Night Watch (Discworld 29)

'You just get on with your job, lance-constable, and I'll do mine . . .' Vimes slipped down into the passage. I'll cut one strap, he thought. They're fiddly to undo. And then . . . well, he'll have a chance, even in the smoke. That's more than anyone else got. He crept through the office and into the chamber. One torch was still alight, but the flame was just a nimbus in the yellow haze. The man was trying to rock the heavy chair, but it had been secured firmly to the floor. Some thought had gone into that chair. The straps on the buckles were hard to reach. Even if a prisoner got one hand free, and that hand had not yet felt the professionalism of the torturer, they'd have a job to get out of the chair in a hurry. He reached down to cut a strap, and heard a key in the lock. Vimes stepped swiftly into the darker shadows. The door opened, letting in the noise of distant shouting and the crackle of burning timber. It sounded as though the Unmentionables were making a run for the clear air of the street. Findthee Swing stepped delicately into the room, and locked the door behind him. He stopped when he saw the seated figure, and examined it carefully. He walked to the office doorway and looked inside. He peered into the cells, but by then Vimes had moved soundlessly around a wall. He heard Findthee sigh. There was the familiar sound of moving steel, followed by a small, organic sort of noise, and a cough. Vimes reached down for his sword. But it was up on the road, too, wasn't it ...

Down here, the song in his head came back louder, with the background clink of metal that was always part of it ... see how they rise up, rise up, rise up . . . He shook his head, as if that'd dislodge the memory. He had to concentrate. Vimes ran into the room and made a leap. It seemed to him that he stayed in the air a long time. There was the torturer, blood on his shirt. There was Swing, just sliding the blade back into the stick. And Vimes, airborne, armed with just a knife. I'm going to get out of this, he thought. I know, because I remember this. I remember Keel coming out and saying it was all over. But that was the real Keel. This is me. It doesn 't have to happen the same way. Swing jerked aside with surprising speed, trying to tug his blade out again. Vimes hit the sacks on the wall, and had the sense to roll away immediately. The blade slashed down beside him, spilling straw on to the floor. He'd expected Swing to be a bad swordsman. That ridiculous stick suggested it. But he was a street swordsman - no finesse, no fancy tricks, just some talent at moving the blade quickly and sticking it where you hoped it wasn't going to go. Fire crackled in the corner of the ceiling. Dripping spirit or sheer heat had worked itself through the heavy floorboards. A couple of the sacks began to blossom thick white smoke, which rolled above the men in a spreading cloud. He circled the chair, watching Swing intently. 'I believe you are making a gravemistake,' said Swing. Vimes concentrated on avoiding the sword. 'Hard times demand hard measures. Every leader knows that . . .' said Swing. Vimes dodged, but continued circling, knife at the ready. 'History needs its butchers as well as its shepherds, sergeant.' Swing jabbed, but Vimes had been watching his eyes, and swayed away in time. The man wasn't pleading. He didn't understand what had been done to require it. But he could see Vimes's face. There was no emotion in it at all. 'You must understand that in times of nationalemergency we cannot be too concerned with the so-called rights of-' Vimes darted sideways and along the haze-filled corridor to the office. Swing lurched after him. The blade sliced Vimes on the back of the leg. He sprawled on to the clerk's desk, knife skittering from his fingers. Swing circled to find a stabbing point. He drew back the sword . . .

Vimes's hand came up holding the steel ruler. The smack of its flat steel knocked the sword right out of the captain's grasp. Vimes pulled himself upright as though in a dream, following on the curve of the stroke. Send it back into the dark until you need it. . . He turned the ruler as the backstroke began and it whispered through the air edge-first, leaving the hazy smoke rolling and coiling behind it. The tip caught Swing across the neck. Behind Vimes the white smoke tumbled out of the corridor. The ceiling of the bloody chamber was falling in. But he stayed, watching Swing with the same blank, intent expression. The man had raised his hands to his throat, blood spurting from between his fingers. He rocked, gasping for a breath that couldn't come, and fell backwards. Vimes tossed the ruler on top of him and limped away. Outside, there was the thunder of moving barricades. Swing opened his eyes. The world around him was grey, except for the black-clad figure in front of him. He sought, as he always did, to learn more about the new person by carefully examining their features. 'Um, your eyes are ... er ... your nose is ... your chin He gave up. YES, said Death, I'M A BIT OF A TRICKY ONE. THIS WAY MR. SWING. Lord Winder was, thought Vetinari, impressively paranoid. He'd even put a guard on the top of the whisky distillery that overlooked the palace grounds. Two guards, in fact. One of them was clearly visible as you rose over the parapet, but the other was lurking in the shadows by the chimneys. The late Hon. John Bleedwell had spotted only the first one. Vetinari watched impassively as the young man was dragged away. If you were an Assassin, being killed in the pursuit of your craft was all part of the job, albeit the last part. You couldn't complain. And it meant there was only one guard now, the other one taking Bleedwell, who had lived up to his name, downstairs. Bleedwell had worn black. Assassins always did. Black was cool and, besides, it was the rules. But only in a dark cellar at midnight was black a sensible colour. Elsewhere, Vetinari preferred dark green, or shades of dark grey. With the right colouring, and the right stance, you vanished. People's eyes would help you vanish. They erased you from their vision, they fitted you into the background.

Of course, he'd be expelled from the Guild if caught wearing such clothing. He'd reasoned that this was much better than being expelled from the land of the upright and breathing. He'd rather not be cool than be cold. The guard, three feet away, lit a cigarette with no consideration for other people. What a genius Lord Winstanleigh Greville-Pipe had been. What an observer. Havelock would love to have met him, or even to have visited his grave, but apparently that was inside a tiger somewhere which, to Greville- Pipe's gratified astonishment, he hadn't spotted until it was too late. Vetinari had done him a private honour, though. He had hunted down and melted the engraver's plates of Some Observations on the Art of Invisibility. He tracked down the other four extant copies, too, but had felt unable to burn them. Instead he'd had the slim volumes bound together inside the cover of Anecdotes of the Great Accountants, Vol. 3. He felt that Lord Winstanleigh Greville-Pipe would rather appreciate that. Vetinari lay comfortably on the lead of the roof, patient as a cat, and watched the palace grounds below. Vimes lay face down on a table in the Watch House, wincing occasionally. 'Please hold still,' said Dr Lawn. 'I've nearly finished. I suppose you'd laugh if I told you to take it easy?'

'Ha. Ha. Uh!'

'It's only a flesh wound, but you ought to get some rest.'

'Ha. Ha.'

'You've got a busy night ahead of you. So have I, I suspect.'

'We should be okay if we've got the barricades all the way to Easy Street,' said Vimes, and was aware of a telling silence. He sat up on the table that Lawn was using as a bench. 'We have got them to Easy Street, haven't we?' he demanded. 'The last I heard, yes,' said the doctor. 'The last you heard?'

'Well, technically no,' said Lawn. 'It's all getting . . . bigger, John. The actual last I heard was someone saying “why stop at Easy Street?”'

'Oh, good grief. 'Yes. I thought so, too.' Vimes dragged his breeches up, fastened his belt and limped out into the road and also into an argument.

There was Rosie Palm, and Sandra, and Reg Shoe and half al dozen others sitting around another table, in the middle of the street. As Vimes stepped out into the evening, a plaintive voice said, 'You cannot fight for “reasonably priced love”.'

'You can if you want me and the rest of the girls on board,' said Rosie. ' “Free” is not a word we wish to see used in these circumstances.'

'Oh, very well,' said Reg, making a note on a clipboard. 'We're all happy with Truth, Justice and Freedom, are we?'

'And better sewers.' This was the voice of Mrs Rutherford. 'And something done about the rats.'

'I think we should be thinking about higher things, comrade Mrs Rutherford,' said Reg. 'I am not a comrade, Mr Shoe, and nor is Mr Rutherford,' said Mrs Rutherford. 'We've always kept ourselves to ourselves, haven't we, Sidney?'

'I've got a question,' said someone in the crowd of onlookers. 'Harry Supple's my name. Got a shoe shop in New Cobblers . . .' Reg seized on this as an opportunity to avoid talking to Mrs Rutherford. Revolutionaries should not have to meet someone like Mrs Rutherford on their first day. 'Yes, comrade Supple?' he said. 'Nor are we boyjoys,' said Mrs Rutherford, not willing to let things go. 'Er, bourgeoisie,' said Reg. 'Our manifesto refers to bourgeoisie. That's like bore, er, shwah, er, zee.'

'Bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie,' said Mrs Rutherford, turning the word over on her tongue. That. . . doesn't sound too bad. What, er, sort of thing do they do?'

'Anyway, it says here in article seven of this here list-' Mr Supple ploughed on. '-People's Declaration of the Glorious Twenty-fourth of May,' said Reg. 'Yeah, yeah, right . . . well, it says we'll seize hold of the means of production, sort of thing, so what I want to know is, how does that work out regarding my shoe shop? I mean, I'm in it anyway, right? It's not like there's room for more'n me and my lad Garbut and maybe one customer.' In the dark, Vimes smiled. Reg could never see stuff coming. 'Ah, but after the revolution all property will be held in common by the people ... er ... that is, it'll belong to you but also to everyone else, you see?' Comrade Supple looked puzzled. 'But I'll be the one making the shoes?'

'Of course. But everything will belong to the people.'

'So . . . who's going to pay for the shoes?' said Mr Supple. 'Everyone will pay a reasonable price for their shoes and you won't be guilty of living off the sweat of the common worker,' said Reg, shortly. 'Now, if we-'

'You mean the cows?' said Supple. 'What?'

'Well, there's only the cows, and the lads at the tannery, and frankly all they do is stand in a field all day, well, not the tannery boys, obviously, but-'

'Look,' said Reg. 'Everything will belong to the people and everyone will be better off. Do you understand?' The shoemaker's frown grew deeper. He wasn't certain if he was part of the people. 'I thought we just didn't want soldiers down our street and mobs and all that lot,' he said. Reg had a hunted look. He made a dive for safety. 'Well, at least we can agree on Truth, Freedom and Justice, yes?' There was a chorus of nods. Everyone wanted those. They didn't cost anything. A match flared in the dark, and they turned to see Vimes light a cigar. 'You'd like Freedom, Truth and Justice, wouldn't you, comrade sergeant?' said Reg encouragingly. 'I'd like a hard-boiled egg,' said Vimes, shaking the match out. There was some nervous laughter, but Reg looked offended. 'In the circumstances, sergeant, I think we should set our sights a little higher-'

'Well, yes, we could,' said Vimes, coming down the steps. He glanced at the sheets of paper in front of Reg. The man cared. He really did. And he was serious. He really was. 'But . . . well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I'm pretty sure that whatever happens we won't have found Freedom, and there won't be a whole lot of Justice, and I'm damn sure we won't have found Truth. But it's just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg. What's this all about, Reg?'

'The People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road!' said Reg proudly. 'We are forming a government!'

'Oh, good,' said Vimes. 'Another one. Just what we need. Now, does any one of you know where my damn barricades have gone?'

' 'ullo, Mr Keel,' said a glutinous voice.

He looked down beside him. There, still wearing his hugely oversize coat but now with the addition of a helmet much too large for him, was Nobby Nobbs. 'How did you get there, Nobby?'

'My mum says I'm insidious,' said Nobby, grinning. A concertina sleeve rose to the vicinity of Nobby's head, and Vimes realized that somewhere in there was a salute. 'She's right,' said Vimes. 'So, where-'