Night Watch (Discworld 29)

'Why do-' Colon began. 'Don't ask, Fred. Just get half a dozen bottles, all right?' Vimes turned to the desk on which, surrounded by a fascinated crowd, Dr Lawn was at work on the stricken Gappy. 'How's it going?' said Vimes, pushing through. 'Slower than it'd go if people got out of the damn light,' said Lawn, carefully moving his tweezers to a mug by Gappy's hand and dropping a bloody fragment of glass therein. 'I've seen worse on a Friday night. He'll keep the use of his fingers, if that's what you want to know. He just won't be making any shoes for a while. Well done.' There was general crowd approval. Vimes looked around at the people and the coppers. There were one or two muted conversations going on; he heard phrases like 'bad business' and 'they say that-' above the general noise. He'd played the cards well enough. Most of the lads here lived within a street or two. It was one thing to have a go at faceless bastards in uniform, but quite another to throw stones at old Fred Colon or old Waddy or old Billy Wiglet, who you'd known since you were two years old and played Dead Rat Conkers with in the gutter. Lawn put the tweezers down and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'That's it,' he said wearily. 'A bit of stitching and he'll be fine.'

'And there's some others I need you to take a look at,' said Vimes. 'You know, that comes as no surprise,' said the doctor. 'One's got a lot of holes in his feet, one dropped through the privy roof and has got a twisted leg, and one's dead.'

'I don't think I can do much about the dead one,' said the doctor. 'How do you know he's dead? I realise that I may regret asking that question.'

'He's got a broken neck from falling off a roof and I reckon he fell off because he got a steel crossbow bolt in his brain.'

'Ah. That sounds like dead, if you want my medical opinion. Did you do it?'

'No!'

'Well, you're a busy man, sergeant. You can't be everywhere.' The doctor's face cracked into a grin when he saw Vimes go red, and he walked over to the corpse. 'Yes, I'd say that life is definitely extinct,' he said. 'And?'

'I want you to write that down, please. On paper. With official-sounding words like “contusion” and “abrasions”. I want you to write that down, and I want you to write down what time you found he was dead. And then if you don't mind two lads'll take you down to look at the other two, and after you've treated them, thank you, I'd like you to sign another piece of paper saying you did and I called you in. Two copies of everything, please.'

'All right. Dare I ask why?'

'I don't want anyone to say I did it.'

'Why should anyone say that? You told me he fell off a roof!'

'These are suspicious times, doctor. Ah, here's Fred. Any luck?' Corporal Colon was carrying a box. He put it down on his desk with a grunt. 'Old Mrs Arbiter didn't like being knocked up in the middle of the night,' he announced. 'I had to give her a dollar!' Vimes didn't dare look at Lawn's face. 'Really?' he said, as innocently as possible. 'And you got the ginger beer?'

'Six pints of her best stuff,' said Colon. There's three pence back on the bottles, by the way. And ... er. . .' He shuffled uneasily. 'Er . . . I heard they set fire to the Watch House at Dolly Sisters, sarge. It's very bad up at Nap Hill, too. And, er . . . the Chittling Street House got all its windows broke, and up at the Leastgate House some of the lads went out to stop kids throwing stones and, er, one of them drew his sword, sarge . . .'

'And?'

'He'll probably live, sarge.' Dr Lawn looked about him at the crowded office, where people were still talking. Snouty was going round with a tray of cocoa. Out in the street, some of the watchmen were standing around a makeshift fire with the remnant of the crowd. 'Well, I must say I'm impressed,' he said. 'Sounds like you're the only Watch House not under siege tonight. I don't want to know how you did it.'

'Luck played a part,' said Vimes. 'And I've got three men who carry no personal identification whatsoever in the cells, and another anonymous would-be assassin who has been assassinated.'

'Quite a problem,' said Lawn. 'Now me, I just have to deal with simple mysteries like what the rash means.'

'I intend to solve mine quite quickly,' said Vimes. The Assassin moved quietly from roof to roof until he was well away from the excitement around the Watch House. His movements could be called cat-like, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things. Eventually he reached one of the upper world's many hidden places, where several thickets of chimneys made a little sheltered space, invisible from the ground and from most of the surrounding roofscape. He didn't enter it immediately, but circled it for a while, moving with absolute silence from one vantage point to another. What would have intrigued a watcher who knew the ways of Ankh-Morpork's Guild of Assassins was how invisible this one was. When he moved, you saw movement; when he stopped, he wasn't there. Magic would have been suspected and, in an oblique way, the watcher would have been right. Ninety per cent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact. At last the figure appeared satisfied, and dropped into the space. He picked up a bag from its nesting place between the smoking pots, and there was some faint swishing and heavier breathing that suggested clothes were being changed. After a minute or so he emerged from the hidden niche and now, somehow, he was visible. Hard to see, yes, one shadow among others, but nevertheless there in a way that he had not been before, when he'd been as visible as the breeze. He dropped lightly on to a lean-to roof and thence to the ground, where he stepped into a handy shadow. Then there was a further transformation. It was done quite easily. The evil little crossbow was disassembled and slipped into the pockets of a clink-free velvet bag, the soft leather slippers were exchanged for a pair of heavier boots that had been stashed in the shadow, and the black hood was pushed back.

He walked lightly around the corner and waited a few minutes. A coach came along, its torches trailing flame. It slowed briefly, and its door opened and shut. The Assassin settled back in his seat as the coach picked up speed again. There was a very faint lamp in the carriage. Its glow revealed a female figure relaxing in the shadows opposite. As the coach passed a torch there was a suggestion of lilac silk. 'You've missed a bit,' said the figure. It produced a lilac-coloured handkerchief and held it in front of the young man's face. 'Spit,' came the command. Reluctantly, he did so. A hand wiped his cheek, and then held the cloth up to the light. 'Dark green,' said the woman. 'How strange. I understand, Havelock, that you scored zero in your examination for stealthy movement.'

'May I ask how you found that out, Madam?'

'Oh, one hears things,' Madam said lightly. 'One just has to hold money up to one's ear.'

'Well, it was true,' said the Assassin. 'And why was this?'

'The examiner thought I'd used trickery. Madam.'

'And did you?'

'Of course. I thought that was the idea.'

'And you never attended his lessons, he said.'

'Oh, I did. Religiously.'

'He says he never saw you at any of them.' Havelock smiled. 'And your point, Madam, is . . . ?' Madam laughed. 'Will you take some champagne?' There was the sound of a bottle moving in an ice bucket. 'Thank you, Madam, but no.'

'As you wish. I shall. And now . . . report, please.'

'I can't believe what I saw. I thought he was a thug. And he is a thug. You can see his muscles thinking for him. But he overrules them moment by moment! I think I saw a genius at work, but...'