Men at Arms Read online

Page 9

 

  Wow, said Carrot. Who was he?

  Who?

  The man who said “No More Kings”.

  People were staring. Vimes face went from the red of anger to the red of embarrassment. There was little difference in the shading, however.

  Oh . . . he was Commander of the City Guard in those days, he mumbled. They called him Old Stoneface.

  Never heard of him, said Carrot.

  He, er, doesnt appear much in the history books, said Vimes. Sometimes there has to be a civil war, and sometimes, afterwards, its best to pretend something didnt happen. Sometimes people have to do a job, and then they have to be forgotten. He wielded the axe, you know. No-one elsed do it. It was a kings neck, after all. Kings are, he spat the word, special. Even after theyd seen the . . . private rooms, and cleaned up the . . . bits. Even then. No-oned clean up the world. But he took the axe and cursed them all and did it.

  What king was it? said Carrot.

  Lorenzo the Kind, said Vimes, distantly.

  Ive seen his picture in the palace museum, said Carrot. A fat old man. Surrounded by lots of children.

  Oh yes, said Vimes, carefully. He was very fond of children.

  Carrot waved at a couple of dwarfs.

  I didnt know this, he said. I thought there was just some wicked rebellion or something.

  Vimes shrugged. Its in the history books, if you know where to look.

  And that was the end of the kings of Ankh-Morpork.

  Oh, there was a surviving son, I think. And a few mad relatives. They were banished. Thats supposed to be a terrible fate, for royalty. I cant see it myself.

  I think I can. And you like the city, sir.

  Well, yes. But if it was a choice between banishment and having my head chopped off, just help me down with this suitcase. No, were well rid of kings. But, I mean . . . the city used to work.

  Still does, said Carrot.

  They passed the Assassins Guild and drew level with the high, forbidding walls of the Fools Guild, which occupied the other corner of the block.

  No, it just keeps going. I mean, look up there.

  Carrot obediently raised his gaze.

  There was a familiar building on the junction of Broad Way and Alchemists. The façade was ornate, but covered in grime. Gargoyles had colonized it.

  The corroded motto over the portico said NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THIER DUTY and in more spacious days that may have been the case, but recently someone had found it necessary to nail up an addendum which read:

  DONT ARSK US ABOUT: rocks trolls with sticks All sorts of dragons Mrs Cake Huje green things with teeth Any kinds of black dogs with orange eyebrows Rains of spaniels. fog.

  Mrs Cake

  Oh, he said. The Royal Mail.

  The Post Office, corrected Vimes. My granddad said that once you could post a letter there and if d be delivered within a month, without fail. You didnt have to give it to a passing dwarf and hope the little bugger wouldnt eat it before . . .

  His voice trailed off.

  Uh. Sorry. No offence meant.

  None taken, said Carrot cheerfully.

  Its not that Ive got anything against dwarfs. Ive always said youd have to look very hard before youd find a, a better bunch of highly skilled, law-abiding, hard-working—

  —little buggers?

  Yes. No!

  They proceeded.

  That Mrs Cake, said Carrot, definitely a strong-minded woman, eh?

  Too true, said Vimes.

  Something crunched under Carrots enormous sandal.

  More glass, he said. It went a long way, didnt it.

  Exploding dragons! What an imagination the girl has.

  Woof woof, said a voice behind them.

  That damn dogs been following us, said Vimes.

  Its barking at something on the wall, said Carrot.

  Gaspode eyed them coldly.

  Woof woof, bloody whine whine, he said. Are you bloody blind or what?

  It was true that normal people couldnt hear Gaspode speak, because dogs dont speak. Its a well-known fact. Its well known at the organic level, like a lot of other well-known facts which overrule the observations of the senses. This is because if people went around noticing everything that was going on all the time, no-one would ever get anything done. [7] Besides, almost all dogs dont talk. Ones that do are merely a statistical error, and can therefore be ignored.

  However, Gaspode had found he did tend to get heard on a subconscious level. Only the previous day someone had absent-mindedly kicked him into the gutter and had gone a few steps before they suddenly thought: Im a bastard, what am I?

  There is something up there, said Carrot. Look . . . something blue, hanging off that gargoyle.

  Woof woof, woof! Would you credit it?

  Vimes stood on Carrots shoulders and walked his hand up the wall, but the little blue strip was still out of reach.

  The gargoyle rolled a stony eye towards him.

  Do you mind? said Vimes. Its hanging on your ear With a grinding of stone on stone, the gargoyle reached up a hand and unhooked the intrusive material.

  Thank you.

  ont ent-on it.

  Vimes climbed down again.

  You like gargoyles, dont you, captain, said Carrot, as they strolled away.

  Yep. They may only be a kind of troll but they keep themselves to themselves and seldom go below the first floor and dont commit crimes anyone ever finds out about. My type of people.

  He unfolded the strip.

  It was a collar or, at least, what remained of a collar – it was burnt at both ends. The word Chubby was just readable through the soot.

  The devils! said Vimes. They did blow up a dragon!

  The most dangerous man in the world should be introduced.

  He has never, in his entire life, harmed a living creature. He has dissected a few, but only after they were dead,[8] and had marvelled at how well theyd been put together considering it had been done by unskilled labour. For several years he hadnt moved outside a large, airy room, but this was OK, because he spent most of his time inside his own head in any case. Theres a certain type of person its very hard to imprison.

  He had, however, surmised that an hours exercise every day was essential for a healthy appetite and proper bowel movements, and was currently sitting on a machine of his own invention.

  It consisted of a saddle above a pair of treadles which turned, by means of a chain, a large wooden wheel currently held off the ground on a metal stand. Another, freewheeling, wooden wheel was positioned in front of the saddle and could be turned by means of a tiller arrangement. Hed fitted the extra wheel and tiller so that he could wheel the entire thing over to the wall when hed finished taking his exercise and, besides, it gave the whole thing a pleasing symmetry.

  He called it the-turning-the-wheel-with-pedals-and-another-wheel-machine.

  Lord Vetinari was also at work.

  Normally, he was in the Oblong Office or seated in his plain wooden chair at the foot of the steps in the palace of Ankh-Morpork; there was an ornate throne at the top of the steps, covered with dust. It was the throne of Ankh-Morpork and was, indeed, made of gold. Hed never dreamed of sitting on it.

  But it was a nice day, so he was working in the garden.

  Visitors to Ankh-Morpork were often surprised to find that there were some interesting gardens attached to the Patricians Palace.

  The Patrician was not a gardens kind of person. But some of his predecessors had been, and Lord Vetinari never changed or destroyed anything if there was no logical reason to do so. He maintained the little zoo, and the racehorse stable, and even recognized that the gardens themselves were of extreme historic interest because this was so obviously the case.

  They had been laid out by Bloody Stupid Johnson.

  Many great landscape gardeners have gone down in history and been remembered in a
very solid way by the magnificent parks and gardens that they designed with almost god-like power and foresight, thinking nothing oi making lakes and shifting hills and planting woodlands to enable future generations to appreciate the sublime beauty of wild Nature transformed by Man. There have been Capability Brown, Sagacity Smith, Intuition De Vere Slade-Gore . . .

  In Ankh-Morpork, there was Bloody Stupid Johnson.

  Bloody Stupid It Might Look A Bit Messy Now But Just You Come Back In Five Hundred Years Time Johnson. Bloody Stupid Look, The Plans Were The Right Way Round When I Drew Them Johnson. Bloody Stupid Johnson, who had 2,000 tons of earth built into an artificial hillock in front of Quirm Manor because Itd drive me mad to have to look at a bunch of trees and mountains all day long, how about you?

  The Ankh-Morpork palace grounds were considered the high spot, if such it could be called, of his career. For example, they contained the ornamental trout lake, one hundred and fifty yards long and, because of one of those trifling errors of notation that were such a distinctive feature of Bloody Stupids designs, one inch wide. It was the home of one trout, which was quite comfortable provided it didnt try to turn around, and had once featured an ornate fountain which, when first switched on, did nothing but groan ominously for five minutes and then fire a small stone cherub a thousand feet into the air.

  It contained the hoho, which was like a haha only deeper. A haha is a concealed ditch and wall designed to allow landowners to look out across rolling vistas without getting cattle and inconvenient poor people wandering across the lawns. Under Bloody Stupids errant pencil it was dug fifty feet deep and had claimed three gardeners already.

  The maze was so small that people got lost looking for it.

  But the Patrician rather liked the gardens, in a quiet kind of way. He had certain views about the mentality of most of mankind, and the gardens made him feel fully justified.

  Piles of paper were stacked on the lawn around the chair. Clerks renewed them or took them away periodically. They were different clerks. All sorts and types of information flowed into the Palace, but there was only one place where it all came together, very much like strands of gossamer coming together in the centre of a web.

  A great many rulers, good and bad and quite often dead, know what happened; a rare few actually manage, by dint of much effort, to know whats happening. Lord Vetinari considered both types to lack ambition.

  Yes, Dr Cruces, he said, without looking up.

  How the hell does he do it? Cruces wondered. I know I didnt make any noise . . .

  Ah, Havelock— he began.

  You have something to tell me, doctor?

  Its been . . . mislaid.

  Yes. And no doubt you are anxiously seeking it. Very well. Good day.

  The Patrician hadnt moved his head the whole time. He hadnt even bothered to ask what It was. He bloody well knows, thought Cruces. How is it you can never tell him anything he doesnt know?

  Lord Vetinari put down a piece of paper on one of the piles, and picked up another.

  You are still here, Dr Cruces.

  I can assure you, mLord, that—

  Im sure you can. Im sure you can. There is one question that intrigues me, however.

  MLord?

  Why was it in your Guild House to be stolen? I had been given to understand it had been destroyed. Im quite sure I gave orders.

  This was the question the Assassin had been hoping would not be asked. But the Patrician was good at that game.

  Er. We – that is, my predecessor - thought it should serve as a warning and an example.

  The Patrician looked up and smiled brightly.

  Capital! he said. I have always had a great belief in the effectiveness of examples. So I am sure youll be able to sort this out with minimum inconvenience all round.