‘How far do all these tunnels run?’ Vimes said.
‘I don’t propose to tell you,’ said Ardent levelly.
‘So you’re undermining my city?’
‘Oh, commander! You’ve been to the caves in Uberwald. You’ve seen how dwarfs can build. We are craftsmen. Do not think that your house is about to collapse.’
‘But you’re not just building basements! You’re mining!’ said Vimes.
‘In a sense. We would say we are mining for holes. Space, commander, that is what we are digging for. Yes, we are mining for holes. Although our bores have found deep treacle, you will be interested to hear—’
‘You can’t do this!’
‘Can we not? But we are doing it, nevertheless,’ said Ardent calmly.
‘You are burrowing under other people’s property?’
‘Rabbits burrow, commander. We dig. And, yes, we are. How far down does ownership go, after all? And how far up?’
Vimes looked at the dwarf. Calm down, he thought. You can’t deal with this. This is too big. It’s something for Vetinari to decide. Stick to what you know. Stick to what you can deal with.
‘I’m investigating reports of a death,’ he said.
‘Yes. Grag Hamcrusher. A terrible misfortune,’ said Ardent with a calmness that was enraging.
‘I’ve heard it was a vicious murder.’
‘That would be a fair description.’
‘You admit it?’ said Vimes.
‘I’ll choose to assume that you mean by that: “Do I admit there has been a murder?”, commander. Yes. There has. And we are dealing with it.’
‘How?’
‘We are discussing the appointment of a zadkrdga,’ said Ardent, folding his hands. ‘That is “one who smelts”. One who finds the pure ore of truth in the dross of confusion.’
‘Discussing? Have you sealed off the scene of the crime yet?’
‘The smelter may order that, commander, but we already know that the crime was committed by a troll.’ Ardent’s face now bore an expression of amused contempt that Vimes longed to remove.
‘How do you know this? Was it witnessed?’
‘Not as such. But a troll’s club was found beside the body,’ said the dwarf.
‘And that’s all you have to go on?’ Vimes stood up. ‘I’ve had enough of this. Sergeant Angua!’
‘Sir?’ said Angua, beside him.
‘Let’s go. We’re going to find the murder scene while there’s still any clues left to find!’
‘You have no business in the lower areas!’ snapped Ardent, standing up.
‘How are you going to stop me?’
‘How are you going to get past locked doors?’
‘How are you going to find out who murdered Hamcrusher?’
‘I told you, a troll club was found!’
‘And that’s it? “We found a club so a troll did it?” Is anyone going to believe that? You’re prepared to start a war in my city with a piece of flim-flam like that? Because, believe me, that’s what’s going to happen when this gets out. Try it and I’ll arrest you!’
‘And start a war in your city?’ said Ardent.
Dwarf and man glared at one another, while they got their breath. On the ceiling above them, vurms congregated, feasting on spittle and rage.
‘Why would anyone but a troll strike down the grag?’ said Ardent.
‘Good! You’re asking questions!’ Vimes leaned across the desk. ‘If you really want answers, unlock those doors!’
‘No! You cannot go down there, Blackboard Monitor Vimes!’
The dwarf could not have put more venom in the words ‘child murderer’.
Vimes stared.
Blackboard monitor. Well, he had been, in that little street school more than forty-five years ago. Mum had insisted. Gods knew where she’d sprung the penny a day it cost, although most of the time Dame Slightly had been happy to accept payment in old clothes and firewood or, preferably, gin. Numbers, letters, weights, measures; it was not what you’d call a rich curriculum. Vimes had attended for nine months or so, until the streets demanded he learn much harder and sharper lessons. But, for a while, he’d been trusted to hand out the slates and clean the blackboard. Oh, the heady, strutting power of it, when you’re six years old!
‘Do you deny it?’ said Ardent. ‘You destroy written words? You admitted as much to the Low King in Uberwald.’
‘It was a joke!’ said Vimes.
‘Oh? Then you do deny it?’
‘What? No! He was impressed by my titles and I just threw that one in for… fun.’
‘Then you deny the crime?’ Ardent persisted.
‘Crime? I cleaned the blackboard so that new things could be written on it! How is that a crime?’
‘You did not care where those words went?’ said Ardent.
‘Care? They were just chalk dust!’
Ardent sighed and rubbed his eyes.
‘Busy night?’ said Vimes.
‘Commander, I understand that you were young and may not have realized what you were doing, but you must understand that to us you appear to be proud of being complicit in the most heinous of crimes: the destruction of words.’
‘Sorry? Rubbing out “A is for Apple” is a capital crime?’
‘One that would be unthinkable for a true dwarf,’ said Ardent.
‘Really? But I have the trust of the Low King himself,’ said Vimes.
‘So I understand. There are six venerable grags below us, commander, and in their eyes the Low King and his kind have strayed from the true seam. He is,’ Ardent rattled off a sentence in staccato dwarfish too fast for Vimes to catch it, and then translated, ‘wishy-washy. Dangerously liberal. Shallow. He has seen the light.’
Ardent was watching him carefully. Think hard. From what Vimes could remember, the Low King and his circle had been pretty crusty types. These people think they’re soppy liberals.
‘Wishy-washy?’ he said.
‘Indeed. I invite you, therefore, to derive from that statement something of the nature of those I serve below.’
Ah, thought Vimes. There’s something there. Just a hint. Friend Ardent is a thinker.
‘When you say “he has seen the light” you sound as if you mean corrupted,’ he said.
‘Something like that, yes. Different worlds, commander. Down here, it would be unwise to trust your metaphors. To see the light is to be blinded. Do you not know that in darkness the eyes open wider?’
‘Take me to see these people down below,’ said Vimes.
‘They will not listen to you. They will not even look at you. They have nothing to do with the World Above. They believe it is a kind of bad dream. I have not dared tell them about your “newspapers”, printed every day and discarded like rubbish. The shock would kill them.’
But dwarfs invented the printing engine, Vimes thought. Obviously they were the wrong kind of dwarf. I’ve seen Cheery throw stuff in the wastepaper bin, too. It seems like nearly all dwarfs are the wrong sort, eh?
‘What exactly is your job, Mr Ardent?’ said Vimes.
‘I am their chief liaison with the World Above. The steward, you could say.’
‘I thought that was Helmclever’s job?’
‘Helmclever? He orders the groceries, relays my orders, pays the miners and so on. The chores, in fact,’ said Ardent disdainfully. ‘He is a novice and his job is to do what I tell him. It is I who speak for the grags.’
‘You talk to bad dreams on their behalf?’
‘You could put it that way, I suppose. They would not let a proud word-killer become a smelter. The idea would be abominable.’
They glared at one another.