Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(56)

'That's a nice coat you've got there,' said Cuddy.

Dibbler's cart went around the corner on one wheel.

'It's a nice coat,' said Cuddy. 'You know what you should do with a coat like that?'

The man's forehead wrinkled.

'Take it off right now,' said Cuddy, 'and give it to the troll.'

'Why, you little—'

The man grabbed Cuddy by his shirt and wrenched him upwards.

The dwarf's hand moved very quickly. There was a scrape of metal.

Man and dwarf made an interesting and absolute stationary tableau for a few seconds.

Cuddy had been brought up almost level with the man's face, and watched with interest as the eyes began to water.

'Let me down,' said Cuddy. 'Gently. I make involuntary muscle movements if I'm startled.'

The man did so.

'Now take off your coat . . . good . . . just pass it over . . . thank you . . .'

'Your axe . . .' the man murmured.

'Axe? Axe? My axe?' Cuddy looked down. 'Well, well, well. Hardly knew I was holding it there. My axe. Well, there's a thing.'

The man was trying to stand on tiptoe. His eyes were watering.

'The thing about this axe,' said Cuddy, 'the interesting thing, is that it's a throwing axe. I was champion three years running up at Copperhead. I could draw it and split a twig thirty yards away in one second. Behind me. And I was ill that day. A bilious attack.'

He backed away. The man sank gratefully on to his heels.

Cuddy draped the coat over the troll's shoulders.

'Come on, on your feet,' he said. 'Let's get you home.'

The troll lumbered upright.

'How many fingers am I holding up?' said Cuddy.

Detritus peered.

'Two and one?' he suggested.

'It'll do,' said Cuddy. 'For a start.'

Mr Cheese looked over the bar at Captain Vimes, who hadn't moved for an hour. The Bucket was used to serious drinkers, who drank without pleasure but with a sort of determination never to see sobriety again. But this was something new. This was worrying. He didn't want a death on his hands.

There was no-one else in the bar. He hung his apron on a nail and hurried out towards the Watch House, ahnost colliding with Carrot and Angua in the doorway.

'Oh, I'm glad that's you, Corporal Carrot,' he said. 'You'd better come. It's Captain Vimes.'

'What's happened to him?'

'I don't know. He's drunk an awful lot.'

'I thought he was off the stuff!'

'I think,' said Mr Cheese cautiously, 'that this is not the case any more.'

A scene, somewhere near Quarry Lane: 'Where we going?'

'I'm going to get someone to have a look at you.'

'Not dwarf doctor!'

'There must be someone up here who knows how to slap some quick-drying cement on you, or whatever you do. Should you be oozing like that?'

'Dunno. Never oozed before. Where we?'

'Dunno. Never been down here before.'

The area was on the windward side of the cattle yards and the slaughterhouse district. That meant it was shunned as living space by everyone except trolls, to whom the organic odours were about as relevant and noticeable as the smell of granite would be to humans. The old joke went: the trolls live next to the cattleyard? What about the stench? Oh, the cattle don't mind . . .

Which was daft. Trolls didn't smell, except to other trolls.

There was a slabby look about the buildings here. They had been built for humans but adapted by trolls, which broadly had meant kicking the doorways wider and blocking up the windows. It was still daylight. There weren't any trolls visible.

'Ugh,' said Detritus.

'Come on, big man,' said Cuddy, pushing Detritus along like a tug pushes a tanker.

'Lance-Constable Cuddy?'

'Yes.'

'You a dwarf. This is Quarry Lane. You found here, you in deep trouble.'

'We're city guards.'

'Chrysoprase, he not give a coprolith about that stuff.'

Cuddy looked around.

'What do you people use for doctors, anyway?'

A troll face appeared in a doorway. And another. And another.

What Cuddy had thought was a pile of rubble turned out to be a troll.

There were, suddenly, trolls everywhere.

I'm a guard, thought Cuddy. That's what Sergeant Colon said. Stop being a dwarf and start being a Watchman. That's what I am. Not a dwarf. A Watchman. They gave me a badge, shaped like a shield. City Watch, that's me. I carry a badge.

I wish it was a lot bigger.

Vimes was sitting quietly at a table in the corner of The Bucket. There were some pieces of paper and a handful of metal objects in front of him, but he was staring at his fist. It was lying on the table, clenched so tight the knuckles were white.

'Captain Vimes?' said Carrot, waving a hand in front of his eyes. There was no response.

'How much has he had?'

'Two nips of whiskey, that's all.'

'That shouldn't do this to him, even on an empty stomach,' said Carrot.

Angua pointed at the neck of a bottle protruding from Vimes' pocket.

'I don't think he's been drinking on an empty stomach,' she said. 'I think he put some alcohol in it first.'