Free The Truth by Terry Pratchett Page B

Tulip always made sure that any truly irreplaceable pieces were removed first, even though that meant taking extra time to tie the inhabitants to their beds. Somewhere under that self-inflicted scar tissue and at the heart of that shuddering anger was the soul of a true connoisseur with an unerring instinct for beauty. It was a strange thing to find in the body of a man who would mainline bath salts.
    The big doors at the other end of the room swung open, revealing the dark space beyond.
    “Mr. Tulip?” said Mr. Pin.
    Tulip drew himself away from a painstaking examination of a possible Tapasi table, with its magnificent inlay work involving dozens of —ing rare veneers.
    “Huh?”
    “Time to meet the bosses again,” said Mr. Pin.

     

    William was just getting ready to leave his office for good when someone knocked at his door.
    He opened it cautiously, but it was pushed the rest of the way.
    “You utter, utter—ungrateful person!”
    It wasn’t a nice thing to be called, especially by a young lady. She could use a simple word like “ungrateful” in a way that would require a dash and an “ing” in the mouth of Mr. Tulip.
    William had seen Sacharissa Cripslock before, generally helping her grandfather in his tiny workshop. He’d never paid her much attention. She wasn’t particularly attractive, but she wasn’t particularly bad-looking, either. She was just a girl in an apron, doing slightly dainty things in the background, such as light dusting and arranging flowers. Insofar as he’d formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners.
    Now he could see her a lot plainer, mostly because she was advancing towards him across the room, and in the light-headed way of people who think they’re just about to die he realized that she was quite good-looking if considered over several centuries . Concepts of beauty change over the years, and two hundred years ago Sacharissa’s eyes would have made the great painter Caravati bite his brush in half; three hundred years ago the sculptor Mauvaise would have taken one look at her chin and dropped his chisel on his foot; a thousand years ago the Ephebian poets would have agreed that her nose alone was capable of launching at least forty ships. And she had good medieval ears.
    Her hand was quite modern, though, and it caught William a stinging blow on the cheek.
    “That twenty dollars a month was nearly all we had!”
    “Sorry? What?”
    “All right, he isn’t very fast, but in his day he was one of the best engravers in the business!”
    “Oh…yes. Er…” He had a sudden flash of guilt about Mr. Cripslock.
    “And you took it away, just like that!”
    “I didn’t mean to! The dwarfs just…things just happened!”
    “You’re working for them?”
    “Sort of…with them…” said William.
    “While we starve, I suppose?”
    Sacharissa stood there panting. She had a well-crafted supply of other features that never go out of fashion at all and are perfectly at home in any century. She clearly believed that severe, old-fashioned dresses toned these down. They did not.
    “Look, I’m stuck with them,” said William, trying not to stare. “I mean, stuck with the dwarfs . Lord Vetinari was very… definite about it. And it’s suddenly all become very complicated—”
    “The Guild of Engravers is going to be livid about this, you do know that?” she demanded.
    “Er…yes.” A desperate idea struck William rather harder than her hand. “That’s a point. You wouldn’t like to, er, be official about that, would you? You know: ‘We are livid,’ says spokesm—spokeswoman for the Guild of Engravers?”
    “Why?” she said suspiciously.
    “I’m desperate for things to put in my next edition,” said William desperately. “Look, can you help me? I can give you—oh, twenty pence an item, and I could use at least five a day.”
    She