'Excuse me, are you the lady who is with the clowns?'
Corporal Nobbs, who had been trudging along gloomily, looked up. He was being addressed by a pleasant–faced young woman. A woman actually talking to him by choice was a novelty. Smiling while doing so was unheard of.
'Er yeah. Right. That's me.' He swallowed…'Beti.'
'My name is Bana. Would you like to come and talk with us?'
Nobby looked past her. There were a number of women of varying ages sitting around a large well. One of them waved at him shyly.
He blinked. This was uncharted territory. He looked down at his clothes, which were already the worse for wear. His clothes always looked the worse for wear five minutes after he'd put them on.
'Oh, don't worry,' said the girl. 'We know how it is. But you looked so alone. And perhaps you can help us...
They were among the group now._ There were women of every legitimate shape and size, and so far none of them had said 'Yuk,' an experience hitherto unchronicled in Nobby's personal history. In a detached, light–headed way, Corporal Nobbs felt that he was entering Paradise, and it was only an unfortunate detail that he'd come to via the wrong door.
'We are trying to comfort Netal,' said the girl. 'Her betrothed won't marry her tomorrow.'
'The swine,' said Nobby.
One of the girls, eyes red with crying, looked up sharply.
'He wanted to,' she sobbed. 'But he's been taken off to fight in Gebra! All over some island no–one's heard of! And all my family are here!'
'Who took him off?' said Nobby.
'He took himself off,' snapped an older woman. Clothing differences aside, there was something
hauntingly familiar about her, and Nobby realized that if you cut her in half the words 'mother–in–law' would be all the way through.
'Oh, Mrs Atbar,' said Netal, 'he said it was his duty. Anyway, all the boys have had to go.'
'Men!' said Nobby, rolling his eyes.
'I expect you'd know a lot about the pleasures of men, then,' said Mother–in–Law sourly.
'Mother!'
'Who, me?' said Nobby, forgetting himself for a moment. 'Oh, yeah. Lots.'
'You do?'
'Why not? Beer's favourite,' said Nobby. 'But you can't beat a good cigar, as long as it's free.'
'Hah!' Mother–in–Law picked up a basket of washing and stamped away, followed by most of the older women. The others laughed. Even the disappointed Netal smiled.
'I think that's not what she meant,' said Bana. To a chorus of giggles, she leaned down and whispered in Nobby's ear.
His expression did not change but it did seem to solidify.
'Oh, that,' he said.
There were some worlds of experience which Nobby had only contemplated on a map, but he knew what she was talking about. Of course he'd patrolled certain parts of the Shades in his time – the ones where young ladies tended to hang around without very much to do, and probably catching cold too – but those areas of police work that in other places might be of interest to a Vice Squad now tended to be looked after by the Guild of Seamstresses themselves. People who neglected to obey the... no, not the law as such, call them the unwritten rules... as laid down by Mrs Palm and her committee of very experienced ladies[15] attracted the attention of the Agony Aunts, Dotsie and Sadie, and might or might not be seen again. Even Mr Vimes approved of the arrangement. It didn't cause paperwork,
'Oh, yeah,' said Nobby, still staring at some inner screen.
Of course, he knew what...
'Oh, that,' he mumbled. 'Well, I've seen a thing or two,' he added. Largely on postcards, he had to admit.
'It must be wonderful to have so much freedom,' said Bana.
'Er.. .'
Netal burst out crying again. Her friends fluttered around her.
'I don't see why the men have to go off like this,' said Bana. 'My betrothed has gone too.'
There was a cackle from a very old woman sitting by the well. 'I can tell you why, dears. Because it's better than growing melons all day. It's better than women.'
'Men think war is better than women?'
'It's always fresh, it's alw…
