He tried to look straight ahead.
Silk stockings. With garters. Well, they were out. There were a lot of things he’d do for Sybil, but if garters figured anywhere in the relationship they weren’t going to be on him. And everyone said he had to wear a purple robe fined with vermine. They could forget that, too.
He’d spent a desperate hour in the library, and all that stuff about the gold knobs and silk stockings was so much marsh gas. Tradition? He’d show them tradition. What the original dukes wore, as far as he could see, was good sensible chain mall with blood on it, preferably other people’s––
There was a scream from the crowd. His head jerked round and he saw a stout woman sitting on the ground, waving her arms.
‘ ‘e stole my bag! And ‘e never showed me ‘is Thieves’ Guild badge!’
The procession shunted to a halt as Vimes stared at the figure legging it across Sator Square.
‘You stop right there, Sidney Pickens!’ he yelled, and leapt forward.
And, of course, very few people do know how Tradition is supposed to go. There’s a, certain mysterious ridiculousness about it by its very nature – once there was a reason why you had to carry a posy of primroses on Soul Cake Tuesday, but now you did it because… that’s what was Done. Besides, the intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.
Vimes was running, so the University choir hurried after him. And the people behind the choir saw the gap opening up and responded to the urge to fill it. And then everyone was just running, because everyone else was running.
There were occasional whimpers from those whose heart, lungs or legs weren’t up to this kind of thing, and a bellow from the Archchancellor who had tried to stand firm in the face of the frantic stampede and was now having his head repeatedly trodden into the cobbles.
And apprentice thief Sidney Pickens ran because he’d taken one look over his shoulder and seen the whole of Ankh-Morpork society bearing down on him, and that sort of thing has a terrible effect on a growing lad.
And Sam Vimes ran. He tore off his cloak and whirled away his plumed hat, and he ran and ran.
There would be trouble later on. People would ask questions. But that was later on – for now, gloriously uncomplicated and wonderfully clean, and hopefully with never an end, under a clear sky, in a world untarnished… there was only the chase.
THE END