Eric rolled his eyes. “Lavaeolus was responsible for the fall of Tsort, on account of being so cunning,” he said. “And then afterwards it took him ten years to get home and he had all sorts of adventures with temptresses and sirens and sensual witches.”
“Well, I can see why you’ve been studying him. Ten years, eh? Where did he live?”
“About two hundred miles away,” said Eric earnestly.
“Kept getting lost, did he?”
“And when he got home he fought his wife’s suitors and everything, and his dear old dog recognised him and died.”
“Oh, dear.”
“It was the carrying his slippers in its mouth for fifteen years that killed it off.”
“Shame.”
“And you know what, demon? All this hasn’t happened yet. We could save him all that trouble!”
Rincewind thought about this. “We could tell him to get a better navigator, for a start,” he said.
There was a creak. The soldiers had got the door open.
“Everyone fall in, or whatever the bloody stupid command is,” said Lavaeolus. “The magic box to the front, please. No killing anyone unless it’s really necessary. Try not to damage things. Right. Forward.”
The door led into a column-lined corridor. There was the distant murmur of voices.
The troop crept towards the sound until it reached a heavy curtain. Lavaeolus took a deep breath, pushed it aside and stepped forward and launched into a prepared speech.
“Now, I want to make myself absolutely clear,” he said. “I don’t want there to be any unpleasantness of any kind, or any shouting for guards and so forth. Or indeed any shouting at all. We will just take the young lady and go home, which is where anyone of any sense ought to be. Otherwise I shall really have to put everyone to the sword, and I hate having to do things like that.”
The audience to this statement did not appear to be impressed. This was because it was a small child on a potty.
Lavaeolus changed mental gear and went on smoothly: “On the other hand, if you don’t tell me where everyone is, I shall ask the sergeant here to give you a really hard smack.”
The child took its thumb out of its mouth. “Mummy is seeing to Cassie,” it said. “Are you Mr Beekle?”
“I don’t think so,” said Lavaeolus.
“Mr Beekle is a silly.” The child withdrew its thumb and, with the air of one concluding some exhaustive research, added: “Mr Beekle is a poo.”
“Sergeant?”
“Sir?”
“Guard this child.”
“Yessir. Corporal?”
“Sarge?”
“Take care of the kid.”
“Yes, sarge. Private Archeios?”
“Yes, corp,” said the soldier, his voice gloomy with prescience.
“See to the sprog.”
Private Archeios looked around. There were only Rincewind and Eric left and, while it was true that a civilian was in every respect the lowest possible rank there was, coming somewhere after the regimental donkey, the expressions on their faces suggested that they weren’t about to take any orders.
Lavaeolus wandered across the room and listened at another curtain.
“We could tell him all kinds of stuff about his future,” hissed Eric. “He had — I mean, he will have — all kinds of things happen to him. Shipwrecks and magic and all his crew turned into animals and stuff like that.”
“Yes. We could say ‘Walk home’,” said Rincewind.
The curtain swished aside.
There was a woman there — plump, good-looking in a slightly faded way, wearing a black dress and the beginnings of a moustache. A number of children of varying sizes were trying to hide behind her. Rincewind counted at least seven of them.
“Who’s that?” said Eric.
“Ahem,” said Rincewind. “I rather think it’s Elenor of Tsort.”
“Don’t be silly,” whispered Eric. “She looks like my mum. Elenor was much younger and was all—” His voice gave out and he made several wavy motions with his hand, indicative of the shape of a woman who would probably be unable to keep her balance.
Rincewind tried not to catch the sergeant’s eye.
“Yes,” he said, going a bit red. “Well, you see. Er. You’re absolutely right, but well, it’s been a long siege, hasn’t it, what with one thing and another.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” said Eric sternly. “The Classics never said anything about children. They said she spent all her time mooning around the towers of Tsort and pining for her lost love.”
“Well, yes, I expect she did pine a bit,” said Rincewind. “Only, you know, you can only pine so much, and it must have been a bit chilly up on those towers.”
“You can catch your death, mooning,” nodded the sergeant.
Lavaeolus watched the woman thoughtfully. Then he bowed.
“I expect you know why we’re here, my lady?” he said.
“If you touch any of the children I shall scream,” said Elenor flatly.
Once again Lavaeolus showed that along with his guerrilla abilities was a marked reluctance to waste a prepared speech once he had it all sorted out in his head.
“Fair maiden,” he began. “We have faced many dangers in order to rescue you and take you back to your loved …” His voice faltered. “… ones. Er. This has all gone terribly wrong, hasn’t it?”
“I can’t help it,” said Elenor. “The siege seemed to go on for such a long time and King Mausoleum was very kind and I never liked it much in Ephebe anyway—”
“Where is everyone now? The Tsorteans, I mean. Apart from you.”
“They’re all out on the battlements throwing rocks, if you must know.”
Lavaeolus flung up his hands in desperation.
“Couldn’t you, you know, have slipped us a note or something? Or invited us to one of the christenings?”
“You all seemed to be enjoying yourselves so much,” she said.
Lavaeolus turned and shrugged gloomily. “All right,” he said. “Fine. QED. No problem. I wanted to leave home and spend ten years sitting in a swamp with a bunch of meat-headed morons. It wasn’t as if I had anything important to do back home, just a little kingdom to rule, that sort of thing. O-kay. Well, then. We might as well be off. I’m sure I don’t know how I shall break it to everyone,” he said bitterly, “they were having such fun. They’ll probably have a bloody great banquet and laugh about it and get drunk, it’d be their style.”
He looked at Rincewind and Eric.
“You might as well tell me what happens next,” he said. “I’m sure you know.”
“Um,” said Rincewind.
“The city burns down,” said Eric. “Especially the topless towers. I didn’t get to see them,” he added sulkily.
“Who did it? Their lot or our lot?” said Lavaeolus.
“Your lot, I think,” said Eric.
Lavaeolus sighed. “Sounds like them,” he said. He turned to Elenor. “Our lot — that is, my lot — are going to burn down the city,” he said. “It sounds very heroic. It’s just the kind of thing they go for. It might be a good idea to come with us. Bring the kids. Make it a day out for all the family, why don’t you?”
Eric pulled Rincewind’s ear towards his mouth.
“This is a joke, isn’t it?” he said. “She’s not really the fair Elenor, you’re just having me on?”
“It’s always the same with these hot-blooded types,” said Rincewind. “They definitely go downhill at thirty-five.”
“It’s the pasta that does it,” said the sergeant.
“But I read where she was the most beautiful—”
“Ah, well,” said the sergeant. “If you’re going to go around reading—”