Snuff (5 page)

“This is Hangman's Hill,” said Willikins, as Vimes got his breath back. “And you might not want to go any further,” he said as they neared the summit, “unless, that is, you want to explain to your young lad what a gibbet is.”

Vimes looked questioningly at his servant. “Really?”

“Well, as I say, this is Hangman's Hill. Why do you think they named it that, sir? ‘Black Jack' Ramkin was regrettably mistaken when he made an enormous drunken wager with one of his equally drunk drinking pals that he could see the smoke of the city from his estate. He was told by a surveyor, who had tested the hypothesis, that the hill was thirty feet too short. Pausing only to attempt to bribe the surveyor and when unsuccessful to subsequently horsewhip the same, he rallied all the working men from this estate and all the others round here and set them to raise the hill by the aforesaid thirty feet, a most ambitious project. It cost a fortune, of course, but every family in the district probably got warm winter clothes and new boots out of it. It made him very popular, and of course he won his bet.”

Vimes sighed. “Somehow I think I know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask anyway: how much was the bet?”

“Two gallons of brandy,” said Willikins triumphantly, “which he drank in one go while standing on this very spot, to the cheers of the assembled workforce, and then, according to legend, rolled all the way down to the bottom, to more cheers.”

“Even when I was a boozer I don't think I could have taken two gallons of brandy,” said Vimes. “That's twelve bottles!”

“Well, toward the end I expect a lot of it went down his trousers, one way or the other. There were plenty like him, even so…”

“All down his trousers,” Young Sam piped up, and dissolved into that curious hoarse laughter of a six-year-old who thinks he has heard something naughty. And by the sound of it the workmen who had cheered the old drunk had thought the same way. Cheering a man drinking a year's wages in one go? What was the point?

Willikins must have read his thoughts. “The country isn't as subtle as the city, commander. They like big and straightforward things here, and Black Jack was as big and as straight as you could hope for. That's why they liked him, because they knew where they stood, even if he was about to fall down. I bet they boasted about him all over the Shires. I can just imagine it.
Our drunken old lord can outdrink your drunken old lord any day of the week
, and they would be proud of it. I'm sure you thought you were doing the right thing when you shook hands with the gardener, but you puzzled people. They don't know what to make of you. Are you a man or a master? Are you a nob or one of them? Because, commander, from where they sit no man can be both. It would be against nature. And the countryside doesn't like puzzles, either.”

“Big puzzled trousers!” said Young Sam and fell on the grass, overwhelmed with humor.

“I don't know what to make of me either,” said Vimes, picking up his son and following Willikins down the slope. “But Sybil does. She's got me marked down for balls, dances, dinners, and, oh yes, soirées,” he finished, in the tones of a man genetically programmed to distrust any word with an acute accent in it. “I mean, that sort of thing in the city I've come to terms with. If I reckon that it's going to be too bloody dreadful I make certain I get called out in an emergency halfway through—at least I used to, before Sybil twigged on. It's a terrible thing when a man's employees take their orders from his wife, you know?”

“Yes, commander. She has given the kitchen staff orders that no bacon sandwiches are to be prepared without her express permission.”

Vimes winced. “You brought the little cookery kit, didn't you?”

“Unfortunately, her ladyship knows about our little cookery kit, commander. She has forbidden the kitchen to give me bacon unless the order comes directly from her.”

“Honestly, she's as bad as Vetinari! How does she find out all this stuff?”

“As a matter of fact, commander, I don't think she does, at least as an actual fact. She just
knows
you. Perhaps you should think of it as amiable suspicion. We should be getting along, commander. I'm told there is chicken salad for lunch.”

“Do I like chicken salad?”

“Yes, commander, her ladyship tells me that you do.”

Vimes gave in. “Then I do.”

B
ack in Scoone Avenue, Vimes and Sybil generally took only one meal a day together, in the kitchen, which was always pleasantly snug by then. They sat facing one another at the table, which was long enough to carry Vimes's huge collection of sauce bottles, mustard pots, pickles and, of course, chutneys, Vimes being of the popular persuasion that no jar of pickles is ever truly empty if you rattle the spoon around inside it long enough.

Things were different at the Hall. For one thing there was far too much food. Vimes had not been born yesterday, or even the day before, and refrained from commenting.

Willikins served Vimes and Lady Sybil. Strictly speaking it wasn't his job while they were away from home, but strictly speaking most gentlemen's gentlemen didn't carry a set of brass knuckles in their well-cut jacket either.

“And what did you boys do this morning?” said Sybil cheerfully, as the plates were emptied.

“We saw the stinky bone man!” said Young Sam. “He was like all beard, but stinky! And we found the smelly apple tree which is like poo!”

Lady Sybil's placid expression did not change. “And then you came down the roly-poly hill, didn't you? And what about the ha-ha, the ho-ho and the he-he?”

“Yes, but there's all cow poo! I treaded in it!” Young Sam waited for an adult response, and his mother said, “Well, you've got your new country boots, haven't you? Treading in cow poo is what they're for.”

Sam Vimes watched his son's face glow with impossible pleasure as his mother went on. “Your grandfather always told me that if I saw a big pile of muck in a field I should kick it around a bit so as to spread it evenly, because that way
all
the grass will grow properly.” She smiled at Vimes's expression and said, “Well, it's true, dear. A lot of farming is about manure.”

“Just so long as he understands that he doesn't start kicking up the gutters when he gets back to the city,” Vimes said. “Some of that stuff will kick back.”

“He should learn about the countryside. He should know where food comes from and how we get it. This is important, Sam!”

“Of course, dear.”

Lady Sybil gave her husband a look only a wife can give. “That was your put-upon-but-dutiful voice, Sam.”

“Yes, but I don't see—”

Sybil interrupted him. “Young Sam will own all this one day and I'd like him to have some idea about it all, just as I'd like you to relax and enjoy your holiday. I'm taking Young Sam over to Home Farm later on, to see the cows being milked, and to collect some eggs.” She stood up. “But first I'm going to take him down to the crypt, to see his ancestors.” She noted her husband's look of panic and added, quickly, “It's all right, Sam, they aren't walking around; they are, in fact, in very expensive boxes. Why don't you come too?”

S
am Vimes was no stranger to death, and vice versa. It was the suicides that got him down. They were mostly hangings, because you would have to be extremely suicidal to jump into the River Ankh, not least because you would bounce several times before you broke through the crust. And they all had to be investigated, just in case it was a murder in disguise,
*
and whereas Mr. Trooper, the current city hangman, could drop someone into eternity so quickly and smoothly that they probably didn't notice, too often Vimes had seen what amateurs managed to do.

The Ramkin family crypt reminded him of the city morgue after hours. It was crowded; some coffins were stacked edgewise, as though they were on shelves in the mortuary, but, it was to be hoped, they didn't slide out. Vimes watched warily as his wife carefully took their son from plaque to plaque reading out the names and explaining a little about every occupant, and he felt the cold, bottomless depths of time around him, somehow breathing from the walls. How could it feel for Young Sam to know the names of all those grandfathers and grandmothers down the centuries? Vimes had never known his father. His mum told him that the man had been run over by a cart, but Vimes suspected that if this was true at all, then it was probably a brewer's cart, which had “run him over” a bit at a time for years. Oh, of course there was Old Stoneface, the regicide, now rehabilitated and with his own statue in the city which was never graffitied because Vimes had made it clear what would happen to the perpetrator.

But Old Stoneface was just a point in time, a kind of true myth. There wasn't a line between him and Sam Vimes, only an aching gulf.

Still, Young Sam would be a duke one day, and that was a thought worth hanging on to. He wouldn't grow up worrying about what he was, because he would
know
, and the influence of his mother might just outweigh the enormous drag factor of having Samuel Vimes as a father. Young Sam would be able to shake up the world the right way. You need confidence to do that, and having a bunch of (apparently) loony but interesting ancestors could only impress the man in the street, and Vimes knew a lot of streets, and a lot of men.

Willikins hadn't entirely told the truth. Even city people liked a character, especially a black-hearted one or one interesting enough to materially add to the endless crazy circus show which was the street life of Ankh-Morpork, and while having a drunkard for a father was a social faux pas, having a great-great-great-grandfather who could drink so much brandy that his urine must surely have been inflammable, and then, according to Willikins, proceeded to go home to a meal of turbot followed by roast goose (with appropriate wines) and then played a hand of saddle pork
*
with his cronies until dawn, winning back his earlier losses…Well, people loved that sort of thing, and that sort of person, who kicked the world in the arse and shouted at it. That was an ancestor to be proud of, surely?

“I think…I'd like to go for a walk by myself,” said Vimes. “You know, have a look round, poke about a bit, get the hang of this countryside business at my own pace.”

“Willikins ought to accompany you, dear,” said Lady Sybil, “just in case.”

“In case of what, my dear? I walk around the streets of the city every night, don't I? I don't think I need a chaperone for a stroll in the country, do I? I'm trying to get into the spirit of things. I'll look at daffodils to see if they fill me with joy, or whatever it is they're supposed to do, and keep an eye open for the very rare grebe warbler and watch the moles take flight. I've been reading the nature notes in the paper for weeks. I think I know how to do this by myself, dear. The commander of the Watch is not afraid to spot the spotted flycatcher!”

Lady Sybil had learned from experience when it was wise not to argue, and contented herself with saying, “Don't upset anybody, at least, will you, dear?”

A
fter ten minutes of walking, Vimes was lost. Not physically lost but metaphorically, spiritually and peripatetically lost. The fragrances of the hedgerows were somehow without body compared with the robust stinks of the city, and he had not the faintest idea what was rustling in the undergrowth. He recognized heifers and bullocks, because he often walked through the slaughterhouse district, but the ones out here weren't bewildered by fear and stared at him carefully as he walked past as if they were calmly taking notes. Yes—that was it! The world was back to front! He was a copper, he had always been a copper, and he would die a copper. You never stopped being a copper, on the whole, and as a copper he walked around the city more or less invisible, except to those people who make it their business to spot coppers, and whose livelihood depends upon their spotting coppers before coppers spot them. Mostly you were part of the scenery, until the scream, the tinkle of broken glass and the sound of felonious footsteps brought you into focus.

But here
everything
was watching him. Things darted away behind a hedge, flew up in panic or just rustled suspiciously in the undergrowth. He was the stranger, the interloper, not wanted here.

He turned another corner, and there was the village. He had seen the chimneys some way off, but the lanes and footpaths criss-crossed one another in a tangle, repeated in the overflowing hedgerows and trees, that made tunnels of shade—which were welcome—and played merry hells with his sense of direction, which was not.

He had lost all his bearings and was hot and bothered by the time he came out into a long dusty lane with thatched cottages on either side and halfway down a large building which had “pub” written all over it, particularly by the three old men who were sitting on the bench outside it eyeing the approaching Vimes hopefully in case he was the kind of man who would buy another man a pint. They wore clothes that looked as if they had been nailed on. Then, when he got closer, one said something to the other two and they stood up as he passed, index fingers touching their hat brims. One of them said, “Garternoon, yer grace,” a phrase which Vimes interpreted after a little thought. There was also a slight and meaningful tip of the empty tankards to indicate that they were, in fact, empty tankards and therefore an anomaly in need of rectification.

Vimes knew what was expected of him. There wasn't a pub in Ankh-Morpork which didn't have the equivalent three old men sunning themselves outside and ever ready to talk to strangers about the good old days, i.e., when the tankards they were nursing still had beer in them. And the form was that you filled them up with cheap ale and got a “Well, thank you, kind sir,” and quite possibly little bubbles of information about who had been seen where doing what and with whom and when, all grist to the copper's mill.

But the expressions on these three changed when another of them whispered hurriedly to his cronies. They pushed themselves back on the wooden seat as if trying to make themselves inconspicuous while still clasping the empty flagons because, well, you never knew. A sign over the door proclaimed that this was the Goblin's Head.

Opposite the pub was a large open space laid, as they say, to grass. A few sheep grazed on it and toward the far end was a large stack of wood licker wicker wood hurdles, the purpose of which Vimes could not guess. He was, however, familiar with the term “village green,” although he had never seen one. Ankh-Morpork wasn't very big on greens.

The pub smelled of stale beer. This helped as a bulwark against temptation, although Vimes had been clean for years, and could face the occasional sherry at official events, because he hated the taste of it anyway. The smell of antique beer had the same effect. By the pitiful light of the tiny windows Vimes made out an elderly man industriously polishing a tankard. The man looked up at Vimes and gave him a nod, the basic nod which is understood everywhere as meaning “I see you, you see me, it's up to you what happens next,” although some publicans can put an inflection on a nod which also manages to convey the information that there might just be a two-foot length of lead piping under the counter should the party of the second part want to start anything, as it were.

Vimes said, “Do you serve anything that isn't alcoholic?”

The barman very carefully hung the tankard on a hook over the bar and then looked directly at Vimes and said, without rancor, “Well, you see, sir, this is what we call a pub. People gets stuffy about it if I leaves out the alcohol.” He drummed his fingers on the bar for a moment and went on, uncertainly, “My wife makes root beer, if that takes your fancy?”

“What kind of root?”

“Beetroot, as it happens, sir. It's good for keeping you regular.”

“Well, I've always thought of myself as a regular kind of person,” said Vimes. “Give me a pint—no, make that half a pint, thanks.” There was another nod and the man disappeared briefly behind the scenes and came back with a large glass overflowing with red foam. “There you go,” he said, putting it carefully on the bar. “We don't put it in pewter because it does something to the metal. This one is on the house, sir. My name is Jiminy, landlord of the Goblin's Head. I dare say I know yours. My daughter is a maid at the big house, and I treat every man alike, the reason being that the publican is a friend to any man with money in his pockets and also, if the whim takes him, perhaps even to those who temporarily find themselves stony broke, which does not, at the moment, include them three herberts outside. The publican sees all men after a couple of pints, and sees no reason to discriminate.”

Jiminy winked at Vimes, who held out his hand and said, “Then I'll happily shake the hand of a republican!”

Vimes was familiar with the ridiculous litany. Every man who served behind a bar thought of himself as one of the world's great thinkers and it was wise to treat him as such. After the handshake he added, “This juice is pretty good. Rather tangy.”

“Yes, sir, my wife puts chilli peppers in it, and celery seed to make a man think that he's drinking something with bones in.”

Vimes leaned on the bar, inexplicably at peace. The wall over the bar was hung with the heads of dead animals, particularly those possessed of antlers and fangs, but it came as a shock to spot, in the grubby light, a goblin's head. I'm on holiday, he thought, and that probably happened a long time ago, ancient history, and he left it at that.

Mr. Jiminy busied himself with the dozens of little tasks that a barman can always find to do, while occasionally glancing at his single customer. Vimes thought for a moment and said, “Can you take a pint to those gentlemen outside, Mr. Jiminy, and put a brandy in each one so that a man knows he's drinking something?”

“That would be Long Tom, Short Tom and Tom Tom,” said Jiminy, reaching for some mugs. “Decent lads—triplets, as it happens. They earn their keep but, as you might say, they shared one brain out between all three of them and it wasn't that good a brain to start with. Very good when it comes to scaring crows, though.”

“And were all named Tom?” said Vimes.

“That's right. It's by way of being a family name, see, their dad being called Tom also. Maybe it saves confusion, them being easily confused. They're getting on a bit now, of course, but if you give them a job they can do then they'll do it well, and won't stop until you tell them to. No beggars in the countryside, see? There's always little jobs that need doing. By your leave, sir, I'll give them short measure on the brandy. They don't need too much confusing, if you get my drift.”

The publican put the mugs on a tray and disappeared out into the bright sunshine. Vimes moved swiftly behind the bar and back again without stopping. A few seconds later he was leaning nonchalantly on the bar as three faces peeped in through the open door. With a look of some apprehension three thumbs-up salutes were aimed at Vimes and the faces were hauled back out of sight again, presumably in case he exploded or developed horns.

Jiminy came back with the empty tray, and gave Vimes a cheerful smile. “Well, you've made some friends there, sir, but don't let me keep you. I'm sure you've got a lot to do.”

A copper, thought Vimes. I recognize a police truncheon when I see one. That's the copper's dream, isn't it—to leave the streets behind and run a little pub somewhere, and because you're a copper and because being a copper never leaves you, you will know what is going on. I know you and you don't know that I do. And from where I'm sitting I call that a result. You wait, Mr. Jiminy. I know where you live.

Now Vimes could hear slow and heavy footsteps in the distance, getting closer. He saw the local men as they arrived in their working clothes and carrying what most people would call agricultural implements, but which Vimes mentally noted as offensive weapons. The troupe stopped outside the door and now he heard whispering. The three Toms were imparting today's news, apparently, and it seemed to be received with either incredulity or scorn. Some sort of conclusion was being reached, not happily.

And then the men lurched in, and Vimes's mind clocked them for ready reference. Exhibit one was an elderly man with a long white beard and, good heavens, a smock. Did they really still wear those? Whatever his name the others probably called him “Granddad.” He shyly touched his forefinger to his forehead in salute and headed for the bar, job safely done. He had been carrying a big hook, not a nice weapon. Exhibit two carried a shovel, which could be an ax or a club if a man knew what he was doing. He was smocked up too, didn't catch Vimes's eye, and his salute had been more like a begrudged wave. Exhibit three, who was holding a toolbox (terrific weapon if swung accurately) scurried past with speed and barely glanced in Vimes's direction. He looked young and rather weedy, but nevertheless you can get a good momentum on one of those boxes. Then there was another elderly man, wearing a blacksmith's apron, but the wrong build, so Vimes marked him down as a farrier. Yes, that would be it, short and wiry, would easily be able to get under a horse. The man presented a reasonable attempt at a forelock salute, and Vimes was unable to make out any dangerous bulges concealed by the apron. He couldn't help this algebra; it was what you did when you did the job. Even if you didn't expect trouble, you, well, expected trouble.

And then the room froze.

There had been some desultory conversation in the vicinity of Jiminy but it stopped now as the real blacksmith came in. Bugger. All Vimes's warning bells rang at once, and they weren't tinkly bells. They clanged. After a brief glower round the room the man headed for the bar on the course that would take him past, or probably over, or even through Sam Vimes. As it was, Vimes carefully pulled his mug out of harm's way so that the man's undisguised attempt to “accidentally” spill it failed.

“Mr. Jiminy,” Vimes called out, “a round of drinks for these gentlemen, all right?”

This caused a certain amount of cheerfulness among the other newcomers, but the smith slammed a hand like a shovel down on the wood so that glasses jumped.

“I don't care to drink with them as grinds the faces of the poor!”

Vimes held his gaze, and said, “Sorry, I didn't bring my grinder with me today.” It was silly, because a couple of sniggers from hopeful drinkers at the bar merely stoked whatever fires the blacksmith had neglected to leave at work, and made him angry.

“Who are you to think you're a better man than me?”

Vimes shrugged, and said, “I don't know if I am a better man than you.” But he was thinking: you look to me like a big man in a small community, and you think you're tough because you're strong and metal doesn't sneak up behind you and try to kick you in the goolies. Good grief, you don't even know how to stand right! Even Corporal Nobbs could get you down and be kicking you industriously in the fork before you knew what was happening.

Like any man fearing that something expensive could get broken, Jiminy came bustling across the floor and grabbed the smith by one arm, saying, “Come on, Jethro, let's have no trouble. His grace is just having a drink the like of which any man is entitled to…”

This appeared to work, although aggression smouldered on Jethro's face and indeed in the surrounding air. By the look on the faces of the other men, this was a performance they were familiar with. It was a poor copper who couldn't read a pub crowd, and Vimes could probably write a history, with footnotes. Every community has its firebrand, or madman, or self-taught politician. Usually they are tolerated because they add to the gaiety of nations, as it were, and people say things like “It's just his way,” and the air clears and life goes on. But Jethro, now sitting in the far corner of the bar nursing his pint like a lion huddled over his gazelle, well, Jethro, in the Vimes lexicon of risk, was a man likely to explode. Of course the world sometimes needed blowing up, just so long as it didn't happen where Vimes was drinking.

Vimes was becoming aware that the pub was filling up, mostly with other sons of the soil, but also with people who, whether they were gentlemen or not, would expect to be called so. They wore colorful caps and white trousers and spoke continuously.

There was also further activity outside; horses and carriages were filling the lane. Hammering was going on somewhere and Jiminy's wife was now manning or, more correctly, womaning the bar while her husband ran back and forth with his tray. Jethro remained in his corner like a man biding his time, occasionally glaring daggers, and probably fists as well with an option on boots, if Vimes so much as looked at him.