‘Ah…’ said Vimes. He looked down at the cobbles of the gateway and then back up at the guard. Somewhere in the flames someone was screaming.
‘You! Come here! You see this?’ he shouted at the guard, pointing down. The man took a hesitant step forward.
‘That’s Ankh–Morpork soil down there, my friend,’ said Vimes. ‘And you’re standing on it and you’re obstructing me in my–’ he rammed his fist as hard as he could into the guard’s stomach ‘–duty!’
He was already kicking out as the other guard rushed him. He caught him on the knee. Something went click. It felt like Vimes’s own ankle.
Cursing and limping slightly, he ran on into the embassy and caught a scurrying man by his robe.
‘Are there people still in there? Are there people in there?’
The man gave Vimes a panicky look. The armfuls of paper he’d been carrying spilled on to the ground.
Someone else grabbed his shoulder. ‘Can you climb, Mr Vimes?’
‘Who’re–’
The newcomer turned to the cowering paper–carrier and struck him heavily across the face. ‘Rescuer of paper!’
As the man fell back his turban was snatched from his head.
‘This way!’ The figure plunged off through the smoke. Vimes hurried after him until they reached a wall, with a drainpipe attached.
‘How did you–?’
‘Up! Up!’
Vimes put one foot in the man’s cupped hands, managed to get the other one on a bracket, and forced himself upwards.
‘Hurry!’
He managed to half climb, half pull himself up the pipe, little fireworks of pain exploding tip and down his legs as he reached a parapet and hauled himself over. The other man rose behind him as if he’d run up the wall.
There was a strip of cloth hiding the lower half of his face. He thrust another strip towards Vimes.
‘Across your nose and mouth!’ he commanded. ‘For the smoke!’
It was boiling across the roof. Beside Vimes a chimneypot gushed a roaring tongue of flame.
The rest of the unwound turban was thrust into his hands.
‘You take this side, I’ll take the other,’ said the apparition, and darted away again into the smoke.
‘But wh–’
Vimes could feel the heat through his boots. He edged away across the roof, and heard the shouting coming from below.
When he leaned over the edge here he could see the window some way below him. Someone had smashed a pane, because a hand was waving.
There was more commotion down in the courtyard. Amid a press of figures he could make out the huge shape of Constable Dorfl, a golem and quite definitely fireproof. But Dorfl was bad enough at stairs as it was. There weren’t many that could take the weight.
The hand in the smoke stopped waving.
Vimes looked down again.
Can you fly, Mr Vimes?
He looked at the chimney, belching flame.
He looked at the unwound turban.
A lot of Sam Vimes’s brain had shut down, although the bits relaying the twinges of pain from his legs were operating with distressing efficiency. But there were still some thoughts operating down around the core, and they delivered for his consideration the insight:
… tough–looking cloth…
He looked back at the chimney. It looked stout enough.
The window was about six feet below.
Vimes began to move automatically.
So, purely theoretically, if a man were to wrap one end of the cloth round the belching stack like this and pay it out like this and lower himself over the parapet like this and kick himself away from the wall like this, then when he swung back again his feet ought to be able to smash his way through the other panes of the window, like this…
A cart squeaked along the wet street. Its progress was erratic because no two of its wheels were the same size, so it rocked and wobbled and skidded and probably involved more effort to pull than it saved overall, especially since its contents appeared to be rubbish. But then, so did its owner.
Who was about the size of a man, but bent almost double, and was covered with hair or rags or quite possibly a matted mixture of both that was so felted and unwashed that small plants had taken root on it. If the thing had stopped walking and crouched down, it would have given an astonishingly good impression of a long–neglected compost heap. As it walked along, it snuffled.
A foot was stuck out to impede its progress.
‘Good evening, Stoolie,’ said Carrot as the cart halted.
The heap stopped. Part of it tilted upwards.
‘Geroff,’ it muttered, from somewhere in the thatch.
‘Now, now, Stoolie, let’s help one another, shall we? You help me, and I’ll help you.’
‘B’g’r’ff, c’p’r.’
‘Well, you tell me things I want to know,’ said Carrot, ‘and I won’t search your cart.’
‘I hate gnolls,’ said Angua. ‘They smell awful.’
‘Oh, that’s hardly fair. The stressed be a lot dirtier without you and yours, eh, Stoolie?’ said Carrot, still speaking quite pleasantly. ‘You pick up this, you pick up that, maybe bash it against a wall until it stops struggling–’
‘ ‘s a vile acur’cy,’ said the gnoll. There was a bubbling noise that might have been a chuckle.
‘So I’m hearing you might know where Snowy Slopes is these days,’ said Carrot.
‘D’nno n’thin’.’
‘Fine.’ Carrot produced a three–tined garden fork and walked round to the cart, which dripped.
‘D’nno n’thin’ ab’t–’ said the gnoll quickly.
‘Yes?’ said Carrot, fork poised.
‘D’nno n’thin’ ab’t t’ sweetsp’p’n M’ney Tr’p L’ne.’
‘The one with the Rooms To Let sign?’
‘R’t.’
‘Well done. Thank you for being a good citizen,’ said Carrot. ‘Incidentally, we passed a dead seagull the way here. Its in Brewer Street. I bet if you hurried you could beat the rush.’
‘H’t d’gg’ty,’ snuffled the gnoll. The cart started to judder forward. The watchmen watched it lurch and scrape around the corner.
‘They’re good fellows at heart,’ said Carrot. ‘I think it says a lot for the spirit of tolerance in this city that even gnolls can call it home.’
‘They turn my stomach,’ said Angua, as they set off again. [.’That one had plants growing on him!’
‘Mr Vimes says we ought to do something for them,’ said Carrot.
‘All heart, that man.’
‘With a flamethrower, he says.’
‘Wouldn’t work. Too soggy. Has anyone ever really found out what they eat?’
‘It’s better to think of them as… cleaners. You certainly don’t see as much rubbish and dead animals on the streets as you used to.’
‘Yes, but have you ever seen a gnoll with a brush and shovel?’
‘Well, that’s society for you, I’m afraid,’ said Carrot. ‘Everything is dumped on the people below until you find someone who’s prepared to eat it. That’s what Mr Vimes says.’
‘Yes,’ said Angua. They walked in silence for a while, and then she said. ‘You care a lot about what Mr Vimes says, don’t you… ?’
‘He is a fine officer and an example to us all.’
‘And… you’ve never thought of getting a job in Quirm or somewhere, have you? The other cities are headhunting Ankh–Morpork watchmen now.’
‘What, leave Ankh–Morpork?’ The tone of voice included the answer.
‘No… I suppose not,’ said Angua sadly.
‘Anyway, I don’t know what Mr Vimes would do without me running around all the time.’
‘It’s a point of view, certainly,’ said Angua.
It wasn’t far to Money Trap Lane. It was in a ghetto of what Lord Rust would probably call ‘skilled artisans’, the people too low down the social scale to be movers and shakers but slightly too high to be easily moved or shook. The sanders and polishers, generally.
The people who hadn’t got very much but were proud even of that. There were little clues. Shiny house numbers, for a start. And, on the walls of houses that were effectively just one long continuous row, after centuries of building and inbuilding, very careful boundaries in the paint where people had brushed up to the very border of their property and not a gnat’s blink to each side. Carrot always said it showed the people were the kind who instinctively realized that civilization was based on a shared respect for ownership; Angua thought they were just tight little bastards who’d sell you the time of day.
Carrot walked noiselessly down the alley beside the sweetshop. There was a rough wooden staircase going up to the first floor. He pointed silently to the midden below it.
It seemed to consist almost entirely of bottles.
‘Big drinker?’ Angua mouthed. Carrot shook his head.
She crouched down and looked at the labels, but her nose was already giving her a hint. Dibbler’s Homeopathic Shampoo. Mere and Stingbat’s Herbal Wash – with Herbs! Rinse ‘n’ Run Scalp Tonic – with Extra Herbs!…
There were others. Herbs, she thought. Chuck a handful of weeds in the pot and you’ve got herbs…
Carrot was starting up the stairs when she put her hand on his shoulder. There was another smell. It was one that drove through all the other scents of the streets like a spear. It was one that a werewolf’s nose is particularly attuned to.