Men at Arms (4 page)

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an
affordable
pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that
good
boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time
and would still have wet feet
.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

The point was that Sybil Ramkin hardly ever had to buy anything. The mansion was full of this big, solid furniture, bought by her ancestors. It never wore out. She had whole boxes full of jewelery which just seemed to have accumulated over the centuries. Vimes had seen a wine cellar that a regiment of speleologists could get so happily drunk in that they wouldn’t mind that they’d got lost without trace.

Lady Sybil Ramkin lived quite comfortably from day to day by spending, Vimes estimated, about half as much as he did. But she spent a lot more on dragons.

The Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons was built with very, very thick walls and a very, very lightweight roof, an idiosyncrasy of architecture normally only found elsewhere in firework factories.

And
this
is because the natural condition of the common swamp dragon is to be chronically ill, and the natural state of an unhealthy dragon is to be laminated across the walls, floor and ceiling of whatever room it is in. A swamp dragon is a badly run, dangerously unstable chemical factory one step from disaster. One quite small step.

It has been speculated that its habit of exploding violently when angry, excited, frightened or merely plain bored is a developed survival trait
^*
to discourage predators. Eat dragons, it proclaims, and you’ll have a case of indigestion to which the term “blast radius” will be appropriate.

Vimes therefore pushed the door open carefully. The smell of dragons engulfed him. It was an unusual smell, even by Ankh-Morpork standards—it put Vimes in mind of a pond that had been used to dump alchemical waste for several years and then drained.

Small dragons whistled and yammered at him from pens on either side of the path. Several excited gusts of flame sizzled the hair on his bare shins.

He found Sybil Ramkin with a couple of the miscellaneous young women in breeches who helped run the Sanctuary; they were generally called Sara or Emma, and all looked exactly the same to Vimes. They were struggling with what seemed to be an irate sack. She looked up as he approached.

“Ah, here’s Sam,” she said. “Hold this, there’s a lamb.”

The sack was thrust into his arms. At the same moment a talon ripped out of the bottom of the sack and scraped down his breastplate in a spirited attempt to disembowel him. A spiky-eared head thrust its way out of the other end, two glowing red eyes focused on him briefly, a tooth-serrated mouth gaped open and a gush of evil-smelling vapor washed over him.

Lady Ramkin grabbed the lower jaw triumphantly, and thrust the other arm up to the elbow down the little dragon’s throat.

“Got you!” She turned to Vimes, who was still rigid with shock. “Little devil wouldn’t take his limestone tablet. Swallow.
Swallow!
there! Who’s a good boy then? You can let him go now.”

The sack slipped from Vimes’ arms.

“Bad case of Flameless Gripe,” said Lady Ramkin. “Hope we’ve got it in time—”

The dragon ripped its way out of the sack and looked around for something to incinerate. Everyone tried to get out of the way.

Then its eyes crossed, and it hiccuped.

The limestone tablet
pinged
off the opposite wall.

“
Everybody down!
”

They leapt for such cover as was provided by a water-trough and a pile of clinkers.

The dragon hiccuped again, and looked puzzled.

Then it exploded.

They stuck their heads up when the smoke had cleared and looked down at the sad little crater.

Lady Ramkin took a handkerchief out of a pocket of her leather overall and blew her nose.

“Silly little bugger,” she said. “Oh, well. How are you, Sam? Did you go to see Havelock?”

Vimes nodded. Never in his life, he thought, would he get used to the idea of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork having a first name, or that anyone could ever know him well enough to call him by it.

“I’ve been thinking about this dinner tomorrow night,” he said desperately. “You know, I really don’t think I can—”

“Don’t be silly,” said Lady Ramkin. “You’ll enjoy it. It’s time you met the Right People. You know that.”

He nodded mournfully.

“We shall expect you up at the house at eight o’clock, then,” she said. “And don’t look like that. It’ll help you
tremendously
. You’re far too good a man to spend his nights traipsing around dark wet streets. It’s time you got on in the world.”

Vimes wanted to say that he
liked
traipsing around dark wet streets, but it would be no use. He
didn’t
like it much. It was just what he’d always done. He thought about his badge in the same way he thought about his nose. He didn’t love it or hate it. It was just his badge.

“So just you run along. It’ll be terrific fun. Have you got a handkerchief?”

Vimes panicked.

“What?”

“Give it to me.” She held it close to his mouth. “Spit…” she commanded.

She dabbed at a smudge on his cheek. One of the Interchangeable Emmas gave a giggle that was just audible. Lady Ramkin ignored it.

“There,” she said. “That’s better. Now off you go and keep the streets safe for all of us. And if you want to do something
really
useful, you could find Chubby.”

“Chubby?”

“He got out of his pen last night.”

“A dragon?”

Vimes groaned, and pulled a cheap cigar out of his pocket. Swamp dragons were becoming a minor nuisance in the city. Lady Ramkin got very angry about it. People would buy them when they were six inches long as a cute way of lighting fires and then, when they were burning the furniture and leaving corrosive holes in the carpet, the floor and the cellar ceiling underneath it, they’d be shoved out to fend for themselves.

“We rescued him from a blacksmith in Easy Street,” said Lady Ramkin. “I said, ‘My good man, you can use a forge like everyone else’. Poor little thing.”

“Chubby,” said Vimes. “Got a light?”

“He’s got a blue collar,” said Lady Ramkin.

“Right, yes.”

“He’ll follow you like a lamb if he thinks you’ve got a charcoal biscuit.”

“Right.” Vimes patted his pockets.

“They’re a little bit over-excited in this heat.”

Vimes reached down into a pen of hatchlings and picked up a small one, which flapped its stubby wings excitedly. It spurted a brief jet of blue flame. Vimes inhaled quickly.

“Sam, I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Sorry.”

“So if you could get young Carrot and that
nice
Corporal Nobbs to keep an eye out for—”

“No problem.”

For some reason Lady Sybil, keen of eye in every other respect, persisted in thinking of Corporal Nobbs as a cheeky, lovable rascal. It had always puzzled Sam Vimes. It must be the attraction of opposites. The Ramkins were more highly bred than a hilltop bakery, whereas Corporal Nobbs had been disqualified from the human race for shoving.

As he walked down the street in his old leather and rusty mail, with his helmet screwed on his head, and the feel of the cobbles through the worn soles of his boots telling him he was in Acre Alley, no one would have believed that they were looking at a man who was very soon going to marry the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork.

Chubby was not a happy dragon.

He missed the forge. He’d quite liked it in the forge. He got all the coal he could eat and the blacksmith hadn’t been a particularly unkind man. Chubby had not demanded much out of life, and had got it.

Then this large woman had taken him away and put him in a pen. There had been other dragons around. Chubby didn’t particularly like other dragons. And people’d given him unfamiliar coal.

He’d been quite pleased when someone had taken him out of the pen in the middle of the night. He’d thought he was going back to the blacksmith.

Now it was dawning on him that this was not happening. He was in a box, he was being bumped around, and now he was getting angry…

Sergeant Colon fanned himself with his clipboard, and then glared at the assembled guards.

He coughed.

“Right then, people,” he said. “Settle down.”

“We are settled down, Fred,” said Corporal Nobbs.

“That’s Sergeant to you, Nobby,” said Sergeant Colon.

“What do we have to sit down for anyway? We didn’t used to do all this. I feel a right berk, sitting down listenin’ to you goin’ on about—”

“We got to do it proper, now there’s more of us,” said Sergeant Colon. “Right! Ahem. Right. OK. We welcome to the guard today Lance-Constable Detritus—
don’t salute!
—and Lance-Constable Cuddy, also Lance-Constable Angua. We hope you will have a long and—what’s that you’ve got there, Cuddy?”

“What?” said Cuddy, innocently.

“I can’t help noticing that you still has got there what appears to be a double-headed throwing axe, lance-constable, despite what I vouchsafed to you earlier re Guard rules.”

“Cultural weapon, sergeant?” said Cuddy hopefully.

“You can leave it in your locker. Guards carry one sword, short, and one truncheon.”

With the exception of Detritus, he added mentally. Firstly, because even the longest sword nestled in the troll’s huge hand like a toothpick, and secondly, because until they’d got this saluting business sorted out he wasn’t about to see a member of the Watch nail his own hand to his own ear. He’d have a truncheon, and like it. Even then, he’d probably beat himself to death.

Trolls and dwarfs! Dwarfs and trolls! He didn’t deserve it, not at his time of life. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

He coughed again. When he read from his clipboard, it was in the sing-song voice of someone who learned his public speaking at school.

“Right,” he said again, a little uncertainly. “So. Says here—”

“Sergeant?”

“Now wh—Oh, it’s you, Corporal Carrot. Yes?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something, sergeant?” said Carrot.

“I dunno,” said Colon cautiously. “Am I?”

“About the recruits, sarge. Something they’ve got to take?” Carrot prompted.

Sergeant Colon rubbed his nose. Let’s see…they had, as per standing orders, taken and signed for one shirt (mail, chain) one helmet, iron and copper, one breastplate, iron (except in the “case of Lance-Constable Angua, who’d need to be fitted special, and Lance-Constable Detritus, who’d signed for a hastily adapted piece of armor which had once belonged to a war elephant), one truncheon, oak, one emergency pike or halberd, one crossbow, one hourglass, one short sword (except for Lance-Constable Detritus) and one badge, office of, Night Watchman’s, copper.

“I think they’ve got the lot, Carrot,” he said. “All signed for. Even Detritus got someone to make an X for him.”

“They’ve got to take the oath, sarge.”

“Oh. Er. Have they?”

“Yes, sarge. It’s the law.”

Sergeant Colon looked embarrassed. It probably was the law, at that. Carrot was much better at this sort of thing. He knew the laws of Ankh-Morpork by heart. He was the only person who did. All Colon knew was that
he’d
never taken an oath when he joined, and as for Nobby, the best he’d ever get to an oath was something like “bugger this for a game of soldiers.”

“All right, then,” he said. “You’ve all, er, got to take the oath…eh…and Corporal Carrot will show you how. Did you take the, er, oath when you joined us, Carrot?”

“Oh, yes, sarge. Only no one asked me, so I gave it to myself, quiet like.”

“Oh? Right. Carry on, then.”

Carrot stood up and removed his helmet. He smoothed down his hair. Then he raised his right hand.

“Raise your right hands, too,” he said. “Er…that’s the one nearest Lance-Constable Angua, Lance-Constable Detritus. And repeat after me…” He closed his eyes and his lips moved for a moment, as though he was reading something off the inside of his skull.

“‘I comma square bracket recruit’s name square bracket comma’…”

He nodded at them. “You say it.”

They chorused a reply. Angua tried not to laugh.

“‘…do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit’s deity of choice square bracket…’”

Angua couldn’t trust herself to look at Carrot’s face.

“‘…to uphold the Laws and Ordinances of the city of Ankh-Morpork, serve the public trust comma and defend the subjects of His stroke Her bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket Majesty bracket name of reigning monarch bracket…’”

Angua tried to look at a point behind Carrot’s ear. On top of everything else, Detritus’ patient monotone was already several dozen words behind everyone else.

“‘…without fear comma favor comma or thought of personal safety semi-colon to pursue evildoers and protect the innocent comma laying down my life if necessary in the cause of said duty comma so help me bracket aforesaid deity bracket full stop Gods Save the King stroke Queen bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket full stop.’”

Angua subsided gratefully, and then
did
see Carrot’s face. There were unmistakable tears trickling down his cheek.

“Er…right,…that’s it, then, thank you,” said Sergeant Colon, after a while.

“—
pro-tect the in-no-cent com-ma
—”