Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(50)

Vimes slowly picked up one of the lumps of lead . . .

The alley twisted once or twice, but there were no other alleys or doors off it. There was one at the far end. It was larger than a normal door, and heavily constructed.

'Where are we?' whispered Cuddy.

'Don't know,' said Detritus. 'Back of the docks somewhere.'

Cuddy pushed open the door with his sword.

'Cuddy?'

'Yeah?'

'We walked seven-ty-nine steps!'

'That's nice.'

Cold air rushed past them.

'Meat store,' whispered Cuddy. 'Someone picked the lock.'

He slipped through and into a high, gloomy room, as large as a temple, which in some ways it resembled. Faint light crept through the high, ice-covered windows. From rack upon rack, all the way to the ceiling, hung meat carcasses.

They were semi-transparent and so very cold Cuddy's breath turned to crystals in the air.

'Oh, my,' said Detritus. 'I think this the pork futures warehouse in Morpork Road.'

'What?'

'Used to work here,' said the troll. 'Used to work everywhere. Go away, you stupid troll, you too thick,' he added, gloomily.

'Is there any way out?'

'The main door is in Morpork Street. But no-one comes in here for months. Till pork exists.'[19]

Cuddy shivered.

'You in here!' he shouted. 'It's the Watch! Step out now!'

A dark figure appeared from between a couple of pre-pigs.

'Now what we do?' said Detritus.

The distant figure raised what looked like a stick, holding it like a crossbow.

And fired. The first shot zinged off Cuddy's helmet.

A stony hand clamped on to the dwarf's head and Detritus pushed Cuddy behind him, but then the figure was running, running towards them, still firing.

Detritus blinked.

Five more shots, one after another, punctured his breastplate.

And then the running man was through the open door, slamming it behind him.

'Captain Vimes?'

He looked up. It was Captain Quirke of the Day Watch, with a couple of his men behind him.

'Yes?'

'You come with us. And give me your sword.'

'What?'

'I think you heard me, captain.'

'Look, it's me, Quirke. Sam Vimes? Don't be a fool.'

'I ain't a fool. I've got men with crossbows. Men. It's you that'd be the fool if you resist arrest.'

'Oh? I'm under arrest?'

'Only if you don't come with us . . .'

The Patrician was in the Oblong Office, staring out of the window. The multi-belled cacophony of five o'clock was just dying away.

Vimes saluted. From the back, Vetinari looked like a carnivorous flamingo.

'Ah, Vimes,' he said, without looking around, 'come here, will you? And tell me what you see.'

Vimes hated guessing games, but he joined the Patri-cian anyway.

The Oblong Office had a view over half the city, although most of it was rooftops and towers. Vimes' imagination peopled the towers with men holding gonnes. The Patrician would be an easy target.

'What do you see out there, captain?'

'City of Ankh-Morpork, sir,' said Vimes, keeping his expression carefully blank.

'And does it put you in mind of anything, captain?'

Vimes scratched his head. If he was going to play gaames, he was going to play games . . .

'Well, sir, when I was a kid we owned a cow once, and one day it got sick, and it was always my job to clean out the cowshed, and—'

'It reminds me of a clock,' said the Patrician. 'Big wheels, little wheels. All clicking away. The little wheels spin and the big wheels turn, all at different speeds, you see, but the machine works. And that is the most important thing. The machine keeps going. Because when the machine breaks down . . .'

He turned suddenly, strode to his desk with his usual predatory stalk, and sat down.

'Or, again, sometimes a piece of grit might get into the wheels, throwing them off balance. One speck of grit.'

Vetinari looked up and flashed Vimes a mirthless smile.

'I won't have that.'

Vimes stared at the wall.

'I believe I told you to forget about certain recent events, captain?'

'Sir.'

'Yet it appears that the Watch have been getting in the wheels.'

'Sir.'

'What am I to do with you?'

'Couldn't say, sir.'

Vimes minutely examined the wall. He wished Carrot was here. The lad might be simple, but he was so simple that sometimes he saw things that the subtle missed. And he kept coming up with simple ideas that stuck in your mind. Policeman, for example. He'd said to Vimes one day, while they were proceeding along the Street of Small Gods: Do you know where 'policeman' comes from, sir? Vimes hadn't. 'Polis' used to mean 'city', said Carrot. That's what policeman means: 'a man for the city'. Not many people know that. The word 'polite comes from 'polis', too. It used to mean the ptoper behaviour from someone living in a city.

Man of the city . . . Carrot was always throwing out stuff like that. Like 'copper'. Vimes had believed all his life that the Watch were called coppers because they carried copper badges, but no, said Carrot, it comes from the old word cappere, to capture.