Interesting Times

themselves when they sat down for dinner. They acted, Mr. Saveloy thought, rather like boys who’d just got their first pair of long trousers.
    Which they had done. Each man had one baggy pair of same, plus a long grey robe.
    “We’ve been shopping ,” said Caleb proudly. “Paying for things with money . We’re dressed up like civilized people.”
    “Yes indeed,” said Mr. Saveloy indulgently. He was hoping that they could all get through this without the Horde finding out what kind of civilized people they were dressed up as. As it was, the beards were a problem. The kind of people who wore these kind of clothes in the Forbidden City didn’t usually have beards. They were proverbial for not having them. Actually, they were more properly proverbial for not having other things but, as a sort of consequence of this lack, also for not having beards.
    Cohen shifted. “Itchy,” he said. “This is pants, is it? Never worn ’em before. Same with shirts. What good’s a shirt that’s not chain mail?”
    “We did very well, though,” said Caleb. He had even had a shave, obliging the barber, for the first time in his experience, to use a chisel. He kept rubbing his naked, baby-pink chin.
    “Yeah, we’re really civilized,” said Vincent.
    “Except for the bit where you set fire to that shopkeeper,” said Boy Willie.
    “Nah, I only set fire to him a bit.”
    “Whut?”
    “Teach?”
    “Yes, Cohen?”
    “Why did you tell that firework merchant that everyone you knew had died suddenly?”
    Mr. Saveloy’s foot tapped gently against the large parcel under the table, alongside a nice new cauldron.
    “So he wouldn’t get suspicious about what I was buying,” he said.
    “Five thousand firecrackers?”
    “Whut?”
    “Well,” said Mr. Saveloy. “Did I ever tell you that after I taught geography in the Assassins’ Guild and the Plumbers’ Guild I did it for a few terms in the Alchemists’ Guild?”
    “Alchemists? Loonies, the lot of them,” said Truckle.
    “But they’re keen on geography,” said Mr. Saveloy. “I suppose they need to know where they’ve landed. Eat up, gentlemen. It may be a long night.”
    “What is this stuff?” said Truckle, spearing something with his chopstick.
    “Er. Chow,” said Mr. Saveloy.
    “Yes, but what is it?”
    “Chow. A kind of…er…dog.”
    The Horde looked at him.
    “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said hurriedly, with the sincerity of a man who had ordered bamboo shoots and bean curd for himself.
    “I’ve eaten everything else,” said Truckle, “but I ain’t eating dog. I had a dog once. Rover.”
    “Yeah,” said Cohen. “The one with the spiked collar? The one who used to eat people?”
    “Say what you like, he was a friend to me,” said Truckle, pushing the meat to one side.
    “Rabid death to everyone else. I’ll eat yours. Order him some chicken, Teach.”
    “Et a man once,” mumbled Mad Hamish. “In a siege, it were.”
    “You ate someone?” said Mr. Saveloy, beckoning to the waiter.
    “Just a leg.”
    “That’s terrible!”
    “Not with mustard.”
    Just when I think I know them, Mr. Saveloy mused…
    He reached for his wine glass. The Horde reached for their glasses, too, while watching him carefully.
    “A toast, gentlemen,” he said. “And remember what I said about not quaffing. Quaffing just gets your ears wet. Just sip. To Civilization!”
    The Horde joined in with their own toasts.
    “‘Pcharn’kov!’” *
    “‘Lie down on the floor and no one gets hurt!’”
    “‘May you live in interesting pants!’”
    “‘What’s the magic word? Gimme!’”
    “‘Death to most tyrants!’”
    “Whut?”

    “The walls of the Forbidden City are forty feet high,” said Butterfly.
    “And the gates are made of brass. There are hundreds of guards. But of course we have the Great Wizard.”
    “Who?”
    “You.”
    “Sorry, I was forgetting.”
    “Yes,” said Butterfly, giving Rincewind a long, appraising look. Rincewind remembered tutors giving him a look like that when he’d got high marks in some test by simply guessing at the answers.
    He looked down hurriedly at the charcoal scrawls Lotus Blossom had made.
    Cohen’d know what to do, he thought. He’d just slaughter his way through. It’d never cross his mind to be afraid or worried. He’s the kind of man you need at a time like this.
    “No doubt you have magic spells that can blow down the walls,” said Lotus Blossom.
    Rincewind wondered what they