Lady Ramkin’s house was not hard to find. It commanded an outcrop that gave it a magnificent view of the city, if that was your idea of a good time. There were stone dragons on the gatepost, and the gardens had an unkempt overgrown look. Statues of Ramkins long gone loomed up out of the greenery. Most of them had swords and were covered in ivy up to the neck.
Vimes sensed that this was not because the garden’s owner was too poor to do anything about it, but rather that the garden’s owner thought there were much more important things than ancestors, which was a pretty unusual point of view for an aristocrat.
They also apparently thought that there were more important things than property repair. When he rang the bell of the rather pleasant old house itself, in the middle of a flourishing rhododendron forest, several bits of the plaster facade fell off.
That seemed to be the only effect, except that something round the back of the house started to howl. Some things.
It started to rain again. After a while Vimes felt the dignity of his position and cautiously edged around the building, keeping well back in case anything else collapsed.
He reached a heavy wooden gate in a heavy wooden wall. In contrast with the general decrepitude of the rest of the place, it seemed comparatively new and very solid.
He knocked. This caused another fusillade of strange whistling noises.
The door opened. Something dreadful loomed over him.
“Ah, good man. Do you know anything about mating?” it boomed.
…
It was quiet and warm in the Watch House. Carrot listened to the hissing of sand in the hourglass and concentrated on buffing up his breastplate. Centuries of tarnish had given up under his cheerful onslaught. It gleamed.
You knew where you were with a shiny breastplate. The strangeness of the city, where they had all these laws and concentrated on ignoring them, was too much for him. But a shiny breastplate was a breastplate well shined.
The door opened. He peered across the top of the ancient desk. There was no-one there.
He tried a few more industrious rubs.
There was the vague sound of someone who had got fed up with waiting. Two purple-fingernailed hands grasped the edge of the desk, and the Librarian’s face rose slowly into view like an early-morning coconut.
“Oook,” he said.
Carrot stared. It had been explained to him carefully that, contrary to appearances, laws governing the animal kingdom did not apply to the Librarian. On the other hand, the Librarian himself was never very interested in obeying the laws governing the human kingdom, either. He was one of those little anomalies you have to build around.
“Hallo,” said Carrot uncertainly. (“Don’t call him ‘boy’ or pat him, that always gets him annoyed.”)
“Oook.”
The Librarian prodded the desk with a long, many-jointed finger.
“What?”
“Oook. ”
“Sorry?”
The Librarian rolled his eyes. It was strange, he felt, that so-called intelligent dogs, horses and dolphins never had any difficulty indicating to humans the vital news of the moment, e.g., that the three children were lost in the cave, or the train was about to take the line leading to the bridge that had been washed away or similar, while he, only a handful of chromosomes away from wearing a vest, found it difficult to persuade the average human to come in out of the rain. You just couldn’t talk to some people.
“Oook!” he said, and beckoned.
“I can’t leave the office,” said Carrot. “I’ve had Orders.”
The Librarian’s upper lip rolled back like a blind.
“Is that a smile?” said Carrot. The Librarian shook his head.
“Someone hasn’t committed a crime, have they?” said Carrot.
“Oook.”
“A bad crime?”
“Oook!”
“Like murder?”
“Eeek.”
“Worse than murder?”
“Eeek!” The Librarian knuckled over to the door and bounced up and down urgently.
Carrot gulped. Orders were orders, yes, but this was something else. The people in this city were capable of anything.
He buckled on his breastplate, screwed his sparkling helmet on to his head, and strode towards the door.
Then he remembered his responsibilities. He went back to the desk, found a scrap of paper, and painstakingly wrote: Out Fighting Crime, Pleass Call Again Later. Thankyou.
And then he went out on to the streets, untarnished and unafraid.
…
The Supreme Grand Master raised his arms. “Brethren,” he said, “let us begin …” It was so easy. All you had to do was channel that great septic reservoir of jealousy and cringing resentment that the Brothers had in such abundance, harness their dreadful mundane unpleasantness which had a force greater in its way than roaring evil, and then open your own mind . . .
. . . into the place where the dragons went.
…
Vimes found himself grabbed by the arm and pulled inside. The heavy door shut behind him with a definite click.
“It’s Lord Mountjoy Gayscale Talonthrust III of Ankh,” said the apparition, which was dressed in huge and fearsomely-padded armour. “You know, I really don’t think he can cut the mustard.”
“He can’t?” said Vimes, backing away.
“It really needs two of you.”
“It does, doesn’t it,” whispered Vimes, his shoulder blades trying to carve their way out through the fence.
“Could you oblige?” boomed the thing.
“What?”
“Oh, don’t be squeamish, man. You just have to help him up into the air. It’s me who has the tricky part. I know it’s cruel, but if he can’t manage it tonight then he’s for the choppy-chop. Survival of the fittest and all that, don’t you know.”
Captain Vimes managed to get a grip on himself. He was clearly in the presence of some sex-crazed would-be murderess, insofar as any gender could be determined under the strange lumpy garments. If it wasn’t female, then references to “it’s me who has the tricky part” gave rise to mental images that would haunt him for some time to come. He knew the rich did things differently, but this was going too far.
“Madam,” he said coldly, “I am an officer of the Watch and I must warn you that the course of action you are suggesting breaks the laws of the city-” and also of several of the more strait-laced gods, he added silently-“and I must advise you that his Lordship should be released unharmed immediately-”
The figure stared at him in astonishment.
“Why?” it said. “It’s my bloody dragon.”
…
“Have another drink, not-Corporal Nobby?” said Sergeant Colon unsteadily.
“I do not mind if I do, not-Sgt Colon,” said Nobby.
They were taking inconspicuosity seriously. That ruled out most of the taverns on the Morpork side of the river, where they were very well known. Now they were in a rather elegant one in downtown Ankh, where they were being as unobtrusive as they knew how. The other drinkers thought they were some kind of cabaret.
“I was thinking,” said Sgt Colon.
“What?”
“If we bought a bottle or two, we could go home and then we’d be really inconspicuous.”
Nobby gave this some thought.
“But he said we’ve got to keep our ears open,” he said. “We’re supposed to, what he said, detect anything.”
“We can do that at my house,” said Sgt Colon. “We could listen all night, really hard.”
“Tha’s a good point,” said Nobby. In fact, it sounded better and better the more he thought about it.
“But first,” he announced, “I got to pay a visit.”
“Me too,” said the sergeant. “This detecting business gets to you after a while, doesn’t it.”
They stumbled out into the alley behind the tavern. There was a full moon up, but a few rags of scruffy cloud were drifting across it. The pair inconspicuously bumped into one another in the darkness.
“Is that you, Detector Sergeant Colon?” said Nobby.
“Tha’s right! Now, can you detect the door to the privy, Detector Corporal Nobbs? We’re looking for a short, dark door of mean appearance, ahahaha.”
There were a couple of clanks and a muffled swearword from Nobby as he staggered across the alley, followed by a yowl when one of Ankh-Morpork’s enormous population of feral cats fled between his legs.
“Who loves you, pussycat?” said Nobby under his breath.
“Needs must, then,” said Sgt Colon, and faced a handy corner.
His private musings were interrupted by a grunt from the corporal.
“You there, Sgt?”
“Detector Sergeant to you, Nobby,” said Sgt Colon pleasantly.
Nobby’s tone was urgent and suddenly very sober. “Don’t piss about, Sergeant, I just saw a dragon fly over!”
“I’ve seen a horsefly,” said Sgt Colon, hiccuping gently. “And I’ve seen a housefly. I’ve even seen a greenfly. But I ain’t never seen a dragon fly.”
“Of course you have, you pillock,” said Nobby urgently. “Look, I’m not messing about! He had wings on him like, like, like great big wings!”
Sergeant Colon turned majestically. The corporal’s face had gone so white that it showed up in the darkness.