Unseen Academicals

does this mean you won’t be training us?’
    ‘I am sorry,’ said Nutt, ‘but as you can see, I’m rather inconvenienced.’
    ‘Have you all gone loony?’ Astonishingly, this came from Juliet, standing in the corridor. ‘He’s Nutt. He potters around making candles and stuff. I see ’im around all the time and ’e’s never ’olding someone else’s leg or head. And ’e likes his football, too!’
    Glenda thought she could actually hear Trev’s heartbeat. She hurried over to the girl. ‘I told you to go,’ she hissed.
    ‘I’ve come back to tell Trev about everythin’. After all, he did write such a lovely poem.’
    ‘She’s got a point,’ said a man in a butcher’s apron. ‘I’ve seen him running around everywhere and I’ve never seen him carrying any limbs.’
    ‘That’s true,’ said the baker. ‘And anyway, didn’t he do all those lovely candles at the banquet last night? That doesn’t sound very orc-like to me.’
    ‘And,’ said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation), ‘he was training us yesterday and he never once said, “Get in there, lads, and tear their ’eads off”.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said the butler, who was making no friends as far as Glenda was concerned. ‘Humans don’t tear off heads, not like orcs.’
    An ‘Awk! Awk!’ echoed in the distance.
    ‘He’s been teaching us kinds of stuff you’d never think about,’ said the bledlow, ‘like playing the game with a blindfold on. Amazing stuff. More like filosopy than football, but damn good stuff.’
    ‘Tactical thinking and combat analysis is part of the orc make-up,’ said Nutt.
    ‘See! No one who uses make-up is going to tear your head off, right?’
    ‘Didn’t you meet my ex-wife?’ said the baker.
    ‘Well, I’d draw the line if you wore make-up,’ said the butcher to general amusement. ‘Being an orc is one thing, but we don’t want a funny one.’
    Glenda looked down at Nutt. He was crying.
    ‘My friends, I thank you for your trust in me,’ he said.
    ‘Well, you know, you’re like part of the team,’ said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation), whose smile almost managed to conceal his nervousness.
    ‘Thank you, Mister Nobbs, that means a lot to me,’ said Nutt, standing up.
    That was quite a complex movement.
    It stayed in Glenda’s mind for ever afterwards as a kind of slow-motion scene of bursting chains and cracking wood when Nutt stood up as though he had been restrained by cobwebs. Pieces of chain spun off and hit the wall. Padlocks broke. As for the couch, barely one piece remained attached to another. It dropped to the floor as so much firewood.
    ‘RUN FOR IT, LADS!’
    You would have needed some kind of special micrometer to work out which man said it first, but the stampede along the corridor was swift and over very quickly.
    ‘You know,’ said Trev, after a few moments’ silence, ‘at one point I thought this was all goin’ very well.’
    ‘Those women,’ said Glenda, ‘what were they?’
    Nutt stood forlornly in the wreckage; a length of chain slithered off him like a serpent and landed on the flagstones. ‘Them?’ he said. ‘They are the Little Sisters of Perpetual Velocity. They come from Ephebe. I think the name for their species is Furies. I think Ladyship sent them in case I tried to hurt anybody.’ The words came out without emphasis or emotion.
    ‘But you haven’t hurt anyone,’ said Glenda.
    ‘But they ran away,’ said Nutt, ‘because of what I am.’
    ‘Well, you know, they’re ordinary people,’ said Glenda. ‘They’re—’
    ‘Twits,’ said Trev.
    Nutt turned and walked down the opposite corridor, kicking off the remnants of wood and chain. ‘But the world is full of ordinary people.’
    ‘You can’t just let ’im go like that,’ said Juliet. ‘You just can’t. Look at ’im! ’e looks like ’e’s been kicked.’
    ‘I’m ’is boss, that’s my job,’ said Trev.
    Glenda caught Trev by the arm. ‘No, I’ll sort this out. Now, you listen to me, Trev Likely, under all that gab, you’re a decent sort, so I’ll tell you this: see Juliet over there? You know her, she works in the kitchens. You wrote her a lovely poem, didn’t you? Ever heard of Emberella? Everyone’s heard of Emberella. Well, you might not be my first choice for Prince Charming, but there’s probably plenty worse.’
    ‘What the hell are you talkin’ about?’ said Trev.
    ‘Juliet’s going to be leaving soon, isn’t that right, Jools?’
    Juliet’s face was a picture.