The Truth (24 page)

He stared.

“I think we have a plan B,” he said.

At ground level, the newspaper seller’s dog watched them carefully as they walked away.

“That was too close for comfort,” it said, when they’d turned the corner.

Foul Ole Ron put down his papers in a puddle and pulled a cold sausage from the depths of his hulking coat.

He broke it in three equal pieces.

William had dithered over that, but the Watch had supplied quite a good drawing and he felt right now a little friendly gesture in that direction would be a good idea. If he found himself in deep trouble, head downwards, he’d need someone to pull him out.

He’d rewritten the Patrician story, too, adding as much as he was certain of, and there wasn’t much of that. He was, frankly, stuck.

Sacharissa had penned a story about the opening of the
Inquirer
. William had hesitated about this, too. But it
was
news, after all. They couldn’t just ignore it, and it filled some space.

Besides, he liked the opening line, which began: “A would-be rival to Ankh-Morpork’s old established newspaper, the
Times
, has opened in Gleam Street…”

“You’re getting good at this,” he said, looking across the desk.

“Yes,” she said, “I now know that if I see a naked man I should definitely get his name and address, because—”

William joined in the chorus: “—names sell newspapers.”

He sat back and drank the really horrible tea the dwarfs made. Just for a moment there was an unusual feeling of bliss. Strange word, he thought. It’s one of those words that describe something that does not make a noise but, if it
did
make a noise, would sound just like that.
Bliss.
It’s like the sound of a soft meringue melting gently on a warm plate.

Here and now, he was free. The paper was put to bed, tucked up, had its prayers listened to. It was
finished.
The crew were already filing back in for more copies, cursing and spitting; they’d commandeered a variety of old trolleys and prams to cart their papers out into the streets. Of course, in an hour or so, the mouth of the press would be hungry again and he’d be back pushing the huge rock uphill, just like that character in mythology…what was his name…

“Who was that hero who was condemned to push a rock up a hill and every time he got it to the top it rolled down again?” he said.

Sacharissa didn’t look up.

“Someone who needed a wheelbarrow?” she said, spiking a piece of paper with some force.

William recognized the voice of someone who still has an annoying job to do.

“What are you working on?” he said.

“A report from the Ankh-Morpork Recovering Accordion Players Society,” she said, scribbling fast.

“Is there something wrong with it?”

“Yes. The punctuation. There isn’t any. I think we might have to order an extra box of commas.”

“Why are you bothering with it, then?”

“Twenty-six people are mentioned by name.”

“As accordionists?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t they complain?”

“They didn’t
have
to play the accordion. Oh, and there was a big crash on Broad Way. A cart overturned and several tons of flour fell onto the road, causing a couple of horses to rear and upset their cartload of fresh eggs, and
that
caused another cart to shed thirty churns of milk…so what do you think of this as a headline?”

She held up a piece of paper on which she’d written:

CITY’S BIGGEST CAKE MIX-UP!!

William looked at it. Yes. Somehow it had everything. The sad attempt at humor was exactly right. It was just the sort of thing that would cause much mirth around Mrs. Arcanum’s table.

“Lose the second exclamation mark,” he said. “Otherwise I think it’s perfect. How did you hear about it?”

“Oh, Constable Fiddyment dropped in and told me,” said Sacharissa. She took down and shuffled papers unnecessarily. “I think he’s a bit sweet on me, to tell you the truth.”

A tiny, hitherto unregarded bit of William’s ego instantly froze solid. An awful lot of young men seemed happy to tell Sacharissa things. He heard himself say: “Vimes doesn’t want any of his officers to speak to us.”

“Yes, well, I don’t think telling me about a lot of smashed eggs counts, does it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Anyway, I can’t help it if young men want to tell me things, can I?”

“I suppose not, but—”

“Anyway, that’s it for tonight.” Sacharissa yawned. “I’m going home.”

William got up so quickly he skinned his knees on the desk.

“I’ll walk you there,” he said.

“Good grief, it’s nearly a quarter to eight,” said Sacharissa, putting on her coat. “Why do we keep on working?”

“Because the press doesn’t go to sleep,” said William.

As they stepped out into the silent street he wondered if Lord Vetinari had been right about the press. There was something…
compelling
about it. It was like a dog that stared at you until you fed it. A slightly dangerous dog. Dog bites man, he thought. But that’s not news. That’s
olds.

Sacharissa let him walk her to the end of her street, where she made him stop.

“It’ll embarrass Grandfather if you’re seen with me,” she said. “I know it’s stupid, but…neighbors, you know? And all this Guild stuff…”

“I know. Um.”

The air hung heavy for a moment as they looked at each other.

“Er…I don’t know how to put this,” said William, knowing that sooner or later it had to be said, “but I ought to say that, though you are a very attractive girl, you’re not my type.”

She gave him the
oldest
look he had ever seen, and then said: “That took a lot of saying, and I would like to thank you.”

“I just thought that with me and you working together all the time—”

“No, I’m glad one of us said it,” she said. “And with smooth talk like that I bet you have the girls just lining up, right? See you tomorrow.”

He watched her walk down the street to her house. After a few seconds a lamp went on in an upper window.

By running very fast he arrived back at his lodgings just late enough for a Look from Mrs. Arcanum, but not so late as to be barred from the table for impoliteness; serious latecomers had to eat their supper at the table in the kitchen.

It was curry tonight. And one of the strange things about eating at Mrs. Arcanum’s was that you got more leftovers than you got original meals. That is, there were far more meals made up from what were traditionally considered the prudently usable remains of earlier meals—stews, bubble-and-squeak, curry—than there were meals at which those remains could have originated.

The curry was particularly strange, since Mrs. Arcanum considered foreign parts only marginally less unspeakable than private parts and therefore added the curious yellow curry powder with a very small spoon, lest everyone should suddenly tear their clothes off and do foreign things. The main ingredients appeared to be turnip and gritty rainwater-tasting sultanas and the remains of some cold mutton, although William couldn’t remember when they’d had the original mutton, at any temperature.

This was not a problem for the other lodgers. Mrs. Arcanum provided big helpings, and they were men who measured culinary achievement by the amount you got on your plate. It might not taste astonishing, but you went to bed full and that was what mattered.

At the moment the news of the day was being discussed. Mr. Mackleduff had bought both the
Inquirer
and the two editions of the
Times
, in his role as keeper of the fire of communication.

It was generally agreed that the news in the
Inquirer
was more interesting, although Mrs. Arcanum ruled that the whole subject of snakes was not one for the dinner table and papers ought not to be allowed to disturb people like this. Rains of insects and so on, though, fully confirmed everyone’s view of distant lands.

Olds, thought William, forensically dissecting a sultana. His Lordship was right. Not news but
olds,
telling people that what they think they already know is true…

The Patrician, it was agreed, was a shifty one. The meeting concurred that they were all alike, the lot of them. Mr. Windling said the city was in a mess and there ought to be some changes. Mr. Longshaft said that he couldn’t speak for the city, but from what he had heard the gemstone business had been very brisk of late. Mr. Windling said that it was all right for some. Mr. Prone put forth the opinion that the Watch could not find their bottom with both hands, a turn of phrase that almost earned him a place at the kitchen table to finish his meal. It was agreed that Vetinari had done it all right and should be put away. The main course adjourned at 8:35
P.M.
, and was followed by disintegrating plums in runny custard, Mr. Prone getting slightly fewer plums as an unspoken reprimand.

William went up to his room early. He had adapted to Mrs. Arcanum’s cuisine, but nothing except radical surgery would make him like her coffee.

He lay down on the narrow bed in the dark (Mrs. Arcanum supplied one candle weekly, and what with one thing and another he had forgotten to buy any extra) and tried to
think.

Mr. Slant walked across the floor of the empty ballroom, his feet echoing on the wood.

He took his position in the circle of candlelight with a slight twanging of nerves. As a zombie, he was always a little edgy about fire.

He coughed.

“Well?” said a chair.

“They didn’t get the dog,” said Mr. Slant. “In all other respects, I have to say, they did a masterly job.”

“How bad could it be if the Watch find it?”

“As I understand it, the dog in question is quite old,” said Mr. Slant into the candlelight. “I have instructed Mr. Pin to look for it, but I don’t believe he will find it easy to get access to the city’s canine underground.”

“There are other werewolves here, aren’t there?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Slant smoothly. “But they won’t help. There are very few of them, and Sergeant Angua of the Watch is
very
important in the werewolf community. They won’t help strangers, because she
will
find out.”

“And bring the Watch down on them?”

“I believe she would not bother with the Watch,” said Slant.

“The dog is probably in some dwarf’s stewpot by now,” said a chair. There was general laughter.

“If things go…wrong,” said a chair, “who do these men know?” “They know me,” said Mr. Slant. “I would not worry unduly. Vimes works by the rules.”

“I’ve always understood him to be a violent and vicious man,” said a chair.

“Quite so. And because this is what he knows himself to be, he always works by the rules. In any case, the Guilds will be meeting tomorrow.”

“Who will be the new Patrician?” said a chair.

“That will be a matter for careful discussion and the consideration of all shades of opinion,” said Mr. Slant. His voice could have oiled watches.

“Mr. Slant?” said a chair.

“Yes?”

“Do not try that on us. It
is
going to be Scrope, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Scrope is certainly well thought of by many of the leading figures in the city,” said the lawyer.

“Good.”

And the musty air was loud with unspoken conversation.

Absolutely no one needed to say: A lot of the most powerful men in the city owe their positions to Lord Vetinari.

And nobody replied: Certainly. But to the kind of men who seek power, gratitude has very poor keeping qualities. The kind of men who seek power tend to deal with
matters as they are
. They would never try to depose Vetinari, but if he was gone, then they would
be practical
.

No one said: Will anyone speak up for Vetinari?

Silence replied: Oh,
everyone
. They’ll say things like “Poor fellow…it was the strain of office, you know.” They’ll say: “It’s the quiet ones that crack.” They’ll say: “Quite so…we should put him someplace where he can do no harm to himself or others. Don’t you think?” They’ll say: “Perhaps a small statue would be in order, too?”

They’ll say: “The least we can do is call off the Watch, we owe him that much.” They’ll say: “We must look to the future.” And so, quietly, things change. No fuss, and very little mess.

No one said: Character assassination. What a wonderful idea. Ordinary assassination only works once, but this one works every day.

A chair
did
say: “I wondered whether Lord Downey or even Mr. Boggis—”

Another chair said: “Oh,
come
now! Why should they? Much better this way.”

“True, true. Mr. Scrope is a man of fine qualities.”