When Sybil had disappeared into the crowd he found a handy shadow and lurked in it. It enabled him to see almost the whole of the University’s Great Hall.
He quite liked the wizards. They didn’t commit crimes. Not Vimes’s type of crimes, anyway. The occult wasn’t Vimes’s beat. The wizards might well mess up the very fabric of time and space but they didn’t lead to paperwork, and that was fine by Vimes.
There were a lot of them in the hall, in all their glory. And there was nothing finer than a wizard dressed up formally, until someone could find a way of inflating a Bird of Paradise, possibly by using an elastic band and some kind of gas. But the wizards were getting a run for their money, because the rest of the guests were either nobles or guild leaders or both, and an occasion like the Convivium brought out the peacock in everyone.
His gaze went from face to chatting face, and he wondered idly what each person was guilty of.[3]
Quite a few of the ambassadors were there, too. They were easy to pick out. They wore their national costumes, but since by and large their national costumes were what the average peasant wore they looked slightly out of place in them. Their bodies wore feathers and silks, but their minds persistently wore suits.
They chatted in small groups. One or two nodded and smiled to him as they passed.
The world is watching, Vimes thought. If something went wrong and this stupid Leshp business started a war, it’s men like these who’d be working out exactly how to deal with the winner, whoever it was. Never mind who started it, never mind how it was fought, they’d want to know how to deal with things now. They represented what people called the ‘international community’. And like all uses of the word ‘community’, you were never quite sure what or who it was.
He shrugged. It wasn’t his world, thank goodness.
He sidled over to Corporal Nobbs, who was standing by the main doors in the sort of lopsided slouch which was the closest a living Nobbs could come to attention.
‘All quiet, Nobby?’ he said, out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Yessir.’
‘Nothing going on at all?’
‘Nossir. Not a pigeon anywhere, sir.’
‘What, nowhere? Nothing?’
‘Nossir.’
‘There was trouble all over the place yesterday!’
‘Yessir.’
‘You did tell Fred he was to send a bird if there was anything at all?’
‘Yessir.’
‘The Shades? There’s always something—’
‘Dead quiet, sir.’
‘Damn!’
Vimes shook his head at the sheer untrustworthiness of Ankh-Morpork’s criminal fraternity.
‘I suppose you couldn’t take a brick and—’
‘Lady Sybil was very speffic about how you was to stop here,’ said Corporal Nobbs, staring straight ahead.
‘Speffic?’
‘Yeah, sir. She come and have a word with me. Gave me a dollar,’ said Nobby.
‘Ah, Sir Samuel!’ said a booming voice behind him, ‘I don’t think you’ve met Prince Khufurah yet, have you?’
He turned. Archchancellor Ridcully was bearing down on him, towing a couple of swarthy men. Vimes hurriedly put on his official face.
‘This is Commander Vimes, gentlemen. Sam… no, I’m doing this the wrong way round, aren’t I, got the protocol all wrong — so much to sort out, the Bursar’s locked himself in the safe again, we don’t know how he manages to get the key in there with him, I mean, it’s not even as if it’s got a keyhole on the inside…’
The first man held out a hand as Ridcully bustled off again. ‘Prince Khufurah,’ he said. ‘My carpet got in only two hours ago.’
‘Carpet? Oh… yes… you flew…’
‘Yes, very chilly and of course you just can’t get a good meal. And did you get your man, Sir Samuel?’
‘What? Pardon?’
‘I believe our ambasssador told me you had to leave the reception last week…?’ The Prince was a tall man who had probably once been quite athletic until the big dinners had finally weighed him down. And he had a beard. All Klatchians had beards. This Klatchian had intelligent eyes, too. Disconcertingly intelligent. You looked into them and several layers of person looked back at you.
‘What? Oh. Yes. Yes, we got ’em all right,’ said Vimes.
‘Well done. He put up a fight, I see.’
Vimes looked surprised. The Prince tapped his jaw thoughtfully. Vimes’s hand flew up and encountered a little bit of tissue on his own chin.
‘Ah… er… yes…’
‘Commander Vimes always gets his man,’ said the Prince.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say I—’
‘Vetinari’s terrier, I’ve heard them call you,’ the Prince went on. ‘Always hot on the chase, they say, and he won’t let go.’
Vimes stared into the calm, knowing gaze.
‘I suppose, at the end of the day, we’re all someone’s dog,’ he said, weakly.
‘In fact it is fortuitous I have met you, commander.’
‘It is?’
‘I was just wondering about the meaning of the word shouted at me as we were on our way down here. Would you be so kind?’
‘Er… if I…’
‘I believe it was… let me see now… oh, yes… towelhead.’
The Prince’s eyes stayed locked on Vimes’s face.
Vimes was conscious of his own thoughts moving very fast, and they seemed to reach their own decision. We’ll explain later, they said. You’re too tired for explanations. Right now, with this man, it’s oh so much better to be honest…
‘It… refers to your headdress,’ he said.
‘Oh. Is it some kind of obscure joke?’
Of course he knows, thought Vimes. And he knows I know…
‘No. It’s an insult,’ he said eventually.
‘Ah? Well, we certainly cannot be held responsible for the ramblings of idiots, commander.’ The Prince flashed a smile. ‘I must commend you, incidentally.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘For your breadth of knowledge. I must have asked a dozen people that question this morning and, do you know? Not one of them knew what it meant. And they all seemed to have caught a cough.’
There was a diplomatic pause but, in it, someone sniggered.
Vimes let his glance drift sideways to the other man, who had not been introduced. He was shorter and skinnier than the Prince and, under his black headdress, had the most crowded face Vimes had ever seen. A network of scars surrounded a nose like an eagle’s beak. There was a sort of beard and moustache, but the scars had affected the hair growth so much that they stuck out in strange bunches and at odd angles. The man looked as though he had been hit in the mouth by a hedgehog. He could have been any age. Some of the scars looked fresh.
All in all, the man had a face that any policeman would arrest on sight. There was no possible way it could be innocent of anything.
He caught Vimes’s expression and grinned, and Vimes had never seen so much gold in one mouth. He’d never seen so much gold in one place.
Vimes realized he was staring when he ought to have been making polite diplomatic conversation.
‘So,’ he said, ‘are we going to have a scrap over this Leshp business or what?’
The Prince gave a dismissive shrug.
‘Pfui,’ he said. ‘A few square miles of uninhabited fertile ground with superb anchorage in an unsurpassed strategic position? What sort of inconsequence is that for civilized people to war over?’
Once again Vimes felt the gaze on him, reading him. Well, the hell with it. He said, ‘Sorry, I’m not good at this diplomacy business. Did you mean what you just said then?’
3
The possibility that they were not guilty of anything was one that he didn’t even think worthy of consideration.