Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(91)

'We never even presented the captain with his watch,' said Carrot, taking it out of his pocket. 'He must have gone off thinking we didn't care. He was probably looking forward to getting a watch. I know it always used to be a tradition.'

'It's been a busy few days, sir. Anyway, we can give it to him after the wedding.'

Carrot slipped the watch back into its bag.

'I suppose so. Well, let's get organized, sergeant.'

Corporal Nobbs toiled through the darkness under the city. His eyes had got accustomed to the gloom now. He was dying for a smoke, but Carrot had warned him about that. Just take the sack, follow the trail, bring back the body. And don't nick any jewellery.

People were already filing into the Great Hall of Unseen University.

Vimes had been firm about this. It was the only thing he'd held out for. He wasn't exactly an atheist, because atheism was a non-survival trait on a world with several thousand gods. He just didn't like any of them very much, and didn't see what business it was of theirs that he was getting married. He'd turned down any of the temples and churches, but the Great Hall had a sufficiently churchy look, which is what people always feel is mandatory on these occasions. It's not actually essential for any gods to drop in, but they should feel at home if they do.

Vimes strolled down there early,' because there's nothing more useless in the world than a groom just before the wedding. Interchangeable Emmas had taken over the house.

There were already a couple of ushers in place, ready to ask guests whose side they were on.

And there were a number of senior wizards hanging around. They were automatically guests at such a society wedding, and certainly at the reception afterwards. Probably one roast ox wouldn't be enough.

Despite his deep distrust of magic, he quite liked the wizards. They didn't cause trouble. At least, they didn't cause his kind of trouble. True, occasionally they fractured the time/space continuum or took the canoe of reality too close to the white waters of chaos, but they never broke the actual law.

'Good morning, Archchancellor,' he said.

Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, supreme leader of all the wizards in Ankh-Morpork whenever they could be bothered, gave him a cheery nod.

'Good morning, captain,' he said. 'I must say you've got a nice day for it!'

'Hahaha, a nice day for it!' leered the Bursar.

'Oh dear,' said Ridcully, 'he's off again. Can't understand the man. Anyone got the dried frog pills?'

It was a complete mystery to Mustrum Ridcully, a man designed by Nature to live outdoors and happily slaughter anything that coughed in the bushes, why the Bursar (a man designed by Nature to sit in a small room somewhere, adding up figures) was so nervous. He'd tried all sorts of things to, as he put it, buck him up. These included practical jokes, surprise early morning runs, and leaping out at him from behind doors while wearing Willie the Vampire masks in order, he said, to take him out of himself.

The service itself was going to be performed by the Dean, who had carefully made one up; there was no official civil marriage service in Ankh-Morpork, other than something approximating to 'Oh, all right then, if you really must.' He nodded enthusiastically at Vimes.

'We've cleaned our organ especially for the occasion, he said.

'Hahaha, organ!' said the Bursar.

And a mighty one it is, as organs go—' Ridcully stopped, and signalled to a couple of student wizards. 'Just take the Bursar away and make him lie down for a while, will you?' he said. 'I think someone's been feeding him meat again.'

There was a hiss from the far end of the Great Hall, and then a strangled squeak. Vimes stared at the monstrous array of pipes.

'Got eight students pumping the bellows,' said Ridcully, to a background of wheezes. 'It's got three keyboards and a hundred extra knobs, including twelve with “?” on them.'

'Sounds impossible for a man to play,' said Vimes politely.

'Ah. We had a stroke of luck there—'

There was a moment of sound so loud that the aural nerves shut down. When they opened again, somewhere around the pain threshold, they could just make out the opening and extremely bent bars of Fondel's 'Wedding March', being played with gusto by someone who'd discovered that the instrument didn't just have three keyboards but a whole range of special acoustic effects, ranging from Flatulence to Humorous Chicken Squawk. The occasional 'oook!' of appreciation could be heard amidst the sonic explosion.

Somewhere under the table, Vimes screamed at Ridcully: 'Amazing! Who built it!'

'I don't know! But it's got the name B.S. Johnson on the keyboard cover!'

There was a descending wail, one last Hurdy-Gurdy Effect, and then silence.

'Twenty minutes those lads were pumping up the reservoirs,' said Ridcully, dusting himself off as he stood op. 'Go easy on the Vox Dei stop, there's a good chap!'

'Ook!'

The Archchancellor turned back to Vimes, who was wearing the standard waxen pre-nuptial grimace. The hall was filling up quite well now.

'I'm not an expert on this stuff,' he said, 'but you've got the ring, have you?'

'Yes.'

'Who's giving away the bride?'

'Her Uncle Lofthouse. He's a bit gaga, but she insisted.'