Guards! Guards! (38 page)

“It’s all part of the natural order of things,” he said.

After a while he made a few pencil annotations to the paper in front of him and looked up.

“I said,” he said, “that you may go.”

Vimes paused at the door.

“Do you believe all that, sir?” he said. “About the endless evil and the sheer blackness?”

“Indeed, indeed,” said the Patrician, turning over the page. “It is the only logical conclusion.”

“But you get out of bed every morning, sir?”

“Hmm? Yes? What is your point?”

“I’d just like to know
why
, sir.”

“Oh, do go away, Vimes. There’s a good fellow.”

In the dark and drafty cave hacked from the heart of the palace the Librarian knuckled across the floor. He clambered over the remains of the sad hoard and looked down at the splayed body of Wonse.

Then he reached down, very gently, and prised
The Summoning of Dragons
from the stiffening fingers. He blew the dust off it. He brushed it tenderly, as if it was a frightened child.

He turned to climb down the heap, and stopped. He bent down again, and carefully pulled another book from among the glittering rubble. It wasn’t one of his, except in the wide sense that all books came under his domain. He turned a few pages carefully.

“Keep it,” said Vimes behind him. “Take it away. Put it somewhere.”

The orangutan nodded at the captain, and rattled down the heap. He tapped Vimes gently on the kneecap, opened
The Summoning of Dragons
, leafed through its ravaged pages until he found the one he’d been looking for, and silently passed the book up.

Vimes squinted at the crabbed writing.

Yet draggons are notte liken unicornes, I willen. They dwellyth in some Realm definèd bye thee Fancie of the Wille and, thus, it myte bee thate whomsoever calleth upon them, and giveth them theyre patheway unto thys worlde, calleth theyre Owne dragon of the Mind.

Yette, I trow, the Pure in Harte maye stille call a Draggon of Power as a Forse for Goode in thee worlde, and this ane nighte the Grate Worke will commense. All bathe been prepared. I hath labored most mytily to be a Worthie Vessle
…

A realm of fancy, Vimes thought. That’s where they went, then. Into our imaginations. And when we call them back we shape them, like squeezing dough into pastry shapes. Only you don’t get gingerbread men, you get what you are. Your own darkness, given shape…

Vimes read it through again, and then looked at the following pages.

There weren’t many. The rest of the book was a charred mass.

Vimes handed it back to the ape.

“What kind of a man was de Malachite?” he said.

The Librarian gave this the consideration due from someone who knew the
Dictionary of City Biography
by heart. Then he shrugged.

“Particularly holy?” said Vimes.

The ape shook his head.

“Well, noticeably evil, then?”

The ape shrugged, and shook his head again.

“If I were you,” said Vimes, “I’d put that book somewhere very safe. And the book of the Law with it. They’re too bloody dangerous.”

“Oook.”

Vimes stretched. “And now,” he said, “let’s go and have a drink.”

“Oook.”

“But just a small one.”

“Oook.”

“And you’re paying.”

“Eeek.”

Vimes stopped and stared down at the big, mild face.

“Tell me,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to know…is it
better
, being an ape?”

The Librarian thought about it. “Oook,” he said.

“Oh. Really?” said Vimes.

It was next day. The room was wall-to-wall with civic dignitaries. The Patrician sat on his severe chair, surrounded by the Council. Everyone present was wearing the shiny waxen grins of those bent on good works.

Lady Sybil Ramkin sat off to one side, wearing a few acres of black velvet. The Ramkin family jewels glittered on her fingers, neck and in the black curls of today’s wig. The total effect was striking, like a globe of the heavens.

Vimes marched the rank to the center of the hall and stamped to a halt with his helmet under his arm, as per regulations. He’d been amazed to see that even Nobby had made an effort—the suspicion of shiny metal could be seen here and there on his breastplate. And Colon was wearing an expression of almost constipated importance. Carrot’s armor gleamed.

Colon ripped off a textbook salute for the first time in his life.

“All present and correct, sah!” he barked.

“Very good, Sergeant,” said Vimes coldly. He turned to the Patrician and raised an eyebrow politely.

Lord Vetinari gave a little wave of his hand.

“Stand easy, or whatever it is you chaps do,” he said. “I’m sure we needn’t wait on ceremony here. What do you say, Captain?”

“Just as you like, sir,” said Vimes.

“Now, men,” said the Patrician, leaning forward, “we have heard some remarkable accounts of your magnificent efforts in defense of the city…”

Vimes let his mind wander as the golden platitudes floated past. For a while he derived a certain amount of amusement from watching the faces of the Council. A whole sequence of expressions drifted across them as the Patrician spoke. It was, of course, vitally important that there be a ceremony like this. Then the whole thing could be neat and
settled
. And forgotten. Just another chapter in the long and exciting history of eckcetra, eckcetra. Ankh-Morpork was good at starting new chapters.

His trawling gaze fell on Lady Ramkin. She winked. Vimes’s eyes swiveled front again, his expression suddenly as wooden as a plank.

“…token of our gratitude,” the Patrician finished, sitting back.

Vimes realized that everyone was looking at him.

“Pardon?” he said.

“I
said
, we have been trying to think of some suitable recompense, Captain Vimes. Various public-spirited citizens—” the Patrician’s eyes took in the Council and Lady Ramkin—“and, of course, myself, feel that an appropriate reward is due.”

Vimes still looked blank.

“Reward?” he said.

“It
is
customary for such heroic endeavor,” said the Patrician, a little testily.

Vimes faced forward again. “Really haven’t thought about it, sir,” he said. “Can’t speak for the men, of course.”

There was an awkward pause. Out of the corner of his eye Vimes was aware of Nobby nudging the sergeant in the ribs. Eventually Colon stumbled forward and ripped off another salute. “Permission to speak, sir,” he muttered.

The Patrician nodded graciously.

The sergeant coughed. He removed his helmet and pulled out a scrap of paper.

“Er,” he said. “The thing is, saving your honor’s presence, we think, you know, what with saving the city and everything, or sort of, or, what I mean is…we just had a go, you see, man on the spot and that sort of thing…the thing is, we reckon we’re entitled. If you catch my drift.”

The assembled company nodded. This was exactly how it should be.

“Do go on,” said the Patrician.

“So we, like, put our heads together,” said the sergeant. “A bit of a cheek, I know…”

“Please carry
on
, Sergeant,” said the Patrician. “You needn’t keep stopping. We are well aware of the
magnitude
of the matter.”

“Right, sir. Well, sir. First, it’s the wages.”

“The wages?” said Lord Vetinari. He stared at Vimes, who stared at nothing.

The sergeant raised his head. His expression was the determined expression of a man who is going to see it through.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Thirty dollars a month. It’s not right. We think—” he licked his lips and glanced behind him at the other two, who were making vague encouraging motions—“we think a basic rate of, er, thirty-five dollars? A month?” He stared at the Patrician’s stony expression. “With increments as per rank? We thought five dollars.”

He licked his lips again, unnerved by the Patrician’s expression. “We won’t go below four,” he said. “And that’s flat. Sorry, your Highness, but there it is.”

The Patrician glanced again at Vimes’s impassive face, then looked back at the rank.

“That’s
it
?” he said.

Nobby whispered in Colon’s ear and then darted back. The sweating sergeant gripped his helmet as though it was the only real thing in the world.

“There was another thing, your reverence,” he said.

“Ah.” The Patrician smiled knowingly.

“There’s the kettle. It wasn’t much good anyway, and then Errol et it. It was nearly two dollars.” He swallowed. “We could do with a new kettle, if it’s all the same, your lordship.”

The Patrician leaned forward, gripping the arms of his chair.

“I want to be clear about this,” he said coldly. “Are we to believe that you are asking for a petty wage increase and a domestic utensil?”

Carrot whispered in Colon’s other ear.

Colon turned two bulging, watery-rimmed eyes to the dignitaries. The rim of his helmet was passing through his fingers like a millwheel.

“Well,” he began, “sometimes, we thought, you know, when we has our dinner break, or when it’s quiet, like, at the end of a watch as it may be, and we want to relax a bit, you know, wind down…” His voice trailed away.

“Yes?”

Colon took a deep breath.

“I suppose a dartboard would be out of the question—?”

The thunderous silence that followed was broken by an erratic snorting.

Vimes’s helmet dropped out of his shaking hand. His breastplate wobbled as the suppressed laughter of the years burst out in great uncontrollable eruptions. He turned his face to the row of councillors and laughed and laughed until the tears came.

Laughed at the way they got up, all confusion and outraged dignity.

Laughed at the Patrician’s carefully immobile expression.

Laughed for the world and the saving of souls.

Laughed and laughed, and laughed until the tears came.

Nobby craned up to reach Colon’s ear.

“I
told
you,” he hissed. “I
said
they’d never wear it. I
knew
a dartboard’d be pushing our luck. You’ve upset ’em all now.”

Dear Mother and Father [wrote Carrot] You will never guess, I have been in the Watch only a few weeks and, already I am to be a full Constable. Captain Vimes said, the Patrician himself said I was to be One, and that also he hoped I should have a long and successful career in the Watch as well and, he would follow it with special interest. Also my wages are to go up by ten dollars and we had a special bonus of twenty dollars that Captain Vimes paid for out of his own pocket, Sgt. Colon said. Please find money enclosed. I am keeping a little bit by though because I went to see Reet and Mrs. Palm said all the girls had been following my career with Great Interest as well and I am to come to dinner on my night off. Sgt. Colon has been telling me about how to start courting, which is very interesting and not at all complicated it appears. I arrested a dragon but it got away. I hope Mr. Varneshi is well.

I am as happy as anyone can be in the whole world.

Your son, Carrot.

Vimes knocked on the door.

An effort had been made to spruce up the Ramkin mansion, he noticed. The encroaching shrubbery had been pitilessly hacked back. An elderly workman atop a ladder was nailing the stucco back on the walls while another, with a spade, was rather arbitrarily defining the line where the lawn ended and the old flower beds had begun.

Vimes stuck his helmet under his arm, smoothed back his hair, and knocked. He’d considered asking Sergeant Colon to accompany him, but had brushed the idea aside quickly. He couldn’t have tolerated the sniggering. Anyway, what was there to be afraid of? He’d stared into the jaws of death three times; four, if you included telling Lord Vetinari to shut up.

To his amazement the door was eventually opened by a butler so elderly that he might have been resurrected by the knocking.

“Yerss?” he said.

“Captain Vimes, City Watch,” said Vimes.

The man looked him up and down.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Her ladyship did say. I believe her ladyship is with her dragons,” he said. “If you like to wait in ’ere, I will—”

“I know the way,” said Vimes, and set off around the overgrown path.

The kennels were a ruin. An assortment of battered wooden boxes were lying around under an oilcloth awning. From their depths a few sad swamp dragons whiffled a greeting at him.

A couple of women were moving purposefully among the boxes. Ladies, rather. They were far too untidy to be mere women. No ordinary women would have dreamed of looking so scruffy; you needed the complete self-confidence that comes with knowing who your great-great-great-great-grandfather was before you could wear clothes like that. But they were, Vimes noticed, incredibly good clothes, or had been once; clothes bought by one’s parents, but so expensive and of such good quality that they never wore out and were handed down, like old china and silverware and gout.

Dragon breeders, he thought. You can tell. There’s something about them. It’s the way they wear their silk scarves, old tweed coats and granddad’s riding boots. And the smell, of course.

A small wiry woman with a face like old saddle leather caught sight of him.

“Ah,” she said, “you’ll be the gallant captain.” She tucked an errant strand of white hair back under a headscarf and extended a veiny brown hand. “Brenda Rodley. That’s Rosie Devant-Molei. She runs the Sunshine Sanctuary, you know.” The other woman, who had the build of someone who could pick up carthorses in one hand and shoe them with the other, gave him a friendly grin.

“Samuel Vimes,” said Vimes weakly.

“My father was a Sam,” said Brenda vaguely. “You can always trust a Sam, he said.” She shooed a dragon back into its box. “We’re just helping Sybil. Old friends, you know. The collection’s all to blazes, of course. They’re all over the city, the little devils. I dare say they’ll come back when they’re hungry, though. What a bloodline, eh?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Sybil reckons he was a sport, but I say we should be able to breed back into the line in three or four generations. I’m famed for my stud, you know,” she said. “That’d be something, though. A whole new type of dragon.”