The Lancre Caper

In which Alice Band, stealth archaeologist, learns why it is not wise to go anywhere near Lancre with a pick and shovel.

There was the usual rumbling chaos as the pupils entered the classroom, fanning out and occupying desks according to the time-honoured principles of peer groups sitting together, swots up the front, rowdies right at the back, and those content to be anonymously in the middle of the pecking order inobtrusively settling into the middle seats.

Leaning on the teacher's desk at the front, Alice Band reflected that at the Assassins' School, some things were universal and could be expected at any educational establishment anywhere. She reflected that one important aspect of this school was that almost nobody dared cheek the teacher: it was, she considered, a built-in expectation. She was better-armed than most of the pupils, for one thing. And they knew it.

Pushing her glasses up her nose, Alice allowed a couple of seconds for the class to settle, then stood up straight. Thirty student Assassins followed her, expectantly.

"Archaeology." she said. " Definitions, please. You, miss Tartiflette."

A mean trick, but indispensable: pick on the kid who isn't concentrating, or obviously staring out of the window, and put them on the spot. That one pupil will hate you for it, but it serves to focus the minds of the other twenty-nine admirably.

Thirteen-year old Olivia Tartiflette, 3R, gulped and tried to wing it.

"Digging old things up, miss?"

"Digging old things up. Digging old things up" Alice repeated. She ducked down behind the desk and came up holding a shovel, which she threw across the classroom. The speed with which Olivia Tartiflette caught it drew an approving nod. The pupils at the Assassins' Guild school were also used to their teachers throwing more lethal things at them than just the blackboard duster.

"Off you go then" Alice said, brightly. "Small Gods' Cemetery is nearest. Plenty of old things there to dig up!"

"But… they're bodies, miss!"

"Which you will be adding to in due course. Always provided you live to pass your Finals, of course! OK, so we're agreed archaeology isn't just about bodies and digging up old things. Anyone want to be more specific? Anyone?"

She nodded at Olivette. "Choose somebody. No, don't say their name out loud. Just throw the shovel. Well done, good starting contribution."

This time the shovel flew at Alexander Lavish. Taken off-guard, he fumbled it slightly, but recovered before it hit the floor. Alice glared at him.

"Mr. Lavish! Wake UP! Demerit point!"

The boy coloured, and scowled. Idiot, she thought. Does he not realize that one day people might be aiming much worse things at him than a garden tool?

"Your definition of archaeology, please? Come on, the class would like to hear."

"Digging up…old, valuable things, miss? Like gold?"

There was something in the lascivious way he said gold that made her fists tingle. She reminded herself that the whole Lavish family had that particular trait, but it didn't make it any better.

"Good. Let's take that line of thought to its logical conclusion. You have the shovel, Mr. Lavish. Now get to the Royal Bank, it's just down the road, and start digging for gold. I understand there's plenty in the vaults."

The classroom collapsed into laughter.

"He'll be arrested, Miss!"

"Stealing without a Thieves' Guild licence. He'd better hope the Watch get him first!"

"The way I heard it, Miss, his whole family were stealing from the Bank and none of them have got thieves' licences!"

Alice clapped her hands for silence, seeing Lavish's expression change from sullen to furious. Part of the art was reining it in, she told herself, to allow them a little joke at each other's expense but not to allow it to become bullying. And for them to know where the line was, even with a thing like Lavish.

"Well said, Mr Lavish. We've got as far as "archaeology involves digging things up which may be old and may be of intrinsic value". But that is by no means all and there is a lot more to add yet. Thank you for your contribution. Now as before, think of somebody in the classroom and throw them the shovel. In your own time, Mr Lavish."

Alice was prepared for what happened next. To shocked gasps from the pupils and squeals from the girls, she sensed the shovel being thrown, full force and with intent, straight back at her. Without looking round, she stepped to her left, judged the moment, and picked the tool out of the air at head-height. A swift twitch of her wrist turned it and sent it back in the direction from where it had come.

Alexander Lavish leapt out of his seat as the blade of the shovel dug deep into the wood of the desk-top, within inches of his body. Alice had spent ages honing the edge of that blade to razor-sharpness and then disguising it with an application of paint and false rust. (She knew a third-year class would have the wit to know and the skills to deal with this – it was a fair test)

She stepped forward and locked her eyes with Lavish, lowering her glasses so he could see she was not amused.

"That was fair, Mr Lavish. I did tell you to choose anyone in the classroom, which by definition includes me. But let me offer a word of wisdom. If you ever try a stunt like that in my classroom again, afterwards you will be assisted upstairs to see the Master to explain your actions. And other members of staff, such as your housemaster Mr Mericet, would not even give you a warning or a second chance. He would not deal with you as leniently as I am dealing with you now. Do we understand each other, Mr Lavish? Good. Now retrieve my shovel and bring it to me. Very carefully. I shall be watching you."

Alice felt that she would be spared further trials of her authority in the coming term: nobody gossips like school pupils. It wouldn't do her any harm in the staffroom, either. And every teacher in the Guild would now be watching Lavish like a hawk.

Juliana Montefiore raised a hand, tentatively. Alice nodded, eager to get the lesson back on track.

"Miss, you were talking about robbing the Royal Bank being a kind of archaeology?" Juliana said.

Alice nodded: not quite right, but she's trying.

"And there's the Watch who will be trying to stop you. And if you haven't got a Thieves' Guild licence, then the Thieves will try to stop you. And the Patrician, if he caught you, would hang you."

Alice nodded.

Juliana, continued, hesitatingly, as if she were still working out the logic of it, "With all these people trying to stop you, Miss, is this where it becomes Stealth Archaeology?"

Alice beamed. "Now that was an intelligent comment, Miss Montefiore. Excellent. Gold star and merit point, I think!" She paused, and then the shovel was in mid-air again. "Your turn with the shovel, I think!"