jumped on to the door"s step and hung on.
"Isn"t this the mail coach to Quirm?" he shouted as the driver
urged the horses into a canter.
"That"s right, sir," said Carrot. "I explained it was a matter of
extreme importance."
Vimes redoubled his grip. The mail coaches had good horses.
The wheels, not very far away from him, were already a blur.
"How did you get here so quick?" he yelled. "Short cut through the Apothecary Gardens, sir!"
"What? That little walk by the river? That"s never wide enough for
a coach like this!"
"It was a bit of a squeeze, sir, yes. It got easier when the coach
lamps scraped off."
Vimes was now able to take in the state of the coach"s side. The
paintwork was scored all along it.
"All right," he shouted, "tell the driver I"ll meet the bills, of course!
But it"ll be wasted, Carrot. Park Lane"ll be jam-packed at this time
of day!"
"Don"t worry, sir! I should hang on very tight if I were you, sir!" Vimes heard the whip crack. This was a real mail coach. Mailbags
don"t care whether they"re comfortable. He could feel the
acceleration.
Park Lane would be coming up very soon. Vimes couldn"t see
much, because the wind of their flight was making his eyes water, but up ahead was one of the city"s most fashionable traffic jams. It was bad enough at any time of day, but early evening was particularly horrible, owing to the Ankh-Morpork belief that right of way was the prerogative of the heaviest vehicle or the gobbiest driver. There were minor collisions all the time, which were inevitably followed by both vehicles blocking the junction whilst the drivers got down to discussing road-safety issues with reference to the first weapon they could get their hands on. And it was into this maelstrom of jostling horses, scurrying pedestrians and cursing drivers that the mail coach was heading, apparently, at a full gallop.
He shut his eyes and then, hearing a change in the sound of the wheels, risked opening them again.
The coach flew across the junction. Vimes had a momentary glimpse of a huge queue, fuming and shouting behind a couple of immovable troll officers, before they were spinning on down towards Scoone Avenue.
"You closed the road? You closed the road!" he yelled, above the wind.
"And Kings Way, sir. Just in case," Carrot shouted down.
"You closed two major roads? Two whole damn roads? In the rush hour?"
"Yes, sir," said Carrot. "It was the only way."
Vimes hung on, speechless. Would he have dared do that? But that was Carrot all over. There was a problem, and now it"s gone. Admittedly, the whole city is probably solid with wagons by now, but that"s a new problem.
He"d be home in time. Would a minute have mattered? No, probably not, although Young Sam appeared to have a very accurate internal clock. Possibly even two minutes would be okay. Three minutes, even. You could go to five, perhaps. But that was just it. If you could go to five minutes then you"d go to ten, then half an hour, a couple of hours ... and not see your son all evening. So that was