Night Watch tds-27

by Terry Pratchett

  Vimes felt now, in this strange calm mood, that he could hear everything, everything, just as he had done back in that terrible moment in Heroes Street when history came to claim its own. He heard the tiny sounds in the stone wall as it cooled, the slither of dirt underground as Reg's vacated plot settled, the faint movement of the long grass around the graves…a thousand subtle sounds added up to a richly textured, localized silence. It was the song of the dark and in it, on the edge of detection, was a discord.

  Let's see…he'd put a guard on his house and they were core people, ones he could trust not to stand around and get bored but to remain watchful, all night long. He hadn't had to explain how important that was. So the house was safe. And the Watch Houses had double guard, too—

  There was something wrong with Keel's grave. There was always the egg, every year, a little joke out of history. But now, it looked as though there was nothing down there but bits of eggshell—

  As he leaned forward to look, the blade went over his head.

  But the beast had been ready. The beast didn't think about guards and defences. The beast didn't think at all. But it forever sniffed the air and eyed the shadows and sampled the night and almost before the swish of the sword it had sent Vimes's hand thrusting into his pocket.

  Crouched, he swivelled and punched Carcer on the kneecap with one of Mrs Goodbody's finest items. He heard things crackle, he launched himself up and forward, he bore Carcer to the ground.

  There was no science to this. The beast was off the chain and looking to kill. It was not often that Vimes was sure that he could make the world a better place, but he was sure now. It was all very clear now.

  And also very hard. The sword had gone, tumbling into the grass as Carcer went down. But Carcer fought, and was as tough as teak. And it is very hard, with your hands, to kill a man who does not want to be killed.

  Vimes shook off the brass knuckles because what he needed to do now was throttle. There was no room, though. Carcer was trying to stick a thumb in his eye.

  They rolled across the graves, scrabbling and struggling for advantage. Blood filled Vimes's left eye. His rage needed just one second, and that second was being denied.

  He rolled again, and flung out a hand.

  And there was the sword. He rolled again, and again, and staggered up with the blade in his hand.

  Carcer had rolled too, and was pulling himself up with remarkable speed for a man with only one good knee. Vimes saw that he was dragging himself upright by one of the lilac trees; blossoms and scent floated down in the darkness.

  Metal slid. There was the momentary gleam of a knife. And a little chuckle, Carcer's little laugh that said, hey, this is all good fun, eh?

  “So who's gonna arrest me?” he said, as they both gulped air. “Sergeant Keel or Commander Vimes?”

  “Who said you were going to be arrested?” said Vimes, trying to fill his lungs. “I'm fighting an attacker, Carcer.”

  “Oh, you was, Mister Vimes,” said the shadow. “Only now I'm in front of you.” Metal clinked on the gravel path. “And I ain't armed no more, haha. Thrown down my last weapon. Can't kill an unarmed man, Mister Vimes. You got to arrest me now. Drag me in front of Vetinari. Let me have my little say, haha. You can't kill me, just standin' here.”

  “No one wants to hear anything you've got to say, Carcer.”

  “Then you'd better kill me, Mister Vimes. I got no weapon. I can't run.”

  “You've always got an extra knife, Carcer,” said Vimes, above the roar of the beast.

  “Not this time, Mister Vimes. Come on, Mister Vimes. Can't blame a man for tryin', eh? A man's got to give it his best shot, right? No hard feelings?”

  And that was Carcer. No hard feelings. His best shot. Can't blame a man for trying.

  Innocent words got dirty in his mouth.

  Vimes took a step closer.

  “You got a nice home to go to, Mister Vimes. I mean, what've I got?”

  And the man was convincing. He fooled everybody. You could almost forget the corpses.

  Vimes glanced down.

  “Whoops, sorry,” said Carcer, “I walked over your grave there. No offence meant, eh?”

  Vimes said nothing. The beast was howling. It wanted to shut that mouth up.

  “You're not going to kill me, Mister Vimes. Not you. Not you with a badge. That ain't your way, Mister Vimes.”

  Without looking, Vimes reached up and tore his badge off.

  “Ah, well, I know you want to give me a fright, Mister Vimes, and many would say you've got a right. Look, here's what I'll do, I'll throw away my other knife, haha, you knew I'd got another one, right?”

  It was the voice. It could make you think that what you knew was wrong.

  “Okay, okay, I can see you're upset, haha, fair enough, and you know I've always got a third knife, well, I'm dropping it now, see, there it goes.”

  Vimes was only a step or two away now.

  “That's it, Mister Vimes. No more knives. I can't run. I surrender. No messing about this time. I give in, okay? Just arrest me? For old times' sake?”

  The beast screamed inside Vimes. It screamed that no one would blame him for doing the hangman out of ten dollars and a free breakfast. Yeah, and you could say a swift stab now was the merciful solution, because every hangman knew you could go the easy way or the hard way and there wasn't one in the country that'd let something like Carcer go the easy way. The gods knew the man deserved it…

  …but young Sam was watching him, across thirty years.

  When we break down, it all breaks down. That's just how it works. You can bend it, and if you make it hot enough you can bend it in a circle, but you can't break it. When you break it, it all breaks down until there's nothing unbroken. It starts here and now.

  He lowered the sword.

  Carcer looked up, grinning, and said, “Never tastes right, does it, haha, an egg without salt…”

  Vimes felt his hand begin to move of its own accord—

  And stopped. Red rage froze.

  There was The Beast, all around him. And that's what it was. A beast. Useful, but still a beast. You could hold it on a chain, and make it dance, and juggle balls. It didn't think. It was dumb. What you were, what you were, was not The Beast.

  You didn't have to do what it wanted. If you did, Carcer won.

  He dropped the sword.

  Carcer stared at him, the gleam of Vimes's sudden smile more worrying than the rictus of his rage. Then metal gleamed in his hand. But Vimes was already on him, grabbing the hand, slamming it again and again on John Keel's headstone until the fourth knife dropped from bleeding fingers. He dragged the man upright with both hands forced up behind his back and rammed him hard against the stone.

  “See that up in the sky, Carcer?” he said, his mouth by the man's ear. “That's the sunset, that is. That's the stars. And they'll shine all the better on my lad Sam tomorrow night 'cos they won't be shining down on you, Carcer, by reason of the fact that before the dew's off the leaves in the morning I'll drag you in front of Vetinari, and we'll have the witnesses there, lots of 'em, and maybe even a lawyer for you if there's any of 'em who could plead for you with a straight face and then, Carcer, we'll take you to the Tanty, one gallows, no waiting, and you can dance the hemp fandango. And then I'll bleedin' well go home and maybe I'll even have a hard-boiled egg.”

  “You're hurting!”

  “You know, you're right there, Carcer!” Vimes managed to get both the man's wrists in a steel grip, and ripped the sleeve off his own shirt. “I'm hurting and I'm still doing it all by the book.” He wrapped the linen around the wrists a couple of times and knotted it firmly. “I'll make sure there's water in your cell, Carcer. I'll make sure you get breakfast, anything you like. I'll make sure the hangman doesn't get sloppy and let you choke to death. I'll even make sure the trapdoor is greased.” He released the pressure. Carcer stumbled, and Vimes kicked his legs from under him.

  “The machine ain't broken, Carcer. Th
e machine is waiting for you,' he said, tearing a sleeve off the man's own shirt and fashioning it into a crude binding for his ankles. The city will kill you dead. The proper wheels'll turn. It'll be fair, I'll make sure of that. Afterwards you won't be able to say you didn't have a fair trial. Won't be able to say a thing, haha. I'll see to that, too…”

  He stood back.

  “Good evening, your grace,” said Lord Vetinari. Vimes spun around. There was a change of texture in the darkness, which could have been man-shaped.

  Vimes snatched up his sword and peered into the night. The shape came forward, became recognizable.

  “How long were you there?” he demanded.

  “Oh…some little while,” said the Patrician. “Like you, I prefer to come alone and…contemplate.”

  “You were very quiet!” said Vimes accusingly.

  “Is that a crime, your grace?”

  “And you heard—?”

  “A very neat arrest,” said Vetinari. “Congratulations, your grace.”

  Vimes looked at the unbloodied sword.

  “I suppose so,” he said, temporarily derailed.

  “On the birth of your son, I meant.”

  “Oh…yes. Oh. Of course. Yes. Well…thank you.”

  “A healthy lad, I am given to understand.”

  “We'd have been just as happy with a daughter,” said Vimes, quickly.

  “Quite so. These are modern times, after all. Oh, I see you have dropped your badge.”

  Vimes glanced at the long grass.

  “I'll come and find it in the morning,” he said. “But this,” he picked up the moaning Carcer and slung him over his shoulder with a grunt, “is going back to Pseudopolis Yard right now.”

  They walked slowly down the gravel path, leaving the scent of lilac behind. Ahead was the everyday stink of the world.

  “You know,” said Lord Vetinari, after a few moments, “it has often crossed my mind that those men deserve a proper memorial of some sort.”

  “Oh yes?” said Vimes, in a non-committal voice. His heart was still pounding. “In one of the main squares, perhaps?”

  “Yes, that would be a good idea.”

  “Perhaps a tableau in bronze?” said Vimes sarcastically. “All seven of them raising the flag, perhaps?”

  “Bronze, yes,” said Vetinari.

  “Really? And some sort of inspiring slogan?” said Vimes.

  “Yes, indeed. Something like, perhaps, ‘They Did The Job They Had To Do’?”

  “No,” said Vimes, coming to a halt under a lamp by the crypt entrance. “How dare you? How dare you! At this time! In this place! They did the job they didn't have to do, and they died doing it, and you can't give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who'd been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It'd just inspire new fools to believe they're going to be heroes. They wouldn't want that. Just let them be. Forever.”

  They walked in heavy silence, and then Vetinari said, as if there had been no outburst: “Happily, it appears that the new deacon at the temple here has suddenly heard the call.”

  “What call?” said Vimes, his heart still racing.

  “I'm never very good at religious matters, but apparently he was filled with a burning desire to spread the good word to the benighted heathen,” said Vetinari.

  “Where?”

  “I suggested Ting Ling.”

  “That's right on the other side of the world!”

  “Well, a good word can't be spread too far, sergeant.”

  “Well, at least it puts—”

  Vimes stopped at the entrance gates. Overhead, another lamp flickered. He dropped Carcer to the ground.

  “You knew? You bloody well knew, didn't you?”

  “Not until, oh, one second ago,” said Vetinari. “As one man to another, commander, I must ask you: did you ever wonder why I wore the lilac?”

  “Yeah. I wondered,” said Vimes.

  “But you never asked.”

  “No. I never asked,” said Vimes shortly. “It's a flower. Anyone can wear a flower.”

  “At this time? In this place?”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “Then I'll recall the day I was sent on an urgent errand,” said Vetinari. “I had to save the life of a man. Not a usual errand for an Assassin although, in fact, I had already saved it once before.” He gave Vimes a quizzical look.

  “You'd shot a man who was aiming a crossbow?” said Vimes.

  “An inspired guess, commander! Yes. I have an eye for the…unique. But now I was fighting time. The streets were blocked. Chaos and confusion were everywhere, and it wasn't as if I even knew where he could be found. In the end, I took to the rooftops. And thus I came at last to Cable Street, where there was a different sort of confusion.”

  “Tell me what you saw,” said Vimes.

  “I saw a man called Carcer…vanish. And I saw a man called John Keel die. At least, I saw him dead.”

  “Really,” said Vimes.

  “I joined the fight. I snatched up a lilac bloom from a fallen man and, I have to say, held it in my mouth. I'd like to think I made some difference; I certainly killed four men, although I take no particular pride in that. They were thugs, bullies. No real skill. Besides, their leader had apparently fled, and what morale they had had gone with him. The men with the lilac, I have to say, fought like tigers. Not skilfully, I'll admit, but when they saw that their leader was down they took the other side to pieces. Astonishing.

  “And then, afterwards, I took a look at John Keel. It was John Keel. How could there be any question about that? Blood on him of course. There was blood everywhere. His wounds looked somewhat old, I thought. And death, as we know, changes people. Yet I remember wondering: this much? So I put it down as half a mystery and today…sergeant…we find the other half of a mystery. It's wonderful, isn't it, how alike men can be? I can imagine that even your Sergeant Colon would not realise anything. After all, he saw Keel die and he watched you grow up—”

  “Where is this leading?” Vimes demanded.

  “Nowhere, commander. What could I prove? And to what end would I prove it?”

  “Then I'm saying nothing.”

  “I cannot imagine what you could say,” said Vetinari. “No. I agree. Let us leave the dead alone. But for you, commander, as a little gift on the occasion of the birth of—”

  “There's nothing I want,” said Vimes quickly. “You can't promote me any further. There's nothing left to bribe me with. I've got more than I deserve. The Watch is working well. We don't even need a new bloody dartboard—”

  “In memory of the late John Keel—” Vetinari began.

  “I warned you—”

  “—I can give you back Treacle Mine Road.”

  Only the high-pitched squeak of bats, hunting around the poplars, broke the silence that followed.

  Then Vimes muttered: “A dragon burned it years ago. Some dwarfs live in the cellars now…”

  “Yes, commander. But dwarfs…well, dwarfs are so refreshingly open about money. The more money the city offers, the less dwarf there is. The stable's still there, and the old mining tower. Stout stone walls all around. It could all be put back, commander. In memory of John Keel, a man who in a few short days changed the lives of many and, perhaps, saved some sanity in a mad world. Why, in a few months you could light the lamp over the door…”

  Again, all that could be heard was the bats.

  Perhaps they could even bring back the smell, Vimes thought. Perhaps there could be a window above the privy that'd spring open if you thumped it just right. Perhaps they could teach new coppers to learn old tricks—

  “We could do with the space, it's true,” he conceded, with some effort.

  “I can see you like the sound of it already,” said Vetinari. “And if you care to come along to my office tomorrow, we can settle the—”

  “There's a trial tomorrow,” said Vimes sharply.


  “Ah, yes. Of course. And it will be a fair one,” said the Patrician.

  “It'd better be,” said Vimes. “I want this bastard to hang, after all.”

  “Well, then,” said Vetinari, “afterwards we could—”

  “Afterwards I'm going home to my family for a while,” said Vimes.

  “Good! Well said,” said Vetinari, not missing a beat. “You have a gift, I have noticed, for impressive oratory.” And Vimes heard the gentle note of warning as he added, “At this time, commander, and in this place.”

  “That's sergeant-at-arms, thank you,” said Vimes. “For now.”

  He grabbed Carcer's shirt collar, and dragged him to justice.

  On the way back to Scoone Avenue, in the dark of night, Vimes walked along the alley behind Clay Lane and stopped when he reckoned he was at a point halfway between the backs of the pawn shop and the shonky shop, and therefore behind the temple.

  He threw his cigar stub over the fence. He heard it land on gravel, which moved a little.

  And then he went home. And the world turned towards morning.

  1. The Igor employed by the Watch as forensic specialist and medical aide was quite young (in so far as you could tell with an Igor, since useful limbs and other organs were passed on among Igors as others might hand on a pocket watch) and very modern in his thinking. He had a DA haircut with extended quiff, wore crepe soles and sometimes forgot to lisp.

  (<< back)

  2. The Uberwald League of Temperance, made up of former vampires who now wore black ribbons to show that they had completely sworn off the sticky stuff, my vord yes, and much preferred a good singsong and a healthy game of table-tennis.

  (<< back)

  3. Old Tom, the University's venerable clock, tolled not sounds but silences. They were not simply ordinary silences, but intervals of noise-absorbing nonsound that filled the world with loud soundlessness.

  (<< back)

  4. Who was an orangutan, changed from his former human shape as a result of a long-forgotten magical accident. It was so forgotten, in fact, that now people were forgetting he was an orangutan. This might seem quite hard to do, given that even a small orangutan is quite capable of filling all immediately available space, but to the wizards and most of the citizens he was now just the Librarian, and that was that. In fact, if someone ever reported that there was an orangutan in the Library, the wizards would probably go and ask the Librarian if he'd seen it.