Unseen Academicals

Smeems clung to the vertiginous candle as he heard, down below, mysterious scrapings and clinking noises. Then, with a silence and suddenness that made him gasp, a spiky shape rose up beside him, swaying slightly.

‘I’ve screwed together three of the big snuffer poles, master,’ said Nutt from below. ‘And you’ll see there’s a chandelier hook stuck in the top, yes? And there’s a rope. Can you see it? I think that if you can make a loop around the Emperor it won’t slip much and you ought to be able to let yourself down slowly. Oh, and there’s a box of matches, too.’

‘What for?’ said Smeems, reaching out for the hook.

‘Can’t help noticing that the Emperor has gone out, sir,’ said the voice from below, cheerfully.

‘No it hasn’t!’

‘I think you’ll find it has, sir, because I can’t see the—’

‘There is no room in this university’s most important department for people with bad eyesight, Nutts!’

‘I beg your pardon, master. I don’t know what came over me. Suddenly I can see the flame!’

From above came the sound of a match being struck, and a circle of yellow light expanded on the ceiling as the candle that never went out was lit. Shortly afterwards Smeems very gingerly lowered himself to the floor.

‘Well done, sir,’ said Nutt.

The Candle Knave flicked a length of congealed candle dribble off his equally greasy shirt.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to come back in the morning to recover the—’ But Nutt was already going up the rope like a spider. There was a clanging on the other side of the great candle as the lengths of snuffer pole were dropped, and then the boy abseiled back down to his master with the hook under his arm. And now he stood there all eagerness and scrubbed (if somewhat badly dressed) efficiency. There was something almost offensive about it. And the Candle Knave wasn’t used to this. He felt obliged to take the lad down a peg, for his own good.

‘All candles in this university must be lit by long taper from a candle that still burns, boy,’ he said sternly. ‘Where did you get those matches?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say, sir.’

‘I dare say you wouldn’t, indeed! Now tell me, boy!’

‘I don’t want to get anyone into trouble, master.’

‘Your reluctance does you credit, but I insist,’ said the Candle Knave.

‘Er, they fell out of your jacket when you were climbing up, master.’

Off in the distance was one last cry: ‘The Megapode is catched!’ But around the Emperor silence listened with its mouth open.

‘You are mistaken, Nutts,’ said Smeems slowly. ‘I think you will find that one of the gentlemen must have dropped them.’

‘Ah, yes, that’s certainly what must have happened, sir. I must learn not to jump to conclusions.’

Once again, the Candle Knave had that off-balance feeling. ‘Well, then, we will say no more about it,’ was all he managed.

‘What was it that happened just then, sir?’ said Nutt.

‘Oh, that? That was all part of one of the gentlemen’s magically essential magical activities, lad. It was vital to the proper running of the world, I’ll be bound, oh yes. Could be they was setting the stars in their courses, even. It’s one of them things we have to do, you know,’ he added, carefully insinuating himself into the company of wizardry.

‘Only it looked like a skinny man with a big wooden duck strapped to his head.’

‘Ah, well, it may have looked like that, come to think of it, but that was because that’s how it looks to people like us, what are not gifted with the ocular sight.’

‘You mean it was some sort of metaphor?’

Smeems handled this quite well in the circumstances, which included being so deeply at sea with that sentence that barnacles would be attracted to his underwear. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘It could be a meta for something that didn’t look so stupid.’

‘Exactly, master.’

Smeems looked down at the boy. It’s not his fault, he thought, he can’t help what he is. An uncharacteristic moment of warmth overtook him.

‘You’re a bright lad,’ he said. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be head dribbler one day.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Nutt, ‘but if you don’t mind I was rather hoping for something a bit more in the fresh air, so to speak.’

‘Ah,’ said Smeems, ‘that could be a bit … tricky, as you might say.’

‘Yes, sir. I know.’

‘It’s just that there’s a lot of— well, look, it’s not me, it’s … it’s … well, you know. It’s people. You know what people are like.’

‘Yes. I know what people are like.’

Looks like a scarecrow, talks posh like one of the gentlemen, Smeems thought. Bright as a button, grubby as a turd. He felt moved to pat the little … fellow on his curiously spherical head, but desisted.

‘Best if you stay down in the vats,’ he said. ‘It’s nice and warm, you’ve got your own bedroll, and it’s all snug and safe, eh?’

To his relief the boy was silent as they walked down the passages, but then Nutt said, in a thoughtful tone of voice, ‘I was just wondering, sir … How often has the candle that never goes out … not gone out?’

Smeems bit back the stinging retort. For some reason he knew it could only build up trouble in the long run.