The sergeant opened his mouth to reply, and the D'regs attacked over the nearest sand‑dune.
" Music?" said the Patrician. "Ah. Tell me more."
He leaned back in an attitude that suggested attentive listening. He was extremely good at listening. He created a kind of mental suction. People told him things just to avoid the silence.
Besides, Lord Vetinari, the supreme ruler of Ankh‑Morpork, rather liked music.
People wondered what sort of music would appeal to such a man.
Highly formalized chamber music, possibly, or thunder‑andlightning opera scores.
In fact the kind of music he really liked was the kind that never got played. It ruined music, in his opinion, to torment it by involving it on dried skins, bits of dead cat and lumps of metal hammered into wires and tubes. It ought to stay written down, on the page, in rows of little dots and crotchets, all neatly caught between lines. Only there was it pure. It was when people started doing things with it that the rot set in. Much better to sit quietly in a room and read the sheets, with nothing between yourself and the mind of the composer but a scribble of ink. Having it played by sweaty fat men and people with hair in their ears and spit dribbling out of the end of their oboe... well, the idea made him shudder. Although not much, because he never did anything to extremes.
So...
" And then what happened?" he said.
" An' then he started singin', yerronner," said Cumbling Michael, licensed beggar and informal informant. "A song about Great Fiery Balls."
The Patrician raised an eyebrow.
" Pardon?"
" Somethin' like that. Couldn't really make out the words, the reason bein', the piano exploded."
" Ah? I imagine this interrupted the proceedings somewhat."
" Nah, the monkey went on playin' what was left," said Cumbling Michael. "And people got up and started cheerin' and dancin and stampin' their feet like there was a plague of cockroaches."
" And you say the men from the Musicians' Guild were hurt?"
" It was dead strange. They were white as a sheet afterwards. At least," Cumbling Michael thought about the state of his own bedding, "white as some sheets–"
The Patrician glanced at his reports while the beggar talked. It had certainly been a strange evening. A riot at the Drum... well, that was normal, although it didn't sound exactly like a typical riot and he'd never heard of wizards dancing. He rather felt he recognized the signs... There was only one thing that could make it worse.
" Tell me," he said. "What was Mr Dibbler's reaction to all this?"
" What, yerronner?"
" A simple enough question, I should have thought."
Cumbling Michael found the words 'But how did you know ole Dibbler was there? I never said' arranging themselves for the attention of his larynx, and then had second, third and fourth thoughts about saying them.
" He just sat and stared, yerronner. With his mouth open. And then he rushed right out."
" I see. Oh, dear. Thank you, Cumbling Michael. Feel free to leave."
The beggar hesitated.
" Foul Ole Ron said as yerronner sometimes pays for information," he said.
" Did he? Really? He said that, did he? Well, that is interesting." Vetinari scribbled a note in the margin of a report. "Thank you."
" Er–"
" Don't let me detain you."
" Er. No. Gods bless yerronner," said Cumbling Michael, and ran for it.
When the sound of the beggar's boots had died away the Patrician strolled over to the window, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and sighed.
There were probably city states, he reasoned, where the rulers only had to worry about the little things... barbarian invasions, the balance of payments, assassination, the local volcano erupting. There weren't people busily opening the door of reality and metaphorically saying, "Hi, come on in, pleased to see you, what a nice axe you have there, incidentally, can I make some money out of you since you're here?"
Sometimes Lord Vetinari wondered what had happened to Mr Hong. Everyone knew, of course. In general terms. But not exactly what.
What a city. In the spring, the river caught fire. About once a month, the Alchemists' Guild exploded.
He walked back to his desk and made another brief note. He was rather afraid that he was going to have to have someone killed.
Then he picked up the third movement of Fondel's Prelude in G Major and settled back to read.
Susan walked back to the alley where she'd left Binky. There were half a dozen men lying around on the cobbles, clutching parts of themselves and moaning. Susan ignored them. Anyone trying to steal Death's horse soon understood the expression 'a world of hurts'. Binky had a good aim. It would be a very small, very private world.
" The music was playing him, not the other way round," she said. "You could see. I'm not sure his fingers even touched the strings."
SQUEAK.
Susan rubbed her hand. Satchelmouth had turned out to have quite a hard head.
" Can I kill it without killing him?"
SQUEAK.
" Not a hope," the raven translated. "It's all that's keeping him alive."
" But Granda... but he said it'll end up killing him anyway!"
" It's a big wide wonderful universe all right," said the raven.
SQUEAK.
" But... look, if it's a... a parasite, or something like that," said Susan, as Binky trotted skywards, "what's the good of it killing its host?"
SQUEAK.
" He says you've got him there," said the raven. "Drop me off over Quirm, will you?"
" What does it want him for?" said Susan. "It's using him, but what for?"
" Twenty‑seven dollars!" said Ridcully. "Twenty‑seven dollars .to get you out! And the sergeant kept grinning all the time! Wizards arrested!"
He walked along the row of crestfallen figures.
" I mean, how often does the Watch get called in to the Drum?" said Ridcully. "I mean, what did you think you were doing?"
" mumblemumblemumble," said the Dean, looking at the floor.
" I'm sorry?"
" mumblemumbledancingmumble."
" Dancing," said Ridcully levelly, walking back along the row. "That's dancing, is it? Banging into people? Throwin' one another over yer shoulders? Twirling around all over the place? Not even trolls act like that (not that I've got anything against trolls mind you marvellous people marvellous people) and you're supposed to be wizards. People are supposed to look up to you and that's not because you're somersaulting over their heads, Runes, don't think I didn't notice that little display, I was frankly disgusted. The poor Bursar has had to have a lie down. Dancing is... round in circles, don'tcherknow, Maypoles and suchlike, healthy reels, perhaps a little light ballroom... not swinging people round like a dwarf with a battleaxe (mind you salt of the earth dwarfs I've always said so). Do I make myself clear?"
" mumblemumblemumbleeveryonewasdoingitmumble," said the Dean, still looking at the floor.
" I never thought I'd say this to any wizard over the age of eighteen, but you're all gated until further notice!" shouted Ridcully.
Being confined to the campus was not much of a punishment. The wizards usually distrusted any air that hadn't hung around indoors for a while, and mostly lived in a kind of groove between their rooms and the dining table. But they were feeling strange.
" mumblemumbledon'tseewhymumble," mumbled the Dean.
He said, much later on, on the day when the music died, that it must have been because he'd never been really young, or at least young while just being old enough to know he was young. Like most wizards, he'd begun his training while still so small that the official pointy hat came down over his ears. And after that he'd just been, well, a wizard.