‘Yes, sir. Evans the Striped. He vanished about forty years ago, I believe.’

‘Killed? It was dead men’s shoes in those days, you know.’

‘I can’t imagine who would want his job. Apparently he evaporated while doing press-ups in the Great Hall one day.’

‘Evaporated? What kind of death is that for a wizard? Any wizard would die of shame if he just evaporated. We always leave something behind, even if it’s only smoke. Oh, well. Cometh the hour, cometh the… whatever. General comethness, perhaps. What is that thinking engine of yours doing these days?’

Ponder brightened. ‘As a matter of fact, Archchancellor, Hex has just discovered a new particle. It travels faster than light in two directions at once!’

‘Can we make it do anything interesting?’

‘Well yes! It totally explodes Spolwhittle’s Trans-Congruency Theory!’

‘Good,’ said Ridcully cheerfully. ‘Just so long as something explodes. Since it’s finished exploding, set it to finding either Evans or a decent substitute. Sports masters are pretty elementary particles, it shouldn’t be difficult. And call a meeting of the Council in ten minutes. We are going to play football!’

Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the Council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair–the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief. Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth. More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty.

‘Well, go on, then, what did he say?’

‘He responded to reasoned argument.’

‘He did? Where’s the catch?’

‘None. But he wants the rules to be more traditional.’

‘Surely not! Gather they are practically prehistoric as it is!’

‘And he wants the university to take the lead in all this, and quickly. Gentlemen, there is a game going to be played in about three hours’ time. I suggest we observe it. And to this end, I will require you to wear… trousers.’

After a while Ridcully took out his watch, which was one of the old-fashioned imp-driven ones and was reliably inaccurate. He flipped up the gold lid and stared patiently as the little creature pedalled the hands around. When the expostulating had not stopped after a minute and a half, he snapped the lid shut. The click had an effect that no amount of extra shouting could have achieved.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said gravely. ‘We must partake of the game of the people–from whom, I might add, we derive. Has any of us, in the last few decades, even seen the game being played? I thought not. We should get outside more. Now, I’m not asking you to do this for me, or even for the hundreds of people who work to provide us with a life in which discomfort so seldom rears its head. Yes, many other ugly heads have reared, it is true, but dinner has always beckoned. We are, fellow wizards, the city’s last line of defence against all the horrors that can be thrown against it. However, none of them are as potentially dangerous as us. Yes, indeed. I don’t know what might happen if wizards were really hungry. So do this, I implore you on this one occasion, for the sake of the cheeseboard.’

There had been some nobler calls to arms in history, Ridcully would be the first to admit, but this one was well tailored to its target audience. There was some grumbling, but that was the same as saying that the sky was blue.

‘What about lunch?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes suspiciously.

‘We’ll eat early,’ said Ridcully, ‘and I am told that the pies at the game are just–amazing.’

Truth, in front of her huge walk-in wardrobe, selected black leather boots with stiletto heels for such a barefaced truth.

Nutt was already waiting with a proud but worried look on his face when Glenda got in to the Night Kitchen. She didn’t notice him at first, but she turned back from hanging her coat on its peg and there he was, holding a couple of dishes in front of him like shields.

She almost had to shade her eyes because they gleamed so brightly.

‘I hope this is all right,’ said Nutt nervously.

‘What have you done?’

‘I plated them with silver, miss.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘Oh, there’s all kinds of old stuff in the cellars and, well, I know how to do things. It won’t cause trouble for anyone, will it?’ Nutt added, looking suddenly anxious.

Glenda wondered if it would. It shouldn’t, but you could never be sure with Mrs Whitlow. Well, she could solve that problem by hiding them somewhere until they tarnished.

‘It’s kind of you to take the trouble. I generally have to chase people to get plates back. You are a real gentleman,’ she said, and his face lit up like a sunrise.

‘You are very kind,’ he beamed, ‘and a very handsome lady with your two enormous chests that indicate bountifulness and fecundity—’

The morning air froze in one enormous block. He could tell he’d said something wrong, but he had no idea what it was.

Glenda looked around to see if anyone had heard, but the huge gloomy room was otherwise empty. She was always the first one in and the last one out. Then she said, ‘Stay right there. Don’t you dare move an inch! Not an inch! And don’t steal any chickens!’ she commanded as an afterthought.

She should have trailed steam as she headed out of the room, her boots echoing on the flagstones. What a thing to come out with! Who did he think he was? Come to that, who did she think he was? And what did she think he was?

The cellars and undercrofts of the university were a small city in themselves, and bakers and butchers turned to look as she clattered past. She didn’t dare stop now; it would be too embarrassing.

If you knew all the passages and stairs, and if they stayed still for five minutes, it was possible to get to just about anywhere in the university without going above ground. Probably none of the wizards knew the maze. Not many of them cared to know the dull details of domestic management. Hah, they thought the dinners turned up by magic!

A small set of stone steps led up to the little door. Hardly anyone used it these days. The other girls wouldn’t go in there. But Glenda would. Even after the very first time that she had, in response to the bell, delivered the midnight banana, or rather had failed to deliver it on account of running away screaming, she knew she’d have to face it again. After all, we can’t help how we’re made, her mother had said, and nor can we help what a magical accident might turn us into through no fault of our own, as Mrs Whitlow had explained slightly more recently, when the screaming had stopped. And so Glenda had picked up the banana and had headed right back there.

Now, of course, she was surprised that anyone might find it odd that the custodian of all the knowledge that could be was a reddish brown and generally hung several feet above his desk, and she was pretty certain that she knew at least fourteen meanings of the word ‘ook’.

As it was daytime, the huge building beyond the little door was bustling, insofar as the word can be applied to a library. She headed towards the nearest lesser librarian, who failed to look the other way in time, and demanded: ‘I need to see a dictionary of embarrassing words beginning with F!’

His haughty glance softened somewhat when he realized she was a cook. Wizards always had a place in their hearts for cooks, because it was near their stomach.