— The Carpet People —
Terry Pratchett

Chapter 7

They arrived at the camp just in time to stop the search party that was setting out. Brocando immediately became the center of attention, something that he enjoyed and was obviously used to. Snibril was more or less forgotten. More or less . . .

“Where have you been?” asked Pismire, relieved and angry. “Wandering off like that! Don’t you know there are mouls about?”

“I’m sorry,” said Snibril. “Things just happened.”

“Well, never mind now,” said Pismire. “What’s happening over there? Doesn’t any one of your muddle-headed people know how to welcome a king?”

“I don’t think so,” said Snibril. “He’s quite brave and a bit excitable and doesn’t really listen to what you say.”

“Sounds like a king to me, right enough,” said Pismire.

Brocando was in the middle of a crowd of chattering, staring Munrungs, and he was beaming beneolently.

“There I was,” he was saying, “one step away from the treasure, when, jingle! There it was, behind me. So . . .”

Pismire elbowed his way through the crowd, removed his hat, bowed till his beard touched the ground, and stuck there, confronting a surprised Brocando with a tangle of white locks.

“Greetings, oh King,” said the old man. “Honored are we that so great a son of so noble an ancestry should deem us worthy to . . . er . . . worthy. All we have is at your disposal, valiant sir. I am Pismire, a humble philosopher. This is—”

He snapped his fingers wildly at Glurk, who was standing open-mouthed at the spectacle of Pismire, still bent double in front of the dwarf warrior.

“Come on, come on. Protocol is very important. Bow down to the king!”

“What’s a king?” said Glurk, looking round blankly.

“Show some respect,” said Pismire.

“What for? Snibril rescued him, didn’t he?”

Snibril saw Bane standing at the back of the crowd with folded arms and a grim expression. He hadn’t liked school in Tregon Marus, but he’d learned some things. The Dumii didn’t like kings. They preferred emperors, because they were easier to get rid of.

And on the way back from the temple he’d asked Brocando what he’d meant when he said his people didn’t Count. It meant they had nothing to do with the Dumii.

“Hate them,” Brocando had said bluntly. “I’d fight them because they straighten roads, and number things, and make maps of places that shouldn’t be mapped. They turn everything into things to Count. They’d make the hairs of the Carpet grow in rows if they could. And worst of all . . . they obey orders. They’d rather obey orders than think. That’s how their empire works. Oh, they’re fair enough, fair fighters in battle and all that sort of thing, but they don’t know how to laugh, and at the end of it all it’s things in rows, and orders, and all the fun out of life.”

And now Glurk was about to be introduced to the king . . .

At which point, Brocando amazed him. He walked up to Glurk and shook him warmly by the hand. When he spoke, it wasn’t at all in the way he’d used in the temple. It was the kind of voice that keeps slapping you on the back all the time.

“So you’re the chieftain, are you?” he said. “Amazing! Your brother here told me all about you. It must be an incredibly difficult job. Highly skilled, too, I shouldn’t wonder?”

“Oh, you know . . . you pick it up as you go along . . .” Glurk muttered, taken aback.

“I’m sure you do. I’m sure you do. Fascinating! And a terrible responsibility. Did you have to have some sort of special training?”

“Er . . . no . . . Dad died and they just gives me the spear and said, ‘You’re chief . . .’” said Glurk.

“Really? We shall have to have a serious chinwag about this later on,” said Brocando. “And this is Pismire, isn’t it? Oh, do get up. I’m sure philosophers don’t have to bow, what? Jolly good. And this must be . . . General Baneus Catrix, I believe.”

General! Snibril thought.

Bane nodded. “How many years is it, Your Majesty?” he asked.

“About five, I think,” said the king. “Better make that six, in fact.”

“You know each other?” said Snibril.

“Oh, yes,” said Brocando. “The Dumii kept sending armies to see us and suggest, most politely, that we submit and be part of their empire. We always told them we didn’t want to join. We weren’t going to be Counted—”

“I think it was the paying of taxes you objected to,” said Bane calmly.

“We did not see what we would get for our money,” said Brocando.

“You would be defended,” said Bane.

“Ah . . . but we’ve always been quite good at defending ourselves,” said Brocando in a meaningful tone of voice. “Against anyone.” He smiled. “And then the General here was sent to suggest it to us again, with a little more force,” he said. “I remember he said that he was afraid that if we did not join the Empire, there would be hardly any of us to be Counted.”

“And you said there’d be hardly anyone left to do the Counting,” said Bane.

Snibril looked from one to the other. He realized he was holding his breath. He let it out. “And then what happened?” he asked.

Bane shrugged. “I didn’t attack,” he said. “I didn’t see why good people should die. I went back and told the Emperor that Brocando’s people would make better allies than unwilling subjects. Anyway, only a fool would attack that city.”

“I always wondered what he replied,” said Brocando.

Bane looked down at his ragged clothes. “He shouted quite a lot,” he said.

There was a thoughtful pause.

“They did attack, you know, after you’d . . . been recalled,” said Brocando.

“Did they win?”

“No.”

“You see? Fools,” said Bane.

“I’m sorry,” said Brocando.

“You needn’t be. It was only one of a number of disagreements I had with the Emperor,” said Bane.

Snibril took each of them by the shoulder. “Anyway,” he said, “just because you’re sworn enemies doesn’t mean you can’t be friends, does it?”

 

When they were having the evening meal, Glurk said to his wife: “He’s very gracious. Asked all about me. I’ve met a king. He’s very important. He’s called Protocol, I think.”

“Good name. Sounds royal,” she said.

“And Pismire’s a philosopher, he says.”

“I never knew that. What’s a philosopher?”

“Someone who thinks, he says,” said Glurk.

“Well, you think. I’ve often seen you sitting and thinking.”

“I don’t always think,” said Glurk conscientiously. “Sometimes I just sits.” He sighed. “Anyway, it’s not just thinking. You’ve got to be able to talk about it entertainingly afterward.”

Chapter 8

The people turned west. It was a cheerful journey to Jeopard, with Brocando riding by the lead cart. They were going somewhere that only a fool would attack.

Many of the Munrungs were frankly in awe of the small king, but Glurk was fast becoming an uncritical royalist. Brocando sensed his respectful audience, and chatted to him in that special way royalty has for commoners, which leaves the commoner feeling really cheered up without actually remembering very much about what was said to him.

Snibril jogged along on the other side of the cart, listening with half an ear for any sign of Fray and half to the Deftmene’s chatter. “And then, in the north wing of the palace, my ancestor, Broc, built a temple to Kone the Founder. It took the wights seven years, carving pillars of varnish and wood and laying the great mosaic of the Carpet for Broc. We’re still paying them for it. The walls were set with jet and salt, the altar was made of red wood inlaid with bronze. Really, that was the center of the present palace, which was built by my great-grandfather, the Seventh Broc, who added the Wood Gate when he was made king. And I mustn’t forget the treasure rooms. I think there’s at least nine. And only the reigning king may enter. Tara the Woodcarver himself made the crown. Seven pointy bits, with salt crystals on each one.”

“We had a rug in our hut,” said Glurk.

And so it went on, Glurk eagerly following the Deftmene through the treasury and the armory, the banqueting halls and the guest bedrooms, while the carts got nearer and nearer to Jeopard.

Gradually the Carpet changed color again, from red to deep purple and then dark blue. They camped under blue hairs, hunted the small shelled creatures that dwelled in dust holes, and wondered if Jeopard was as good as Brocando made out, because if it was, it looked as though they’d better stop eating and drinking right now so as to leave room for the feasts they were going to have.

The track began to turn into a road, not a great white road like the Dumii built, but a neatly laid track of thick planks on a bank of dust. On either side the hairs grew thinner, and Snibril noticed many stumps. That was not all. No Munrung ever planted a seed. They liked vegetables when they could get them, and knew what grew where and which hairs dropped seeds that could be eaten, but except for Pismire’s private herb garden, everything that grew around them grew wild. The reason was quite obvious, to a Munrung: if you planted something, you had to stop and watch it grow, fight off the animals and any hungry neighbor that happened to be passing, and generally spend your time, as Glurk put it, hanging around. Vegetables to a Munrung were something to give the meat a bit of a special taste.

But in the blue land of Jabonya, around the little city of Jeopard, the Deftmenes had turned the Carpet into a garden. There were hairs there that even Pismire had not seen before, not the great sturdy trunks that crowded the rest of the Carpet, but delicate stems, their branches laden with fruit. Dust had been carefully banked up beneath them to make soil for all sorts of shrubs and vegetables. The travelers were shown ripe purple groads, which tasted of pepper and ginger, and big Master Mushrooms that could be dried and stored for years and still keep their delicate flavor. Even the track had been raised above the gardens, and small shrublike hairs grew along its border in a low hedge. It was a well-tended land.

“I never noticed that it looked like this,” said Bane.

“It certainly looks better without Dumii armies camped on it,” said Brocando.

“The men under my command were always instructed to treat the country with respect.”

“Others were less respectful.”

“Where are the people?” asked Glurk. “I’ll grant you that a nice baked root goes down well, but all this didn’t grow by being whistled at. You’re always having to hang about poking at the ground, when you’re a farmer.”

There were no people. The fruit hung heavy in the bushes along the roadside, but there were none to pick it, except the Munrung children, who did it very well. But there was no one else.

Snibril took up his spear. This was like hunting. You learned about the different kinds of silence.

There was the silence made by something frightened, in fear of its life. There was the silence made by small creatures, being still. There was the silence made by big creatures, waiting to pounce on small creatures. Sometimes there was the silence made by no one being there. And there was a very sharp, hot kind of silence made by someone there—watching.

Bane had drawn his sword. Snibril thought: Soldiers learn about silences, too.

They looked at each other.

“Shall we leave the carts here?” said Snibril.

“Safer to stick together. Don’t divide forces unnecessarily. First rule of tactics.”

The carts moved on, slowly, with everyone watching the hairs.

“The bushes just up on the right there,” Bane said, without moving his head.

“I think so, too,” said Snibril.

“They’re in there watching us.”

“Just one, I think,” said Snibril.

“I could put a spear into it from here, no trouble,” said Glurk.

“No. We might want to ask it questions afterward,” said Bane. “We’ll circle around it on either side.”

Snibril crept toward the bush around one side of a hair. He could see it moving slightly. Bane was on the other side of it, and Glurk, who could walk very quietly for such a big man, appeared as if by some kind of magic in front of it, with his spear raised.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Yeah.”

Bane took hold of a dust frond, and tugged.

A small child looked up at three trembling blades.

“Um,” it said.

 

And ten minutes later . . .

A small group of Deftmenes were laboring in the vegetable lines between the hairs. They did not look happy or, for that matter, very well fed. Several guards were watching them. Even from here, Snibril could see the long snouts.

Among the hairs was Jeopard itself.

It was built on a piece of grit. The actual city was a cluster of buildings at the very top; a spiral roadway wound several times around the grit between the city and the floor. It had a gate at the bottom, but that was just for show. No one could have gotten up that road if the people at the top didn’t want them to.

There was a movement in the dust, and Glurk crawled up beside Snibril.

“The boy was right. There’s mouls and snargs everywhere,” he said. “The whole place is crawling with them.”

“They’ve got the city?” said Snibril.

Glurk nodded. “That’s what comes of running around looking for treasure when he ought to have been at home, reigning,” he said disapprovingly.

“Come on,” said Snibril. “Let’s get back to the camp.”

The carts had been dragged into the undergrowth some way off, and people were on guard.

Pismire, Bane, and Brocando were sitting in a semicircle, watching the little boy drink soup. He had a bottomless capacity for food, but, in between mouthfuls, he’d answer Brocando’s questions in a very small voice.

“My own brother!” growled Brocando, as the others slipped into the camp. “But if you can’t trust your own family, who can you trust? Turn my back for a few days—”

“A year,” said Bane.

“—and he calls himself king! I never did like Antiroc. Always skulking and muttering and not keen on sports.”

“But how did mouls get into the city?” asked Snibril.

“He let them in! Tell the man, Strephon!”

The boy was about seven years old, and looked terrified.

“I—I—they were—everyone fought,” he stuttered.

“Come on! Come on! Out with it, lad!”

“I think,” said Bane, “that perhaps you ought to wander off for a minute or two, perhaps? He might find it easier to talk.”

“I am his king!”

“That’s what I mean. When they’re standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment. If you’d just, oh, go and inspect the guard or something . . . ?”

Brocando grumbled about this, but wandered off with Glurk and Snibril.

“Huh. Brothers!” he muttered. “Nothing but trouble, eh? Plotting and skulking and hanging around and usurping.”

Glurk felt he had to show solidarity with the unofficial association of older brothers.

“Snibril never kept his room tidy, I know that,” he said.

When they got back, Strephon was wearing Bane’s helmet and looking a lot more cheerful. Bane sent him off with an instruction to do something dangerous.

“If you want it in grown-up language,” he said, “your brother took over the throne when you didn’t come back. He wasn’t very popular. There was quite a lot of fighting. So when a pack of mouls arrived one day, he invited them in.”

“He wouldn’t!” said Brocando.

“He thought he could hire them as mercenaries, to fight for him. Well, they fought all right. They say he’s still king, although no one has seen him. The mouls do all the ruling. A lot of people ran away. The rest are slaves, more or less. Quarrying grit. Forced labor in the fields. That sort of thing.”

“The mouls don’t look as if they’d be interested in vegetables,” said Snibril.

“They eat meat.”

Pismire, wrapped in a blanket, had been sitting against one of the cart wheels; travel was not agreeing with him. They’d almost forgotten about him.

His words sank in like rocks. In fact, it wasn’t the words themselves that were disturbing. Everyone ate meat. But he gave the word a particular edge that suggested, not ordinary meat . . .

Brocando went white.

“Do you mean—?”

“They eat animals,” said Pismire, looking more miserable than Snibril had ever seen him before. “Unfortunately, they consider everything that’s not a moul is an animal. Um. I don’t know how to say this . . . Do you know what the word ‘moul’ means in moul language? Hmm? It means . . . True Human Being.”

This sank in, too.

“We’ll attack tonight,” said Brocando. “No one’s eating my subjects.”

“Er,” said Glurk.

“Oh, yes,” said Bane. “Yes indeed. Fine. Five thousand soldiers couldn’t attack Jeopard.”

“That’s true,” said Brocando. “So we—”

“Er,” said Glurk.

“Yes?” said Brocando.

The chieftain appeared to have something on his mind. “I’ve heard one or two references just recently to ‘we,’” he said. “I just want to get this sorted out? No offense. As a reward for rescuing you, we’re now going to attack this city that no amount of Dumii soldiers could capture and fight a lot of mouls? You want my tribe, which hasn’t got a home now, to save your city for you, even though this is impossible? Have I got it right, yes?”

“Good man!” said Brocando. “I knew we could depend on you! I shall need half a dozen stouthearted men!”

“I think I can let you have one astonished one,” said Glurk.

“We’ve got to help,” said Snibril. “Everyone’s too tired to run away. Anyway, what will happen if we don’t? Sooner or later we’ve got to fight these things. It might as well be here.”

“Outnumbered!” said Bane. “And you’re not soldiers!”

“No,” said Glurk. “We’re hunters.”

“Well done!” said Brocando.

Glurk nudged Snibril. “Have we just volunteered for practically certain death?” he said.

“I think we may have, yes.”

“This kinging is amazing,” said Glurk. “If we get out of this, I think I’m going to try to learn it.”

 

Night came. A blue badger, hunting early, nearly blundered into the line of would-be invaders and waddled off hurriedly.

There was a whispered argument going on among the Munrungs. Some of them wanted to sing as they went into battle, which was a tradition. Brocando kept pointing out that they were going into battle secretly, but one or two die-hard traditionalists were holding out for the right to sing peaceful songs, which would—they said—totally confuse the enemy. In the end, Brocando won by playing the king, and threatening to have everyone who disagreed with him put to death. Glurk was impressed.

When it began to seem to Snibril that the dark Carpet had no ending, they reached the road again. Ahead of them, torches burning along its walls, was the city of Jeopard.