Terry Pratchett: The Truth

His father had erupted. In his personal world a scribe was only one step higher than a teacher. Good gods, man, they didn't even ride a horse! So there had been Words.

As a result, William had gone off to Ankh-Morpork, the usual destination for the lost and the aimless. There he'd made words his living, in a quiet sort of way, and considered that he'd got off easily compared to brother Rupert, who was big and good natured and a Hugglestones natural apart from the accident of birth.

And then there had been the war against Klatch...

It was an insignificant war, which was over before it started, the kind of war that both sides pretended hadn't really happened, but one of the things that did happen in the few confused days of wretched turmoil was the death of Rupert de Worde. He had died for his beliefs; chief among them was the very Hugglestonian one that bravery could replace armour, and that Klatchians would turn and run if you shouted loud enough.

William's father, during their last meeting, had gone on at some length about the proud and noble traditions of the de Wordes. These had mostly involved unpleasant deaths, preferably of foreigners, but somehow, William gathered, the de Wordes had always considered that it was a decent second prize to die themselves. A de Worde was always to the fore when the city called. That was why they existed . Wasn't the family motto Le Mot Juste? The Right Word In The Right Place, said Lord de Worde. He simply could not understand why William did not want to embrace this fine tradition and he dealt with it, in the manner of his kind, by not dealing with it.

And now a great frigid silence had descended between the de Wordes that made the winter chill seem like a sauna.

In this gloomy frame of mind it was positively cheering to wander into the print room to find the Bursar arguing the theory of words with Goodmountain.

'Hold on, hold on,' said the Bursar. 'Yes, indeed, figuratively a word is made up of individual letters but they have only a,' he waved his long fingers gracefully, ' theoretical existence, if I may put it that way. They are, as it were, words partis in potentia , and it is, I am afraid, unsophisticated in the extreme to imagine that they have any real existence unis et separata . Indeed, the very concept of letters having their own physical existence is, philosophically, extremely worrying. Indeed, it would be like noses and fingers running around the world all by themselves--'

That's three 'indeeds', thought William, who noticed things like that. Three indeeds used by a person in one brief speech generally meant an internal spring was about to break.

'We got whole boxes of letters,' said Goodmountain flatly. 'We can make any words you want.'

That's the trouble, you see,' said the Bursar. 'Supposing the metal remembers the words it has printed? At least engravers melt down their plates, and the cleansing effect of fire will--'

' 'scuse me, your reverence,' said Goodmountain. One of the dwarfs had tapped him gently on the shoulder and handed him a square of paper. He passed it up to the Bursar.

'Young Caslong here thought you might like this as a souvenir,' he said. 'He took it down directly from the case and pulled it off on the stone. He's very quick like that.'

The Bursar tried to look the young dwarf sternly up and down, although this was a pretty pointless intimidatory tactic to use on dwarfs since they had very little up to look down from.

'Really?' he said. 'How very...' His eyes scanned the paper.

And then bulged.

'But these are... when I said... I only just said... How did you know I was going to say... I mean, my actual words...' he stuttered.

'Of course they're not properly justified,' said Goodmountain.

'Now just a moment-- ' the Bursar began.

William left them to it. The stone he could work out - even the engravers used a big flat stone as a workbench. And he'd seen dwarfs pulling paper sheets off the metal letters, so that made sense, too. And what the Bursar said had been unjustified. It wasn't as if metal had a soul.

He looked over the head of a dwarf who was busily assembling letters in a little metal hod, the stubby fingers darting from box to box in the big tray of type in front of him. Capital letters all in the top, small letters all in the bottom. It was even possible to get an idea of what the dwarf was assembling, just by watching the movements of his hands across the tray.

'M-a-k-e-$-$-$-I-n-n-Y-o-u-r-e-S-p-a-r-e-T-y-m--' he murmured.

A certainty formed. He glanced down at the sheets of grubby paper beside the tray.

They were covered with the dense spiky handwriting that identified its owner as an anal-retentive with a poor grip.

There were no flies on C.M.O.T. Dibbler. He would have charged them rent.

With barely a conscious thought, William pulled out his notebook, licked his pencil and wrote, very carefully, in his private shorthand:

'Amzg scenes hv ocrd in the Ct with the Openg o t Prntg Engn at the Sgn o t Bucket by G. Goodmountain, Dwf, which hs causd mch intereƒt amng all prts inc. chfs of commerƒe.'

He paused. The conversation at the other end of the room was definitely taking a more conciliatory turn.

' How much a thousand?' said the Bursar.

'Even cheaper for bulk rates,' said Goodmountain. 'Small runs no problem.'

The Bursar's face had that warm glaze of someone who deals in numbers and can see one huge and inconvenient number getting smaller in the very near future, and in those circumstances philosophy doesn't stand much of a chance. And what was visible of Goodmountain's face had the cheerful scowl of someone who's worked out how to turn lead into still more gold.

'Well, of course, a contract of this size would have to be ratified by the Archchancellor himself,' said the Bursar, 'but I can assure you that he listens very carefully to everything I say.'

I'm sure he does, your lordship,' said Goodmountain cheerfully.

'Uh, by the way,' said the Bursar, 'do you people have an Annual Dinner?'

'Oh, yes. Definitely,' said the dwarf.

'When is it?'

'When would you like it?'

William scribbled: 'Mch businƒs sms likly wth a Certain Educational Body in t Ct,' and then, because he had a truly honest nature, he added, 'we hear.'

Well, that was pretty good going. He'd got one letter away only this morning and already he had an important note for the next--

--except, of course, the customers weren't expecting another one for almost a month. He had a certain feeling that by then no one would be very interested. On the other hand, if he didn 't tell them about it, someone would be bound to complain. There had been all that trouble with the rain of dogs in Treacle Mine Road last year, and it wasn't as if that had even happened.

But even if he got the dwarfs to make the type really big, one item of gossip wasn't going to go very far.

Blast.

He'd have to scuttle around a bit and find some more.

On an impulse he wandered over to the departing Bursar.

'Excuse me, sir,' he said.

The Bursar, who was feeling in a very cheerful mood, raised an eyebrow in a good-humoured way.

'Hmm?' he said. 'It's Mr de Worde, isn't it?'

'Yes, sir. I--'

I'm afraid we do all our own writing down at the University,' said the Bursar.

'I wonder if I could just ask you what you think of Mr Good-mountain's new printing engine, sir?' said William.

'Why?'

'Er... Because I'd quite like to know? And I'd like to write it down for my news letter. You know? Views of a leading member of Ankh-Morpork's thaumaturgical establishment?'

'Oh?' The Bursar hesitated. 'This is the little thing you send out to the Duchess of Quirm and the Duke of Sto Helit and people like that, isn't it?'