Feet of Clay

by Terry Pratchett

  It was waiting outside. The two bearers straightened up expectantly.

  Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, rebelled again. Perhaps he did have to use the damn thing, but…

  He looked at the front man and motioned with a thumb to the chair’s door. “Get in,” he commanded.

  “But sir—”

  “It’s a nice morning,” said Vimes, taking off his coat again. “I’ll drive myself.”

  “Dearest Mumm & Dad…”

  Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch was on his day off. He had a routine. First he had breakfast in some handy café. Then he wrote his letter home. Letters home always gave him some trouble. Letters from his parents were always interesting, being full of mining statistics and exciting news about new shafts and promising seams. All he had to write about were murders and such things as that.

  He chewed the end of his pencil for a moment.

  Well, it has been an interesting week again [he wrote] I am running around like a flye with a blue bottom and No Mistake! We are opening another Watch House at Chittling Street which is handy for the Shades, so now we have no Less than 4 including Dolly Sisters and Long Wall, and I am the only Captain so I am around at all hours. Personally I sometimes miss the cameradery of the old days when it was just me and Nobby and Sergeant Colon but this is the Century of the Fruitbat. Sergeant Colon is going to retire at the end of the month, he says Mrs. Colon wants him to buy a farm, he says he is looking forward to the peace of the country and being Close to Nature, I’m sure you would wish him well. My friend Nobby is still Nobby only more than he was.

  Carrot absent-mindedly took a half-eaten mutton chop from his breakfast plate and held it out below the table. There was an unk.

  Anyway, back to the jobb, also I am sure I have told you about the Cable Street Particulars, although they are still based in Pseudopolis Yard, people do not like it when Watchmen do not wear uniforms but Commander Vimes says criminals don’t wear uniforms either so be d*mned to the lot of them.

  Carrot paused. It said a lot about Captain Carrot that, even after almost two years in Ankh-Morpork, he was still uneasy about “d*mned.”

  Commander Vimes says you have to have secret policemen because there are secret crimes…

  Carrot paused again. He loved his uniform. He didn’t have any other clothes. The idea of Watchmen in disguise was…well, it was unthinkable. It was like those pirates who sailed under false colors. It was like spies. However, he went on dutifully:

  …and Commander Vimes knows what he is talking about I am sure. He says it’s not like old fashioned police work which was catching the poor devils too stupid to run away!! Anyhow it all means a lot more work and new faces in the Watch.

  While he waited for a new sentence to form, Carrot took a sausage from his plate and lowered it.

  There was another unk.

  The waiter bustled up.

  “Another helping, Mister Carrot? On the house.” Every restaurant and eatery in Ankh-Morpork offered free food to Carrot, in the certain and happy knowledge that he would always insist on paying.

  “No, indeed, that was very good. Here we are…twenty pence and keep the change.”

  “How’s your young lady? Haven’t seen her today.”

  “Angua? Oh, she’s…around and about, you know. I shall definitely tell her you asked after her, though.”

  The dwarf nodded happily, and bustled off.

  Carrot wrote another few dutiful lines and then said, very softly, “Is that horse and cart still outside Ironcrust’s bakery?”

  There was a whine from under the table.

  “Really? That’s odd. All the deliveries were over hours ago and the flour and grit don’t usually arrive until the afternoon. Driver still sitting there?”

  Something barked, quietly.

  “And that looks quite a good horse for a delivery cart. And, you know, normally you’d expect the driver to put a nosebag on. And it’s the last Thursday in the month. Which is payday at Ironcrust’s.” Carrot laid down his pencil and waved a hand politely to catch the waiter’s eye.

  “Cup of acorn coffee, Mr. Gimlet? To take away?”

  In the Dwarf Bread Museum, in Whirligig Alley, Mr. Hopkinson the curator was somewhat excited. Apart from other considerations, he’d just been murdered. But at the moment he was choosing to consider this as an annoying background detail.

  He’d been beaten to death with a loaf of bread. This is unlikely even in the worst of human bakeries, but dwarf bread has amazing properties as a weapon of offense. Dwarfs regard baking as part of the art of warfare. When they make rock cakes, no simile is intended.

  “Look at this dent here,” said Hopkinson. “It’s quite ruined the crust!”

  AND YOUR SKULL TOO, said Death.

  “Oh, yes,” said Hopkinson, in the voice of one who regards skulls as ten a penny but is well aware of the rarity value of a good bread exhibit. “But what was wrong with a simple cosh? Or even a hammer? I could have provided one if asked.”

  Death, who was by nature an obsessive personality himself, realized that he was in the presence of a master. The late Mr. Hopkinson had a squeaky voice and wore his spectacles on a length of black tape—his ghost now wore their spiritual counterpart—and these were always the signs of a mind that polished the undersides of furniture and stored paperclips by size.

  “It really is too bad,” said Mr. Hopkinson. “And ungrateful, too, after the help I gave them with the oven. I really feel I shall have to complain.”

  MR. HOPKINSON, ARE YOU FULLY AWARE THAT YOU ARE DEAD?

  “Dead?” trilled the curator. “Oh, no. I can’t possibly be dead. Not at the moment. It’s simply not convenient. I haven’t even catalogued the combat muffins.”

  NEVERTHELESS.

  “No, no. I’m sorry, but it just won’t do. You will have to wait. I really cannot be bothered with that sort of nonsense.”

  Death was nonplussed. Most people were, after the initial confusion, somewhat relieved when they died. A subconscious weight had been removed. The other cosmic shoe had dropped. The worst had happened and they could, metaphorically, get on with their lives. Few people treated it as a simple annoyance that might go away if you complained enough.

  Mr. Hopkinson’s hand went through a tabletop. “Oh.”

  YOU SEE?

  “This is most uncalled-for. Couldn’t you have arranged a less awkward time?”

  ONLY BY CONSULTATION WITH YOUR MURDERER.

  “It all seems very badly organized. I wish to make a complaint. I pay my taxes, after all.”

  I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE.

  The shade of Mr. Hopkinson began to fade. “It’s simply that I’ve always tried to plan ahead in a sensible way…”

  I FIND THE BEST APPROACH IS TO TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES.

  “That seems very irresponsible…”

  IT’S ALWAYS WORKED FOR ME.

  The sedan chair came to a halt outside Pseudopolis Yard. Vimes left the runners to park it and strode in, putting his coat back on.

  There had been a time, and it seemed like only yesterday, when the Watch House had been almost empty. There’d be old Sergeant Colon dozing in his chair, and Corporal Nobbs’s washing drying in front of the stove. And then suddenly it had all changed…

  Sergeant Colon was waiting for him with a clipboard. “Got the reports from the other Watch Houses, sir,” he said, trotting along beside Vimes.

  “Anything special?”

  “Bin a bit of an odd murder, sir. Down in one of them old houses on Misbegot Bridge. Some old priest. Dunno much about it. The patrol just said it ought to be looked at.”

  “Who found him?”

  “Constable Visit, sir.”

  “Oh, gods.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I’ll try to get along there this morning. Anything else?”

  “Corporal Nobbs is sick, sir.”

  “Oh, I know that.”

  “I mean off sick, sir.” />
  “Not his granny’s funeral this time?”

  “Nossir.”

  “How many’s he had this year, by the way?”

  “Seven, sir.”

  “Very odd family, the Nobbses.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Fred, you don’t have to keep calling me ‘sir’.”

  “Got comp’ny, sir,” said the sergeant, glancing meaningfully towards a bench in the main office. “Come for that alchemy job.”

  A dwarf smiled nervously at Vimes.

  “All right,” said Vimes. “I’ll see him in my office.” He reached into his coat and took out the assassin’s money pouch. “Put it in the Widows and Orphans Fund, will you, Fred?”

  “Right. Oh, well done, sir. Any more windfalls like this and we’ll soon be able to afford some more widows.”

  Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called Animal Husbandry. He’d been a bit worried about the title—you heard stories about strange folk in the country—but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.

  Upstairs, Vimes pushed open his office door carefully. The Assassins’ Guild played to rules. You could say that about the bastards. It was terribly bad form to kill a bystander. Apart from anything else, you wouldn’t get paid. So traps in his office were out of the question, because too many people were in and out of it every day. Even so, it paid to be careful. Vimes was good at making the kind of rich enemies who could afford to employ assassins. The assassins had to be lucky only once, but Vimes had to be lucky all the time.

  He slipped into the room and glanced out of the window. He liked to work with it open, even in cold weather. He liked to hear the sounds of the city. But anyone trying to climb up or down to it would run into everything in the way of loose tiles, shifting handholds and treacherous drainpipes that Vimes’s ingenuity could contrive. And Vimes had installed spiked railings down below. They were nice and ornamental but they were, above all, spiky.

  So far, Vimes was winning.

  There was a tentative knock at the door.

  It had issued from the knuckles of the dwarf applicant. Vimes ushered him into office, shut the door, and sat down at his desk.

  “So,” he said. “You’re an alchemist. Acid stains on your hands and no eyebrows.”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Not usual to find a dwarf in that line of work. You people always seem to toil in your uncle’s foundry or something.”

  You people, the dwarf noted. “Can’t get the hang of metal,” he said.

  “A dwarf who can’t get the hang of metal? That must be unique.”

  “Pretty rare, sir. But I was quite good at alchemy.”

  “Guild member?”

  “Not any more, sir.”

  “Oh? How did you leave the guild?”

  “Through the roof, sir. But I’m pretty certain I know what I did wrong.”

  Vimes leaned back. “The alchemists are always blowing things up. I never heard of them getting sacked for it.”

  “That’s because no one’s ever blown up the Guild Council, sir.”

  “What, all of it?”

  “Most of it, sir. All the easily detachable bits, at least.”

  Vimes found he was automatically opening the bottom drawer of his desk. He pushed it shut again and, instead, shuffled the papers in front of him. “What’s your name, lad?”

  The dwarf swallowed. This was clearly the bit he’d been dreading. “Littlebottom, sir.”

  Vimes didn’t even look up.

  “Ah, yes. It says here. That means you’re from the Uberwald mountain area, yes?”

  “Why…yes, sir,” said Littlebottom, mildly surprised. Humans generally couldn’t distinguish between dwarf clans.

  “Our Constable Angua comes from there,” said Vimes. “Now…it says here your first name is…can’t read Fred’s handwriting…er…”

  There was nothing for it. “Cheery, sir,” said Cheery Littlebottom.

  “Cheery, eh? Good to see the old naming traditions kept up. Cheery Littlebottom. Fine.”

  Littlebottom watched carefully. Not the faintest glimmer of amusement had crossed Vimes’s face.

  “Yes, sir. Cheery Littlebottom,” he said. And there still wasn’t as much as an extra wrinkle there. “My father was Jolly. Jolly Littlebottom,” he added, as one might prod at a bad tooth to see when the pain will come.

  “Really?”

  “And…his father was Beaky Littlebottom.”

  Not a trace, not a smidgeon of a grin twitched anywhere. Vimes merely pushed the paper aside.

  “Well, we work for a living here, Littlebottom.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We don’t blow things up, Littlebottom.”

  “No, sir. I don’t blow everything up, sir. Some just melts.”

  Vimes drummed his fingers on the desk. “Know anything about dead bodies?”

  “They were only mildly concussed, sir.”

  Vimes sighed. “Listen. I know about how to be a copper. It’s mainly walking and talking. But there’s lots of things I don’t know. You find the scene of a crime and there’s some gray powder on the floor. What is it? I don’t know. But you fellows know how to mix things up in bowls and can find out. And maybe the dead person doesn’t seem to have a mark on them. Were they poisoned? It seems we need someone who knows what color a liver is supposed to be. I want someone who can look at the ashtray and tell me what kind of cigars I smoke.”

  “Pantweed’s Slim Panatellas,” said Littlebottom automatically.

  “Good gods!”

  “You’ve left the packet on the table, sir.”

  Vimes looked down. “All right,” he said. “So sometimes it’s an easy answer. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes we don’t even know if it was the right question.”

  He stood up. “I can’t say I like dwarfs much, Littlebottom. But I don’t like trolls or humans either, so I suppose that’s OK. Well, you’re the only applicant…thirty dollars a month, five dollars living-out allowance. I expect you to work to the job not the clock. There’s some mythical creature called, ‘overtime,’ only no one’s even seen its footprints. If troll officers call you a grit-sucker they’re out, and if you call them rocks you’re out. We’re just one big family and, when you’ve been to a few domestic disputes, Littlebottom, I can assure you that you’ll see the resemblance. We work as a team and we’re pretty much making it up as we go along, and half the time we’re not even certain what the law is, so it can get interesting. Technically you’ll rank as a corporal, only don’t go giving orders to real policemen. You’re on a month’s trial. We’ll give you some training just as soon as there’s time. Now, find an iconograph and meet me on Misbegot Bridge in…damn…better make it an hour…I’ve got to see about this blasted coat of arms. Still, dead bodies seldom get deader. Sergeant Detritus!”

  There was a series of creaks as something heavy moved along the corridor outside and a troll opened the door.

  “Yessir?”

  “This is Corporal Littlebottom. Corporal Cheery Littlebottom, whose father was Jolly Littlebottom. Give him his badge, swear him in, show him where everything is. Very good, Corporal?”

  “I shall try to be a credit to the uniform, sir,” said Littlebottom.

  “Good,” said Vimes briskly. He looked at Detritus. “Incidentally, Sergeant, I’ve got a report here that a troll in uniform nailed one of Chrysoprase’s henchmen to a wall by his ears last night. Know anything about that?”

  The troll wrinkled its enormous forehead. “Does it say anything ’bout him selling bags of Slab to troll kids?”

  “No. It says he was going to read spiritual literature to his dear old mother,” said Vimes.

  “Did Hardcore say he saw dis troll’s badge?”

  “No, but he says the troll threatened to ram it where the sun doesn’t shine,” said Vimes.

  Detritus nodded grave
ly. “Dat’s a long way to go just to ruin a good badge,” he said.

  “By the way,” said Vimes, “that was a lucky guess of yours, guessing that it was Hardcore.”

  “It come to me in a flash, sir,” said Detritus. “I fort: what bastard who sells Slab to kids deserves bein’ nailed up by his ears, sir, and…bingo. Dis idea just formed in my head.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Cheery Littlebottom looked from one impassive face to the other. The Watchmen’s eyes never left each other’s face, but the words seemed to come from a little distance, as though both of them were reading an invisible script.

  Then Detritus shook his head slowly. “Musta been a impostor, sir. ’S easy to get helmets like ours. None of my trolls’d do anything like dat. Dat would be police brutality, sir.”

  “Glad to hear it. Just for the look of the thing, though, I want you to check the trolls’ lockers. The Silicon Anti-Defamation League are on to this one.”

  “Yes, sir. An’ if I find out it was one of my trolls I will be down on dat troll like a ton of rectang’lar buildin’ things, sir.”

  “Fine. Well, off you go, Littlebottom. Detritus will look after you.”

  Littlebottom hesitated. This was uncanny. The man hadn’t mentioned axes, or gold. He hadn’t even said anything like “You can make it big in the Watch.” Littlebottom felt really unbalanced.

  “Er…I did tell you my name, didn’t I, sir?”

  “Yes. Got it down here,” said Vimes. “Cheery Littlebottom. Yes?”

  “Er…yes. That’s right. Well, thank you, sir.”

  Vimes listened to them go down the passage. Then he carefully shut the door and put his coat over his head so that no one would hear him laughing.

  “Cheery Littlebottom!”

  Cheery ran after the troll called Detritus. The Watch House was beginning to fill up. And it was clear that the Watch dealt with all sorts of things, and that many of them involved shouting.

  Two uniformed trolls were standing in front of Sergeant Colon’s high desk, with a slightly smaller troll between them. This troll was wearing a downcast expression. It was also wearing a tutu and had a small pair of gauze wings glued to its back.