‘Nobby, you was always on the winning side, the reason bein’, you used to lurk aroun’ the edges to see who was winning and then pull the right uniform off’f some poor dead sod. I used to hear where the generals kept an eye on what you were wearin’ so they’d know how the battle was going.’
‘Lots of soldiers have served in lots of regiments,’ said Nobby.
‘Right, what you say is true. Only not usually during the same battle,’ said Sergeant Colon.
They trooped back into the Watch House. Most of the shift had taken the day off. After all, who was in charge? What were they supposed to be doing today? The only ones left were those who never thought of themselves as off duty, and the new recruits who hadn’t had their keen edge blunted.
‘I’m sure Mr Vimes’ll think of something,’ said Carrot. ‘Look, I’d better take the Goriffs back to their shop. Mr Goriff says he’s going to pack up and leave. A lot of Klatchians are leaving. You can’t blame them, either.’
Dreams rising with him like bubbles, Vimes surfaced from the black fathoms of sleep.
Normally, these days, he treasured the moment of waking. It was when solutions presented themselves. He assumed bits of his brain came out at night and worked on the problems of the previous day, handing him the result just as he opened his eyes.
All that arrived now were memories. He winced. Another memory turned up. He groaned. The sound of his badge bouncing on the table replayed itself. He swore.
He swung his legs off the covers and groped for the bedside table.
‘Bingeley-bingeley beep!’
‘Oh, no… All right, what’s the time?’
‘One o’clock pee em! Hello, Insert Name Here!’
Vimes looked blearily at the Dis-organizer. One day, he knew, he really would have to try to understand the manual for the damn thing. Either that or drop it off a cliff.[9]
‘What—’ he began, and then groaned again. The twanging sound made by the unwound turban as it took his weight had just come back to haunt him.
‘Sam?’ The bedroom door was pushed open and Sybil came in carrying a cup.
‘Yes, dear?’
‘How do you feel?’
‘I’ve got bruises on my brui—’ Another memory crawled up from the pit of guilt. ‘Oh, good grief, did I really call him a long streak of—?’
‘Yes,’ said his wife. ‘Fred Colon came round this morning and told me all about it. And a very good description, I’d say. I went out with Ronnie Rust once. Bit of a cold fish.’
Another recollection burst like a ball of marsh gas in Vimes’s head.
‘Did Fred tell you where he said Rust could put his badge?’
‘Yes. Three times. It seems to be weighing on his mind. Anyway, knowing Ronnie, he’d have to use a hammer.’
Vimes had long ago got used to the fact that the aristocracy all seemed to know one another by their first name.
‘And did Fred tell you anything else?’ he said timidly.
‘Yes. About the shop and the fire and everything. I’m proud of you.’ She gave him a kiss.
‘What do I do now?’ he said.
‘Drink your tea and have a wash and a shave.’
‘I ought to go down to the Watch House and—’
‘A shave! There’s hot water in the jug.’
When she had left he hauled himself upright and tottered into his bathroom. There was, indeed, a jug of hot water on the marble washstand.
He looked at the face in the mirror. Unfortunately, it was his. Perhaps if he shaved it first…? And then he could wash the bits that were left.
Fragments of the night before kept on respectfully drawing themselves to his attention. It was a shame about that guard, but sometimes you just couldn’t stand and argue—
He shouldn’t have done that with his badge. It wasn’t like the old days. He had responsibilities. He should’ve stayed on and made things just a little less—
No. That never worked.
He managed to get the lather on his face. The Riot Act! Good grief… He stopped his razor thoughtfully. Rust’s milky eyes stared out of his memory. Bastard! Men like that thought, they really thought, that the Watch was a kind of sheepdog, to nip at the heels of the flock, bark when spoken to and never, ever, bite the shepherd…
Oh yes. Vimes knew in his bones who the enemy was.
Except—
No badge, no Watch, no job…
Another memory arrived, late.
Lather still dripping down his shirt, he pulled Vetinari’s sealed letter out of his pocket and slit it open with the razor.
There was a blank sheet of paper inside. He turned it over, and there was nothing on the other side either. Mystified, he glanced at the envelope.
Sir Samuel Vimes, Knight.
Nice of him to be so precise about it, Vimes thought. What was the point of a message with no message? Some people might absentmindedly have slipped the wrong piece of paper in an envelope, but Vetinari wouldn’t. What was the point of sending him a note telling him he was a knight, for gods’ sake, he knew that embarrassing fact well enough—
Another little memory burst open as silently as a mouse passing wind in a hurricane.
Who’d said it? Any gentleman—
Vimes stared. Well, he was a gentleman, wasn’t he? It was official.
And then he didn’t shout, and he didn’t run out of the room. He finished shaving, had a wash and put on a change of underwear, very calmly.
Downstairs, Sybil had cooked him a meal. She wasn’t a very good cook. This was fine by Vimes, because he wasn’t a very good eater. After a lifetime of street meals his stomach wasn’t set up right. What it craved was little crunchy brown bits, the food group of the gods, and Sybil reliably always left the pan too long on the dragon.
She eyed him carefully as he chewed his fried egg and stared into the middle distance. Her manner was that of someone with a portable safety net watching a man on the high wire.
After a while, while she watched him crack open a sausage, he said, ‘Do we have any books on chivalry, dear?’
‘Hundreds, Sam.’
‘Is there any one which tells you what… you know, what it’s all about? I mean, what you have to do if you’re a knight, say? Responsibilities and so on?’
‘Most of them, I should think.’
‘Good. I think I shall do a little reading.’ Vimes hit the bacon with his fork. It shattered very satisfactorily.
Afterwards, he went into the library. Twenty minutes later, he came back out for a pencil and some paper.
Ten minutes after that, Lady Sybil took him a cup of coffee. He was hidden behind a pile of books, and apparently deep in Life of Chivalrie. She crept out and went into her own study, where she settled down to update her dragon-breeding records.
It was an hour later when she heard him step out into the hall.
He was humming under his breath, tunelessly, with the faraway look of preoccupation that means that some Big Thought has required the shutting down of all non-essential processes. He was also re-radiating the field of angered innocence that was, to her, part of his essential Vimesness.
‘Are you going out, Sam?’
‘Yes. I’m just going to kick some arse, dear.’
‘Oh, good. Just be sure you wrap up well, then.’
The Goriff family trudged along silently beside Carrot.
‘I’m sorry about your shop, Mr Goriff,’ he said.
Goriff shifted the load he was carrying. ‘We can start other shops,’ he said.
‘We’ll certainly keep an eye on it,’ said Carrot. ‘And… when all this is over, you can come back.’
9
One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.