‘Is there anyone after me? Can you see anyone?’
ER … NO. WERE YOU EXPECTING ANYONE?
‘Oh, right. No one, eh? Right!’ said Mr Pin, squaring his shoulders. ‘Yeah! Hah! Hey, look, I’ve got my potato!’
Death blinked and then took an hourglass out of his robe.
MR PIN? AH. THE OTHER ONE. I HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU.
‘That’s me! And I’ve got my potato, look, and I’m very sorry about everything!’ Mr Pin was feeling quite calm now. The mountains of madness have many little plateaux of sanity.
Death stared into the madly smiling face. YOU ARE VERY SORRY?
‘Oh, yes!’
ABOUT EVERYTHING?
‘Yep!’
AT THIS TIME? IN THIS PLACE? YOU DECLARE YOU ARE SORRY?’
‘That’s right. You got it. You’re bright. So if you’ll just show me how to get back—’
YOU WOULD NOT LIKE TO RECONSIDER?
‘No arguing, I want what’s due,’ said Mr Pin. ‘I’ve got my potato. Look.’
AND I SEE. Death reached into his robe and pulled out what looked to Mr Pin, at first sight, like a miniature model of himself. But there was a rat skull looking out from under the tiny cowl.
Death grinned. SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND, he said.
The Death of Rats reached out and snatched the string.
‘Hey—’
DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR TRUST IN ROOT VEGETABLES. WHAT THINGS SEEM MAY NOT BE WHAT THEY ARE, said Death. YET LET NO ONE SAY I DON’T HONOUR THE LAW. He snapped his fingers. RETURN, THEN, TO WHERE YOU SHOULD GO …
Blue light flickered for a moment around the astonished Pin, and then he vanished.
Death sighed and shook his head.
THE OTHER ONE … HAD SOMETHING IN HIM THAT COULD BE BETTER, he said. BUT THAT ONE … He sighed deeply. WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?
The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of potato.
SQUEAK, he said.
Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
William, ducking from doorway to doorway, realized that he was taking the long way round. Otto would have said that it was because he didn’t want to arrive.
The storm had abated slightly, although stinging hail still bounced off his hat. The much bigger balls from the initial onslaught filled the gutters and covered the roads. Carts had skidded, pedestrians were hanging on to the walls.
Despite the fire in his head, he took out his notebook and wrote: hlstns bggr than golf blls? and made a mental note to check one against a golf ball, just in case. Part of him was beginning to understand that his readers might have a very relaxed attitude about the guilt of politicians but were red hot on things like the size of the weather.
He stopped on the Brass Bridge and sheltered in the lee of one of the giant hippos. Hail peppered the surface of the river with a thousand tiny sucking noises.
The rage was cooling now.
For most of William’s life Lord de Worde had been a distant figure staring out of his study window, in a room lined with books that never got read, while William stood meekly in the middle of acres of good but threadbare carpet and listened to … well, viciousness mostly, now that he thought about it, the opinions of Mr Windling dressed up in more expensive words.
The worst part, the worst part, was that Lord de Worde was never wrong. It was not a position he understood in relation to his personal geography. People who took an opposing view were insane, or dangerous, or possibly even not really people. You couldn’t have an argument with Lord de Worde. Not a proper argument. An argument, from arguer, meant to debate and discuss and persuade by reason. What you could have with William’s father was a flaming row.
Icy water dripped off one of the statues and ran down William’s neck.
Lord de Worde used words with a tone and a volume that made them as good as fists, but he’d never used actual violence.
He had people for that.
Another drop of thawed hail coursed down William’s spine.
Surely even his father couldn’t be this stupid?
He wondered if he should turn over everything to the Watch right now. But whatever they said about Vimes, in the end the man had a handful of men and a lot of influential enemies who had families going back a thousand years and the same amount of honour that you’d find in a dog fight.
No. He was a de Worde. The Watch was for other people, who couldn’t sort out their problems their own way. And what was the worst that could happen?
So many things, he thought as he set out again, that it would be hard to decide which one was the worst.
A galaxy of candles burned in the middle of the floor. In the corroded mirrors around the room they looked like the lights of a shoal of deep-sea fishes.
William walked past overturned chairs. There was one upright, though, behind the candles.
He stopped.
‘Ah … William,’ said the chair. Then Lord de Worde slowly unfolded his lanky form from the embracing leather and stood up in the light.
‘Father,’ said William.
‘I thought you’d come here. Your mother always liked the place, too. Of course, it was … different in those days.’
William said nothing. It had been. ‘I think this nonsense has got to stop now, don’t you?’ said Lord de Worde.
‘I think it is stopping, Father.’
‘But I don’t think you mean what I mean,’ said Lord de Worde.
‘I don’t know what you think you mean,’ said William. ‘I just want to hear the truth from you.’
Lord de Worde sighed. ‘The truth? I had the best interests of the city at heart, you know. You’ll understand, one day. Vetinari is ruining the place.’
‘Yes … well … that’s where it all becomes difficult, doesn’t it?’ said William, amazed that his voice hadn’t even begun to shake yet. ‘I mean, everyone says that sort of thing, don’t they? “I did it for the best”, “the end justifies the means” – the same words, every time.’
‘Don’t you agree, then, that it’s time for a ruler who listens to the people?’
‘Maybe. Which people did you have in mind?’
Lord de Worde’s mild expression changed. William was surprised it had survived this long.
‘You are going to put this in your rag of a newspaper, aren’t you?’
William said nothing.
‘You can’t prove anything. You know that.’
William stepped into the light and Lord de Worde saw the notebook.
‘I can prove enough. That’s all that matters, really. The rest will become a matter of … inquiry. Do you know they call Vimes “Vetinari’s terrier”? Terriers dig and dig and don’t let go.’
Lord de Worde put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
And William heard himself think: Thank you. Thank you. Up until now, I couldn’t believe it …
‘You have no honour, do you?’ said his father, still in the voice of infuriating calm. ‘Well, publish and be damned to you. And to the Watch. We gave no order to—’
‘I expect you didn’t,’ said William. ‘I expect you said “make it so” and left the details to people like Pin and Tulip. Bloody hands at arm’s length.’
‘As your father I order you to cease this … this …’
‘You used to order me to tell the truth,’ said William.
Lord de Worde drew himself up. ‘Oh, William, William! Don’t be so naive.’
William shut his notebook. The words came easier now. He’d leapt from the building and found that he could fly.
‘And which one is this?’ he said. ‘The truth that is so precious it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies? The truth that is stranger than fiction? Or the truth that is still putting on its boots when a lie is running round the world?’ He stepped forward. ‘That’s your little phrase, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter any more. I think Mr Pin was going to try blackmail and, you know, so am I,
naive as I am. You’re going to leave the city, right now. That shouldn’t be too hard for you. And you had better hope that nothing happens to me, or anyone I work with, or anyone I know.’
‘Really?’
‘Right now!’ screamed William, so loud that Lord de Worde rocked backwards. ‘Have you gone deaf as well as insane? Right now and don’t come back, because if you do I’ll publish every damn word you’ve just said!’ William pulled the Dis-organizer out of his pocket. ‘Every damn word! D’you hear me? And not even Mr Slant will be able to grease your way out of that! You even had the arrogance, the stupid arrogance, to use our house! How dare you! Get out of the city! And either draw that sword or take … your … hand … off … it!’
He stopped, red-faced and panting.
‘The truth has got its boots on,’ he said. ‘It’s going to start kicking.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I told you to take your hand off that sword!’
‘So silly, so silly. And I believed you were my son …’
‘Ah, yes. I nearly forgot that,’ said William, now rocketing on rage. ‘You know one of the customs of the dwarfs? No, of course you don’t, because they’re not really people, are they? But I know one or two of them, you see, and so …’ He pulled a velvet bag out of his pocket and threw it down in front of his father.
‘And this is …?’ said Lord de Worde.
‘There’s more than twenty thousand dollars in there, as close as a couple of experts could estimate,’ said William. ‘I didn’t have a lot of time to work it out and I didn’t want you to think I was being unfair, so I’ve erred on the generous side. That must cover everything I’ve cost you over the years. School fees, clothes, everything. I have to confess you didn’t make such a good job of it, given that I’m the end result. I’m buying myself off you, you see.’
‘Oh, I see. The dramatic gesture. Do you really think that family is a matter of money?’ said Lord de Worde.
‘We-ell, yes, according to history. Money, land and titles,’ said William. ‘It’s amazing how often we failed to marry anyone who didn’t have at least two out of three.’
‘Cheap jibe. You know what I mean.’
‘I don’t know if I do,’ said William. ‘But I do know I got that money a few hours ago off a man who tried to kill me.’
‘Tried to kill you?’ For the first time there was a note of uncertainty.
‘Why, yes. You’re surprised?’ said William. ‘If you throw something into the air, don’t you have to worry about where it bounces?’
‘Indeed you do,’ said Lord de Worde. He sighed, made a little hand signal, and William saw shadows detach themselves from deeper shadows. And he remembered that you couldn’t run the de Worde estates without a lot of hired help, in every department of life. Hard men in little round hats, who knew how to evict and distrain and set mantraps …
‘You have been overdoing it, I can see,’ said his father, as they advanced. ‘I think you need … yes, a long sea voyage. The Isles of Fog, perhaps, or possibly Fourecks. Or Bhangbhangduc. There’s fortunes to be made there, I understand, by young men prepared to get their hands dirty. Certainly there’s nothing for you here … nothing good.’
William made out four figures now. He’d seen them around on the estates. They tended to have one-word names, like Jenks or Clamper, and no visible pasts at all.
One of them said, ‘Now, if you’ll just see a bit o’ sense, Mr William, we can all do this nice and quiet …’
‘Small sums of money will be sent to you periodically,’ said Lord de Worde. ‘You will be able to live in a style which—’
A few wisps of dust spiralled down from the shadowy ceiling, twirling like sycamore leaves.
They landed next to the velvet bag.
Overhead, a shrouded chandelier jingled gently.
William looked up. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Please … don’t kill anyone!’
‘What?’ said Lord de Worde.
Otto Chriek dropped to the floor, hands raised like talons.
‘Good evening!’ he said to a shocked bailiff. He looked at his hands. ‘Oh, vot am I thinking of!’ He bunched his fists and danced from foot to foot. ‘Put zem up in the traditional Ankh-Morpork pugilism!’
‘Put them up?’ said the man, raising a cudgel. ‘Blow that!’
A jab from Otto lifted him off his feet. He landed on his back, spinning, and slid away across the polished floor. Otto spun round so fast that he blurred, and there was a smack as another man went down.
‘Vot’s this? Vot’s this? I’m using your civilized fisticuffs, and you don’t vant to fight?’ he said, springing back and forth like an amateur boxer. ‘Ah, you, sir, you show fight—’ The fists blurred into invisibility and pummelled a man like a punchbag. Otto straightened up as the man fell, and absent-mindedly punched sideways to catch the charging fourth man on the chin. The man actually spun in the air.
This happened in a few seconds. And then William got enough of a grip to shout a warning. He was too late.
Otto looked down at the length of sword blade sticking too far into his chest.
‘Oh, vill you look at zis,’ he said. ‘You know, in zis job I just cannot make a shirt last two days?’
He turned to Lord de Worde, who was backing away, and cracked his knuckles.
‘Keep it away from me!’ shouted his lordship.
William shook his head.
‘Oh, yes?’ said Otto, still advancing. ‘You think I am an it? Vell, let me act like an it.’
He grabbed Lord de Worde’s jacket and held him up in the air, with one hand, at arm’s length.
‘Ve have people like you back home,’ he said. ‘Zey are the vuns that tell the mob vot to do. I come here to Ankh-Morpork, zey tell me things are different, but really it is alvays the same. Alvays zere are damn people like you! And now, vot shall I do viz you?’
He wrenched at his own jacket and tossed the black ribbon aside.
‘I never liked zer damn cocoa anyvay,’ he said.
‘Otto!’
The vampire turned. ‘Yes, Villiam? Vot is it you vish?’
‘That’s going too far.’ Lord de Worde had gone pale. William had never seen him so obviously frightened before.
‘Oh? You say? You think I bite him? Shall I bite you, Mister Lordship? Vell, maybe not, because Villiam here thinks I am a good person.’ He pulled Lord de Worde close, so their faces were a few inches apart. ‘Now, maybe I have to ask myself, how good am I? Or maybe I just have to ask myself … am I better zan you?’ He hesitated for a second or two and then in a sudden movement jerked the man towards him.
With great delicacy, he planted a kiss on Lord de Worde’s forehead. Then he put the trembling man back down on the floor and patted him on the head.
‘Actually, maybe zer cocoa is not too bad and zer young lady who plays zer harmonium, sometimes she vinks at me,’ he said, stepping aside.
Lord de Worde opened his eyes, and looked at William.
‘How dare you—’
‘Shut up,’ said William. ‘Now, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. I’m not going to name names. That’s my decision. I don’t want my mother to have been married to a traitor, you see. Then there’s Rupert. And my sisters. And me, too. I’m protecting the name. That’s probably very wrong of me, and I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to disobey you one more time, in fact. I won’t tell the truth. Not the whole truth. Besides, I am sure that those who want to know these things will find out soon enough. And I daresay they’ll sort it out quietly. You know … just like you do.’
‘Traitor?’ whispered Lord de Worde.
‘That is what people would say.’
Lord de Worde nodded, like a man caught in an unpleasant dream.
‘I could not possibly take the money,’ he said. ‘I wish you joy of it, my son. Because … you are most certainly a de Worde. Good day to you.’ He turned and walked away. After a few seconds the distant door creaked open and shut quietly.
William staggere
d to a pillar. He was shaking. He replayed the meeting in his head. His brain hadn’t touched the ground the whole time.
‘Are you okay, Villiam?’ said Otto.
‘I feel sick, but … yeah, I’m all right. Of all the bone-headed, stubborn, self-centred, arrogant—’
‘But you make up for it in other vays,’ said Otto.
‘I meant my father.’
‘Oh.’
‘He’s just so certain he’s in the right all the time—’
‘Sorry, this is still your father ve’re talking about?’
‘Are you saying I’m like him?’
‘Oh, no. Qvite different. Absolutely qvite different. No similarities votsoever.’
‘You didn’t need to go that far!’ He stopped. ‘Did I say “thank you”?’
‘No, you did not.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘No, you noticed that you didn’t, so zat is okay,’ said Otto. ‘Every day, in every vay, ve get better and better. By the vay, vould you mind pulling this sword out of me? Vot kind of idiot just sticks it in a vampire? All it does is mess up zer linen.’
‘Let me help—’ William gingerly withdrew the blade.
‘Can I put zis shirt on my expenses?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Good. And now it is all over and time for revards and medals,’ said the vampire cheerfully, adjusting his jacket. ‘So vhere are your troubles now?’
‘Just starting,’ said William. ‘I think I’m going to be seeing the inside of the Watch House in less than an hour.’
In fact it was forty-three minutes later that William de Worde was Helping the Watch, as they say, with Their Inquiries.
On the other side of the table Commander Vimes was carefully rereading the Times. He was, William knew, taking longer than necessary in order to make him nervous.
‘I can help you with any long words you don’t recognize,’ he volunteered.
‘It’s very good,’ said Vimes, ignoring this. ‘But I need to know more. I need to know the names. I think you know the names. Where did they meet? Things like that. I need to know them.’
‘Some things are a mystery to me,’ said William. ‘You’ve got more than enough evidence to release Lord Vetinari.’
‘I want to know more.’
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