The Truth

was only by accident, as a citizen hurried past him, that he saw the headline:

    WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO COBRA

    Surely Sacharissa hadn’t got out another edition by herself, had she? He ran back to the seller.
    It wasn’t the Times . The title, in big bold type that was rather better than the stuff the dwarfs made, was:
    “What’s all this?” he said to the seller, who was socially above Ron’s group by several layers of grime.

    “All this what?”
    “All this this! ” The stupid interview with Drumknott had left William very annoyed.
    “Don’t ask me, guv. I get a penny for every one I sell, that’s all I know.”
    “‘Rain of Soup in Genua’? ‘Hen Lays Egg Three Times in Hurricane’? Where’d all this come from?”
    “Look, guv, if I was a readin’ man I wouldn’t be flogging papers, right?”
    “Someone else has started a paper!” said William. He cast his eyes down to the small print at the bottom of the single page and, in this paper, even the small print wasn’t very small. “In Gleam Street?”
    He recalled the workmen bustling around outside the old warehouse. How could—but the Engravers’ Guild could, couldn’t they? They already had presses, and they certainly had the money. Tuppence was ridiculous, though, even for this single sheet of…of rubbish . If the seller got a penny, then how in the world could the printer make any money?
    Then he realized: that wouldn’t be the point, would it…the point was to put the Times out of business.
    A big red and white sign for the Inquirer was already in place across the street from the Bucket. More carts were queuing outside.
    One of Goodmountain’s dwarfs was peering around from behind the wall.
    “There’s three presses in there already,” he said. “You saw what they’ve done? They got it out in half an hour!”
    “Yes, but it’s only one sheet. And it’s made-up stuff.”
    “Is it? Even the one about the snake?”
    “I’d bet a thousand dollars.” William remembered that the smaller print had said this had happened in Lancre. He revised his estimate. “I’d bet at least a hundred dollars.”
    “That’s not the worst of it,” said the dwarf. “You’d better come in.”
    At least the press was creaking away, but most of the dwarfs were idle.
    “Shall I give you the headlines?” said Sacharissa, as he entered.
    “You’d better,” said William, sitting down at his crowded desk.
    “Engravers Offer Dwarfs One Thousand Dollars for Press.”
    “Oh, no…”
    “Vampire Iconographer and Hard-Working Writer Tempted with Five-Hundred-Dollar Salaries,” Sacharissa went on.
    “Oh, really…”
    “Dwarfs Buggered for Paper.”
    “What?”
    “That’s a direct quote from Mr. Goodmountain,” said Sacharissa. “I don’t pretend to know exactly what it means, but I understand they’ve got enough for only one more edition.”
    “And if we want any more it’s five times the old price,” said Goodmountain, coming up. “The Engravers are buying it up. Supply and demand, King says.”
    “King?” William’s brow wrinkled. “You mean Mr. King?”
    “Yeah, King of the Golden River,” said the dwarf. “And, yeah, we could just about pay that but if them across the road are going to sell their sheet for tuppence we’ll be working for practically nothing.”
    “Otto told the man from the Guild that he’d break his pledge if he saw him here again,” said Sacharissa. “He was very angry because the man was angling to find out how he was taking printable iconographs.”
    “What about you?”
    “I’m staying. I don’t trust them, especially when they’re so sneaky. They seemed very… low-class people,” said Sacharissa. “But what are we going to do? ”
    William bit his thumbnail and stared at his desk. When he moved his feet, a boot fetched up against the money chest with a reassuring thud.
    “We could cut down a bit, I daresay,” said Goodmountain.
    “Yes, but then people won’t buy the paper,” said Sacharissa. “And they ought to buy our paper, because it’s got real news in it.”
    “The news in the Inquirer looks more interesting, I have to admit,” said Goodmountain.
    “That’s because it doesn’t actually have to have any facts in it!” she snapped. “Now, I don’t mind going back to a dollar a day and Otto says he’d work for half a dollar if he can go on living in the cellar.”
    William was still staring at nothing.
    “Apart from the truth,” he said, in a distant voice,