Night Watch (Discworld #29)

Night Watch (Discworld #29) Page 32

'I asked a civil question,' he said. 'Come on!' There was more whispering. He distinctly heard '-that's the sergeant from last night-' and some sort of sotto voce argument. Then a voice shouted, 'Death to the Fascist Oppressors!' This time the argument was more frantic. He heard someone say 'oh, all right', and then 'Death to the Fascist Oppressors, Present Company Excepted! There, is everyone happy now?' He knew that voice. 'Mr Reginald Shoe, is it?' he said. 'I regret that I have only one life to lay down for Whalebone Lane!' the voice shouted, from somewhere behind a wardrobe. If only you knew, Vimes thought. 'I don't think that will be necessary,' he said. 'Come on, ladies and gentlemen. Is this any way to behave? You can't take . . . the law . . . into your own . . . hands . . .' His voice faltered. Sometimes it takes the brain a little while to catch up with the mouth. Vimes turned and looked at the squad, who'd needed no prompting at all to hang back. And then he turned to look at the barricade. Where, exactly, was the law? Right now? What did he think he was doing? The Job, of course. The one that's in front of you. He'd always done it. And the law had always been . . . out there, but somewhere close. He'd always been pretty sure where it was, and it definitely had something to do with the badge. The badge was important. Yes. It was shield-shaped. For protection. He'd thought about that, in the long nights in the darkness. It protected him from the beast, because the beast was waiting in the darkness of his head. He'd killed werewolves with his bare hands. He'd been mad with terror at the time, but the beast had been there inside, giving him strength . . . Who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men? A copper, that's who. After ten years you thought you'd seen it all, but the shadows always dished up more. You saw how close men lived to the beast. You realized that people like Carcer were not mad. They were incredibly sane. They were simply men without a shield. They'd looked at the world and realized that all the rules didn't have to apply to them, not if they didn't want them to. They weren't fooled by all the little stories. They shook hands with the beast. But he, Sam Vimes, had stuck by the badge, except for that time when even that hadn't been enough and he'd stuck by the bottle instead . . . He felt as if he'd stuck by the bottle now. The world was spinning. Where was the law? There was the barricade. Who was it protecting from what? The city was run by a madman and his shadowy chums so where was the law?

Coppers liked to say that people shouldn't take the law into their own hands, and they thought they knew what they meant. They were thinking about the normal times, and men who went round to sort out a neighbour with a club because his dog had crapped once too often on their doorstep. But at times like this, who did the law belong to? If it shouldn't be in the hands of people, where the hell should it be? People who knew better? Then you got Winder and his pals, and how good was that? What was supposed to happen next? Oh yes, he had a badge, but it wasn't his, not really . . . and he'd got orders, and they were the wrong ones . . . and he'd got enemies, for all the wrong reasons . . . and maybe there was no future. It didn't exist any more. There was nothing real, no solid point on which to stand, just Sam Vimes where he had no right to be ... It was as if his body, trying to devote as many resources as possible to untangling the spinning thoughts, was drawing those resources from the rest of Vimes. His vision darkened. His knees were weak. There was nothing but bewildered despair. And a lot of explosions. Havelock Vetinari knocked politely on the window of the little office just inside the Assassins' Guild main gate. The duty porter raised the hatch. 'Signing out, Mr Maroon,' said the Assassin. 'Yessir,' said Maroon, pushing a big ledger towards him. 'And where are we off to today, sir?'

'General reconnoitring, Mr Maroon. Just generally looking around.'

'Ah, I said to Mrs Maroon last night, sir, that you are a great one for looking around,' said Maroon. 'We look and learn, Mr Maroon, we look and learn,' said Vetinari, signing his name in the book and putting the pen back in its holder. 'And how is your little boy?'

'Thank you for asking, sir, he's a lot better,' said the porter. 'Glad to hear it. Oh, I see the Hon. John Bleedwell is out on a commission. To the palace?'

'Now, now, sir,' said Maroon, grinning and waving a finger. 'You know I couldn't tell you that, sir, even if I knew.'

'Of course not.' Vetinari glanced at the back wall of the office where, in an old brass rack, were a number of envelopes. The word 'Active' was inscribed at the top of the rack. 'Good afternoon, Mr Maroon.'

' 'afternoon, sir. Good, er, looking around.'

He watched the young man walk out into the street. Then Maroon went into the cubbyhole next to the office to put the kettle on. He rather liked young Vetinari, who was quiet and studious and, it had to be said, a generous young man on appropriate occasions. But a bit weird, all the same. Once Maroon had watched him in the foyer, standing still. That was all he was doing. He wasn't making any attempt at concealing himself. After half an hour Maroon had wandered over and said, 'Can I help you, sir?' And Vetinari had said, Thank you, no, Mr Maroon. I'm just teaching myself to stand still.' To which there wasn't really any sensible comment that could be made. And the young man must have left after a while, because Maroon didn't remember seeing him again that day. He heard a creak from the office, and poked his head around the door. There was no one there. As he made the tea he thought he heard a rustle from next door, and went to check. It was completely empty. Remarkably so, he thought later on. It was almost as if it was even more empty than it would be if there was just, well, no one in it. He went back to his comfy armchair in the cubbyhole, and relaxed. In the brass rack, the envelope marked 'Bleedwell, J.' slid back slightly. There were a lot of explosions. The firecrackers bounced all over the street. Tambourines thudded, a horn blared a chord unknown in nature, and a line of monks danced and twirled around the corner, all chanting at the tops of their voices. Vimes, sagging to his knees, was aware of dozens of sandalled feet gyrating past and grubby robes flying. Rust was yelling something at the dancers, who grinned and waved their hands in the air. Something square and silvery landed in the dirt. And the monks were gone, dancing into an alleyway, yelling and spinning and banging their gongs . . . 'Wretched heathens!' said Rust, striding forward. 'Have you been hit, sergeant?' Vimes reached down and picked up the silver rectangle. A stone clanged off Rust's breastplate. As he raised his megaphone, a cabbage hit him on the knee. Vimes stared at the thing in his hand. It was a cigar case, slim and slightly curved. He fumbled it open and read: To Sam With Love From Your Sybil.

The world moved. But now Vimes no longer felt like a drifting ship. Now he felt the tug of the anchor, pulling him round to face the rising tide. A barrage of missiles was coming over the barricade. Throwing things was an old Ankh-Morpork custom, and there was something about Rust that made him a target. With what dignity he could muster, he raised the megaphone again and got as far as 'I hereby warn you-' before a stone spun it out of his hand. 'Very well, then,' he said, and marched stiffly back to the squad. 'Sergeant Keel, order the men to fire. One round of arrows, over the top of the barricade.'

'No,' said Vimes, standing up. 'I can only assume you've been stunned, sergeant,' said Rust. 'Men, prepare to execute that order.'

'First man that fires, I will personally cut that man down,' said Vimes. He didn't shout. It was a simple, confident statement of precisely what the future would hold. Rust's expression did not change. He looked Vimes up and down. 'Is this mutiny, then, sergeant?' said the captain. 'No. I'm not a soldier, sir. I can't mutiny.'

'Martial law, sergeant!' snapped Rust. 'It is official.'

'Really?' said Vimes, as another rain of rocks and old vegetables came down. 'Shields up, lads.' Rust turned to Fred Colon. 'Corporal, you will put this man under arrest!' Colon swallowed. 'Me?'

'You, corporal. Now.' Colon's pink face mottled with white as the blood drained from it. 'But he-' he began. 'You won't? Then it seems I must,' said the captain. He drew his sword. At that Vimes heard the click of a crossbow's safety catch going off, and groaned. He didn't remember this happening. 'You just put that sword away, sir, please,' said the voice of Lance- Constable Vimes. 'You will not shoot me, you young idiot. That would be murder,' said the captain calmly. 'Not where I'm aiming, sir.'

Bloody hell, thought Vimes. Maybe the lad was simple. Because one thing Rust wasn't, was a coward. He thought idiot stubbornness was bravery. He wouldn't back down in the face of a dozen armed men. 'Ah, I think I can see the problem, captain,' Vimes said brightly. 'As you were, lance-constable. There's been a slight misunderstanding, sir, but this should sort it out-' It was a blow he'd remember for a long time. It was sweet. It was textbook. Rust went down like a log. In the light of all his burning bridges, Vimes slipped his hand back into his hip pocket. Thank you, Mrs Goodbody and your range of little equalizers. He turned to the watchmen, who were a tableau of silent horror. 'Let the record show Sergeant-at-Arms John Keel did that,' he said. 'Vimes, what did I tell you about waving weapons around when you're not going to use them?'

'You laid him out, sarge!' Sam squeaked, still staring at the sleeping captain. Vimes shook some life back into his hand. 'Let the record show that I took command after the captain's sudden attack of insanity,' he said. 'Waddy, Wiglet . . . drag him back to the House and lock him up, will you?'

'What we gonna do, sarge?' wailed Colon. Ah ... Keep the peace. That was the thing. People often failed to understand what that meant. You'd go to some life-threatening disturbance like a couple of neighbours scrapping in the street over who owned the hedge between their properties, and they'd both be bursting with aggrieved self-righteousness, both yelling, their wives would either be having a private scrap on the side or would have adjourned to a kitchen for a shared pot of tea and a chat, and they all expected you to sort it out. And they could never understand that it wasn't your job. Sorting it out was a job for a good surveyor and a couple of lawyers, maybe. Your job was to quell the impulse to bang their stupid fat heads together, to ignore the affronted speeches of dodgy self-justification, to get them to stop shouting and to get them off the street. Once that had been achieved, your job was over. You weren't some walking god, dispensing finely tuned natural justice. Your job was simply to bring back peace. Of course, if your few strict words didn't work and Mr Smith subsequently clambered over the disputed hedge and stabbed Mr Jones to death with a pair of gardening shears, then you had a different job, sorting out the notorious Hedge Argument Murder. But at least it was one you were trained to do. People expected all kinds of things from coppers, but there was one thing that sooner or later they all wanted: make this not be happening.

Make this not be happening . . . 'What?' he said, suddenly noticing a voice that had, in fact, been on the edge of awareness for some time. 'I said, was he insane, sarge?' But when you're falling off the cliff it's too late to wonder if there might have been a better way up the mountain . . . 'He asked you to shoot at people who weren't shooting back,' growled Vimes, striding forward. That makes him insane, wouldn't you say?'

'They are throwing stones, sarge,' said Colon. 'So? Stay out of range. They'll get tired before we do.' In fact the barrage of missiles from the barricade had ceased; even in a time of crisis, the people of Ankh-Morpork would stop for a decent piece of street theatre. Vimes walked back towards them, stopping on the way to retrieve Rust's bent megaphone. As he approached he cast his eye over faces just visible through the chair legs and junk. There would be Unmentionables somewhere, he knew, helping matters along. With luck they wouldn't have bothered with Whalebone Lane. There was muttering from the defenders. Most of them had a look Vimes recognized, because it was the one he was trying to keep off his own face. It was the look of people whose world had suddenly been swept from under them, and now they were trying to tap-dance on quicksand. He tossed away the stupid pompous megaphone. He cupped his hands. 'Some of you know me!' he shouted. 'I'm Sergeant Keel, currently in command of the Treacle Mine Road Watch House! And I order you to dismantle this barricade-' There was a chorus of jeers and one or two badly thrown missiles. Vimes waited, stock still, until they'd died away. Then he raised his hands again. 'I repeat, I order you to dismantle this barricade.' He took a breath, and went on: 'And rebuild it on the other side on the corner with Cable Street! And put up another one at the top of Sheer Street! Properly built! Good grief, you don't just pile stuff up, for gods' sake! A barricade is something you construct! Who's in charge here?' There were sounds of consternation behind the overturned furniture, but a voice called out, 'You?' There was nervous laughter. 'Very funny! Now laugh this one off! No one's interested in us yet! This is a quiet part of town! But when things really go bad you're going to have cavalry on your backs! With sabres! How long would you last? But if you shut off this end of Treacle Mine and the end of Sheer then they're left with alleyways, and they don't like that! It's up to you, of course! We'd like to protect you, but me and my men'll be behind the barricades over here