In broken dwarfish she told them that the tunnel had collapsed, and she was going to leave. All the things they'd dug out, she said, were gifts for the King. And she left, taking the wretched golems with her.[3]
That was last week. Since then the tunnel had completely fallen in and the blowing sand had covered everything.
The money looked after itself. It sailed down the centuries, buried in paperwork, hidden behind lawyers, groomed, invested, diverted, converted, laundered, dried, ironed and polished and kept safe from harm and taxes, and above all kept safe from the Lavishes themselves. They knew their descendants - they'd raised them, after all - and so the money came with bodyguards of trustees, managers and covenants, disgorging only a measured amount of itself to the next generation, enough to maintain the lifestyle for which their name had become synonymous and with a bit left over for them to indulge in the family tradition of fighting amongst themselves over, yes, the money.
Now they were arriving, each family branch and often each individual with their own lawyer and bodyguards, being careful about whom they deigned to notice, just in case they inadvertently smiled at someone they were currently suing. As a family, people said, the Lavishes got along like a bagful of cats. Cosmo had watched them at the funeral, and they spent all their time watching one another, very much like cats, each one waiting for someone else to attack. But even so it would have been a decently dignified occasion, if only that moron nephew the old bitch had allowed to live in the cellar hadn't turned up in a grubby white coat and a yellow rain hat and kept on blubbing all through the ceremony. He had completely spoiled the occasion for everyone.
But now the funeral was over and the Lavishes were doing what they always did after funerals, which was talk about The Money.
You couldn't sit Lavishes around a table. Cosmo had set out small tables in a pattern that represented to the best of his knowledge the current state of the alliances and minor fratricidal wars, but there was a lot of shifting and scraping and threats of legal action before people settled down. Behind them the alert ranks of their lawyers paid careful attention, earning a total of a dollar every four seconds.
Apparently the only relative that Vetinari had was an aunt, Cosmo mused. That man had all the luck. When he was Vetinari, there would have to be a cull.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, when the hissing and name-calling had died away, 'I am so glad to see so many of you here today - '
'Liar!'
'Especially you, Pucci,' said Cosmo, smiling at his sister. Vetinari didn't have a sister like Pucci, either. No one did, Cosmo was prepared to bet. She was a fiend in vaguely human shape.
'You've still got something wrong with your eyebrow, you know,' said Pucci. She had a table by herself, a voice like a saw encountering a nail with a slight additional touch of foghorn, and was always referred to as 'a society beauty', which showed just how rich the Lavishes were. Cut in half, she might make two society beauties but not, at that point, very beautiful ones. While it was said that men she had spurned jumped off bridges in despair, the only person known to have said this was Pucci herself.
'I'm sure you all know - ' Cosmo began.
'Thanks to your side of the family's total incompetence you have lost us the bank!'
That came from the far corner of the room, but it triggered a rising chorus of complaint.
'We are all Lavishes here, Josephine,' he said sternly. 'Some of us were even born a Lavish.'
That didn't work. It ought to have done. It would have done for Vetinari, Cosmo was sure. But for Cosmo, it only upset people. The growls of objection got louder.
'Some of us make a better job of it!' snapped Josephine. She was wearing a necklace of emeralds, and they reflected a greenish light on her face. Cosmo was impressed.
Whenever possible, Lavishes married distant cousins, but it wasn't uncommon for a few, every generation, to marry outside, in order to avoid the whole 'three thumbs' situation. The women found handsome husbands who did what they were told, while the men found wives who, amazingly, were remarkably good at picking up the petulance and shaved-monkey touchiness that was the mark of a true Lavish.
Josephine sat down with a poisonous look of satisfaction at the muttered chorus of agreement. She sprang up again, for an encore: 'And what do you intend to do about this unforgivable situation? Your branch has put a mountebank in control of our bank! Again!'
Pucci span in her seat. 'How dare you say that about Father!'
'And how dare you say that about Mr Fusspot!' said Cosmo.
It would have worked for Vetinari, he knew it. It would have made Josephine look silly and raised Cosmo's stock in the room. It would have worked for Vetinari, who could raise his eyebrow like a visual rim shot.
'What? What? What are you talking about?' said Josephine. 'Don't be so silly, child! I'm talking about this Lipwig creature! He's a postman, for goodness' sake! Why haven't you offered him money?'
'I have,' said Cosmo, and added for his inner ear: III remember 'child', you whey-faced old boot. When I am a master of the eyebrow we shall see what you say then!
'And?'
'I believe he is not interested in money.'
'Nonsense!'
'What about the little doggie?' said an elderly voice. 'What happens if it passes away, gods forbid?'
'The bank comes back to us, Aunt Careful,' said Cosmo, to a very small old lady in black lace, who was engaged in some embroidery.
'No matter how the little doggie dies?' said Aunt Carefulness Lavish, paying fastidious attention to her needlework. 'There is always the option of poison, I am sure.'