Night Watch (Discworld #29)

Night Watch (Discworld #29) Page 49

He waded through the grass and reached the grave of John Keel, where he sat on the headstone, taking care not to disturb the wreaths; he had a feeling that the sergeant would understand that a copper sometimes needed to take the weight off his feet. And he finished his cigar, and stared into the sunset. After a while he was aware of a scraping noise to his left and could just make out the turf starting to sag on one of the graves. A grey hand was thrust out of the ground, clutching a shovel. A few pieces of turf were pushed aside and, with some effort, Reg Shoe rose from the grave. He was halfway out before he noticed Vimes, and nearly fell back. 'Oh, you frightened the life out of me, Mister Vimes!'

'Sorry, Reg,' said Vimes. 'Of course, when I say you frightened the life out of me-' the zombie began, gloomily. 'Yes, Reg, I understood you. Quiet down there, was it?'

'Very peaceful, sir, very peaceful. I think I'll have to get myself a new coffin before next year, though. They don't last any time at all these days.'

'I suppose not that many people look for durability, Reg,' said Vimes. Reg slowly shovelled the soil back into place. 'I know everyone thinks it's a bit odd, but I think I owe it to them really,' he said. 'It's only one day a year, but it's like . . . solidarity.'

'With the downtrodden masses, eh?' said Vimes. 'What, sir?'

'No argument from me, Reg,' said Vimes happily. This was a perfect moment. Not even Reg, fussing around smoothing down earth and patting turf into place, could detract from it. There'll come a time when it'll all be clear, Sweeper had said. A perfect moment. The occupants of these graves had died for something. In the sunset glow, in the rising of the moon, in the taste of the cigar, in the warmth that comes from sheer exhaustion, Vimes saw it. History finds a way. The nature of events changed, but the nature of the dead had not. It had been a mean, shameful little fight that ended them, a flyspecked footnote of history, but they hadn't been mean or shameful men. They hadn't run, and they could have run with honour. They'd stayed, and he wondered if the path had seemed as clear to them then as it did to him now. They'd stayed not because they wanted to be heroes, but because they chose to think of it as their job, and it was in front of them- 'I'll be off, then, sir,' said Reg, shouldering his shovel. He seemed a long way away. 'Sir?'

'Yeah, right. Right, Reg. Thank you,' mumbled Vimes, and in the pink glow of the moment watched the corporal march down the darkening path and out into the city. John Keel, Billy Wiglet, Horace Nancyball, Dai Dickins, Cecil 'Snouty' Clapman, Ned Coates and, technically, Reg Shoe. Probably there were no more than twenty people in the city now who knew all the names, because there were no statues, no monuments, nothing written down anywhere. You had to have been there. He felt privileged to have been there twice. The night was welling up as the sun set. It unfolded from the shadows where it had hidden from the day, and flowed and joined together. He felt his senses flow with it, spreading out like the whiskers of a dark, giant cat. Beyond the gates of the cemetery the city noise died down a little, although Ankh-Morpork never truly slept. It probably didn't dare. 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. The 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.'