He was a small, bandy-legged man, with a certain resemblance to a chimpanzee who never got invited to tea parties.
His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old.
“A cushy number, this route, ” he said, as they strolled along a damp street in the merchants’ quarter. He tried a doorhandle. It was locked. “You stick with me, ” he added, “and I’ll see you’re all right. Now, you try the handles on the other side of the street. ”
“Ah. I understand, Corporal Nobbs. We’ve got to see if anyone’s left their store unlocked, ” said Carrot.
“You catch on fast, son. ”
“I hope I can apprehend a miscreant in the act, ” said Carrot zealously.
“Er, yeah, ” said Nobby, uncertainly.
“But if we find a door unlocked I suppose we must summon the owner, ” Carrot went on. “And one of us would have to stay to guard things, right?”
“Yeah?” Nobby brightened. “I’ll do that, ” he said.
“Don’t you worry about it. Then you could go and find the victim. Owner, I mean. ”
He tried another doorknob. It turned under his grip.
“Back in the mountains, ” said Carrot, “if a thief was caught, he was hung up by the-”
He paused, idly rattling a doorknob.
Nobby froze.
“By the what?” he said, in horrified fascination.
“Can’t remember now, ” said Carrot. “My mother said it was too good for them, anyway. Stealing is Wrong. ”
Nobby had survived any number of famous massacres by not being there. He let go of the doorknob, and gave it a friendly pat.
“Got it!” said Carrot. Nobby jumped.
“Got what?” he shouted.
“I remember what we hang them up by, ” said Carrot.
“Oh, ” said Nobby weakly. “Where?”
“We hang them up by the town hall, ” said Carrot. “Sometimes for days. They don’t do it again, I can tell you. And Bjorn Stronginthearm’s your uncle. ”
Nobby leaned his pike against the wall and fumbled a fag-end from the recesses of his ear. One or two things, he decided, needed to be sorted out.
“Why did you have to become a guard, lad?” he said.
“Everyone keeps on asking me that, ” said Carrot. “I didn’t have to. I wanted to. It will make a Man of me. ”
Nobby never looked anyone directly in the eye. He stared at Carrot’s right ear in amazement.
“You mean you ain’t running away from anything?” he said.
“What would I want to run away from anything for?”
Nobby floundered a bit. “Ah. There’s always something. Maybe-maybe you was wrongly accused of something. Like, maybe, ” he grinned, “maybe the stores was mysteriously short on certain items and you was unjustly blamed. Or certain items was found in your kit and you never knew how they got there. That sort of thing. You can tell old Nobby. Or, ” he nudged Carrot, “p’raps it was something else, eh? Shershay la fern, eh? Got a girl into trouble?”
“I-” Carrot began, and then remembered that, yes, one should tell the truth, even to odd people like Nobby who didn’t seem to know what it was. And the truth was that he was always getting Minty in trouble, although exactly how and why was a bit of a mystery. Just about every time he left after paying calls on her at the Rocksmacker cave, he could hear her father and mother shouting at her. They were always very polite to him, but somehow merely being seen with him was enough to get Minty into trouble.
“Yes, ” he said.
“Ah. Often the case, ” said Nobby wisely.
“All the time, ” said Carrot. “Just about every night, really. ”
“Blimey, ” said Nobby, impressed. He looked down at the Protective. “Is that why they make you wear that, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, don’t worry about it, ” said Nobby. “Everyone’s got their little secret. Or big secret, as it might be. Even the captain. He’s only with us because he was Brung Low by a Woman. That’s what the sergeant says. Brung low. ”
“Goodness, ” said Carrot. It sounded painful.
“But I reckon it’s ‘cos he speaks his mind. Spoke it once too often to the Patrician, I heard. Said the Thieves’ Guild was nothing but a pack of thieves, or something. That’s why he’s with us. Dunno, really. ” He looked speculatively at the pavement and then said: “So where’re you staying, lad?”
“There’s a lady called Mrs Palm-” Carrot began.
Nobby choked on some smoke that went the wrong way.
“In the Shades?” he wheezed. “You’re staying there?”
“Oh, yes. ”
“Every night?”
“Well, every day, really. Yes. ”
“And you’ve come here to have a man made of you?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t think I should like to live where you come from, ” said Nobby.
“Look, ” said Carrot, thoroughly lost, “I came because Mr Varneshi said it was the finest job in the world, upholding the law and everything. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Well, er, ” said Nobby. “As to that… I mean, upholding the Law… I mean, once, yes, before we had all the Guilds and stuff… the law, sort of thing, ain’t really, I mean, these days, everything’s more… oh, I dunno. Basically you just ring your bell and keep your head down. ”
Nobby sighed. Then he grunted, snatched his hourglass from his belt, and peered in at the rapidly-draining sand grains. He put it back, pulled the leather muffler off his bell’s clapper, and shook it once or twice, not very loudly.
“Twelve of the clock, ” he muttered, “and all’s well. ”
“And that’s it, is it?” said Carrot, as the tiny echoes died away.
“More or less. More or less. ” Nobby took a quick drag on his dog-end.
“Just that? No moonlight chases across rooftops? No swinging on chandeliers? Nothing like that?” said Carrot.
“Shouldn’t think so, ” said Nobby fervently. “I never done anything like that. No-one ever said anything to me about that. ” He snatched a puff on the cigarette. “A man could catch his death of cold, chasing around on rooftops. I reckon I’ll stick to the bell, if it’s all the same to you. ”
“Can I have a go?” said Carrot.
Nobby was feeling unbalanced. It can be the only reason why he made the mistake of wordlessly handing Carrot the bell.
Carrot examined it for a few seconds. Then he waved it vigorously over his head.
“Twelve o’clock!” he bellowed. “And all’s weeeeelllll!”
The echoes bounced back and forth across the street and finally were overwhelmed by a horrible, thick silence. Several dogs barked somewhere in the night. A baby started crying.
“Ssshh!” hissed Nobby.
“Well, it is all well, isn’t it?” said Carrot.
“It won’t be if you keep on ringing that bloody bell! Give it here. ”
“I don’t understand!” said Carrot. “Look, I’ve got this book Mr Varneshi gave me-” He fumbled for the Laws and Ordinances.
Nobby glanced at them, and shrugged. “Never heard of ’em, ” he said. “Now just shut up your row. You don’t want to go making a din like that. You could attract all sorts. Come on, this way. ”
He grabbed Carrot’s arm and bustled him along the street.
“What sorts?” protested Carrot as he was pushed determinedly forward.
“Bad sorts, ” muttered Nobby.
“But we’re the Watch!”
“Damn right! And we don’t want to go tangling with people like that! Remember what happened to Gas-kin!”
“I don’t remember what happened to Gaskin!” said Carrot, totally bewildered. “Who’s Gaskin?”
“Before your time, ” mumbled Nobby. He deflated a bit. ‘ ‘Poor bugger. Could of happened to any of us. ” He looked up and glared at Carrot. “Now stop all this, you hear? It’s getting on my nerves. Moonlight bloody chases, my bum!”
He stalked along the street. Nobby’s normal method of locomotion was a kind of sidle, and the combination of stalking and sidling at the same time created a strange effect, like a crab limping.
“But, but, ” said Carrot, “in this book it says-”
“I don’t want to know from no book, ” growled Nobby.
Carrot looked utterly crestfallen.
“But it’s the Law-” he began.
He was nearly terminally interrupted by an axe that whirred out of a low doorway beside him and bounced off the opposite wall. It was followed by sounds of splintering timber and breaking glass.
“Hey, Nobby!” said Carrot urgently, “There’s a fight going on!”
Nobby glanced at the doorway. “O’course there is, ” he said. “It’s a dwarf bar. Worst kind. You keep out of there, kid. Them little buggers like to trip you up and then kick twelve kinds of shit out of you. You come along o’Nobby and he’ll-”
He grabbed Carrot’s treetrunk arm. It was like trying to tow a building.