‘Yes?’
‘You come with us. And give me your sword.’
‘What?’
‘I think you heard me, captain.’
‘Look, it’s me, Quirke. Sam Vimes? Don’t be a fool.’
‘I ain’t a fool. I’ve got men with crossbows. Men. It’s you that’d be the fool if you resist arrest.’
‘Oh? I’m under arrest?’
‘Only if you don’t come with us . . .’
The Patrician was in the Oblong Office, staring out of the window. The multi-belled cacophony of five o’clock was just dying away.
Vimes saluted. From the back, Vetinari looked like a carnivorous flamingo.
‘Ah, Vimes,’ he said, without looking around, ‘come here, will you? And tell me what you see.’
Vimes hated guessing games, but he joined the Patri-cian anyway.
The Oblong Office had a view over half the city, although most of it was rooftops and towers. Vimes’ imagination peopled the towers with men holding gonnes. The Patrician would be an easy target.
‘What do you see out there, captain?’
‘City of Ankh-Morpork, sir,’ said Vimes, keeping his expression carefully blank.
‘And does it put you in mind of anything, captain?’
Vimes scratched his head. If he was going to play gaames, he was going to play games . . .
‘Well, sir, when I was a kid we owned a cow once, and one day it got sick, and it was always my job to clean out the cowshed, and—’
‘It reminds me of a clock,’ said the Patrician. ‘Big wheels, little wheels. All clicking away. The little wheels spin and the big wheels turn, all at different speeds, you see, but the machine works. And that is the most important thing. The machine keeps going. Because when the machine breaks down . . .’
He turned suddenly, strode to his desk with his usual predatory stalk, and sat down.
‘Or, again, sometimes a piece of grit might get into the wheels, throwing them off balance. One speck of grit.’
Vetinari looked up and flashed Vimes a mirthless smile.
‘I won’t have that.’
Vimes stared at the wall.
‘I believe I told you to forget about certain recent events, captain?’
‘Sir.’
‘Yet it appears that the Watch have been getting in the wheels.’
‘Sir.’
‘What am I to do with you?’
‘Couldn’t say, sir.’
Vimes minutely examined the wall. He wished Carrot was here. The lad might be simple, but he was so simple that sometimes he saw things that the subtle missed. And he kept coming up with simple ideas that stuck in your mind. Policeman, for example. He’d said to Vimes one day, while they were proceeding along the Street of Small Gods: Do you know where ‘policeman’ comes from, sir? Vimes hadn’t. ‘Polis’ used to mean ‘city’, said Carrot. That’s what policeman means: ‘a man for the city’. Not many people know that. The word ‘polite comes from ‘polis’, too. It used to mean the ptoper behaviour from someone living in a city.
Man of the city . . . Carrot was always throwing out stuff like that. Like ‘copper’. Vimes had believed all his life that the Watch were called coppers because they carried copper badges, but no, said Carrot, it comes from the old word cappere, to capture.
Carrot read books in his spare time. Not well. He’d have real difficulty if you cut his index finger off. But continuously. And he wandered around Ankh-Morpork on his day off.
‘Captain Vimes?’
Vimes blinked.
‘Sir?’
‘You have no concept of the delicate balance of the dry. I’ll tell you one more time. This business with the Assassins and the dwarf and this clown . . . you are to cease involving yourself.’
‘No, sir. I can’t.’
‘Give me your badge.’
Vimes looked down at his badge.
He never really thought about it. It was just something he’d always had. It didn’t mean anything very much . . . really . . . one way or the other. It was just something he’d always had.
‘My badge?’
‘And your sword.’
Slowly, with fingers that suddenly felt like bananas, and bananas that didn’t belong to him at that, Vimes undid his sword belt.
‘And your badge.’
‘Um. Not my badge.’
Why not?’
‘Um. Because it’s my badge.’
‘But you’re resigning anyway when you get married.’
‘Right.’
Their eyes met.
‘How much does it mean to you?’
Vimes stared. He couldn’t find the right words. It was just that he’d always been a man with a badge. He wasn’t sure he could be one without the other.
Finally Lord Vetinari said: ‘Very well. I believe you’re getting married at noon tomorrow.’ His long fingers picked up the gilt-embossed invitation from the desk ‘Yes. You can keep your badge, then. And have an honourable retirement. But I’m keeping the sword. And the Day Watch will be sent down to the Yard shortly to disarm your men. I’m standing the Night Watch down, Captain Vimes. In due course I might appoint another man in charge – at my leisure. Until then, you and your men can consider yourselves on leave.’
‘The Day Watch? A bunch of—’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘One infraction, however, and the badge is mine. Remember.’
Cuddy opened his eyes.
‘You’re alive?’ said Detritus.
The dwarf gingerly removed his helmet. There was a gouge in the rim, and his head ached.
‘It looks like a mild skin abrasion,’ said Detritus.
‘A what? Ooooh.’ Cuddy grimaced. ‘What about you, anyway?’ he said. There was something odd about the troll. It hadn’t quite dawned on him what it was, but there was definitely something unfamiliar, quite apart from all the holes.
‘I suppose the armour was some help,’ said Detritus. He pulled at the straps of his breastplate. Five discs of slid out at around belt level. ‘If it hadn’t slowed down I’d be seriously abraded.’
‘What’s up with you? Why are you talking like that?’
‘Lake what, pray?’
‘What happened to the “me big troll” talk? No offence meant.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
Cuddy shivered, and stamped his feet to keep warm.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
They trotted to the door. It was shut fast.
‘Can you knock it down?’
‘No. If this place wasn’t troll proof, it’d be empty. Sorry.’
‘Detritus?’
‘Yes?’
Are you all right? Only there’s steam coming off your head.’
‘I do feel . . . er . . .’
Detritus blinked. There was a tinkle of falling ice. Odd things were happening in his skull.
Thoughts that normally ambulated sluggishly around his brain were suddenly springing into vibrant, coruscat-ing life. And there seemed to be more and more of them.
‘My goodness,’ he said, to no-one in particular.
This was a sufficiently un-troll-like comment that even Cuddy, whose extremities were already going numb, stared at him.
‘I do believe,’ said Detritus, ‘that I am genuinely cogitating. How very interesting!’
‘What do you mean?’
More ice cascaded off Detritus as he rubbed his head.
‘Of course!’ he said, holding up a giant finger. ‘Superconductivity!’
‘Wha’?’
‘You see? Brain of impure silicon. Problem of heat dissipation. Daytime temperature too hot, processing speed slows down, weather gets hotter, brain stops completely, trolls turn to stone until nightfall, ie, colder-temperature,however,lowertemperatureenough,brain operatesfasterand—’
‘I think I’m going to freeze to death soon,’ said Cuddy.
Detritus looked around.
‘There are small glazed apertures up there,’ he said.
‘Too hi’ to rea’, e’en if I st’ on y’shoulders,’ mumbled Cuddy, slumping down further.
‘Ah, but my plan involves throwing something through them to attract help,’ said Detritus.
‘Wha’ pla’?’
‘I have in fact eventuated twenty-three but this one has a ninety-seven per cent chance of success,’ said Detritus, beaming.
‘Ha’nt got an’ting t’throw,’ said Cuddy.
‘I have,’ said Detritus, scooping him up. ‘Do not worry. I can compute your trajectory with astonishing precision. And then all you will need to do is fetch Captain Vimes or Carrot or someone.’
Cuddy’s feeble protests described an arc through the freezing air and vanished along with the window glass.
Detritus sat down again. Life was so simple, when you really thought about it. And he was really thinking.
He was seventy-six per cent sure he was going to get at least seven degrees colder.
Mr Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Purveyor, Merchant Venturer and all-round salesman, had thought long and hard about going into ethnic foodstuffs. But it was a natural career procession. The old sausage-in-a-bun trade had been falling off lately, while there were all these trolls and dwarfs around with money in their pockets or wherever it was trolls kept their money, and money in the possession of other people had always seemed to Throat to be against the proper natural order of things.
Dwarfs were easy enough to cater for. Rat-on-a-stick was simple enough, although it meant a general improvement in Dibbler’s normal catering standards.
On the other hand, trolls were basically, when you got right down to it, no offence meant, speak as you find . . . basically, they were walking rocks.
He’d sought advice about troll food from Chryso-prase, who was also a troll, although you’d hardly know it any more, he’d been around humans so long he wore a suit now and, as he said, had learned all kindsa civilized things, like extortion, money-lending at 300 per cent interest per munf, and stuff like that. Chrysoprase might have been born in a cave above the snowline on some mountain somewhere, but five minutes in Ankh-Morpork and he’d fitted right in. Dibbler liked to think of Chrysoprase as a friend; you’d hate to think of him as an enemy.