Snuff (Discworld 39)

Vimes was familiar with the ridiculous litany. Every man who served behind a bar thought of himself as one of the world’s great thinkers and it was wise to treat him as such. After the handshake he added, “This juice is pretty good. Rather tangy.”

“Yes, sir, my wife puts chilli peppers in it, and celery seed to make a man think that he’s drinking something with bones in.”

Vimes leaned on the bar, inexplicably at peace. The wall over the bar was hung with the heads of dead animals, particularly those possessed of antlers and fangs, but it came as a shock to spot, in the grubby light, a goblin’s head. I’m on holiday, he thought, and that probably happened a long time ago, ancient history, and he left it at that.

Mr. Jiminy busied himself with the dozens of little tasks that a barman can always find to do, while occasionally glancing at his single customer. Vimes thought for a moment and said, “Can you take a pint to those gentlemen outside, Mr. Jiminy, and put a brandy in each one so that a man knows he’s

drinking something?”

“That would be Long Tom, Short Tom and Tom Tom,” said Jiminy, reaching for some mugs. “Decent lads—triplets, as it happens. They earn their keep but, as you might say, they shared one brain out between all three of them and it wasn’t that good a brain to start with. Very good when it comes to scaring crows, though.”

“And were all named Tom?” said Vimes.

“That’s right. It’s by way of being a family name, see, their dad being called Tom also. Maybe it saves confusion, them being easily confused. They’re getting on a bit now, of course, but if you give them a job they can do then they’ll do it well, and won’t stop until you tell them to. No beggars in the countryside, see? There’s always little jobs that need doing. By your leave, sir, I’ll give them short measure on the brandy. They don’t need too much confusing, if you get my drift.”

The publican put the mugs on a tray and disappeared out into the bright sunshine. Vimes moved swiftly behind the bar and back again without stopping. A few seconds later he was leaning nonchalantly on the bar as three faces peeped in through the open door. With a look of some apprehension three thumbs-up salutes were aimed at Vimes and the faces were hauled back out of sight again, presumably in case he exploded or developed horns.

Jiminy came back with the empty tray, and gave Vimes a cheerful smile. “Well, you’ve made some friends there, sir, but don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do.”

A copper, thought Vimes. I recognize a police truncheon when I see one. That’s the copper’s dream, isn’t it—to leave the streets behind and run a little pub somewhere, and because you’re a copper and because being a copper never leaves you, you will know what is going on. I know you and you don’t know that I do. And from where I’m sitting I call that a result. You wait, Mr. Jiminy. I know where you live.

Now Vimes could hear slow and heavy footsteps in the distance, getting closer. He saw the local men as they arrived in their working clothes and carrying what most people would call agricultural implements, but which Vimes mentally noted as offensive weapons. The troupe stopped outside the door and now he heard whispering. The three Toms were imparting today’s news, apparently, and it seemed to be received with either incredulity or scorn. Some sort of conclusion was being reached, not happily.

And then the men lurched in, and Vimes’s mind clocked them for ready reference. Exhibit one was an elderly man with a long white beard and, good heavens, a smock. Did they really still wear those? Whatever his name the others probably called him “Granddad.” He shyly touched his forefinger to his forehead in salute and headed for the bar, job safely done. He had been carrying a big hook, not a nice weapon. Exhibit two carried a shovel, which could be an ax or a club if a man knew what he was doing. He was smocked up too, didn’t catch Vimes’s eye, and his salute had been more like a begrudged wave. Exhibit three, who was holding a toolbox (terrific weapon if swung accurately) scurried past with speed and barely glanced in Vimes’s direction. He looked young and rather weedy, but nevertheless you can get a good momentum on one of those boxes. Then there was another elderly man, wearing a blacksmith’s apron, but the wrong build, so Vimes marked him down as a farrier. Yes, that would be it, short and wiry, would easily be able to get under a horse. The man presented a reasonable attempt at a forelock salute, and Vimes was unable to make out any dangerous bulges concealed by the apron. He couldn’t help this algebra; it was what you did when you did the job. Even if you didn’t expect trouble, you, well, expected trouble.

And then the room froze.

There had been some desultory conversation in the vicinity of Jiminy but it stopped now as the real blacksmith came in. Bugger. All Vimes’s warning bells rang at once, and they weren’t tinkly bells. They clanged. After a brief glower round the room the man headed for the bar on the course that would take him past, or probably over, or even through Sam Vimes. As it was, Vimes carefully pulled his mug out of harm’s way so that the man’s undisguised attempt to “accidentally” spill it failed.

“Mr. Jiminy,” Vimes called out, “a round of drinks for these gentlemen, all right?”

This caused a certain amount of cheerfulness among the other newcomers, but the smith slammed a hand like a shovel down on the wood so that glasses jumped.

“I don’t care to drink with them as grinds the faces of the poor!”

Vimes held his gaze, and said, “Sorry, I didn’t bring my grinder with me today.” It was silly, because a couple of sniggers from hopeful drinkers at the bar merely stoked whatever fires the blacksmith had neglected to leave at work, and made him angry.

“Who are you to think you’re a better man than me?”

Vimes shrugged, and said, “I don’t know if I am a better man than you.” But he was thinking: you look to me like a big man in a small community, and you think you’re tough because you’re strong and metal doesn’t sneak up behind you and try to kick you in the goolies. Good grief, you don’t even know how to stand right! Even Corporal Nobbs could get you down and be kicking you industriously in the fork before you knew what was happening.

Like any man fearing that something expensive could get broken, Jiminy came bustling across the floor and grabbed the smith by one arm, saying, “Come on, Jethro, let’s have no trouble. His grace is just having a drink the like of which any man is entitled to…”

This appeared to work, although aggression smouldered on Jethro’s face and indeed in the surrounding air. By the look on the faces of the other men, this was a performance they were familiar with. It was a poor copper who couldn’t read a pub crowd, and Vimes could probably write a history, with footnotes. Every community has its firebrand, or madman, or self-taught politician. Usually they are tolerated because they add to the gaiety of nations, as it were, and people say things like “It’s just his way,” and the air clears and life goes on. But Jethro, now sitting in the far corner of the bar nursing his pint like a lion huddled over his gazelle, well, Jethro, in the Vimes lexicon of risk, was a man likely to explode. Of course the world sometimes needed blowing up, just so long as it didn’t happen where Vimes was drinking.

Vimes was becoming aware that the pub was filling up, mostly with other sons of the soil, but also with people who, whether they were gentlemen or not, would expect to be called so. They wore colorful caps and white trousers and spoke continuously.

There was also further activity outside; horses and carriages were filling the lane. Hammering was going on somewhere and Jiminy’s wife was now manning or, more correctly, womaning the bar while her husband ran back and forth with his tray. Jethro remained in his corner like a man biding his time, occasionally glaring daggers, and probably fists as well with an option on boots, if Vimes so much as looked at him.

Vimes decided to take a look out of the grubby pub window. Regrettably, the pub was that most terrifying of things, picturesque, which meant that the window consisted of small round panes fixed in place with lead. They were for letting the light in, not for looking out of, since they bent light so erratically that it nearly broke. One pane showed what was probably a sheep but which looked like a white whale, until it moved, when it became a mushroom. A man walked past with no head until he reached another pane and then had one enormous eyeball. Young Sam would have loved it, but his father decided to give eventual blindness a miss and stepped out into the sunshine.

Ah, he thought, some kind of game.

Oh well.

Vimes wasn’t keen on games because they led to crowds, and crowds led to work for coppers. But here in fact he wasn’t a copper, was he? It was a strange feeling, so he left the pub and became an innocent bystander. He couldn’t remember when he had been one before. It felt…vulnerable. He strolled over to the nearest man, who was hammering some stakes into the ground, and asked, “What’s going on here, then?” Realizing that he had spoken in copper rather than in ordinary citizen, he added quickly, “If you don’t mind me asking?”

The man straightened up. He was one of the ones with the colorful caps. “Haven’t you ever seen a game of crockett, sir? It’s the game of games!”