Men at Arms (11 page)

“That’s all right. I like walking. It helps me think.”

Angua smiled, despite her desperation.

They stepped out into the softer heat of the evening. Instinctively, Carrot settled into the policeman’s pace.

“Very old street, this,” he said. “They say there’s an underground stream under it. I read that. What do you think?”

“Do you really like walking?” said Angua, falling into step.

“Oh, yes. There are many interesting byways and historical buildings to be seen. I often go for walks on my day off.”

She looked at his face. Ye gods, she thought.

“Why did you join the Watch?” she said.

“My father said it’d make a man of me.”

“It seems to have worked.”

“Yes. It’s the best job there is.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. Do you know what ‘policeman’ means?”

Angua shrugged. “No.”

“It means ‘man of the
polis
’. That’s an old word for city.”

“Yes?”

“I read it in a book. Man of the city.”

She glanced sideways at him again. His face glowed in the light of a torch on the street corner, but it had some inner glow of its own.

He’s
proud
. She remembered the oath.

Proud of being in the damn
Watch
, for gods’ sake—

“Why did
you
join?” he said.

“Me? Oh, I…I like to eat meals and sleep indoors. Anyway, there isn’t that much choice, is there? It was that or become…hah…a seamstress.”
^*

“And you’re not very good at sewing?”

Angua’s sharp glance saw nothing but honest innocence in his face.

“Yes,” she said, giving up, “that’s right. And then I saw this poster. ‘The City Watche Needs Men! Be A Man In The City Watch!’ So I thought I’d give it a go. After all, I’d only have something to gain.”

She waited to see if he’d fail to pick this one up, too. He did.

“Sergeant Colon wrote the notice,” said Carrot. “He’s a fairly direct thinker.”

He sniffed.

“Can you smell something?” he said. “Smells like…a bit like someone’s thrown away an old privy carpet?”

“Oh, thank you very much,” said a voice very low down, somewhere in the darkness. “Oh, yes. Thank you very much. That’s very wossname of you. Old privy carpet. Oh, yes.”

“Can’t smell anything,” Angua lied.

“Liar,” said the voice.

“Or hear anything.”

Captain Vimes’ boots told him he was in Scoone Avenue. His feet were doing the walking of their own volition; his mind was somewhere else. In fact, some of it was dissolving gently in Jimkin Bearhugger’s finest nectar.

If only they hadn’t been so damn
polite!
There were a number of things he’d seen in his life which he’d always try, without success, to forget. Up until now he would have put, at the top of the list, looking at the tonsils of a giant dragon as it drew the breath intended to turn him into a small pile of impure charcoal. He still woke up sweating at the memory of the little pilot light. But he dreaded now that it was going to be replaced by the recollection of all those impassive dwarf faces, watching him politely, and the feeling that his words were dropping into a deep pit.

After all, what could he say? “Sorry he’s dead—and that’s official. We’re putting our worst men on the case”?

The late Bjorn Hammerhock’s house had been full of dwarfs—silent, owlish,
polite
dwarfs. The news had got around. He wasn’t telling anyone anything they didn’t know. Many of them were holding weapons. Mr. Stronginthearm was there. Captain Vimes had talked to him before about his speeches on the subject of the need for grinding all trolls in little bits and using them to make roads. But the dwarf wasn’t saying anything now. He was just looking smug. There was an air of quiet,
polite
menace, that said: We’ll listen to you. Then we’ll do what we decide to do.

He hadn’t even been sure which one was Mrs. Hammerhock. They all looked alike to him. When she was introduced—helmeted, bearded—he’d got polite, non-committal answers. No, she’d locked his workshop and seemed to have mislaid the key. Thank you.

He’d tried to indicate as subtly as possible that a wholesale march on Quarry Lane would be frowned upon by the guard (probably from a vantage point at a safe distance) but hadn’t the face to spell it out. He couldn’t say: don’t take matters into your own hands for the guard are mightily in pursuit of the wrongdoer, because he didn’t have a clue where to start. Had your husband any enemies? Yes, someone put a huge great hole in him, but apart from
that
, did he have any enemies?

So he’d extracted himself with as much dignity as possible, which wasn’t very much, and after a battle with himself which he’d lost, he’d picked up half a bottle of Bearhugger’s Old Persnickety and wandered into the night.

Carrot and Angua reached the end of Gleam Street.

“Where are you staying?” said Carrot.

“Just down there.” She pointed.

“Elm Street? Not
Mrs. Cake’s?
”

“Yes. Why not? I just wanted a clean place, reasonably priced. What’s wrong with that?”

“Well…I mean, I’ve nothing against Mrs. Cake, a lovely woman, one of the best…but…well…you must have noticed…”

“Noticed what?”

“Well…she’s not very…you know…
choosy.
”

“Sorry. I’m still not with you.”

“You must have seen some of the other guests? I mean, doesn’t Reg Shoe still have lodgings there?”

“Oh,” said Angua, “you mean the zombie.”

“And there’s a banshee in the attic.”

“Mr. Ixolite. Yes.”

“And there’s old Mrs. Drull.”

“The ghoul. But she’s retired. She does children’s party catering now.”

“I mean, doesn’t it strike you the place is a bit odd?”

“But the rates are reasonable and the beds are clean.”

“I shouldn’t think anyone ever sleeps in them.”

“All
right!
I had to take what I could
get!
”

“Sorry. I know how it is. I was like that myself when I first arrived here. But my advice is to move out as soon as it’s polite and find somewhere…well…more suitable for a young lady, if you know what I mean.”

“Not really. Mr. Shoe even tried to help me upstairs with my stuff. Mind you, I had to help him upstairs with his arms afterwards. Bits fall off him all the time, poor soul.”

“But they’re not really…our kind of people,” said Carrot wretchedly. “Don’t get me wrong. I mean…dwarfs? Some of my best friends are dwarfs. My
parents
are dwarfs. Trolls? No problem at
all
with trolls. Salt of the earth. Literally. Wonderful chaps under all that crust. But…undead…I just wish they’d go back to where they came from, that’s all.”

“Most of them came from round here.”

“I just don’t like ’em. Sorry.”

“I’ve got to go,” said Angua, coldly. She paused at the dark entrance of an alley.

“Right. Right,” said Carrot. “Um. When shall I see you again?”

“Tomorrow. We’re in the same job, yes?”

“But maybe when we’re off duty we could take a—”

“Got to go!”

Angua turned and ran. The moon’s halo was already visible over the rooftops of Unseen University.

“OK. Well. Right. Tomorrow, then,” Carrot called after her.

Angua could feel the world spinning as she stumbled through the shadows. She shouldn’t have left it so long!

She stumbled out into a cross-street with a few people in it and managed to make it to an alley mouth, pawing at her clothes…

She was seen by Bundo Prung, recently expelled from the Thieves’ Guild for unnecessary enthusiasm and conduct unbecoming in a mugger, and a desperate man. An isolated woman in a dark alley was just about what he felt he could manage.

He glanced around, and followed her in.

Silence followed, for about five seconds. Then Bundo emerged, very fast, and didn’t stop running until he reached the docks, where a boat was leaving on the tide. He ran up the gangplank just before it was pulled up, and became a seaman, and died three years later when an armadillo fell on his head in a far-off country, and in all that time never said what he’d seen. But he did scream a bit whenever he saw a dog.

Angua emerged a few seconds later, and trotted away.

Lady Sybil Ramkin opened the door and sniffed the night air.

“Samuel Vimes! You’re drunk!”

“Not yet! But I hope to be!” said Vimes, in cheerful tones.

“And you haven’t changed out of your uniform!”

Vimes looked down, and then up again.

“That’s right!” he said brightly.

“The guests will be here any minute. Go on up to your room. There’s a tub drawn and Willikins has laid out a suit for you. Get along with you…”

“Jolly good!”

Vimes bathed in lukewarm water and a rosy alcoholic glow. Then he dried himself off as best he could and looked at the suit on the bed.

It had been made for him by the finest tailor in the city. Sybil Ramkin had a generous heart. She was a woman out for all she could give.

The suit was blue and deep purple, with lace on the wrists and at the throat. It was the height of fashion, he had been told. Sybil Ramkin wanted him to go up in the world. She’d never actually said it, but he knew she felt he was far too good to be a copper.

He stared at it in muzzy incomprehension. He’d never really worn a suit before. When he was a kid there’d been whatever rags could be tied on, and later on there’d been the leather knee britches and chainmail of the Watch—comfortable, practical clothes.

There was a hat with the suit. It had pearls on it.

Vimes had never worn any headgear before that hadn’t been hammered out of one piece of metal.

The shoes were long and pointy.

He’d always worn sandals in the summer, and the traditional cheap boots in the winter.

Captain Vimes could just about manage to be an officer. He wasn’t at all sure how to become a gentleman. Putting on the suit would seem to be part of it…

Guests were arriving. He could hear the crunch of carriage wheels on the driveway, and the flip-flop of the sedan-chair carriers.

He glanced out of the window. Scoone Avenue was higher than most of Morpork and offered unrivalled views of the city, if that was your idea of a good time. The Patrician’s Palace was a darker shape in the dusk, with one lighted window high up. It was the center of a well-lit area, which got darker and darker as the view widened and began to take in those parts of the city where you didn’t light a candle because that was wasting good food. There was red torchlight around Quarry Lane…well, Trolls’ New Year, understandable. And a faint glow over the High Energy Magic building at Unseen University; Vimes would arrest all wizards on suspicion of being too bloody clever by half. But more lights than you’d expect to see around Cable and Sheer, the part of the city that people like Captain Quirke referred to as “tinytown”…

“Samuel!”

Vimes adjusted his cravat as best he could.

He’d faced trolls and dwarfs and dragons, but now he was having to meet an entirely new species. The rich.

It was always hard to remember, afterwards, how the world looked when she was
dans une certaine condition
, as her mother had delicately called it.

For example, she
remembered
seeing smells. The actual streets and buildings…they were there, of course, but only as a drab monochrome background against which the sounds and, yes, the smells seared like brilliant lines of…colored fire and clouds of…well, of colored smoke.

That was the point. That was where it all broke down. There were no proper words afterwards for what she heard and smelled. If you could see an eighth distinct color just for a while, and then describe it back in the seven-colored world, it’d have to be…“something like a sort of greenish-purple”. Experience did not cross over well between species.

Sometimes, although not very often, Angua thought she was very lucky to get to see both worlds. And there was always twenty minutes after a Change when
all
the senses were heightened, so that the world glowed in every sensory spectrum like a rainbow. It was nearly worth it just for that.

There were varieties of werewolf. Some people merely had to shave every hour and wear a hat to cover the ears. They could pass for nearly normal.

But she could recognize them, nevertheless. Werewolves could spot another werewolf across a crowded street. There was something about the eyes. And, of course, if you had time, there were all sorts of other clues. Werewolves tended to live alone and take jobs that didn’t bring them into contact with animals. They wore scent or aftershave a lot and tended to be very fastidious about their food. And kept diaries with the phases of the moon carefully marked in red ink.

It was no life, being a werewolf in the country. A stupid chicken went missing and you were a number one suspect. Everyone said it was better in the city.

It was certainly overpowering.

Angua could see several hours of Elm Street all in one go. The mugger’s fear was a fading orange line. Carrot’s trail was an expanding pale green cloud, with an edge that suggested he was slightly worried; there were additional tones of old leather and armor polish. Other trails, faint or powerful, criss-crossed the street.

There was one that smelled like an old privy carpet.

“Yo, bitch,” said a voice behind her.

She turned her head. Gaspode looked no better through canine vision, except that he was at the center of a cloud of mixed odors.

“Oh. It’s you.”

“’S’right,” said Gaspode, feverishly scratching himself. He gave her a hopeful look. “Just askin’, you understand, just gettin’ it over with right now, for the look of the thing, for wossname’s sake as it might be, but I s’pose there’s no chance of me sniffing—”

“None.”

“Just askin’. No offense meant.”

Angua wrinkled her muzzle.

“How come you smell so bad? I mean, you smelled bad enough when I was human, but now—”

Gaspode looked proud.

“Good, innit,” he said. “It didn’t just happen. I had to work at it. If you was a true dog, this’d be like really great aftershave. By the way, you want to get a collar, miss. No one bothers you if you’ve got a collar.”