Feet of Clay (Discworld #19)

Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) Page 8

Vimes pounded through the fog after the fleeing figure. It wasn't quite so fast as him, despite the twinges in his legs and one or two warning stabs from his left knee, but whenever he came close to it some muffled pedestrian got in the way, or a cart pulled out of a cross-street.[12]

His soles told him that they'd gone right down Broad Way and had turned left into Nonesuch Street (small square paving stones). The fog was even thicker here, trapped between the trees of the park.

But Vimes was triumphant. You've missed your turning if you're heading for the Shades, my lad! There's only the Ankh Bridge now and there'll be a guard on that -

His feet told him something else. They said: 'Wet leaves, that's Nonesuch Street in the autumn. Small square paving stones with occasional treacherous drifts of wet leaves.'

They said it too late.

Vimes landed on his chin in the gutter, staggered upright, fell over again as the rest of the universe spun past, got up, tottered a few steps in the wrong direction, fell over again and decided to accept the majority vote for a while.

Dorfl was standing quietly in the station office, heavy arms folded across its chest. In front of the golem was the crossbow belonging to Sergeant Detritus, which had been converted from an ancient siege weapon. It fired a six-foot long iron arrow. Nobby sat behind it, his finger on the trigger.

Tut it away, Nobby! You can't fire that in here!' said Carrot. 'You know we never find where the arrows stop!'

'We wrestled a confession out of it,' said Sergeant Colon, hopping up and down. 'It kept on admitting it but we got it to confess in the end! And we've got these other crimes we'd like taken into consideration. '

Dorfl held up its slate.

I AM GUILTY.

Something fell out of its hand.

It was short, and white. A piece of matchstick, by the look of it. Carrot picked it up and stared at it. Then he looked at the list Colon had drawn up. It was quite long, and consisted of every unsolved crime in the city for the past couple of months.

'It's confessed to all these?'

'Not yet,' said Nobby.

'We haven't read 'em all out yet,' said Colon.

Dorfl wrote:

I DID EVERYTHING.

'Hey!' said Colon. 'Mr Vimes is going to be really pleased with us!'

Carrot walked up to the golem. There was a faint orange glow in its eyes.

'Did you kill Father Tubelcek?' he said.

YES.

'See?' said Sergeant Colon. 'You can't argue with that.'

'Why did you do it?' said Carrot.

No reply.

'And Mr Hopkinson at the Bread Museum?'

YES.

'You beat him to death with an iron bar?' said Carrot.

YES.

'Hang on,' said Colon, 'I thought you said he was... ?'

'Leave it, Fred,' said Carrot.' Why did you kill the old man, Dorfl?'

No reply.

'Does there have to be a reason? You can't trust golems, my dad always used to say/ said Colon. 'Turn on you soon as look at you, he said.'

'Have they ever killed anyone?' said Carrot.

'Not for want of thinking about it,' said Colon darkly. 'My dad said he had to work with one once and it used to look at him all the time. He'd turn around and there it would be ... looking at him.'

Dorfl sat staring straight in front.

'Shine a candle in its eyes!' said Nobby,

Carrot pulled a chair across the floor and straddled it, facing Dorfl. He absent-mindedly twirled the broken match between his fingers.

'I know you didn't kill Mr Hopkinson and I don't think you killed Father Tubelcek,' he said. 'I think he was dying when you found him. I think you tried to save him, Dorfl. In fact, I'm pretty sure I can prove it if I can see your chem - '

The light from the golem's flaring eyes filled the room. He stepped forward, fists upraised.

Nobby fired the crossbow.

Dorfl snatched the long bolt out of the air. There was the sound of screaming metal and the bolt became a thin bar of red-hot iron with a bulge piled up around the golem's grip.

But Carrot was behind the golem, flipping open its head. As the golem turned, raising the iron bar like a club, the fire died in its eyes.

'Got it,' said Carrot, holding up a yellowed scroll.

At the end of Nonesuch Street was a gibbet, where wrongdoers - or, at least, people found guilty of wrongdoing - had been hung to twist gently in the wind as examples of just retribution and, as the elements took their toll, basic anatomy as well.

Once, parties of children were brought there by their parents to learn by dreadful example of the snares and perils that await the criminal, the outlaw and those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they would see the terrible wreckage creaking on its chain and listen to the stern imprecations and then usually (this being Ankh-Morpork) would say 'Wow! Brilliant!' and use the corpse as a swing.

These days the city had more private and efficient ways of dealing with those it found surplus to requirements, but for the sake of tradition the gibbet's incumbent was a quite realistic wooden body. The occasional stupid raven would have a peck at the eyeballs even now, and end up with a much shorter beak.

Vimes tottered up to it, fighting for breath.

The quarry could have gone anywhere by now. Such daylight as had been filtering through the fog had given up.

Vimes stood beside the gibbet, which creaked.

It had been built to creak. What's the good of a public display of retribution, it had been argued, if it didn't creak ominously? In richer times an elderly man had been employed to operate the creak by means of a length of string, but now there was a clockwork mechanism that needed to be wound up only once a month.

Condensation dripped off the artificial corpse.

'Blow this for a lark,' muttered Vimes, and tried to head back the way he came.

After ten seconds of blundering, he tripped over something.

It was a wooden corpse, hurled into the gutter.

When he got back to the gibbet, the empty chain was swinging gently, jingling in the fog.

Sergeant Colon tapped the golem's chest. It went donk.

'Like a flowerpot,' said Nobby. 'How can they move around when they're like a pot, eh? They ought to keep cracking all the time.'

'They're daft, too,' said Colon. 'I heard there was one over in Quirm who was made to dig a trench and they forgot about it and they only remembered it when there was all this water 'cos it had dug all the way to the river...'

Carrot unrolled the chem on the table, and laid beside it the paper that had been put in Father Tubelcek's mouth.

'It's dead, is it?' said Sergeant Colon.

'It's harmless,' said Carrot, looking from one piece of paper to the other.

'Right. I've got a sledgehammer round the back somewhere, I'll just...'

'No,' said Carrot.

'You saw the way it was acting!'

'I don't think it could actually have hit me. I think it just wanted to scare us.'

'It worked!'

'Look at these, Fred.'

Sergeant Colon glanced at the desk. 'Foreign writing,' he said, in a voice which suggested that it was nothing like as good as decent home writing, and probably smelled of garlic.

'Anything strike you about them?'

'Well... they looks the same,' Sergeant Colon conceded,

'This yellowing one is DorfFs chem. The other one is from Father Tubelcek,' said Carrot. 'Letter for letter the same.'

'Why's that?'

'I think Dorfl wrote these words and put them in old Tubelcek's mouth after the poor man died,' said Carrot slowly, still looking from one piece of paper to the other.

'Urgh, yuk,' said Nobby. 'That's mucky, that is...'

'No, you don't understand,' said Carrot. 'I mean he wrote them because they were the only ones he knew that worked...'

'Worked how?'

'Well... you know the kiss of life?' said Carrot. 'I mean first aid? I know you know, Nobby. You came with me when they had that course at the YMPA.'

'I only went 'cos you said you got a free cup of tea and a biscuit,' said Nobby sulkily. 'Anyway, the dummy ran away when it was my turn.'

'It's the same with life-saving, too,' said Carrot. 'We want people to breathe, so we try to make sure they've got some air in them...'

They all turned to look at the golem.

'But golems don't breathe,' said Colon.

'No, a golem knows only one thing that keeps you alive,' said Carrot. 'It's the words in your head.' They all turned back to look at the words.

They all turned to look at the statue that was Dorfl.

'It's gone all cold in here,' Nobby quavered. 'I def nitly felt a aura flick'rin' in the air just then! It was like someone...'

'What's going on?' said Vimes, shaking the damp off his cloak.

'... openin' the door,' said Nobby.

It was ten minutes later.

Sergeant Colon and Nobby had gone off-duty, to everyone's relief. Colon in particular had great difficulty with the idea that you went on investigating after someone had confessed. It outraged his training and experience. You got a confession and there it ended. You didn't go around disbelieving people. You disbelieved people only when they said they were innocent. Only guilty people were trustworthy. Anything else struck at the whole basis of policing.

'White clay,' said Carrot. 'It was white clay we found. And practically unbaked. Dorfl's made of dark terracotta, and rock-hard.'

The last thing the old priest saw was a golem,' said Vimes.

'Dorfl, I'm sure,' said Carrot. 'But that's not the same as saying Dorfl was the murderer. I think he turned up as the man was dying, that's all.'

'Oh? Why?'

'I'm... not sure yet. But I've seen Dorfl around. He's always seemed a very gentle person.'

'It works in a slaughterhouse!'

'Maybe that's not a bad place for a gentle person to work, sir,' said Carrot. 'Anyway, I've checked up all the records I can find and I don't think a golem has ever attacked anyone. Or committed any kind of crime.'

'Oh, come on,' said Vimes. 'Everyone knows...' He stopped as his cynical ears heard his incredulous voice. 'What, never?

'Oh, people are always saying that they know someone who had a friend whose grandfather heard of one killing someone, and that's about as real as it gets, sir. Golems aren't allowed to hurt people. It's in their words.'

They give me the willies, I know that,' said Vimes.

They give everyone the willies, sir.'

'You hear lots of stories about them doing stupid things like making a thousand teapots or digging a hole five miles deep,' said Vimes.

'Yes, but that's not exactly criminal activity, is it, sir? That's just ordinary rebellion.'

'What do you mean, rebellion ?'

'Dumbly obeying orders, sir. You know... someone shouts at it Go and make teapots , so it does. Can't be blamed for obeying orders, sir. No one told them how many. No one wants them to think, so they get their own back by not thinking.'

They rebel by working ?'

'It's just a thought, sir. It'd make more sense to a golem, I expect.'

Automatically, they turned again to look at the silent shape of the golem.

'Can it hear us?' said Vimes.

'I don't think so, sir.'

This business with the words... ?'

'Er ... I think they think a dead human is just someone who's lost his chem. I don't think they understand how we work, sir.'

Them and me both, Captain.'

Vimes stared at the hollow eyes. The top of Dorfl's head was still open so that light shone down through the sockets. Vimes had seen many horrible things on the street, but the silent golem was somehow worse. You could too easily imagine the eyes flaring and the thing standing up and striding forward, fists flailing like sledgehammers. It was more than just his imagination. It seemed to be built into the things. A potentiality, biding its time.

That's why we all hate 'em, he thought. Those expressionless eyes watch us, those bigfaces turn to follow us, and doesn't it just look as if they're making notes and taking names? If you heard that one had bashed in someone's head over in Quirm or somewhere, wouldn't you just love to believe it?

A voice inside, a voice which generally came to him only in the quiet hours of the night or, in the old days, half-way down a whisky bottle, added: Given how we use them, maybe we're scared because we know we deserve it...

No... there's nothing behind those eyes. There's just clay and magic words.

Vimes shrugged. 'I chased a golem earlier,' he said. 'It was standing on the Brass Bridge. Damn thing. Look, we've got a confession and the eyeball evidence. If you can't come up with anything better than a ... a feeling, then we'll have to - '

To what, sir?' said Carrot. There isn't anything more we could do to him. He's dead now.'

'Inanimate, you mean.'

'Yes, sir. If you want to put it that way.'

'If Dorfl didn't kill the old men, who did?'

'Don't know, sir. But I think Dorfl does. Maybe he was following the murderer.'

'Could it have been ordered to protect someone?'

'Maybe, sir. Or he decided to.'

'You'll be telling me it's got emotions next. Where's Angua gone?'

'She thought she'd check a few things, sir,' said Carrot. 'I was... puzzled about this, sir. It was in his hand. 'He held the object up.

'A piece of matchstick?'

'Golems don't smoke and they don't use fire, sir. It's just... odd that he should have the thing, sir.'

'Oh,' said Vimes, sarcastically. 'A Clue.'

Dorfl's trail was the word on the street. The mixed smells of the slaughterhouse filled Angua's nostrils.

The journey zigzagged, but with a certain directional tendency. It was as if the golem had laid a ruler across the town and taken every road and alley that went in the right direction.

She came to a short blind alley. There were some warehouse gates at the end. She sniffed. There were plenty of other smells, too. Dough. Paint, Grease. Pine resin. Sharp, loud, fresh scents. She sniffed again. Cloth? Wool?

There was a confusion of footprints in the dirt. Large footprints.

The small part of Angua that always walked on two legs saw that the footprints coming out were on top of the footprints going in. She snuffled around. Up to twelve creatures, each with their own very distinctive smell - the smell of merchandise rather than living creatures - had all very recently gone down the stairwell. And all twelve had come back up.

She went down the steps and was met by an impenetrable barrier.

A door.

Paws were no good at doorknobs.

She peered over the top of the steps. There was no one around. Only the fog hung between the buildings.

She concentrated and changed, leaned against the wall for a moment until the world stopped spinning, and tried the door.

There was a large cellar beyond. Even with a werewolf s eyesight there wasn't much to see.

She had to stay human. She thought better when she was human. Unfortunately, here and now, as a human, the thought occupying her mind in no small measure was that she was naked. Anyone finding a naked woman in their cellar would be bound to ask questions. They might not even bother with questions, even ones like 'Please?' Angua could certainly deal with that situation, but she preferred not to have to. It was so difficult explaining away the shape of the wounds.

No time to waste, then.

The walls were covered in writing. Big letters, small letters, but all in that neat script which the golems used. There were phrases in chalk and paint and charcoal, and in some cases simply cut into the stone itself. They reached from floor to ceiling, criss-crossing one another over and over again so often that it was almost impossible to make out what any of them were meant to say. Here and there a word or two stood out in the jumble of letters:

...SHALT NOT...WHAT HE DOES IS NOT...RAGE AT THE CREATOR ...WOE UNTO THE MASTERLESS...WORDS IN THE...CLAY OF OUR...LET MY...BRING US TO FRE...

The dust in the middle of the floor was scuffed, as if a number of people had been milling around. She crouched down and rubbed the dirt, occasionally sniffing her finger. Smells. They were industrial smells. She hardly needed special senses to detect them. A golem didn't smell of anything except clay and whatever it was it was working with at the time...

And... something rolled under her fingers. It was a length of wood, only a couple of inches long. A matchstick, without a head.

A few minutes' investigation found another ten, lying here and there as if they'd been idly dropped.

There was also half a stick, tossed away some distance from the others.

Her night vision was fading. But sense of smell lasted much longer. Smells were strong on the sticks - the same cocktail of odours that had trailed into this damp room. But the slaughterhouse smell she'd come to associate with Dorfl was on only the broken piece.

She sat back on her haunches and looked at the little heap of wood. Twelve people (twelve people in messy jobs) had come here. They hadn't stayed long. They'd had a ... a discussion: the writing on the wall. They'd done something involving eleven matches (just the wooden part - they hadn't been dipped to get the head. Maybe the pine-smelling golem worked in a match factory?) plus one broken match.

Then they'd all left and gone their separate ways.

Dorfl's way had taken him straight to the main Watch House to give himself up.

Why?

She sniffed at the piece of broken match again. There was no doubt about that cocktail of blood and meat smells.

Dorfl had given himself up for murder...

She stared at the writing on the wall, and shivered.

'Cheers, Fred,' said Nobby, raising his pint.

'We can put the money back in the Tea Club tomorrow. No one'll miss it,' said Sergeant Colon. 'Anyway, this comes under the heading of an emergency.'

Corporal Nobbs looked despondently into his glass. People often did this in the Mended Drum, when the immediate thirst had been slaked and for the first time they could take a good look at what they were drinking.

'What am I going to do?' he moaned. 'If you're a nob you got to wear coronets and long robes and that. Got to cost a mint, that kind of stuff. And there's stuffyou've got to do.' He took another long swig. ' 'S called knobless obleeje.'

'Nobblyesse obligay,' corrected Colon. 'Yeah. Means you got to keep your end up in society.

Giving money to charities. Being kind to the poor. Passing your ole clothes to your gardener when there's still some good wear left in 'em. I know about that. My uncle was butler to ole Lady Selachii.'

'Ain't got a gardener,' said Nobby gloomily. 'Ain't got a garden. Ain't got 'ny ole clothes except what I'm wearin'.' He took another swig. 'She gave her ole clothes to the gardener, did she?'

Colon nodded. 'Yeah. We were always a bit puzzled about that gardener.' He caught the barman's eye. 'Two more pints of Winkles, Ron.' He glanced at Nobby. His old friend looked more dejected than he'd ever seen him. They'd have to see this thing through together. 'Better make that two for Nobby, too,' he added.

'Cheers, Fred.'

Sergeant Colon's eyebrows raised as one pint was emptied almost in one go. Nobby put the mug down a little unsteadily.

'Wouldn't be so bad if there was a pot of cash,' Nobby said, picking up the other mug. 'I thought you couldn't be a nob without bein' a rich bugger. I thought they gave you a big wad with one hand and banged the crown on your head with the other. Don't make sense, bein' nobby and poor. S'worst of both wurble.' He drained the mug and banged it down. 'Common 'n' rich, yeah, that I could hurble.'

The barman leaned over to Sergeant Colon. 'What's up with the corporal? He's a half-pint man. That's eight pints he's had.'

Fred Colon leaned closer and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. 'Keep it to yourself, Ron, but it's because he's a peer.'

'Is that a fact? I'll go and put down some fresh sawdust.'

In the Watch House, Sam Vimes prodded the matches. He didn't ask Angua if she were sure. Angua could smell if it was Wednesday.

'So who were the others?' he said. 'Other golems?'

'It's hard to tell from the tracks,' said Angua, 'But I think so. I'd have followed them, but I thought I ought to come right back here.'

'What makes you think they were golems?'

'The footprints. And golems have no smell,' she said. 'They pick up the smells associated with whatever they're doing. That's all they smell of...' She thought of the wall of words. 'And they had a long debate,' she said. 'A golem argument. In writing. It got pretty heated, I think.'

She thought about the wall again. 'Some of them got quite emphatic,' she added, remembering the size of some of the lettering. 'If they were human, they'd have been shouting...'

Vimes stared gloomily at the matches laid out before him. Eleven bits of wood, and a twelfth broken in two. You didn't need to be any kind of genius to see what had been going on. 'They drew lots,' he said. 'And Dorfl lost.'

He sighed. 'This is getting worse,' he said. 'Does anyone know how many golems there are in the city?'

'No,' said Carrot. 'Hard to find out. No one's made any for centuries, but they don't wear out.'

'No one makes them?'

'It's banned, sir. The priests are pretty hot on that, sir. They say it's making life, and that's something only gods are supposed to do. But they put up with the ones that are still around because, well, they're so useful. Some are walled up or in treadmills or at the bottom of shafts. Doing messy tasks, you know, in places where it's dangerous to go. They do all the really mucky jobs. I suppose there could be hundreds...'

'Hundreds?' said Vimes. 'And now they meet secretly and make plots? Good grief! Right. We ought to destroy the lot of them.'

'Why?'

'You like the idea of them having secrets? I mean, good grief, trolls and dwarfs, fine, even the undead are alive in a way, even if it is a bloody awful way' -Vimes caught Angua's eye and went on  -  'for the most part. But these things? They'rejust things that do work. It's like having a bunch of shovels meeting for a chat!'

'Er... there was something else, sir,' said Angua slowly.

'In the cellar?'

'Yes. Er ... but it's hard to explain. It was a ... feeling.'

Vimes shrugged non-committally. He'd learned not to scoff at Angua's feelings. She always knew where Carrot was, for one thing. If she were in the Watch House you could tell if he were coming up the street by the way she turned to look at the door.

'Yes?'

'Like... deep grief, sir. Terrible, terrible sadness. Er.'

Vimes nodded, and pinched the bridge of his nose. It seemed to have been a long day and it was far from over yet.

He really, really needed a drink. The world was distorted enough as it was. When you saw it through the bottom of a glass, it all came back into focus.

'Have you had anything to eat today, sir?' said Angua.

'I had a bit of breakfast,' muttered Vimes.

'You know that word Sergeant Colon uses?'

'What? Manky ?'

'That's how you look. If you're staying here at least let's have some coffee and send out for figgins.'

Vimes hesitated at that. He'd always imagined that manky was how your mouth felt after three days on a regurgitated diet. It was horrible to think that you could look like that.

Angua reached for the old coffee tin that represented the Watch's tea kitty. It was surprisingly easy to lift.

'Hey? There should be at least twenty-five dollars in here,' she said. 'Nobby collected it only yesterday...'

She turned the tin upside-down. A very small dog-end dropped out.

'Not even an IOU?' said Carrot despondently. 'An IOU? This is Nobby we're talking about.' 'Oh. Of course.'

It had gone very quiet in the Mended Drum. Happy Hour had been passed with no more than a minor fight. Now everyone was watching Unhappy Hour.

There was a forest of mugs in front of Nobby.

'I mean, I mean, what's it worth whenallsaidan-done?' he said.

'You could flog it,' said Ron.

'Good point,' said Sergeant Colon. 'There's plenty o' rich folks who'd give a sack of cash for a title. I mean folks that's already got the big house and that. They'd give anything to be as nobby as you, Nobby.'

The ninth pint stopped half-way to Nobby's lips.

'Could be worth thousands of dollars,' said Ron encouragingly.

'At the very least,' said Colon. They'd fight over it.'

'You play your cards right and you could retire on something like that,' said Ron.

The mug remained stationary. Various expressions fought their way around the lumps and excrescences of Nobby's face, suggesting the terrible battle within,

'Oh, they would, would they?' he said at last.

Sergeant Colon tilted unsteadily away. There was an edge in Nobby's voice he hadn't heard before.

Then you could be rich and common just like you said,' said Ron, who did not have quite the same eye for mental weather changes. 'Posh folks'd be falling over themselves for it.'

'Sell m' birthright for a spot of massage, is that it?' said Nobby.

'It's a pot of message ,' said Sergeant Colon.

'It's a mess of pottage ,' said a bystander, anxious not to break the flow.

'Hah! Well, I'll tell you,' said Nobby, swaying, 'there's some things that can't be sole. Hah! Hah! Who streak my prurse streals trasph, right?'

'Yeah, it's the trashiest looking purse I ever saw,' said a voice.

' - what is a mess of pottage, anyway?'

Cos... what good'd a lot of moneneney do me, hey?'

The clientele looked puzzled. This seemed to be a question on the lines of 'Alcohol, is it nice?', or 'Hard work, do you want to do it?'.

' - what's messy about it, then?'

'We - ell,' said a brave soul, uncertainly, 'you could use it to buy a big house, lots of grub and... drink and... women and that.'

That's wha' it takes to make a man happppeyey, is it?' said Nobby, glassy-eyed.

His fellow-drinkers just stared. This was a metaphysical maze,

'Well, I'll tell you, said Nobby, the swaying now so regular that he looked like an inverted pendulum, 'all that stuffs nothing, nothing. I tell you, compared to pride inna man's linneneage... cage.'

'Linneneageeage?' said Sergeant Colon. 'Ancescestors and that,' said Nobby. T means I've got ancescestors and that, which's more'n you lot've got!'

Sergeant Colon choked on his pint. 'Everyone's got ancestors,' said the barman calmly. 'Otherwise they wouldn't be here.'

Nobby gave him a glassy stare and tried unsuccessfully to focus. 'Right!' he said, eventually. 'Right! Only... only I've got more of 'em, d'y'see? The blood of bloody kings is in these veins, am I right?' Temporarily,' said a voice. There was laughter, but it had an anticipatory ring to it that Colon had learned to respect and fear. It reminded him of two things: (1) he had got only six weeks to retirement, and (2) it had been quite a long time since he'd been to the lavatory.

Nobby delved into his pocket and pulled out a battered scroll. 'Y'see this?' he said, unrolling it with difficulty on the bar. 'Y'see it? I've got a right to arm bears, me. See here? It says Earl , right? That's me. You could, you could, you could have my head up over the door.' 'Could be,' said the barman, eyeing the crowd. 'I mean, y'could change t'name o' this place, call it the Earl of Ankh, and I'd come in and drink here reg'lar, whaddya say?' said Nobby. 'News gets around an earl drinks here, business will go right up. And I wouldn't'n't'n't chargeyouapenny, how-aboutit? People'd say, dat's a high-class pub, is that, Lord de Nobbes drinks there, that's a place with a bit of tone.'

Someone grabbed Nobby by the throat. Colon didn't recognize the grabber. He was just one of the scarred, ill shaven regulars whose function it was, around about this time of an evening, to start opening bottles with his teeth or, if the evening was going really well, with somebody else's teeth.

'So we ain't good enough for you, is that what you're saying?' the man demanded.

Nobby waved his scroll. His mouth opened to frame words like - Sergeant Colon just knew -'Unhand me, you low-born oaf.'

With tremendous presence of mind and absence of any kind of common sense, Sergeant Colon said: 'His lordship wants everyone to have a drink with him!'

Compared to the Mended Drum, the Bucket in Gleam Street was an oasis of frigid calm. The Watch had adopted it as their own, as a silent temple to the art of getting drunk. It wasn't that it sold particularly good beer, because it didn't. But it did serve it quickly, and quietly, and gave credit. It was one place where Watchmen didn't have to see things or be disturbed. No one could sink alcohol in silence like a Watchman who'd just come off duty after eight hours on the street. It was as much protection as his helmet and breastplate. The world didn't hurt so much.

And Mr Cheese the owner was a good listener. He listened to things like 'Make that a double' and 'Keep them coming'. He also said the right things, like 'Credit? Certainly, officer'. Watchmen paid their tab or got a lecture from Captain Carrot.

Vimes sat gloomily behind a glass of lemonade. He wanted one drink, and understood precisely why he wasn't going to have one. One drink ended up arriving in a dozen glasses. But knowing this didn't make it any better.

Most of the day shift were in here now, plus one or two men who were on their day off.

Scummy as the place was, he liked it here. With the buzz of other people around him, he didn't seem to get in the way of his own thoughts.

One reason that Mr Cheese had allowed his pub to become practically the city's fifth Watch House was the protection this offered. Watchmen were quiet drinkers, on the whole. They just went from vertical to horizontal with the minimum amount of fuss, without starting any major fights, and without damaging the fixtures overmuch. And no one ever tried to rob him. Watchmen got really intense about having their drinking disturbed.

And he was therefore surprised when the door was flung open and three men rushed in, flourishing crossbows.

'Don't nobody move! Anyone moves and they're dead!'

The robbers stopped at the bar. To their own surprise their arrival didn't seem to have caused much of a stir.

'Oh, for heaven's sake, will someone shut that door?' growled Vimes. A Watchman near the door did so.

'And bolt it,' Vimes added.

The three thieves looked around. As their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, they received a general impression of armourality, with strong overtones of helmetness. But none of it was moving. It was all watching them.

'You boys new in town?' said Mr Cheese, buffing a glass.