‘Who say?’
‘They, sir. You know, they.’
‘The same people who’re the “everyone” in “everyone knows”? The people who live in “the community”?’
‘Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.’
Vimes waved a hand. ‘Oh, them. Well, go on.’
‘They say that the last thing a dying man sees stays imprinted in his eyes, sir.’
‘Oh, that. That’s just an old story.’
‘Yes. Amazing, really. I mean, if it weren’t true, you’d have thought it wouldn’t have survived, wouldn’t you? I thought I saw this little red spark, so I got the imp to paint a really big picture before it faded completely. And, right in the centre . . .’
‘Couldn’t the imp have made it up?’ said Vimes, staring at the picture again.
‘They haven’t got the imagination to lie, sir. What they see is what you get.’
‘Glowing eyes.’
‘Two red dots,’ said Littlebottom, conscientiously, ‘which might indeed be a pair of glowing eyes, sir.’
‘Good point, Littlebottom.’ Vimes rubbed his chin. ‘Blast! I just hope it’s not a god of some sort. That’s all I need at a time like this. Can you make copies so I can send them to all the Watch Houses?’
‘Yes, sir. The imp’s got a good memory.’
‘Hop to it, then.’
But before Littlebottom could go the door opened again. Vimes looked up. Carrot and Angua were there.
‘Carrot? I thought you were on your day off?’
‘We found a murder, sir! At the Dwarf Bread Museum. But when we got back to the Watch House they told us Lord Vetinari’s dead!’
Did they? thought Vimes. That’s rumour for you. If we could modulate it with the truth, how useful it could be . . .
‘He’s breathing well for a corpse,’ he said. ‘I think he’ll be okay. Someone got past his guard, that’s all. I’ve got a doctor to see him. Don’t worry.’
Someone got past his guard, he thought. Yes. And I’m his guard.
‘I hope the man’s a leader in the field, that’s all I can say,’ said Carrot severely.
‘He’s even better than that – he’s the doctor to the leaders of the field,’ said Vimes. I’m his guard and I didn’t see it coming.
‘It’d be terrible for the city if anything happened to him!’ said Carrot.
Vimes saw nothing but innocent concern behind Carrot’s forthright stare. ‘It would, wouldn’t it?’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s under control. You said there’s been another murder?’
‘At the Dwarf Bread Museum. Someone killed Mr Hopkinson with his own bread!’
‘Made him eat it?’
‘Hit him with it, sir,’ said Carrot reproachfully. ‘Battle Bread, sir.’
‘Is he the old man with the white beard?’
‘Yes, sir. You remember, I introduced you to him when I took you to see the Boomerang Biscuit exhibition.’
Angua thought she saw a faint wince of recollection speed guiltily across Vimes’s face. ‘Who’s going around killing old men?’ he said to the world at large.
‘Don’t know, sir. Constable Angua went plain clothes’ Carrot waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially – ‘and couldn’t find a sniff of anyone. And nothing was taken. This is what it was done with.’
The Battle Bread was much larger than an ordinary loaf. Vimes turned it over gingerly. ‘Dwarfs throw it like a discus, right?’
‘Yes, sir. At the Seven Mountains games last year Snori Shieldbiter took the tops off a line of six hard-boiled eggs at fifty yards, sir. And that was with just a standard hunting loaf. But this is, well, it’s a cultural artefact. We haven’t got the baking technology for bread like this any more. It’s unique.’
‘Valuable?’
‘Very, sir.’
‘Worth stealing?’
‘You’d never be able to get rid of it! Every honest dwarf would recognize it!’
‘Hmm. Did you hear about that priest being murdered on Misbegot Bridge?’
Carrot looked shocked. ‘Not old Father Tubelcek? Really?’
Vimes stopped himself from asking: ‘You know him, then?’ Because Carrot knew everyone. If Carrot were to be dropped into some dense tropical jungle it’d be ‘Hello, Mr Runs Swiftly Through The Trees! Good morning, Mr Talks To The Forest, what a splendid blowpipe! And what a novel place for a feather!’
‘Did he have more than one enemy?’ said Vimes.
‘Sorry, sir? Why more than one?’
‘I should say the fact that he had one is obvious, wouldn’t you?’
‘He is … he was a nice old chap,’ said Carrot. ‘Hardly stirred out. Spends . . . spent all his time with his books. Very religious. I mean, all kinds of religion. Studied them. Bit odd, but no harm in him. Why should anyone want to kill him? Or Mr Hopkinson? A pair of harmless old men?’
Vimes handed him the Battle Bread. ‘We shall find out. Constable Angua, I want you to have a look at this one. Take . . . yes, take Corporal Littlebottom,’ he said. ‘He’s been doing some work on it. Angua’s from Uberwald too, Littlebottom. Maybe you’ve got friends in common, that sort of thing.’
Carrot nodded cheerfully. Angua’s expression went wooden.
‘Ah, h’druk g’har dWatch, Sh’rt’azs!’ said Carrot. ‘H’h Angua tConstable . . . Angua g’har, b’hk bargr’a Sh’rt’azs Kad’k . . . ‘[10]
Angua appeared to concentrate. ‘Grr’dukk d’buz-h’drak . . .’ she managed.
Carrot laughed. ‘You just said “small delightful mining tool of a feminine nature”!’
Cheery stared at Angua, who returned the stare blankly while mumbling, ‘Well, dwarfish is difficult if you haven’t eaten gravel all your life . . .’
Cheery was still staring. ‘Er … thank you,’ he managed. ‘Er … I’d better go and tidy up.’
‘What about Lord Vetinari?’ said Carrot.
‘I’m putting my best man on that,’ said Vimes. ‘Trustworthy, reliable, knows the ins and outs of this place like the back of his hand. I’m handling it, in other words.’
Carrot’s hopeful expression faded to hurt puzzlement. ‘Don’t you want me to?’ he said. ‘I could’
‘No. Indulge an old man. I want you to go back to the Watch House and take care of things.’
‘What things?’
‘Everything! Rise to the occasion. Move paper around. There’s that new shift rota to draw up. Shout at people! Read reports!’
Carrot saluted. ‘Yes, Commander Vimes.’
‘Good. Off you go, then.’
And if anything happens to Vetinari, Vimes added to himself as the dejected Carrot went out, no one will be able to say you were anywhere near him.
The little grille in the gate of the Royal College of Arms snapped open, to the distant accompaniment of brayings and grunts. ‘Yes?’ said a voice, ‘what dost thee want?’
‘I’m Corporal Nobbs,’ said Nobby.
An eye applied itself to the grille. It took in the full, dreadful extent of the godly handiwork that was Corporal Nobbs.
‘Are you the baboon? We’ve had one on order for . . .’
‘No. I’ve come about some coat with arms,’ said Nobby.
‘You?’ said the voice. The owner of the voice made it very clear that he was aware there were degrees of nobility from something above kingship stretching all the way down to commoner, and that as far as Corporal Nobbs was concerned an entirely new category – commonest, perhaps – would have to be coined.
‘I’ve been told,’ said Nobby, miserably. ‘It’s about this ring I got.’
‘Go round the back door,’ said the voice.
Cheery was tidying away the makeshift equipment he’d set up in the privy when a sound made him look around. Angua was leaning against the doorway.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing. I just thought I’d say: don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘I think you’re lying.’
Cheery dropped a test tube, and sagged on to a seat. ‘How could you tell?’ he said. ‘Even other dwarfs can’t tell! I’ve been so careful!’
‘Shall we just say … I have special talents?’ said Angua.
Cheery started to clean a beaker distractedly.
‘I don’t know why you’re so upset,’ said Angua. ‘I thought dwarfs hardly recognized the difference between male and female, anyway. Half the dwarfs we bring in here on a No. 23 are female, I know that, and they’re the ones that are hardest to subdue . . .’
‘What’s a No. 23?’
. ‘ “Running Screaming at People While Drunk and Trying to Cut Their Knees off’,’ said Angua. ‘It’s easier to give them numbers than write it down every time. Look, there’s plenty of women in this town that’d love to do things the dwarf way. I mean, what’re the choices they’ve got? Barmaid, seamstress or someone’s wife. While you can do anything the men do . . .’
‘Provided we do only what the men do,’ said Cheery.
Angua paused. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I see. Hah. Yes. I know that tune.’
‘I can’t hold an axe!’ said Cheery. Im scared of fights! I think songs about gold are stupid! I hate beer! I can’t even drink dwarfishly! When I try to quaff I drown the dwarf behind me!’