Terry Pratchett. Jingo
страница №4
...off, copper!'The door slammed.
'You sure this is the right place, sarge?'
'Harry Chestnuts said he saw Ossie going in here. Come on, open up!'
'Everyone's looking at us, sarge,' said Nobby. Doors and windows had
opened all along the street.
'And don't call me sarge when we're in plain clothes!'
'Right you are, Fred.'
'That's-' Colon hesitated in an agony of status. 'Well, that's
Frederick to you, Nobby.'
'And they're giggling Fred... er... crick.'
'We don't want to make a cock-up of this, Nobby.'
'Right, Frederick. And that's Cecil, thank you.'
'Cecil?'
'That is my name,' said Nobby coldly.
'Have it your way,' said Colon. 'Just remember who's the superior
civilian around here, all right?'
He hammered on the door again.
'We hear you've got a room to let, missus!' he yelled.
'Brilliant, Frederick,' said Nobby. 'That was bloody brilliant!'
'Well, I am the sergeant, right?' Colon whispered.
'No.'
'Er... yeah... right... well, just you remember that, right?'
The door snapped open.
The woman within had one of those faces that had settled over the
years, as though it had been made of butter and then left in the sun. But
age hadn't been able to do much with her hair. It was a violent ginger and
piled up like a threatening thunderhead.
'Room? You shoulda said,' she said. 'Two dollars a week, no pets, no
cookin', no wimmin after 6 a.m., if you don't want it thousands do, are you
with the circus? You look like you're with the circus.'[5]
'We're-' Colon began, and then stopped. There were undoubtedly a large
number of things to be apart from policemen, but there and then he couldn't
think of any of them.
'-actors,' said Nobby.
'Then it's payment a week in advance,' said the woman. 'And no filthy
foreign habits. This is a respectable house, she added, in defiance of
evidence so far.
'We ought to see the room first,' said Colon.
'Oh, the choosy sort, eh?'
She led them upstairs.
The room vacated so terminally by Ossie was small and bare. A few items
of clothing hung on nails in the wall. and a heap of wrappers and greasy
bags indicated that Ossie had been a man who ate, as it were, off the
street.
'Whose is this stuff?' said Sergeant Colon.
'Oh, he's gone now. I told him he'd be out if he didn't pay up. I'll
throw it out afore you settle in.'
'We'll get rid of it for you,' said Sergeant Colon. He fumbled in his
pouch and produced a couple of dollars. 'Here you are, Miss-?'
'Mrs Spent,' said Mrs Spent. She gave them a lopsided look. 'Are you
both stopping here or what?'
'Nah, I've just come along as his chaperon,' said Colon, giving her a
friendly grin. 'He has to fight women off when they find out about his
sexual magnetism.'
Mrs Spent gave the shocked Nobby a sharp look and bustled out of the
room.
'What'd you go and say that for?' said Nobby.
'It's got rid of her, hasn't it?'
'You were having a go at me, don't deny it! just because I'm going
through a bit of an emotional wossname, eh?'
'It was just a joke, Nobby. Just a joke.'
Nobby peered under the narrow bed.
'Wow!' he said, all emotional wossnames forgotten.
'What is it? What is it?' said Colon.
'It looks like a complete run of Bows and Ammo! And...' Nobby pulled
another stack of badly engraved magazines out into the light, 'here's
Warrior of Fortune, look! And Practical Siege Weapons...'
Colon leafed through page after page of very similarlooking people
holding very similar weapons of personal destruction.
'You got to be a bit odd to sit around all day reading this kind of
thing,' he said.
'Yeah,' said Nobby. 'Here, don't put that one back, that's last
August's issue, I ain't got that one. Hang on, there's a box right at the
back...'
He wriggled out, towing a small box with him. It was locked, but the
cheap metal gave way when he accidentally levered at the lid.
Silver coins gleamed. Lots and lots of them.
'Whoops:' he muttered. 'We're in trouble now...'
'That's Klatchian money, that is!' said Colon. 'Sometimes people slip
you one instead of a half-dollar in your change. Look, there's all curly
writing on them!'
'We're in big trouble,' said Nobby.
'No, no, no, this is a Clue what we have found by patient detectoring,'
said Sergeant Colon. 'And it's going to be a feather in our caps and no
mistake when Mr Vimes hears about it!'
'How much do you reckon there is?'
'Got to be hundreds and hundreds of dollars' worth,' said Colon. 'And
that's a lot of money to a Klatchian. You can probably live like a king for
a year on a dollar, in Klatch.'
'It wasn't very patient detectoring,' said Nobby doubtfully. 'All I did
was look under the bed.'
'Ah, but that's because you is trained,' said Colon. 'Your basic
civilian wouldn't think of that, right? Ah, it all begins to make sense!'
'Does it? Why would the Klatchians give him money to shoot a
Klatchian?' said Nobby. .
Colon tapped the side of his nose. 'Politics,' he said.
'Ah, politics,' said Nobby. 'Ah, well, politics. I see. Politics.
Right. So why?'
'Aha,' said Colon again, tapping the other side of his nose.
'Why're you picking your nose, sarge?'
'I'm tapping it,' said Colon severely. 'That's to show I'm in the
know.'
'In the nose,' said Nobby cheerfully.
'It's just the sort of underhand cunning thing they'd do,' said Colon.
'Payin' us to kill them?' said Nobby.
'Ah, you see, some Klatchian nob gets topped here, and then they can
send a snotty note saying, "You killed our big nob, you foreign nephews of
dogs, this means war!" see? A perfect excuse.'
'Do you need an excuse to have a war?' said Nobby. 'I mean, who for?
Can't you just say, "You got lots of cash and land but I've got a big sword
so divvy up right now, chop chop?" That's what I'd do,' said Corporal Nobbs,
military strategist. 'And I wouldn't even say that until after I'd
attacked.'
'Ah, but that's 'cos you don't know about politics,' said Colon. 'You
can't do that stuff any more. Mark my words, this case has got politics
written all over it. That's why old Vimes put me on it, depend upon it.
Politics. Young Carrot's all very well, but you need a hexperienced man of
the world in these delicate political situations.'
'You've certainly got the nose-tapping just right,' said Nobby. 'I
generally miss.'
But he felt troubled, if not in his nose then in whatever small organ
propelled his blood around his body. This didn't feel right. Nothing much in
Nobby's life had ever felt right, so he knew very well how the feeling felt.
He looked up at the bare walls and down at the rough floorboards.
'There's a bit of sand on the floor,' he said.
'Another Clue, then,' said Colon happily. 'A Klatchian has been here.
Bugger all else but sand in Klatch. Still got some in his sandals.'
Nobby opened the window. It gave on to a gently sloping roof. Someone
could get through it easily and be away over the tiles and into the maze of
chimneys.
'He could've gone in and out this way, sarge,' he volunteered.
'Good point, Nobby. Write that down. Evidence of conniving and sneaking
around.'
Nobby peered down. 'Here, there's glass outside, Fred...'
Sergeant Colon joined him at the stricken window. One of the panes had
been smashed. Outside, glass glittered on the tiles.
'That could be a clue, eh?' said Nobby, hopefully.
'It certainly is,' said Sergeant Colon. 'See the glass fell outside the
window? Everyone knows you look at which way the glass fails. I reckon he
was just testing his bow and it went off while it was loaded.'
'That's clever, sarge,' said Nobby.
'That's detectoring,' said Colon. 'It's no good just looking at things,
Nobby. You got to think straight, too.'
'Cecil, sarge. '
'That's Frederick, Cecil. Come on, I think we've wrapped this up
nicely. Old Vimes says he wants a report toot sweet.'
Nobby looked out of the broken window. The roof abutted the end wall of
a much larger warehouse. For a moment he found himself thinking bendy rather
than straight, but he reasoned that his thinking was only a corporal's
thinking, and worth far less per thought than a sergeant's thinking, so he
kept his private thoughts to himself.
As they went downstairs Mrs Spent watched them suspiciously through a
barely opened doorway at the far end of the hall, clearly ready to slam it
shut at the first suggestion of any sexual magnetism.
'It's not as if I even know where to get a sexual magnet,' Nobby
muttered. 'And she didn't even laugh.'
... Also, we went to the bow shops in the Street of Cunning Artificers
and showed the iconograph to the man in Burleigh and Stronginthearm, who
vouchsafed, that is him, e.g., he was referring to the Diseased...
'Oh, my...' Vimes's lips moved slightly as his gaze went back up the
page.
... also in addition to the Klatchian money you could tell one of them
had been there because of, e.g., the sand on the floor...
'He'd still got sand in his sandals?' murmured Vimes. 'Good grief.'
'Sam?'
Vimes looked up from his reading.
'Your soup will be cold,' said Lady Sybil from the far end of the
table. 'You've been holding that
spoonful in the air for the last five minutes by the clock.'
'Sorry, dear.'
'What are you reading?'
'Oh, just a little masterpiece,' said Vimes, pushing Fred Colon's
report aside.
'Interesting, is it?' said Lady Sybil a little sourly.
'Practically unparalleled,' said Vimes. 'The only things they haven't
found are the bunch of dates and the camel hidden under the pillow...'
Belatedly, his nuptial radar detected a certain chilliness from the far
side of the cruet.
'Is, er, there something wrong, dear?' he said.
'Can you remember when we last had dinner together, Sam?'
'Tuesday, wasn't it?'
'That was the Guild of Merchants' annual dinner, Sam.'
Vimes's brow wrinkled. 'But you were there too, weren't you?'
A further subtle change in the dragonhouse quotient told him that this
was not a well chosen answer.
'And then you rushed off afterwards because of that business with the
barber in Gleam Street.'
'Sweeney Jones,' said Vimes. 'Well, he was killing people, Sybil. The
best you could say is that he didn't mean to. He was just very bad at
shaving-'
'But you didn't have to go, I'm sure.'
'Policing's a twenty-four-hour job, dear.'
'Only for you! Your constables do their ten hours and that's it. But
you're always working. It's not good for you. You're always running around
during the day, and when I wake up in the middle of the night there's always
a cold space beside me.. .'
The dots hung in the air, the ghosts of words unsaid. Little things,
thought Vimes. That's how a war starts.
'There's so much to do, Sybil,' he said, as patiently as he could.
'There's always been a lot to do. And the bigger the Watch gets the
more there is to do, have you noticed that?'
Vimes nodded. That was true. Rotas, receipts, notebooks, reports... the
Watch might or might not be making a difference in the city, but it was
certainly frightening a lot of trees.
'You ought to delegate,' said Lady Sybil.
'So he tells me,' muttered Vimes.
'Pardon?'
'Just thinking aloud, dear.' Vimes pushed the paperwork away. 'I'll
tell you what... let's have an evening in,' he said. 'There's a nice fire in
the drawing room-'
'Er... no, Sam, there isn't.'
'Hasn't young Forthright lit it?' Forthright was the Boy; it came as
news to Vimes that this was an official servant position, but the Boy's job
was to light the fires, clean the privies, help the gardener and take the
blame.
'He's gone off to be a drummer boy in the Duke of Eorle's regiment,'
said Lady Sybil.
'Him too? He seemed a bright lad! Isn't he too young?'
'He said he was going to lie about his age.'
'I hope he lies about his musical ability. I've heard him whistling.'
Vimes shook his head. 'Whatever possessed him to do such a daft thing?'
'He thinks the uniform will impress the girls.'
Sybil gave him a gentle smile. An evening at home suddenly began to
seem very inviting.
'Well, it won't take a genius to find the woodshed,'
said Vimes. 'And then we can bolt the doors and-'
One of the aforesaid doors shook to the sound of frantic knocking.
Vimes caught Sybil's gaze.
'Go on, then. Answer it,' she sighed, and sat down.
The door admitted Corporal Littlebottom, seriously out of breath.
'You... got to come quick, sir... it's... murder this... time!'
Vimes looked helplessly at his wife.
'Of course you must go,' she said.
Angua brushed out her hair in front of the mirror.
'I don't like this,' said Carrot. 'It's not a proper way to behave.'
She patted him on the shoulder. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'Vimes
explained it all. You're acting as though we're doing something wrong.'
'I like being a watchman,' said Carrot, still in the mournful depths.
'And you've got to wear a uniform. If you don't wear a uniform it's like
spying on people. He knows I think that.'
Angua looked at his short red hair and honest cars.
'I've taken a lot of the work off his shoulders,' Carrot went on. 'He
doesn't have to go on patrol at all, but he still tries to do everything.'
'Perhaps he doesn't want you to be quite so helpful?' said Angua, as
tactfully as possible.
'It's not as if he's getting any younger, either. I've tried to point
that out.'
'That was kind of you.'
'And I've never worn plain clothes.'
'On you they'll never be very plain,' said Angua, pulling on her coat.
It was a relief to be out of that
armour. As for Carrot, there was no disguising him. The size, the ears,
the red hair, the expression of muscular good-naturedness...
'I suppose a werewolf is in plain clothes all the time, when you think
about it,' said Carrot.
'Thank you, Carrot. And you are absolutely right.'
'I just don't feel comfortable, living a lie.'
'Walk a mile on these paws.'
'Pardon?'
'Oh... nothing.'
Goriff's son Janil had been angry. He didn't know why. The anger was
built up of a lot of things. The firebomb last night was a big part. So were
some of the words he'd been hearing in the street. He'd had an argument with
his father about sending that food round to the Watch House this morning.
They were an official part of the city. They had those stupid badges. They
had uniforms. He was angry about a lot of things, including the fact that he
was thirteen.
So when, at nine in the evening while his father was baking bread, the
door had slammed back and a man had rushed in, Janil had pulled his father's
elderly crossbow from under the counter and aimed it where he thought the
heart was and pulled the trigger.
Carrot stamped his feet once or twice and looked around.
'Here,' he said. 'I was standing here. And the Prince was... in that
direction.'
Angua obediently walked across the square. Several people turned to
look curiously at Carrot.
'All right... stop... no, on a bit... stop... turn a
little bit to the left... I mean my left... back a bit... now throw
your arms up...'
He walked over to her and followed her gaze.
'He was shot from the University?'
'Looks like the library building,' said Angua. 'But a wizard wouldn't
do it, surely? They keep out of that sort of thing.'
'Oh, it's not too hard to get in there, even when the gates are shut,'
said Carrot. 'Let's try the unofficial way, shall we?'
'OK Carrot?'
'Yes?'
'The false moustache... it's not you, you know. And the nose is far too
pink'
'Doesn't it make me look inconspicuous?'
'No. And the hat... I should lose the hat, too' It is a good hat,' she
added quickly. 'But a brown bowler... it's not your style. It doesn't suit
you.'
'Exactly!' said Carrot. 'If it was my style, people would know it's me,
right?'
'I mean it makes you look like a twerp, Carrot.'
'Do I normally look like a twerp?'
'No, not-'
'Aha!' Carrot fumbled in the pocket of his large brown overcoat. 'I got
this book of disguises from the joke shop in Phedre Road, look. Funny thing,
Nobby was in there buying stuff too. I asked him why and he said it was
desperate measures. What d'you think he meant by that?'
'I can't imagine,' said Angua.
'It's just amazing the stuff they've got. False hair, false noses,
false beards, even false...' He hesitated, and began to blush. 'Even
false... you know, chests. For ladies. But I can't imagine for the life of
me why they'd want to disguise those.'
He probably couldn't, Angua thought. She took the very small book from
Carrot and glanced through it. She sighed.
'Carrot, these disguises are meant for a potato.'
'Are they?'
'Look, they're all on potatoes, see?'
'I thought that was just for display.'
'Carrot, it's got "Mr Spuddy Face" on it.'
Behind his thick black moustache Carrot looked hurt and perplexed.
'What does a potato want a disguise for?' he said.
They'd reached the alley alongside the University that had been known
informally as Scholars' Entry for so many centuries that this was now on a
nameplate at one end. A couple of student wizards went past.
The unofficial entrance to the University has always been known only to
students. What most students failed to remember was that the senior members
of the faculty had also been students once, and also liked to get out and
about after the official shutting of the gates. This naturally led to a
certain amount of embarrassment and diplomacy on dark evenings.
Carrot and Angua waited patiently as a few more students climbed over,
followed by the Dean.
'Good evening, sir,' said Carrot, politely.
'Good evening to you, Spuddy,' said the Dean, and ambled off into the
night.
'You see?'
'Ah, but he didn't call me Carrot,' said Carrot. 'The principle is
sound.'
They dropped down on to lawns of academia and headed for the library.
'It'll be shut,' said Angua.
'Remember, we have a man on the inside,' said Carrot, and knocked.
The door opened a little way. 'Ook?'
Carrot raised his horrible little round hat.
'Good evening, sir, I wonder if we could come in? It's Watch business.'
'Ook eek ook?'
' Er...,
'What did he say?' said Angua.
'If you must know, he said, "My goodness me, a walking potato,"' said
Carrot.
The Librarian wrinkled his nose at Angua. He did not like the smell of
werewolves. But he beckoned them inside and then left them waiting while he
knuckled back to his desk and rummaged in a drawer. He produced a Watch
Special Constable's badge on a string, which he hung around the general area
where his neck should have been, and then stood as much to attention as an
orang-utan can, which is not a great deal. The central ape gets the idea but
outlying areas are slow to catch on.
'Ook ook!'
'Was that "How may I be of assistance, Captain Tuber?"' said Angua.
'We need to have a look on the fifth floor, overlooking the square,'
said Carrot, a shade coldly.
'Ook oook - ook.'
'He says that's just old storerooms,' said Carrot.
'And that last "ook'?' said Angua.
' "Mr Horrible Hat",' said Carrot.
'Still, he hasn't worked out who you are, eh?' said Angua.
The fifth floor was a corridor of airless rooms, smelling sadly of old,
unwanted books. They were stacked not on shelves but on wide racks, bundled
up with string. A lot of them were battered and missing their covers.
judging by what remained, though, they were old textbooks that not even the
most ardent bibliophile could treasure.
Carrot picked up a torn copy of Woddeley's Occult Primer. Several loose
pages fell out. Angua picked one up.
"'Chapter Fifteen, Elementary Necromancy",' she read aloud. `Lesson
One: Correct Use of Shovel...'
She put it down again and sniffed the air. The presence of the
Librarian filled the nasal room like an elephant in a matchbox, but-
'Someone else has been in here,' she said. 'In the last couple of days.
Could you leave us, sir? When it comes to odours, you're a bit...
forthright:'
'Ook?'
The Librarian nodded at Carrot, shrugged at Angua and ambled out.
'Don't move,' said Angua. 'Stay right where you are, Carrot. Don't
disturb the air . .
She inched forward carefully.
Her cars told her the Librarian was down the corridor, because she
could hear the floorboards creaking. But her nose told her that he was still
here. He was a little fuzzy, but
'I'm going to have to change,' she said. 'I can't get a proper picture
this way. It's too strange.'
Carrot obediently shut his eyes. Shed forbidden him to watch her en
route from a human to a wolf, because of the unpleasant nature of the shapes
in between. Back in Uberwald people went from one shape to the other as
naturally as ordinary humans would put on a different coat, but even there
it was considered polite to do it behind a bush.
When he re-opened them Angua was slinking forward, her whole being
concentrated in her nose.
The olfactory presence of the Librarian was a complex shape, a mere
purple blur where he had been moving but almost a solid figure where he'd
been standing still. Hands, face, lips... they'd be just the centre of an
expanding cloud in a few hours' time, but now she could still smell them
out.
There must be only the tiniest air currents in here. There weren't even
any flies buzzing in the dead air to cause a ripple of disturbance.
She edged nearer to the window. Vision was a mere shadowy presence,
providing a charcoal sketch of a room over which the scents painted their
glorious colours.
By the window... by the window...
Yes! A man had stood there, and by the scent of it he hadn't moved for
some time. The smell wavered in the air, on the edge of her nasal skill. The
curling, billowing traces said that the window had been opened and closed
again, and was there just the merest, tiniest suggestion that he'd held an
arm out in front of him?
Her nose raced, trying to form original shapes from the patterns
hanging in the room like dead smoke...
When she'd finished, Angua went back to her pile of clothes and coughed
politely while she was pulling on her boots.
'There was a man standing by the window,' she said. 'Long hair, a bit
dry, stinks of expensive shampoo. He was the man who nailed the boards back
after Ossie got into the Barbican.'
'Are you sure?'
'Is this nose ever wrong?'
'Sorry. Go on.'
'I'd say he was heavy-set, a bit bulky for his height. He doesn't wash
a lot, but when he does he uses Windpike's Soap, the cheap brand. But
expensive shampoo, which is odd. Quite new boots. And a green coat.'
You can smell the colour?'
'No. The dye. It comes from Sto Lat, I think. And... I think he shot a
bow. An expensive bow. There's a hint of silk in the air, and that's what
the strongest bowstrings are made of, isn't it? And you wouldn't put one of
those on a cheap bow.'
Carrot stood by the window. 'He got a good view,' he said, and looked
down at the floor. And then at the sill. And on the shelves nearby.
'How long was he here?'
'Two or three hours, I'd say.'
'He didn't move around much.'
'No.'
'Or smoke, or spit He just stood and waited. A professional. Mr Vimes
was right.'
'A lot more professional than Ossie,' said Angua.
'Green coat,' said Carrot, as if thinking aloud. 'Green coat, green
coat...'
'Oh. .. and bad dandruff,' said Angua, standing up.
'Snowy Slopes?!' shouted Carrot.
'What?'
'Really bad dandruff?'
'Oh, yes, it-'
'That's why they call him Snowy,' said Carrot. 'Daceyville Slopes, the
man with the reinforced comb. But I'd heard he'd moved to Sto Lat-'
In unison they said: '-where the dye comes from--' 'Is he good with a
bow?' said Angua.
'Very good. He's good at killing people he never met, too.'
'He's an Assassin, is he?'
'Oh, no. He just kills people for money. No style. Snowy can't read and
write.'
Carrot scratched his head in sympathetic recollection. 'He doesn't even
look at complicated pictures. We'd have got him last year, but he shook his
head fast and got away while we were trying to dig out Nobby. Well, well. I
wonder where he's staying?'
'Don't ask me to follow him in these streets. Thousands of people will
have walked over the trail.'
'Oh, there's people who will know. Someone sees everything in this
town.'
MR SLOPES?
Snowy Slopes gingerly felt his neck, or at least the neck of his soul.
The human soul tends to keep to the shape of the original body for some time
after death. Habit is a wonderful thing.
'Who the hell was he?' he said.
NOT SOMEONE YOU KNOW? said Death.
'Well, no! I don't know many people who cut my head off!'
Snowy Slopes's body had knocked against the table as it fell. Several
bottles of medicated shampoo now dripped and mixed their contents into the
other more intimate fluids from the Slopes corpse.
'That stuff with the special oil in it cost me nearly four dollars,'
said Snowy. Yet, somehow, it all seemed slightly... irrelevant now. Death
happens to other people. The other person in this case had been him. That
is, the one down there. Not the one standing here looking at it. In life,
Snowy hadn't even been able to spell 'metaphysical', but he was already
beginning to view life in a different way. From the outside, for a start.
'Four dollars,' he repeated. 'I never even had time to try it!'
IT WOULDN'T HAVE WORKED, said Death, patting the man on a fading
shoulder. BUT, IF I MIGHT SUGGEST
THAT YOU LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, IT WILL NO
LONGER BE NECESSSARY.
'No more dandruff?' said Snowy, now quite transparent and fading fast.
EVER, said Death. TRUST ME ON THIS.
Commander Vimes ran down darkened streets, trying to buckle on his
breastplate as he ran.
'All right, Cheery, what's happening?'
'They say a Klatchian killed someone, sir. There's a mob up in Scandal
Alley and it's looking bad. I was on the desk and I thought you ought to be
told, sir.'
'Right!'
'And anyway I couldn't find Captain Carrot, sir.'
A little bit of acid ink scribbled its subtle entry on the ledger of
Vimes's soul.
'Oh, gods... so who's the officer in charge?'
'Sergeant Detritus, sir.'
It seemed to the dwarf that she was suddenly standing still. Commander
Vimes had become a rapidly disappearing blur.
With the calm expression of someone who was methodically doing his
duty, Detritus picked up a man and used him to hit some other men. When he
had a clear area around him and a groaning heap of former rioters, he
climbed the heap and cupped his hands round his mouth.
'Listen to me, youse people!'
A troll shouting at the top of his voice could easily be heard above a
riot. When he seemed to have their attention he pulled a scroll out of his
breastplate and waved it over his head.
'Dis is der Riot Act,' he said. 'You know what dat means? It means if'n
I reads it out and youse don't disb... disp... go away, der Watch can use
deadly force, you unnerstand?'
'What did you just use, then?' moaned someone from underneath his feet.
'Dat was you helpin' der Watch,' said Detritus, shifting his weight.
He unrolled the scroll.
Although there was some scuffling in alleyways and shouts from the next
street, a ring of silence expanded outwards from the troll. An almost
genetic component of the citizens of Ankh-Morpork was their ability to spot
an opportunity for amusement.
Detritus held the document at arm's length. And then a few inches from
his face. He tried turning it round. a few times.
His lips moved uneasily.
Finally, he leaned down and showed it to Constable Visit.
'What dis word?'
'That's "Whereby", sergeant.'
'I knew dat.'
He straightened up again.
"'Whereby... it is..." ' Beads of the troll equivalent of sweat began
to form on Detritus's forehead. `Whereby it is... ack-no-legg-ed. .."'
'Acknowledged,' whispered Constable Visit.
'I knew dat.' Detritus stared at the paper again, and then gave up.
'Youse don't want to stand here listenin' to me all day!' he bellowed. 'Dis
is der Riot Act and you've all got to read it, right? Pass it round.'
'What if we don't read it?' said a voice in the crowd.
'You got to read it. It legal.'
'And then what happens?'
'Den I shoot you,' said Detritus.
'That's not allowed!' said another voice. 'You've got to shout "Stop!
Armed Watchman!" first.'
'Sure, dat suits me,' said Detritus. He shrugged one huge shoulder to
bring his crossbow under his arm. It was a siege bow, intended to be mounted
on the cart. The bolt was six feet long. 'It harder to hit runnin' targets.'
He released the safety catch.
'Anyone finishing readin' dat thing yet?'
'Sergeant!'
Vimes pushed his way through the crowd. And it was a crowd now.
Ankh-Morpork was always a good audience.
There was a clang as Detritus saluted.
'Were you proposing to shoot these people in cold blood, sergeant?'
'Nossir. just a warning shot inna head, sir.'
'Really? Just give me a moment to talk to them, then.'
Vimes looked at the man next to him. He was holding a flaming torch in
one hand and a long length of wood in the other. He gave Vimes the nervously
defiant stare of someone who has just felt the ground shift under his feet.
Vimes pulled the torch towards him and lit a cigar. 'What's happening
here, friend?'
'The Klatchians have been shooting people, Mr Vimes! Unprovoked
attack!'
'Really?'
'People have been killed!'
'Who?'
'I... there were... everyone knows they've been killing people!' The
man's mental footsteps found safer ground. 'Who do they think they are,
coming over-'
'That's enough,' said Vimes. He stood back and raised his voice.
'I recognize a lot of you,' he said. 'And I know you've got homes to go
to. See this?' He pulled his baton of office out of his pocket. 'This says
I've got to keep the peace. So in ten seconds I'm going somewhere else to
find some peace to keep, but Detritus is going to stay here. And I just hope
he doesn't do anything to disgrace the uniform. Or get it very dirty, at
least.'
irony was not a degree-level subject among the listeners, but the
brighter ones recognized Vimes's expression. It said that here was a man
hanging on to his patience by his teeth.
The mob dispersed, going ragged at the edges as people legged it down
side alleys, threw away their makeshift weapons and emerged at the other end
walking the grave, thoughtful walk of honest citizens.
'All right, what happened?' said Vimes, turning to the troll.
'We're hearing where dis boy shot dis man,' said Detritus. 'We got
here, next minute it rainin' people from everywhere, shoutin'.'
'He smote him as Hudrun smote the fleshpots of Ur,' said Constable
Visit.[6]
'Smote?' said Vimes, bewildered. 'He killed someone?'
'Not by der way der man was cussing, sir,' said Detritus. 'Hit him in
der arm. His friends brought him round der Watch House to complain. He a
baker on der night shift. He said he was late for work, he come runnin' in
to pick up his dinner, next minute he flat on der floor.'
Vimes walked across the street and tried the door of the shop. It
opened a little way, and then fetched up against what seemed to be a
barricade. Furniture had been piled up against the window as well.
'How many people were there, constable?'
'A multitude thereof, sir.'
And four people in here, thought Vimes. A family. The door moved a
fraction and Vimes realized he was ducking even before the crossbow
protruded.
There was the thung of the string. The bolt tumbled rather than sped.
It corkscrewed wildly across the alley and was almost moving sideways when
it hit the opposite wall.
'Look,' said Vimes, keeping his body down but raising his voice.
'Anyone who got hit with that, it must have been an accident. This is the
Watch. Open the door. Otherwise Detritus will open it. And when he opens a
door, it stays open. You know what I mean?'
There was no reply.
'All right. Detritus, just step over here-'
There was a hissed argument inside, and then the sound of scraping as
furniture was moved.
He tried the door. It swung inwards.
The family were at the far end of the room. Vimes felt eight eyes on
him. The atmosphere had a hot, worrying feel, spiced with the smell of burnt
food.
Mr Goriff was holding the crossbow gingerly, and the expression on his
son's face told Vimes a lot of what he needed to know.
'All right,' he said. 'Now you all listen to me. I'm not arresting
anyone right now, you hear? This sounds like one of those things that make
his lordship yawn. But you'd do better spending the rest of the night in the
Watch House. I can't spare the men to stand guard here. Do you understand? I
could arrest you. But this is just a request.'
Mr Goriff cleared his throat.
'The man I shot-' he began, and left the question and the lie hanging
in the air.
Vimes forced himself not to glance at the boy. 'Not badly hurt,' he
said.
'He... ran in,' said Mr Goriff. 'And after last night-'
'You thought you were being attacked again and grabbed the crossbow?'
'Yes,' said the boy, defiantly, before his father could speak.
There was a brief argument in Klatchian. Then Mr Goriff said:
'We must leave the house?'
'For your own good. We'll try to have someone watch it. Now, get
something together and go off with the sergeant. And give me that crossbow.'
Goriff handed it over with a look of relief. It was a typical Saturday
Night Special, so badly made and erratic that the only safe place to be when
it was fired would be directly behind it, and even then you would be running
a risk. And then no-one had told its owner that under the counter in a
steamy shop and a perpetual rain of grease wasn't the best place to keep it
strung. The string sagged. Probably the only way you
could reliably hurt someone with it was to beat them over the head.
Vimes waited until they'd been ushered out and took a last look around
the room. It wasn't large. In the kitchen behind the shop something spicy in
a pot was boiling dry. After burning his fingers a couple of times he
managed to tip the pot on to the fire to put it out and then, vaguely
remembering his mother doing something like this, put the pot under the pump
to soak
Then he barricaded the windows as best he could and went out, locking
the door behind him. A discreetly obvious brass Thieves' Guild plaque over
the door told the world that Mr Goriff had conscientiously paid his annual
fee,[7] but the world had plenty of less formal dangers and so Vimes took a
piece of chalk out of his pocket and wrote on the door:
UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE WATCH
As an afterthought he signed it:
SGT DETRITUS
In the imaginations of the less civically minded the majesty of the
rule of law didn't carry anything like as much weight as the dread of
Detritus.
The Riot Act! Where the hell had he dredged that from? Carrot,
probably. It hadn't been used for as long as Vimes could remember, and that
was no wonder when you knew what it really did. Even Vetinari would hesitate
to use it. Now it was nothing more than a phrase. Thank goodness for
trollish illiteracy...
It was when Vimes stood back to admire his handiwork that he saw the
glow in the sky over Park Lane, almost at the same time as he heard the
clatter of iron boots on the street.
'Oh, hello, Littlebottom,' he said. 'What now? Don't tell me -
someone's set fire to the Klatchian embassy.'
'All right, sir,' said the dwarf. She stood uncertainly in the middle
of the alley, looking worried.
'Well?' said Vimes.
'Er... you said-'
With a sinking feeling Vimes remembered that the generic dwarfish skill
with iron was matched only by the fumblefingered grasp of irony.
'The Klatchian embassy is really on fire?'
'Yes, sir!'
Mrs Spent opened the door a crack.
'Yes?'
'I'm a friend of...' Carrot hesitated, wondering if Fred would have
given his real name. 'Er... big fat man, suit doesn't fit-'
'The one who goes around with the sex maniac?'
'Pardon?'
'Skinny little twerp, dresses like a clown?'
'They said you'd have a room,' said Carrot desperately.
'They've got it,' said Mrs Spent, trying to shut the door.
'They said I could use it-'
'No sub-lettin'!'
'They said I should pay you two dollars!'
The pressure of the door was released a little.
'On top of what they paid?' said Mrs Spent.
'Of course.'
'Well...' She looked Carrot up and down and sniffed. 'All right. What
shift are you on?'
'Sorry?'
'You're a watchman, right?'
'Er...' Carrot hesitated, and then raised his voice. 'No, I am not a
watchman. Haha, you think I'm a watchman? Do I look like a watchman?'
'Yes, you do,' said Mrs Spent. 'You're Captain Carrot. I seen you
walking about the town. Still, I suppose even coppers have to sleep
somewhere.'
On the roof, Angua rolled her eyes.
'No wimmin, no cookin', no music, no pets,' said Mrs Spent, as she led
the way up the creaking stairs.
Angua waited in the dark until she heard the window open.
'She's gone,' Carrot hissed.
'There's glass on the tiles out here, just like Fred reported,' said
Angua, as she swung herself over the sill. Inside the room she took a deep
breath and shut her eyes.
First she had to forget the smell of Carrot - anxious sweat, soap, the
lingering hints of armour polish...
...and Fred Colon, all perspiration with a hint of beer, and then the
odd ointment Nobby used for his skin condition, and the smells of feet,
bodies, clothes, polish, fingernails...
After an hour it was possible for the eye of the nose to see someone
walk across the room, frozen in time by their smell. But after a day smells
criss-crossed and entangled. You had to take them apart, remove the familiar
pieces, and what you had left
'They're so mixed up!'
'All right, all right,' said Carrot soothingly.
'At least three people! But I think one of them is Ossie... It's
stronger round the bed... and. ..'
She opened her eyes wide and looked down at the floor. 'Somewhere
here!'
'What? What is?'
Angua crouched down with her nose just above the floorboards.
'I can smell it but I can't see it!'
A knife appeared in front of her. Carrot got down on his knees and ran
the blade along the dust-filled crack between the floorboards.
Something splintery and brown popped up. It had been trodden on and
rolled underfoot, but at this distance even Carrot could pick up traces of
the clove smell. 'Do you think Ossie made a lot of apple pies?' he
whispered.
'No cookin', remember?' said Angua, and grinned.
'There's something else...'
Carrot levered out more dirt and dust. In it, something glittered.
'Fred said all the glass was outside, didn't he?'
'Yes.'
'Well, supposing we assume that someone didn't pick up all the bits
when they broke in?'
'For someone that doesn't like lying, Carrot, you can be quite devious,
you know?'
'Just logical. There's glass outside the window, but all that means is
that there is glass outside the window. Commander Vimes always says there're
no such things as dues. It's how you look at them.'
'You think someone broke in and then carefully put the glass outside?'
'Could be.'
'Carrot? Why are we whispering?'
'No wimmin, remember?'
'And no pets,' said Angua. 'So she's got me coming and going. Don't
look like that,' she added, when she saw his face. 'It's only bad taste if
someone else says it. I'm allowed.'
Carrot scratched up some more glass fragments. Angua looked under the
bed and pulled out the battered magazines.
'Ye gods, do people really read this stuff?' she said, flicking through
Bows and Ammo. ' "Testing the Locksley Reflex 7: A Whole Lotta Bow":
"Footsore! We test the Ten Best Caltrops!"... and what's this magazine... ?
Warrior of Fortune?'
'There's always little wars somewhere,' said Carrot, pulling out the
box of money.
'But will you look at the size of this axe here? "Get A Head, Get A
Burleigh and Stronginthearm 'Streetsweeper' and Win By A Neck!" Well, it
must be true what they say about men who like big weapons...'
'And that is?' said carrot, lifting the lid of the box.
She looked at the top of his head. As always, Carrot radiated innocence
like a small sun. But he'd... They'd... Surely he...
'They, er... they're rather small,' she said.
'Oh, that's true,' said Carrot, picking up some of the Klatchian coins.
'Look at dwarfs. Never happier than with a chopper the same size as them.
And Nobby's fascinated by weapons and he's practically dwarfsized.',
'Er... '
Technically, Angua was sure she knew Carrot better than anyone else.
She was pretty sure he cared a lot for her. He seldom said so, he just
assumed that she knew. She'd known other men, although turning into a wolf
for part of the month was one of those little flaws that could put any
normal man off and, up until Carrot, always had. And she knew the sort of
things men said in what might be called the heat of the moment and then
forgot. But when Carrot said things, you knew that he felt that everything
was now settled until further notice, so if she made any comment he'd be
genuinely surprised that she'd forgotten what it was he had said and would
probably quote date and time.
And yet all the time there was this feeling that the greater part of
him was always deep, deep inside, looking out. Noone could be so simple,
no-one could be so creatively dumb, without being very intelligent. It was
like being an actor. Only a very good actor was any good at being a bad
actor.
'Rather a lonely person, our Nobby,' said Carrot.
'Well, yes...'
'But Im sure he'll find the right person for him,' Carrot added,
cheerfully.
Probably in a bottle, said Angua to herself. She remembered the
conversation with him. It was a terrible thing to think, but there was
somethin itchy about the thought of Nobby being allowed in
pool, even at the shallow end.
'You know, these coins are odd,' said Carrot.
'How do you mean?' said Angua, grateful for the distraction.
'Why would he be paid in Klatchian wols? He wouldn't be able to spend
them here, and the money changers don't give very good rates.' Carrot tossed
a coin in the air and caught it. 'When we were leaving, Mr Vimes said to me,
"Make sure you find the bunch of dates and the camel hidden under the
pillow." I think I know what he meant.'
'Sand on the floor,' said Angua. 'Now, isn't that an obvious clue? You
can tell they were Klatchian because of the sand in their sandals!'
'But these cloves...' Carrot prodded the little bud. 'It's not as if
it's a common habit, even among Klatchians. That's not a very obvious clue,
is it?'
'It smells newer,' said Angua. 'I'd say he was here last night.'
'After Ossie was dead?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'How should I know? What kind of name is 71-hour Ahmed?' said Angua.
Carrot shrugged. 'I don't know. I think Mr Vimes thinks that someone in
Ankh-Morpork wants us to believe that Klatchians paid to have the Prince
killed. That sounds... nasty but logical. But I don't understand why a real
Klatchian would get involved...'
Their eyes met.
'Politics?' they said together.
'For enough money, a lot of people would do anything,' said Angua.
There was a sudden and ferocious knocking at the door.
'Have you got someone in there?' said Mrs Spent.
'Out of the window!' said Carrot.
'Why don't I just stay and rip her throat out?' said Angua. 'All right,
all right, it was a joke, all right?' she said, swinging her legs over the
sill.
Ankh-Morpork no longer had a fire brigade. The citizens had a rather
disturbingly direct way of thinking at times, and it did not take long for
people to see the rather obvious flaw in paying a group of people by
the number of fires they put out. The penny really dropped shortly
after Charcoal Tuesday.
Since then they had relied on the good old principle of enlightened
self-interest. People living dose to a burning building did their best to
douse the fire, because the thatch they saved might be their own.
But the crowd watching the burning embassy were doing so in a
hollow-eyed, distant way, as if it was all taking place on some distant
planet.
They moved aside automatically as Vimes elbowed his way through to the
space in front of the gates. Flames were already licking from every
groundfloor window, and they could make out scurrying silhouettes in the
flickering light.
He turned to the crowd. 'Come on! What's up with you? Get a bucket
chain going!'
'It's their bloody embassy,' said a voice.
'Yeah. 's Klatchian soil, right?'
'Can't go on Klatchian soil.'
'That'd be an invasion, that would.'
'They wouldn't let us,' said a small boy holding a bucket.
Vimes looked at the embassy gateway. There were a couple of guards.
Their worried glances kept going back from the fire behind them to the crowd
in front. They were nervous men, but it was much worse than that, because
they were nervous men holding big swords.
He advanced on them, trying to smile and holding his badge out in front
of him. It had a shield on it. It was not a very big shield.
'Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch,' he said, in what he hoped
was a helpful and friendly voice.
A guard waved him away. 'Hyou be off!'
'Ah...' said Vimes. He looked down at the cobbles of the gateway and
then back up at the guard. Somewhere in the flames someone was screaming.
'You! Come here! You see this?' he shouted at the guard, pointing down.
The man took a hesitant step forward.
'That's Ankh-Morpork soil down there, my friend,' said Vimes. 'And
you're standing on it and you're obstructing me in my-' he rammed his fist
as hard as he could into the guard's stomach '-duty!'
He was already kicking out as the other guard rushed him. He caught him
on the knee. Something went click. It felt like Vimes's own ankle.
Cursing and limping slightly, he ran on into the embassy and caught a
scurrying man by his robe.
'Are there people still in there? Are there people in there?'
The man gave Vimes a panicky look. The armfuls of paper he'd been
carrying spilled on to the ground.
Someone else grabbed his shoulder. 'Can you climb, Mr Vimes?'
'Who're-'
The newcomer turned to the cowering paper-carrier and struck him
heavily across the face. 'Rescuer of paper!'
As the man fell back his turban was snatched from his head.
'This way!' The figure plunged off through the smoke. Vimes hurried
after him until they reached a wall, with a drainpipe attached.
'How did you-?'
'Up! Up!'
Vimes put one foot in the man's cupped hands, managed to get the other
one on a bracket, and forced himself upwards.
'Hurry!'
He managed to half climb, half pull himself up the pipe, little
fireworks of pain exploding tip and down his legs as he reached a parapet
and hauled himself over. The other man rose behind him as if he'd run up the
wall.
There was a strip of cloth hiding the lower half of his face. He thrust
another strip towards Vimes.
'Across your nose and mouth!' he commanded. 'For the smoke!'
It was boiling across the roof. Beside Vimes a chimneypot gushed a
roaring tongue of flame.
The rest of the unwound turban was thrust into his hands.
'You take this side, I'll take the other,' said the apparition, and
darted away again into the smoke.
'But wh-'
Vimes could feel the heat through his boots. He edged away across the
roof, and heard the shouting coming from below.
When he leaned over the edge here he could see the window some way
below him. Someone had smashed a pane, because a hand was waving.
There was more commotion down in the courtyard. Amid a press of figures
he could make out the huge shape of Constable Dorfl, a golem and quite
definitely fireproof. But Dorfl was bad enough at stairs as it was. There
weren't many that could take the weight.
The hand in the smoke stopped waving.
Vimes looked down again.
Can you fly, Mr Vimes?
He looked at the chimney, belching flame.
He looked at the unwound turban.
A lot of Sam Vimes's brain had shut down, although the bits relaying
the twinges of pain from his legs were operating with distressing
efficiency. But there were still some thoughts operating down around the
core, and they delivered for his consideration the insight:
... tough-looking cloth...
He looked back at the chimney. It looked stout enough.
The window was about six feet below.
Vimes began to move automatically.
So, purely theoretically, if a man were to wrap one end of the cloth
round the belching stack like this and pay it out like this and lower
himself over the parapet like this and kick himself away from the wall like
this, then when he swung back again his feet ought to be able to smash his
way through the other panes of the ...
