Soul Music

Page 35

'I'm sure the men with the pointy blades will understand that.'
'Maybe dey don't want der hotels redecorated. I said it was a mistake, orange curtains with yellow wallpaper.' The cart came to a halt. A rotund man with a tricorn hat and a fur-trimmed cloak scowled uncomfortably at the band. 'Are you the musicians known as The Band With Rocks In?' he said. 'What seems to be the problem, officer?' said Asphalt. 'I am the mayor of Quirm. According to the laws of Quirm, Music With Rocks In cannot be played in the city. Look, it says so right here . . .' He flourished a scroll. Glod caught it. `That ink looks wet to me,' he said. 'Music With Rocks In represents a public nuisance, is proven to be injurious to health and morals and to cause unnatural gyrations of the body; said the man, pulling the scroll back. 'You mean we can't come into Quirm?' said Glod. 'You can come in if you must,' said the mayor. 'But you're not to play.' Buddy stood up on the cart. 'But we've got to play,' he said. The guitar swung around on its strap. He gripped the neck and raised his strumming hand threateningly.
Glod looked around in desperation. Cliff and Asphalt had put their hands over their ears. 'Ah!' he said. 'I think what we have here is an occasion for negotiation, yes?' He got down from the cart. 'I expect what your worship hasn't heard of,' he said, 'is the music tax.'
'What music tax?' said Asphalt and the mayor together. 'Oh, it's the latest thing,' said Glod. 'On account of the popularity of Music With Rocks In. Music tax, fifty pence a ticket. Must have amounted to, oh, two hundred and fifty dollars in Sto Lat, I reckon. More than twice that in AnkhMorpork, of course. Patrician thought it up.'
'Really? Sounds like Vetinari right enough,' said the mayor. He rubbed his chin. 'Did you say two hundred and fifty dollars in Sto Lat? Really? And that place is hardly any size.' A watchman with a feather in his helmet saluted nervously. 'Excuse me, your worship, but the note from Sto Lat did say-'
'Just a minute,' said the mayor testily. 'I'm thinking . . . Cliff leaned down. 'Dis is bribery, is it?' he whispered. 'This is taxation,' said Glod. The watchman saluted again. 'But really, sir, the guards at-'
'Captain,' snapped the mayor, still staring thoughtfully at Glod, 'this is politics! Please!'
'As well?' said Cliff. 'And to show goodwill,' said Glod, 'it'd be a good idea if we paid the tax before the peformance, don't you think?' The mayor looked at them in astonishment, a man not certain he could get his mind around the idea of musicians with money. 'Your worship, the message said-'
'Two hundred and fifty dollars,' said Glod. 'Your worship-'
'Now, captain,' said the mayor, apparently reaching a decision, 'we know that folk are a bit odd in Sto Lat. It's only music, after all. I said I thought it was an odd note. I can't see the harm in music. And these young me- people are clearly very successful,' he added. This obviously carried a lot of weight with the mayor, as it does with many people. No-one likes a poor thief. 'Yes,' he went on, 'it'd be just like the Lats to try that on us. They think we're simple just because we live out here.'
'Yes, but the Pseudopo '
'Oh, them. Stuck-up bunch. Nothing wrong with a bit of music, is there? Especially,' the mayor eyed Glod, 'when it's for the civic good. Let 'em in, captain.' Susan saddled up. She knew the place. She'd even seen it once. They'd put a new fence along the road now, but it was still dangerous. She knew the time, too. Just before they called it Dead Man's Curve. 'Hello, Quirm!' Buddy struck a chord. And a pose. A faint white glow, like the glitter of cheap sequins, outlined him. 'Uh-huh-huh!' The cheering became the familiar wall of sound. I thought we were going to get killed by people who didn't like us, Glod thought. Now I think it's possible to be killed by people who love us . . . He looked around carefully. There were guards around the walls; the captain had been no
fool. I just hope Asphalt put the horse and cart outside like I asked him . . . He glanced at Buddy, sparkling in the limelight. A couple of encores and then down the back stairs and away, Glod thought. The big leather satchel had been chained to Cliff's leg. Anyone snatching it would find themselves towing one ton of drummer. I don't even know what we're going to play, thought Glod. I never do, I just blow and . . . there it is. You can't tell me that's right. Buddy whirled his arm like a discus thrower and a chord sprang away and into the ears of the audience. Glod raised the horn to his lips. The sound that emerged was like burning black velvet in a windowless room. Before the Music With Rocks In spell filled his soul, he thought: I'm going to die. That's part of the music. I'm going to die really soon. I can feel it. Every day. It's getting closer . . . He glanced at Buddy again. The boy was scanning the audience, as if he was looking for someone in the screaming throng. They played 'There's A Great Deal Of Shaking Happening'. They played 'Give Me That Music With Rocks In'. They played 'Pathway To Paradise' (and a hundred people in the audience swore to buy a guitar in the morning). They played with heart and especially with soul. They got out after the ninth encore. The crowd was still stamping its feet for more as they climbed through the privy window and dropped into the alley. Asphalt emptied a sack into the leather satchel. 'Another seven hundred dollars!' he said, helping them onto the cart. 'Right, and we get ten dollars each,' said Glod. 'You tell Mr Dibbler,' said Asphalt, as the horses' hoofs clattered towards the gates. 'I will.'
'It doesn't matter,' said Buddy. 'Sometimes you do it for the money, but sometimes you do it for the show.'
'Hah! That'll be the day.' Glod fumbled under the seat. Asphalt had stashed two crates of beer there. 'There's the Festival tomorrow, lads,' rumbled Cliff. The gate arch passed above them. They could still hear the stamping from here. 'After that we'll have a new contract,' said the dwarf. 'With lots of zeroes in it.'
'We got zeroes now,' said Cliff. 'Yeah, but they ain't got many numbers in front of them. Eh, Buddy?' They looked around. Buddy was asleep, the guitar clutched to his chest. 'Out like a candle,' said Glod. He turned back again. The road stretched ahead of them, pale in the starlight. 'You said you just wanted to work,' said Cliff. 'You said you didn't want to be famous. How'd you like it, having to worry about all that gold, and having girls throw their chain mail at you?'
'I'd just have to put up with it.'
'I'd like a quarry,' said the troll. 'Yeah?'
'Yeah. Heart-shaped.' A dark, stormy night. A coach, horses gone, plunged through the rickety, useless fence and dropped, tumbling, into the gorge below. It didn't even strike an outcrop of rock before it hit the dried river-bed far below and erupted into fragments. Then the oil from the coach-lamps ignited and there was a second explosion, out of which rolled - because there are certain conventions, even in tragedy - a burning wheel.
What was strange to Susan was that she felt nothing. She could think sad thoughts, because in the circumstances they had to be sad. She knew who was in the coach. But it had already happened. There was nothing she could do to stop it, because if she'd stopped it, it wouldn't have happened. And she was here watching it happen. So she hadn't. So it had. She felt the logic of the situation dropping into place like a series of huge leaden slabs. Perhaps there was somewhere where it hadn't happened. Perhaps the coach had skidded the other way, perhaps there had been a convenient rock, perhaps it hadn't come this way at all, perhaps the coachman had remembered about the sudden curve. But those possibilities could only exist if there was this one. This wasn't her knowledge. It flowed in from a mind far, far older. Sometimes the only thing you could do for people was to be there. She rode Binky into the shadows by the cliff road, and waited. After a minute or two there was a clattering of stones and a horse and rider came up an almost vertical path from the river-bed. Binky's nostrils flared. Parapsychology has no word for the uneasy feeling you have when you're in the presence of yourself.[27] Susan watched Death dismount and stand looking down at the river-bed, leaning on his scythe. She thought: but he could have done something. Couldn't he? The figure straightened, but did not turn around. YES. I COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING. 'How . . . how did you know I was here . . . ?' Death waved a hand irritably. I REMEMBER YOU. AND NOW UNDERSTAND THIS: YOUR PARENTS KNEW THINGS MUST HAPPEN. EVERYTHING MUST HAPPEN SOMEWHERE. DO YOU NOT THINK I SPOKE TO THEM OF THIS? BUT I CANNOT GIVE LIFE. I CAN ONLY GRANT . . . EXTENSION. CHANGELESSNESS. ONLY HUMANS CAN GIVE LIFE. AND THEY WANTED TO BE HUMAN, NOT IMMORTAL. IF IT HELPS YOU, THEY DIED INSTANTLY. INSTANTLY. I've got to ask, Susan thought. I've got to say it. Or I'm not human. 'I could go back and save them . . . ?' Only the faintest tremor suggested that the statement was a question. SAVE? FOR WHAT? A LIFE THAT HAS RUN OUT? SOME THINGS END. I KNOW THIS. SOMETIMES I HAVE THOUGHT OTHERWISE. BUT . . . WITHOUT DUTY, WHAT AM I? THERE HAS TO BE A LAW. He climbed into the saddle and, still without turning to face her, spurred Binky out and over the gorge. There was a haystack behind a livery stable in Phedre Road. It bulged for a moment, and there was a muffled swearing. A fraction of a second later there was a bout of coughing and another, much better, swear- word inside a grain silo down near the cattle market. Very shortly after that some rotten floorboards in an old feed store in Short Street exploded upwards, followed by a swear-word that bounced off a flour sack. 'Idiot rodent!' bellowed Albert, fingering grain out of his ear. SQUEAK. 'I should think so! What size do you think I am?' Albert brushed hay and flour off his coat and walked over to the window. 'Ah,' he said, 'let us repair to the Mended Drum, then.' In Albert's pocket, sand resumed its interrupted journey from future to past.
Hibiscus Dunelm had decided to close up for an hour. It was a simple process. First he and his staff collected any unbroken mugs and glasses. This didn't take long. Then there was a desultory search for any weapons with a high resale value, and a quick search of any pockets whose owners were unable to object on account of being drunk, dead or both. Then the furniture was moved aside and everything else was swept out of the back door and into the broad brown bosom of the river Ankh, where it piled up and, by degrees, sank. Finally, Hibiscus locked and bolted the big front door . . . It wouldn't shut. He looked down. A boot was wedged in it. 'We're shut,' he said. 'No, you ain't.' The door ground back, and Albert was inside. 'Have you seen this person?' he demanded, thrusting a pasteboard oblong in front of Dunelm's eyes. This was a gross breach of etiquette. Dunelm wasn't in the kind of job where you survived if you told people you'd seen people. Dunelm could serve drinks all night without seeing anyone. 'Never seen him before in my life,' he said, automatically, without even looking at the card. 'You've got to help me,' said Albert, 'otherwise something dreadful will happen.'
'Push off!' Albert kicked the door shut behind him. 'Just don't say I didn't warn you,' he said. On his shoulder the Death of Rats sniffed the air suspiciously. A moment later Hibiscus was having his chin pressed firmly into the boards of one of his tables. 'Now, I know he'd come in here,' said Albert, who wasn't even breathing heavily, 'because everyone does, sooner or later. Have another look.'
'That's a Caroc card,' said Hibiscus indistinctly. 'That's Death!'
'That's right. He's the one on the white horse. You can't miss him. Only he wouldn't look like that in here, I expect.'
'Let me get this straight,' said the landlord, trying desperately to wriggle out of the iron grip. 'You want me to tell you if I've seen someone who doesn't look like that?'