Discworld and Member Articles
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Written by TheJackal
Sunday, 28 August 2005 |
Ron ran up the drive to Gee’s house. His heart was pounding and his legs ached from his long journey. He reached the front door and stopped. It was funny: all along Ron had pictured himself dramatically bursting in the door to Gee’s home. Yet now, as he stood not two feet away from the place that he travelled for days to find, Ron was unsure what to do. A memory of his mother’s words echoed in his ears: ‘Politeness is a courtesy, not a chore.’
Ron knocked.
Brother Troy slowly walked out of the tavern and into the early evening air.
‘Damn,’ said Troy looking down on his shirt. ‘He got blood on me. I hate when that happens. FARK.’
‘Yes, sir?’
Troy’s heart gave a slight jump.
‘Damn it, Fark. How many times have I told you not to do that? It gets on my nerves when you stand behind me.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ apologised Fark. ‘Won’t happen again, sir.’
Troy chose to refrain from pointing out that Fark had in fact made the same promise the last time.
‘See that my horse is ready, and let the Brothers know we’re leaving in five minutes. Our man has an four hour head start and I want him caught by tonight.’
‘Yes, sir. And where should I tell them we’re going.’
‘Some hole of a village in east Farder Realm,’ replied Troy.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, and Fark. Just another thing before you go. Can you tell me how you manage to be the only person who can ever sneak up on me without my knowing it?’ asked Troy.
‘Well, I wouldn’t call it sneaking exactly, sir. I guess I’m just not the type of person people observe too much of.’
‘Interesting. It’s a fine skill to have, you know. I think you’d do quite well as an assassin. Ever considered that line of work? It’s highly paid.’
‘No, sir. Never thought of it really,’ replied Fark.
‘Yes, very useful indeed,’ mumbled Troy to himself.
After a few seconds Troy broke out of whatever trance he was in.
‘Well then, Fark. Carry on.’
Jessie trotted forward at a steady pace, with Nemoy astride her. He knew that she needed a rest but time was not on their side. An unexpected hurdle, however, lay just around the corner.
Standing on top of a small wooden bridge, which appeared to have recently been constructed, were two men. The thing that you noticed straight away was the big difference in their heights. One of the men stood somewhere around five foot eight, whereas the other was nearly a whole foot taller. The tall one carried a large club in his left hand, which seemed to have been carved out of a branch of some kind.
Nemoy slowed Jessie down to an amble stride, and then, once it became clear that neither of the men were going to step out of the way, Nemoy stopped.
‘What seems to be the problem?’ asked Nemoy cautiously.
‘There’s no problem, mate,’ spoke the small one. ‘We’re just here to collect your tax.’
‘Tax?’
‘Yes, you see, you’ve got to pay a tax for the use of this here bridge.’
‘But it’s only about four foot long!’
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘But there are expenses which go into its upkeep. You’ve got wear and tear and all that. Not to mention the overheads.’
‘Overheads? What overheads?’ asked Nemoy.
‘Well, sunlight wears the whitewash paint down, doesn’t it? And with this fine weather that we’ve been having lately, it all adds up.’
‘But it looks brand new,’ protested Nemoy.
‘Ah, there you go then,’ replied the man.
‘Look,’ said Nemoy, ‘there is no way that I’m paying ye money just to cross this measly little bridge. I mean, Jessie here could jump it if I gave her a run up.’
It seemed that the man hadn’t thought of that possibility. However, he countered marvellously.
‘Are you being smart with me, mate? ’Cos I don’t like it when people get smart with me. Neither does my friend Gregoth here.’
Nemoy looked up at the mountain of a man. His neck hurt.
‘Yeh, mister,’ replied Gregoth. ‘I don’t like smarty pantses.’
‘Well, I wasn’t really being smart,’ hastened Nemoy. ‘I was just kind of pointing out something which I think should be considered.’
‘Gregoth here doesn’t like to think, do you Gregoth?’ said the man.
‘Nope. I like hittin’ things. An’ ice-creams o’ course.’
There was something in Gregoth’s mannerisms which Nemoy thought familiar.
‘Say, you don’t have a relation nicknamed “Ice-Man,” do you?’
‘Yeh. ‘e’s my little brother.’
There were many words which Nemoy could use to describe Gregoth’s brother, but “little” wasn’t one of them. At that point in time, three specific words sprung to mind: the first being the opposite of “little”; the second being the opposite of “father”; and the third sounded like “sucker”. Of course, Nemoy didn’t say that out loud. Instead he said:
‘Really? Isn’t it a small world? I met him just yesterday.’
‘I bet ’e fuckin’ loved you, mister.’
‘Nah. He didn’t like me. Seemed a bit scared to be honest.’
‘Scared?’ grunted Gregoth in disbelief. ‘Why would ‘e be scared of a pip squeak like you?’
‘I don’t know. I think he didn’t want to fight me,’ replied Nemoy.
This statement turned out to be unwise, as Gregoth seemed to take great offence to it.
‘That’s it. I’m gonna beat the livin’ snot outa you, mister,’ replied Gregoth, raising his homemade club threateningly.
It was at this point that the other man decided to intervene.
‘Come now, Gregoth. What have we said about pulverising our clients?’
‘Don’t club ‘em ’cause then we ‘ave less people to take money off.’
‘Exactly. So you can lower your club now.’
Gregoth slowly did as he was told, although he looked disappointed.
‘Listen guys, we can’t stay here all day arguing about this. I do have better things to be doing,’ said the small one.
‘Oh yeh,’ replied Nemoy. ‘What things?’
The man handed him a card. It read:
Arna & Trilt
Thieves at large,
Tax collectors,
Muggings by appointment.
‘Muggings by appointment?’ asked Nemoy.
‘Yeh, it’s one of our biggest earners. It works like this: You come to me and let me know where you and a certain lady friend will be on a certain day. I then turn up at the designated area and attempt to steal something from your woman’s person. Luckily for her, the man is very brave and fends me off. The man goes home happy in the knowledge that his girl is going to reward him for his bravery, and I go home with my fee. Works every time.’
‘Really?’ asked Nemoy amazed.
‘Yep. Come to think of it, I’ve got an appointment in an hour, so I’d appreciate if you paid the tax. Otherwise, I’ll have to let Gregoth vent some anger on you.’
‘Okay, okay. I’ll pay your bloody tax. How much is it?’
‘Nine pence.’
‘I’ll give you four.’
‘Seven.’
‘Six.’
‘Deal.’
Nemoy took out his money purse and looked inside.
‘Got change for a ten?’
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