Vimes saluted smartly. ‘Yessir! I’m a watchman, sir!’
‘Well, just you come along with me and arrest this thing. It’s disturbing the workers.’
‘What thing, sir?’
‘A golem, man! Walked into the factory as bold as you like and started painting on the damn walls!’
‘What factory, sir?’
‘You come with me, my man. I happen to be a very good friend of your commander and I can’t say I like your attitude.’
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ said Vimes, with a cheerfulness that Sergeant Colon had come to dread.
There was a nondescript factory on the other side of the street. The man strode in.
‘Er … he said “golem”, sir,’ murmured Colon.
Vimes had known Fred Colon a long time. ‘Yes, Fred, so it’s vitally important for you to stay on guard out here,’ he said.
The relief rose off Colon like steam. ‘That’s right, sir!’ he said.
The factory was full of sewing-machines. People were sitting meekly in front of them. It was the sort of thing the guilds hated, but since the Guild of Seamstresses didn’t take all that much interest in sewing there was no one to object. Endless belts led up from each machine to pulleys on a long spindle near the roof, which in turn were driven by … Vimes’s eyes followed it down the length of the workshop … a treadmill, now stationary and somewhat broken. A couple of golems were standing forlornly alongside it, looking lost.
There was a hole in the wall quite close to it and, above it, someone had written in red paint:
WORKERS! NO MASTERS BUT YOURSELVES!
Vimes grinned.
‘It smashed its way in, broke the treadmill, pulled my golems out, painted that stupid message on the wall and stamped out again!’ said the man behind him.
‘Hmm, yes, I see. A lot of people use oxen in their treadmills,’ said Vimes mildly.
‘What’s that got to do with it? Anyway, cattle can’t keep going twenty-four hours a day.’
Vimes’s gaze worked its way along the rows of workers. Their faces had that worried, Cockbill Street look that you got when you were cursed with pride as well as poverty.
‘No, indeed,’ he said. ‘Most of the clothing workshops are up at Nap Hill, but the wages are cheaper down here, aren’t they?’
‘People are jolly glad to get the work!’
‘Yes,’ said Vimes, looking at the faces again. ‘Glad.’ At the far end of the factory, he noted, the golems were trying to rebuild their treadmill.
‘Now you listen to me, what I want you to do is’ the factory-owner began.
Vimes’s hand gripped his collar and dragged him forward until his face was a few inches from Vimes’s own.
‘No, you listen to me,’ hissed Vimes. ‘I mix with crooks and thieves and thugs all day and that doesn’t worry me at all but after two minutes with you I need a bath. And if I find that damn golem I’ll shake its damn hand, you hear me?’
To the surprise of that part of Vimes that wasn’t raging, the man found enough courage to say ‘How dare you! You’re supposed to be the law!’
Vimes’s furious finger almost went up the man’s nose.
‘Where shall I start?’ he yelled. He glared at the two golems. ‘And why are you clowns repairing the treadmill?’ he shouted. ‘Good grief, haven’t got the sense you were bor Haven’t you got any sense?’
He stormed out of the building. Sergeant Colon stopped trying to scrape himself clean and ran to catch up with him.
‘I heard some people say they saw a golem come out of the other door, sir,’ he said. ‘It was a red one. You know, red clay. But the one that was after me was white, sir. Are you angry, Sam?’
‘Who’s that man who owns that place?’
‘That’s Mr Catterail, sir. You know, he’s always writing you letters about there being too many what he calls “lesser races” in the Watch. You know . . . trolls and dwarfs . . .’
The sergeant had to trot to keep up with him.
‘Get some zombies,’ said Vimes.
‘You’ve always been dead against zombies, excuse my pune,’ said Sergeant Colon.
‘Any want to join, are there?’
‘Oh, yessir. Couple of good lads, sir, and but for the grey skin hangin’ off ’em you’d swear they hadn’t been buried five minutes.’
‘Swear them in tomorrow.’
‘Right, sir. Good idea. And of course it’s a great saving not having to include them in the pension plan.’
They can patrol up on Kings Down. After all, they’re only human.’
‘Right, sir.’ When Sam is in these moods, Colon thought, you agree with everything. ‘You’re really getting the hang of this affirmative action stuff, eh sir?’
‘Right now I’d swear in a gorgon!’
‘There’s always Mr Bleakley, sir, he’s getting fed up with working in the kosher butcher’s and’
‘But no vampires. Never any vampires. Now let’s get a move on, Fred.’
Nobby Nobbs ought to have known. That’s what he told himself as he scuttled through the streets. All that stuff about kings and stuff- they’d wanted him to …
It was a terrible thought . . .
Volunteer.
Nobby had spent a lifetime in one uniform or another. And one of the most basic lessons he’d learned was that men with red faces and plummy voices never ever gave cushy numbers to the likes of Nobby. They’d ask for volunteers to do something ‘big and clean’ and you’d end up scrubbing some damn great drawbridge; they’d say, ‘Anyone here like good food?’ and you’d be peeling potatoes for a week. You never ever volunteered. Not even if a sergeant stood there and said, ‘We need someone to drink alcohol, bottles of, and make love, passionate, to women, for the use of.’ There was always a snag. If a choir of angels asked for volunteers for Paradise to step forward, Nobby knew enough to take one smart pace to the rear.
When the call came for Corporal Nobbs, it would not find him wanting. It would not find him at all.
Nobby avoided a herd of pigs in the middle of the street.
Even Mr Vimes never expected him to volunteer. He respected Nobby’s pride.
Nobby’s head ached. It must’ve been the quail’s eggs, he was sure. They couldn’t be healthy birds to lay titchy eggs like that.
He sidled past a cow that had got its head stuck in someone’s window.
Nobby as king? Oh, yes. No one ever gave a Nobbs anything except maybe a skin disease or sixty lashes. It was a dog-eat-Nobbs world, right enough. If there were to be a world competition for losers, a Nobbs would come firs last.
He stopped running and went to earth in a doorway. In its welcome shadows he extracted a very short cigarette end from behind his ear and lit it.
Now that he felt safe enough to think about more than flight he wondered about all the animals that seemed to be on the streets. Unlike the family tree that had borne Fred Colon as its fruit, the creeping vine of the Nobbses had flourished only within city walls. Nobby was vaguely aware of animals as being food in a primary stage and left it at that. But he was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be wandering around untidily like this.
Gangs of men were trying to round them up. Since they were tired and working at cross-purposes, and the animals were hungry and bewildered, all that was happening was that the streets were getting a lot muddier.
Nobby became aware that he was not alone in the doorway.
He looked down.
Also lurking in the shadows was a goat. It was unkempt and smelly, but it turned its head and gave Nobby the most knowing look he’d ever seen on the face of an animal. Unexpectedly, and most uncharacteristically, Nobby was struck by a surge of fellow-rfeeling.
He pinched out the end of his cigarette and passed it down to the goat, which ate it.
‘You and me both,’ said Nobby.
Miscellaneous livestock scattered madly as Carrot, Angua and Cheri made their way down the Shambles. They especially tried to keep away from Angua. It seemed to Cheri that an invisible barrier was advancing in front of them. Some animals tried to climb walls or scattered madly into side alleys.
‘Why are they so scared?’ said Cheri.
‘Can’t imagine,’ said Angua.
A few maddened sheep ran away from them as they walked around the candle-factory. Light from its high windows indicated that candlemaking continued all night.
They make nearly half a million candles every twenty-four hours,’ said Carrot. ‘I heard they’ve got very advanced machinery. It sounds very interesting. I’d love to see it.’
At the rear of the premises light blazed out into the fog. Crates of candles were being manhandled on to a succession of carts.
‘Looks normal enough,’ said Carrot, as they eased themselves into a conveniently shadowy doorway. ‘Busy, though.’