Truth

by Pratchett, Terry

  ‘Last on the scene, sir.’

  ‘And your important job is to …?’

  ‘Stop anyone going through this door, sir,’ said Corporal Nobbs, trying to read William’s notes upside down. ‘That’s “Nobbs” without a “K”, sir. It’s amazing how people get that wrong. What’s he doing with that box?’

  ‘Got to take a picture of Ankh-Morpork’s finest,’ said William, easing himself towards the door. Of course, that was a lie, but since it was such an obvious lie he considered that it didn’t count. It was like saying the sky was green.

  By now Corporal Nobbs was almost leaving the floor under the lifting power of pride.

  ‘Could I have a copy for my mam?’ he said.

  ‘Smile, please …’ said Otto.

  ‘I am smilin’.’

  ‘Stop smiling, please.’

  Click. WHOOMPH.

  ‘Aaarghaarghaargh …’

  A screaming vampire is always the centre of attention. William slipped into the Oblong Office.

  Just inside the door was a chalk outline. In coloured chalk. It must have been done by Corporal Nobbs, because he was the only person who would add a pipe and draw in some flowers and clouds.

  There was also a stink of peppermint.

  There was a chair, knocked over.

  There was a basket, kicked upside down in the corner of the room.

  There was a short, evil-looking metal arrow sticking into the floor at an angle; it had a City Watch label tied to it now.

  There was a dwarf. He— no, William corrected himself, on seeing the heavy leather skirt and the slight raised heels to the iron boots – she was lying down on her stomach, picking at something on the floor with a pair of tweezers. It looked like a smashed jar.

  She glanced up. ‘Are you new? Where’s your uniform?’ she said.

  ‘Well, er, I, er …’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not a watchman, are you? Does Mister Vimes know you’re here?’

  The way of the truthful-by-nature is as a bicycle race in a pair of sandpaper underpants, but William clung to an indisputable fact.

  ‘I spoke to him just now,’ he said.

  But the dwarf wasn’t Sergeant Detritus, and certainly not Corporal Nobbs.

  ‘And he said you could come in here?’ she demanded.

  ‘Not exactly said—’

  The dwarf walked across and swiftly opened the door. ‘Then get—’

  ‘Ah, a vonderful framing effect!’ said Otto, who’d been on the other side of the door.

  Click!

  William shut his eyes.

  WHOOMPH.

  ‘… oohhbuggerrrrr …’

  This time William caught the little piece of paper before it hit the ground.

  The dwarf stood open-mouthed. Then she closed her mouth. Then she opened it again to say: ‘What the hell just happened?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it a sort of industrial injury,’ said William. ‘Hang on, I think I’ve still got a piece of dog food somewhere. Honestly, there’s got to be a better way than this …’

  He unwrapped the meat from a grubby piece of newspaper and gingerly dropped it on to the heap.

  The ash fountained and Otto arose, blinking.

  ‘How vas that? Vun more? This time viz the obscurograph?’ he said. He was already reaching for his bag.

  ‘Get out of here right now!’ said the dwarf.

  ‘Oh, please’ – William glanced at the dwarf’s shoulder – ‘Corporal, let him do his job. Give him a chance, eh? He’s a Black Ribboner, after all …’ Behind the watchman Otto took an ugly, newt-like creature out of its jar.

  ‘Do you want me to arrest the pair of you? You’re interfering with the scene of a crime!’

  ‘What crime, would you say?’ said William, flipping open his notebook.

  ‘Out, the pair of—’

  ‘Boo,’ said Otto softly.

  The land eel must have been quite tense already. In response to thousands of years of evolution in a high magical environment it discharged a night-time’s worth of darkness all at once. It filled the room for a moment, sheer solid black laced with traceries of blue and violet. Again for a moment William thought he could feel it wash through him in a flood. Then light flowed back, like chilly water after a pebble has been dropped in the lake.

  The corporal glared at Otto. ‘That was dark light, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Ah, you too are from Uberwald—’ Otto began happily.

  ‘Yes, and I did not expect to see that here! Get out!’

  They hurried past the startled Corporal Nobbs, down the wide stairs and out into the frosty air of the courtyard.

  ‘Is there something you ought to be telling me, Otto?’ said William. ‘She seemed extremely angry when you took that second picture.’

  ‘Vell, it’s a little hard to explain,’ said the vampire awkwardly.

  ‘It’s not harmful, is it?’

  ‘Oh, no, zere are no physical effects vhatsoever—’

  ‘Or mental effects?’ said William, who had spun words too often to miss such a carefully misleading statement.

  ‘Perhaps zis is not zer time …’

  ‘That’s true. Tell me about it later. Before you try it again, okay?’

  William’s head buzzed as he ran along Filigree Street. Barely an hour ago he’d been agonizing over what stupid letters to put in the newspaper and the world had seemed more or less normal. Now it had been turned upside down. Lord Vetinari was supposed to have tried to kill someone, and that didn’t make sense, if only because the person he had tried to kill was apparently still alive. He’d been trying to get away with a load of money, too, and that didn’t make sense either. Oh, it wasn’t hard to imagine a person embezzling money and attacking someone, but if you mentally inserted someone like the Patrician into the picture it all fell apart. And what about the peppermint? The room had reeked of it.

  There were a lot more questions. The look in the corporal’s eye as she’d chased him out of the office suggested firmly to William that he was unlikely to get any more answers from the Watch.

  And looming up in his mind was the gaunt shape of the press. Somehow he was going to have to make a coherent story about all this, and he’d have to do it now …

  The happy figure of Mr Wintler greeted him as he strode into the press room.

  ‘What do you think of this funny marrow, eh, Mr de Worde?’

  ‘I suggest you stuff it, Mr Wintler,’ said William, pushing past.

  ‘Just as you say, sir, that’s just what my lady wife said too.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but he insisted on waiting for you,’ Sacharissa whispered as William sat down. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m not sure …’ said William, staring hard at his notes.

  ‘Who’s been killed?’

  ‘Er, no one … I think …’

  ‘That’s a mercy, then.’ Sacharissa looked down at the papers covering her desk.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve had five other people in here with humorous vegetables,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes. They weren’t all that funny, to tell the truth.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘No, they mainly looked like … um, you know.’

  ‘Oh … what?’

  ‘You know,’ she said, beginning to go red. ‘A man’s … um, you know.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Not even very much like, um, you know, too. I mean, you had to want to see a … um, you know … there, if you understand me.’

  William hoped that no one was making notes about this conversation. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘But I took their names and addresses, just in case,’ said Sacharissa. ‘I thought it might be worth it if we’re short of stuff.’

  ‘We’re never going to be that short,’ said William quickly.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘I’m positive.’

  ‘You may be right,’ she said, looking at the mess of paper on her desk. ‘It’
s been very busy in here while you were out. People have been queueing up with all sorts of news. Things that are going to happen, lost dogs, things they want to sell—’

  ‘That’s advertising,’ said William, trying to concentrate on his notes. ‘If they want it in the paper they have to pay.’

  ‘I don’t see that it’s up to us to decide—’

  William thumped the desk, to his own amazement and Sacharissa’s shock.

  ‘Something is happening, do you understand? Something really real is happening! And it’s not an amusing shape! It’s really serious! And I’ve got to write it down as soon as possible! Can you just let me do that?’

  He realized Sacharissa was staring not at him but at his fist. He followed her gaze.

  ‘Oh, no … what the hell is this?’

  A long sharp nail projected straight upwards from the desk, an inch from his hand. It must have been at least six inches long. Pieces of paper had been impaled on it. When he picked it up he saw that it remained upright because it had been hammered through a wooden block.

  ‘It’s a spike,’ said Sacharissa quietly. ‘I, I, er, brought it in to keep our papers tidy. M-my grandfather always uses one. All … all the engravers do. It’s … it’s sort of a cross between a filing cabinet and a waste-paper basket. I thought it would be useful. Er, it’ll save you using the floor.’

  ‘Er, right, yes, good idea,’ said William, looking at her reddening face. ‘Er …’

  He couldn’t think straight. ‘Mr Goodmountain?’ he yelled.

  The dwarf looked up from a playbill he was setting.

  ‘Can you put stuff in type if I dictate to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sacharissa, please go and find Ron and his … friends. I want to get a small paper out as soon as possible. Not tomorrow morning. Right now. Please?’

  She was about to protest, and then she saw the look in his eye. ‘Are you sure you’re allowed to do this?’ she said.

  ‘No! I’m not! I won’t know until after I’ve done it! That’s why I’ve got to do it! Then I’ll know! And I’m sorry I’m shouting!’

  He pushed his chair aside and went over to Goodmountain, who was standing patiently by a case of type.

  ‘All right … we need a line at the top …’ William shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose while he thought. ‘Er … “Amazing Scenes In Ankh-Morpork” … got that? In very big type. Then in smaller type, underneath … “Patrician Attacks Clerk With Knife” … er …’ That didn’t sound right, he knew. It was grammatically inexact. It was the Patrician who had the knife, not the clerk. ‘We can sort that out later … er … in smaller type again … “Mysterious Events In Stables” … go down another size of type … “Watch Baffled”. Okay? And now we’ll start the story …’

  ‘Start it?’ said Goodmountain, his hand dancing across the boxes of type. ‘Aren’t we nearly finished?’

  William flicked back and forth through his notes. How to begin, how to begin … Something interesting … No, something amazing … Some amazing things … no … no … The story was surely the strangeness of it all …

  ‘“Suspicious circumstances surround the attack” … make that “alleged attack” …’

  ‘I thought you said he admitted it,’ said Sacharissa, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘I know, I know, it’s just that I think that if Lord Vetinari wanted to kill someone they’d be dead … look him up in Twurp’s Peerage, will you, I’m sure he was educated in the Assassins’ Guild—’

  ‘Alleged or not?’ said Goodmountain, his hand hovering over the As. ‘Just say the word.’

  ‘Make it “the apparent attack”,’ said William, ‘“by Lord Vetinari on Rufus Drumknott, his clerk, in the palace today. Er … er … Palace staff heard—”’

  ‘Do you want me to work on this or do you want me to find the beggars?’ Sacharissa demanded. ‘I can’t do both.’

  William gave her a blank stare. Then he nodded.

  ‘Rocky?’

  The troll by the door awoke with a snort. ‘Yessir?’

  ‘Go and find Foul Ole Ron and the others and get them up here as soon as possible. Tell them there’ll be a bonus. Now, where was I?’

  ‘“Palace staff heard,”’ Goodmountain prompted.

  ‘“—heard his lordship—”’

  ‘“—who graduated with full honours from the Guild of Assassins in 1968,”’ Sacharissa called out.

  ‘Put that in,’ said William urgently. ‘And then go on with … “say ‘I killed him, I killed him, I’m sorry’” … Good grief, Vimes is right, this is insane, he’d have to be mad to talk like this.’

  ‘Mr de Worde, is it?’ said a voice.

  ‘Oh, what the hell is it this time?’

  William turned. He saw the trolls first, because even when they’re standing at the back a group of four big trolls are metaphorically to the fore of any picture. The two humans in front of them were a mere detail, and in any case one of them was only human by tradition. He had the grey pallor of a zombie and wore the expression of one who, while not seeking to be unpleasant in himself, was the cause of much unpleasantness in other people.

  ‘Mr de Worde? I believe you know me. I am Mr Slant of the Guild of Lawyers,’ said Mr Slant, bowing stiffly. ‘This,’ he indicated the slight young man next to him, ‘is Mr Ronald Carney, the new chairman of the Guild of Engravers and Printers. The four gentlemen behind me do not belong to any guild, as far as I am aware—’

  ‘Engravers and Printers?’ said Goodmountain.

  ‘Yes,’ said Carney. ‘We have expanded our charter. Guild membership is two hundred dollars a year—’

  ‘I’m not—’ William began, but Goodmountain laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘This is the shakedown, but it isn’t as bad as I thought it might be,’ he whispered. ‘We haven’t got time to argue and at this rate we’ll make it back in a few days. End of problem!’

  ‘However,’ said Mr Slant, in his special lawyer’s voice that sucked in money at every pore, ‘in this instance, in view of the special circumstances, there will also be a one-off payment of, say, two thousand dollars.’

  The dwarfs went quiet. Then there was a metallic chorus. Each dwarf had laid down his type, reached under the stone and pulled out a battle axe.

  ‘That’s agreed, then, is it?’ said Mr Slant, stepping aside. The trolls were straightening up. It didn’t take a major excuse for trolls and dwarfs to fight; sometimes, being on the same world was enough.

  This time it was William who restrained Goodmountain. ‘Hold on, hold on, there must be a law against killing lawyers.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘There’re still some around, aren’t there? Besides, he’s a zombie. If you cut him in half both bits will sue you.’ William raised his voice. ‘We can’t pay, Mr Slant.’

  ‘In that case, accepted law and practice allows me—’

  ‘I want to see your charter!’ Sacharissa snapped. ‘I’ve known you since we were kids, Ronnie Carney, and you’re always up to something.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Cripslock,’ said Mr Slant. ‘As a matter of fact we thought someone might ask, so I brought the new charter with me. I hope we are all law-abiding here.’

  Sacharissa snatched the impressive-looking scroll, with its large dangling seal, and glared at it as if trying to burn the words off the parchment by the mere friction of reading.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It … seems to be in order.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘Except for the Patrician’s signature,’ Sacharissa added, handing back the scroll.

  ‘That is a mere formality, my dear.’

  ‘I’m not your dear and it’s not on there, formal or not. So this isn’t legal, is it?’

  Mr Slant twitched. ‘Clearly we cannot get a signature from a man in prison on a very serious charge,’ he said.

  Aha, that’s a wallpaper word, thought William. When people say clearly something, that mean
s there’s a huge crack in their argument and they know things aren’t clear at all.

  ‘Then who is running the city?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Slant. ‘That is not my concern. I—’

  ‘Mr Goodmountain?’ said William. ‘Large type, please.’

  ‘Got you,’ said the dwarf. His hand hovered over a fresh case.

  ‘In caps, size to fit, “WHO RUNS ANKH-MORPORK?”’ said William. ‘Now into body type, upper and lower case, across two columns: “Who is governing the city while Lord Vetinari is imprisoned? Asked for an opinion today, a leading legal figure said he did not know and it was no concern of his. Mr Slant of the Lawyers’ Guild went on to say—”’

  ‘You can’t put that in your newspaper!’ barked Slant.

  ‘Set that directly, please, Mr Goodmountain.’

  ‘Setting it already,’ said the dwarf, the leaden slugs clicking into place. Out of the corner of his eye William saw Otto emerging from the cellar and looking puzzled at the noise.

  ‘“Mr Slant went on to say …”?’ said William, glaring at the lawyer.

  ‘You will find it very hard to print that,’ said Mr Carney, ignoring the lawyer’s frantic hand signals, ‘with no damn press!’

  ‘“… was the view of Mr Carney of the Guild of Engravers,” spelled with an e before the y,’ said William, ‘“who earlier today tried to put the Times out of business by means of an illegal document.”’ William realized that although his mouth felt full of acid he was enjoying this immensely. ‘“Asked for his opinion of this flagrant abuse of the city laws, Mr Slant said …”?’

  ‘STOP TAKING DOWN EVERYTHING WE SAY!’ yelled Slant.

  ‘Full caps for the whole sentence, please, Mr Goodmountain.’

  The trolls and the dwarfs were staring at William and the lawyer. They understood that a fight was going on, but they couldn’t see any blood.

  ‘And when you’re ready, Otto?’ said William, turning round.

  ‘If the dvarfs vould just close up a bit more,’ said Otto, squinting into the iconograph. ‘Oh, zat’s good, let’s see the light gleam on zose big choppers … trolls, please vave your fists, zat’s right … big smile, everyvun …’

  It is amazing how people will obey a man pointing a lens at them. They’ll come to their senses in a fraction of a second, but that’s all he needs.