“Quiet, please! Gentlemen!”
The noise level subsided a little.
“Dr. Downey?” she said.
The head of the Assassins’ Guild nodded. “My friends, I think we are all aware of the situation”—he began.
“Yeah, so’s your accountant!” said a voice in the crowd. There was a ripple of nervous laughter but it didn’t last long, because you don’t laugh too loud at someone who knows exactly how much you’re worth dead.
Dr. Downey smiled. “I can assure you once again, gentlemen—and ladies—that I am aware of no engagement regarding Lord Vetinari. In any case, I cannot imagine that an Assassin would use poison in this case. His lordship spent some time at the Assassins’ school. He knows the uses of caution. No doubt he will recover.”
“And if he doesn’t?” said Mrs. Palm.
“No one lives forever,” said Dr. Downey, in the calm voice of a man who personally knew this to be true. “Then, no doubt, we’ll get a new ruler.”
The room went very silent.
The word “Who?” hovered silently above every head.
“Thing is…the thing is…” said Gerhardt Sock, head of the Butchers’ Guild, “it’s been…you’ve got to admit it…it’s been…well, think about some of the others…”
The words “Lord Snapcase, now…at least this one isn’t actually insane” flickered in the group consciousness.
“I have to admit,” said Mrs. Palm, “that under Vetinari it has certainly been safer to walk the streets—”
“You should know, madam,” said Mr. Sock. Mrs. Palm gave him an icy look. There were a few sniggers.
“I meant that a modest payment to the Thieves’ Guild is all that is required for perfect safety,” she finished.
“And, indeed, a man may visit a house of ill—”
“Negotiable hospitality,” said Mrs. Palm quickly.
“Aye indeed, and be quite confident of not waking up stripped stark naked and beaten black and blue,” said Sick.
“Unless his tastes run that way,” said Mrs. Palm. “We aim to give satisfaction. Very accurately, if required.”
“Life has certainly been more reliable under Vetinari,” said Mr. Potts of the Bakers’ Guild.
“He does have all street-theater players and mime artists thrown into the scorpion pit,” said Mr. Boggis of the Thieves’ Guild.
“True. But let’s not forget that he has his bad points too. The man is capricious.”
“You think so? Compared to the ones we had before he’s as reliable as a rock.”
“Snapcase was reliable,” said Mr. Sock gloomily. “Remember when he made his horse a city councilor?”
“You’ve got to admit it wasn’t a bad councilor. Compared to some of the others.”
“As I recall, the others at that time were a vase of flowers, a heap of sand, and three people who had been beheaded.”
“Remember all those fights? All the little gangs of thieves fighting all the time? It got so that there was hardly any energy left to actually steal things,” said Mr. Boggis.
“Things are indeed more…reliable now.”
Silence descended again. That was it, wasn’t it? Things were “reliable” now. Whatever else you said about old Vetinari, he made sure today was always followed by tomorrow. If you were murdered in your bed, at least it would be by arrangement.
“Things were more exciting under Lord Snapcase,” someone ventured.
“Yes, right up until the point when your head fell off.”
“The trouble is,” said Mr. Boggis, “that the job makes people mad. You take some chap who’s no worse than any of us and after a few months he’s talking to moss and having people flayed alive.”
“Vetinari isn’t mad.”
“Depends how you look at it. No one can be as sane as he is without being mad.”
“I am only a weak woman,” said Mrs. Palm, to the personal disbelief of several present, “but it does seem to me that there’s an opportunity here. Either there’s a long struggle to sort out a successor, or we sort it out now. Yes?”
The guild leaders tried to look at one another while simultaneously avoiding everyone else’s glances. Who’d be Patrician now? Once there’d have been a huge multisided struggle, but now!…
You got the power, but you got the problems, too. Things had changed. These days, you had to negotiate and juggle with all the conflicting interests. No one sane had tried to kill Vetinari for years, because the world with him in it was just preferable to one without him.
Besides…Vetinari had tamed Ankh-Morpork. He’d tamed it like a dog. He’d taken a minor scavenger among scavengers and lengthened its teeth and strengthened its jaws and built up its muscles and studded its collar and fed it lean steak and then he’d aimed it at the throat of the world.
He’d taken all the gangs and squabbling groups and made them see that a small slice of the cake on a regular basis was better by far than a bigger slice with a dagger in it. He’d made them see that it was better to take a small slice but enlarge the cake.
Ankh-Morpork, alone of all the cities of the plains, had opened its gates to dwarfs and trolls (alloys are stronger, as Vetinari had said). It had worked. They made things. Often they made trouble, but mostly they made wealth. As a result, although Ankh-Morpork still had many enemies, those enemies had to finance their armies with borrowed money. Most of it was borrowed from Ankh-Morpork, at punitive interest. There hadn’t been any really big wars for years. Ankh-Morpork had made them unprofitable.
Thousands of years ago the old empire had enforced the Pax Morporkia, which had said to the world: “Do not fight, or we will kill you.” The Pax had arisen again, but this time it said: “If you fight, we’ll call in your mortgages. And incidentally, that’s my pike you’re pointing at me. I paid for that shield you’re holding. And take my helmet off when you speak to me, you horrible little debtor.”
And now the whole machine, which whirred away so quietly that people had forgotten it was a machine at all and thought that it was just the way the world worked, had given a lurch.
The guild leaders examined their thoughts and decided that what they did not want was power. What they wanted was that tomorrow should be pretty much like today.
“There’s the dwarfs,” said Mr. Boggis. “Even if one of us—not that I’m saying it would be one of us, of course—even if someone took over, what about the dwarfs? We get someone like Snapcase again, there’s going to be chopped kneecaps in the streets.”
“You’re not suggesting we have some sort of…vote, are you? Some kind of popularity contest?”
“Oh, no. It’s just…it’s just…all more complicated now. And power goes to people’s heads.”
“And then other people’s heads fall off.”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying that, whoever you are,” said Mrs. Palm. “Anyone would think you’d had your head cut off.”
“Uh—”
“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Slant. I do apologize.”
“Speaking as the President of the Guild of Lawyers,” said Mr. Slant, the most respected zombie in Ankh-Morpork, “I must recommend stability in this matter. I wonder if I may offer some advice?”
“How much will it cost us?” said Mr. Sock.
“Stability,” said Mr. Slant, “equals monarchy.”
“Oh, now, don’t tell us—”
“Look at Klatch,” said Mr. Slant doggedly. “Generations of Seriphs. Result: political stability. Take Pseudopolis. Or Sto Lat. Or even the Agatean Empire—”
“Come on,” said Dr. Downey. “Everyone knows that kings—”
“Oh, monarchs come and go, they depose one another, and so on and so forth,” said Mr. Slant. “But the institution goes on. Besides, I think you’ll find that it is possible to work out…an accommodation.”
He realized that he had the floor. His fingers absentmindedly touched the seam where his head had been sewn back on. All those years ago Mr. Slant had refused to die until he had been p
aid for the disbursements in the matter of conducting his own defense.
“How do you mean?” said Mr. Potts.
I accept that the question of resurrecting the Ankh-Morpork succession has been raised several times recently,” said Mr. Slant.
“Yes. By madmen,” said Mr. Boggis. “It’s part of the symptoms. Put underpants on head, talk to trees, drool, decide that Ankh-Morpork needs a king…”
“Exactly. Supposing sane men were to give it consideration?”
“Go on,” said Dr. Downey.
“There have been precedents,” said Mr. Slant. “Monarchies who have found themselves bereft of a convenient monarch have…obtained one. Some suitably born member of some other royal line. After all, what is required is someone who, uh, knows the ropes, as I believe the saying goes.”
“Sorry? Are you saying we send out for a king?” said Mr. Boggis. “We put up some kind of advertisement? ‘Throne vacant, applicant must supply own crown’?”
“In fact,” said Mr. Slant, ignoring this, “I recall that, during the first Empire, Genua wrote to Ankh-Morpork and asked to be sent one of our generals to be their king, their own royal lines having died out through interbreeding so intensively that the last king kept trying to breed with himself. The history books say that we sent our loyal General Tacticus, whose first act after obtaining the crown was to declare war on Ankh-Morpork. Kings are…interchangeable.”
“You mentioned something about reaching an accommodation,” said Mr. Boggis. “You mean, we tell a king what to do?”
“I like the sound of that,” said Mrs. Palm.
“I like the echoes,” said Dr. Downey.
“Not tell,” said Mr. Slant. “We…agree. Obviously, as king, he would concentrate on those things traditionally associated with kingship—”
“Waving,” said Mr. Sock.
“Being gracious,” said Mrs. Palm.
“Welcoming ambassadors from foreign countries,” said Mr. Potts.
“Shaking hands.”
“Cutting off heads—”
“No! No. No, that will not be part of his duties. Minor affairs of state will be carried out—”
“By his advisors?” said Dr. Downey. He leaned back. “I’m sure I can see where this is going, Mr. Slant,” he said. “But kings, once acquired, are so damn’ hard to get rid of. Acceptably.”
“There have been precedents for that, too,” said Mr. Slant.
The Assassin’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m intrigued, Mr. Slant, that as soon as the Lord Vetinari appears to be seriously ill, you pop up with suggestions like this. It sounds like…a remarkable coincidence.”
“There is no mystery, I assure you. Destiny works its course. Surely many of you have heard the rumors—that there is, in this city, someone with a bloodline traceable all the way back to the last royal family? Someone working in this very city in a comparatively humble position? A lowly Watchman, in fact?”
There were some nods, but not very definite ones. They were to nods what a grunt is to “yes.” The guilds all picked up information. No one wanted to reveal how much, or how little, they personally knew, just in case they knew too little or, even worse, turned out to know too much.
However, Doc Pseudopolis of the Guild of Gamblers put on a careful poker face and said, “Yes, but the tricentennial is coming up. And in a few years it’ll be the Century of the Rat. There’s something about centuries that gives people a kind of fever.”
“Nevertheless, the person exists,” said Mr. Slant. “The evidence stares one in the face if one looks in the right places.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Boggis, “Tell us the name of this captain.” He often lost large sums at poker.
“Captain?” said Mr. Slant. “I’m sorry to say his natural talents have thus far not commended him to that extent. He is a corporal. Corporal C. W. St. J. Nobbs.”
There was silence.
And then there was a strange putt-putting sound, like water negotiating its way through a partially blocked pipe.
Queen Molly of the Beggars’ Guild had so far been silent apart from occasional damp sucking noises as she tried to dislodge a particle of her lunch from the things which, because they were still in her mouth and apparently attached, were technically her teeth.
Now she was laughing. The hairs wobbled on every wart. “Nobby Nobbs?” she said. “You’re talking about Nobby Nobbs?”
“He is the last known descendant of the Earl of Ankh, who could trace his descent all the way to a distant cousin to the last king,” said Mr. Slant. “It’s the talk of the city.”
“A picture forms in my mind,” said Dr. Downey. “Small monkey-like chap, always smoking very short cigarettes. Spotty. He squeezes them in public.”
“That’s Nobby!” Queen Molly chuckled. “Face like a blind carpenter’s thumb!”
“Him? But the man’s a tit!”
“And dim as a penny candle,” said Mr. Boggis. “I don’t see—”
Suddenly he stopped, and then contracted the contemplative silence that was gradually affecting everyone else around the table.
“Don’t see why we shouldn’t…give this…due consideration,” he said, after a while.
The assembled leaders looked at the table. Then they looked at the ceiling. Then they studiously avoided one another’s gaze.
“Blood will out,” said Mr. Carry.
“When I’ve watched him go down the street I’ve always thought: ‘There’s a man who walks in greatness,’” said Mrs. Palm.
“He squeezes them in a very regal way, mind you. Very graciously.”
The silence rolled over the assembly again. But it was busy, in the same way that the silence of an anthill is busy.
“I must remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that poor Lord Vetinari is still alive,” said Mrs. Palm.
“Indeed, indeed,” said Mr. Slant. “And long may he remain so. I’ve merely set out for you one option against that day, may it be a long time coming, when we should consider a…successor.”
“In any case,” said Dr. Downey, “there is no doubt that Vetinari has been overdoing it. If he survives—which is greatly to be hoped, of course—I feel we should require him to step down for the sake of his health. Well done thou good and faithful servant, and so on. Buy him a nice house in the country somewhere. Give him a pension. Make sure there’s a seat for him at official dinners. Obviously, if he can be so easily poisoned now he should welcome the release from the chains of office…”
“What about the wizards?” said Mr. Boggis.
“They’ve never got involved in civic concerns,” said Dr. Downey. “Give ’em four meat meals a day and tip your hat to them and they’re happy. They know nothing about politics.”
The silence that followed was broken by the voice of Queen Molly of the Beggars. “What about Vimes?”
Dr. Downey shrugged. “He is a servant of the city.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“Surely we represent the city?”
“Hah! He won’t see it that way. And you know what Vimes thinks about kings. It was a Vimes who chopped the head off the last one. There’s a bloodline that thinks a swing of an axe can solve anything.”
“Now, Molly, you know Vimes’d probably take an axe to Vetinari if he thought he could get away with it. No love lost there, I fancy.”
“He won’t like it. That’s all I tell you. Vetinari keeps Vimes wound up. No knowing what happens if he unwinds all at once—”
“He’s a public servant!” snapped Dr. Downey.
Queen Molly made a face, which was not difficult in one so naturally well endowed, and sat back. “So this is the new way of things, is it?” she muttered. “Lot of ordinary men sit around a table and talk and suddenly the world’s a different place? The sheep turn round and charge the shepherd?”
“There’s a soirée at Lady Selachii’s house this evening,” said Dr. Downey, ignoring her. “I believe Nobbs’s being invited. Perhaps we can…meet him.”
>
Vimes told himself he was really going to inspect the progress on the new Watch House in Chittling Street. Cockbill Street was just round the corner. And then he’d call in, informally. No sense in sparing a man when they were pushed anyway, what with these murders and Vetinari and Detritus’s anti-Slab crusade.
He turned the corner, and stopped.
Nothing much had changed. That was the shocking thing. After…oh, too many years…things had no right not to have changed.
But washing lines still criss-crossed the street between the gray, ancient buildings. Antique paint still peeled in the way cheap paint peeled when it had been painted on wood too old and rotten to take paint. Cockbill Street people were usually too penniless to afford decent paint, but always far too proud to use whitewash.
And the place was slightly smaller than he remembered. That was all.
When had he last come down here? He couldn’t remember. It was beyond the Shades, and up until quite recently the Watch had tended to leave that area to its own unspeakable devices.
Unlike the Shades, though, Cockbill Street was clean, with the haunting, empty cleanliness you get when people can’t afford to waste dirt. For Cockbill Street was where people lived who were worse than poor, because they didn’t know how poor they were. If you asked them they would probably say something like “mustn’t grumble” or “there’s far worse off than us” or “we’ve always kept uz heads above water and we don’t owe no-body nowt.”
He could hear his granny speaking. “No one’s too poor to buy soap.” Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that?
Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren’t quite obeying them.
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