“It’s a long way,” she said. “I can’t be keeping on going backward and forward at my time of life.”
“We could buy you a much better broomstick,” said Cutangle. “One you don’t have to bump start. And you, you could have a flat here. And all the old clothes you can carry,” he added, using the secret weapon. He had wisely invested in some conversation with Mrs. Whitlow.
“Mmph,” said Granny, “Silk?”
“Black and red,” said Cutangle. An image of Granny in black and red silk trotted across his mind, and he bit heavily into his scone.
“And maybe we can bring some students out to your cottage in the summer,” Cutangle went on, “for extra-mural studies.”
“Who’s Extra Muriel?”
“I mean, there’s lots they can learn, I’m sure.
Granny considered this. Certainly the privy needed a good seeing-to before the weather got too warm, and the goat shed was ripe for the mucking-out by spring. Digging over the Herb bed was a chore, too. The bedroom ceiling was a disgrace, and some of the tiles needed fixing.
“Practical things?” she said, thoughtfully.
“Absolutely,” said Cutangle.
“Mmph. Well, I’ll think about it,” said Granny, dimly aware that one should never go too far on a first date.
“Perhaps you would care to dine with me this evening and let me know?” said Cutangle, his eyes agleam.
“What’s to eat?”
“Cold meat and potatoes.” Mrs. Whitlow had done her work well.
There was.
Esk and Simon went on to develop a whole new type of magic that no one could exactly understand but which nevertheless everyone considered very worthwhile and somehow comforting.
Perhaps more importantly, the ants used all the sugar lumps they could steal to build a small sugar pyramid in one of the hollow walls, in which, with great ceremony, they entombed the mummified body of a dead queen. On the wall of one tiny hidden chamber they inscribed, in insect hieroglyphs, the true secret of longevity.
They got it absolutely right and it would probably have important implications for the universe if it hadn’t, next time the University flooded, been completely washed away.
About the Author
Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very String Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions?
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Unanimous Praise For
Terry Pratchett
“For lighthearted escape with a thoughtful center, you can’t do better than…any…Discworld novel.”
—Washington Post Book World
“If I were making my list of Best Books of the Twentieth Century, Terry Pratchett’s would be most of them.”
—Elizabeth Peters
“Consistently, inventively mad…wild and wonderful!”
—Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
“Simply the best humorous writer of the twentieth century.”
—Oxford Times
“A brilliant story-teller with a sense of humour…whose infectious fun completely engulfs you…The Dickens of the twentieth century”
—Mail on Sunday (London)
“If you are unfamiliar with Pratchett’s unique blend of philosophical badinage interspersed with slapstick, you are on the threshold of a mind–expanding opportunity.”
—Financial Times (London)
“If you don’t know Pratchett and Discworld, you’ve got a treat in store.”
—Jerry Pournelle
“The funniest parodist working in the field today, period.”
—New York Review of Science Fiction
“Pratchett demonstrates just how great the distance is between one–or two–joke writers and the comic masters whose work will be read into the next century.”
—Locus
“Terry Pratchett is fast, funny and going places. Try him!”
—Piers Anthony
“As always he is head and shoulders above the best of the rest. He is screamingly funny. He is wise. He has style.”
—Daily Telegraph (London)
“Pratchett is a comic genius.”
—Express (London)
“Pratchett is as funny as Wodehouse and as witty as Waugh.”
—Independent (London)
“Terry Pratchett does for fantasy what Douglas Adams did for science fiction.”
—Today (Great Britain)
”What makes Terry Pratchett’s fantasies so entertaining is that their humour depends on the characters first, on the plot second, rather than the other way around. The story isn’t there simply to lead from one slapstick pratfall to another pun. Its humour is genuine and unforced.”
—Ottawa Citizen
”Terry Pratchett ought to be locked in a padded cell. And forced to write a book a month.”
—Barbara Michaels
“Terry Pratchett is more than a magician. He is the kindest, most fascinating teacher you ever had.”
—Harlan Ellison
“It is his unexpected insights into human mortality that make the Discworld series stand out.”
—Times Literary Supplement (London)
“Quite probably the funniest living author, bar nobody.”
—Good Book Guide (England)
“Delightful…Logically illogical as only Terry Pratchett can write.”
—Anne McCaffrey
BOOKS BY TERRY PRATCHETT
The Carpet People
The Dark Side of the Sun
Strata · Truckers
Diggers · Wings
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Dead · Johnny and the Bomb
The Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Jollife)
Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
THE DISCWORLD® SERIES:
Going Postal • Monstrous Regiment • Night Watch
The Last Hero • The Truth • Thief of Time
The Fifth Elephant • Carpe Jugulum
The Last Continent · Jingo
Hogfather • Feet of Clay • Maskerade
Interesting Times · Soul Music · Men at Arms
Lords and Ladies · Small Gods
Witches Abroad · Reaper Man
Moving Pictures · Eric (with Josh Kirby)
Guards! Guards! · Pyramids
Wyrd Sisters · Sourcery · Mort · Equal Rites
The Light Fantastic · The Color of Magic
Mort: A Discworld Big Comic (with Graham Higgins)
The Streets of Ankh-Morpork (with Stephen Briggs)
The Discworld Companion (with Stephen Briggs)
The Discworld Mapp (with Stephen Briggs)
The Pratchett Portfolio (with Paul Kidby)
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
EQUAL RITES. Copyright © 1987 by Terry Pratchett. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Epub Edition © FEBRUARY 2007 ISBN: 9780061804830
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* A very respectable body which in fact represented the major law enforcement agency in the city. The reason for this is as follows: the Guild was given an annual quota which represented a socially acceptable level of thefts, muggings and assassinations, and in return saw to it in very definite and final ways that unofficial crime was not only rapidly stamped out but knifed, garrotted, dismembered and left around the city in an assortment of paper bags as well. This was held to be a cheap and enlightened arrangement, except by those malcontents who were actually mugged or assassinated and refused to see it as their social duty, and it enabled the city’s thieves to plan a decent career structure, entrance examinations and codes of conduct similar to those adopted by the city’s other professions—which, the gap not being very wide in any case, they rapidly came to resemble.
Discworld 03 - Equal Rites Page 22
