But Vimes ducked under the blow and caught the man’s arm in both hands, twisting it up behind his back and bringing his ear into immediate conjunction with Vimes’s mouth.
‘Not quite unexpected, sunshine,’ he whispered. ‘Now, we’ll both keep grinning because the lads are laughing at our Ned, isn’t he a card, who keeps having another go at the ol’ sarge, and we don’t want to spoil their fun. I’in letting you go now, but you try it on one more time and you’ll have to use both hands to pick up a spoon and you’ll need to pick up a spoon, Ned, ‘cos of living off soup by reason of having no damn teethV He relaxed his grip. ‘Who taught you all this stuff, anyway?’
‘Sergeant Keel, sarge,’ said Ned.
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‘You ‘re doing a good job. Sergeant Keel!’
Vimes turned to see Captain Swing advancing across the yard.
He was smaller and slimmer in daylight and he looked like a clerk, and a clerk who was only erratically careful about his appearance; his hair was lank, and the thick black strands plastered across a central bald spot suggested that the man either had no mirror or completely lacked a sense of humour.
His coat, in the light, was oldfashioned but well cared for, but his buckled shoes were scuffed and generally downtrodden.
Vimes’s mother would have had something to say about that. A man ought to look after his boots, she always said. You could tell a man by the shine of his shoes.
Swing also carried a walking stick or, rather, an opera cane. It was just possible that he thought it made him look sophisticated rather than, say, like a man carrying an unnecessary length of wood. It was certainly a swordstick, because it rattled when it hit the pavement, and it did so now as he primly picked his way through the old targets and straw debris.
‘Keeping the men up to scratch, I see,’ he said. ‘Very well done. Is your captain here?’
‘I believe not,’ said Vimes, letting Coates go, ‘sir.’
‘Ah? Well, perhaps you will give him this, Sergeant Keel.’
Swing gave him a faint smile. ‘You had a successfulnight… I am given to understand.’
‘We had a few visitors,’ said Vimes, ‘sir.’
‘Ah, yes. Misplaced zeal. It does not payto… underestimate you, sergeant. You are a man of resource. Alas, the other Houses were not so-‘
‘resourceful?’
‘Ah. Yes. I am afraid, sergeant, that some of my keener men feel you are anobstacle… to our very needful work. I, onthecontrary… believe that you are a man of iron adherence to
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the law and, while this hasledto… elements of friction because of your lack of full understanding of the exigencies of the situation, I know that you are a man after my own heart.’
Vimes considered the anatomical choices.
‘That would be broadly correct, sir,’ he said, ‘although I would not aspire that high.’
‘Capital. I lookforwardto… our future cooperation, sergeant.
Your new captain willundoubtedly… inform you of other matters, as he sees fit. Good day.’
Swing swivelled, and walked his jerky walk back to the gate.
His men turned to follow him but one of them, who was wearing a plaster cast on one arm, made a gesture.
‘Morning, Henry,’ said Vimes.
He examined the letter. It was quite thick, and had a big embossed seal. But Vimes had spent too much time in the company of bad men, and knew exactly what to do with a sealed envelope.
He also knew how to listen. New captain. So… it was starting.
The men were watching him.
‘They calling in more, hnah, soldiers, sarge?’ said Snouty.
‘I expect so,’ said Vimes.
‘They gave Captain Tilden the push, didn’t they…’
‘Yes.’
‘He was a good captainV Snouty protested.
‘Yes,’ Vimes said. No, he thought. He wasn’t. He was a decent man and he did his best, that’s all. He’s well out of it now.
‘What’re we gonna do now, sarge?’ said Lance-Constable
Vimes.
‘We’ll patrol,’ said Vimes. ‘Close in. Just these few streets.’
‘What good’ll that do?’
‘More good than if we didn’t, lad. Didn’t you take the oath
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when you joined up?’
‘What oath, sarge?’
He didn’t, Vimes remembered. A lot of them hadn’t. You just got your uniform and your bell and you were a member of the Night Watch.
A few years ago Vimes wouldn’t have bothered about the oath either. The words were out of date and the shilling on a string was a joke. But you needed something more than the wages, even in the Night Watch. You needed something else to tell you that it wasn’t just a job.
‘Snouty, nip up to the captain’s office and get the Shilling, will you?’ said Vimes. ‘Let’s get this lot sworn in. And where’s Sergeant Knock?’
‘Pushed off, sarge,’ said Wiglet. ‘Dunno if it helps, but he said
“to hell with him” when he went out the door.’
Vimes counted heads.
It’d be said, later on, that all the Watch House stayed on. They hadn’t, of course. Some had slipped away, some hadn’t come back on duty at all. But it was true about Keel and the Line.
‘Okay, lads,’ he said, ‘it’s like this. We know what’s been going on. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like it. Once you get troops on the streets, it’s only a matter of time before it goes bad.
Some kid throws a stone, next minute there’s houses on fire and people getting killed. What we’re going to do is keep the peace.
That’s our job. We’re not going to be heroes, we’re just going to be… normal. Now,’ he shifted position, ‘it might just be that someone will say we’re doing something wrong. So I’in not going to order you.’
He drew his sword and scratched a line across the mud and stones.
‘If you step over the line, then you’re in,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, then that’s fine. You didn’t sign up for this and I doubt that
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there’ll be any medals, whatever happens. I’ll just ask you to go, and the best of luck to you.’
It was almost depressing how quickly Lance-Constable Vimes crossed the line. Fred Colon came next, and Waddy, and Billy Wiglet. And Spatchcock, Culweather and Moist and Leggy
Gaskin and Horace Nancyball and… Curry, wasn’t it?… and Evans and Pounce…
A dozen crossed the line, the last few with the reluctance caused by a battle between peer pressure and a healthy regard for their skin. A few others, more than Vimes had hoped, evaporated at the back.
That left Ned Coates. He crossed his arms. ‘You’re all bloody mad,’ he said.
‘We could use you, Ned,’ said Vimes.
‘I don’t want to die,’ said Ned, ‘and I don’t intend to. This is stupid. There’s barely a dozen of you. What can you do? All that stuff about “keeping the peace” – it’s rubbish, lads. Coppers do what they’re told by the men in charge. It’s always like that.
What’ll you do when the new captain comes in, eh? And who’re you doing this for? The people? They attacked the other Houses, and what’s the Night Watch ever done to hurt them?’
‘Nothing,’ said Vimes.
‘There you are, then.’
‘I mean the Watch did nothing, and that’s what hurt them,’
said Vimes.
‘What could you do, then? Arrest Winder?’
Vimes felt he was building a bridge of matchsticks over a yawning abyss, and now he could feel the chilly winds below him.
He’d arrested Vetinari, back in the future. Admittedly the man had walked free, after what passed for the due process of law, but the City Watch had bee- was going to be big enough and
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strong enough and wellconnected enough to actually arrest the ruler of the city. How had they ever got to that stage? How had he even dreamed that a bunch of coppers could slam the cell door on the boss?
Well, perhaps it had started here. Lance-Constable Vimes was watching him intently.
‘Of course we can’t,’ he said, ‘but we ought to be able to.
Maybe one day we will. If we can’t then the law isn’t the law, it’s just a way of keeping people down.’
‘Looks like you’ve woken up and smelled the cacky,’ said Coates, ‘because that’s exactly what you’re in. Sorry, lads, but you’re going to die. That’s what’ll happen if you tangle with real soldiers. Hear about Dolly Sisters last night? Three dead and they weren’t even trying.’
‘Come on, Ned, no one’s going to have a go at us if we’re just patrolling,’ mumbled Colon.
‘Patrolling for what?’ said Coates. ‘To keep the peace? What’ll you do when there’s no peace left to keep? Well, I’in not going to stand around and see you get killed. I’in off.’
He turned and strode out of the yard and into the Watch House. You bloody fool, you’re right, Vimes thought. I just wish you weren’t so right.