“No. They just sink and walk ashore,” said Ridcully He turned, and leaned back on his elbows. “This really takes me back, you know. The old Lancre River. There's trout down there that'd take your arm off.”
“Not just trout,” said Ponder, watching a helmet emerge from the water.
“And limpid pools further up,” said Ridcully. “Full of, of, of . . . limpids, stuff like that. And you can bathe naked and no one'd see. And water meadows full of . . . water, don'tyerknow, and flowers and stuff.” He sighed. “You know, it was on this very bridge that she told me she-”
“He's got out of the river,” said Ponder. But the troll wasn't moving very fast, because the Librarian was nonchalantly levering one of the big stones out of the parapet.
“On this very bridge I asked-”
“That's a big club he's got,” said Casanunda.
“This bridge, I may say, was where I nearly-”
“Could you stop holding that rock in such a provocative way?” said Ponder.
“Oook.”
“It'd be a help.”
“The actual bridge, if anyone's interested, is where my whole life took a diff-”
“Why don't we just go on?” said Ponder. “He's got a steep climb.”
“Good thing for him he hasn't got up here, eh?” said Casanunda. Ponder swiveled the Librarian around and pushed him toward the coach.
“This is the bridge, in fact, where-”
Ridcully turned around.
“Are you coming or not?” said Casanunda, with the reins in his hand.
“I was actually having a quality moment of misty nostalgic remembrance,” said Ridcully. “Not that any of you buggers noticed, of course.”
Ponder held the door open.
“Well, you know what they say. You can't cross the same river twice, Archchancellor,” he said.
Ridcully stared at him.
“Why not? This is a bridge.”
On the roof of the coach the Librarian picked up the coach-horn, bit the end of it reflectively - well, you never knew - and then blew it so hard that it uncurled.
It was early morning in Lancre town, and it was more or less deserted. Farmers had got up hours before to curse and swear and throw a bucket at the cows and had then gone back to bed.
The sound of the horn bounced off the houses.
Ridcully leapt out of the coach and took a deep, theatrical breath.
“Can't you smell that?” he said. “That's real fresh mountain air, that is.” He thumped his chest.
“I've just trodden in something rural,” said Ponder. “Where is the castle, sir?”
“I think it could be that huge black towering thing looming over the town,” said Casanunda.
The Archchancellor stood in the middle of the square and turned slowly with his arms spread wide.
“See that tavern?” he said. “Hah! If I had a penny for every time they threw me out of there, I'd have . . . five dollars and thirty-eight pence. And over there is the old forge, and there's Mrs. Persifleur's, where I had lodgings. See that peak up there? That's Copperhead, that is. I climbed that one day with old Carbonaceous the troll. Oh, great days, great days. And see that wood down there, on the hill? That's where she-”