‘Wha . . . what? You’ve got the money back, haven’t you?’
Two of his employees had to hold Mr Ironcrust back.
‘Three years!’ he said. ‘Three years and no one bothered! Three bloody years and not so much as a knock at the door! And he’ll ask me! Oh, yes! He’ll be nice about it! He’ll probably even go and get the extra forms so I won’t be put to the trouble! Why couldn’t you buggers have just run away?’
Vimes peered around the shadowy, musty room. The voice might as well have come from a tomb.
A panicky look crossed the face of the little Herald. ‘Perhaps Sir Samuel would be kind enough to step this way?’ said the voice. It was chilly, clipping every syllable with precision. It was the kind of voice that didn’t blink.
‘That is, in fact, er … Dragon/ said Red Crescent.
Vimes reached for his sword.
‘Dragon King of Arms,’ said the man.
‘King of Arms?’ said Vimes.
‘Merely a title,’ said the voice. ‘Pray enter.’
For some reason the words re-spelled themselves in Vimes’s hindbrain as ‘prey, enter’.
‘King of Arms,’ said the voice of Dragon, as Vimes passed into the shadows of the inner sanctum. ‘You will not need your sword, Commander. I have been Dragon King of Arms for more than five hundred years but I do not breathe fire, I assure you. Ah-ha. Ah-ha.’
‘Ah-ha,’ said Vimes. He couldn’t see the figure clearly. The light came from a few high and grubby windows, and several dozen candles that burned with black-edged flames. There was a suggestion of hunched shoulders in the shape before him.
‘Pray be seated,’ said Dragon King of Arms. ‘And I would be most indebted if you would look to your left and raise your chin.’
‘And expose my neck, you mean?’ said Vimes.
‘Ah-ha. Ah-ha.’
The figure picked up a candelabrum and moved closer. A hand so skinny as to be skeletal gripped Vimes’s chin and moved it gently this way and that.
‘Ah, yes. You have the Vimes profile, certainly. But not the Vimes ears. Of course, your maternal grandmother was a Clamp. Ah-ha . . .’
The Vimes hand gripped the Vimes sword again. There was only one type of person that had that much strength in a body so apparently frail.
‘I thought so! You are a vampire!’ he said. ‘You’re a bloody vampire.’
‘Ah-ha.’ It might have been a laugh. It might have been a cough. ‘Yes. Vampire, indeed. Yes, I’ve heard about your views on vampires. “Not really alive but not dead enough,” I believe you have said. I think that is rather clever. Ah-ha. Vampire, yes. Bloody, no. Black puddings, yes. The acme of the butcher’s art, yes. And if all else fails there are plenty of kosher butchers down in Long Hogmeat. Ah-ha, yes. We all live in the best way we can. Ah-ha. Virgins are safe from me. Ah-ha. For several hundred years, more’s the pity. Ah-ha.’
The shape, and the pool of candlelight, moved away.
‘I’m afraid your time has been needlessly wasted, Commander Vimes.’
Vimes’s eyes were growing accustomed to the flickering light. The room was full of books, in piles. None of them were on shelves. Each one sprouted bookmarks like squashed fingers.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. Either Dragon King of Arms had very hunched shoulders or there were wings under his shapeless robe. Some of them could fly like a bat, Vimes recalled. He wondered how old this one was. They could ‘live’ almost forever . . .
‘I believe you’re here because it is considered, ah-ha, appropriate that you have a coat of arms. I am afraid that this is not possible. Ah-ha. A Vimes coat of arms has existed, but it cannot be resurrected. It would be against the rules.’
‘What rules?’
There was a thump as a book was taken down and opened.
‘I’m sure you know your ancestry, Commander. Your father was Thomas Vimes, his father was Gwilliam Vimes’
‘It’s Old Stoneface, isn’t it,’ said Vimes flatly. ‘It’s something to do with Old Stoneface.’
‘Indeed. Ah-ha. Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes. Your ancestor. Old Stoneface, indeed, as he was called. Commander of the City Watch in 1688. And a regicide. He murdered the last king of Ankh-Morpork, as every schoolboy knows.’
‘Executed!’
The shoulders shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, the family crest was, as we say in heraldry, Excretus Est Ex Altitudine, That is to say, Depositatum De Latrina. Destroyed. Banned. Made incapable of resurrection. Lands confiscated, house pulled down, page torn out of history. Ah-ha. You know, Commander, it is interesting that so many of, ah-ha, “Old Stoneface’s” descendants’ – the inverted commas dropped neatly around the nickname like an old lady carefully picking up something nasty in a pair of tongs – ‘have been officers of the Watch. I believe, Commander, that you too have acquired the nickname. Ah-ha. Ah-ha. I have wondered whether there is some inherited urge to expunge the infamy. Ah-ha.’
Vimes gritted his teeth. ‘Are you telling me I can’t have a coat of arms?’
This is so. Ah-ha.’
‘Because my ancestor killed a’ He paused. ‘No, it wasn’t even execution,’ he said. ‘You execute a human being. You slaughter an animal.’
‘He was the king,’ said Dragon mildly.
‘Oh, yes. And it turned out that down in the dungeons he had machines for’
‘Commander,’ said the vampire, holding up his hands, ‘I feel you do not understand me. Whatever else he was, he was the king. You see, a crown is not like a Watchman’s helmet, ah-ha. Even when you take it off, it’s still on the head.’
‘Stoneface took it off all right!’
‘But the king did not even get a trial.’
‘No willing judge could be found,’ said Vimes.
‘Except you . . . that is, your ancestor . . .’
‘Well? Someone had to do it. Some monsters should not walk under the living sky.’
Dragon found the page he had been looking for and turned the book around. This was his escutcheon,’ he said.
Vimes looked down at the familiar sign of the morpork owl perched on an ankh. It was atop a shield divided into four quarters, with a symbol in each quarter.
‘What’s this crown with a dagger through it?’
‘Oh, a traditional symbol, ah-ha. Indicates his role as defender of the crown.’
‘Really? And the bunch of rods with an axe in it?’ He pointed.
‘A fasces. Symbolizes that he is . . . was an officer of the law. And the axe was an interesting harbinger of things to come, yes? But axes, I’m afraid, solve nothing.’
Vimes stared at the third quarter. It contained a painting of what seemed to be a marble bust.
‘Symbolizing his nickname, “Old Stoneface”,’ said Dragon helpfully. ‘He asked that some reference be made. Sometimes heraldry is nothing more than the art of punning.’
‘And this last one? A bunch of grapes? Bit of a boozer, was he?’ said Vimes sourly.
‘No. Ah-ha. Word play. Vimes = Vines.’
‘Ah. The art of bad punning,’ said Vimes. ‘I bet that had you people rolling on the floor.’
Dragon shut the book and sighed. There is seldom a reward for those who do what must be done. Alas, such is precedent, and I am powerless.’ The old voice brightened up. ‘But, still … I was extremely pleased, Commander, to hear of your marriage to Lady Sybil. An excellent lineage. One of the most noble families in the city, ah-ha. The Ramkins, the Selachiis, the Venturis, the Nobbses, of course . . .’
That’s it, is it?’ said Vimes. ‘I just go now?’
‘I seldom get visitors,’ said Dragon. ‘Generally people are seen by the Heralds, but I thought you should get a proper explanation. Ah-ha. We’re so busy now. Once we dealt with real heraldry. But this, they tell me, is the Century of the Fruitbat. Now it seems that, as soon as a man opens his second meat-pie shop, he feels impelled to consider himself a gentleman.’ He waved a thin white hand at three coats of arms pinned in a row on a board. ‘The butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker,’ he sneered, but genteelly. ‘Well, the candlemaker, in point of fact. Nothing will do but that we burrow through the records and prove them acceptably armigerous . . .’
Vimes glanced at the three shields. ‘Haven’t I seen that one before?’ he said.
‘Ah. Mr Arthur Carry the candlemaker,’ said Dragon. ‘Suddenly business is booming and he feels he must be a gentleman. A shield bisected by a bend sinister d’une meche en metal gris – that is to say, a steel grey shield indicating his personal determination and zeal (how zealous, ah-ha, these businessmen are!) bisected by a wick. Upper half, a chandelle in a fenetre avec rideaux houlant (a candle lighting a window with a warm glow, ah-ha), lower half two chandeliers illumine (indicating the wretched man sells candles to rich and poor alike). Fortunately his father was a harbourmaster, which fact allowed us to stretch ourselves a little with a crest of a lampe au poisson (fish-shaped lamp), indicating both this and his son’s current profession. The motto I left in the common modern tongue and is “Art Brought Forth the Candle”. I’m sorry, ah-ha, it was naughty but I couldn’t resist it.’