The whispering stopped. Silence spread out in a widening circle, all across the floor of the cave.
Detritus blinked. Then he took the hand very carefully, trying not to crush it.
The whispering started again. And this time, Vimes knew, it’d go for miles.
It occurred to him that in two handshakes the white-bearded elderly dwarf had done more than a dozen devious plots could have achieved. By the time those ripples reached the edge of Uberwald they would be tidal waves. Thirty men and a dog would be nothing by comparison.
‘Hmm?’
‘I said, what can a king give a Vimes?’ said the King.
‘Er, nothing, I think,’ said Vimes absently. Two handshakes! And very quietly, smiling, the King had turned the customs of the dwarfs upside down. And so gently, too, that they’d spend years arguing about it …
‘Sam!’ snapped Sybil.
‘Well, then, I shall give something to your descendants,’ said the King, apparently unperturbed. A long flat box was brought to him. He opened it to reveal a dwarf axe, the new metal glinting on its nest of black cloth.
‘This will become, in time, the axe of someone’s grandfather,’ said the King. ‘And no doubt over the years it will need a new handle or a new blade and over the centuries the shape will change in line with fashion, but it will always be, in every detail and respect, the axe I give you today. And because it’ll change with the times it’ll always be sharp. There’s a grain of truth in that, see. So nice to have met you. Do enjoy your journey home, your excellency.’
The four were silent in the coach back to the embassy. Then Cheery said, ‘The King said-‘
‘I heard,’ said Vimes.
‘That was as good as saying that he is a sh-‘
‘Things are going to change,’ said Lady Sybil. ‘That’s what the King was saying.’
‘I never shook hands wid no king before,’ said Detritus. ‘No dwarf, either, come to dat.’
‘You shook hands with me once,’ said Cheery.
‘Watchmen don’t count,’ said Detritus firmly. ‘Watchmen is watchmen.’
‘I wonder if it’ll change anything?’ said Lady Sybil.
Vimes stared out of the window. It’d probably make people feel good, he thought. But trolls and dwarfs had been fighting for centuries. Ending that sort of thing took more than a handshake. It was just a symbol.
On the other hand … the world wasn’t moved by heroes or villains or even by policemen. It might as well be moved by symbols. All he knew was that you couldn’t hope to try for the big stuff, like world peace and happiness, but you might just about be able to achieve some tiny deed that’d .make the world, in a small way, a better place.
Like shooting someone.
‘I forgot to say that I thought it was very kind of you, Cheery,’ said Lady Sybil, ‘yesterday, when you comforted Dee.’
‘She would have had me killed by the werewolves,’ said Vimes. He felt this was a point worth making.
‘Yes, of course. But … it was kind, anyway,’ said Sybil.
Cheery looked at her feet, avoiding Lady
Sybil’s gaze. Then she coughed nervously and pulled a small piece of paper out of her sleeve, which she handed wordlessly to Vimes.
He unfolded it.
‘She gave you these names?’ he said. ‘Some of these are very senior dwarfs in AnkhMorpork …’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Cheery. She coughed again. ‘I knew she wanted someone to talk to, and, er, I suggested a few things she might like to talk about. Sorry, Lady Sybil. It’s very hard to stop being a copper.’
‘I Worked that one out a long time ago,’ said Sybil.
‘You know,’ said Vimes, to break the silence, ‘if we leave at first light tomorrow, we could be through the pass before sundown.’
And it was a comfortable night, somewhere in the depths of the feather mattress. Vimes awoke a couple of times and thought he could hear voices. Then he sank back into the softness and dreamt of warm snow.
He was shaken awake by Detritus. ‘It’s gettin’ light, sir.’
Mm.
‘And dere’s a Igor an’ a … a young man out in der hall,’ said Detritus. ‘He got a big jar full of noses and a rabbit covered in ears.’
Vimes tried to get back to sleep. Then he sat bolt upright.
‘What?’
‘It’s all covered in ears, sir.’
‘You mean one of those rabbits with big floppy ears?’
‘You better come and see dis rabbit,’ sniffed the troll.
Vimes left Sybil wallowing in sleep, pulled on his dressing gown and pattered barefoot down to the freezing hall.
An Igor was waiting anxiously in the middle of the floor. Vimes was getting the hang of Igorrecognition,* and this was a new one. He was with a much younger … er … man, probably barely out of his teens, at least in places, but already the scars and stitching indicated that relentless urge towards self-improvement that was the hallmark of a good Igor. They just never seemed to be able to get the eyes level.
‘Your exthellenthy?’
‘You’re … Igor, right?’
‘Amathing gueth, thur. We haven’t met before, but I work for Doctor Thaumic on the other thide of the mountain, and thith ith my thon, Igor.’ He smacked the young man around the back of his head. ‘Thay hello to hith grathe, Igor!’
‘I don’t believe in the peerage,’ said young Igor, sulkily. ‘Nor shall I call any man marthter.’
‘Thee?’ said his father. ‘Thorry about thith, your grathe, but thith ith the younger generation for you. I hope you can find a job for him in the big thity, ‘coth he’th totally unemployable in Uberwald. But he’th a very good thurgeon, even if – he doeth have funny ideath. He’th got hith grandfather’th handth, you know.’
‘I can see the scars,’ said Vimes.
‘Lucky little devil, they thould have been mine
*The key was in the pattern of scars.
by rightth, but he wath old enough to go into the lottery.’
‘You want to join the Watch, Igor?’ said Vimes.
‘Yes, sir. I believe AnkhMorpork is where the future lies, thur.’
His father leaned closer to Vimes. ‘We don’t menthion hith thlight thpeech impediment, marthter,’ he whispered. ‘Of courthe, it countth againtht him here, you know, in the Igor buthineth, but I’m thure people will be kind to him in AnkhMorpork.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Vimes, removing his handkerchief and absentmindedly dabbing his ear. ‘And, er … this rabbit?’
‘He’s Eerie, thur,’ said young Igor.
‘Good name. Good name. Is that why he’s got human ears all over his back?’
‘Early experiment, thur.’
‘And, er, the noses?’
There were about a dozen of them in a large screwtop pickle jar. And they were … just noses. Not cut off anyone, as far as Vimes could see. They had little legs and were jumping hopefully up and down against the glass, like puppies in a pet shop window. He thought he could hear faint ‘wheel’ noises.
‘The wave of the future, thur,’ said young Igor. ‘I grow them in special vats. I can do eyes and fingers, too!’
‘But they’ve got little legs!’
‘Oh, they wither off in a few hours after they’re attached, thur. And they want to be useful, my little noses. Bio-artificing for the next century, thur. None of that outmoded cutting up of old bodies-‘
His father smacked his head again. ‘You thee? You thee? Where’th the point in that? Wathtrel! I hope you can do thomething with him, marthter, becauthe I’ve jutht about given up! Not worth breaking down for thpareth, ath we thay!’
Vimes sighed. Still, losing small extremities was a daily hazard in the Watch and the lad was, after all, an Igor. It wasn’t as if there were any normal people in the Watch. He could afford to put up with a nose-breeder in exchange for surgery that didn’t involve screaming and buckets of boiling
pitch.
He indicated a box beside the young man. It was growling and rocking from side to side.
‘You haven’t got a dog too, have you?’ he said, trying to make it sound like a joke.
‘That’s my tomatoes,’ said young Igor. ‘A triumph of modern igoring. They grow enormously.’
‘Only becauthe they vithiouthly attack all other vegetableth!’ said his father. ‘But I’ll thay thith for the lad, marthter, I’ve never known anyone like him for really tiny thtitching.’
‘All right, all right, he sounds the man I’m looking for,’ said Vimes. ‘Or close, at least. Take a seat, young man. I just hope there’s going to be room in the coaches …’
The door to the yard swung open, blowing in a few snowflakes and Carrot, who stamped his feet.
‘A bit of snow overnight but the road looks open,’ he said. ‘They say there’s a really big one due tonight, though, so we-Oh, good morning, sir.’
‘You’re fit enough to travel?’. said Vimes.
‘We both are,’ said Angua. She crossed the hall and stood next to Carrot.