Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

A clock ticked in the shadows.

The heavy velvet curtains were drawn, even though there was still plenty of daylight left in the sky. The air was stifling, both from the heat of the day and the candles in the magic lantern.

The only illumination was from the screen which, at that moment, was portraying a very good profile of Corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson.

The small but very select audience watched it with the carefully blank expressions of people who are half convinced that their host is several cards short of a full deck but are putting up with it because they've just eaten a meal and it would be rude to leave too soon.

'Well?' said one of them. 'I think I've seen him walking around the city. So? He's just a watchman, Edward.'

'Of course. It is essential that he should be. A humble station in life. It all fits the classic p-attern.' Edward d'Eath gave a signal. There was a click as another glass slide was slotted in. 'This one was not p-ainted from life. King P-paragore. Taken from an old p-ainting. This one' – click! - 'is King Veltrick III. From another p-portrait. This one is Queen Alguinna IV . . . note the line of the chin? This one' – click! —'is a sevenpenny p-iece from the reign of Webblethorpe the Unconscious, note again the detail of the chin and general b-bone structure, and this' – click! - 'is. . .an upside d-own picture of a vase of flowers. D-elphiniums, I believe. Why is this?'

'Er, sorry, Mr Edward, I 'ad a few glass plates left and the demons weren't tired and—'

'Next slide, please. And then you may leave us.'

'Yes, Mr Edward.'

'Report to the d-uty torturer.'

'Yes, Mr Edward.'

Click!

'And this is a rather good – well done, Bl-enkin – image of the bust of Queen Coanna.'

'Thank you, Mr Edward.'

'More of her face would have enabled us to be certain of the likeness, however. There is sufficient, I believe. You may go, Bl-enkin.'

'Yes, Mr Edward.'

'A little something off the ears, I th-ink.'

'Yes, Mr Edward.'

The servant respectfully shut the door behind him, and then went down to the kitchen shaking his head sadly. The d'Eaths hadn't been able to afford a family torturer for years. For the boy's sake he'd just have to do the best he could with a kitchen knife.

The visitors waited for the host to speak, but he didn't seem about to do so, although it was sometimes hard to tell with Edward. When he was excited, he suffered not so much from a speech impediment as from misplaced pauses, as if his brain were temporarily putting his mouth on hold.

Eventually, one of the audience said: 'Very well. So what is your point?'

'You've seen the likeness. Isn't it ob-vious?'

'Oh, come now—'

Edward d'Eath pulled a leather case towards him and began undoing the thongs.

'But, but the boy was adopted by Discworld dwarfs. They found him as a baby in the forests of the Ramtop mountains. There were some b-urning wagons, corpses, that sort of thing. B-andit attack, apparently. The dwarfs found a sword in the wreckage. He has it now. A very old sword. And it's always sharp.'

'So? The world is full of old swords. And grindstones.'

'This one had been very well hidden in one of the carts, which had broken up. Strange. One would expect it to be ready to hand, yes? To be used? In b-andit country? And then the boy grows up and, and . . . Fate . . . conspires that he and his sword come to Ankh-Morpork, where he is currently a watchman in the Night Watch. I couldn't believe it!'

'That's still not—'

Edward raised his hand a moment, and then pulled out a package from the case.

'I made careful enq-uiries, you know, and was able to find the place where the attack occurred. A most careful search of the ground revealed old cart n-ails, a few copper coins and, in some charcoal . . . this.'