Gods, was I ever that skinny? he thought. Did I ever have that much Adam’s apple? Did I really try to polish rust?

The young man’s eyes were almost back in his head, only the whites showing.

“Lance Constable Vimes, isn’t it?” he said quietly.

“Yessir!” said Sam hoarsely.

“At ease, Lance Constable. Did you, in fact, take a share of the bribe?”

“Yessir! A dollar, sir!”

“At the instigation of Corporal Quirke?”

“Er…sir?”

“Did he offer it to you?” Vimes translated.

Vimes watched his own agony. You Did Not Drop Someone In The Cacky.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later on. Oh, you still here, Quirke? If you want to complain to the captain, that’s fine by me. But if you don’t get your stuff out of your locker in ten minutes, I’ll damn well charge you rent!”

Quirke looked around for immoral support, and found none. He’d gone too far. Besides, the Watch could see a storm of cacky when it was right overhead, and were in no mood to stick their necks out for something like Quirke.

“I will,” he said. “I will complain to the captain. You’ll see. You’ll see. I’ve got four years good conduct, I have—”

“No, that was four years Not Found Out,” said Vimes. “Clear off.”

When Quirke’s footsteps had died away, Vimes cast an eye over the squad.

“Good afternoon, lads, my name’s John Keel,” he said. “We bloody well better get along fine. Now shine up, captain’s inspection in two minutes, off you go…Sergeant Knock, a word, please.”

The men dispersed hurriedly. Knock stepped forward, not quite managing to conceal his nervousness. After all, his immediate superior now was a man who, last night, he had kicked in the nadgers. People could hold a grudge about a thing like that. And he’d had time to think.

“I’d just like to say, sir, about last night—” he began.

“I’m not bothered about last night,” said Vimes.

“You’re not?”

“Would you recommend Fred Colon for corporal? I’d value your judgment.”

“You would?”

“Certainly. He looks a solid lad.”

“He does? I mean, yes, he is. Very thorough,” said Knock, relief rising off him like steam. “Doesn’t rush into things. Wants to join one of the regiments.”

“Well, we’ll give him a try while we’ve still got him. That means we’ll need another lance corporal. Who was that lad next to Colon?”

“Coates, sir. Ned Coates. Bright lad, sometimes thinks he knows better, but we were all like that, eh?”

Vimes nodded. His expression completely failed to give away the fact that, as far as he was concerned, there were things clinging to the underside of high branches that knew better than Sergeant Knock.

“A taste of responsibility might do him some good, then,” he said. Knock nodded, because at that point he would have agreed to absolutely anything. And his body language was saying: we’re all sergeants together, right? We’re talking about sergeanty things, like sergeants do. We’re not bothered about anyone being kicked in the nadgers, eh? Not us! ’Cos we’re sergeants.

His eyes widened, and he saluted as Tilden entered the office. There was some halfhearted saluting among the squad, too. The captain acknowledged them stiffly and looked nervously at Vimes.

“Ah, Sergeant,” he said. “Settling in?”

“Yessir. No problems.”

“Well done. Carry on.”

When the man had disappeared up the creaking stairs, Vimes turned back to Knock.

“Sergeant, we don’t hand over prisoners without a receipt, understand? Never! What happens to them afterward? Do you know?”

“They get questioned,” said Knock. “We takes ’em up there for questioning.”

“What kind of questions? How long it takes two men to dig half a hole?”

“What?”

“From now on, someone at Cable Street signs for prisoners or we bring them right back here,” said Vimes. “It’s bloody elementary, Sergeant. You hand ’em over, you get a docket. Don’t you do that down at the Tanty?”

“Well, yeah, obviously, but…well, Cable Street…I mean, you don’t know what it’s like here, I can see that, but with the Unmentionables ’round at Cable Street it’s best not to—”

“Listen, I’m not telling you to kick the door down and shout ‘put down those thumbscrews!’” said Vimes. “I’m telling you we keep track of prisoners. When you arrest a man, you sign him over to Snouty, don’t you? When he leaves, Snouty or the orderly man signs him out, doesn’t he? It’s basic custody discipline, man! So if you hand a prisoner over to Cable Street, someone there gives you a signature. Understand? No one just disappears.”

Knock’s face showed a man contemplating an immediate future that contained fewer opportunities for personal gain and a greatly raised risk of being shouted at.

“And just to make sure everyone understands, I’ll ride the wagon tonight,” said Vimes. “But first I’ll take that lad Vimes out for a stroll and shake him up a bit.”

“He could do with it,” said Knock. “Can’t get his mind right. Good with his hands but you have to tell him everything twice.”

“Maybe I’ll shout, then,” said Vimes. “Vimes!”

Lance Constable Vimes shivered to attention.

“We’re going to take a stroll, lad,” said Vimes. “Time you knew what’s what.”

He nodded to Knock, took his younger self by the shoulder, and marched out.

“What d’you think, Sarge?” said Coates, coming up behind Knock as the sergeant glared at the departing back.

“He likes you,” said Knock bitterly. “Oh, yes. Apple of his eye, you are. You’re his ol’ pal. You’re being bumped up to lance corporal.”

“Think he’ll last?”

“I’ll give him a couple of weeks,” said Knock. “I’ve seen ’em like that before. Big men in little towns, coming here, thinking they’re the bee’s nose. We soon cut ’em down to size. What d’you think?”

“Dunno, Sarge,” said Coates. “Still thinking.”

“Knows his coppering, mind you,” said Knock. “Bit too cocky, though. He’ll learn. He’ll learn. There’s ways. We’ll show him. Take him down a peg. Teach him how we do things around here…”

 

Vimes always preferred to walk by himself. And now there were two of him, walking by himself. It was a strange sensation, and gave him the impression that he was looking through a mask.

“No, not like that,” he said. “I always have to teach people to walk. You swing the foot, like this. Get it right and you can keep going all day. You’re not in a hurry. You don’t want to miss things.”

“Yes, Sarge,” said young Sam.

It was called proceeding. Vimes proceeded along Treacle Mine Road, and felt—magnificent. Of course, there were lots of things to worry about, but right here and now all he had to do was patrol, and it felt fine. Not much paperwork in the old Watch; in fact, come to think of it, he’d probably doubled it. All he had to do right now was his duty, as he’d been taught it. He had nothing to do but be himself.

Young Sam wasn’t saying much. That was good sense.

“I see you’ve got a bell there, lad,” said Vimes after a while.

“Yes, Sarge.”

“Regulation bell?”

“Yes, Sarge. Sergeant Knock gave it to me.” I’ll bet he did, thought Vimes.

“When we get back, just you swap it for someone else’s. Doesn’t matter whose. No one’ll say anything.”

“Yes, Sarge.” Vimes waited. “Why, Sarge? A bell’s a bell.”

“Not that one,” said Vimes. “That’s three times the weight of the normal bell. They give it to rookies to see what they do. Did you complain?”

“No, Sarge.”

“That’s the way. Keep quiet, and pass it on to some other sucker when we get back. That’s the copper’s way. Why did you come into the job, lad?”

“My mate Iffy joined last year. He said you got free food and a uniform and you could pick up the extra dollar here and there.”

“That’d be Iffy Scurrick stationed over in the Dolly Sisters’ house, then,” said Vimes. “And you’ve been picking up the odd dollar, have you?”

They walked in silence for a moment. Then Sam said: “Have I got to give that dollar back, Sarge?”

“Are you worth a dollar?” said Vimes.

“I gave it our mum, Sarge.”

“Did you tell her how you got it?”

“I didn’t want it!” Sam blurted out. “But Corporal Quirke said—”

“Was he worth listening to?”

“Dunno, Sarge.”

“You don’t know? I bet your mum didn’t bring you up to think like that,” said Vimes. No, she bloody well didn’t, he thought. She’d tan your hide, copper or not, if she’d known it was a dodgy dollar.

“No, Sarge. But they’re all at it, Sarge. I don’t mean the lads, Sarge, but you only have to look round the city. Our rent’s going up, taxes go up, there’s these new taxes all the time, and it’s all just cruel, Sarge, it’s cruel. Winder sold us all to his mates, and that’s a fact, sir.” Young Sam’s face was red with indignation.

“Hmm,” said Vimes. Oh, yes. Tax farming. What a clever invention. Good old Winder. He’d flogged the right to collect taxes to the highest bidders. What a great idea, nearly as good as banning people from carrying weapons after dark. Because a) you saved the cost of tax collectors and the whole revenue system, b) you got a wagonload of cash up front, and c) the business of tax gathering then became the business of groups of powerful yet curiously reticent people who kept out of the light. However, they employed people who not only went out in the light but positively blocked it, and it was amazing what those people found to tax, up to and including Looking At Me, Pal. What was it Vetinari had said once? “Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces”? Well, the tax farmers were very unsophisticated in the way they went about recouping their investment.

He remembered those da—these days. The city had never seemed poorer but, by the gods, there was a lot of tax being paid.

Hard to explain to a kid like Sam why poncing a dollar when you got the chance was a bad thing to do.

“Put it like this, Lance Constable,” he said as they turned the corner. “Would you let a murderer off for a thousand dollars?”

“No, sir!”

“A thousand dollars’d set your mum up in a nice place in a good part of town, though.”

“Knock it off, Sarge, I’m not like that.”

“You were when you took that dollar. Everything else is just a-haggling over the price.”

They walked in sullen silence. Then: “Am I going to get the sack, Sarge?” said the lance constable.

“For a dollar? No.”

“I’d just as soon be sacked, Sarge, thanks all the same. Last Friday we had to go and break up some meeting over near the University. They were just talking! And we had to take orders from some civilian, and the Cable Street lads were a bit rough and…it’s not like the people had weapons or anything. You can’t tell me that’s right, Sarge. And then we loaded some of ’em into the hurry-up, just for talking. Mrs. Owlesly’s boy Elson never came home the other night, too, and they say he was dragged off to the palace just for saying his lordship’s a loony. Now people down our street are looking at me in a funny way.”

Ye gods, I remember, thought Vimes. I thought it was all going to be chasing men who gave up after the length of a street and said “it’s a fair cop, guv’nor.” I thought I’d have a medal by the end of the week.

“You want to be careful what you say, lad,” he said.

“Yeah, but our mum says it’s fair enough if they take away the troublemakers and the weirdies but it’s not right them taking away ordinary people.”

Is this really me? Vimes thought. Did I really have the political awareness of a head louse?

“Anyway, he is a loony. Snapcase is the man we ought to have.”

…and the self-preservation instincts of a lemming?

“Kid, here’s some advice. In this town, right now, if you don’t know who you’re talking to—don’t talk.”

“Yes, but Snapcase says—”

“Listen. A copper doesn’t keep flapping his lip. He doesn’t let on what he knows. He doesn’t say what he’s thinking. No. He watches and listens and he learns and he bides his time. His mind works like mad but his face is a blank. Until he’s ready. Understand?”

“All right, Sarge.”

“Good. Can you use that sword you have there, lad?”

“I did the training, yes.”

“Fine. Fine. The training. Fine. So if we’re attacked by a lot of sacks of straw hanging from a beam, I can rely on you. And until then shut up, keep your ears open and your eyes peeled, and learn something.”

Snapcase is the man to save us, he thought glumly. Yeah, I used to believe that. A lot of folk did. Just because he rode around in an open carriage occasionally and called people over and talked to them, the level of the conversation being on the lines of “So, you’re a carpenter, are you? Wonderful! What does that job entail?” Just because he said publicly that perhaps taxes were a bit on the high side. Just because he waved.

“You been here before, Sarge?” said Sam as they turned a corner.

“Oh, everyone’s visited Ankh-Morpork, lad,” said Vimes jovially.

“Only we’re doing the Elm Street beat perfectly, Sarge, and I’ve been letting you lead the way.”

Damn. That was the kind of trouble your feet could get you into. A wizard once told Vimes that there were monsters up near the Hub that were so big they had to have extra brains in their legs, ’cos they were too far away for one brain to think fast enough. And a beat copper grew brains in his feet, he really did.

Elm Street, left into The Pitts, left again into The Scours…it was the first beat he’d ever walked, and he could do it without thinking. He had done it without thinking.

“I do my homework,” he said.

“Did you recognize Ned?” said Sam.

Perhaps it was a good thing that he was leaving his feet to their own devices, because Vimes’s brain suddenly filled with warning bells.

“Ned?” he said.

“Only before you came he said he thought he remembered you from Pseudopolis,” said Sam, oblivious to the clamor. “He was in the Day Watch there before he came here ’cos of better promotion prospects. Big man, he said.”

“Can’t say I recall him,” said Vimes with care.

“You’re not all that big, Sarge.”

“Well, Ned was probably shorter in those days,” said Vimes while his thoughts shouted: shut up, kid! But the kid was…well, him. Niggling at little details. Tugging at things that didn’t seem to fit right. Being a copper, in fact. Probably he ought to feel proud of his younger self, but he didn’t.

You’re not me, he thought. I don’t think I was ever as young as you. If you’re going to be me, it’s going to take a lot of work. Thirty damn years of being hammered on the anvil of life, you poor bastard. You’ve got it all to come.

 

Back at the Watch House, Vimes wandered idly over to the Evidence and Lost Property cupboard. It had a big lock on it, which was not, however, ever locked. He soon found what he was looking for. An unpopular copper needed to think ahead, and he intended to be unpopular.

Then he had a bite of supper and a mug of the thick brown cocoa on which the Night Watch ran, and took Sam out on the hurry-up wagon.

He’d wondered how the Watch was going to play it, and wasn’t surprised to find they were using, with gleeful malignancy, the old dodge of obeying orders to the letter. At the first point he made, Lance Corporal Coates and Constable Waddy were waiting with four sullen or protesting insomniacs.

“Four, sah,” said Coates, ripping off a textbook salute. “All we’ve apprehended sah. All written down on this chitty what I am giving to you at this moment in time sah!”

“Well done, Lance Corporal,” said Vimes drily, taking the paperwork, signing one copy, and handing it back. “You may have a half-holiday at Hogswatch, and give my regards to your granny. Help ’em in with ’em, Sam.”

“We usually only get four or five on a round, sir!” Sam whispered as they pulled away. “What’ll we do?”

“Make several journeys,” said Vimes.

“But the lads were taking the pi—the michael, sir! They were laughing!”

“It’s past curfew,” said Vimes. “That’s the law.”

Corporal Colon and Constable Wiglet were waiting at their post with three miscreants.

One of them was Miss Palm.

Vimes gave Sam the reins and jumped down to open the back of the wagon and fold down the steps.

“Sorry to see you here, Miss,” he said.

“Apparently some new sergeant’s been throwing his weight around,” said Rosie Palm in a voice of solid ice. She refused his hand haughtily and climbed up into the wagon.

Vimes realized that one of the other detainees was a woman, too. She was shorter than Rosie, and was giving him a look of pure bantam defiance. She was also holding a huge quilted workbasket. Out of reflex, Vimes took it, to help her up the steps.

“Sorry about this, Miss—” he began.

“Get your hands off that!”

She snatched the basket back and scrambled into the darkness.

“Pardon me,” said Vimes.

“This is Miss Battye,” said Rosie from the bench inside the wagon. “She’s a seamstress.”

“Well, I assumed she—”

“A seamstress, I said,” said Miss Palm. “With needles and thread. Also specializes in crochet.”

“Er, is that a kind of extra—” Vimes began.

“It’s a type of knitting,” said Miss Battye from the darkness of the wagon. “Fancy you not knowing that.”

“You mean she’s a real—” said Vimes, but Rosie slammed the iron door. “You just drive us on,” she said, “and when I see you again, John Keel, we are going to have words!”

There was some sniggering from the shadows inside the wagon, and then a yelp. It had been immediately preceded by the noise of a spiky heel being driven into an instep.

Vimes signed the grubby form presented to him by Fred Colon and handed it back with a solid, fixed expression that made the man feel rather worried.

“Where to now, Sarge?” said Sam as they pulled away.

“Cable Street,” said Vimes. There was a murmur of dismay from the crated people behind them.

“That’s not right,” muttered Sam.

“We’re playing this by the rules,” said Vimes. “You’re going to have to learn why we have rules, Lance Constable. And don’t you eyeball me. I’ve been eyeballed by experts, and you look as if you’re desperate for the privy.”

“Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people,” mumbled Sam.

“Do they?” said Vimes. “Then why doesn’t anyone do anything about it?”

“’Cos they torture people.”

Ah, at least I was getting a grasp of basic social dynamics, thought Vimes.

Sullen silence reigned in the seat behind him as the wagon rumbled through the streets, but he was aware of whispering from the wagon behind him. Slightly louder than the background, he heard Rosie Palm’s voice hiss: “He won’t. I’ll bet anything.”

A few seconds later, a male voice, slightly the worse for drink and very much the worse for bladder-twisting dread, managed: “Er, Sergeant, we…er…believe the fine is five, er, dollars?”

“I don’t think it is, sir,” said Vimes, keeping his eyes on the damp streets.

There was some more frantic whispering, and then the voice said: “Er…I have a very nice gold ring…”

“Glad to hear it, sir,” said Vimes. “Everyone should have something nice.” He patted his pocket for his silver cigar case, and for a moment felt more anger than despair, and more sorrow than anger. There was a future. There had to be. He remembered it. But it only existed as that memory, and that was as fragile as the reflection on a soap bubble and, maybe, just as easily popped.

“Er…I could perhaps include—”

“If you try to offer me a bribe one more time, sir,” said Vimes as the wagon turned into Cable Street, “I shall personally give you a thumping. Be told.”

“Perhaps there is some other—” Rosie Palm began, as the lights of the Cable Street House came into view.

“We’re not at home to a tuppenny-upright, either,” said Vimes and heard the gasp. “Shut up, the lot of you.”

He reined Marilyn to a halt, jumped down, and pulled his clipboard from under the seat.

“Seven for you,” he said to the guard lounging against the door.

“Well?” said the guard. “Open it up and let’s be having them, then.”

“Right,” said Vimes, flicking through the paperwork. “No problem.” He thrust the clipboard forward. “Just sign here.”

The man recoiled as though Vimes had tried to offer him a snake.

“What d’ya mean, sign?” he said. “Hand ’em over!”

“You sign,” said Vimes woodenly. “Them’s the rules. Prisoners moved from one custody to another, you have to sign. More’n my job’s worth, not to get signature.”

“Your job’s not worth spit,” snarled the man, grabbing the board. He looked at it blankly and Vimes handed him a pencil.

“If you need any help with the difficult letters, let me know,” he said innocently.

Growling, the guard scrawled something on the paper and thrust it back.

“Now open up, pl-ease,” he said.

“Certainly,” said Vimes, glancing at the paper. “But now I’d like to see some form of ID, thank you.”

“What?”

“It’s not me, you understand,” said Vimes, “but if I went back and showed my captain this piece of paper and he said to me, Vi—Keel, how d’you know he’s Henry the Hamster, well, I’d be a bit…flummoxed. Maybe even perplexed.”

“Listen, we don’t sign for prisoners!”

“We do, Henry,” said Vimes. “No signature, no prisoners.”

“And you’ll stop us taking ’em, will you?” said Henry the Hamster, taking a few steps forward.

“You lay a hand on that door,” said Vimes, “and I’ll—”

“Chop it off, will you?”

“—I’ll arrest you,” said Vimes. “Obstruction would be a good start, but we can probably think of some more charges back at the station.”

“Arrest me? But I’m a copper, same as you!”

“Wrong again,” said Vimes.

“What is the trouble…here?” said a voice.

A small, thin figure appeared in the torchlight. Henry the Hamster took a step back and adopted a certain deferential pose.

“Officer won’t hand over the curfew breakers, sir,” he said.

“And this is the officer?” said the figure, lurching toward Vimes with a curiously erratic gait.

“Yessir.”

Vimes found himself under cool and not openly hostile inspection from a pale man with the screwed-up eyes of a pet rat.

“Ah,” said the man, opening a little tin and taking a green throat pastille. “Would you be Keel, by any-chance? I have been…hearing about you.” The man’s voice was as uncertain as his walk. Pauses turned up in the wrong places.

“You hear about things quickly, sir.”

“A salute is generally in order, Sergeant.”

“I don’t see anything to salute, sir,” said Vimes.

“Goodpoint. Goodpoint. You are new, of course. But, you see, we in the Particulars…often find it necessary to wearplain…clothes.”

Like rubber aprons, if I recall correctly, thought Vimes. Aloud, he said: “Yes, sir.” It was a good phrase. It could mean any of a dozen things, or nothing at all. It was just punctuation until the man said something else.

“I’m Captain Swing,” said the man. “Findthee Swing. If you think the name is amusing, pleasesmirk…and get it over with. You may now salute.”

Vimes saluted. Swing’s mouth turned up at the corners very briefly.

“Good. Your first night on our hurry-up wagon, Sergeant?”

“Sir.”

“And you’re here so early. With a full load, too. Shall we take alook…at your passengers?” He glanced in between the ironwork. “Ah. Yes. Good evening, Miss Palm. And an associate, I see—”

“I do crochet!”

“—and what appear to be some partygoers. Well, well. What little scamps your street officers are, to be sure. They really have scoured the streets. How they love their…littlejokes, Sergeant.” Swing put his hand on the wagon door’s handle and there was a little noise, which was, nevertheless, a thunderclap in the silence, and it was the sound of a sword moving very slightly in its scabbard.

Swing stood stock-still for a moment and then delicately popped the pastille into his mouth. “Aha. I think that perhaps this little catch can be…thrownback, don’t you, Sergeant? We don’t want to make a mockery of…thelaw. Take them away, take them away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But just onemoment, please, Sergeant. Indulge me…just a little hobby of mine…”

“Sir?”

Swing had reached into a pocket of his over-long coat and pulled out a very large pair of steel calipers. Vimes flinched as they were opened up to measure the width of his head, the width of his nose, and the length of his eyebrows. Then a metal ruler was pressed against one ear.

While doing this, Swing was mumbling under his breath. Then he closed the calipers with a snap, and slipped them back.

“I must congratulateyou, Sergeant,” he said, “on overcoming your considerable natural disadvantages. Do you know you have the eye of a mass murderer? I am neverwrong…in these matters.”

“Nosir. Didn’t know that, sir. Will try to keep it closed, sir,” said Vimes. Swing didn’t crack a smile.

“However, I’m sure that when you have settled in, you and Corporal, aha, Hamster here will get along like a…houseonfire.”

“A house on fire. Yes, sir.”

“Don’t let…me detain you, Sergeant Keel.”

Vimes saluted. Swing nodded, turned in one movement, as though he was on a swivel, and strode back into the Watch House. Or jerked, Vimes considered. The man moved in the same way he talked, in a curious mixture of speeds. It was as if he was powered by springs; when he moved a hand, the first few inches of movement were a blur, and then it gently coasted until it was brought into conjunction with whatever was the intended target. Sentences came out in spurts and pauses. There was no rhythm to the man.

Vimes ignored the fuming corporal and climbed back onto the wagon. “Turn us round, Lance Constable,” he said. “G’night, Henry.”

Sam waited until the wheels were rumbling over the cobbles before he turned, wide-eyed, to Vimes.

“You were going to draw on him, weren’t you?” he said. “You were, Sarge, weren’t you?”

“You just keep your eyes on the road, Lance Constable.”

“But that was Captain Swing, that was! And when you told that man to prove he was Henry the Hamster, I thought I’d widd—choke! You knew they weren’t going to sign, right, Sarge? ’Cos if there’s a bit of paper saying they’ve got someone, then if anyone wants to find out—”

“Just drive, Lance Constable.” But the boy was right. For some reason, the Unmentionables both loved and feared paperwork. They certainly generated a lot of it. They wrote everything down. They didn’t like appearing on other people’s paperwork, though. That worried them.

“I can’t believe we got away with it, Sarge!”

We probably haven’t, Vimes thought. But Swing has enough to worry him at the moment. He doesn’t care very much about a big stupid sergeant.

He turned and banged on the ironwork.

“Sorry for the inconvenience, ladies and gentlemen, but it appears the Unmentionables are not doing business tonight. Looks like we’ll have to do the interrogation ourselves. We’re not very experienced at this, so I hope we don’t get it wrong. Now, listen carefully. Are any of you serious conspirators bent on the overthrow of the government?” There was a stunned silence from within the wagon.

“Come on, come on,” said Vimes. “I haven’t got all night. Does anyone want to overthrow Lord Winder by force?”

“Well…no?” said the voice of Miss Palm.

“Or by crochet?”

“I heard that!” said another female voice sharply.

“No one? Shame,” said Vimes. “Well, that’s good enough for me. Lance Constable, is it good enough for you?”

“Er, yes, Sarge,” said young Sam nervously.

“In that case, we’ll drop you all off on our way home, and my charming assistant Lance Constable Vimes will take, oh, half a dollar off each of you for traveling expenses for which you will get a receipt. Thank you for traveling with us, and we hope you will consider the hurry-up wagon in all your future curfew-breaking arrangements.”

Vimes could hear shocked whispering behind him. This was not how things were supposed to go these days.

“Sarge,” said Lance Constable Vimes.

“Yep?”

“Have you really got the eye of a mass-murderer?”

“In the pocket of my other suit, yes.”

“Hah.” Sam was quiet for a while, and when he spoke again he seemed to have something new on his mind.

“Er, Sarge?”

“Yes, lad?”

“What’s a tuppenny upright, Sarge?”

“It’s a kind of jam doughnut, lad. Did your mum ever make ’em?”

“Yes, Sarge. Sarge?”

“Yes, lad?”

“I think it probably means something else as well, Sarge,” said Sam, sniggering. “Something a bit…rude…”

“The whole of life is a learning process, Lance Constable.”

They got the wagon back to the yard ten minutes later, and by that time Vimes knew that a new rumor was fanning out across the city. Young Sam had already whispered things to the other officers as the curfew-breakers were dropped off, and nobody gossips like a copper. They didn’t like the Unmentionables. Like petty criminals everywhere, the watchmen prided themselves on there being some depths to which they would not sink. There had to be some things below you, even if it was only mudworms.

 

Rosie Palm bolted the door of her flat, leaned on it, and stared at Sandra.

“What is he?” said Sandra, dumping her workbox on the table. It clanked within. “Is he on our side?”

“You heard the lads!” snapped Rosie. “No bribes now! And then he drags us off to Swing’s bastards and then he won’t hand us over! I could kill him! I rescued him from the gutter, got Mossy to patch him up, and suddenly he’s playing big silly games!”

“Yes, what is a tuppenny upright?” said Sandra brightly.

Miss Palm paused. She quite enjoyed Sandra’s company, and the extra rent certainly came in handy, but there were times she wondered whether a) she should have a talk with the girl, or b) she was being very gently wound up. She suspected the latter, since Sandra was taking more money than her most of the time. It was getting embarrassing.

“It’s a kind of jam doughnut,” she said. “Now, you’d better go and hide the—”

Someone knocked on the door behind her. She motioned Sandra through the bead curtain, took a moment to pull herself together, and opened the door a fraction.

There was a very small old man standing in the hall. Everything about him sloped hopelessly downward. His gray mustache could have been stolen from a walrus, or a bloodhound that had just been given some very bad news. His shoulders sagged hopelessly. Even parts of his face seemed to be losing the battle with gravity.

He held his cap in his hands and was twisting it nervously.

“Yes?” said Rosie.

“Er, it said ‘seamstress’ on the sign,” the old man mumbled. “An’, well, since my ol’ woman died, you know, what with one thing an’ another, never bin any good at doing it for meself…”

He gave Rosie a look of sheer, hopeless embarrassment.

She glanced down at the sack by his feet, and picked it up. It was full of very clean, but very worn, socks.

Every single one had holes in the heel and toe.

“Sandra,” she said, “I think this one’s for you…”

 

It was so very early in the morning that “late at night” wasn’t quite over. White mist hung everywhere in the streets and deposited droplets like tiny pearls on Vimes’s shirt as he prepared to break the law.

If you stood on the roof of the privy behind the Watch House and steadied yourself on the drainpipe, one of the upstairs windows would bounce open if you hit it with the palm of your hand in exactly the right place.

It was a useful bit of information, and Vimes wondered if he should pass it on to young Sam. Every honest copper ought to know how to break into his own nick.

Tilden had limped home long ago, but Vimes did a quick sweep of his office and it was with great satisfaction that he did not see what he hadn’t expected to be there. Down below, a few of the more conscientious officers were signing off before heading home. He waited in the shadows until the door had banged shut for the last time and there were no footsteps for several minutes. Then he made his way down the stairs and into the locker room.

He had been issued a key to his own locker, but still oiled the hinge from a small bottle before he opened it. He had not, in fact, put anything in there yet but, behold, there was a rumpled sack on the floor. He lifted it up…

Well done, lads.

Inside was Captain Tilden’s silver inkwell.

Vimes stood up and looked around at the lockers, with their ancient carved initials and occasional knife marks on the doors. He pulled from his pocket the little black cloth roll he’d taken from the evidence locker earlier. A selection of lock picks glinted in the gray light. Vimes wasn’t a genius with the hooks and rakes, but the cheap and worn door locks were hardly a major challenge.

Really, it was just a matter of choosing.

And afterward he walked back through the mists.

He was horrified to find he was feeling good again. It was a betrayal of Sybil and the future Watch, and even of His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes, who had to think about the politics of distant countries and manpower requirements and how to raise that damn boat that River Division kept sinking. And, yes, he wanted to go back, or forward, or across, or whatever. He really did. He wanted to go home so much he could taste it. Of course, he did. But he couldn’t, not yet, and here he was, and as Dr. Lawn said, you did the job. And currently the job involved survival on the street in the great game of Silly Buggers, and Vimes knew all about that game, oh yes. And there was a thrill in it. It was the nature of The Beast.

And thus he was walking along, lost in thought, when the men jumped him out of the mouth of a shadowy alley.

The first one got a foot in the stomach, because The Beast does not fight fair. Vimes stepped aside and grabbed the other one. He felt the knife skitter along his breastplate as he lowered his head and tugged the man hard into the helmet.

The man folded up quite neatly on the cobbles.

Vimes spun around to the first man, who was bent almost double, and wheezing, but had nevertheless kept hold of his knife, which he waved around in front of him like some kind of talisman. The point made erratic figure-eights in the air.

“Drop it,” said Vimes. “I won’t ask again.”

He sighed and pulled a short object out of his back pocket. It was black and tapered and made of leather filled with lead shot. He’d banned them in the modern Watch but he knew some officers had acquired them, and if he judged the man to be sensible then he didn’t know they’d got them. Sometimes an argument had to be ended quickly, and there were worse alternatives.

He brought the blackjack down on the man’s arm with a certain amount of care. There was a whimper and the knife bounced off the cobbles.

“We’ll leave your chum to sleep it off,” he said. “But you are coming to see the doctor, Henry. Are you coming quietly?”

A few minutes later Dr. Lawn opened his back door and Vimes brushed past, the body over his shoulders.

“You minister to all sorts, right?” said Vimes.

“Within reason, but—”

“This one’s an Unmentionable,” said Vimes. “Tried to kill me. Needs some medicine.”

“Why’s he unconscious?” said the doctor. He was wearing a huge rubber apron, and rubber boots.

“Didn’t want to take his medicine.”

Lawn sighed, and with a hand that held a mop he waved Vimes toward an inner door. “Bring him right into the surgery,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m cleaning up after Mr. Salciferous in the waiting room.”

“Why, what did he do?”

“He burst.”

Vimes, his natural inquisitiveness suddenly curbed, carried the body into Lawn’s inner sanctum. It looked little different from when Vimes had last seen it, but then he’d barely been capable of taking in details. There was the table, and a workbench, and all along one wall were racks of bottles. No two bottles were the same size. In one or two of them, things floated.

On another wall were the instruments.

“When I die,” said Lawn, inspecting the patient, “I’m going to instruct them to put a bell on my tombstone, just so’s I can have the pleasure of not getting up when people ring. Put him down, please. Looks like concussion.”

“That was me hitting him,” said Vimes helpfully.

“You broke his arm, too?”

“That’s right.”

“You made a very neat job of it. Easy to set it and plaster him up. Is there something wrong?”

Vimes was still staring at the instruments.

“You use all these?” he said.

“Yes. Some of them are experimental, though,” said Lawn, busying himself at his worktable.

“Well, I’d hate for you to use this on me,” said Vimes, picking a strange instrument like a couple of paddles tied with string. Lawn sighed.

“Sergeant, there are no circumstances where the things you’re holding could possibly be used on you,” he said, his hands working busily. “They are…of a feminine nature.”

“For the seamstresses?” said Vimes, putting the pliers down in a hurry.

“Those things? No, the ladies of the night take pride these days in never requiring that sort of thing. My work with them is more of, shall we say, a preventative nature.”

“Teaching them to use thimbles, that sort of thing?”

“Yes, it’s amazing how far you can push a metaphor, isn’t it…”

Vimes prodded the paddles again. They were quite alarming.

“You’re married, Sergeant?” said Lawn. “Was Rosie right?”

“Er…yes. My wife is, er, elsewhere, though.” He picked the things up and dropped them hastily again, with a clatter.

“Well, it’s just as well to be aware that giving birth isn’t like shelling peas,” said the doctor.

“I should bloody well hope not!”

“Although I have to say the midwives seldom refer anything to me. They say men shouldn’t fish around where they don’t belong. Really, we may as well be living in caves.”

Lawn looked down at his patient. “In the words of the philosopher Sceptum, the founder of my profession: Am I going to get paid for this?”

Vimes investigated the moneybag on the man’s belt.

“Will six dollars do it?” he said.

“Why would the Unmentionables attack you, Sergeant? You’re a policeman.”

“I am, but they aren’t. Don’t you know about them?”

“I’ve patched up a few of their guests, yes,” said Lawn, and Vimes noted the caution. It didn’t pay to know too much in this town. “People with curious dislocations, hot wax burns…that sort of thing…”

“Well, I had a little brush with Captain Swing last night,” Vimes said, “and he was polite as hell to me about it, but I’d bet my boots he knows this lad and his friend came after me. That’s his style. He probably wanted to see what I’d do.”

“He’s not the only one interested in you,” said Lawn. “I got a message that Rosie Palm wants to see you. Well, I assume she meant you. ‘That ungrateful bastard’ was the actual term she used.”

“I think I owe her some money,” said Vimes, “but I’ve no idea how much.”

“Don’t ask me,” said Lawn, smoothing the plaster with his hand. “She generally names her price up front.”

“I mean the finder’s fee, or whatever it was!”

“Yes, I know. Can’t help you there, I’m afraid,” said Lawn.

Vimes watched him working for a while, and said, “Know anything about Miss Battye?”

“The seamstress? She hasn’t been here long.”

“And she’s really a seamstress?”

“For the sake of precision,” said Dr. Lawn, “let us say she’s a needlewoman. Apparently she heard there was a lot of work for seamstresses in the big city and had one or two amusing misunderstandings before someone told her exactly what was meant. One of them involved me removing a crochet hook from a man’s ear last week. Now she just hangs out with the rest of the girls.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s making a fortune, that’s why. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you, sergeant, that sometimes people go to a massage parlor for a real massage, for example? There’s ladies all over this city with discreet signs up that say things like ‘Trousers repaired while you wait,’ and a small but significant number of men make the same mistake as Sandra. There’s lot of men work here in the city and leave their wives back home and sometimes, you know, a man feels these…urges. Like, for a sock without holes and a shirt with more than one button. The ladies pass on the work. Apparently it’s quite hard to find a really good needlewoman in this city. They don’t like being confused with, er, seamstresses.”

“I just wondered why she hangs around street corners after curfew with a big sewing basket…”

Lawn shrugged. “Can’t help you there. Right, I’ve finished with this gentleman. It’d be helpful if he lies still for a while.” He indicated the racks of bottles behind him. “About how long will you want him to lie still for?”

“You can do that?”

“Oh, yes. It’s not accepted Ankh-Morpork medical practice, but since Ankh-Morpork medical practice would consist of hitting him on the head with a mallet he’s probably getting the best of the deal.”

“No, I meant that you doctors aren’t supposed to hurt people, are you?”

“Only in the course of normal incompetence. But I don’t mind sending him to sleepy land for another twenty minutes. Of course, if you want to wham him with the mallet I can’t stop you. The last guest of Swing I treated had several fingers pointing entirely the wrong way. So if you’d like to give him a few wallops for good luck I could point out some quite sensitive areas—”

“No thanks. I’ll just haul him out the back way and drop him in an alley.”

“Is that all?”

“No. Then…I’ll sign my name on his damn plaster cast. So he sees it when he wakes up. In bloody big letters, so it won’t rub off.”

“Now that’s what I call a sensitive area,” said Lawn. “You’re an interesting man, Sergeant. You make enemies like a craftsman.”

“I’ve never been interested in needlework,” said Vimes, hoisting the man on his shoulder. “But what sort of things would a needlewoman have in her workbasket, do you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Needles, thread, scissors, wool…that kind of thing,” said Mossy Lawn.

“Not very heavy things, then?” said Vimes.

“Not really. Why’d you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” said Vimes, making a small mental note. “Just a thought. I’ll go and drop off our friend here while I’ve still got some mist to lurk in.”

“Fine. I’ll have breakfast on when you get back. It’s liver. Calf’s.”

 

The Beast remembers. This time, Vimes slept soundly.

He had always found it easier to sleep during the day. Twenty-five years on nights had ground their nocturnal groove in his brain. Darkness was easier, somehow. He knew how to stand still, a talent that few possess, and how to merge into the shadows. How to guard, in fact, and see without being seen.

He remembered Findthee Swing. A lot of it was history. The revolt would have happened with Swing or without him, but he was, as it were, the tip of the boil.

He’d been trained at the Assassins’ School and should never have been allowed to join the Watch. He had too much brain to be a copper. At least, too much of the wrong kind of brain. But Swing had impressed Winder with his theories, had been let in as a sergeant and then was promoted to captain immediately. Vimes had never known why; it was probably because the officers were offended at seeing such a fine genn’lman pounding the streets with the rest of the oiks. Besides, he had a weak chest or something.

Vimes wasn’t against intellect. Anybody with enough savvy to let go of a doorknob could be a street monster in the old days, but to make it above sergeant you needed a grab bag of guile, cunning, and street wisdom that could pass for “intelligence” in a poor light.

Swing, though, started in the wrong place. He didn’t look around, and watch, and learn, and then say, “This is how people are, how do we deal with it?” No, he sat and thought: “This is how people ought to be, how do we change them?” And that was a good enough thought for a priest but not for a copper, because Swing’s patient, pedantic way of operating had turned policing on its head.

There had been that Weapons Law, for a start. Weapons were involved in so many crimes that, Swing reasoned, reducing the number of weapons had to reduce the crime rate.

Vimes wondered if he’d sat up in bed in the middle of the night and hugged himself when he’d dreamed that one up. Confiscate all weapons, and crime would go down. It made sense. It would have worked, too, if only there had been enough coppers—say, three per citizen.

Amazingly, quite a few weapons were handed in. The flaw, though, was one that had somehow managed to escape Swing, and it was this: criminals don’t obey the law. It’s more or less a requirement for the job. They had no particular interest in making the streets safer for anyone except themselves. And they couldn’t believe what was happening. It was like Hogswatch every day.

Some citizens took the not-unreasonable view that something had gone a bit askew if only naughty people were carrying arms. And they got arrested in large numbers. The average copper, when he’s been kicked in the nadgers once too often and has reason to believe that his bosses don’t much care, has an understandable tendency to prefer to arrest those people who won’t instantly try to stab him, especially if they act a bit snotty and wear more expensive clothes than he personally can afford. The rate of arrests shot right up, and Swing had been very pleased about that.

Admittedly, most of the arrests had been for possessing weaponry after dark, but quite a few had been for assaults on the Watch by irate citizens. That was Assault On A City Official, a very important and despicable crime, and, as such, far more important than all these thefts that were going on everywhere.

It wasn’t that the city was lawless. It had plenty of laws. It just didn’t offer many opportunities not to break them. Swing didn’t seem to have grasped the idea that the system was supposed to take criminals and, in some rough-and-ready fashion, force them into becoming honest men. Instead, he’d taken honest men and turned them into criminals. And the Watch, by and large, into just another gang.

And then, just when the whole wretched stew was thickening, he’d invented craniometrics.

Bad coppers had always had their ways of finding out if someone was guilty. Back in the old days—hah, now—they included thumbscrews, hammers, small pointed bits of wood, and, of course, the common desk drawer, always a boon to the copper in a hurry. Swing didn’t need any of this. He could tell if you were guilty by looking at your eyebrows.

He measured people. He used calipers and a steel ruler. And he quietly wrote down the measurements, and did some sums, such as dividing the length of the nose by the circumference of the head and multiplying it by the width of the space between the eyes. And from such figures he could, infallibly, tell that you were devious, untrustworthy, and congenitally criminal. After you spent the next twenty minutes in the company of his staff and their less sophisticated tools of inquiry, he would, amazingly, be proven right.

Everyone was guilty of something. Vimes knew that. Every copper knew it. That was how you maintained your authority—everyone, talking to a copper, was secretly afraid you could see their guilty secret written on their forehead. You couldn’t, of course. But neither were you supposed to drag someone off the street and smash their fingers with a hammer until they told you what it was.

Swing would probably have ended up face-down in some alley somewhere if it wasn’t for the fact that Winder had found in him a useful tool. No one could sniff out conspiracies like Swing. And so he’d ended up running the Unmentionables, most of whom made Sergeant Knock look like Good Copper Of The Month. Vimes had always wondered how the man had kept control, but maybe it was because the thugs recognized, in some animal way, a mind that had arrived at thuggery by the long route and was capable of devising in the name of reason the kind of atrocities that unreason could only dream of.

It wasn’t easy, living in the past. You couldn’t whack someone for what they were going to do, or for what the world was going to find out later. You couldn’t warn people, either. You didn’t know what could change the future, but if he understood things right, history tended to spring back into shape. All you could change was the bits around the edges, the fine details. There was nothing he could do about the big stuff. The lilac was going to bloom. The revolution was going to happen.

Well…a kind of revolution. That wasn’t really a word for what it was. There was the People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road (Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably Priced Love! And a Hard-Boiled Egg!), which would live for all of a few hours, a strange candle that burned too briefly and died like a firework. And there was the scouring of the House of Pain, and the—

Anyway…you did the job that was in front of you, like unimaginative coppers always did.

He got up around one in the afternoon. Lawn was closeted in his surgery, doing something that involved some serious whimpering on the part of something else. Vimes knocked on the door.

After a moment it was opened a fraction. Doctor Lawn was wearing a face mask and holding a pair of very long tweezers in his hand.

“Yes?”

“I’m going out,” said Vimes. “Trouble?”

“Not too bad. Slidey Harris was unlucky at cards last night, that’s all. Played the ace of hearts.”

“That’s an unlucky card?”

“It is if Big Tony knows he didn’t deal it to you. But I’ll soon have it removed. If you’re going to injure anyone tonight, can you do it before I go to bed? Thank you.” Lawn shut the door.

Vimes nodded at the woodwork, and went out to stretch his legs and get some lunch. It was waiting for him, on a tray, around the neck of a man. Quite a young man, now, but there was something about the expression, as of a rat who was expecting cheese right around the next corner, and had been expecting cheese around the last corner, too, and the corner before that, and, although the world had turned out so far to be full of corners yet completely innocent of any cheese at all, was nevertheless quite certain that, just around the corner, cheese awaited.

Vimes stared. But why should he be surprised? As long ago as he could remember, there was always someone selling highly suspicious chemically reclaimed pork products in this town. The seller was very familiar. Just…younger.

His expression lit up at the sight of an unfamiliar face. The seller liked to meet people who hadn’t yet bought one of his pies.

“Ah, Sergeant…hey, what’s the little crown mean?”

“Sergeant-at-arms,” said Vimes. “That’s like ‘sergeant with all the trimmings.’”

“Well, Sergeant, could I interest you in a very special sausage inna bun? Guaranteed no rat? One hundred percent organic? All pork shaved before mixing?”

Why not, thought Vimes. And his stomach, liver, kidneys, and lengths of intestine all supplied reasons, but he fumbled in his pocket for some change anyway.

“How much, Mr.…er,” Vimes remembered in time, and made a show of looking at the name on the front of the tray, “…Dibbler?”

“Four pence, Sergeant.”

“And that’s cutting your own throat, eh?” said Vimes jovially.

“Pardon?” said Dibbler, looking puzzled.

“I said, a price like that’s cutting your own throat, eh?”

“Cutting my own…?”

“Throat,” said Vimes desperately.

“Oh.” Dibbler thought about this. “Right. Yeah. It is. You never said a truer word. So you’ll have one, then?”

“I notice it says on your tray, ‘Dibbler Enterprises, Est,’” said Vimes. “Shouldn’t it say when you were established?”

“Should it?” Dibble looked down at his tray.

“How long have you been going?” said Vimes, selecting a pie.

“Let’s see…what year is this?”

“Er…Dancing Dog, I think.”

“Since Tuesday, then,” said Dibbler. His face brightened. “But this is only the start, mister. This is just to get a stake together. In a year or two I’m going to be a big man in this town.”

“I believe you,” said Vimes. “I really do.”

Dibbler looked down at his tray again as Vimes strolled off. “Cutting my own throat, cutting my own throat,” he mumbled to himself, and seemed to like the sound of it. But then he focused more clearly on the tray and his face went pale.

“Sergeant!” he shouted. “Don’t eat the pie!”

Vimes, a few yards away, stopped with the pie halfway to his mouth.

“What’s wrong with it?” he said. “Silly me. I mean, what’s uniquely wrong with it?”

“Nothing! I mean…these are better!”

Vimes risked another look at the tray. They all looked the same to him. Dibbler’s pies quite often looked appetizing. Therein lay their one and only charm.

“I can’t see any difference,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, there is,” said Dibbler, sweat beading on his forehead. “See? The one you got has that little pattern of pastry pigs on it? And all the others have pastry sausages? I’d hate for you to think that, you know, I thought you were a pig or anything, so if you’ll hand it over I’ll happily give you, er, another one, that one’s not the right one, er, not that it’s a wrong one, but, er, with the pig and everything…”

Vimes looked into the man’s eyes. Dibbler had yet to learn that friendly blankness that thirty years of selling truly organic pies would call into being.

While the man stared in horror, he took a large bite out of the pie.

It was everything that he had expected and nothing that he could identify.

“Yum,” he said, and, with some concentration, eyes fixed on the luckless pieman, finished it all.

“I think it’s quite possible no one else makes pies like you do, Mr. Dibbler,” he said, licking his fingers in case he might want to shake hands with someone later on.

“You ate it all?” said Dibbler.

“Was that wrong?” said Vimes.

And now relief rose off the man like smoke off a greenwood fire.

“What? No! That’s fine! Jolly good! Want another one to help it down? Half-price?”

“No, no, one is more than enough,” said Vimes, backing away.

“You finished every bit?” said Dibbler.

“That was right, wasn’t it?” said Vimes.

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Obviously!”

“Got to be going,” said Vimes, moving on down the lane. “I’ll look forward to seeing you again when I’ve got less appetite.”

He waited until he was well out of sight before taking a few random turns in the network of alleys. Then he stepped into the shadow of a deep doorway and felt in his mouth for the piece of pie that had seemed curiously unchewable even by pie standards.

Usually, if you found something more-than-usually hard or crunchy in one of Dibbler’s Famous Pork Pies, the trick was either to swallow it and hope for the best or spit it out with your eyes closed. But Vimes felt around between gum and cheek and fished out a folded piece of paper, stained with unknowable juices.

He unfolded it. In smudged pencil, but still readable, it read: Morphic Street, 9 o’clock tonight. Password: swordfish.

Swordfish? Every password was “swordfish”! Whenever anyone tried to think of a word that no one would ever guess, they always chose “swordfish.” It was just one of those strange quirks of the human mind.

That explained the guilt, anyway. A plot. Another damn plot, in a city full of plots. Did he need to know about plots? Anyway, he knew about this one. Morphic Street. The famous Morphic Street Conspiracy. Ha.

He pushed the greasy scrap into a pocket and then hesitated.

Someone was being quiet. Overlaid on the distant street noises was a sort of hollow in the sounds, filled by careful breathing. And the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.

Quietly, he pulled the blackjack out of his rear pocket.

Now, what were the options? He was a copper, and someone was creeping up on him. If they weren’t a copper, then they were in the wrong (because he was a copper). If they were a copper, too, then they were one of Swing’s crew and therefore in the wrong (because he was a better copper than them, and so were things floating in gutters), and therefore delivering a swift bucketful of darkness had no obvious downside.

On the other hand, thieves, assassins, and Swing’s men, by all accounts, did a lot of creeping up on people and were probably pretty good at it, whereas the person tracking him was keeping their back so close to the wall he could hear the scraping. That meant they were probably just a member of the public with something on their mind, and he was not inclined to add several ounces of lead shot simply for that reason (because he’d like to believe he wasn’t that sort of copper).

He settled for stepping out into the alley and saying “Yeah?”

A boy stared up at him. It had to be a boy. Nature would not have been so cruel as to do that to a girl. No single feature in itself was worse than passably ugly, but the combination was greater than the sum of the parts. There was also the smell. It wasn’t bad, as such. It just wasn’t entirely human. There was something feral about it.

“Er…” said the pinched-up face, “Look, tell you what, mister, you tell me where you’re going and I’ll stop following you, have we got a deal? Cost you no more’n a penny and that’s a special price. Some people pay me a lot more’n that to stop following ’em.”

Vimes continued to stare. The creature was wearing an oversized evening-dress jacket, shiny with grease and greenish with age, and a top hat that must once have been trodden on by a horse. But the bits that were visible between the two were regrettably familiar.

“Oh, no…” he moaned. “No, no, no…”

“You all right, mister?”

“No, no, no…oh, ye gods, it had to happen, didn’t it…”

“You want I should go’n fetch Mossy, mister?”

Vimes lowered the creature and pointed an accusing finger.

“You’re Nobby Nobbs, right?”

The urchin backed away.

“Might be. So what? Is that a crime?” He turned to run but Vimes’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder.

“Some people might say so. You’re Nobby Nobbs, son of Maise Nobbs and Sconner Nobbs?”

“Prob’ly, prob’ly! But I ain’t done nothin’, mister!”

Vimes bent down to look into eyes that peered out at the world through a mask of grime.

“How about whizzing wipers, snitching tinklers, pulling wobblers, flogging tumblers, and running rumbles?”

Nobby’s brow creased in genuine puzzlement.

“What’s ‘pulling wobblers’ mean?” he said.

Vimes gave him a similar look. Street parly had changed a lot in thirty years.

“That’s stealing trifles…small items. Isn’t it?”

“Nah, nah, mister. That’s ‘tottering nevils,’” said Nobby, relaxing. “But you ain’t doin’ badly, for someone who’s new. What’s ‘oil of angels’?”

Memory flicked a card.

“A bribe,” said Vimes.

“And a dimber?” said Nobby, grinning.

“Easy. Could be a head beggar, could be just a handsome man.”

“Well done. Bet you don’t know how to fleague a jade, though.”

Once again, from a dusty recess, a memory unrolled. This one stuck in your mind.

“Dear me, do you know that? What a shame in one so young,” said Vimes. “That’s when you want to sell a broken-down horse and have to make it a bit frisky in front of the punters, and so you take some fresh, raw, hot ginger, lift up its tail, and push the ginger—”

“Cor,” said Nobby, suddenly impressed. “Everyone says you’re a real quick learner, and that’s true enough. You could’ve been born here.”

“Why’re you following me, Nobby Nobbs?” said Vimes.

The urchin held out a grubby hand. Some street language never changes.

Vimes pulled out sixpence. It shone in Nobby’s palm like a diamond in a chimney-sweep’s ear.

“One of ’em’s a lady,” he said and grinned. The hand stayed out.

“That was a bloody sixpence I just gave you, kid,” Vimes growled.

“Yeah, but I got to think of—”

Vimes grabbed the lapels of Nobby’s greasy coat and lifted him up, and was mildly shocked to realize that there was practically no weight there.

Street urchin, he thought. Urchin sounds about right…spiky, slimy, and smell slightly of rotting seaweed. But there’s hundreds of them round here, clawing a living off the very margins, and, as I recall, Nobby was one of the sharpest. And as trustworthy as a chocolate hammer. But that’s okay. There’s ways to deal with that.

“How much,” he said, “for you to work for me, all the time?”

“I got customers to think of—” Nobby began.

“Yeah, but I’m the one holding you up in one hand, right?” said Vimes.

With his oversized boots dangling a foot above the ground, Nobby considered his position.

“All the time?”

“Right!”

“Er…for something like that I’ve got to be looking at a lordship every day…”

“A dollar? Guess again!”

“Er…half a dollar?”

“Not a chance. A dollar a week, and I won’t make your life utter misery, which, Nobby, I assure you I can do in so many little ways.”

Still dangling, Nobby tried to work all this out.

“So…I’ll be kind of like a copper, right?” he said, grinning artfully.

“Kind of.”

“Number One Suspect says it’s a good life being a copper, ’cos you can pinch stuff without getting nicked.”

“He’s got that right,” said Vimes.

“An’ he says if anyone gives you lip, you can bop ’em one and chuck them in the Tanty,” Nobby went on. “I’d like to be a copper one day.”

“Who’s Number One Suspect?”

“That’s what our mam calls Sconner, our dad. Er…payment up front, yeah?” Nobby added, hopefully.

“What do you think?”

“Ah. Right. No, eh?”

“Correct. But I’ll tell you what…” He lowered Nobby to the ground. Light as a feather, he thought. “You come with me, kid.”

Ankh-Morpork was full of men living in lodgings. Anyone with a spare room rented it out. And, in addition to the darning and stitching that was turning Miss Battye into one of the highest-earning seamstresses in the city, they needed something else that women were best able to supply. They needed feeding.

There were plenty of hot-chair eating places like the one Vimes headed for now. It sold plain food for plain men. There wasn’t a menu. You ate what was put in front of you, you ate it quick, and you were glad to get it. If you didn’t like it, there were plenty who did. The dishes had names like Slumgullet, Boiled Eels, Lob Scouse, Wet Nellies, Slumpie, and Treacle Billy—good, solid stuff that stuck to the ribs and made it hard to get up out of the seat. They generally had a lot of turnip in there too, even if they weren’t supposed to.

Vimes elbowed his way to the counter, dragging Nobby behind him. A chalked sign said ALL YOU CAN EAT IN TEN MINUTES FOR 10P.

Beneath it, a large woman was standing bare-armed by a cauldron in which uncertain things bubbled in gray scum. She gave him an appraising look and then glanced at his sleeve.

“What can I do for you, Sergeant?” she said. “What happened to Sergeant Knock?”

“Comes in here a lot, does he?” said Vimes.

“Dinner and supper.” Her look said it all: second helpings, too, and never pays.

Vimes held up Nobby.

“See this?” he said.

“Is it a monkey?” said the woman.

“Har har, very funny,” moaned Nobby as Vimes lowered him again.

“He’s going to come in here for one square meal every day,” said Vimes. “All he can eat for ten pence.”

“Yes? And who’s paying, may I ask?”

“Me.” Vimes plonked a half dollar on the table. “That’s five days in advance. What’s the special today? Slumgullet? It’ll put hairs on his chest, when he gets a chest. Give him a big bowl. You might make a loss on this deal.”

He shoved Nobby onto a bench, placed the greasy bowl in front of him, and sat down opposite.

“You said a lady,” he said. “Don’t mess me about, Nobby.”

“Have I got to share this, Sarge?” said Nobby, picking up a wooden spoon.

“It’s all yours. Make sure you eat up every bit. There may be a test later,” said Vimes. “A woman, you said.”

“Lady Meserole, Sarge,” said Nobby indistinctly, through a mouthful of mixed vegetables and grease. “Posh lady. Everyone calls her Madam. Come from Genua a few months ago.”

“When did she ask you?”

“This morning, Sarge.”

“What? She just stopped you in the street?”

“Er…I’ve got a kind of gen’ral contract with her, Sarge.”

Vimes glared. It was better than speaking. Nobby wriggled uneasily.

“Fact is, Sarge, she…er, caught me snickering her nolly last month. Hell’s bells, Sarge, she’s got a punch on her like a mule! When I come round, we got to talking, and she said a keen young lad like me could be useful as, like, an ear on the street.”

Vimes continued to glare, but he was impressed. Young Nobby had been a gifted pickpocket. Anyone who caught him in the act was quick indeed. He turned up the ferocity of the glare.

“All right, Sarge, she said she’d turn me over to the Day Watch if I didn’t,” Nobby confessed, “and you go straight to the Tanty if a nob lays a complaint against you.”

That’s bloody true, thought Vimes. Private law again.

“I don’t want to go to the Tanty, Sarge. Sconner’s in there.”

And he used to break your arms, Vimes remembered.

“So why’s a fine lady interested in me, Nobby?” he said aloud.

“Didn’t ask. I told ’er about you an’ the hurry-up wagon and the Unmentionables and everything. She said you sounded fascinatin’. An’ Rosie Palm’s paying me a measly penny a day to keep an eye on you, too. Oh, an’ Corporal Snubbs at Cable Street, he’s payin’ me one half-penny to watch you, but what is a half-penny these days, say I, so I don’t watch you much on his account. Oh, and Lance Corporal Coates, I’m getting a penny from him, too.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. He asked me this morning, too. A penny job.” Nobby belched hugely. “Better out than in, eh? Who’d you want me to watch for you, Sarge?”

“Me,” said Vimes. “If you can fit me into your busy schedule.”

“You want me to follow you?”

“No, just tell me what people are saying about me. Keep an eye on who else is following me. Watch my back, sort of thing.”

“Right!”

“Good. Just one more thing, Nobby…”

“Yes, Sarge?” said Nobby, still spooning.

“Give me back my notebook, my handkerchief, and the four pennies you whizzed from my pockets, will you?”

Nobby opened his mouth to protest, dribbling Slumgullet, but closed it when he saw the glint in Vimes’s eye. Silently, he produced the items from various horrible pockets.

“Well done,” said Vimes, getting up. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what’ll happen to you if you try the old dippitydoodah on me again, do I, Nobby?”

“No, Sarge,” said Nobby, looking down.

“Want another bowl? Have fun. I’ve got to go to work.”

“You can rely on me, Sarge!”

Oddly enough, thought Vimes as he walked back to the Watch House, I probably can. Nobby would nick anything and dodge anything, but he wasn’t bad. You could trust him with your life, although you’d be daft to trust him with a dollar.

He purchased a packet of Pantweed’s Slim Panatellas from another street trader. Carrying them around in their cardboard packet didn’t feel right at all.

There was a buzz in the main office as he strolled in. Watchmen were standing around in little groups. Sergeant Knock spotted Vimes and trotted over.

“Bit of a do, sir. Had a break-in last night,” he reported with just a hint of smirk.

“Really?” said Vimes. “What did they steal?”

“Did I say they stole anything, sir?” said the sergeant innocently.

“Well, no, you didn’t,” said Vimes. “That was me jumping to what we call a conclusion. Did they steal anything, then, or did they break in to deliver a box of chocolates and a small complimentary basket of fruit?”

“They stole the captain’s silver inkstand,” said Knock, impervious to sarcasm. “And it was an inside job, if you want my opinion. The door upstairs was forced but the main doors weren’t. Must’ve been a copper what done it!”

Vimes was amazed at the forensic expertise shown here.

“My word, a copper stealing?” said Vimes.

“Yes, a terrible thing,” said Knock earnestly. “Especially since you showed us the way yesterday, about being honest and everything.” He glanced past Vimes and shouted, “Attention! Officer present!”

Tilden was coming down the stairs. The room fell silent, except for his hesitant steps.

“No luck, Sergeant?” he said.

“Not so far, sir,” said Knock. “I was just telling Sergeant Keel here what a terrible thing has happened.”

“It was engraved, you know,” said Tilden mournfully. “Everyone in the regiment chipped in what they could afford. This really is very…upsetting.”

“A man’d have to be a right bastard to steal something like that, eh, Sergeant?” said Knock.

“Absolutely,” said Vimes. “I see you’re pretty well organized on this one, Sergeant. Have you looked everywhere?”

“Everywhere except the lockers,” said Knock. “That’s not something we’d do lightly, rummaging through a man’s locker. But we’re all here now, and Captain Tilden’s here to see fair play, so, although it’s very distasteful, I’ll ask you, Captain, for permission to rummage.”

“Yes, yes, if you must,” said Tilden. “I don’t like the idea. It is really quite dishonorable, you know.”

“Then I think, sir, to show that we’re doing this fairly,” said Knock, “us sergeants ought to be searched first. That way no one can say we don’t take it seriously.”

“Come now, Sergeant,” said Tilden with a little smile. “I hardly think you are suspected.”

“No, sir, fair’s fair,” said Knock. “We’ll set a good example, eh, Sergeant Keel?”

Vimes shrugged. Knock grinned at him, pulled out a bundle of keys, and beckoned to Lance Corporal Coates.

“You do the honors, Ned,” he said, beaming. “Me first, o’course.”

The door was unlocked. The contents of Knock’s locker were the usual unsavory mess of lockers everywhere, but there certainly was no silver inkstand. If there was, it would have turned black after a single day.

“Well done. Now Sergeant Keel’s, please, Ned.”

Knock’s friendly beam fixed on Vimes, and the policeman fumbled with the lock. Vimes stared back, face blank as a slate, as the door creaked open.

“Oh dear, what have we here?” said Knock without even bothering to look.

“It’s a sack, Sarge,” said Coates. “Something heavy in it, too.”

“Oh dear me,” said Knock, still staring at Vimes. “Open it up, lad. Gently. We don’t want anything to get damaged, eh?”

There was a rustle of hessian, and then:

“Er…it’s half a brick,” Ned reported.

“What?”

“A half brick, sir.”

“I’m saving up for a house,” said Vimes. There were one or two sniggers from the assembled men, but some of the faster thinkers were suddenly looking worried.

They know, thought Vimes. Well, lads, welcome to Vimes’s Roulette. You spun the wheel and now you’ve got to guess where the ball is going to go…

“Are you sure?” said Knock, turning to the open locker.

“It’s just a sack, Sarge,” said Ned. “And half a brick.”

“Is there a loose panel or something?” said Knock desperately.

“What, in a sack, Sarge?”

“Well, that seems to be our lockers,” said Vimes, rubbing his hands together. “Who’s next, Sergeant Knock?” Round and round the little ball goes, and where it stops, nobody knows…

“Y’know, person’ly, I think the captain’s right, I don’t think any of the men would—” Knock began, and faltered. Vimes’s stare could have hammered rivets.

“I believe, Sergeant, that since we have begun this, it should be concluded,” said Tilden. “That is only fair.”

Vimes took a couple of steps toward Coates and held out his hand.

“Keys,” he said.

Coates glared at him.

“The keys, Lance Corporal,” said Vimes.

He snatched them from Coates’s hand and turned to the line of lockers.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s start with the well-known archcriminal, Lance Constable Vimes…”

Door after door was opened. The lockers, while possibly of interest to anyone studying the smells of unwashed clothing and the things that could grow on neglected socks, failed to produce a single silver inkstand.

It did turn up The Amorous Adventurs of Molly Clapper in Corporal Colon’s locker, however. Vimes stared at the crude and grubby engravings like at a long-lost friend. He remembered that book; it had gone around the Watch House for years, and, as a young man, he had learned a lot from some of the illustrations, although a good deal of what he’d learned had turned out to be wrong.

Fortunately, Captain Tilden’s view was blocked, and Vimes shoved the greasy book back on the shelf and said to the red-eared Colon: “Studying theory, eh, Fred? Good man. But practice makes perfect.”

Then he turned, at last, to Coates’s locker. The man was watching him like a hawk.

The scratched door creaked open. Every neck craned to see. There was a stack of old notebooks, some civilian clothing, and a small sack of what, when it was tipped out onto the floor, turned out to be laundry.

“Surprised?” said the lance corporal.

Not half as much as you, Vimes thought.

He winked at Coates, and turned away.

“Can I have a word with you in your office, Captain?” he said.

“Yes, Sergeant, I suppose so,” said Tilden, looking around. “Oh, dear…”

Vimes gave the man some time to climb the stairs, then followed him into his office and tactfully closed the door.

“Well, Sergeant?” said Tilden, collapsing into his chair.

“Have you looked everywhere, sir?” said Vimes.

“Of course, man!”

“I mean, sir, perhaps you put it in a desk drawer? Or the safe, perhaps?”

“Certainly not! I sometimes put it in the safe on weekends, but I’m…sure I didn’t do that last night.”

Vimes noted the note of uncertainty. He was doing a bad thing, he knew. Tilden was nearly seventy. At a time like that, a man learned to treat his memory as only a rough guide to events.

“I find, sir, that when a busy man has a lot on his plate, he can do things that subsequently slip his mind,” he said. I know I do, he added to himself. I could put my house keys down in a bare room and not find them thirty seconds later.

“We’ve all been under a lot of pressure lately,” he added, knowing that Tilden frequently fell asleep during the afternoon until Snouty coughed very loudly outside the door before taking him his cocoa.

“Well, that’s true,” said Tilden, turning desperate eyes to him. “All this curfew business. Very…unsettling. Forget my own head if it wasn’t nailed on, what?”

He turned and looked at the green safe.

“Only had it a couple of months,” he muttered. “I suppose I…look the other way, will you, Sergeant? May as well sort this out…”

Vimes obligingly turned his back. There was some clicking, and a creak, and then an intake of breath.

Tilden got to his feet, holding the silver inkstand.

“I believe I’ve made a fool of myself, Sergeant,” he said.

No, I’ve made a fool of you, thought Vimes, fervently wishing he hadn’t. I’d intended to drop it in Coates’s locker, but I couldn’t…

…not after what I found in there.

“Tell you what, sir,” he volunteered, “we could say it was a kind of test.”

“I don’t tell lies as a rule, Keel!” said the captain, but added, “I appreciate the suggestion, nevertheless. Anyway, I know I’m not as young as I was. Perhaps it’s time to retire.” He sighed. “I have to say, I’ve been considering it for some time.”

“Oh, don’t talk like that, sir,” said Vimes far more jovially than he felt. “I can’t see you retiring.”

“Yes, I suppose I should see things through,” Tilden mumbled, walking back to his desk. “Do you know, Sergeant, that some of the men think you are a spy?”

“Who for?” said Vimes, reflecting that Snouty delivered more than cocoa.

“Lord Winder, I assume,” said Tilden.

“Well, we all work for him, sir. But I don’t report to anyone but you, if that’s any help.”

Tilden looked up at him and shook his head sadly. “Spy or not, Keel, I don’t mind telling you that some of the orders we’ve been getting lately have…not been thought out properly, in my opinion, what?”

He gave Vimes a glare as if defying him to produce the red-hot thumbscrews there and then.

Vimes could see how much the admission that abduction and torture and conspiracy to criminalize honest citizens might not be acceptable government policy was costing the old man. Tilden hadn’t been brought up to think like that. He’d ridden off under the flag of Ankh-Morpork to fight the Cheese-Eaters of Quirm, or Johnny Klatchian, or whatever enemies had been selected by those higher up the chain of command with never a second thought about the rightness of the cause, because that sort of thinking could slow a soldier down.

Tilden had grown up knowing that the people at the top were right. That was why they were at the top. He didn’t have the mental vocabulary to think like a traitor, because only traitors thought like that.

“Haven’t been here long enough to comment, sir,” said Vimes. “Don’t know how you do things here.”

“Not like we used to,” mumbled Tilden.

“Just as you say, sir.”

“Snouty says you know your way around remarkably well, Sergeant. For someone new to the city.”

That was a comment with a hook on the end, but Tilden was an inexperienced angler.

“One nick is pretty much like any other, sir,” said Vimes. “And, of course, I’ve visited the city before.”

“Of course. Of course. Well…thank you, Sergeant. If you could, er, explain things to the men? I’d be grateful…”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

Vimes shut the door carefully behind him and went down the steps two at a time.

The squad below had barely moved. He clapped his hands like a schoolteacher.

“C’mon, c’mon, you’ve got patrols to go to! Get moving! Not you, Sergeant Knock—a word in the yard, please!”

Vimes didn’t bother to wait to see if the man would follow him. He went out into the late afternoon sunshine, leaned against the wall, and waited.

Ten years ago, he’d have—correction, ten years ago, if he was sober, he’d have taught Knock a few lessons about who’s boss with a few well-aimed punches. And that was certainly the custom these days. Scraps between watchmen hadn’t been uncommon when Vimes was a constable. But that wouldn’t do for Sergeant Keel.

Knock stepped out, inflated with mad, terrified bravado.

When Vimes raised his hand, the man actually flinched.

“Cigar?” said Vimes.

“Er…”

“I don’t drink,” said Vimes. “But you can’t beat a good cigar.”

“I…er…don’t smoke,” mumbled Knock. “Look, about that inkstand—”

“D’you know, he’d gone and put it in that safe of his?” said Vimes, smiling.

“He had?”

“And then forgot about it,” said Vimes. “Happens to us all, Winsborough. A man’s mind starts to wander, he’s never quite certain of what he’s done.”

Vimes maintained the friendly grin. It was as good as raining blows. Besides, he’d called Knock by his correct name. The man never used it in public, for fear of the panic it might cause.

“Just thought I’d put your mind at rest about it,” said Vimes.

Sergeant Winsborough Knock shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. He wasn’t certain whether he’d got away with something, or had just ended up getting deeper into something else.

“Tell me more about Coates,” said Vimes.

Knock’s face was for a moment an agony of calculation. And then he adopted his usual policy: when you think there’s wolves on your trail, throw someone off the sleigh.

“Ned, sir?” he said. “Hard worker, of course, does his job—but a bit tricky, between you and me.”

“How? And you don’t have to call me sir, Winsborough. Not out here.”

“He reckons Jack’s as good as his master, if you know what I mean. Reckons he’s as good as anyone. Bit of a troublemaker in that respect.”

“Barrack-room lawyer?”

“That sort of thing, yes.”

“Rebel sympathies?”

Knock turned his eyes up innocently. “Could be, sir. Wouldn’t like to see the lad in trouble, o’course.”

You think I’m a spy for the Unmentionables, thought Vimes. And you’re throwing Coates to me. The other day you were pushing him for promotion. You little worm.

“Worth keeping an eye on, then?” he said aloud.

“Yessir.”

“Interesting,” said Vimes, always a worrying word to the uncertain. It certainly worried Knock, and Vimes thought: my gods, perhaps Vetinari feels like this all the time…

“Some of us, er, go round to the Broken Drum after the shift’s over,” said Knock. “It’s open round the clock. I don’t know if you—”

“I don’t drink,” said Vimes.

“Oh. Yes. You said,” said Knock.

“And now I’d better pick up young Sam and get out on patrol,” said Vimes. “Nice to have this little talk with you, Winsborough.”

He strode past, taking care not to look back. Sam was still waiting in the main office but was sucked into his wake as he swept past.

 

“I say, who’s the skirt up there with old Folly?”

The prefects looked up. On the raised platform at the end of the noisy dining hall, Doctor Follett, Master of Assassins and ex officio headmaster of the Assassins’ Guild School, was in animated conversation with, indeed, a lady. The vivid purple of her dress made a splash of color in the vast room where black predominated, and the elegant whiteness of his hair shone like a beacon in the darkness.

It was a Guild of Assassins, after all. Black was what you wore. The night was black and so were you. And black had such style, and an Assassin without style, everyone agreed, was just a highly paid arrogant thug.

The prefects were all over eighteen, and, therefore, allowed to visit parts of the city that the younger boys weren’t even supposed to know about. Their pimples no longer erupted at the sight of a woman. Now, their eyes narrowed. Most of them had already learned that the world was an oyster that could be opened with gold if a blade did not suffice.

“Probably a parent,” said one of them.

“I wonder who’s the lucky boy?”

“I know who she is,” said “Ludo” Ludorum, head of Viper House. “I heard some of the masters talking earlier. She’s Madam Roberta Meserole. Bought the old house in Easy Street. They say she made a pile of money in Genua and wants to settle down here. Looking for investment opportunities, apparently.”

“Madam?” said Downey. “An honorific or a job description?”

“In Genua? Could be both,” said someone, to general laughter.

“Folly’s certainly plying her with champagne,” said Downey. “They’re on their third bottle. What have they got to talk about?”

“Politics,” said Ludo. “Everyone knows Winder isn’t going to do the decent thing, so it’ll be down to us. And Folly’s annoyed because we’ve lost three chaps up there already. Winder’s pretty cunning. There’s guards and soldiers everywhere you look.”

“Winder’s a scag,” said Downey.

“Yes, Downey. You call everyone a scag,” said Ludo calmly.

“Well, everyone is.”

Downey turned back to the table, and a movement—or, rather, a lack of movement—caught his eye. Toward the far end of the table one young Assassin was sitting reading, with a book stand positioned in front of his plate. He was intent on it, an empty fork halfway to his mouth.

With a wink at the others, Downey selected an apple from the bowl in front of him, stealthily drew his arm back, and let fly with malicious accuracy.

The fork moved like a snake’s tongue and skewered the apple out of the air.

The reader turned a page. Then, eyes never leaving the print, he delicately brought the fork up to his mouth and took a bite out of the apple.

The rest of the table looked back at Downey, and there were one or two chuckles. The young man’s brow furrowed. Assault having failed, he was forced to try scathing wit, which he did not have.

“You really are a scag, Dog-Botherer,” he said.

“Yes, Downey,” said the reader levelly, his eyes still intent on the page.

“When are you going to pass some decent exams, Dog-Botherer?”

“I really couldn’t say, Downey.”

“Never killed anyone, right, Dog-Botherer?”

“Probably not, Downey.” The reader turned another page. That little sound infuriated Downey even more.

“What’s that you’re reading?” he snapped. “Robertson, show me what the Dog-Botherer is reading, will you? Come on, pass it up.”

The boy next to the one currently known as Dog-Botherer snatched the book off the stand and threw it along the length of the table

The reader sighed and sat back as Downey gave the pages a cursory flick.

“Well, look here, you fellows,” he said. “Dog-Botherer is reading a picture book.” He held it open. “Color it in yourself with your paints or crayons, did you, Dog-Botherer?”

The former reader stared up at the ceiling. “No, Downey. It was hand-colored to his instructions by Miss Emelia Jane, the sister of Lord Winstanleigh Greville-Pipe, the author. It says so on the frontispiece, you will note.”

“And here’s a lovely picture of a tiger,” Downey ploughed on. “Why’re you looking at pictures, Dog-Botherer?”

“Because Lord Winstanleigh has some interesting theories on the art of concealment, Downey,” said the reader.

“Huh? Black-and-orange tiger in green trees?” said Downey, turning the pages roughly. “Big red ape in green forest? Black-and-white zebra in yellow grass? What’s this, a manual on how not to do it?”

Again there was a round of chuckles, but they were forced. Downey had friends because he was big and rich, but sometimes he was embarrassing to have around.

“As a matter of fact, Lord Winstanleigh also has an interesting point to make on the dangers of intuitive—”

“This a Guild book, Dog-Botherer?” Downey demanded.

“No, Downey. It was privately engraved some years ago and I succeeded in tracking down a copy in—”

Downey’s hand shot out. The book whirled away, causing a tableful of younger boys to scatter, and landed at the back of the fireplace. The diners at the top tables looked around, and then turned back in indifference. Flames licked up. For a moment, the tiger burned brightly.

“Rare book, was it?” said Downey, grinning.

“I think it may now be said to be nonexistent,” said the one known as Dog-Botherer. “That was the only extant copy. Even the engraved plates have been melted down.”

“Don’t you ever get upset, Dog-Botherer?”

“Oh yes, Downey,” said the reader. He pushed his chair back and stood up. “And now, I believe, I will have an early night.” He nodded at the table. “Good evening, Downey, gentlemen…”

“You’re a scag, Vetinari.”

“Just as you say, Downey.”

 

Vimes thought better when his feet were moving, the mere activity calmed him down and shook his thoughts into order.

Apart from the curfew and manning the gates, the Night Watch didn’t do a lot. This was partly because they were incompetent, and partly because no one expected them to be anything else. They walked the streets slowly, giving anyone dangerous enough time to saunter away or melt into the shadows, and then rang the bell to announce to a sleeping world, or at any rate a world that had been asleep, the fact that all was, despite appearances, well. They also rounded up the quieter sort of drunk and the more docile kinds of stray cattle.

They think I’m a spy for Winder? thought Vimes. Spying on the Treacle Mine Road Watch? It’s like spying on dough.

Vimes had flatly refused to carry a bell. Young Sam had acquired a lighter one, but out of deference to Vimes’s crisply expressed wishes, kept the clapper muffled with a duster.

“Is the wagon going out tonight, Sarge?” said young Sam, as the twilight faded toward night.

“Yes. Colon and Waddy are on it.”

“Taking people to Cable Street?”

“No,” said Vimes. “I told them to take everyone to the Watch House, and Snouty’ll fine ’em half a dollar and take their name and address. Perhaps we’ll have a raffle.”

“We’ll get into trouble, Sarge.”

“The curfew’s just to frighten people. It doesn’t mean much.”

“Our mum says there’s going to be trouble soon,” said Sam. “She heard it in the fish shop. Everyone says it’s going to be Snapcase at the palace. He listens to the people.”

“Yeah, right,” said Vimes. And I listen to the thunder. But I don’t do anything about it.

“Our mum says everyone’ll have a voice in the city when Snapcase is the Patrician,” Sam went on.

“Keep the voice down, kid.”

“The day’ll come when the angry masses will rise up and throw off their shekels, the fishmonger says,” said Sam.

If I was a spy for Swing, that fishmonger would be gutted, Vimes thought. Quite the revolutionary, our mam.

He wondered if it was at all possible to give this idiot some lessons in basic politics. That was always the dream, wasn’t it? “I wish I knew then what I know now”? But when you got older, you found out that you now wasn’t you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.

A much better dream, one that’d ensure sounder sleep, was not to know now what you didn’t know then.

“What’s your dad do?” he said as if he didn’t know.

“He passed away a long time ago, Sarge,” said Sam. “When I was little. Run down by a cart when he was crossing the street, our mum said.”

What a champion liar she was, too.

“Sorry to hear that,” said Vimes.

“Er, our mum says you’d be welcome round to tea one night, what with you being all by yourself in a strange city, Sarge.”

“Would you like me to give you another tip, lad?” said Vimes.

“Yes, Sarge, I’m learning a lot.”

“Lance constables do not invite their sergeants around to tea. Don’t ask me why. It’s one of those things that does not happen.”

“You don’t know our mum, Sarge.”

Vimes coughed. “Mums are mums, Lance Constable. They don’t like to see men managing by themselves, in case that sort of thing catches on.”

Besides, I know she’s been up in Small Gods these past ten years. I’d rather put one hand flat on the table and give Swing the hammer than walk down Cockbill Street today.

“Well,” said Sam, “she says she’s going to make you some Distressed Pudding, Sarge. She makes great Distressed Pudding, our mum.”

The best, thought Vimes, staring into the middle distance. Oh, gods. The very best. No one has ever done it better.

“That’d be…very kind of her,” he managed.

“Sarge,” said Sam after a while, “why are we patroling Morphic Street? It’s not our beat.”

“I switched beats. I ought to see as much of the city as possible,” said Vimes.

“Not a lot to see in Morphic Street, Sarge.”

Vimes looked at the shadows.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s amazing what you see if you concentrate.”

He pulled Sam into a doorway.

“Just whisper, lad,” he said. “Now, look down there at the house opposite. See that doorway with the deeper shadow?”

“Yes, Sarge,” whispered Sam.

“Why’s it such a deep shadow, d’you think?”

“Dunno, Sarge.”

“’Cos someone in black is standing in it, that’s why. So we’re going to walk a little further and then we’ll just turn around and go back round the corner. We’re heading back to the station like good boys because our cocoa’s getting cold, see?”

“Right, Sarge.”

They ambled back around the corner, and Vimes let them walk sufficiently far up the street that the footsteps died away naturally.

“Okay, this is far enough,” he said.

Give Sam his due, Vimes thought, he knew how to stand still. He’d have to teach him, too, how to unfocus himself, so that he could very nearly fade out of sight on a cloudy day. Had Keel taught him that? After a certain age, memory was indeed an untrustworthy thing…

The city’s clocks chimed the three-quarter hour.

“What time’s curfew?” Vimes whispered.

“Nine o’clock, Sarge.”

“Must be nearly that now,” said Vimes.

“No, it’s only just gone a quarter to nine, Sarge.”

“Well, it’s going to take me a few minutes to get back. I want you to sneak back after me and wait at the corner. When it starts, you come running and banging that bell of yours.”

“When what starts, Sarge? Sarge?”

But Vimes was walking noiselessly down the road. He made a mental note to tip Snouty a dollar. These boots were like foot gloves.

Torches spluttered on the junction, destroying the night vision of anyone who looked in that direction. Vimes padded around its dark penumbra and sidled along the buildings on the far wall until he was level with the door. Then he swung around the frame and shouted.

“You’re nicked, chum!”

“———!” said the shadow.

“And that’s offensive language, sir, such as I would not wish my young lance constable to hear!”

Behind him he heard Lance Constable Vimes advancing at a run, ringing his bell madly, and shouting, “Nine o’clock and all’s not well at all!” And there were other sounds, too, the ones Vimes had been half-listening for, of doors slamming and distant footsteps hurrying away.

“You bloody fool!” said the struggling figure in black. “What the hell are you playing at!” He pushed at Vimes, who nevertheless tightened his grip.

“That, sir, is Assault Upon A Watch Officer,” said Vimes.

“I’m a Watch officer, too, you damn flatfoot! From Cable Street!”

“Where’s your uniform?”

“We don’t wear uniforms!”

“Where’s your badge?”

“And we don’t carry badges!”

“Hard to see why I shouldn’t think you is a common thief then, sir. You was casing that joint over there,” said Vimes, happy in the role of big, thick, but horribly unshakeable copper. “We seen you.”

“There was going to be a meeting of dangerous anarchists!”

“What kind of a religion is that, sir?” Vimes patted the man’s belt. “Oh dear, what have we here? A very nasty dagger. See this, Lance Constable Vimes? A weapon, no doubt about it! That’s against the law. Carried after dark, which is even more against the law! And it’s a concealed weapon!”

“What do you mean, concealed?” screamed the twisting prisoner. “It was in a bloody sheath!”

“Bloody, eh? Used it already, have you, sir?” said Vimes. He thrust a hand into a pocket of the man’s black coat. “And…what’s this? A little black velvet roll with, I do believe, a complete set of lockpicks? That’s Going Equipped for Burglary, that is.”

“They’re not mine and you know it!” the man snarled.

“Are you sure, sir?” said Vimes.

“Yes! Because I keep mine in my inside pocket, you bastard.”

“That’s Using Language Liable To Cause A Breach Of The Peace,” said Vimes.

“Huh? You idiots have scared everyone away! Who’s going to be offended?”

“Well, I might be. I’m sure you don’t want that, sir.”

“You’re that stupid sergeant we’ve been told about, aren’t you,” growled the man. “Too thick to see what’s going on, right? Well, this is where you find out, mister…”

He twisted out of Vimes’s grip, and there were a couple of sliding, metallic noises in the gloom. Wrist knives, thought Vimes. Even Assassins think they’re an idiot’s weapon.

He took a couple of steps back as the man danced toward him, both knives waving.

“Can’t think of a dumb answer to this one, eh, brownjob?”

To his horror Vimes saw, behind the man, the shape of Sam raising his bell very slowly.

“Don’t hit him!” he shouted, and then lashed out with his boot as the man’s head turned.

“If you’re going to fight, fight,” he said, as the man toppled forward. “If you’re going to talk, talk. Don’t try to talk and fight. And right now, I caution you to do neither.”

“I could have got him easily, Sarge,” Sam complained, as Vimes fished out his handcuffs and knelt down. “I could have blown him out like a light.”

“Head injuries can be fatal, Lance Constable. We serve the public trust.”

“But you kicked him in the privates, Sarge!”

Because I don’t want you to be a target, thought Vimes, as he tightened the cuffs. That means you don’t belt one of them over the head. You stay as the dim sidekick, in the background. That way you survive, and that way, maybe, I do, too.

“You don’t have to fight the way the other bloke wants you to fight,” he said, hefting the man onto his shoulders. “Give me a hand here…up we go. Okay, I’ve got him. You lead the way.”

“Back to the Watch House?” said Sam. “You’re arresting an Unmentionable?”

“Yes. I just hope we’ll meet some of our lads on the way. Let this be a lesson, lad. There aren’t any rules. Not when there’s knives out. You take him down, quietly if possible, without hurting him much, if possible, but you take him down. He comes at you with a knife, your bring your stick down on his arm. He comes at you with his hands, you use your knee or your boot or your helmet. Your job is to keep the peace. You make it peaceful as quickly as you can.”

“Yes, sir. But there’s going to be trouble, Sarge.”

“Straightforward arrest. Even coppers have to obey the law, what there is of it…”

“Yes, Sarge, but I mean there’s going to be trouble right now, Sarge.”

They’d reached the end of the road, and there was a group of figures there. They looked like men with a purpose; there was something about the stance, the way they were standing in the road, and, of course, the occasional glint of light on a weapon also gave a hint. There was a snapping of little doors as dark lanterns were opened.

Of course, he wouldn’t have been alone, Vimes scolded himself. His job was just to watch until they’d all gone in. And then he’d just schlep away to call in the heavy gang.

There must be a dozen of ’em. We’re going to get cheesed.*

“What’ll we do, Sarge?” whispered Sam.

“Ring your bell.”

“But they’ve spotted us!”

“Ring the damn bell, will you? And keep walking! And don’t stop ringing!”

The Unmentionables spread out now, and as Vimes trudged toward them, he saw several figures at each end of the line slip around behind him. That’s how it’d go. They’d be like the muggers up in Scoone Avenue, talking nice and friendly while their eyes said, hey, you know our mates are right behind you and we know you know, and it’s fun watching you trying to pretend that this is just a civilized conversation when you know that any minute you’re going to get it right in the kidneys. We feel your pain. And we like it…

He stopped walking. It was that or walk into someone. And all along the street doors and windows were opening, as the clanging of the bell roused the neighborhood.

“Evenin’,” he said.

“Evenin’, Your Grace,” said a voice out of history. “Nice to see an old friend, eh?”

Vimes groaned. The worst that could happen had happened.

“Carcer?”

“That’s Sergeant Carcer, thank you. Funny how things work out, eh? Turns out I’m prime copper material, haha. They gave me a new suit and a sword and twenty-five dollars a month, just like that. Lads, this is the man I told you about.”

“Why’d you call him ‘Your Grace,’ Sarge?” said one of the shadowy men.

Carcer’s eyes never left Vimes’s face.

“It’s a joke. Where we come from, everyone used to call him Duke,” said Carcer. Vimes saw him slip a hand into a pocket. It came out holding something that had a brassy glint. “It was a sort of nickname, eh…Duke? Stop the kid ringing the damn bell, will you?”

“Knock it off, Lance Constable,” Vimes muttered. The noise had worked, anyway. This little tableau had a silent audience now. Not that an audience would make any difference to Carcer. He’d cheerfully stab you to death in the center of a crowded arena and then look around and say, “Who, me?” But the men behind him were edgy, like cockroaches wondering when the light was going to go on.

“Don’t you worry, Duke,” Carcer said, sliding his fingers into the brass knuckles, “I’ve told the boys about you and me. How we, haha, go back a long way and all that, haha.”

“Yeah?” said Vimes. It wasn’t prizewinning repartee, but Carcer obviously wanted to talk. “And how did you get made a sergeant, Carcer?”

“I heard where they were looking for coppers with fresh ideas,” said Carcer. “And that nice Captain Swing hisself talked to me and said he was in no doubt I was an honest man who had been unlucky. Measured me up, he did, with his calipers and his rulers and jommetry and he said it proved I was not a criminal type. It was all the fault of my environment, he said.”

“What, you mean all those dead bodies everywhere you went?” said Vimes.

“Nice one, Duke, haha.”

“And you had fresh ideas, did you?”

“Well, he liked one of ’em,” said Carcer, narrowing his eyes. “Turned out he didn’t know the ginger-beer trick.”

The ginger-beer trick. Well, that just about put the tin lid on it. Torturers down the ages hadn’t found the ginger-beer trick, and Carcer has handed it over to a patient maniac like Captain Swing.

“The ginger-beer trick,” said Vimes. “Well done, Carcer. You’re just what Swing’s been looking for. The complete bastard.”

Carcer grinned as if he’d been awarded a small prize. “Yeah, I already told ’em how you got a down on me for stealing a loaf of bread.”

“Come on, Carcer,” said Vimes. “That’s not you. You never pinched a loaf of bread in your life. Murdering the baker and stealing the bakery, that’d be your style.”

“He’s a card, eh?” said Carcer, winking at his men and nodding toward Vimes. Then, in one movement, he spun around and punched the man beside him in the stomach.

“You don’t call me ‘sarge,’” he hissed. “It’s ‘sergeant,’ understand?”

On the floor, the man groaned.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then, haha,” said Carcer, slipping the brass knuckles back into this pocket. “Now the thing is…Duke…what you have there is one of my men, so how about you hand him over and we’ll say no more about it?”

“What’s happening, Sarge?”

The voice was coming from some way behind Vimes. He turned. It was Wiglet and Scutts. They looked like men who’d been running but now were trying to affect a nonchalant swagger. It was getting less nonchalant and considerably less swaggy as they eyed up the Unmentionables.

The frantically ringing bell. That’s what they’d always used. All the coppers who heard it would converge on it, because an Officer Was In Trouble.

Of course, they wouldn’t necessarily help him get out of trouble, not if the odds weren’t right. This was the old Night Watch, after all. But at least they could fish him out of the river or cut him down and see he got a decent burial.

There was a rumble from further up the street, and the rattling bulk of the hurry-up turned the corner, with Fred Colon at the reins and Constable Waddy hanging on behind. Vimes heard the shouts.

“What’s up, Bill?”

“It’s Keel and Vimesy,” Wiglet called back. “Hurry up!”

Vimes tried to avoid Carcer’s eyes, tried to appear as if nothing had happened, tried to pretend that the world had not suddenly cracked open and let in the cold winds of infinity. But Carcer was smart.

He glanced at Vimes, looked at Sam.

“Vimesy?” he said. “Your name Sam Vimes, mister?”

“I ain’t saying anything,” said Lance Constable Vimes staunchly.

“Well, well, well, well, well,” said Carcer happily. “Now here’s a nice how-d’yer-do, eh? Something for a chap to think about, and no mistake, haha.”

There was a creak as the hurry-up wagon rolled to a stop. Carcer glanced up at the round, pale face of Corporal Colon.

“You just go about your business, Corporal,” said Carcer. “You just leave now.”

Colon swallowed. Vimes could see his Adam’s apple bob as it tried to hide.

“Er…we heard the ringing,” he said.

“Just a bit of high spirits,” said Carcer. “Nothing that need worry you. We’re all coppers here, right? I wouldn’t like there to be any trouble. There’s just been a bit of a misunderstanding, that’s all. Sergeant Keel here was just going to hand over my friend there, right, Sergeant? No hard feelings, eh? You just happened to blunder into a little operation of ours. Best not to talk about it. Just you hand him over and we’ll call it quits.”

Every head turned to Vimes.

The sensible thing would be to hand the man over. He knew it. And then—probably—Carcer would go away, and he didn’t want that man any closer to young Sam than he could help.

But Carcer would come back. Oh, yes. Things like Carcer always came back, especially when they thought they’d found a weakness.

That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that he’d changed things.

There had been the Morphic Street Conspiracy. The Unmentionables had raided it. A lot of people had died but some had got away, and then there had been a few days of horrible confusion and then it ended when—

But Sam Vimes hadn’t been anywhere near Morphic Street that night. Keel had been teaching him to shake hands with doorknobs over on the other side of The Shades.

But you wanted to be clever, Duke. You wanted to put a spoke in the wheel and smack a few heads, didn’t you?

And now Carcer’s in it as well, and you’re out of the history books and traveling without a map…

Carcer was still grinning his cheerful grin. Here and now, more than anything else, Vimes wanted to see the end of that grin.

“Well, I’d like to oblige, Sarge,” he said. “I really would. But I’ve pinched him now, so I’ve got to take him back to my nick and do the paperwork. He might well be able to help us with our inquiries into a number of unsolved crimes.”

“Such as?” said Carcer.

“Dunno,” said Vimes. “Depends on what we’ve got. We’ll take him down the cells, give him a cup of tea, chat to him about this and that…you know how it is. A man can get quite chatty after a cup of tea. Or carbonated beverage of his choice, of course.”

There was a snigger from among the members of the Night Watch, although Vimes hoped none of them understood what the last sentence meant.

Carcer’s smile dissolved.

“I said he’s one of my men, on official business, and I am a sergeant,” he said.

“And I am sergeant-at-arms and I said we’ll hand him over to you at the nick, Sergeant Carcer. Officially.”

Carcer nodded toward the lance constable, so imperceptibly that only Vimes saw it. And he lowered his voice.

“But suddenly I’ve got all the aces, Duke,” he said.

“But suddenly I’m not playing cards, Carcer. Now, we could have a barney right here and now and, y’know, I’m not sure which way it’d go. But I’m sure as hell that you wouldn’t be a sergeant tomorrow. And if you think you’ve got all the aces, you can afford to raise the stakes.”

Carcer stared at him for a moment. Then he winked and half-turned away.

“I told you he’s a caution, eh?” he said to the multitude. He gave Vimes a conspiratorial dig in the ribs. “Always trying it on! Okay, sergeant…at-arms, we’ll do it your way. Got to give you brownjobs something to do, haha, eh? I’ll send a couple of the lads down for him in an hour or so.”

That’s right, give me time to sweat on whether I’ll pop into nonexistence if you cut the lad’s throat, Vimes thought. Trouble is, I am sweating.

He straightened up and beckoned to the hurry-up wagon.

“Me and my lads will all take him back,” he said. “Time for our cocoa break, see? Give me a hand up with him, Waddy. Got any other passengers, Fred?”

“Just a drunk, Sarge. Been spewing everywhere.”

“Okay. We’ll put the prisoner in the back and we’ll all hang on the outside.” Vimes nodded at Carcer. “I’m sure we’ll meet again soon, Sergeant.”

“Yeah,” said Carcer, and there was that impish grin again. “And you be sure to look after yourself, d’you hear?”

Vimes leaped onto the side of the wagon as it rattled past, and didn’t even look back. That was one thing about Carcer, at least—he wouldn’t shoot you in the back if he thought there was a reasonable chance, pretty soon, of cutting your throat.

After a while, Constable Wiglet, hanging on beside him as the wagon rocked, said: “What happened back there, Sarge? You know that bloke?”

“Yes. He’s killed two coppers. One that tried to arrest him and one who was off-duty and eating a pie. Killed other people, too.”

“But he’s a copper!”

“Swing gave him a job, Wiglet.”

Suddenly, the rattle of the wheels sounded much louder. All the other watchmen were listening very intently.

“You been in the Watch long, Constable?” said Vimes.

“Two years, Sarge,” said Wiglet. “Used to be a fruit porter down the market, but I got a bad back and a bad chest what with all the cold mornings.”

“I never heard about coppers being killed,” said Lance Constable Vimes.

“It wasn’t here, kid. It was a long way away.”

“You were there?”

“They were coppers I knew, yes.”

Again, the mood on the cart changed. There was no obvious sound from the watchmen but over the wagon hung the word “Ah-hah…”

“So you came here to track him down…?” said Wiglet.

“Something like that.”

“We heard you came from Pseudopolis, Sarge,” said Sam.

“I’ve come from a lot of places.”

“Wow!” said Sam.

“He killed a copper who was eating a pie?” said Fred Colon, from the box.

“Yep.”

“What a bastard! What kind of pie was it?”

“Witnesses didn’t say,” Vimes lied. This was old Ankh-Morpork. The dwarfs here right now were a tiny minority who kept their heads down…well, further down than usual. There certainly were no all-night ratpie shops.

Wiglet had something on his mind.

“They’re going to come for that bloke you picked up,” he said.

“Want the rest of the night off, Constable?” said Vimes. There was some nervous laughter from the rest of the crew. Poor devils, thought Vimes. You joined up ’cos the wages were good and there was no heavy lifting, and suddenly it’s going to be difficult.

“What’re you going to charge our man with, Sarge?” said Sam.

“Attempted assault on a copper. You saw the knives.”

“You did kick him, though.”

“Right, I forgot. We’ll do him for resisting arrest, too.”

There was some more laughter. We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.

What a bunch. I know you well, gentlemen. You’re in it for the quiet life and the pension, you don’t hurry too much in case the danger is still around when you get there, and the most you ever expected to face was an obstreperous drunk or a particularly difficult cow. Most of you aren’t even coppers, not in your head. In the sea of adventure, you’re bottom-feeders.

And now, it’s war…and you’re in the middle. Not on either side. You’re the stupid little band of brownjobs. You’re beneath contempt. But believe me, boys—you’ll rise.

 

For a minute of two after Morphic Street went quiet, nothing moved and nothing happened.

Then a coach came around the corner. It was a particularly fine one, drawn by two horses. Its lamps were torches, and as the coach bounced on the cobbles, the zigzagging flames seemed to trail for a moment in the air.

Insofar as they revealed anything, they suggested that the coach had been done up in purple livery. It also seemed to be rather heavy on its wheels.

It pulled to a halt at the next doorway down from the one where Vimes had performed his arrest. Vimes, who thought he knew a lot about being a shadow, would have been surprised to see two dark figures step out of the doorway’s darkness into the light of the torch.

The coach door swung open.

“Strange news, kind lady,” said one of the shadows.

“Very strange news, dearie,” said the other shadow.

They climbed up into the coach, which sped off.

 

Vimes was impressed at the way the men reacted back at the Watch House, despite the lack of any command from him. Wiglet and Scutts jumped down as soon as the wagon was in the yard and dragged the gates across.

Inside, Colon and Waddy pulled the shutters across the windows. Waddy went into the armory and came out with an armful of crossbows. It was all done with speed and, for the men concerned, precision.

Vimes nudged his younger self. “Make the cocoa, will you, kid?” he said. “I don’t want to miss the show.”

He sat down at his desk and put his feet up as Colon locked the door and Waddy pulled the bar across.

This is happening, he thought, but it didn’t happen before. Not exactly like this. This time, the Morphic Street mob did a runner. They weren’t ambushed in their meeting. There wasn’t a fight. The sight of all those coppers must’ve scared them rigid. They weren’t much anyway, just sloganeers and skivers and me-too-ists, the people who crowd behind the poor slob who’s the spokesman, shouting “yea, right,” and leg it up an alley when the law gets rough. But some had died in the ambush, and some fought back, and one thing led, as always, to another. Except, this time, there was no ambush, because some thick sergeant made too much noise…

Two different presents. One past, one future…

I don’t know what’s going to happen next.

However, I’ve got a damn good idea.

“Well done, lads,” he said, standing up. “You finish trapping us inside and I’ll go and tell the old man what’s happening.”

He heard the puzzled muttering behind him as he climbed the stairs.

Captain Tilden was sitting at his desk, staring at the wall. Vimes coughed loudly, and saluted.

“Had a bit of—” he began, and Tilden turned his ashen face to him. He looked as though he had seen a ghost, and it had been in the mirror.

“You’ve heard the news, too?”

“Sir?”

“The riot up at Dolly Sisters,” said Tilden. “It was only a couple of hours ago.”

I’m too close, Vimes thought, as the words sank in. All those things were just names, it all seemed to happen at once. Dolly Sisters, yeah. They were a right mob of hotheads up there…

“The lieutenant of the Day Watch called in one of the regiments,” said Tilden. “Which he was duly authorized to do. Of course.”

“Which one?” said Vimes, for the look of the thing. The name was in the history books, after all.

“Lord Venturi’s Medium Dragoons, Sergeant. My old regiment.”

That’s right, thought Vimes. And cavalry are highly trained at civilian crowd control. Everyone knows that.

“And, er, there were some, er, accidental deaths…”

Vimes felt sorry for the man. In truth, it was never proven that anyone had given an order to ride people down, but did it matter? Horses pushing, and people unable to get away because of the press of people behind them…it was too easy for small children to lose grip of a hand…

“But, in fairness, missiles were thrown at the officers, and one soldier was badly injured,” said Tilden, as if reading the words off a card.

That’s all right, then? Vimes thought.

“What kind of missiles, sir?”

“Fruit, I gather. Although there may have been some stones as well.” Vimes realized that Tilden’s hand was shaking. “The riot was over the price of bread, I understand.”

No. The protest was over the price of bread, said Vimes’s inner voice. The riot was what happens when you have panicking people trapped between idiots on horseback and other idiots shouting “yeah, right!” and trying to push forward, and the whole thing in the charge of a fool advised by a maniac with a steel rule.

“The feeling of the palace,” said Tilden slowly, “is that revolutionary elements may attack the Watch Houses.”

“Really, sir? Why?”

“It’s the sort of thing they do,” said Tilden.

“As a matter of fact, sir, the men are putting up shutters and—”

“Do whatever you feel necessary, Sergeant,” said Tilden, waving a hand with a scrawled letter in it. “We are told we must be mindful of the curfew regulations. That has been underlined.”

Vimes paused before answering. He’d bitten back the first answer. He contented himself with “Very well, sir,” and left.

The man wasn’t a bad man, he knew; he must have been badly affected by the news to give such a stupid, dangerous order. “Do whatever you feel necessary.” Give an order like that to a man who’s liable to panic when he sees a bunch of people waving their fists and you got the Dolly Sisters Massacre.

He walked back down the stairs. The squad was standing around looking nervous.

“Prisoner in the cells?” said Vimes.

Corporal Colon nodded. “Yessir. Sarge, Snouty says that up at Dolly Sisters—”

“I know. Now here’s what I feel is necessary. Take the shutters down, unbar the door, leave it open, and light all the lamps. Why isn’t the blue lamp over the door lit?”

“Dunno, Sarge. But what if—”

“Get it lit, Corporal. And then you and Waddy go and stand guard outside, where you can be seen. You’re friendly-looking local lads. Take your bells, but, and I want to make this very clear, no swords, right?”

“No swords?” Colon burst out. “But what if a bloody great mob comes round the corner and I’m not armed?”

Vimes reached him in two swift strides and stood nose to nose.

“And if you have got a sword, what will you do, eh? Against a bloody great mob? What do you want ’em to see? Now what I want ’em to see is Fatty Colon, decent lad, not too bright, I knew ’is dad, an’ there’s ol’ Waddy, he drinks in my pub. ’Cos if they just see a couple of men in uniform with swords you’ll be in trouble, and if you draw those swords you’ll be in real trouble, and if by any chance, Corporal, you draw swords tonight without my order and survive, then you’ll wish you hadn’t done either, because you’ll have to face me, see? And then you’ll know what trouble is, ’cos everything up until then will look like a bleedin’ day at the soddin’ seaside. Understand?”

Fred Colon goggled at him. There was no other word for it.

“Don’t let my sugary-sweet tones lead you to believe that I’m not damn well giving you orders,” said Vimes, turning away. “Vimes?”

“Yes, Sarge?” said young Sam.

“Have we got a saw in this place?”

Snouty stepped forward. “I’ve got a toolbox, Sarge.”

“Nails, too?”

“Yessir!”

“Right. Rip the door off my locker and hammer a lot of nails right through it, will you? Then put it on the upstairs landing. I’ll take the saw, ’cos I’m going to the privy.”

After the silence that followed, Corporal Colon obviously felt he had to make a contribution. He cleared his throat and said, “If you’ve got a problem in that area, Sarge, Mrs. Colon’s got a wonderful medicine she—”

“I won’t be long,” said Vimes. In fact, he was four minutes.

“All done,” he said, returning to the sound of hammering from the locker room. “Come with me, Lance Constable. Time for a lesson in interrogation. Oh…and bring the toolbox.”

“Fred and Waddy don’t like being outside,” said Sam, as they went down the stone steps. “They say what if that bunch of Unmentionables turn up?”

“They needn’t worry. Our friends at Cable Street are not front-door kind of people.”

He pushed open the door to the cells. The prisoner stood up and grabbed the bars.

“Okay, they’ve come, now you let me out,” he said. “Come on, and I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“No one’s come for you, sir,” said Vimes. He locked the main door behind him, and then unlocked the cell.

“It’s probably a busy time for them,” he added. “Been a bit of a riot over in Dolly Sisters. A few deaths. Might be a while before they get around to you.”

The man eyed the toolbox that the lance constable was holding. It was only a flicker, but Vimes saw the moment of uncertainty.

“I get it,” the prisoner said. “Good Cop, Bad Cop, eh?”

“If you like,” said Vimes. “But we’re a bit short-staffed, so if I give you a cigarette, would you mind kicking yourself in the teeth?”

“Look, this is a game, right?” said the prisoner. “You know I’m one of the Particulars. And you’re new in town and want to impress us. Well, you have. Big laugh all round, haha. Anyway, I was only on stakeout.”

“Yes, but that’s not how it works, is it,” said Vimes. “Now we’ve got you, we can decide what you’re guilty of. You know how it’s done. Fancy a ginger beer?”

The man’s face froze.

“Y’know,” said Vimes, “it turns out that after the riot this evening we’ve been warned to expect revolutionary attacks on the Watch Houses. Now, personally, I wouldn’t expect that. What I’d expect is a bunch of ordinary people turning up, you know, because they’ve heard what happened. But—and you can call me Mr. Suspicious if you like—I’ve got a feeling that there will be something a bit worse. You see, apparently we’ve got to be mindful of the curfew regulations. What that means, I suppose, is that if we get people coming to complain about unarmed citizens being attacked by soldiers, which, personally, I would consider to be Assault With A Deadly Weapon, we’ve got to arrest them. I find that rather—”

There was a commotion from above. Vimes nodded to young Sam, who disappeared up the stairs.

“Now that my impressionable assistant has gone,” said Vimes quietly, “I’ll add that if any of my men get hurt tonight then I’ll see to it that for the rest of your life you scream at the sight of a bottle.”

“I haven’t done anything to you! You don’t even know me!”

“Yes. Like I said, we’re doing it your way,” said Vimes.

Sam reappeared, in a hurry.

“Someone’s fallen in the privy!” he announced. “They were climbing on the roof and it gave way!”

“It must be one of those revolutionary elements,” said Vimes, watching the prisoner’s face. “We’ve been warned about them.”

“He says he’s from Cable Street, Sarge!”

“That’s just the kind of thing I’d say, if I was a revolutionary element,” said Vimes. “All right, let’s take a look at him.”

Upstairs, the front door was still open. There were a few people outside, just visible in the lamplight. There was also Sergeant Knock inside, and he was not happy.

“Who said we open up like this?” he was saying. “It looks nasty out on those streets! Very dangerous—”

“I said we stay open,” said Vimes, coming up the stairs. “Is there a problem, Sergeant?”

“Well…look, Sarge, I heard on the way over, they’re throwing stones at the Dimwell Street House,” said Knock, deflating. “There’s people in the streets! Mobs! I hate to think what’s happening downtown.”

“So?”

“We’re coppers! We should be getting prepared!”

“To do what? Bar the doors and listen to the stones rattle off the roof?” said Vimes. “Or maybe we should go out and arrest everyone? Any volunteers? No? I’ll tell you what, sergeant, if you want to do some coppering, you can go and arrest the man in the privy. Do him for Breaking And Entering—”

There was a scream from upstairs.

Vimes glanced up.

“And I reckon if you go up onto the attic landing you’ll find there’s a man who dropped through the skylight right onto a doorful of nails that was accidentally left there,” he went on. He looked at Knock’s puzzled face. “It’s the Cable Street boys, Sergeant,” he explained. “They thought they could come across the roofs and scare the dumb brownjobs. Chuck ’em both in the cells.”

“You’re arresting Unmentionables?”

“No uniform. No badge. Carrying weapons. Let’s have a bit of law around here, shall we?” said Vimes. “Snouty, where’s that cocoa?”

“We’ll get into trouble!” Knock shouted.

Vimes let Knock wait until he’d lit a cigar. “We’re in trouble anyway, Winsborough,” he said, shaking out the match. “It’s just a case of deciding what kind we want. Thanks, Snouty.”

He took the mug of cocoa from the jailer and nodded at Sam.

“Let’s take a stroll outside,” he said.

He was aware of the sudden silence in the room, except for the whimpering coming from upstairs and the distant yelling from the privy.

“What’re you all standing around for, gentlemen?” he said. “Want to ring your bells? Anyone fancy shouting out that all’s well?”

With those words hanging in the room all big and pink, Vimes stepped out into the evening air.

There were people hanging around out there, in little groups of three or four, talking among themselves and occasionally turning to look at the Watch House.

Vimes sat down on the steps and took a sip of his cocoa.

He might as well have dropped his breeches. The groups opened up, became an audience. No man drinking a nonalcoholic chocolate drink had ever been the center of so much attention.

He’d been right. A closed door is an incitement to bravery. A man drinking from a mug, under a light, and apparently enjoying the cool night air, is an incitement to pause.

“We’re breaking curfew, you know,” said a young man moving with a quick dart-forward-dart-back movement.

“Is that right?” said Vimes.

“Are you going to arrest us, then?”

“Not me,” said Vimes cheerfully. “I’m on my break.”

“Yeah?” said the man. He pointed to Colon and Waddy. “They on their break too?”

“They are now.” Vimes half-turned. “Brew’s up, lads. Off you go. No, no need to run, there’s enough for everyone. And come back out when you’ve got it…”

When the sound of pounding boots had died away, Vimes turned back and smiled at the group again.

“So when do you come off your break?” said the man.

Vimes paid him some extra attention. The stance was a giveaway. He was ready to fight, even though he didn’t look like a fighter. If this was a barroom, the bartender would be taking the more expensive bottles off the shelf, because amateurs like that tended to spread the glass around. Ah, yes…and now he could see why the word “barroom” had occurred to him. There was a bottle sticking out of the man’s pocket. He’d been drinking his defiance.

“Oh, around Thursday, I reckon,” said Vimes, eyeing the bottle. There was laughter from somewhere in the growing crowd.

“Why Thursday?” said the drinker.

“Got my day off on Thursday.”

There were a few more laughs this time. When the tension is drawing out, it doesn’t take much to snap it.

“I demand you arrest me!” said the drinker. “Come on, try it!”

“You’re not drunk enough,” said Vimes. “I should go home and sleep it off, if I was you.”

The man’s hand grasped the neck of the bottle. Here it comes, thought Vimes. By the look of him, the man had one chance in five…

Fortunately, the crowd wasn’t too big yet. What you didn’t need at a time like this was people at the back, craning to see and asking what was going on. And the lit-up house was fully illuminating the lit-up man.

“Friend, if you take my advice you’ll not consider that,” said Vimes. He took another sip of his cocoa. It was only lukewarm now, but along with the cigar it meant that both his hands were occupied. That was important. He wasn’t holding a weapon. No one could say afterward that he had a weapon.

“I’m no friend to you people!” snapped the man and smashed the bottle on the wall by the steps.

The glass tinkled to the ground. Vimes watched the man’s face, watched the expression change from drink-fueled anger to agonizing pain, watched the mouth open…

The man swayed. Blood began to ooze from between his fingers, and a low, thin animal sound escaped from between his teeth.

That was the tableau, under the light—Vimes sitting down with his hands full, the bleeding man several feet away. No fight, no one had touched anyone…he knew the way rumor worked, and he wanted this picture to fix itself in people’s minds. There was even ash still on the cigar.

He stayed very still for a few seconds, and then stood up, all concern.

“Come on, one of you help me, will you?” he said, tugging off his breastplate and the chain-mail shirt underneath it. He grabbed his shirt sleeve and tore off a long strip.

A couple of men, jerked into action by the voice of command, steadied the man who was dripping blood. One of them reached for the hand.

“Leave it,” Vimes commanded, tightening the strip of sleeve around the man’s unresisting wrist. “He’s got a handful of broken glass. Lay him down as gently as you can before he falls over but don’t touch nothing until I’ve got this tourniquet on. Sam, go into the stable and pinch Marilyn’s blanket for the boy. Anyone here know Doctor Lawn? Speak up!”

Someone among the awed bystanders volunteered that he did, and was sent running for him.

Vimes was aware of the circle watching him; a lot of the watchmen were peering around the doorway now.

“Saw this happen once,” he said aloud—and added mentally “in ten years time”—“it was in a bar fight. Man grabbed a bottle, didn’t know how to smash it, ended up with a hand full of shards, and the other guy reached down and squeezed.” There was a satisfying groan from the crowd. “Anyone know who this man is?” he added. “Come on, someone must…”

A voice in the crowd volunteered that the man could well be Joss Gappy, an apprentice shoemaker from New Cobblers.

“Let’s hope we can save his hand, then,” said Vimes. “I need a new pair of boots.”

It wasn’t funny at all, but it got another of those laughs, the ones people laugh out of sheer frightened nervousness. Then the crowd parted as Lawn came through.

“Ah,” he said, kneeling down by Gappy. “You know, I don’t know why I own a bed. Trainee bottle-fighter?”

“Yes.”

“Looks like you’ve done the right things but I need light and a table,” said Lawn. “Can your men take him into the Watch House?”

Vimes had hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Oh well, you had to make the best of it…

He pointed randomly at figures in the crowd. “You and you and you and you and you, too, lady,” he said. “You can help Fred and Waddy take this young man inside, okay? And you’re to stop with him, and we’ll leave the doors open, right? All you lot out here’ll know what’s going on. We’ve got no secrets here. Everyone understand?”

“Yeah, but you’re a copper—” a voice began.

Vimes darted forward and hauled a frightened young man out of the crowd by his shirt.

“Yeah, I am,” he said. “And see that lad over there? He’s a copper, too. His name’s Sam Vimes. He lives in Cockbill Street with his mum. And that’s Fred Colon, just got married, got a couple of rooms in Old Cobblers. And Exhibit C there is Waddy, everyone round here knows Waddy. Billy Wiglet there, he was born in this street. Have I asked you your name?”

“N-no…” the man mumbled.

“That’s ’cos I don’t care who you are,” said Vimes, letting the man go and looking round at the crowd. “Listen to me, all of you! My name’s John Keel! No one gets taken into this Watch House without me knowing why! You’re all here as witnesses! Those of you I pointed out, you come on inside to see fair play all round. Do the rest of you want to hang around to see what happens to Gappy? Fine, I’ll get Snouty to bring you out some cocoa. Or you can go home. It’s a cold night. You ought to be in your beds. I know I’d like to be in mine. And, yes, we know about Dolly Sisters and we don’t like it any more than you do. And we’ve heard about Dimwell Street and we don’t like that, either. And that’s all I’ve got to say tonight. Now…anyone who still wants to take a swing at a copper can step right up, if they want to. I’ve got my uniform off. We’ll have a go, here and now, fair and square, in front of everyone. Anyone?”

Something brushed his shoulder and clattered on the Watch House steps. Then there was the sound of slipping tiles from a roof on the other side, and a man fell off the roof and into the pool of light. There were gasps from the crowd, and one or two short screams.

“Looks like you got a volunteer,” said someone. There was the horrible nervous sniggering again. The crowd parted to let Vimes view the sudden arrival.

The man was dead. If he hadn’t been when he fell off the roof, he was after he’d hit the ground, because no neck normally looked like that. A crossbow had fallen down with him.

Vimes remembered the draft across his shoulder, and went back to the Watch House steps. It didn’t take long to find the arrow, which had broken into several pieces.

“Anyone know this man?” he said.

The crowd, even those members of it who hadn’t been able to get a good look at the fallen bowman, indicated definite ignorance.

Vimes went through the man’s pockets. Every single one was empty, which was all the evidence of identification he needed.

“Looks like it’s going to be a long night,” he said, signaling Colon to take this body inside, too. “I’ve got to get on with my work, ladies and gentlemen. If anyone wants to stay, and frankly I’ll be obliged if you do, I’ll send some lads out to build a fire. Thank you for your patience.”

He picked up his chain mail and breastplate and went back inside.

“What’re they doing?” he said to Sam, without turning around.

“Some of them are wandering off but most of ’em are standing around, Sarge,” said Sam, peering around the door. “Sarge, one of them shot at you!”

“Really? Who says the man on the roof was one of them? That’s an expensive bow. And he didn’t have anything in his pockets. Nothing. Not so much as a used hanky.”

“Very odd, Sarge,” said Sam loyally.

“Especially since I was expecting a piece of paper saying something like ‘I am definitely a member of a revolutionary cadre, trust me on this,’” said Vimes, looking carefully at the corpse.

“Yes, that’d tell us he was a revolutionary all right,” said Sam.

Vimes sighed and stared at the wall a moment. Then he said: “Anyone notice anything about his bow?”

“It’s the new Bolsover A7,” said Fred Colon. “Not a bad bow, Sarge. Not an assassin’s weapon, though.”

“That’s true,” said Vimes and twisted the dead man’s head so they could see the tip of the little metal dart behind the ear. “But this is. Fred, you know everyone. Where can I get some ginger beer at this time of night?”

“Ginger beer, Sarge?”

“Yes, Fred.”

“Why do—” Colon began.

“Don’t ask, Fred. Just get half a dozen bottles, all right?”

Vimes turned to the desk on which, surrounded by a fascinated crowd, Dr. Lawn was at work on the stricken Gappy.

“How’s it going?” said Vimes, pushing though.

“Slower than it’d go if people got out of the damn light,” said Lawn, carefully moving his tweezers to a mug by Gappy’s hand and dropping a bloody fragment of glass therein. “I’ve seen worse on a Friday night. He’ll keep the use of his fingers, if that’s what you want to know. He just won’t be making any shoes for a while. Well done.”

There was approval from the crowd. Vimes looked around at the people and the coppers. There were one or two muted conversations going on; he heard phases like “bad business” and “they say that—” above the general noise.

He’d played the cards well enough. Most of the lads here lived within a street or two. It was one thing to have a go at faceless bastards in uniform, but quite another to throw stones at old Fred Colon or old Waddy or old Billy Wiglet, who you’d known since you were two years old and played Dead Rat Conkers with in the gutter.

Lawn put the tweezers down and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“That’s it,” he said wearily. “A bit of stitching and he’ll be fine.”

“And there’s some others I need you to take a look at,” said Vimes.

“You know, that comes as no surprise,” said the doctor.

“One’s got a lot of holes in his feet, one dropped through the privy roof and has got a twisted leg, and one’s dead.”

“I don’t think I can do much about the dead one,” said the doctor. “How do you know he’s dead? I realize that I may regret asking that question.”

“He’s got a broken neck from falling off a roof and I reckon he fell off because he got a steel crossbow dart in his brain.”

“Ah. That sounds like dead, if you want my medical opinion. Did you do it?”

“No!”

“Well, you’re a busy man, Sergeant. You can’t be everywhere.” The doctor’s face cracked into a grin when he saw Vimes go red, and he walked over to the corpse.

“Yes, I’d say that life is definitely extinct,” he said. “And?”

“I want you to write that down, please. On paper. With official-sounding words like ‘contusion’ and ‘abrasions.’ I want you to write that down, and I want you to write down what time you found he was dead. And then, if you don’t mind, two lads’ll take you down to look at the other two, and after you’ve treated them, thank you, I’d like you to sign another piece of paper saying you did and I called you in. Two copies of everything, please.”

“All right. Dare I ask why?”

“I don’t want anyone to say I killed him.”

“Why should anyone say that? You told me he fell off a roof!”

“These are suspicious times, Doctor. Ah, here’s Fred. Any luck?”

Corporal Colon was carrying a box. He put it down on his desk with a grunt.

“Old Mrs. Arbiter didn’t like being knocked up in the middle of the night,” he announced. “I had to give her a dollar!”

Vimes didn’t dare look at Lawn’s face.

“Really?” he said, as innocently as possible. “And you got the ginger beer?”

“Six pints of her best stuff,” said Colon. “There’s three pence back on the bottles, by the way. And…er…” He shuffled uneasily. “Er…I heard they set fire to the Watch House at Dolly Sisters, Sarge. It’s very bad up at Nap Hill, too. And, er…the Chitterling Street house got all its windows broke, and up at the Leastgate house some of the lads went out to stop kids throwing stones and, er, one of them drew his sword, Sarge…”

“And?”

“He’ll probably live, Sarge.”

Doctor Lawn looked around at the crowded office, where people were still talking. Snouty was going around with a tray of cocoa. Out in the street, some of the watchmen were standing around a makeshift fire with the remnant of the crowd.

“Well, I must say I’m impressed,” he said. “Sounds like you’re the only Watch House not under siege tonight. I don’t want to know how you did it.”

“Luck played a part,” said Vimes. “And I’ve got three men who carry no personal identification whatsoever in the cells, and another anonymous would-be assassin who has been assassinated.”

“Quite a problem,” said Lawn. “Now me, I just have to deal with simple mysteries like what the rash means.”

“I intend to solve mine quite quickly,” said Vimes.

 

The Assassin moved quietly from roof to roof until he was well away from the excitement around the Watch House.

His movements could be called catlike, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things.

Eventually he reached one of the upper world’s many hidden places, where several thickets of chimneys made a little hidden space, invisible from the ground and from most of the surrounding roofscape. He didn’t enter it immediately, but circled it for a while, moving with absolute silence from one vantage point to another.

What would have intrigued a watcher who knew the ways of Ankh-Morpork’s Guild of Assassins was how invisible this one was. When he moved, you saw movement; when he stopped, he wasn’t there. Magic would have been suspected and, in an oblique way, the watcher would have been right. Ninety percent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.

At last the man appeared satisfied, and dropped into the space. He picked up a bag from its nesting place between the smoking pots, and there was some faint swishing and heavier breathing that suggested clothes were being changed.

After a minute of so, he emerged from the hidden niche and now, somehow, he was visible. Hard to see, yes, one shadow among others, but nevertheless there in a way that he’d not been before, when he’d been as visible as the breeze.

He dropped lightly onto a lean-to roof and thence to the ground, where he stepped into a handy shadow. Then there was a further transformation. It was done quite easily. The evil little crossbow was disassembled and slipped into the pockets of a clink-free velvet bag, the soft leather slippers were exchanged for a pair of heavier boots that had been stashed in the shadow, and the black hood was pushed back.

He walked lightly around the corner and waited a few minutes, wiping his face.

A coach came along, its torches trailing flame. It slowed briefly, and its door opened and shut.

The assassin settled back in his seat as the coach picked up speed again.

There was a very faint lamp in the carriage. Its glow revealed a female figure relaxing in the shadows opposite. As the coach passed a street torch, there was suggestion of lilac silk.

“You’ve missed a bit,” said the figure. It produced a lilac-colored handkerchief and held it in front of the young man’s face. “Spit,” came the command.

Reluctantly, he did so. A hand wiped his cheek, and then held the cloth up to the light.

“Dark green,” said the woman. “How strange. I understand, Havelock, that you scored zero in your examination for stealthy movement.”

“May I ask how you found that out, Madam?”

“Oh, one hears things,” Madam said lightly. “One just has to hold money up to one’s ear.”

“Well, it was true,” said the Assassin.

“And why was this?”

“The examiner thought I’d used trickery, Madam.”

“And did you?”

“Of course. I thought that was the idea.”

“And you never attended his lessons, he said.”

“Oh, I did. Religiously.”

“He says he never saw you at any of them.”

Havelock smiled. “And your point, Madam, is…?”

Madam laughed. “Will you take some champagne?” There was the sound of a bottle moving in an ice bucket.

“Thank you, Madam, but no.”

“As you wish. I shall. And now…report, please.”

“I can’t believe what I saw. I thought he was a thug. And he is a thug. You can see his muscles thinking for him. But he overrules them moment by moment! I think I saw a genius at work, but…”

“What?”

“He’s just a sergeant, Madam.”

“Don’t underestimate him on that account. It is a very useful rank for the right man. The optimum balance of power and responsibility. Incidentally, they say he can read the street through the soles of his boots and keeps them very thin for that purpose.”

“Hmm. There are plenty of different surfaces, that’s true, but…”

“You’re always so solemn about these things, Havelock. Not at all like your late father. Think…mythologically. He can read the street. He can hear its voice, take its temperature, read its mind, it talks to him through his boots. Policemen are just as superstitious as other people. Every other Watch House was attacked tonight. Oh, Swing’s people egged it on, but it was malice and stupidity that did the most damage. But not in Treacle Mine Road. No. Keel opened the doors and let the street inside. I wish I knew more about him. I’m told that in Pseudopolis he was considered to be slow, thoughtful, sensible. He certainly seems to have bloomed here.”

“I inhumed a man who attempted to nip him in the bud.”

“Really? That doesn’t sound like Swing. How much do I owe you?”

The young man called Havelock gave a shrug. “Call it a dollar,” he said.

“That’s very cheap.”

“He wasn’t worth more. I should warn you, though. Soon you may want me to deal with Keel.”

“Surely someone like him wouldn’t side with people like Winder and Swing?”

“He’s a side all by himself. He is a complication. You may think it best if he…ceased to complicate.”

The rattling of the coach underlined the silence this remark caused. It was moving through a richer part of the city now, where there was more light and the curfew, being for poorer people, was less rigorously observed. The figure opposite the Assassin stroked the cat on her lap.

“No. He’ll serve some purpose,” said Madam. “Everyone is telling me about Keel. In a world where we all move in curves he proceeds in a straight line. And going straight in a world of curves makes things happen.”

She stroked the cat. It yowled softly. It was ginger and had an expression of astonishing smugness, although periodically it scratched at its collar.

“On a different subject,” she said. “What was that business with the book? I did not like to take too much notice.”

“Oh, it was an extremely rare volume I was able to track down. On the nature of concealment.”

“That stupid hulk of a boy burned it!”

“Yes. That was a piece of luck. I was afraid he might try to read it, although,” Havelock smiled wanly, “someone would have had to help him with the longer words.”

“Was it valuable?”

“Priceless. Especially now that it has been destroyed.”

“Ah. It contained information of value. Possibly involving the color dark green. Will you tell me?”

“I could tell you.” Havelock smiled again. “But then I would have to find someone to pay me to kill you.”

“Then don’t tell me. But I do think Dog-Botherer is an unpleasant nickname.”

“When your name is Vetinari, Madam, you’re happy enough if it’s merely Dog-Botherer. Can you drop me off a little way from the Guild, please? I’ll go in via the roof. I have a tiger to attend to before I go up to…you know.”

“A tiger. How exciting.” She stroked the cat again. “You’ve found your way in yet?”

Vetinari shrugged. “I’ve known my way for years, Madam. But now he has half a regiment around the palace, with irregular patrols and spot checks. I can’t get through them. Only let me get inside, please, and the men there are no problem.”

The cat pawed at its collar.

“Is it possible that he is allergic to diamonds?” said Madam. She held up the cat. “Is oo allergic to diamonds, den?”

Havelock sighed, but inwardly, because he respected his aunt. He just wished she was a bit more sensible about cats. He felt instinctively that if you were going to fondle a cat while discussing matters of intrigue, then it should be a long-haired white one. It shouldn’t be an elderly street tom with irregular bouts of flatulence.

“What about the sergeant?” he said, shifting along the seat as politely as possible.

The lady all in lilac lowered the cat gently onto the seat. There was a distressing smell.

“I think I should meet Mr. Keel as soon as possible,” she said. “Perhaps he can be harnessed. The party is tomorrow night. Uh…do you mind opening the window?”

 

A little later that night, Downey was walking unsteadily back to his study after a convivial time in the Prefects’ Common Room, when he noticed that a torch had gone out.

With a swiftness that might have surprised someone who saw no further than his flushed face and unsteady walk, he pulled out a dagger and scanned the corridor. He glanced up at the ceiling, too. There were gray shadows everywhere, but nothing more than that. Sometimes, torches did go out all by themselves.

He stepped forward.

When he woke up in his bed next morning, he put the headache down to some bad brandy. And some scag had painted orange and black stripes on his face.

 

It started to rain again. Vimes liked the rain. Street crime went down when it rained. People stayed indoors. Some of the best nights of his career had been rainy, when he’d stood in the shadows in the lee of some building, head tucked in so that there was barely anything showing between his helmet and his collar, and listened to the silvery rustle of the rain.

Once he’d been standing so quietly, so withdrawn, so not there that a fleeing robber, who’d evaded his pursuers, had leaned against him to catch his breath. And, when Vimes put his arms around him and whispered “Gotcha!” into his ear, the man apparently did in his trousers what his dear mother, some forty years before, had very patiently taught him not to do.

The people had gone home. The sewn-up Gappy had been escorted to Old Cobblers, where Fred Colon patiently explained events to the man’s parents, with his round red face radiating honesty. Lawn was possibly getting some use out of his bed.

And the rain gurgled in the downpipes and gushed from the gargoyles and swirled in the gutters and deadened all sound.

Useful stuff, rain.

Vimes picked up a bottle of Mrs. Arbiter’s best ginger beer. He remembered it. It was gassy as hell and therefore hugely popular. A young boy could, with encouragement and training, eventually manage to belch the whole first verse of the national anthem after just one swig. This is an important social skill when you’re eight years old.

He’d chosen Colon and Waddy for this task. He wasn’t going to involve young Sam. It wasn’t that what he was planning was illegal, as such, it was just that it had the same color and smell as something illegal, and Vimes didn’t want to have to explain.

The cells were old, much older than the building above them. The iron cages were fairly new, and didn’t take up all the space. There were other cellars beyond an arch, containing nothing more than rats and rubbish but—and that was important—they couldn’t be seen from the cages.

Vimes got the men to carry the dead bowman through. Nothing wrong with that. It was the middle of the night, filthy weather, no sense in waking up the people at the mortuary when there was a nice cold cellar.

He watched through the spy hole in the door as the body was taken past the cells. It caused a certain stir, especially in the first man he’d brought in. The other two had the look of men who’d seen a lot of bad stuff in the name of making money; if they were hired to steal or murder or be a copper it was all the same to them, and they’d learned not to react too readily to deaths that were not their own.

The first man, though, was getting nervous.

Vimes had nicknamed him Ferret. He was the best-dressed of the three, all in black, the dagger had been expensive, and, Vimes had noticed, he had a silver Death’s Head ring on one finger. The other two had dressed nondescript and their weapons had been workmanlike, nothing much to look at but well used.

No real Assassin would wear jewelry at work. It was dangerous and it shone. But Ferret wanted to be a big man. He probably checked himself in the mirror before he went out, to make sure he looked cool. He was the sort of little twerp that got a kick out of showing his dagger to women in bars.

Ferret, in short, had big dreams. Ferret had an imagination.

Well, that was fine.

The watchmen returned and picked up the packages Vimes had prepared.

“Remember, we do it fast,” he said. “They’re worried, they’re tired, no one’s come for them, and they’ve just seen a very dead colleague. We don’t want to give the first two time to think. Understand?”

They nodded.

“And we leave the little one until last. I want him to have lots of time…”

 

Ferret was considering his prospects. Regrettably, this didn’t take long.

He’d already had a row with the other two. Some rescue team they’d been. They weren’t even dressed right. But the brownjobs hadn’t done things as per spec. Everyone knew they backed away. They weren’t supposed to fight back or show any kind of intelligence. They—

The main cell door was flung back.

“It’s ginger beer time!” roared someone.

And a watchman ran through with a box of bottles, and disappeared into the rooms beyond.

There wasn’t much light in here. Ferret cowered against the wall and saw two watchmen unlock the cell next door, drag the shackled occupant upright and out into the corridor and then hustle him around the corner.

The voices had a slight echo.

“Hold him down. Mind his legs!”

“Right! Let’s have the bottle! Give it a proper shake, otherwise it won’t work!”

“Okay, friend. Anything you want to tell us? Your name? No? Well, it’s like this. Right now, we don’t care a whole lot if you talk or not…”

There was a loud pop, a hiss, and then…a scream, an explosion of agony.

After it had died away, the trembling Ferret heard someone say, “Quick, get the next one, before the captain catches us.”

He cringed back as two watchmen rushed into the next cell, dragged out the struggling prisoner, and hustled him into the darkness.

“All right. One chance. Are you going to talk? Yes? No? Too late!”

Once again the pop, once again the hiss, once again the scream. It was louder and longer this time, and ended in a kind of bubbling sound.

Ferret crouched against the wall, fingers in his mouth.

Around the corner, sitting in the light of one lantern, Colon nudged Vimes, wrinkled his nose, and pointed down.

There was a gully that ran between all the cells, as a primitive sop to hygiene. Now a thin trickle was inching its way along it. Ferret was nervous.

Gotcha, thought Vimes. But a good imagination needs a little more time. He leaned forward, and the other two moved closer expectantly.

“So,” he said in a low whisper, “have you boys had your holidays yet?”

After a few minutes of very small talk he stood up, strode around to the last occupied cell, unlocked the door, and grabbed Ferret, who was trying to squeeze into a corner.

“No! Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!” the man yelled.

“Really?” said Vimes. “What’s the orbital velocity of the moon?”

“What?”

“Oh, you’d like something simpler?” said Vimes, dragging the man out of the cell. “Fred! Waddy! He wants to talk! Bring a notebook!”

It took half an hour. Fred Colon wasn’t a fast writer. And when the painful sound of his efforts concluded with the stab of his last full stop, Vimes said: “Okay, sir. And now you write down at the end: I, Gerald Leastways, currently staying at the Young Men’s Pagan Association, am making this statement of my own free will and not under duress. And then you sign it. Or else. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The initials GL had been inscribed on the dagger. Vimes believed them. He met plenty of Leastwayses in his career, and they tended to spill their guts at the mere thought of spilling their guts. And when they did, you got everything. Anyone who had seen the ginger beer trick used on someone else would confess to anything.

“Well, now,” he said cheerfully, standing up. “Thank you for your cooperation. Want a lift to Cable Street?”

Ferret’s expression, if not his mouth, said “huh?”

“We’ve got to drop off your friends,” Vimes went on, raising his voice slightly. “Todzy and Muffer. We’ll drop the dead one off at the mortuary. Just a bit of paperwork for you.” He nodded at Colon. “One copy of your helpful statement. One certificate of death from the pox doctor for the late mystery man, and rest assured we’ll try to track down his murderer. A chitty from Mossy about the ointment he put on Muffer’s feet. Oh…and a receipt for six bottles of ginger beer.”

He put a hand on Ferret’s shoulder and gently walked him around into the next cellar, where Todzy and Muffer were sitting gagged, bound and livid with rage. On a table nearby was a box containing six bottles of ginger beer. The corks were heavily wired down.

Ferret stared at Vimes, who inserted a finger in his mouth, blew up his cheeks and flicked out the finger with a loud pop.

Waddy hissed between his teeth.

Fred Colon opened his mouth but Vimes clamped his hand over it.

“No, don’t,” he said. “Funny thing, Gerald, but Fred here just screams out loud at times for no reason at all.”

“You tricked me!” Ferret wailed.

Vimes patted him on the shoulder.

“Trick?” he growled. “How so, Gerald?”

“You made me think you were doing the ginger-beer trick!”

“Ginger-beer trick?” said Vimes, his brow wrinkling. “What’s that?”

“You know! You brought the stuff down here!”

“We don’t drink alcohol on duty, Gerald. What’s wrong with a little ginger beer? We don’t know any tricks with the stuff, Gerald. What tricks do you know? Seen any good tricks lately, Gerald? Do tell!”

At last it dawned on the Ferret that he should stop talking. It was about half an hour too late. The expressions on what could be seen of the faces of Todzy and Muffer suggested that they wanted a very personal word with him.

“I demand protective custody,” he managed.