Moist was starting to worry about Dick Simnel and his band of overworked engineers. What sleep they got was in sleeping bags, curled up on carriage seats, eating but not eating well, just driven by their watches and their desire to keep the train going. If you met them away from the cab, their conversation was about gears and wheels and timings, but it was clear to Moist that they were frazzled after days of living on the footplate and wrestling their locomotives through various little tantrums.
And so he confronted Mr Simnel, saying, ‘Surely we can afford to slacken pace a little and let you and your lads get your heads down for a bit? As far as I can see, we’re well on schedule.’
And he detected in Dick’s eyes not madness but something else more subtle. He was sure it had no name. It seemed to be a sort of hunger for anything that was new and above all for proving that something could be refined to the point of perfection and kept there. In the goblins this was endemic, although it didn’t seem to do them much harm. Humans, apparently, were another matter.
‘People are going to die if we push them any further,’ he said to Dick. ‘You lot would rather work than sleep! I swear, sometimes you seem to be as mechanical as Iron Girder, and that’s not right, you have to … chill, get laid back before you are laid-back and laid down for ever.’
To Moist’s amazement, Dick suddenly ripped out at him like a lion. He could almost hear the growl.
‘Who are you to talk, Mister Moist? What have you made, built, fretted over? I see none of your fingernails are torn and you can talk well in a fancy way, but what is it you’ve made? What is it you are?’
‘Me, Dick? Well, now I come to look at it I’m the grease that turns the wheels and changes minds and moves the world along. Or you might say that I’m a kind of a cook, but it is a special kind of cookery. It’s a bit like the sliding rule; you just move things about at the right time and you get the answer you need. In short, Dick, I make things happen, and that includes your railway.’
The young man swayed in front of him and Moist’s tone became gentle. ‘And I now see that part of my job is to tell you that you need some rest. You’ve run out of steam, Dick. Look, we’re well on the way to Uberwald now, and while it’s daylight and we’re out of the mountains it’s going to be the least risky time to run with minimum crew. We’re all going to need our wits about us when we get near the Pass. Surely you can take some rest?’
Simnel blinked as if he’d not seen Moist the first time, and said, ‘Yes, you’re right.’
And Moist could hear the slurring in the young man’s speech, caught him before he fell and dragged him into a sleeping compartment, put him to bed and noted that the engineer didn’t so much fall asleep as somehow flow into it. And that job done, he went to the guard’s van where Vimes was drinking coffee and carefully going through the paperwork relating to the captive delvers, who in the pinch sang like most canaries.
‘Commander Vimes, can you help me a moment?’
‘Problem, Mister Lipwig?’
‘The lads are working all the time and they seem to think it’s the badge of a man never to go to sleep.’
‘I have to teach that to young coppers. Treasure a night’s rest, I always say. Take a nap whenever you can.’
‘Very good,’ said Moist. ‘Now look at them here. Still working on the sliding rules and fretting themselves because they’ve spent too much time trying to put one over on the universe.’
‘It seems like that,’ said Vimes, getting up.
Together they wandered along the train forcing the engineers to at least lie down in their bunks or face the wrath of Sir Harry King. And in a few cases Moist suggested Of the Twilight the Darkness should dose them with one of his harmless little potions. Not all of them, of course, in case there was an emergency. You never knew when you might need an engineer.
In his cell Albrecht Albrechtson had had plenty of time to consider Ardent’s tactics. Ardent was a mere stripling youth,[74] but was already revealed as a manipulative chancer, seeking advancement come what may and by any means he deemed necessary. He wormed his way into everything and in that sentence Albrecht thought the important word was ‘worm’.
Being Ardent’s prisoner was galling. The food was good and drink likewise, even if the small beer was smaller than than he’d have liked. He was allowed some of his books, too, apart from those Ardent considered un-dwarfish — a terminology that told you everything about the arrogant young upstart, still wet behind the helmet, who was no doubt keen to get his paws on the whole of Schmaltzberg, ‘un-dwarfish’ fat mines and all.
And in his little dungeon Albrechtson had to endure Ardent’s self-serving philosophy about the role of the Low King. What in solence! Lecturing him, the foremost scholar on the subject. But it didn’t do to get angry, at least not yet. Anger was a weapon to be honed and treasured and used only at the moment yielding most premium. And that thought was followed by a noise on the stone stairs as the pompous fool came again to get him to change his mind.
Of course, Ardent would begin as if he was just an old friend coming to chew the rat, but as he talked, Albrechtson would glimpse the coils of a decent mind unfolding. After all, he was opposing his sovereign, something not done lightly, if ever. Ardent had to be aware of the penalty for those who took up arms against the Low King. Despite everything, there must have been a good mind there, one which could have been useful to dwarfkind as a whole and might yet be useful, even if right now it couldn’t tell pyrites from gold. It was no secret that the most highly balanced minds sometimes, well, overbalanced.
The key turned in the lock. There was Ardent, and his expression seriously frightened his erstwhile mentor. You needed to be mature to sense this sort of thing but you could tell in a person’s eyes if they were being driven by an idea. They had a clammy look about them, and so did Ardent.
Nevertheless, Albrechtson laid down his pen and said in a calm voice, ‘So kind of you to come and see me. I understand the King will be here shortly, courtesy of the train. Won’t that be nice?’
There was a little bloom of spittle on one side of Ardent’s face and he snapped, ‘You can’t possibly know that!’
Albrechtson sat back convivially and said, ‘It’s probably true that I taught you all you know, young dwarf, but I did not teach you all I know. I have some skills that I didn’t impart.’
‘Then they must include guesswork. I hold the key to information in Schmaltzberg. No clacks towers are standing.’
‘Oh yes, so I hear.’
‘Rhys Rhysson is betraying all that is dwarfish. And for the sake of our species you surely know that I must take the Scone of Stone. The majority of the dwarfs here are behind me.’
Albrechtson twiddled a pen in his fingers and said, ‘Possibly in order not to have to look at your face, Ardent. You’re shaken and the courage of your convictions will see you convicted, the moment the King steps into Schmaltzberg. From what I know of Rhys Rhysson, he may be merciful.’
‘Yes, I thought you’d say something like that, but the deed is done.’
Albrechtson looked stunned. ‘You have actually taken the Scone?’
For a moment Ardent looked foxed. ‘Not as such … Everything is in place. It only needs me to take the final step and Rhys Rhysson can have a retirement somewhere out of the way, like back in Llamedos.’
‘Then do it now. Go on. There’s nothing to stop you, is there? But the Low King is elected, isn’t he? How certain are you? How certain are you that all your fellow travellers are stalwart? Because I’m absolutely certain that many of them are not. Oh yes, they fawn on you and promise a lot, but as the train comes closer and we hear the whistle of change blowing, I think you’ll find that suddenly they have other engagements and recall never talking to you about the Scone of Stone. That’s happening now, and you don’t know it.’