It wasn’t just a random crowd, when you looked closely. It was also a queue, along one side of the street, moving very slowly towards a side door. They were waiting to see the grags. Please come and say the death words over my father… Please advise me on the sale of my shop… Please guide me in my business… I am a long way from the bones of my grandfathers, please help me stay a dwarf…
This was not the time to be d’rkza. Strictly speaking, most Ankh-Morpork dwarfs were d’rkza; it meant something like ‘not really a dwarf’. They didn’t live deep underground and come out only at night, they didn’t mine metal, they let their daughters show at least a few indications of femininity, they tended to be a little slipshod when it came to some of the ceremonies. But the whiff of Koom Valley was in the air and this was no time to be mostly a dwarf. So you paid attention to the grags. They kept you on the straight seam.
And, until now, that had been fine by Vimes. Up until now, though, the grags in the city had stopped short of advocating murder.
He liked dwarfs. They made reliable officers, and tended to be naturally law-abiding, at least in the absence of alcohol. But they were all watching him. He could feel the pressure of their gaze.
Standing around watching people was, of course, Ankh-Morpork’s leading industry. The place was a net exporter of penetrating stares. But these were the wrong kind. The street felt not exactly hostile, but alien. And yet it was an Ankh-Morpork street. How could he be a stranger here?
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought a troll, he thought. But where does that lead? Pick your own copper from a chart?
Two dwarfs were on guard outside Hamcrusher’s house. They were more heavily armed than the average dwarf, insofar as that was possible, but it was probably the black leather sashes they wore that were doing the trick of keeping the mood subdued. These declared to those who recognized them that they were working for deep-down dwarfs and, as such, partook a little of the magic, mana, awe or fear that they engendered in the average, backsliding dwarf.
They started to give Vimes the look of all guards everywhere, which in summary is this: the default position is that you’re dead; only my patience stands in the way. But Vimes was ready for it. Any five hells you cared to name knew that he’d used it himself often enough. He countered with the aloof expression of someone who didn’t notice guards.
‘Commander Vimes, City Watch,’ he said, holding up his badge. ‘I need to see Grag Hamcrusher immediately.’
‘He’s not seeing anyone,’ said one of the guards.
‘Oh. So he is dead, then?’ said Vimes.
He felt the answer. He didn’t even have to see Angua’s little nod. The dwarfs had been dreading the question, and were sweating.
To their shock and horror, and also somewhat to his own surprise, he sat down on the steps between them and pulled a packet of cheap cigars out of his pocket.
‘I won’t offer one to you lads because I know that you aren’t allowed to smoke on duty,’ he said convivially. ‘I don’t allow my boys to do it. The only reason I can get away with it is that there’s no one to tell me off, haha.’ He blew a stream of blue smoke. ‘Now, I am, as you know, head of the City Watch. Yes?’
The two dwarfs, staring straight ahead, both nodded imperceptibly.
‘Good,’ said Vimes. ‘And that means you, that’s both of you, are impeding me in the execution of my duty. That gives me, oooh, a whole range of options. The one I’m thinking of right now is summoning Constable Dorfl. He’s a golem. Nothing impedes him in the execution of his duty, believe me. You’ll be picking bits of that door off the floor for weeks. And I wouldn’t stand in his way, if I was you. Oh, and it’d be lawful, which means that if anyone puts up a fight it gets really interesting. Look, I’m only telling you this because I’ve done my share of guarding over the years, and there are times when looking tough works and there are times — and this, I suggest, is one of them — when going and asking the people inside what you should do next is a very good career move.’
‘Can’t leave our post,’ said a dwarf.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Vimes, standing. ‘I’ll stand guard for you.’
‘You can’t do that!’
Vimes bent down to the dwarf’s ear.
‘I am Commander of the Watch,’ he hissed, no longer Mr Friendly. He pointed at the cobblestones. ‘This is my street. I can stand where I like. You are standing on my street. It’s the public highway. That means that there are about a dozen things I could arrest you for, right now. That would cause trouble, right enough, but you would be bang in the middle of it. My advice to you, one guard to another, is to hop off smartly and speak to someone highe— further up the ladder, okay?’
He saw worried eyes peering out from between the rampant eyebrows and the luxuriant moustache and spotted the tiny little tells he’d come to recognize, and added: ‘Off you go, ma’am.’
The dwarf hammered on the door. The hatch slid back. Whispering transpired. The door opened. The dwarf hurried in. The door closed. Vimes turned, took up station beside it, and stood to attention slightly more theatrically than necessary.
There were one or two outbreaks of laughter. Dwarfs they might be, but in Ankh-Morpork people always wanted to see what would happen next.
The remaining guard hissed, ‘We’re not allowed to smoke on duty!’
‘Oops, sorry,’ said Vimes, and removed the cigar, tucking it behind his ear for later. This got a few more chuckles. Let ’em laugh, said Vimes to himself. At least they’re not throwing things.
The sun shone down. The crowd stood still. Sergeant Angua stared at the sky, her face carefully blank. Detritus had settled into the absolute, rock-like stillness of a troll with nothing to do right now. Only Ringfounder looked uneasy. This probably was not a good time and place to be a dwarf with a badge, Vimes thought. But why? All we’ve been doing in the last couple of weeks is trying to stop two bunches of idiots from killing one another.
And now this. This morning was going to cost him an earful, he thought, although in fact Sybil never shouted when she told him off. She just spoke sadly, which was a lot worse.
The bloody family portrait, that was the trouble. It seemed to involve an awful lot of sittings, but it was a tradition of Sybil’s family and that was that. It was more or less the same portrait, every generation: the happy family group, against a panorama of their rolling acres. Vimes had no rolling acres, only aching feet, but as the inheritor of the Ramkin wealth he was, he’d learned, also the owner of Crundells, a huge stately home out in the country. He hadn’t even seen it yet. Vimes didn’t mind the countryside if it stayed put and didn’t attack, but he liked pavement under his feet and didn’t much care for being pictured as some kind of squire. So far his excuses for avoiding the interminable sittings had been reasonable, but it was a close-run thing…
More time passed. Some of the dwarfs in the crowd wandered off. Vimes didn’t move, not even when he heard the hatch in the door open for a moment and then slide back. They were trying to wait him out.
‘Tcha-tcha-rumptiddle-tiddle-tiddle-tiddletchum-chum!’
Without looking down, maintaining the stolid thousand-mile stare of a guard, Vimes pulled the Dis-Organizer out of his pocket and raised it to his lips.