Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

Still, if it wasn't actually signed by the Patrician then it had certainly been written by someone who worked for him. Or in the same building. Probably the Patrician had at least known about the letter. In general terms. Not this letter, perhaps, but probably he knew about the existence of letters in general.

Carrot walked steadfastly down the mountain paths, disturbing clouds of bumblebees. After a while he unsheathed the sword and made experimental stabs at felonious tree stumps and unlawful assemblies of stinging nettles.

Varneshi was sitting outside his hut, threading dried mushrooms on a string.

“Hallo, Carrot, ” he said, leading the way inside. “Looking forward to the city?”

Carrot gave this due consideration.

“No, ” he said.

“Having second thoughts, are you?”

“No. I was just walking along, ” said Carrot honestly. “I wasn't thinking about anything much. ”

“Your dad give you the sword, did he?” said Varneshi, rummaging on a fetid shelf.

“Yes. And a woolly vest to protect me against chills. ”

“Ah. Yes, it can be very damp down there, so I've heard. Protection. Very important. ” He turned around and added, dramatically, “This belonged to my great-grandfather. ”

It was a strange, vaguely hemispherical device surrounded by straps.

“It's some sort of sling?” said Carrot, after examining it in polite silence.

Varneshi told him what it was.

“Codpiece like in fish?” said Carrot, mystified.

“No. It's for the fighting, ” mumbled Varneshi. “You should wear it all the time. Protects your vitals, like. ”

Carrot tried it on.

“It's a bit small, Mr Varneshi. ”

“That's because you don't wear it on your head, you see. ”

Varneshi explained some more, to Carrot's mounting bewilderment and, subsequently, horror. “My great-grandad used to say, ” Varneshi finished, “that but for this I wouldn't be here today. ”

“What did he mean by that?”

Varneshi's mouth opened and shut a few times. “I've no idea, ” he said, spinelessly.

Anyway, the shameful thing was now at the very bottom of Carrot's pack. Swarfs didn't have much truck with things like that. The ghastly preventative represented a glimpse into a world as alien as the backside of the moon.

There had been another gift from Mr Varneshi. It was a small but very thick book, bound in a leather that had become like wood over the years.

It was called: The Laws And Ordinances of The Cities of Ankh And Morpork.

“This belonged to my great-grandad as well, ” he said. “This is what the Watch has to know. You have to know all the laws, ” he said virtuously, "to be a good officer. ''

Perhaps Varneshi should have recalled that, in the whole of Carrot's life, no-one had ever really lied to him or given him an instruction that he wasn't meant to take quite literally. Carrot solemnly took the book. It would never have occurred to him, if he was going to be an officer of the Watch, to be less than a good one.

It was a five hundred mile journey and, surprisingly, quite uneventful. People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, “Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else. ”

He'd spent most of the journey reading.

And now Ankh-Morpork was before him.