Jingo d-21 Read online

Landslides and avalanches, he thought. All the little snowflakes land, light as a feather — and suddenly the whole side of a mountain is moving…

  Detritus looked at him slyly. “I know everyone say ‘Dem two short planks, dey're as fick as Detritus’,” he said, “but I know which way der wind is blowin'.”

  Vimes looked at his sergeant with a new respect.

  “You can spot it, can you?”

  The troll's finger tapped his helmet twice, knowingly.

  “It pretty obvious,” he said. “You see up on der roofs dem little chickies and dragons and stuff? And dat poor bugger on der Fieves' Guild? You just has to watch 'em. Dey know. Beats me how dey always pointin' der right way.”

  Vimes relaxed a little. Detritus's intelligence wasn't too bad for a troll, falling somewhere between a cuttlefish and a linedancer, but you could rely on him not to let it slow him down.

  Detritus winked. “An' it look to me like dat time when you go an' find a big club and listen to grandad tellin' you how he beat up all dem dwarfs when he was a boy,” he said. “Somethin' in der wind, right?”

  “Er… yes…” said Vimes.

  There was a fluttering above him. He sighed. A message was coming in.

  On a pigeon.

  But they'd tried everything else, hadn't they? Swamp dragons tended to explode in the air, imps ate the messages and the semaphore helmets had not been a success, especially in high winds. And then Corporal Littlebottom had pointed out that Ankh-Morpork's pigeons were, because of many centuries of depredation by the city's gargoyle population, considerably more intelligent than most pigeons, although Vimes considered that this was not difficult because there were things growing on old damp bread that were more intelligent than most pigeons.

  He took a handful of corn out of his pocket. The pigeon, obedient to its careful training, settled on his shoulder. In obedience to internal pressures, it relieved itself.

  “You know, we've got to find something better,” said Vimes, as he unwrapped the message. “Every time we send a message to Constable Downspout he eats it.”

  “Well, he are a gargoyle,” said Detritus. “He fink it lunch arriving.”

  “Oh,” said Vimes, “his lordship requires my attendance. How nice.”

  Lord Vetinari looked attentive, because he'd always found that listening keenly to people tended to put them off.

  And at meetings like this, when he was advised by the leaders of the city, he listened with great care because what people said was what they wanted him to hear. He paid a lot of attention to the spaces outside the words, though. That's where the things were that they hoped he didn't know and didn't want him to find out.

  Currently he was paying attention to the things that Lord Downey of the Assassins' Guild was failing to say in a lengthy exposition of the Guild's high level of training and value to the city. The voice, eventually, came to a stop in the face of Vetinari's aggressive listening.

  “Thank you, Lord Downey,” he said. “I'm sure we shall all be able to sleep a lot more uneasily for knowing all that. Just one minor point… I believe the word ‘assassin’ actually comes from Klatch?”{6}

  “Well… indeed…”

  “And I believe also that many of your students are, as it turns out, from Klatch and its neighbouring countries?”

  “The unrivalled quality of our education…”

  “Quite so. What you are telling me, in point of fact, is that their assassins have been doing it longer, know their way around our city and have had their traditional skills honed by you?”

  “Er…”

  The Patrician turned to Mr Burleigh.

  “We surely have superiority in weapons, Mr Burleigh?”

  “Oh, yes. Say what you like about dwarfs, but we've been turning out some superb stuff lately,” said the President of the Guild of Armourers.

  “Ah. That at least is some comfort.”

  “Yes,” said Burleigh. He looked wretched. “However, the thing about weapons manufacture… the important thing…”

  “I believe you are about to say that the important thing about the business of weaponry is that it is a business,” said the Patrician.

  Burleigh looked as though he'd been let off the hook on to a bigger hook.

  “Er… yes.”

  “That, in fact, the weapons are for selling.”

  “Er… exactly.”

  “To anyone who wishes to buy them.”

  “Er… yes.”

  “Regardless of the use to which they are going to be put?”

  The armaments manufacturer looked affronted.

  “Pardon me? Of course. They're weapons.”

  “And I suspect that in recent years a very lucrative market has been Klatch?”

  “Well, yes… the Seriph needs them to pacify the outlying regions…”

  The Patrician held up his hand. Drumknott, his clerk, gave him a piece of paper.

  “The ‘Great Leveller’ Cart-Mounted Ten-Bank 500-pound Crossbow?” he said. “And, let me see… the ‘Meteor’ Automated Throwing Star Hurler, Decapitates at Twenty Paces, Money Back If Not Completely Decapitated?”

  “Have you ever heard of the D'regs{7}, my lord?” said Burleigh. “They say the only way to pacify one of them is to hit him repeatedly with an axe and bury what's left under a rock. And even then, choose a heavy rock.”

  The Patrician seemed to be staring at a large drawing of the “Dervish” Mk III Razor-Wire Bolas. There was a painful silence. Burleigh tried to fill it up, always a bad mistake.

  “Besides, we provide much-needed jobs in Ankh-Morpork,” he murmured.

  “Exporting these weapons to other countries,” said Lord Vetinari. He handed the paper back and fixed Burleigh with a friendly smile.

  “I'm very pleased to see that the industry has done so well,” he said. “I will bear this particularly in mind.”

  He placed his hands together carefully. “The situation is grave, gentlemen.”

  “Whose?” said Mr Burleigh.

  “I'm sorry?”

  “What? Oh… I was thinking about something else, my lord…”

  “I was referring to the fact that a number of our citizens have gone out to this wretched island. As have, I understand, a number of Klatchians.”

  “Why are our people going out there?” said Mr Boggis of the Thieves' Guild.

  “Because they are showing a brisk pioneering spirit and seeking wealth and… additional wealth in a new land,” said Lord Vetinari.

  “What's in it for the Klatchians?” said Lord Downey.

  “Oh, they've gone out there because they are a bunch of unprincipled opportunists always ready to grab something for nothing,” said Lord Vetinari.

  “A masterly summation, if I may say so, my lord,” said Mr Burleigh, who felt he had some ground to make up.

  The Patrician looked down again at his notes. “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” he said, “I seem to have read those last two sentences in the wrong order… Mr Slant, I believe you have something to say here?”

  The president of the Guild of Lawyers cleared his throat. The sound was like a death rattle and technically it was, since the man had been a zombie for several hundred years although historical accounts suggested that the only difference dying had made to Mr Slant was that he'd started to work through his lunch break.

  “Yes, indeed,” he said, opening a large legal tome. “The history of the city of Leshp and its surrounding country is a little obscure. It is known to have been above the sea almost a thousand years ago, however, when records suggest that it was considered part of the Ankh-Morpork empire—”

  “What is the nature of these records and do they tell us who was doing the considering?” said the Patrician. The door opened and Vimes stepped in. “Ah, commander, do take a seat. Continue, Mr Slant.”

  The zombie did not like interruptions. He coughed again. “The records relating to the lost country date back several hundred years, my lord. And they are of course our records.”

&n
bsp; “Only ours?”

  “I hardly see how any others could apply,” said Mr Slant severely.

  “Klatchian ones, for example?” said Vimes, from the far end of the table.

  “Sir Samuel, the Klatchian language does not even have a word for lawyer,” said Mr Slant.

  “Doesn't it?” said Vimes. “Good for them.”

  “It is our view,” said Slant, turning his chair slightly so that he did not have to look at Vimes, “that the new land is ours by Eminent Domain, Extra-Territoriality and, most importantly, Acquiris Quodcumque Rapis. I am given to understand that it was one of our fishermen who first set foot on it this time.”

  “I hear the Klatchians claim that it was one of their fishermen,” said Vetinari.

  At the end of the table Vimes's lips were moving. Let's see, Acquiris… “‘You get what you grab’?” he said aloud.

  “We're not going to take their word for it, are we?” said Slant, pointedly ignoring him. “Excuse me, my lord, but I don't believe that proud Ankh-Morpork is told what to do by a bunch of thieves with towels on their heads.”

  “No, indeed! It's about time Johnny Klatchian{8} was taught a lesson,” said Lord Selachii. “Remember all that business last year with the cabbages? Ten damn boatloads they wouldn't accept!”

  “And everyone knows caterpillars add to the flavour,” said Vimes, more or less to himself.

  The Patrician shot him a glance.

  “That's right!” said Selachii. “Good honest protein! And you remember all that trouble Captain Jenkins had over that cargo of mutton? They were going to imprison him! In a Klatchian jail!”

  “Surely not? Meat is at its best when it's going green,” said Vimes.

  “It's not as if it'd taste any different under all that curry,” said Burleigh. “I was at a dinner in their embassy once, and do you know what they made me eat? It was a sheep's—”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” said Vimes, standing up. “There are some urgent matters I must deal with.”

  He nodded to the Patrician and hurried out of the room. He shut the door behind him and took a breath of fresh air, although right now he'd have happily inhaled deeply in a tannery.

  Corporal Littlebottom stood up and looked at him expectantly. She had been sitting next to a box, which cooed peacefully.

  “Something's up. Run down to… I mean, send a pigeon down to the Yard,” said Vimes.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “All leave is cancelled as of now and I want to see every officer, and I mean every officer, at the Yard at, oh, let's say six o'clock.”

  “Right, sir. That might mean an extra pigeon unless I can write small enough.”

  Littlebottom hurried off.

  Vimes glanced out of the window. There was always a certain amount of activity outside the palace but today there was… not so much a crowd as, just, rather more people than you normally saw, hanging around. As if they were waiting for something.

  Klatch!

  Everyone knows it.

  Old Detritus was right. You could hear the little pebbles bouncing. It's not just a few fishermen having a scrap, it's a hundred years of… well, like two big men trying to fit in one small room, trying to be polite about it, and then one day one of them just has to stretch and pretty soon they're both smashing the furniture.

  But it couldn't really happen, could it? From what he'd heard, the present Seriph was a competent man who was mostly concerned with pacifying the rowdy edges of his empire. And there were Klatchians living in Ankh-Morpork, for heaven's sake! There were Klatchians born in Ankh-Morpork. You saw some lad with a face that'd got camels written all over it, and when he opened his mouth it'd turn out he had an Ankhian accent so thick you could float rocks. Oh, there's all the jokes about funny food and foreigners, but surely…

  Not very funny jokes, come to think of it.

  When you hear the bang, there's no time to wonder how long the little fuse has been fizzing.

  There were raised voices when he went back into the Rats Chamber.

  “Because, Lord Selachii,” the Patrician was saying, “these are not the old days. It is no longer considered… nice… to send a warship over there to, as you put it, show Johnny Foreigner the error of his ways. For one thing, we haven't had any warships since the Mary — Jane sank four hundred years ago.{9} And times have changed. These days, the whole world watches. And, my lord, you are no longer allowed to say ‘What're you lookin' at?’ and black their eyes.” He leaned back. “There's Chimeria, and Khanli, and Ephebe, and Tsort. And Muntab, these days, too. And Omnia. Some of these are powerful nations, gentlemen. Many of them don't like Klatch's current expansionist outlook, but they don't like us much, either.”

  “Whyever not?” said Lord Selachii.

  “Well, because during our history those we haven't occupied we've tended to wage war on,” said Lord Vetinari. “For some reason the slaughter of thousands of people tends to stick in the memory.”

  “Oh, history,” said Lord Selachii. “That's all in the past!”

  “A good place for history, agreed,” said the Patrician solemnly.

  “I meant: why don't they like us now? Do we owe them money?”

  “No. Mostly they owe us money. Which is, of course, a far better reason for their dislike.”

  “How about Sto Lat and Pseudopolis and the other cities?” said Lord Downey.

  “They don't like us much, either.”

  “Why not? I mean t'say, we do share a common heritage,” said Lord Selachii.

  “Yes, my lord, but that common heritage largely consists of having had wars with one another,” said the Patrician. “I can't see much support there. Which is a little unfortunate because we do not, in fact, have an army. I am not, of course, a military man but I believe that one of those is generally considered vital to the successful prosecution of a war.”

  He looked along the table.

  “The fact is” he went on, “that Ankh-Morpork has been violently against a standing army.”

  “We all know why people don't trust an army,” said Lord Downey. “A lot of armed men, standing around with nothing to do… they start to get ideas…”

  Vimes saw the heads turn towards him.

  “My word,” he said, with glassy brightness, “can this be a reference to ‘Old Stoneface’ Vimes, who led the city's militia in a revolt against the rule of a tyrannical monarch in an effort to bring some sort of freedom and justice to the place? I do believe it is! And was he Commander of the Watch at the time? Good heavens, yes, as a matter of fact he was! Was he hanged and dismembered and buried in five graves? And is he a distant ancestor of the current Commander? My word, the coincidences just pile up, don't they?” His voice went from manic cheerfulness to a growl. “Right! That's got that over with. Now — has anyone got any point they wish to make?”

  There was a general shifting of position and a group clearing of throats.

  “What about mercenaries?” said Boggis.

  “The problem with mercenaries,” said the Patrician, “is that they need to be paid to start fighting. And, unless you are very lucky, you end up paying them even more to stop—”

  Selachii thumped the table.

  “Very well, then, by jingo!” he snarled. “Alone!”

  “We could certainly do with one,” said Lord Vetinari. “We need the money. I was about to say that we cannot afford mercenaries.”

  “How can this be?” said Lord Downey. “Don't we pay our taxes?”

  “Ah, I thought we might come to that,” said Lord Vetinari. He raised his hand and, on cue again, his clerk placed a piece of paper in it.

  “Let me see now… ah yes. Guild of Assassins… Gross earnings in the last year: AM$13,207,048. Taxes paid in the last year: forty-seven dollars, twenty-two pence and what on examination turned out to be a Hershebian half-dong, worth one-eighth of a penny.”

  “That's all perfectly legal! The Guild of Accountants—”

  “Ah yes. Guild of Accountants: gross earnin
gs AM$7,999,011. Taxes paid: nil. But, ah yes, I see they applied for a rebate of AM$200,000.”

  “And what we received, I may say, included a Hershebian half-dong,” said Mr Frostrip of the Guild of Accountants.

  “What goes around comes around” said Vetinari calmly.

  He tossed the paper aside. “Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum of moo. And I am afraid to say that these days all I get is moo.”

  “Are you telling us that Ankh-Morpork is bankrupt?” said Downey.

  “Of course. While, at the same time, full of rich people. I trust they have been spending their good fortune on swords.”

  “And you have allowed this wholesale tax avoidance?” said Lord Selachii.

  “Oh, the taxes haven't been avoided,” said Lord Vetinari. “Or even evaded. They just haven't been paid.”

  “That is a disgusting state of affairs!”

  The Patrician raised his eyebrows. “Commander Vimes?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Would you be so good as to assemble a squad of your most experienced men, liaise with the tax gatherers and obtain the accumulated back taxes, please? My clerk here will give you a list of the prime defaulters.”

  “Right, sir. And if they resist, sir?” said Vimes, smiling nastily.

  “Oh, how can they resist, commander? This is the will of our civic leaders.” He took the paper his clerk proffered. “Let me see, now. Top of the list—”

  Lord Selachii coughed hurriedly. “Far too late for that sort of nonsense now,” he said.

  “Water under the bridge,” said Lord Downey.

  “Dead and buried,” said Mr Slant.

  “I paid mine,” said Vimes.

  “So let me recap, then,” said Vetinari. “I don't think anyone wants to see two grown nations scrapping over a piece of rock. We don't want to fight, but—”

  “By jingo, if we do, we'll show those—” Lord Selachii began.

  “We have no ships. We have no men. We have no money, too,” said Lord Vetinari. “Of course, we have the art of diplomacy. It is amazing what you can do with the right words.”

  “Unfortunately, the right words are more readily listened to if you also have a sharp stick,”{10} said Lord Downey.