"They go at the knees," said Vimes, but it was the grumble of the defeated.
"I"ll ring for Igor to come and help you."
"Things will have come to a pretty pass when I can"t put my own tights on, dear, thank you."
Vimes dressed hurriedly, listening for... anything. Some creak in the wrong place, perhaps.
At least this was a Watch uniform, even if it did have buckled shoes. It included a sword. The duking outfit didn"t allow for one, which had always struck Vimes as amazingly stupid. You got made a duke for being a fighter, and then they gave you nothing to fight with.
There was a tinkle of glass back in the bedroom, and Lady Sybil was astonished to see her husband enter at a run with his sword raised.
"I dropped the top of a scent bottle, Sam! What"s up with you? Even Angua says he"s probably miles away and in no shape to cause trouble! Why"re you so nervy?"
Vimes put down the sword and tried to relax.
"Because our Wolfgang"s a damn bottle covey, dear. I know the sort. Any normal person, they crawl off if they get a beating. Or they have the sense to stay down, at least. But sometimes you get one who just won"t let go. Eight-stone weaklings who"ll try to headbutt Detritus. Evil little bantamweight bastards who"ll bust a bottle on the bar and try to attack five watchmen all at once. You know what I mean? Idiots who"ll go on fighting long after they should stop. The only way to put "em down is to put "em out."
"I think I recognize the type, yes," said Lady Sybil, with an irony that failed to register with Sam Vimes until some days later. She picked some lint off his cloak.
"He"s going to be back. I can feel it in my water," mumbled Vimes.
"Sam?"
"Yes?"
"Can I have your attention for a couple of minutes? Wolfgang is Angua"s problem, not yours. I really need to talk to you very quietly for a little while without you running off after werewolves." She said it as if this was a minor character flaw, like a tendency to leave his boots where people could trip over them.
"Er, they run after me," he pointed out.
"But there"s always people being found dead or trying to kill you - "
"I don"t ask them to, dear."
"Sam, I"m going to have a baby."
Vimes"s head was full of werewolves and his automatic husbandly circuitry cut in ready to respond with "Yes, dear," or "Choose any colour you like," or "I"ll get someone to sort it out." Fortunately his brain itself had its own sense of self-preservation and, not wishing to be inside a skull that was stowed in by a bedside lamp, rewrote Sybil"s words in white-hot fire across his inner eyeball and then went and hid.
That"s why the response came out as a weak "What? How?"
"The normal way, I hope."
Vimes sat down on the bed. "And... not right now?"
"I very much doubt it. But Mrs Content says it"s definite, and she"s been a midwife for fifty years."
"Oh." Some more brain functions crept back. "Good. That"s... good."
"It"ll probably take a while to sink in."
"Yes." Another neuron lit up. "Er, everything will be all right, will it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Er, you"re rather, you"re not as... you..."
"Sam, my family have been bred for breeding. It"s an aristocratic tradition. Of course everything will be all right."
"Oh. Good."