Night Watch tds-27

by Terry Pratchett

The prefects looked up. On the raised platform at the end of the noisy hall Doctor Follett, Master of Assassins and ex officio headmaster of the Guild School, was in animated conversation with, indeed, a lady. The vivid purple of her dress made a splash of colour in the vast room, where black predominated, and the elegant whiteness of his hair shone like a beacon in the darkness.

  It was a Guild of Assassins, after all. Black was what you wore. The night was black and so were you. And black had such style, and an Assassin without style, everyone agreed, was just a highly paid arrogant thug.

  The prefects were all over eighteen and, therefore, allowed to visit parts of the city that the younger boys weren't even supposed to know about. Their pimples no longer erupted at the sight of a woman. Now, their eyes narrowed. Most of them had already learned that the world was an oyster that could be opened with gold if a blade did not suffice.

  “Probably a parent,” said one of them.

  “I wonder who's the lucky boy?”

  “I know who she is,” said “Ludo” Ludorum, head of Viper House. “I heard some of the masters talking earlier. She's Madam Roberta Meserole. Bought the old house in Easy Street. They say she made a pile of money in Genua and wants to settle down here. Looking for investment opportunities, apparently.”

  “Madam?” said Downey. “An honorific or a job description?”

  “In Genua? Could be both,” said someone, to general laughter.

  “Folly's certainly plying her with champagne,” said Downey. “They're on their third bottle. What have they got to talk about?”

  “Politics,” said Ludo. “Everyone knows Winder isn't going to do the decent thing, so it'll be down to us. And Folly's annoyed because we've lost three chaps up there already. Winder's pretty cunning. There's guards and soldiers everywhere you look.”

  “Winder's a scag,” said Downey.

  “Yes, Downey. You call everyone a scag,” said Ludo calmly.

  “Well, everyone is.”

  Downey turned back to the table and a movement—or, rather, a lack of movement—caught his eye. Towards the far end one young Assassin was sitting reading, with a book stand positioned in front of his plate. He was intent on it, an empty fork halfway to his mouth.

  With a wink at the others, Downey selected an apple from the bowl in front of him, stealthily drew his arm back, and let fly with malicious accuracy.

  The fork moved like a snake's tongue, and skewered the apple out of the air.

  The reader turned a page. Then, eyes never leaving the print, he delicately brought the fork up to his mouth and took a bite out of the apple.

  The rest of the table looked back at Downey, and there were one or two chuckles. The young man's brow furrowed. Assault having failed, he was forced to try scathing wit, which he did not have.

  “You really are a scag, Dog-botherer,” he said.

  “Yes, Downey,” said the reader levelly, his eyes still intent on the page.

  “When are you going to pass some decent exams, Dog-botherer?”

  “I really couldn't say, Downey.”

  “Never killed anyone, right, Dog-botherer?”

  “Probably not, Downey.” The reader turned another page. That little sound infuriated Downey even more.

  “What's that you're reading?” he snapped. “Robertson, show me what the Dog-botherer is reading, will you? Come on, pass it up.”

  The boy next to the one currently known as Dog-botherer snatched the book off the stand and threw it along the length of the table.

  The reader sighed and sat back as Downey gave the pages a cursory flick.

  “Well, look here, you fellows,” he said. “Dog-botherer is reading a picture book.” He held it open. “Colour it in yourself with your paints or crayons, did you, Dog-botherer?”

  The former reader stared up at the ceiling. “No, Downey. It was hand-coloured to his instructions by Miss Emelia Jane, the sister of Lord Winstanleigh Greville-Pipe, the author. It says so on the frontispiece, you will note.”

  “And here's a lovely picture of a tiger,” Downey ploughed on. “Why're you looking at pictures, Dog-botherer?”

  “Because Lord Winstanleigh has some interesting theories on the art of concealment, Downey,” said the reader.

  “Huh? Black and orange tiger in green trees?” said Downey, turning the pages roughly. “Big red ape in green forest? Black and white zebra in yellow grass? What's this, a manual on how not to do it?”

  Again there was a round of chuckles, but they were forced. Downey had friends because he was big and rich, but sometimes he was embarrassing to have around.

  “As a matter of fact Lord Winstanleigh also has an interesting point to make on the dangers of intuitive—”

  “This a Guild book, Dog-botherer?” Downey demanded.

  “No, Downey. It was privately engraved some years ago and I succeeded in tracing a copy in—”

  Downey's hand shot out. The book whirled away, causing a table full of younger boys to scatter, and landed at the back of the fireplace. The diners on the top tables looked round, and then turned back in disinterest. Flames licked up. For a moment, the tiger burned brightly.

  “Rare book, was it?” said Downey, grinning.

  “I think it may now be said to be non-existent,” said the one known as Dog-botherer. “That was the only extant copy. Even the engraved plates have been melted down.”

  “Don't you ever get upset, Dog-botherer?”

  “Oh yes, Downey,” said the reader. He pushed his chair back and stood up. “And now, I believe, I will have an early night.” He nodded at the table. “Good evening, Downey, gentlemen…”

  “You're a scag, Vetinari.”

  “Just as you say, Downey.”

  Vimes thought better when his feet were moving. The mere activity calmed him down and shook his thoughts into order.

  Apart from the curfew and manning the gates, the Night Watch didn't do a lot. This was partly because they were incompetent, and partly because no one expected them to be anything else. They walked the streets, slowly, giving anyone dangerous enough time to saunter away or melt into the shadows, and then rang the bell to announce to a sleeping world, or at any rate a world that had been asleep, the fact that all was, despite appearances, well. They also rounded up the quieter sort of drunk and the more docile kinds of stray cattle.

  They think I'm a spy for Winder? thought Vimes. Spying on the Treacle Mine Road Watch? It's like spying on dough.

  Vimes had flatly refused to carry a bell. Young Sam had acquired a lighter one, but out of deference to Vimes's crisply expressed wishes, kept the clapper muffled with a duster.

  “Is the wagon going out tonight, sarge?” said young Sam, as the twilight faded towards night.

  “Yes. Colon and Waddy are on it.”

  “Taking people to Cable Street?”

  “No,” said Vimes. “I told them to take everyone to the Watch House and Snouty'll fine 'em half a dollar and take their name and address. Perhaps we'll have a raffle.”

  “We'll get into trouble, sarge.”

  “The curfew's just to frighten people. It doesn't mean much.”

  “Our mum says there's going to be trouble soon,” said Sam. “She heard it in the fish shop. Everyone says it's going to be Snapcase at the palace. He listens to the people.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Vimes. And I listen to the thunder. But I don't do anything about it.

  “Our mum says everyone'll have a voice in the city when Snapcase is the Patrician,” Sam went on.

  “Keep the voice down, kid.”

  “The day'll come when the angry masses will rise up and throw off their shekels, the fishmonger says,” said Sam.

  If I was a spy for Swing, that fishmonger would be gutted, Vimes thought. Quite the revolutionary, our mum.

  He wondered if it was at all possible to give this idiot some lessons in basic politics. That was always the dream, wasn't it? “I wish I'd known then what I know now”? But when you got older you found out that
you now wasn't you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.

  A much better dream, one that'd ensure sounder sleep, was not to know now what you didn't know then.

  “What's your dad do?” he said, as if he didn't know.

  “He passed away a long time ago, sarge,” said Sam. “When I was little. Run down by a cart when he was crossing the street, our mum said.”

  What a champion liar she was, too.

  “Sorry to hear that,” said Vimes.

  “Er, our mum says you'd be welcome round to tea one night, what with you being all by yourself in a strange city, sarge.”

  “Would you like me to give you another tip, lad?” said Vimes.

  “Yes, sarge, I'm learning a lot.”

  “Lance-constables do not invite their sergeants round to tea. Don't ask me why. It's one of those things that does not happen.”

  “You don't know our mum, sarge.”

  Vimes coughed. “Mums are mums, lance-constable. They don't like to see men managing by themselves, in case that sort of thing catches on.”

  Besides, I know she's been up in Small Gods these past ten years. I'd rather put one hand flat on the table and give Swing the hammer than walk down Cockbill Street today.

  “Well,” said Sam, “she says she's going to make you some Distressed Pudding, sarge. She makes great Distressed Pudding, our mum.”

  The best, thought Vimes, staring into the middle distance. Oh, gods. The very best. No one has ever done it better.

  “That'd be…very kind of her,” he managed.

  “Sarge,” said Sam after a while, “why are we patrolling Morphic Street? It's not our beat.”

  “I switched beats. I ought to see as much of the city as possible,” said Vimes.

  “Not a lot to see in Morphic Street, sarge.”

  Vimes looked at the shadows.

  “Oh, I don't know,” he said. “It's amazing what you see if you concentrate.”

  He pulled Sam into a doorway.

  “Just whisper, lad,” he said. “Now, look down there at the house opposite. See that doorway with the deeper shadow?”

  “Yes, sarge,” whispered Sam.

  “Why's it such a deep shadow, d'you think?”

  “Dunno, sarge.”

  “'cos someone in black is standing in it, that's why. So we're going to walk a little further and then we'll just turn around and go back round the corner. We're heading back to the station like good boys because our cocoa's getting cold, see?”

  “Right, sarge.”

  They ambled back around the corner, and Vimes let them walk sufficiently far up the street that the footsteps died away naturally.

  “Okay, this is far enough,” he said.

  Give Sam his due, Vimes thought, he knew how to stand still. He'd have to teach him how to unfocus himself, too, so that you could very nearly fade out of sight on a cloudy day. Had Keel taught him that? After a certain age, memory was indeed an untrustworthy thing…

  The city's clocks chimed the three-quarter-hour.

  “What time's curfew?” Vimes whispered.

  “Nine o'clock, sarge.”

  “Must be nearly that now,” said Vimes.

  “No, it's only just gone a quarter to nine, sarge.”

  “Well, it's going to take me a few minutes to get back. I want you to sneak back after me and wait at the corner. When it starts, you come running and banging that bell of yours.”

  “When what starts, sarge? Sarge?”

  But Vimes was walking noiselessly down the road. He made a note to tip Snouty a dollar. These boots were like foot gloves.

  Torches spluttered on the junction, destroying the night vision of anyone who looked in that direction. Vimes padded around its dark penumbra and sidled along the buildings on the far wall until he was level with the door. Then he swung around the frame and shouted.

  “You're nicked, chum!”

  “–!” said the shadow.

  “And that's offensive language, sir, such as I would not wish my young lance-constable to hear!”

  Behind him he heard Lance-Constable Vimes advancing at a run, ringing his bell madly and shouting, “Nine o'clock and all's not well at all!” And there were other sounds, too, the ones Vimes had been half-listening for, of doors slamming and distant footsteps hurrying away.

  “You bloody fool!” said the struggling figure in black. “What the hell are you playing at!” He pushed at Vimes, who nevertheless tightened his grip.

  “That, sir, is assault upon a Watch officer,” said Vimes.

  “I'm a Watch officer too, you damn flatfoot! From Cable Street!”

  “Where's your uniform?”

  “We don't wear uniforms!”

  “Where's your badge!”

  “And we don't carry badges!”

  “Hard to see why I shouldn't think you is a common thief then, sir. You was casing that house over there,” said Vimes, happy in the role of big, thick, but horribly unshakeable copper. “We seen you.”

  “There was going to be a meeting of dangerous anarchists!”

  “What kind of a religion is that, sir?” Vimes patted the man's belt. “Oh, dear, what have we here? A very nasty dagger. See this, Lance-Constable Vimes? A weapon, no doubt about it! That's against the law. Carried after dark, which is even more against the law! And it's a concealed weapon!”

  “What do you mean, concealed?” screamed the twisting prisoner. “It was in a bloody sheath!”

  “Bloody, eh? Used it already, have you, sir?” said Vimes. He thrust a hand into a pocket of the man's black coat. “And…what's this? A little black velvet roll with, I do believe, a complete set of lock picks? That's Going Equipped for Burglary, that is.”

  “They're not mine and you know it!” the man snarled.

  “Are you sure, sir?” said Vimes.

  “Yes! Because I keep mine in my inside pocket, you bastard.”

  “That's Using Language liable to cause a Breach of the Peace,” said Vimes.

  “Huh? You idiots have scared everyone away! Who's going to be offended?”

  “Well, I might be. I'm sure you don't want that, sir.”

  “You're that stupid sergeant we've been told about, aren't you,” growled the man. “Too thick to see what's going on, right? Well, this is where you find out, mister…”

  He twisted out of Vimes's grip, and there were a couple of sliding, metallic noises in the gloom. Wrist knives, thought Vimes. Even Assassins think they're an idiot's weapon.

  He took a couple of steps back as the man danced towards him, both knives waving.

  “Can't think of a dumb answer to this one, eh, brownjob?”

  To his horror Vimes saw, behind the man, the shape of Sam raising his bell very slowly.

  “Don't hit him!” he shouted, and then lashed out with his boot as the man's head turned.

  “If you're going to fight, fight,” he said, as the man toppled forward. “If you're going to talk, talk. Don't try to talk and fight. And right now, I caution you to do neither.”

  “I could have got him easily, sarge,” Sam complained, as Vimes fished out his handcuffs and knelt down. “I could have blown him out like a light.”

  “Head injuries can be fatal, lance-constable. We serve the public trust.”

  “But you kicked him in the privates, sarge!”

  Because I don't want you to be a target, thought Vimes, as he tightened the cuffs. That means you don't belt one of them over the head. You stay as the dim sidekick, in the background. That way you survive, and that way, maybe I do too.

  “You don't have to fight the way the other bloke wants you to fight,” he said, hefting the man on to his shoulders. “Give me a hand here…up we go. Okay, I've got him. You lead the way.”

  “Back to the Watch House?” said Sam. “You're arresting an Unmentionable?”

  “Yes. I just hope we'll meet some of
our lads on the way. Let this be a lesson, lad. There aren't any rules. Not when there's knives out. You take him down, quietly if possible, without hurting him much if possible, but you take him down. He comes at you with a knife, you bring your stick down on his arm. He comes at you with his hands, you use your knee or your boot or your helmet. Your job is to keep the peace. You make it peaceful as quickly as you can.”

  “Yes, sir. But there's going to be trouble, sarge.”

  “Straightforward arrest. Even coppers have to obey the law, what there is of it…”

  “Yes, sarge, but I mean there's going to be trouble right now, sarge.”

  They'd neared the end of the street, and there was a group of figures there. They looked like men with a purpose; there was something about the stance, the way they were standing in the road, and, of course, the occasional glint of light on a weapon also gave a hint. There was a snapping of little doors as dark lanterns were opened.

  Of course he wouldn't have been alone, Vimes scolded himself. His job was just to watch until they'd all gone in. And then he'd just shlep away to call in the heavy gang. There must be a dozen of 'em. We're going to get cheesed!”7

  “What'll we do, sarge?” whispered Sam.

  “Ring your bell.”

  “But they've spotted us!”

  “Ring the damn bell, will you? And keep walking! And don't stop ringing!”

  The Unmentionables spread out now, and as Vimes trudged towards them he saw several figures at each end of the line slip around behind him. That's how it'd go. They'd be like the muggers up in Scoone Avenue, talking nice and friendly while their eyes said, hey, you know our mates are right behind you and we know you know and it's fun watching you trying to pretend that this is just a civilized conversation when you know that any minute you're going to get it right in the kidneys. We feel your pain. And we like it…

  He stopped walking. It was that or walk into someone. And all along the street doors and windows were opening as the clanging of the bell roused the neighbourhood.

  “'evenin',” he said.

  “'evenin', your grace,” said a voice out of history. “Nice to see an old friend, eh?”

  Vimes groaned. The worst that could happen had happened. “Carcer?”

  “That's Sergeant Carcer, thank you. Funny how things work out, eh? Turns out I'm prime copper material, haha. They gave me a new suit and a sword and twenty-five dollars a month, just like that. Lads, this is the man I told you about.”