‘Stand to attention, lanceconstable!’ shouted Vimes, and the strawcovered ceiling drank and deadened the sound. Sam
blinked through reddened eyes.
‘Okay, sarge, but-‘
‘Are you going to snivel all day? Forget about this one. Let’s get the living out, right?’
‘Hard to tell with-‘ Sam began, wiping his nose.
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‘Do it! Follow me!’
He knew what was going to be in the dark arches of the cell tunnels, but that didn’t make it any better. Some people could walk, or maybe hop. One or two had just been beaten up, but not so badly that they couldn’t hear what was going on just out of sight, and dwell on it. They cringed when the gates were opened, and whimpered as he touched them. No wonder Swing got his confessions.
And some were dead. Others were… well, if they weren’t dead, if they’d just gone somewhere in their heads, it was as sure as hell that there was nothing for them to come back to. The chair had broken them again and again. They were beyond the help of any man.
Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes removed his knife, and… gave what help he could. There was not a twitch, not a sigh.
He stood up, black and red stormclouds in his head.
You could almost understand a thug, simple as a fist, being paid decent money for doing something he didn’t mind doing.
But Swing had brains…
Who really knew what evil lurked in the heart of men?
ME.
Who knew what sane men were capable of?
STILL ME, I’M AFRAID.
Vimes glanced at the door of the last room. No, he wasn’t going in there again. No wonder it stank here.
YOU CAN’T HEAR ME, CAN YOU? OH I THOUGHT
YOU MIGHT, said Death, and waited.
Vimes went to help young Sam bring Nancyball round. Then they half carried, half walked the prisoners out along the passage up into the warehouse. They laid them down, and went back and dragged out the clerk, whose name was Trebilcock. Vimes
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explained to him the advantages of turning King’s Evidence.
They were not major advantages, except when they were
compared with the huge disadvantages that would follow swiftly if he refused to do so.
And Vimes stepped out into the early evening. Colon and the squad were still waiting; the whole business had taken only twenty minutes or so.
The corporal saluted, and then his nose wrinkled.
‘Yes, we stink,’ said Vimes. He unbuckled his belt and pulled off his breastplate and chainmail undershirt. The filth of the place had crawled everywhere. ‘Okay,’ he said, when he no longer felt that he was standing in a sewer, ‘I want a couple of men at the entrance over there in the warehouse, a couple round the back with truncheons, and the rest ready out here. Just like we talked about, okay? Wallop them first, arrest them later.’
‘Right, sir.’ Colon nodded. Men set off.
‘And now give me that brandy,’ Vimes added.
He unwrapped his neckerchief, soaked it in spirit, and tied it around the neck of the bottle. He heard the angry murmur from the squad. They’d just seen Sam and Nancyball bringing out some of the prisoners.
‘There was worse,’ said Vimes, ‘believe me. Top middle
window, Fred.’
‘Right, sarge,’ said Fred Colon, dragging his eyes away from the walking wounded. He raised his crossbow, and neatly took out two window panes and a glazing bar.
Vimes located his silver cigar case, removed a cigar, lit it, applied the match to the brandysoaked rag, waited for it to catch, and hurled the bottle through the window.
There was a tinkle, a whoomph of exploding spirit, and a flame that rapidly grew.
‘Nice one, sarge,’ said Fred. ‘Er, I don’t know if this is the right
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time, sarge, but we brought an extra bottle while we were about it…’
‘Really, Fred? And what d’you say?’
Fred Colon glanced at the prisoners again. ‘I say we use it,’ he said.
It went through one of the groundfloor windows. Smoke was already curling out from under the eaves.
‘We haven’t seen anyone go in or out apart from those guards,’
said Fred, as they watched it. ‘I don’t reckon there’s many left in there.’
‘Just so long as we destroy the nest,’ said Vimes.
The front door opened slightly, increasing the draught to the fires. Someone was checking.
‘They’ll wait until the last minute and come out fighting, Fred,’
Vimes warned.
‘Good, sarge. It’s getting darker,’ said Colon grimly. He pulled out his truncheon.
Vimes walked around to the back of the building, nodded at the watchmen waiting there, and locked the door with his stolen key ring. It was a narrow door, anyway. Anyone inside would surely go for the big doors at the front, where they could spread out quickly and an ambush wasn’t so easy.
He checked on the warehouse. But that was an unlikely exit for the same reason. Besides, he’d locked the door to the cellar, hadn’t he?’
Young Sam grinned at him. ‘That’s why you left the torturer tied up, eh, sarge?’ he said.
Damn! That hadn’t occurred to him. He’d been so angry with the clerk he’d forgotten all about the brute in the chair.
Vimes hesitated. But burning was a horrible death. He
reached for his knife, and remembered it was back in its sheath on his sword belt. Smoke was already drifting up the passage
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into the warehouse.
‘Give me your knife, Sam,’ he said. ‘I’ll just go and… check on him.’
The lanceconstable handed over the knife with some
reluctance.
‘What’re you going to do, sarge?’
‘You just get on with your job, lanceconstable, and I’ll do mine…’
Vimes slipped down into the passage. I’ll cut one strap, he thought. They’re fiddly to undo. And then… well, he’ll have a chance, even in the smoke. That’s more than anyone else got.
He crept through the office and into the chamber.
One torch was still alight, but the flame was just a nimbus in the yellow haze. The man was trying to rock the heavy chair, but it had been secured firmly to the floor.
Some thought had gone into that chair. The straps on the buckles were hard to reach. Even if a prisoner got one hand free, and that hand had not yet felt the professionalism of the torturer, they’d have a job to get out of the chair in a hurry.
He reached down to cut a strap, and heard a key in the lock.
Vimes stepped swiftly into the darker shadows.
The door opened, letting in the noise of distant shouting and the crackle of burning timber. It sounded as though the Unmentionables were making a run for the clear air of the street.
Findthee Swing stepped delicately into the room, and locked the door behind him. He stopped when he saw the seated figure, and examined it carefully. He walked to the office doorway and looked inside. He peered into the cells, but by then Vimes had moved soundlessly around a wall.
He heard Findthee sigh. There was the familiar sound of moving steel, followed by a small, organic sort of noise, and a cough.
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Vimes reached down for his sword. But it was up on the road, too, wasn’t it…
Down here, the song in his head came back louder, with the background clink of metal that was always part of it… see how they rise up, rise up, rise up…
He shook his head, as if that’d dislodge the memory. He had to concentrate. Vimes ran into the room and made a leap.
It seemed to him that he stayed in the air a long time. There was the torturer, blood on his shirt. There was Swing, just sliding the blade back into the stick. And Vimes, airborne, armed with just a knife.
I’in going to get out of this, he thought. I know, because I remember this. I remember Keel coming out and saying it was all over.
But that was the real Keel. This is me. It doesn ‘t have to happen the same way.
Swing jerked aside with surprising speed, trying to tug his blade out again. Vimes hit the sacks on the wall, and had the sense to roll away immediately. The blade slashed down beside him, spilling straw on to the floor.
He’d expected Swing to be a bad swordsman. That ridiculous stick suggested it. But he was a street swordsman – no finesse, no fancy tricks, just some talent at moving the blade quickly and sticking it where you hoped it wasn’t going to go.
Fire crackled in the corner of the ceiling. Dripping spirit or sheer heat had worked itself through the heavy floorboards. A couple of the sacks began to blossom thick white smoke, which rolled above the men in a spreading cloud.
He circled the chair, watching Swing intently.
‘I believe you are making a gravemistake,’ said Swing.