What the dungeon did not contain was any rats, scorpions, cockroaches or snakes. It had once contained snakes, it was true, because Vimes’s sandals crunched on small, long white skeletons.
He crept cautiously along one damp wall, wondering where the rhythmic scraping sound was coming from. He rounded a squat pillar, and found out.
The Patrician was shaving, squinting into a scrap of mirror propped against the pillar to catch the light. No, Vimes realised, not propped. Supported, in fact. By a rat. It was a large rat, with red eyes.
The Patrician nodded to him without apparent surprise.
“Oh,” he said. “Vimes, isn’t it? I heard you were on the way down. Jolly good. You had better tell the kitchen staff-” and here Vimes realised that the man was speaking to the rat-“that there will be two for lunch. Would you like a beer, Vimes?”
“What?” said Vimes.
“I imagine you would. Pot luck, though, I am afraid. Skrp’s people are bright enough, but they seem to have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to labels on bottles.”
Lord Vetinari patted his face with a towel and dropped it on the floor. A grey shape darted from the shadows and dragged it away down the floor grille.
Then he said, “Very well, Skrp. You may go.” The rat twitched its whiskers at him, leaned the mirror against the wall, and trotted off.
“You’re waited on by rats?” said Vimes.
“They help out, you know. They’re not really very efficient, I’m afraid. It’s their paws.”
“But, but, but,” said Vimes. “I mean, how?”
“I suspect Skrp’s people have tunnels that extend into the University,” Lord Vetinari went on. “Although I think they were probably pretty bright to start with.”
At least Vimes understood that bit. It was well known that thaumic radiations affected animals living around the Unseen University campus, sometimes prodding them towards minute analogues of human civilisation and even mutating some of them into entirely new and specialised species, such as the .303 bookworm and the wallfish. And, as the man said, rats were quite bright to start with. “But they’re helping you?” said Vimes. “Mutual. It’s mutual. Payment for services rendered, you might say,” said the Patrician, sitting down on what Vimes couldn’t help noticing was a small velvet cushion. On a low shelf, so as to be handy, were a notepad and a neat row of books. “How can you help rats, sir?” he said weakly. “Advice. I advise them, you know.” The Patrician leaned back. “That’s the trouble with people like Wonse,” he said. “They never know when to stop. Rats, snakes and scorpions. It was sheer bedlam in here when I came. The rats were getting the worst of it, too.”
And Vimes thought he was beginning to get the drift. “You mean you sort of trained them?” he said. “Advised. Advised. I suppose it’s a knack,” said Lord Vetinari modestly.
Vimes wondered how it was done. Did the rats side with the scorpions against the snakes and then, when the snakes were beaten, invite the scorpions to a celebratory slap-up meal and eat them? Or were individual scorpions hired with large amounts of, oh, whatever it-was scorpions ate, to sidle up to selected leading snakes at night and sting them?
He remembered hearing once about a man who, locked up in a cell for years, trained little birds and created a sort of freedom. And he thought of ancient sailors, shorn of the sea by old age and infirmity, who spent their days making big ships in little bottles.
Then he thought of the Patrician, robbed of his city, sitting cross-legged on the grey floor in the dim dungeon and recreating it around him, encouraging in miniature all the little rivalries, power struggles and factions. He thought of him as a sombre, brooding statue amid paving stones alive with slinking shadows and sudden, political death. It had probably been easier than ruling Ankh, which had larger vermin who didn’t have to use both hands to carry a knife.
There was a clink over by the drain. Half a dozen rats appeared, dragging something wrapped in a cloth. They rathandled it past the grille and, with great effort, hauled it to the Patrician’s feet. He leaned down and undid the knot.
“We seem to have cheese, chicken legs, celery, a piece of rather stale bread and a nice bottle, oh, a nice bottle apparently of Merckle and Stingbat’s Very Famous Brown Sauce. Beer, I said, Skrp.” The leading rat twitched its nose at him. “Sorry about this, Vimes. They can’t read, you see. They don’t seem to get the hang of the concept. But they’re very good at listening. They bring me all the news.”
“I see you’re very comfortable here,” said Vimes weakly.
“Never build a dungeon you wouldn’t be happy to spend the night in yourself,” said the Patrician, laying out the food on the cloth. “The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.”
“We all thought you had built secret tunnels and suchlike,” said Vimes.
“Can’t imagine why,” said the Patrician. “One would have to keep on running. So inefficient. Whereas here I am at the hub of things. I hope you understand that, Vimes. Never trust any ruler who puts his faith in tunnels and bunkers and escape routes. The chances are that his heart isn’t in the job.”
“Oh.”
He’s in a dungeon in his own palace with a raving lunatic in charge upstairs, and a dragon burning the city, and he thinks he’s got the world where he wants it. It must be something about high office. The altitude sends people mad.
“You, er, you don’t mind if I have a look around, > do you?” he said.
“Feel free,” said the Patrician.
Vimes paced the length of the dungeon and checked the door. It was heavily barred and bolted, and the lock was massive.
Then he tapped the walls in what might possibly be hollow places. There was no doubt that it was a well-built dungeon. It was the kind of dungeon you’d feel good about having dangerous criminals put in. Of course, in those circumstances you’d prefer there to be no trapdoors, hidden tunnels or secret ways of escape.
These weren’t those circumstances. It was amazing what several feet of solid stone did to your sense of perspective.
“Do guards come in here?” he demanded.
“Hardly ever,” said the Patrician, waving a chicken leg. “They don’t bother about feeding me, you see. The idea is that one should moulder. In fact,” he said, “up ’til recently I used to go to the door and groan a bit every now and then, just to keep them happy.”
“They’re bound to come in and check, though?” said Vimes hopefully.
“Oh, I don’t think we should tolerate that,” said the Patrician.
‘ ‘How are you going to prevent them?”
Lord Vetinari gave him a pained look.
“My dear Vimes,” he said, “I thought you were an observant man. Did you look at the door?”
“Of course I did,” said Vimes, and added, “sir. It’s bloody massive.”
“Perhaps you should have another look?”
Vimes gaped at him, and then stamped across the floor and glared at the door. It was one of the popular dread portal variety, all bars and bolts and iron spikes and massive hinges. No matter how long he looked at it, it didn’t become any less massive. The lock was one of those dwarfish-made buggers that it’d take years to pick. All in all, if you had to have a symbol for something totally immovable, that door was your man. The Patrician appeared alongside him in heart-stopping silence.
“You see,” he said, “it’s always the case, is it not, that should a city be overtaken by violent civil unrest the current ruler is thrown into the dungeons? To a certain type of mind that is so much more satisfying than mere execution.”
“Well, okay, but I don’t see-” Vimes began. “And you look at this door and what you see is a really strong cell door, yes?”
“Of course. You’ve only got to look at the bolts and-”
“You know, I’m really rather pleased,” said Lord Vetinari quietly.
Vimes stared at the door until his eyebrows ached. And then, just as random patterns in cloud suddenly, without changing in any way, become a horse’s head or a sailing ship, he saw what he’d been looking at all along.
A sense of terrifying admiration overcame him. He wondered what it was like in the Patrician’s mind. All cold and shiny, he thought, all blued steel and icicles and little wheels clicking along like a huge clock. The kind of mind that would carefully consider its own downfall and turn it to advantage.
It was a perfectly normal dungeon door, but it all depended on your sense of perspective.
In this dungeon the Patrician could hold off the world.
All that was on the outside was the lock.