Jingo d-21

by Terry Pratchett

  “That's true,” said Vimes. “You've got me there, right enough. No one ever trained me in arms. I was lucky there.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice so that the watching crowd wouldn't hear. “Y'see, I know what ‘training in arms’ means, Ronald. There hasn't been a real war in ages. So it's all prancing around wearing padded waistcoats and waving swords with knobs on the end so no one'll really get hurt, isn't it? But down in the Shades no one's had any training in arms either. Wouldn't know an epee from a sabre. No, what they're good at is a broken bottle in one hand and a length of four-by-two in the other and when you face 'em, Ronnie, you know you aren't going off for a laugh and a jolly drink afterwards, 'cos they want you dead. They want to kill you, you see, Ron? And by the time you've swung your nice shiny broadsword they've carved their name and address on your stomach. And that's where I got my training in arms. Well… fists and knees and teeth and elbows, mostly.”

  “You, sir, are no gentleman,” said Rust.

  “I knew there was something about me that I liked.”

  “Can you not even see that you can't enrol… dwarfs and trolls in an Ankh-Morpork regiment?”

  “It just says ‘armed soldiers’, and dwarfs come with their own axes. A great saving. Besides, if you've ever seen them really fight, then you must've been on the same side.”

  “Vimes—”

  “It's Sir Samuel, my lord.”

  Rust seemed to think for a moment.

  “Very well, then,” he said. “Then you and your… regiment come under my command—”

  “Strangely, no,” said Vimes swiftly. “Under the command of the King or his duly appointed representative, it says in Scavone's Chivalric Law and Usage. And, of course, there has been no duly appointed representative ever since some complete bastard cut off the last king's head. Oh, assorted bods appeared to have been ruling the city, but according to the chivalric tradition—”

  Rust stopped to think again. He had the look of a lawnmower just after the grass has organized a workers' collective. There was a definite suggestion that, deep inside, he knew this was not really happening. It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence could be safely ignored. However, it might be necessary to find some motions to go through.

  “I think you'll find that, legally, your position—” he began, and his eyes bulged for a moment as Vimes interrupted him cheerfully.

  “Oh, there might be a few problems, I grant you. But if you ask Mr Slant he'll say ‘This is a very interesting case’, which as you know is lawyer-talk for ‘One thousand dollars a day plus expenses and it'll take months.’ So I'll leave you go get on with it, shall I? Got such a lot of things to do, you know. I think the swatches for the new uniforms should be in my office about now, it's so important to look right on the battlefield, isn't it?”

  Rust gave Vimes another look, and then strode away.

  Detritus stamped to attention beside Vimes and his salute clanged smartly off his helmet.

  “What we doin' now, sir?”

  “We can pack up now, I think. All the lads have joined up?”

  “Yessir!”

  “You told them it wasn't compulsory?”

  “Yessir! I said, ‘It ain't compuls'ry, you just gotta,’ sir.”

  “Detritus, I wanted volunteers.”

  “'sright, sir. They volunteered all right, I saw to that.”

  Vimes sighed as he walked back to his office. But they were probably safe. He was pretty sure he was legally sound and if he knew anything about Rust, the man would respect the letter of the law. Such men did, in a chilly way. Besides, thirty men in the Watch simply didn't figure in the great scheme of things. Rust could ignore them.

  Suddenly there's a war brewing, Vimes thought, and they all come back. Civil order is turned upside down, because that's the rules. And people like Rust are at the top of the heap again. You have these aristocrats lazing around for years, and suddenly the old armour's out and the sword is being taken down from over the fireplace. They think there's going to be a war and all they can think about is that wars can be won or lost…

  Someone's behind this. Someone wants to see a war. Someone paid to have Ossie and Snowy killed. Someone wanted the Prince dead. I've got to remember that. This isn't a war. This is a crime.

  And then he realized he was wondering if the attack on Goriffs shop had been organized by the same people, and whether those same people had set fire to the embassy.

  And then he realized why he was thinking like this.

  It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No — one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

  Around about this time, in his former life, Vimes would be taking the cap off a bottle, and wouldn't be too bothered about the bottle's contents so long as they crinkled paint—

  “Ook?”

  “Oh, hello. What can I do for— oh, yes, I asked about books on Klatch… Is that all?”

  The librarian shyly held out a small, battered green book. Vimes had been expecting something bigger, but he took it anyway. It paid to look at any book the orang-utan gave you. He matched you up to books. Vimes supposed it was a knack, in the same way that an undertaker was very good at judging heights.

  On the spine, in very faded gold lettering, were the words “VENI VIDI VICI: A Soldier's Life by Gen. A. Tacticus”.{60}

  Nobby and Sergeant Colon edged along the alley.

  “I know who he is!” Fred hissed. “That's Leonard of Quirm, that is! He went missing five years ago!”

  “So he's called Leonard and he's from Quirm, so what?” said Nobby.

  “He's a raving genius!”

  “He's a loony.”

  “Yeah, well, they say there's a thin line between genius and madness…”

  “He's fallen off it, then.”

  The voice behind them said, “Oh, dear, this won't do at all, will it…? I can't deny it, you were quite right, the accuracy would be quite unacceptable at any reasonable range. Could you bear to stop a moment, please?”

  They turned. Leonard was already dismantling the tube.

  “If you could just hang on to this bit, corporal… and, sergeant, if you would be so good as to hold this piece steady… some sort of fins should do it, I'm sure I had a suitable piece of wood somewhere…”

  Leonard began to pat his pockets.

  The watchmen realized that the man holding them up had paused to redesign his weapon and had given it to them to hold while he looked for a screwdriver. This was a thing that did not often happen.

  Nobby silently took the rocket from Colon and pushed it into the tube.

  “What's this bit here, mister?” he said.

  Leonard glanced up briefly in between patting his pockets.

  “Oh, that is the trigger,” he said. “Which, as you can see, rubs against the flint and—”

  “Good.”

  There was a short burst of flame and rather more black smoke.

  “Oh, dear,” said Leonard.

  The watchmen turned, like men dreading what they were about to see. The rocket had shot the length of the alley and through the window of a house.

  “Ah… putting ‘This Way Up’ on the projectile would be an important safety point to bear in mind for the new design.” said Leonard. “Now, where's that not
ebook…?”

  “I think we'd better leave,” said Colon, moving backwards. “Very fast.”

  Inside the house there was an explosion of stars and balls to delight young and old but not the troll who had just opened the door.

  “Ah, really?” said Leonard. “Well, if speed is required, I have this very interesting design for a two-wheeled—”

  Acting on an unspoken agreement, the watchmen each put a hand under a shoulder, lifted him off the ground, and ran for it.

  “Oh, dear,” said Leonard, as he was dragged backwards.

  The watchmen dived into a side alley, and then jinked and dodged along several others with quiet professionalism. Finally they leaned Leonard against a wall and peered round the end of the alley.

  “All clear,” said Nobby. “They went the other way.”

  “Right,” said Colon. “Now, what was you doing? I mean, you might be a genius like I heard, Mister da Quirm, but when it comes to threatening people you're as clever as an inflatable dartboard.”

  “I appear to have been a bit of a juggins, don't I?” Leonard agreed. “But I do implore you to come with me. I'm afraid I thought that as warriors you would be more inclined to understand force.”

  “Well, yes, we're warriors,” said Sergeant Colon. “But—”

  “'ere, have you got another one of these rockets?” said Nobby, hefting the tube onto his shoulder again. He had the special gleam in his eye that a small man gets when he's laid his hands on a big, big weapon.

  “I may have,” said Leonard, and the gleam in his eye was the mad twinkle of the naturally innocent when they think they're being cunning. “Why don't we go and see? You see, I was told to fetch you by any means necessary.”

  “Bribery sounds good,” said Nobby. He put his eye to the tube's sights and started making “whoosh” noises.

  “Who told you to fetch us?” said Colon.

  “Lord Vetinari.”

  “The Patrician wants us?”

  “Yes. He said you have special qualities and must come at once.”

  “To the palace? I heard he'd done a runner.”

  “Oh, no. To the, er… to the, er… docks…”

  “Special qualities, eh?” said Colon.

  “Er, sarge…” Nobby began.

  “Now then, Nobby,” said Colon importantly. “It's about time we were given some recognition, you know that. Hexperienced officers are the backbone of the force. Seems to me,” he went on, “seems to me that this is a case of cometh the time, cometh the man.”

  “When's he cometh?”

  “I'm talking about us. Men with special qualities.”

  Nobby nodded, but with a certain amount of reluctance. In many ways he was a much clearer thinker than his superior officer, and he was worrying about “special qualities”. Being picked for something because of your “special qualities” was tantamount to being volunteered. Anyway, what was so special about “special qualities”? Limpets had special qualities.

  “Will we go undercover again?” said Colon.

  Leonard blinked. “There… yes, I think I can say there is a strong under element involved. Yes, indeed.”

  “Sarge—”

  “You just be quiet, corporal.” Colon pulled Nobby closer. “Undercover means not getting stabbed and shot at, right?” he whispered. “And what's the most important thing a professional soldier wants not to happen to him?”

  “Not getting stabbed and shot,” said Nobby automatically.

  “Right! So let's be going, Mr Quirm! The call has come!”

  “Well done!” said Leonard. “Tell me, sergeant, are you of a nautical persuasion?”

  Colon saluted again. “Nossir! Happily married man, sir!”

  “I meant, have you ploughed the ocean waves at all?”

  Colon gave him a cunning look.

  “Ah, you can't catch me with that one, sir,” he said. “Everyone knows the horses sink.”

  Leonard paused for a moment and retuned his brain to Radio Colon.

  “Have you, in the past, floated around, on the sea, in a boat, at all?”

  “Me, sir? Not me, sir. It's the sight of the waves going up and down, sir.”

  “Really?” said Leonard. “Well, happily, that will not be a problem.”

  All right, start again…

  Assembling facts, that's what it was about…

  The world watched. Someone wanted the Watch to say that the assassination had been inspired by Klatch. Who?

  Someone had also beheaded Snowy Slopes where he stood and left him deader than six buckets of fish bait.

  A vision of 71-hour Ahmed's big curved sword presented itself for his attention. So…

  …let's assume that Ahmed was Khufurah's servant or bodyguard, and he'd found out…

  No, how could that work? Who'd tell him?

  Well, maybe he'd found out somehow, and that meant that he might also know who'd paid the man…

  Vimes sat back. It was still a mystery but he'd solve it, he knew he would. He'd assemble the facts, analyse them, look at them from every angle with an open mind, and find out exactly how Lord Rust had organized it.

  Rank bad hat! He didn't have to sit still for something like that, especially from a man who rhymed “house” with “mice”.

  His eye was caught by the ancient book. General Tacticus? Every kid knew about him. Ankh-Morpork had ruled a huge empire and a lot of it had been in Klatch, thanks to him. Except there wasn't any thanks for him, strangely enough. Vimes had never quite known why, but the city seemed to be rather ashamed of the general.

  One reason, of course, was that he'd ended up fighting Ankh-Mopork. The city of Genua had run out of royalty, inbreeding having progressed to the point where the sole remaining example consisted mostly of teeth, and senior courtiers had written to Ankh-Morpork asking for help.

  There'd been a lot of that sort of thing, Vimes had been surprised to learn. The little kingdoms of the Sto Plains were for ever scrounging spare royalty off one another. The King had sent Tacticus out of sheer exasperation. It's hard to run a proper empire when you're constantly getting blood-stained letters on the lines of: Dear sire, I beg to inform you that we have conquered Betrek, Smale and Ushistan. Please send AM$20,000 back pay. The man never knew when to stop. So he was hastily made a duke and packed off to Genua, whereupon his first action was to consider what was that city's greatest military threat and then, having identified it, to declare war on Ankh-Morpork.

  But what else had anyone expected? He'd done his duty. He'd brought back heaps of spoils, lots of captives and, almost uniquely among Ankh-Morpork's military leaders, most of his men. Vimes suspected that this last fact was one reason why history didn't approve. There was a suggestion that this was, in some way, not playing fair.

  “Veni, vidi, vici.” That was what the man was supposed to have said when he'd conquered… where? Pseudopolis, wasn't it? Or Al-Khali? Or Quirm? Maybe Sto Lat? That was in the old days when you attacked anyone else's city on principle, and went back and did them over again if they looked like getting up. And in those days, you didn't care if the world watched. You wanted them to watch, and learn. “Veni, vidi, vici.” I came, I saw, I conquered.

  As a comment it always struck Vimes as a bit too pat. It wasn't the sort of thing you came up with on the spur of the moment, was it? It sounded as if he had worked it out. He'd probably spent long evenings in his tent, looking up in the dictionary short words beginning with V and trying them out… Veni, vermini, vomui, I came, I got ratted, I threw up? Visi, veneri, vamoosi, I visited, I caught an embarrassing disease, I ran away? It must have been a big relief to come up with three short acceptable words. He probably made them up first, and then went off to see somewhere and conquer it.

  He opened the book at random.

  “It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country,” he read. “This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.”{61}

  “Hah!”

  “Bingel
ey-bingeley b—”

  Vimes's hand slammed down on the box.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “Three oh five pee em. Interview with Cpl Littlebottom re Missing Sgt Colon,” said the demon sulkily.

  “I never arranged anything like— Who told you—? Are you telling me that I've got an appointment and I don't know about it?”

  “That's right.”

  “So how do you know about it?”

  “You told me to know about it. Last night,” said the demon.

  “You can tell me about appointments I don't know about?” said Vimes.

  “They're still appointments sine qua appointments,” said the demon. “They exist, as it were, in appointment phase space.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Look,” said the demon patiently, “You can have an appointment at any time, right? So therefore any appointment exists in potentia—”

  “Where's that?”

  “Any particular appointment simply collapses the waveform,” said the demon. “I merely select the most likely one from the projected matrix.”

  “You're just making this up,” said Vimes. “If you were right, then any second now—”

  Someone knocked at the door. It was a polite, tentative tap.

  Vimes didn't take his eyes off the smirking demon.

  “Is that you, Corporal Littlebottom?” he said.

  “Yes, sir. Sergeant Colon has sent a pigeon. I thought you ought to see it, sir.”

  “Come in!”

  A small roll of thin paper was placed on his desk. He read:

  Have volunteered for a mission of Vital Importance. Nobby is here also. There will be statchoos of us when this day's work is over.

  PS Someone I can't tell you who says this note will self-destruct in five seconds,{62} he is sorry he hasn't got good chemicles to do it better—

  The paper began to crinkle around the edges and then vanished in a small puff of acrid smoke.

  Vimes stared at the little pile of ash that remained.

  “I suppose it's a mercy they didn't blow up the pigeon, sir,” said Cheery.