Snuff (Discworld 39)

“Quite likely not,” said Drumknott, carefully folding a pen wiper. “However, Arachne is working in Fourecks at the moment as a filing clerk in our embassy. She pleaded for the position because she’s particularly attracted by venomous spiders.”

“Well, I suppose every girl should have a hobby,” said Vetinari. “And are there a lot of them in Fourecks?”

“The place is positively overwhelmed, I am given to understand, sir, and apparently Arachne already has a large selection of them.”

Vetinari said nothing, but remained sitting with eyes closed.

Drumknott cleared his throat. “They do say, sir, that in the end all sins are forgiven?”

Reluctantly, Havelock, Lord Vetinari tore his recollection away from the wondrous music that he longed to hear again. “Not all, Drumknott, not all.”

In bed that night in Scoone Avenue, listening to the absence of owls and nightjars, Vimes said, “You know, dear, I’ll have to go back to the Shires soon. Feeney is a good lad but they need a proper headquarters and the right kind of guidance and that doesn’t mean just Nobby Nobbs and Fred Colon.”

Sybil turned over. “Oh, I don’t know, Sam. Fred and Nobby aren’t as bad as all that and might be all that’s needed right now. I mean, they’re coppers, but they amble about extremely slowly and on the whole it’s good to see them around. Right now you’ve got two young men full of vim and vigor and if you don’t want to upset things it might just be that, in this bewildered place, they should be backed up by slow and steady, don’t you think?”

“You are, as always, right, my dear.”

“Besides, I’ve seen Fred, and having to rethink his world view has clearly shaken him a little.”

“He’ll get over it,” said Vimes. “Once you get past the stupid Fred there is, against all expectations, a decent man there.”

Sybil sighed. “Yes, Sam, but that decent man needs a holiday out in the sunshine away from the smoke and the grime and the terrible spells.”

“But they’re the best bits!” said Vimes, laughing.

“No, he needs a holiday. Everybody needs a holiday, Sam, even you.”

“I’ve just had one, dear, thank you.”

“No, you had a few days interspersed with fighting and floods and murders and I don’t know what else. Look at your desk, make certain everybody is on their toes, and then we’ll go down there for another week, do you hear me, Sam Vimes?”

EPILOGUE

And three months later Sam Vimes went on holiday again, and this time he was allowed to steer the Black-Eyed Susan all the way to Quirm without hardly hitting anything important, and was so happy that they had to find another cat full of sixpences for him to be as happy as.

He was amazed at how much fun a holiday could be, but not so amazed as he was eight months after that when he and Sybil were invited to be guests at the wedding of Ms. Emily Gordon to the eldest son of Sir Abuthknott Makewar, owner of the famous Makewar pottery manufactory and incidentally the inventor of Makewar’s Crispy Nuts, the breakfast cereal of champions, without whose nourishing roughage the bowels of Ankh-Morpork would be more congested than was good for them. The wedding present from Vimes and Sybil was a silver egg coddler, Sybil being of the view that you can’t go wrong with a coddled egg.

And Vimes was gratified when he noticed at the ceremony that one of the daughters was wearing a spanking new nurse’s uniform and three of the others were sporting some quite fabulous and also, according to Sybil with great glee, quite scandalous bonnets from the new Gordon Bonnets range.

There was an apology from the ax-wielding Hermione, but according to her mother she was detained in the woods dealing with a very large and troublesome Pinus, which caused Vimes’s face to go blank until Sybil nudged him and pointed out that the pinus strobus was the official name for the white pine.

But most of all, later that year, Vimes was totally amazed to find that the bestselling novel taking the Ankh-Morpork literary world by storm was dedicated to Commander Samuel Vimes.

The title of the book was Pride and Extreme Prejudice.