Monstrous Regiment Read Free Page B

all sorts in the Watch,” said Vimes. “And we bloody well need ’em now, Clarence, with Zlobenians and Borogravians scrapping in the streets over some damn quarrel that began a thousand years ago. It’s worse than dwarfs and trolls! All because someone’s great-to-the-power-of-umpteen grandmother slapped the face of someone’s great-ditto uncle! Borogravia and Zlobenia can’t even agree on a border! They chose the river, and that changes course every spring! Suddenly the clacks towers are now on Borogravian soil—or mud, anyway—so the idiots burn them down for religious reasons!”
    “Er, there is more to it than that, sir,” said Chinny.
    “Yes, I know. I read the history. The annual scrap with Zlobenia is just the local derby. Borogravia fights everybody. Why?”
    “National pride, sir.”
    “What in? There’s nothing there! There’s some tallow mines, and they’re not bad farmers, but there’s no great architecture, no big libraries, no famous composers, no very high mountains, no wonderful views. All you can say about the place is that it isn’t anywhere else. What’s so special about Borogravia?”
    “I suppose it’s special because it’s theirs. And of course there’s Nuggan, sir. Their god. I’ve brought you a copy of the Book of Nuggan.”
    “I looked through one back in the city, Chinny,” said Vimes. “Seemed pretty stu—”
    “That wouldn’t have been a recent edition, sir. And I suspect it wouldn’t be, er, very current that far from here. This one is more up to date,” said Chinny, putting a small but thick book on the desk.
    “Up to date? What do you mean, up to date?” said Vimes, looking puzzled. “Holy writ gets…written. Do this, don’t do that, no coveting your neighbor’s ox…”
    “Um…Nuggan doesn’t just leave it at that, sir. He, er…updates things. Mostly the Abominations, to be frank.”
    Vimes took the new copy. It was noticeably thicker than the one he’d brought with him.
    “It’s what they call a Living Testament,” Chinny explained. “They—well, I suppose you could say they ‘die’ if they’re taken out of Borogravia. They no longer…get added to. The latest Abominations are at the end, sir,” he said helpfully.
    “This is a holy book with an appendix?”
    “Exactly, sir.”
    “In a ring binder? ”
    “Quite so, sir. People put blank pages in and the Abominations…turn up.”
    “You mean magically?”
    “I suppose I mean religiously, sir.”
    Vimes opened a page at random.
    “Chocolate?” he said. “He doesn’t like chocolate?”
    “Yes, sir. That’s an Abomination.”
    “Garlic? Well, I don’t much like it either, so fair enough…cats?”
    “Oh, yes. He really doesn’t like cats, sir.”
    “Dwarfs? It says here, ‘The dwarfish race which worships Gold are an Abomination Unto Nuggan’! He must be mad. What happened?”
    “Oh, the dwarfs that were here sealed their mines and vanished, Your Grace.”
    “I bet they did. They know trouble when they see it,” said Vimes. He let “Your Grace” pass this time; Chinny clearly derived some satisfaction from talking to a duke.
    He leafed through the pages and stopped.
    “The color blue?”
    “Correct, sir.”
    “What’s abominable about the color blue? It’s just a color! The sky is blue!”
    “Yes, sir. Devout Nugganites try not to look at it these days. Um…” Chinny had been trained as a diplomat. Some things he didn’t like to say directly.
    “Nuggan, sir…um…is rather…tetchy,” he managed.
    “Tetchy?” said Vimes. “A tetchy god? What, he complains about the noise their kids make? Objects to loud music after nine P.M. ?”
    “Um…we get the Ankh-Morpork Times here, sir, eventually, and, er, I’d say, er, that Nuggan is very much like, er, the kind of people who write to its letter column. You know, sir. The kind who sign their letters ‘Disgusted with Ankh-Morpork’…”
    “Oh, you mean he really is mad,” said Vimes.
    “Oh, I’d never mean