“It does look like a carrier pigeon,” said Angua, putting down the book.
“Ah, but messages flying through the air are an Abomination Unto Nuggan,” said Vimes. “The prayers of the faithful bounce off them, apparently. No, I think I’ve found someone’s lost pet and I’m looking in this little tube here to see if I can find the owner’s name and address, because I am a kind man.”
“So you’re not actually waylaying field reports from the Times, then, sir?” said Angua, grinning.
“Not as such, no. I’m just such a keen reader that I want to see tomorrow’s news today. And Mr de Worde seems to have a knack of finding things out. Angua, I want to stop these stupid people fighting so that we can all go home, and if that means allowing the occasional pigeon to have a crap on my desk, so be it.”
“Oh, sorry, sir, I didn’t notice. I expect it’ll wipe off.”
“Go and get Reg to find some rabbit for the buzzard, will you?”
When she’d gone Vimes carefully unscrewed the end of the tube and pulled out a roll of very thin paper. He unfolded it, smoothed it out, and read the tiny writing, smiling as he did so. Then he turned the paper over and looked at the picture.
He was still staring at it when Angua returned with Reg and half a bucket of crunchy rabbit bits.
“Anything interesting, sir?” said Angua ingenuously.
“Well, yes. You could say that. All plans are changed, all bets are off. Ha! Oh, Mr de Worde, you poor fool…”
He handed her the paper. She read the story carefully.
“Good for them, sir,” she said. “Most of them look fifteen years old, and when you see the size of those dragoons, well, you’ve got to be impressed.”
“Yes, yes, you could say that, you could say that,” said Vimes, his face gleaming like a man with a joke to share. “Tell me, did de Worde interview any Zlobenian high-ups when he arrived?”
“No, sir. I understand he was turned away. They don’t really know what a reporter is, so I gather the adjutant threw him out and said he was a nuisance.”
“Dear me, the poor man,” said Vimes, still grinning. “You met Prince Heinrich the other day. Describe him to me…”
Angua cleared her throat. “Well, sir, he was… largely green, shading to blue, with overtones of grllss and trail of—”
“I meant describe him to me on the assumption that I’m not a werewolf who sees with his nose,” said Vimes.
“Oh, yes,” said Angua. “Sorry, sir. Six foot two, a hundred and eighty pounds, fair hair, green-blue eyes, sabre scar on his left cheek, wears a monocle in his right eye, waxed moustache—”
“Good, well observed. And now look at ‘Captain Horentz’ in the picture, will you?”
She looked again, and said, very quietly: “Oh dear. They didn’t know?”
“He wasn’t going to tell them, was he? Would they have seen a picture?”
Angua shrugged. “I doubt it, sir. I mean, where would they see it? There’s never been a newspaper here until the Times carts turned up last week.”
“Some woodcut, maybe?”
“No, they’re an Abomination, unless they’re of the Duchess.”
“So they really didn’t know. And de Worde has never seen him,” said Vimes. “But you saw him when we arrived the other day. What did you think of him? Just between ourselves.”
“An arrogant son-of-a-bitch, sir, and I know what I’m talking about. The kind of man who thinks he knows what a woman likes and it’s himself. All very friendly right up until they say no.”
“Stupid?”
“I don’t think so. But not as clever as he thinks he is.”
“Right, ’cos he didn’t tell our writer friend his real name. Did you read the bit at the end?”
Angua read, at the end of the text: “Perry, the captain threatened and harangued me after the recruits had gone. Alas, I had no time to fish for the manacle key in the privy. Please let the Prince know where they are soonest. WDW.”
“Looks like William didn’t take to him, either,” she said. “I wonder why the Prince was out with a scouting party?”
“You said he was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch,” said Vimes. “Maybe he just wanted to pop across and see if his auntie was still breathing…”
His voice trailed off. Angua looked at Vimes’s face, which was staring through her. She knew her boss. He thought war was simply another crime, like murder. He didn’t much like people with titles, and regarded being a duke as a job description rather than a lever to greatness. He had an odd sense of humour. And he had a sense for what she thought of as harbingers, those little straws in the wind that said there was a storm coming.
“In the nuddy,” he chuckled. “Could have slit their throats. Didn’t. They took their boots away and left them to hop home in the nood.” The squad, it seemed, had found a friend.
She waited.
“I feel sorry for the Borogravians,” he said.
“Me too, sir,” said Angua.
“Oh? Why?”
“Their religion’s gone bad on them. Have you seen the latest Abominations? They Abominate the smell of beets and people with red hair. In rather shaky writing, sir. And root vegetables are a staple here. Three years ago it was Abominable to grow root crops on ground which had grown grain or peas.”
Vimes looked blank, and she remembered that he was a city boy.
“It means no real crop rotation, sir,” she explained. “The ground sours. Diseases build up. You were right when you said they were going mad. These… commandments are dumb, and any farmer can see that. I imagine people go along with them as best they can, but sooner or later you either have to break them and feel guilty, or keep them and suffer. For no reason, sir. I’ve had a look around. They’re very religious here, but their god’s let them down. No wonder they mostly pray to their royal family.”
She watched him stare at the piece of pigeon post for a while. Then he said: “How far is it to Plotz?”
“About fifty miles,” said Angua, adding, “As the wolf runs, maybe six hours.”
“Good. Buggy’ll keep an eye on you. Little Henry is going to hop home, or meet one of his patrols, or an enemy patrol… whatever. But the midden is going to hit the windmill when everyone sees that picture. I bet de Worde would have let him out if he’d been nice and polite. That’ll teach him to meddle with the awesome power of a fair and free press, haha.” He sat upright and rubbed his hands together like a man who meant business. “Now, let’s get that pigeon on its way again before it gets missed, eh? Get Reg to lurch along to where the Times people are staying and tell them their pigeon flew in the wrong window. Again.”
That was a good time, Polly remembered.
They didn’t go down to the river docks. They could see there was no boat there. They hadn’t turned up and the boatman had left without them. Instead, they crossed the bridge and headed up into the forests, with Blouse leading the way on his ancient horse. Maladict went on ahead and… Jade brought up the rear. You didn’t need a light at night when a vampire led the way, and a troll at the rear would certainly discourage hangers-on.
No one mentioned the boat. No one spoke at all. The thing was… the thing was, Polly realized, that they were no longer marching alone. They shared the Secret. That was a huge relief, and right now they didn’t need to talk about it. Nevertheless, it was probably a good idea to keep up a regular output of farts, belches, nose-pickings and groin-scratchings, just in case.
Polly didn’t know whether to be proud that they’d taken her for a boy. I mean, she thought, I’d worked hard to get it right, I mastered the walk, except I suppose what I really did was mistress the walk, haha, I invented the fake shaving routine and the others didn’t even think of that, I haven’t cleaned my fingernails for days and I pride myself I can belch with the best of them. So, I mean, I was trying. It was just slightly annoying to find that she’d succeeded so well.
After a few hours of this, when true dawn was breaking, they smelled smoke. There
was a faint pall of it amongst the trees. Lieutenant Blouse raised a hand for them to halt, and Jackrum joined him in whispered conversation.
Polly stepped forward. “Permission to whisper too, sarge? I think I know what this is.”
Jackrum and Blouse stared at her. Then the sergeant said: “All right, Perks. Go and find out if you’re right, then.”
That was an aspect that hadn’t occurred to Polly, but she’d left herself open. Jackrum relented when he saw her expression, nodded to Maladict, and said, “Go with him, corporal.”
They left the squad behind and walked forward carefully, over the beds of new-fallen leaves. The smoke was heavy and fragrant and, above all, reminiscent. Polly headed to where thicker undergrowth was taking advantage of the extra light of a clearing, and pushed through into an airy thicket of hazel trees. The smoke was denser here, and barely moving.
The thicket ended. A few yards away, in a wide patch of cleared ground, a mound like a small volcano was spewing flame and smoke into the air.
“Charcoal oven,” whispered Polly. “Just clay plastered on a stack of hazel. Should sit there smouldering for days. The wind probably caught it last night and the fire’s broken out. Won’t make good charcoal now, it’s burning too fast.”
They edged round it, keeping to the bushes. Other clay domes were dotted about the clearing, with faint wisps of steam and smoke coming from their tops. There were a couple of ovens in the process of being built, the fresh clay stacked alongside some bundles of hazel sticks. There was a hut, and the domes, and nothing else but silence, apart from the crackle of the runaway fire.
“The charcoal-burner is dead, or nearly dead,” said Polly.
“He’s dead,” said Maladict. “There’s a smell of death here.”
“You can smell it above the smoke?”
“Sure,” said Maladict. “Some things we’re good at smelling. But how did you know?”
“They watch the burns like hawks,” said Polly, staring at the hut. “He wouldn’t let it go out of control like that if he was alive. Is he in the hut?”
“They are in the hut,” said Maladict flatly. He set off across the smoky ground.
Polly ran after him. “Man and woman?” she said. “Their wives often live out with—”
“Can’t tell, not if they’re old.”
The hut was only a temporary thing, made of woven hazel and roofed with tarpaulin; the charcoal-burners moved around a lot, from coppice to coppice. It didn’t have windows, but it did have a doorway, with a rag for a door. The rag had been pulled away; the doorway was dark.
I’ve got to be a man about this, Polly thought.
There was a woman on the bed, and a man lying on the floor. There were other details, which the eye saw but the brain did not focus on. There was a great deal of blood. The couple had been old. They would not grow older.
Back outside, Polly took frantic mouthfuls of air. “Do you think those cavalrymen did it?” she said at last, and then realized that Maladict was shaking. “Oh… the blood…” she said.
“I can deal with it! It’s okay! I just have to get my mind right, it’s okay!” He leaned against the hut, breathing heavily. “Okay, I’m fine,” he said. “And I can’t smell horses. Why don’t you use your eyes? Nice soft mud everywhere after the rain, but no hoof-prints. Plenty of footprints, though. We did it.”
“Don’t be silly, we were—”
The vampire had reached down and pulled something out of the fallen leaves. He rubbed the mud off it with a thumb. In thin pressed brass, it was the Flaming Cheese badge of the Ins-and-Outs.
“But… I thought we were the good guys,” said Polly weakly. “If we were guys, I mean.”
“I think I need a coffee,” said the vampire.
“Deserters,” said Sergeant Jackrum, ten minutes later. “It happens.” He tossed the badge into the fire.
“But they were on our side!” said Shufti.
“So? Not everyone’s a nice gennelman like you, Private Manickle,” said Jackrum. “Not after a few years of gettin’ shot at and eatin’ rat scubbo. On the retreat from Khrusk I had no water for three days and then fell on my face in a puddle of horse piss, a circumstance which did nothing for my feelin’s of goodwill towards my fellow man or horse. Something the matter, corporal?”
Maladict was on his knees, going through his pack with a distracted air. “My coffee’s gone, sarge.”
“Can’t have packed it properly, then,” said Jackrum unsympathetically.
“I did, sarge! I washed out the engine and packed it up with the bean bag after supper last night. I know I did. I don’t take coffee lightly!”
“If someone else did, they’re going to wish I’d never been born,” growled Jackrum, looking round at the rest of the squad. “Anyone else lost anything?”
“Er… I wasn’t going to say anything, ’cos I wasn’t sure,” Shufti volunteered, “but my stuff looked as if it had been pulled about when I opened my pack just now…”
“Oh-ho!” said Jackrum. “Well, well, well. I’ll say this once, lads. Pinching from yer mates is a hanging offence, understood? Nothing breaks down morale faster’n some sneaky little sod dipping into people’s packs. And if I find out someone’s been at it, I’ll swing on their heels!” He glared at the squad. “I ain’t gonna demand that you all empty out your packs as if you’s criminals,” he said, “but you’d better check that nothing’s missing. O’ course, one of you might have packed something that wasn’t theirs by accident, okay. Packing in a rush, poor light, easy to do. In which case, you sort it out amongst yourselves, understand? Now, I’m off to have a shave. Lieutenant Blouse is having a throw-up behind the shelter after a-viewin’ of the corpses, poor chap.”
Polly rummaged desperately in her pack. She’d thrown things in any old how last night, but what she was frantically searching for was—
–not there. Despite the heat from the charcoal mounds, she shivered.
The ringlets had gone. Feverishly, she tried to remember the events of yesterday evening. They’d just dumped their packs as soon as they were in the barracks, right? And Maladict had made himself some coffee at suppertime. He’d washed and dried the little machine–
There was a thin little wail. Wazzer, the meagre contents of her pack spread around her, held up the coffee engine. It had been stamped almost flat.
“B-b-b—” she began.
Polly’s mind worked faster, like a millwheel in a flood. Then everyone took their packs into the back room with all the mattresses, didn’t they? So they’d still be there when the squad fought the troopers—
“Oh, Wazz,” said Shufti. “Oh, dear…”
So who might have sneaked in through the back door? There was no one around except the squad and the cavalrymen. Perhaps someone wanted to watch, and cause a little trouble on the way–
“Strappi!” she said aloud. “It must have been him! The little weasel ran into the cavalry and then snuck back to watch! He was dar—damn well going through our packs out the back! Oh, come on,” she added, as they stared at her, “can you see Wazzer stealing from anyone? Anyway, when did she have the chance?”
“Wouldn’t they have taken him prisoner?” said Tonker, staring at the crushed machine in Wazzer’s shaking hands.
“If he’d whipped off his shako and jacket he’d just be another stupid civilian, wouldn’t he? Or he could just say he was a deserter. He could make up some story,” said Polly. “You know how he was with Wazzer. He went through my pack, too. Stole… something of mine.”
“What was it?” said Shufti.
“Just something, okay? He just wanted to… make trouble.” She watched them thinking.
“Sounds convincing,” said Maladict, nodding abruptly. “Little weasel. Okay, Wazz, just fish out the beans and I’ll do the best I can—”
“T-there’s no b-b-b—”
Maladict put a hand over his eyes. “No beans?” he said. “Please, has anyone got the beans?”
There was a gen
eral rummaging, and a general lack of a result.
“No beans.” moaned Maladict. “He threw away the beans…”
“Come on, lads, we’ve got to get sentries posted,” said Jackrum, approaching. “Sorted it all out, have you?”
“Yes, sarge. Ozz thinks—” Shufti began.
“It was all a bit of mis-packing, sarge!” said Polly quickly, anxious to keep away from anything connected with missing ringlets. “Nothing to worry about! All sorted, sarge. No problem. Nothing to worry anyone. Not… a… thing, sarge.”
Jackrum looked from the startled squad to Polly, and back, and back again. She felt his gaze boring into her, daring her to change her expression of mad, tense honesty.
“Ye-es,” he said slowly. “Right. Sorted out, eh? Well done, Perks. Attention! Officer present!”
“Yes, yes, sergeant, thank you, but I don’t think we need to be too formal,” said Blouse, who looked rather pale. “A word with you when you have finished, if you please? And I think we should bury the, er, bodies.”
Jackrum saluted. “Right you are, sir. Two volunteers to dig a grave for those poor souls! Goom and Tewt—what’s he doing?”
Lofty was over by the blazing charcoal oven. She was holding a burning branch a foot or two from her face and turning it this way and that, watching the flames.
“I’ll do it, sarge,” said Tonker, stepping beside Wazzer.
“What are you, married?” said Jackrum. “You are on guard, Halter. I doubt whoever did it’ll come back, but if they do, you sing out, right? You and Igor come with me, and I’ll show you your stations.”
“No coffee,” moaned Maladict.
“Foul muck, anyway,” said Jackrum, walking away. “A cup of hot sweet tea is the soldier’s friend.”
Polly grabbed the kettle for Blouse’s shaving water, and hurried away. That was another thing you learned in the milit’ry: look busy. Look busy and no one worried too much about what you were busy at.
Bloody, bloody Strappi! He’d got her hair! He’d try to use it against her if he could, that was certain. That’d be his style. What would he do now? Well, he’d want to keep away from Jackrum, that’d be another certainty. He’d wait, somewhere. She’d have to, too.
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