw him, but she had to do a double take. The man was a watchman, of the vampire persuasion but with armor two decades out of date. She paused on the street. “Sir, I would like to inform you that impersonating an officer of the law is a hanging offense, and very much frowned upon besides.”
“Put your mind to ease, officer. I am, in fact, a policeman. And it’s your lucky day, as I would like to assist you with your enquiries regarding the murder of a Mr. Campbell.”
Ginger frowned. “Upon my life, sir, I have never met a man so invested in assisting with my inquiries who didn’t intend to throw a monkey wrench in the works.”
He looked over his smoked lenses and winked. “Don’t know much about vampires, do you? What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Captain Ironfoundersson.”
This time the man did a double take. “Ironfoundersson,” he said, recovering quickly. They proceeded down the street side by side. “That would be a dwarf name.”
“Good ear, sir. I am a dwarf.” She watched for the way he would size her up, but he kept his eyes forward, face stony.
“And undead. An unusual combination, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“My father was a dwarf and my mother is a werewolf. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name?”
“Call me Keel.”
“And where is your jurisdiction, Keel?”
He bit back a grin. “The third degree and you haven’t even bought me coffee. Color me proud, captain. I have jurisdiction wherever there are policemen, and wherever there are policemen there are crimes. Talk to me about the case.”
Ginger nodded at a pair of passing trolls, who nodded back amiably enough. “Dorfl took a statement from the prime suspect, Miss Ignatia Wrathine.”
“I know of her.”
“She didn’t kill anyone.”
“How do you know?”
Ginger tapped the side of her nose. “She smells like bangin’ grains, soil, kerosene, damp straw, and animals. But not foul play. And, call it a hunch, but she strikes me as an honest sort.”
Keel’s face twisted. “Honest like a corkscrew.”
“But still honest. She said she doesn’t know who murdered Campbell.”
“I’ve been to the circus.”
“As have I.”
“And it seems to me that the one with the most to gain is Sonder.” He stepped in something that squelched and nearly lost his balance. “Has the city always been this…this?”
Ginger stepped over a moldering stack of newspapers. “There have been a few challenges in city sanitation lately,” she told him, trying to pick the most diplomatic phrasing possible.
“And by lately, you mean…?”
“The past four years or so. Off and on.”
“Captain Ironfoundersson, I don’t mind telling you that something stinks, and it’s not just the Ankh. If you go talk to Sonder I can have a proper poke around.”
“You cannot conduct police business unattended,” she almost snapped. “That is illegal, Mr. Keel. If only for my peace of mind you need to be deputized, and for that you need to talk to Commander Quirke.”
Keel blinked. “Commander who!?”
Ignatia Wrathine needed money. She had a healthy stash of savings from her time in the circus, but if her calculations could be trusted—and they could always be trusted—she would need a stable income by the end of the month. She stepped out of Mrs. Cake’s boarding house and strolled down the street, taking a mental inventory of her skills. Best to start with the obvious, she decided with a sigh. A child jogged by her and she caught him by the collar.
“Hey!”
“Hay is for horses,” she told him in her usual deadpan. She dropped a boiled sweet in one sticky palm and held up a second in front of his eyes. “Are you polite to strangers, young man?”
“Yes’m.” He stuffed the sweet in his mouth as if afraid she would take it back from him, and eyed the second hungrily.
“There is a joke shop somewhere not far from here; it’s run by a witch. It’s called Boffo’s, or something like that. Does that sound familiar?”
“Yes’m.”
She closed her fingers around the sweet and opened her hand again to show him her empty palm. “There’s candy in it for you if you can walk me there.”
Commander Huntington Quirke led the intrepid Ankh-Morpork police force and hoped that, one day, he would be promoted to Palace Guard, as his father before him had been. “This place is a dump,” a voice announced, accompanied by the slam of the Watch house door.
“I beg your pardon?” Quirke snapped over his coffee mug. Captain Ironfoundersson winced and the man beside her stepped forward. Ugh, vampire. Like there weren’t enough of the undead stinking up the place.
“I said I would like to be deputized,” the vampire replied.
“Oh-ho!” Quirke sneered. “Reliving our glory days are we?”
“Name’s Keel. Just Keel. If I told you my full name we’d be here all day,” Just Keel said. He had a scar down a face like stone, and an air of barely contained contempt about him. Were Quirke of a different temperament he might have sympathized. He did not.
“Well, Just Keel, I’m afraid our ranks are full at the moment.” Off to the side, Ginger winced at the transparent lie.
Keel looked around the mostly empty Watch house. His gut clenched. There were barely any ashes in an ashtray that should be overflowing. There were maybe four coffee mugs in the sink—only four coffee drinkers on staff, then: not a good sign. The place should have been lousy with noise and smells and police work, but there was only Quirke at his desk and a round-faced lance-constable sweeping the floor. Keel swallowed the words he wanted to say and instead riposted with “I would like to help with the Campbell case.”
“What Campbell case?”
A muscle in Keel’s jaw twitched. “A man was murdered in the circus. The circus that is only going to be here for a couple more days.”
“The circus can handle its own crimes. We’re the City Watch.”
“A crime has been committed!” Keel snapped. “A murder! The capital offense! And the circus isn’t handling its own crimes!”
“Oh look, a Black RIbboner with a bleeding heart. What’s one dead carny, eh? And the killer has been sacked, so I’m told. Job well done. Case closed.”
Keel stared at him. Quirke stared back. Then Ginger stepped around the desk and whispered in Quirke’s ear. He scowled and waved a hand. “Fine. Give him the bloody badge and to hell with it. Have your fun.”
She gave him the temporary deputy badge and the two of them left the precinct. “What did you say to him?”
Ginger shrugged. “I said that you would not rest until the case was solved to your specifications, and that if the two of us managed a clean arrest it would be a feather in his cap.”
Keel nodded. “Some things never change.”
Ignatia stocked shelves in Boffo’s Joke Emporium. When the shelves were as stocked as they were going to get she rearranged the window display. Then she rearranged the contents of the drawers under the till. She stared at the door, willing it to open. When it failed to do so, she took out the shop ledgers and did some light auditing.
Derek Proust jumped when the door to his workshop banged open and his mother’s new associate walked in, waving the ledgers. “Why,” she demanded in a cold, reasonable voice, “are we selling the Mishap Gewgaw Collection at cost?”
“Um,” he said eloquently. She raised an eyebrow.
“It costs seven cents to make each item, and we’re only selling them for ten cents.”
“Begging your pardon, miss, but that’s not—“
“After factoring in packaging costs, labor costs and taxes we lose out on three cents per sale.”
He cringed behind his workbench. “I thought you were just going to work the floor and learn city witching from Mum.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Work the floor,” she echoed. “How many customers do you typically get in on any given day, Derek?”
Feeling himself on firmer ground, he answered, “About six or seven, eleven on the weekends.”
“And they all buy something, do they?”
“Well yes. Usually.”
“Usually,” she echoed dully. “Derek, how does this shop function?”
“How do you mean?”
“How do you pay your rent? And your taxes? How do you keep the lights on? Because according to these books you are so far in the hole you are staring directly at the Turtle’s shell.”
“Oh, well. Our landlord is very understanding of the market. And Captain Ginger helps us with our taxes. She’s really swell, that Captain Ginger. Oh, and Mum gets good deals on raw materials sometimes, depending on how much the dwarves and goblins need her expertise.”
“You live on the edge.”
“I mean, yes, I suppose.”
Ignatia closed the ledger. The Joke Emporium was kept together by spittle and bent paperclips. Did Mrs. Proust know? Did she care? Witches live on the edges of things, but there was the edge, and there was the edge, and she didn’t want to dwell on the difference between the two. Wordlessly, Ignatia tucked the ledger under her arm and took to the stairs, arriving back on the floor just in time to watch the front door swing open at the tinkling sound of the bell.
Just a few weeks of this, she promised herself, pasting a smile on her face as the customers, three young boys with grubby faces, perused the shelves. A few weeks to get your bearings, learn the city, that kid is going to stuff something in his pocket. Sure enough, the three boys picked something small and easy to carry, walked just out of her line of sight for a moment, and then made for the door.
“Excuse me!” she barked. The three froze on the threshold and turned on their heels without any apparent intervention on their legs’ parts. Ignatia closed the distance between them in three long strides. “Are you going to pay for what you have, or am I going to have to involve your parents?”
The most foolish of the three jutted out his little jaw. “I’m not afraid of you!”
In the circus, such a ludicrous statement would be met with a very solid reason to fear anyone larger than you are. But this was not the circus, and Ignatia was no longer a carny. She lowered herself to one knee so she could be on the same level as him. “You are young and stupid, so let me make this abundantly clear. If you shoplift from me, the guilt will eat you up from the inside out. It will haunt your dreams, it will dog your steps, it will be a secret that colors every action you make from here on out. And, if you shoplift from me, I will beat your backsides black and blue so you’ll never sit down properly again. Do we understand one another.”
They scrounged in their pockets and produced enough coins to cover their new toy, yes, a Mishap Gewgaw. They ran when she took their money and, as the tinkley bell fell silent, she stared at the ten cents in her palm. She lowered her head on the counter; she needed a good lie down.
“What the hell happened to the Watch?” Vimes marveled. Ginger loped beside him, an innocuous presence but he wouldn’t be fooled. She was watching him even as she nodded to a passing dwarf and bid a grocer good morning.
“Layoffs and budget cuts, mostly. And there was something of a kerfuffle a few months ago.”
“A kerfuffle?”
“The government…had a shutdown for a few days. None of the public servants got paid that month, either. It was a mess.”
“Why am I only now hearing about this!?” he cried. He read the newspaper—not faithfully, but he picked it up every once in a while.
“Well, see, the clacks were down, as they are a public company, run by the government. And the newspaper didn’t publish about it outside Ankh-Morpork, not wanting to get in trouble with the Patrician. There might have been some articles about it in news elsewhere, but the whole thing wasn’t especially interesting to non-Ankh-Morporkians, Mr. Keel.”
“Not interesting! Not interesting! Wait!” A detail that had been vying for his attention started hopping up and down. “Since when does the press give one hot damn about what the Patrician thinks?”
“Since the Patrician holds fifty-one shares of the Ankh-Morpork Times.”
I’m too sober for this, he thought grimly to himself. “Let’s focus on the case.” Everything else will have to wait.
The Lady Sybil Free Hospital bustled with activity. Ignatia walked to the front of the line, dropped a paperclip twisted into a little star on the receptionist’s desk, and stepped through the front door. The Lawn Wing, as she suspected, was full of moaning bodies and only one body to tend them. “Spelly, we need to talk.”
Spelly blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and managed to get it in her mouth. “Can’t talk, Ignatia. I have three new patients coming in and only one bed is ready.”
“I hope they’re not squeamish about sharing.”
“Ignatia!” Spelly screamed, or as close to screaming as Spelly could get. “Will you help me or not?”
She raised her hands in surrender. “Yes! Goodness! Tell me what to do!”
There were bedpans in need of cleaning, and patients in need of turning, and surgical incisions in need of redressing. They worked in companionable silence until the worry line on Spelly’s forehead eased.
“I quit my first job today,” Ignatia told her conversationally.
“Can you really afford to do that?”
“No. But it had to be done. I don’t think retail is for me.”
“It is a hard job.”
“I looked at their books and my soul left my body. I served five customers and I feel as if I have seen the lowest depths humanity can reach.”
“How long were you working there?”
“About three hours.”
“Um, retail is definitely not for you.”
Ignatia frowned to herself and washed her hands before pouring water for a patient who very recently lost both of his legs. “Is the hospital hiring, perchance?”
Spelly snorted, her mood lifted considerably. “You? Working as a nurse?” Ignatia shot her a pointed look. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t exactly have, uh, a good bedside manner.”
“I have an impeccable bedside manner!” Her legless patient gurgled unhappily and she rounded on him. “Don’t get me started on you, mister, or I’ll give you something to moan about.” He shrank into the pillows, agony temporarily forgotten. Ignatia carefully didn’t look at Ignatia. “I mean, there, there. Get well soon. Don’t pick at it.”
“What’s this then!”
Spelly paled. She actually paled. There was a tall man in the wing’s entryway. He was broad, with a stern face and a crisp white coat, and Ignatia felt she had seen someone very like him before. Her second thoughts noticed Spelly, and her third thoughts whispered This is a woman who sees blood and bile and the very worst people have to offer all day long, and she pales for this man.
“This must be Doctor Vimes,” Ignatia concluded, drawing his attention back to her. He looked her up and down, from her shabby black dress to her shabby black hat and back down to her shabby black boots.
“No! Absolutely not! Esmerelda, I expect better of you!”
“I’m so sorry, Doctor!”
“Is something the matter, sir?”
Dr. Vimes glared at her. “Unlicensed, untrained people are never to touch the patients, and witches are strictly prohibited from practicing their craft within these walls. I must ask you to leave.”
Ignatia bit her tongue. She drew herself to her full height, adjusted her hat and strolled for the exit. She paused as she drew level with Dr. Vimes, gray eyes boring into him. “Just who do you think you are?” she asked, anger boiling like ice in her chest.
His nostrils flared. “I am His Grace His Excellency the Duke of Ankh, Sir Samuel Vimes M.D., owner and overseer for this hospital.”
She smirked, enjoying the way that such a simple expression brought even more wrathful color to his face. “And do you have any idea who I am?”
“No, madam.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” and Ignatia bolted for the exit before His Grace could call security. On her way out she told herself that Spelly would be okay. What was the point of being the princess of Lancre if you couldn’t throw your title around every once in a while?
Sonder had an airtight alibi. Ginger even double checked, and sure enough his poker buddies confirmed that he was with them all night and into the next morning. She tried questioning the goblin trapeze artists, but they just smiled and chattered in their own language; she knew some goblin, but could only make out one word in five. She needed to regroup.
She found Keel behind the freak show, smoking a cigar out of the wind. “Goblins didn’t know anything,” he said before she even opened her mouth.
“How did you get from there all the way over here?”
“It’s a vampire thing.” He saw her face and amended, “I’m not dismissing you. I don’t understand it myself. I can be almost in two places at once; it comes with the sensitivity to light and the occasional toothache.”
“I didn’t think you could speak goblin.”
“I am full of hidden depths,” he deadpanned. “I haven’t been able to find anything interesting, but if you have a proper sniff around we might be able to close this case before lunch.”
“Hold my things?”
“Yes ma’am,” he agreed, and turned around politely so she could change. And that was a curious thing, because he seemed to know quite a lot about werewolves. Like how they didn’t like when people watched the transformation process.
Ignatia ticked off city witchery and doctoring from her mental inventory of profitable skills. What next? She paused outside a building marked “Guild of Seamstresses,” took off her hat and hid it in one of the unseen pockets about her person, and marched inside. She didn’t spend the last ten years sewing hems and mending safety nets for nothing.
Keel turned his back again while Ginger shifted back onto two legs. She stepped back into her clothing and was buckling her sword in place when she said “I don’t think anyone here did it.”
Keel turned back around. “Show your work, captain.”
She ran a hand through her hair and tried to translate from canine to Morporkian. “By your account the murder weapon would have been something very sharp, like a dagger or a big kitchen knife, and it would have been soaked in—the b-word. The area around the tent still smells a bit like foul play, but the trail ends there. I don’t think someone would have hidden the murder weapon in the tent—too many people are in and out every day—so the killer took it with him or her. The trail is too old and trodden for me to track it farther than the egress.”
“Egress? Is that some kind of bird?”
“The exit,” she corrected evenly. “I did a circuit of the circus’ little shanty town and nothing smells strongly of human b-word.”
“This isn’t right,” Keel said slowly.
“I should say not. A man is dead.”
He checked her face for any sign of sarcasm, but only found a loyal sort of earnestness. She really means that, he marveled. A stranger, and a bastard by all accounts, is dead and she’s going to hunt down the killer and bring them to justice. Not because this is personal—it’s not—but because it’s important. Because it is the Right Thing to Do. Gods save us. “This doesn’t strike me as an amateur killing. It looked like a crime of passion, but that can be forged by someone ruthless enough.”
“You suspect an assassin?”
“Maybe.” He rubbed at the stubble darkening his chin. “I should think that the circus would have paid for the Assassins' and Thieves' Guilds to leave them alone, though.”
Ginger nodded. “I believe travelling companies, to wit the circus, are supposed to get special permits specifically to protect them from guild affronts.”
“And I think I know just who to ask.”
Ignatia walked out of the Guild of Seamstresses, her face very warm. They laughed at her! They actually laughed at her, and then when she didn’t laugh too they pitied her. They pitied her! And explained what the seamstresses actually did.
Ignatia plodded through the streets, at a loss. She knew her supply of marketable skills was dwindling. The day, she grudgingly admitted, was a wash. She should go back to the boarding house, sit in the dark, and wait for tomorrow. She watched a gang of urchins sprint by, hooting and hollering and kicking a tin can along the gutter.
No more quitter talk, she chided herself, and screwed her hat back on her head. What would her mother say? Probably something scathing, followed by an idle threat of physical violence. She reached out a hand and grabbed a slower urchin by his collar.
“Hey!”
“Hay is for horses,” she replied automatically. She dropped a hard sweet in his hand and waited for him to do the necessary mental calibrations before holding a second sweet to eye level. “There’s candy in it for you if you can direct me to the nearest grammar school or daycare.”
“Let me talk to her. I know where she lives and it would be strange for you to show up at her current residence unannounced,” Ginger reasoned.
“Not too strange,” Vimes argued. “We’ve met before.”
That stopped Ginger in her steps. “Just Keel,” she said slowly, “how long have you been working this case?” Something in her werewolf nature snarled at the idea of a vampire, even one like Keel, being too near Ignatia.
“Trust that I am not the killer, Captain Ironfoundersson,” he sighed.
“Of course not. But it’s still illegal to conduct a police investigation without a badge.”
“I have a badge.”
“Without the badge I acquired for you for this specific case,” she shot back. “I will meet with Miss Wrathine and ask about the circus’ permits, and we can debrief tomorrow.”
Vimes shrugged, acceding defeat. “You really love the law, don’t you.”
Ginger blinked. “I love this city.” Her eyes softened. “The law is important, and I uphold the law for this city and everyone in it. Fabricati Diem, Pvnc: To protect and serve.”
Vimes could feel color rising in his cheeks in the face of such embarrassing earnestness. He had to look away or go blind. A suspicion floated to the surface of his mind and he grabbed onto it to stave off the pink silence. “Not well-travelled, are you?”
“Oh, I’ve spent a few summers in Copperhead, and I’ve been to Bonk. I had some schooling in Quirm, too. But there’s no place like Ankh-Morpork.” Only, from her mouth it sounded like “There’s no place like home.”
“No, there really isn’t. Fine. Interrogate Wrathine and meet with me tomorrow morning. You wouldn’t know a decent place to get a figgin around here, would you?”
“I’ll do you one better; there’s a dwarf bakery on the corner of Prouts and Broad Way. Their cinnamon rolls are to die for.”
“And probably deadly weaponry in and of themselves. Have a good evening, Captain Ironfoundersson.”
Ignatia sat in front of the Board of Directors, hands folded demurely in her lap, pointy hat tucked away under her dress. In truth, with her hair pulled back she looked like a severe teacher. The kind of teacher who disapproves of chewing gum and enforces a very strict no running policy.
The head interviewer paged through Ignatia’s application and hastily cobbled resume. “Do you have any professional experience with children, Miss Wrathine?”
“Yes.”
The silence stretched. “Could you elaborate?”
“Yes.”
The interviewer’s eyes narrowed. “Please elaborate, then.”
“Well done. I have experience working with children of all ages, and I feel my specialty lies with young’uns between the ages of eight and eleven.”
“That’s a difficult time,” one of the Board, a Master Greetling, commented.
“I feel that the whole of childhood is a difficult time, and so is adolescence and, of course, adulthood. Life is hard, Mr. Greetling. It doesn’t get easier; we just get better at it.”
“Well put,” the interviewer intoned. Ignatia, until this point, hadn’t cared to look too hard at her, but found herself now scrutinizing the teacher’s face. Delicate scars lined one cheek, as if a very thin, hard hand had struck her and left a permanent imprint. A shock of black hair disturbed her otherwise white head, but Ignatia’s gaze was drawn to the eyes. These eyes see a great deal more than normal eyes do, Ignatia’s third thoughts murmured. Mind how you tread. “And how do you handle troublesome children?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never encountered troublesome children.”
The Board frowned at her. “Then you’ve never dealt with children, have you?” one, a Mrs. Frout, scowled.
Ignatia cocked an eyebrow at her. “If you mean, how do I deal with children who don’t always do what I want, I manage.”
“How do you manage, then?” her interviewer prodded.
“Carefully.”
The board murmured amongst themselves. Her interviewer shuffled her papers while they nattered and, when she had enough, silenced them with a look. “I believe in unusual measures, Miss Wrathine.”
“Then we are in agreement.” She smiled.
“This concludes the first part of your interview. The second half can begin whenever you are ready.”
Ignatia nodded. “I’m ready.”
Susan Sto Helit lifted a small hand bell from the table and jangled it. “Unleash the children,” she intoned.
The children were unleashed. There were fifteen in all, ranging in ages from four to fourteen. Mrs. Frout, unbeknownst to Ignatia, had handpicked these children as the most troubling youth in the school system. They never sat still, they never waited their turn to speak, and they were always either running, screaming, or hitting one another.
The Board held their breath with anticipation. Ignatia planted her elbows on her knees and watched the children mill about for a good twenty seconds before she clapped her hands. And kept clapping them. The smaller children joined in, then the older ones, and soon the whole room was clapping. Greetling found himself clapping, too, and stopped when he saw Susan hide her grin behind her hand.
“Well done!” Ignatia called, and let the clapping subside. The oldest child, what some might call a smart ass, kept clapping. She ignored him. “These are the rules: You mustn’t sit in my chair. Ever. I don’t want to see any butts on this chair.” Some giggled at the word “butts.” The oldest child, beginning to feel a fool, stopped clapping. “Rule the second: there will be no kisses. Absolutely none. And no hugs. Absolutely none of that. We are going to work very hard here. For those of you who do not know me, I am Miss Ignatia and I have a hearing disability. Does anyone know what that is.”
There was some general shouting, punctuated by Ignatia shouting “What?” at intervals. Frout leaned over to Susan. “What is she doing?”
“Watch.”
“What? What? I can’t hear you? What?”
One of the brighter, older children slowly raised his hand and the others settled down when Ignatia called on him. He blushed. “A hearing disability, um…”
Frout stared in amazement. She didn’t know this child had a volume lower than a scream. “Go on,” Ignatia encouraged.
“It’s when you can’t hear good.”
She grinned. “What’s your name?”
“Fletcher, Miss.”
“Raise your hand high, reach behind yourself and pat yourself on the back, Fletcher. A hearing disability is when you can’t hear very well. My disability is that I cannot hear whining, and I cannot hear you if you don’t raise your hand.”
“That’s not real!” the smartass cried.
“What?” Ignatia squawked at him.
“I said—“
“What?” She cupped a hand behind her ear. The young man sulked.
“I have a hard sweet for someone who can tell me what the rules are.” She ignored the various shouted answers and called on a six-year-old girl who was sitting on her heels and waving her hand in the air.
An hour passed like this. Sometimes there were sweets. Sometimes there weren’t. The rules, while clearly stated, seemed to only be enforced when it came to Ignatia’s invented disability. When her back was turned, children dropped themselves into her vacated chair. Frout was perplexed; these were children who wouldn’t sit in a chair for love or money, and there were small fights breaking out for the privilege of planting their tiny asses on the seat. When the fighting could not go ignored, Ignatia would walk behind the chair and tip the offending children onto the floor.
But the fighting was sparse. Smaller children clambered into the arms of larger children for the sake of breaking the hugging rule, and the smallest of their number wriggled into Ignatia’s arms to peck her on the cheek. “No kissing,” she chided, making no move to stop them.
The Board watched, open-mouthed, as she taught them a song for remembering the number of days in a month. Children deemed unteachable by the education community as a whole learned all the months of the year and the number of days within those months in one fell swoop. More impressively, they practiced taking turns to shout answers and none of them had started running laps around the room.
“I disapprove of her methods,” Frout growled in Susan’s ear. “She’s giving them candy!”
Ignatia bounced the youngest child on her hip, paying the Board no mind. “Fletcher, do you have to use the restroom?” she barked, making the child in question sit up straighter. “Go on then, now is as good a time as any. Bring a friend with you. Never mind, it looks like we’re all taking a fieldtrip to the toilet. The first person who can tell me what a ‘mass exodus’ is gets to sit in my special teaching chair when we all get back.”
Greetling shifted in his chair. “Should…should they just walk out like that?”
Susan shook herself out of her reverie. “That woman taught her ‘class’ a pragmatic skill in a fun and welcoming environment for a full twenty minutes and we had no concussions, bathroom accidents or tears.”
“What are you saying?” Frout gasped.
“I’m saying we can’t afford her!” Susan hissed.
“She threatened to give Jeffrey a thick ear!”
“Jeffrey needs a thick ear!”
Frout drew herself to her full height. “I really must put my foot down, Susan. Absolutely not.” She dropped her voice to a shrill whisper. “And she looks like a witch!”
“What do you say, Greetling?”
“She is definitely an unusual choice. Doesn’t seem to give a fig for rules, either.”
“You’re joking,” Susan groaned, but she knew he wasn’t. She knew there was a hidden curriculum: obey rules or suffer. She just wished it could be replaced with a better curriculum: behave nicely and reap the rewards.
“Then it’s settled,” Frout said.
Ignatia returned to the room, her “class” filing in behind her like an improbable row of ducks. The Board got to its feet. Susan gathered up her papers and made a mental note to keep Ignatia’s resume on file; they couldn’t afford her, but Susan wasn’t above taking her on well below what she was worth. “Thank you for your time, Miss Wrathine. When we reach a decision we’ll be sure to contact you. I trust you are still at your listed address?” And that was another mark against her, another lesson in the hidden curriculum: You live under Mrs. Cake’s roof, you are strange in some way, you are not our kind of people, and we will hold that against you.
“I am. Thank you for having me.” Then she dropped to one knee and somberly bid the children have a good day. She straightened up and walked out the door, smiling and waving at the kids. The door shut behind her. And the wailing and milling about resumed, this time in earnest.
Ignatia trudged, tired to her soul. She knew a dismissal when she heard one, but the interview went so well! The second half went well, anyway. Granted, Greetling and Frout radiated annoying and Susan was…unnerving, but the kids she could get behind. She could make a classroom work, could take a room of children and make them better than how they were, make them think for a minute and maybe, generation by generation, something would click and the world would make sense.
She simmered. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. She felt hard all over, and the sensation jarred with the reality in a way that made her teeth grind. She should admit defeat. Today was a wash. Tomorrow will be better.
Water trickled down her unprotected neck. Rain collected in the gutter, thick with garbage and filth, airborne moisture making the smell of poor sanitation more piquant than ever. She almost reached for her hat, but let her hand drop to her side. Let it rain. Let the water dribble down her neck and soak her clothes and make her hair cling to her scalp. It was that kind of day. She trudged in the general direction of the place that wasn’t her home.
She paused in an alley and stared at a soggy stack of moldering newspapers propped against a wall. Her brain was a tangle, so she took one of the throwing knives from the recesses of a sleeve and threw it. There must be things in this world more satisfying than the thunk of a blade hitting home, but she couldn’t think of any. She threw again and again and again until all her knives were spent. She pulled them from the newspaper pile, found higher ground on the top of a lidless trashcan, and resumed her practice.
She paid no mind to the cluster of people collecting at the mouth of the alley, her brain registering them as background noise. Thunk! went each knife. She turned the handles over and over in her hand, fingers snaking down the blades so she could flip them high in the air and catch them before throwing. Her mind turned, cold and shiny. Thunk! She could finish the week in the city, then go down to Lancre. They always need witches there. Thunk! And Miss Tiffany never passes up a helping hand on the Chalk. Thunk! She could trade obs for wool and cheese. There are worse ways to be. Thunk!
She dropped down from the trash can and let it fall over, paying it no mind. The mouth of the alley and the street beyond was filling with people; she vaguely wondered if there was something interesting going on beyond the line of her peripheral vision. She collected her knives and stood back atop the trashcan. It was still on its side and rolled a bit underfoot. She caught her balance, took aim and threw. Thunk! The city annoyed her. It didn’t make sense and nothing worked. Her mind wandered back to the School Board’s interview room. Why were Frout and Greetling even there? Why did the woman named Susan tolerate them? Thunk! Surely they must have hidden talents? Or performed some brave act of teacherly heroism? Or the education system here treasures them, her second thoughts cautioned her. Or the education system is completely busted, and still limping around, her third thoughts added. Thunk!
“Excuse me!” a rather official sounding voice in the crowd said. It was a voice with elbows in it, brusque and sharp but not angry or mean. A copper kind of voice, she registered dully. Maybe something illegal happened out on the street. She hopped off the trashcan and retrieved her knives.
Someone had left a length of planking on the ground and she picked up one such plank and braced it on the curve of the trashcan. With some care, she balanced on the bowed lumber on the trash can, took aim and threw. Thunk! “Excuse me!” Whatever was going on, the copper seemed to be getting closer all the time. Thunk! “Bjorn Hammerfist, that better not be a betting pool I see there. It’s not? Oh good. Give my regards to the missus.” Thunk! Ignatia rolled the garbage can under the plank a bit, and the crowd behind her made some appreciative noises at whatever captured their attention. She flipped the knife a few times. Maybe she could get a job as a governess. Or something in accounting? She didn’t have any kind of formal education, but she could fudge the interview and use her smallest handwriting on the application. No one need ever know. Thunk!
“What is the cause of—oh for goodness sake.”
Ignatia paused her ministrations and glanced over her shoulder. About thirty other pairs of eyes stared back at her, one pair belonging to the red-haired watchman she’d seen the day before. “Good evening, officer.” Ignatia flipped the blade over and let it drop safely into her sleeve.
“You are causing a disturbance in the peace,” the constable said crisply. Rain sleeted off her helmet, which gleamed even in the gloom. For that matter, most of her gleamed despite the lackluster quality of the daylight. Distracted, it took a moment for Ignatia's brain to catch up with her ears.
“I what?” She blinked at the watchman, then at the staring, slack-jawed public behind her. Several of whom were scurrying away from the long arm of the law, like cockroaches fleeing the light. “You think that I…” It finally clicked. “I’m not…doing…” She wasn’t doing anything. She was just thinking, trying to iron out the tangle in her brain, and throwing knives helped. It was mindless, something to keep her hands busy. Of course, everyone in the circus had seen her throw knives a hundred times. But she remembered Geoffrey walking into the woods and watching her throw with a strange look on his face. Even Mistress Aching had been taken aback the first time she’d seen Ignatia deep in thought, and made her promise not to show the Feegles.
Some of her dumb incredulity must have leaked into her face because the watchman sighed. She turned back to the crowd and shooed them away. Shamefaced, Ignatia collected her knives and splashed out of the alley, making the watchman hurry to keep up. If she tries to take these off me, or say a word about concealed carrying laws, I might actually turn her into a toad. “Miss Wrathine!” she said, suddenly at her elbow. The witch forced her features into some semblance of placidity. “I wanted to have a word about the Campbell case.”
“Of course, officer,” she replied, in tones so courteous you could bounce a quarter off of them.
The cop took in her features then, and Ignatia didn’t know how she knew, but the cop saw the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hair was disheveled from interviews and rain, the hardness of her jaw and the thinness of her lips. She seemed placid, but underneath she simmered, and someone giving more than a passing glance would pick up on it. “I know a place that does really good dwarf bread,” she blurted out.
Ignatia blinked. “I’m afraid I haven’t the teeth for dwarf bread, officer.”
“Ironfoundersson. Ginger Ironfoundersson. I know another place that does a decent cup of coffee and little buttery pastries.”
“Ah.” Ignatia found herself following Ginger, picking their way along the most convoluted route possible. Ignatia typically preferred to walk directly beside someone; walking behind made her feel like she was herding them along, but she wouldn't complain. With an effort she dragged her gaze back up to the back of Captain Ironfoundersson's head, the shine of her helmet, the way a mane of copper hair curled down to her shoulders. They splashed through alleys that led into strange streets. The people they passed all seemed to know Ginger, nodding and smiling at her in passing, and she knew most of them by name. Maybe it was tiredness playing games on Ignatia's mind, but Ginger seemed very real, very solid in a way that the rest of the city didn’t. And she seemed to fit in; there were no strangers for her here, only acquaintances she had yet to make introductions with yet.
The café was unmarked, a little hole-in-the-wall place that smelled of baked goods and strong coffee. “We call it Four Tables,” Ginger explained as they stepped inside.
“I can see why.” Indeed, four small round tables with spindly little legs and matching chairs overfilled the space.
“What would you like?”
Ignatia stared at the chalkboard menu. “Just coffee.”
“But what kind?” Ginger stared at her and so did the single barista, waiting. Seeing her at a loss, Ginger turned to the man behind the counter and ordered two beverages she called “hazelnut half-caffs, in the venti, please,” all of which was gibberish to Ignatia.
They got a table where Ginger could sit with her back to the wall and watch both the door and the backroom. The barista insisted on unloading half a dozen buns on Ginger, despite her gentle protests and the way she insisted on at least paying for them. “Captain Irondoundersson,” Ignatia said gently over her cup.
“Yes, sorry.” She smiled apologetically. It was a good smile, the kind that lights up a room. “I wanted to ask about the circus’ practices regarding the Thieves’ Guild and the Assassins’ Guild. And please, call me Ginger.”
Ignatia wrapped her hands gratefully around her tall paper cup, letting the warmth into her fingers. “I usually handle the licensing. I handled it. We would only come to Ankh-Morpork maybe once every two years, if that. I wrote to the Patrician and he sent me a permit. The company as a whole and everyone individually are protected from thieves and assassins for the duration of our stay here.” She contemplated the black coffee. “I’ll need to renew my permit now that I’m separated from the company.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure that when we find the killer they’ll ask for you back.”
“I’m sure,” Ignatia replied darkly, and drank from her cup. The coffee was fine, alien and not nearly burnt enough, but it was hot. Did she want to go back to the circus? Would she have a choice? “The killer shouldn’t be an assassin. The company is paid up; Campbell would have put the receipt somewhere in his tent.”
“Maybe an unlicensed assassin, then,” Ginger sighed. She pushed the remaining four buns to Ignatia. “Take these. Inquiries are proceeding. I’ll be sure to tell you more as more information makes itself available.”
Ignatia watched Ginger go and contemplated the remaining pastries. A small kindness, a kindness of convenience—an officer wouldn’t want to be running about burdened by pastries out in the spitting rain. She finished her coffee, pulled her hat onto her head and took the buns home in a small paper bag, tucked under one arm to keep the worst of the rain off them.
Halfway back to Mrs. Cake’s, a damp dog watched her and whined from under an eaves. “Me too,” she sympathized aloud, and it was only a few yards before she realized it was following her. It followed her, keeping a safe distance the whole time, all the way to her destination and, hating to leave even an animal out in the cold on a night like tonight, she held the door open and made inviting noises until it stepped into the foyer, bushy tail wagging nervously.
It shook itself out while she wrung the worst of the rain out of the hem of her dress. It was a rather large dog, vaguely wolf-like with long legs and short ears, but its coat was orange and thick, something of a mane growing along the top of its head, curling behind its ears. Ignatia knelt and ran an experimental hand down its flank, braced for a negative response. Its tail thumped on the floor. “Well alright then,” Ignatia muttered. She fingered its neck gingerly, wondering where its collar was. “Who do you belong to, huh?” Even rain-sodden the coat felt soft and well-maintained under her touch, the muscles strong and well-nourished underneath, the bones intact and properly cushioned. Its tongue lolled out. “Come in, then. I’ll find your home tomorrow.”
The dog followed her upstairs and down the hall into her brown room. It wagged and panted happily enough, sniffing the furniture and her sparse few possessions before curling up on the brown rug and watching her. No four-legged creature should have such intelligent eyes, Ignatia felt. She peeled her dress off and pulled on her sleeping clothes.
Tallow wasn’t cheap, and lamp oil was somewhat worse, so she blew out her candle and settled on her bed for a long night. The dog loped over to her and nosed at her hand and she petted its head until it settled back down. “At least I made a friend,” she sighed. She pulled the quilt over her and let sleep claim her for a few hours.
Ginger watched her through lupine eyes.
When she was small, her mother told her that one day she would meet someone important. “Like your father is to me,” she elaborated, and smiled sadly. “When they call, you will come. It won’t be a choice so much as a compulsion. And you will do anything for them, whether it’s chew through silver chainmail or swim through burning oil.”
“Because I will love them,” Ginger finished for her. She didn’t want to see her mother sad, but she couldn’t think of a tactful way to change the subject.
“Yes, you will live them. With every fiber of your being.” Her mother ran a hand through her hair, smoothing down the tangles. “And if you are very lucky, they will love you back.”
“Like father loved you back.”
Her mother swallowed. “Yes.”
Ginger watched Ignatia drift into an uneasy sleep, lupine eyes parsing her form through the darkness with ease. She wasn’t used to kindness in this form—people in the city were wary of large dogs, people outside the city doubly so. But Ignatia had coaxed her inside out of the rain. She had pet her. And this last troubled Ginger, because werewolves were not pets. They were not for petting. They were wild animals who just so happened to look like humans from time to time. But Ignatia ran a hand over her wet fur and she hadn’t even thought to growl or snap at her.
“It will be difficult,” her mother warned. “Most don’t want to stick around for longer than one moon cycle. You’ll come when they call, but they might not call on you.”
“It will hurt,” Ginger replied, a well-worn mantra of motherly advice, right along with ‘Don’t fill up on bread,’ and ‘It won’t get better if you keep picking at it.’
“It will hurt,” Angua confirmed. “But we can live through an awful lot of hurt. And you’ll be fine as long as you don’t let it harden you.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
Ginger watched Ignatia breathe. Rain pattered outside the window. Unease almost made her whine aloud; what would happen if Ignatia were the murderer? Ginger would do her job, of course, but Ignatia…
Ignatia was a witch. And someone’s daughter. She was a carny with keen knife-throwing skills, and so lost in the city it made Ginger ache from the pads of her feet to the cockles of her undead heart. And she was kind enough to share her little brown room with a large, strange dog on a dark and stormy night. She got to her feet and shifted back on two legs. She had an easier time thinking like this, an easier time separating what was personal from what was important. She perused the few possessions in the sparse room, as soundlessly as possible. There was no telling what would happen if she got caught like this.
She looked over her shoulder at the sleeping Ignatia, who murmured sleepily and rolled over to face the wall. Ginger padded to her bedside, tucked the blanket around her more securely. Then she padded out of the room.