Men at Arms (Discworld #15)(85)

'. . . Me and Tonker Jackson and Hoggy Spuds waited for him in the alley and beat seven kinds of hell out of him, it took three days for my knuckles to heal.' Colon blew his nose. 'Happy days . . . Fancy a boiled sweet, Nobby?'

'Don't mind if I do, Fred.'

'Give one to the little dog,' said Gaspode. Colon did, and then wondered why.

'See?' said Gaspode, crunching it up in his dreadful teeth. 'I'm brilliant. Brilliant.'

'You'd better pray Big Fido doesn't find out,' said Angua.

'Nah. He won't touch me. I worry him. I've got the Power.' He scratched an ear vigorously. 'Look, you don't have to go back in there, we could go and—'

'No.'

Story of my life,' said Gaspode. 'There's Gaspode. Give him a kick.'

I thought you had this big happy family to go back to.' said Angua, as she pushed open the door.

'Eh? Oh, yes. Right,' said Gaspode hurriedly. 'Yes. But I like my, sort of, independence. I could stroll back home like a shot, any time I wanted.'

Angua bounded up the stairs, and clawed open the nearest door.

It was Carrot's bedroom. The smell of him, a kind of golden-pink colour, filled it from edge to edge.

There was a drawing of a dwarf mine carefully pinned to one wall. Another held a large sheet of cheap paper on which had been drawn, in careful pencil line, with many crossings-out and smudges, a map of the city.

In front of the window, where a conscientious person would put it to take as much advantage as possible of the available light so's not to have to waste too many of the city's candles, was a small table. There was some paper on it, and a jar of pencils. There was an old chair, too; a piece of paper had been folded up and wedged under a wobbly leg.

And that, apart from a clothes chest, was it. It reminded her of Vimes' room. This was a place where someone came to sleep, not to live.

Angua wondered if there was ever a time when anyone in the Watch was ever, really, off duty. She couldn't imagine Sergeant Colon in civilian clothes. When you were a Watchman, you were a Watchman all the time, which was a bit of a bargain for the city since it only paid you to be a Watchman for ten hours of every day.

'All right,' she said. 'I can use a sheet off the bed. You shut your eyes.'

'Why?' said Gaspode.

'For decency's sake!'

Gaspode looked blank. Then he said, 'Oh, I get it. Yes, I can see your point, def'nitely. Dear me, you can't have me looking at a naked woman, oh no. Oggling. Gettin' ideas. Deary deary me.'

'You know what I mean!'

'Can't say I do. Can't say I do. Clothing has never been what you might call a thingy of dog wossname.' Gaspode scratched his ear. 'Two metasyntactic variables there. Sorry.'

'It's different with you. You know what I am. Anyway, dogs are naturally naked.'

'So're humans—'

Angua changed.

Gaspode's ear flattened against his head. Despite himself, he whimpered.

Angua stretched.

'You know the worst bit?' she said. 'It's my hair. You can hardly get the tangles out. And my feet are covered in mud.'

She tugged a sheet off the bed and draped it around herself as a makeshift toga.

'There,' she said, 'you see worse on the street every day. Gaspode?'

'What?'

'You can open your eyes now.'

Gaspode blinked. Angua in both shapes was OK to look at, but the second or two in between, as the morphic signal hunted between stations, was not a sight you wished to see on a full stomach.

'I thought you rolled around on the floor grunting and growing hair and stretching,' he whimpered.

Angua peered at her hair in the mirror while her night vision lasted.

'Whatever for?'

'Does . . . all that stuff . . . hurt?'

'It's a bit like a whole-body sneeze. You'd think he'd have a comb, wouldn't you? I mean, a comb? Everyone's got a comb . . .'

A really . . . big . . . sneeze?'

'Even a clothes brush would be something.'

They froze as the door creaked open.

Carrot walked in. He didn't notice them in the gloom, but trudged to the table. There was a flare and a reek of sulphur as he lit first a match and then a candle.

He removed his helmet, and then sagged as if he'd finally allowed a weight to drop on his shoulders.

They heard him say: 'It can't be right!'

'What can't?' said Angua.

Carrot spun around.

'What're you doing here?'

'Your uniform got stolen while you were spying in the Assassins' Guild,' Gaspode prompted.

'My uniform got stolen,' said Angua, 'while I was in the Assassins' Guild. Spying.' Carrot was still staring at her. 'There was some old bloke who kept muttering all the time,' she went on desperately.

'Buggrit? Millennium hand and shrimp?'

'Yes, that's right—'

'Foul Ole Ron.' Carrot sighed. 'Probably sold it for a drink. I know where he lives, though. Remind me to go and have a word with him when I've got time.'

'You don't want to ask her what she was wearing when she was in the Guild,' said Gaspode, who had crept under the bed.