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At the makeshift station Iron Girder was being guarded by Nobby Nobbs and Fred Colon, who were both sound asleep. Iron Girder, however, wasn’t, although the kettle was barely simmering after a long day giving rides to the locals up and down the single track.
Moist tiptoed to the empty footplate and whispered, ‘What are you, Iron Girder?’ There was a moment of silence, then a shimmer as the wisps of steam drifted up into the night air above the locomotive and a voice breathed into his brain, soft and warm and somehow damp.
‘My, oh my, Mister Lipwig, you are the smart one, just as they say. I am me. I am Iron Girder. But all it takes is for people to believe and I am no longer just an artefact put together by clever engineers. I am an idea, a something made of nothing, whose time has come to be. Some even call me “goddess”.’
Moist’s fleeting thought about traditional representations of goddesses in diaphanous nighties with maybe an urn or two was banished as the voice continued a little more sharply.
‘Am I not beautiful? And I tell you, my children will be even better! More sleek and more handsome and more powerful! Even now Mister Simnel is making my children for me. In time I will become ubiquitous, part of the landscape which is ennobled by my fleeting passage. I hear the worship every day that tells me that I am power personified and those who think to oppose me and put out my fire will find themselves thwarted, and swiftly. I, Mister Lipwig, I will rule on the up line and I will rule on the down line.’
In the twilight Moist saw a skinny figure walk up to Iron Girder. Dick Simnel shut down some hissing mechanism or other and the voice, the beautiful voice, was silenced.
‘Aye, she’s gradely all right! Come to see her for the last time before we head back to the city, have you? I can’t blame you. Everyone’s been wanting to see ’er, and I won’t lie, Mister Lipwig, it’s a wrench to leave her behind, for all she’s got good work to do ’ere. Iron Girder, she’s turned out to be a great lass. She was the power and she was ’arnessed, by gum. Oh, yes! ’arnessed by the sine and the cosine, and even the tangent had its little ’and in there somewhere! But not least she was tamed by my sliding rule.’
Dick grinned at Moist and continued. ‘People see Iron Girder and they’re gobsmacked by what can be done with mathematics! Don’t you go thinking she’ll burn you with living steam because she won’t. I’ve seen to it that she won’t. She’ll always be my favourite engine, Mister Lipwig, the queen of them all. She lives. How could anyone say she doesn’t?’
Moist looked around and saw that they were surrounded by goblins sitting quietly in a big circle like worshippers at the shrine, and once again Dick Simnel said, ‘Power, Mister Lipwig, power under control.’
Moist was seldom speechless, but this time all he could say was, ‘Good luck with that, Mister Simnel. Good luck.’
And the driver made his magic and the fire box opened and spilled dancing red shadows all around the footplate. And then came the rattle and jerk as Iron Girder took the strain and breathed steam for one more turn around the track as the goblins whooped and cackled and scrambled up her sides. And then came the first chuff and the second chuff and then the chuff bucket overflowed as Iron Girder escaped the pull of friction and gravity and flew along the rails.
Dick Simnel lit his pipe from a hot coal and said to the night, ‘Aye, gradely.’
When Drumknott entered the Oblong Office a few days later there was a familiarity to the silence, interrupted only by the scratch of a pencil as the austere figure behind the desk filled in a word on that day’s crossword. Drumknott coughed.
‘Yes?’
The face of the Patrician was forbidding. An eyebrow shifted quizzically, a characteristic known and feared by many. Drumknott smiled.
‘Many congratulations! You have that expression down to a T and the accent never faltered. And, of course, the frown! You’ve always been very good at the frown. Quite frankly, if he was standing next to you I wouldn’t know whom from which.’
Suddenly the face of the Patrician disappeared, leaving only Charlie the Clown in Lord Vetinari’s clothes, looking embarrassed.
‘It wasn’t very dif
ficult, Mister Drumknott, with you giving me those little signs and everything.’
‘Oh no,’ said Drumknott. ‘Your performance was perfect. You’ve impersonated his lordship for two weeks and not put a foot wrong! But now to business. The sum we agreed will be deposited in your special account at the Royal Bank tomorrow.’ Drumknott smiled again and said, like a cheerful uncle, ‘How is your wife these days, Charlie?’
‘Oh, Henrietta’s fine, Mister Drumknott, thank you for asking.’
‘And your little boy – Rupert? He must be out of school now, yes?’
Charlie laughed uncertainly and said, ‘Not so little, sir, he’s growing up like a weed and wants to be an engine driver.’
And Drumknott said, ‘Well now, Charlie, you already have enough money to put him through a trade anywhere in the city and give your daughter a dowry fit for a queen. And, of course, you’re still in the same house? Excellent!’
‘Oh, yessir, and thanks to you we’ve got much better bedrooms for the kids now and are saving up for a granny flat for when we can afford a granny. And Henrietta is overjoyed at the amount of money I’m bringing in these days and can even afford to get her hair cut at Mister Fornacite’s, just like the posh ladies do. She’s over the moon about it.’ He grunted and said, ‘I don’t earn that much from the puppet shows and clowning business.’
And now Drumknott beamed once again and said, ‘I’m sure his lordship will be glad to hear that your family is so happy and … alive. Long may it continue. I’ll be recommending to him that you could be promoted, as it were, to higher things. And now, since his lordship is expected back within the hour, if you don’t mind I’ll take you out through the back door. We really don’t want to see two Vetinaris in one place, do we?’
Charlie went almost white and said, ‘Oh, no sir, we don’t want that.’
‘Well, we shan’t, shall we,’ said Drumknott. ‘Off you go and I’ll lock the door behind you.’
When Charlie had disappeared, happy but in haste, Drumknott, after a moment’s thought, said to Dark Clerk Ishmael, ‘I’m sure his lordship will want to know that we’ve checked the location of this Mister Fornacite’s salon and the school that our friend’s children go to. Is it the same as last year?’
And the clerk replied, ‘Yes, it is, sir, I checked again the other day.’
