Feet of Clay

‘I agree.’ If the assassin got back to the guild it would be, Vimes thought. Assassins valued their own lives quite highly.

‘Let me see now,’ said Vimes, examining the end of his cigar. ‘Guild takes fifty per cent. That leaves ten thousand dollars.’

The assassin seemed to consider this, and then reached up to his belt and tossed a bag rather clumsily towards Vimes, who caught it.

Vimes picked up his crossbow. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that if a man were to be let go he might well make it to the door with no more than superficial burns. If he were fast. How fast are you?’

There was no answer.

‘Of course, he’d have to be desperate,’ said Vimes, wedging the crossbow on the feed table and taking a piece of cord out of his pocket. He lashed the cord to a nail and fastened the other end to the crossbow’s string. Then, standing carefully to one side, he eased the trigger.

The string moved very slightly.

The assassin, watching him upside down, seemed to have stopped breathing.

Vimes puffed at his cigar until the end was an inferno. Then he took it out of his mouth and leaned it against the restraining cord so that it would have just a fraction of an inch to burn before the string began to smoulder.

‘I’ll leave the door unlocked,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been an unreasonable man. I shall watch your career with interest.’

He tossed the rest of the coals to the dragons, and stepped outside.

It looked like being another eventful day in Ankh-Morpork, and it had only just begun.

As Vimes reached the house he heard a whoosh, a click, and the sound of someone running very fast towards the ornamental lake. He smiled.

Willikins was waiting with his coat. ‘Remember you have an appointment with his lordship at eleven, Sir Samuel.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Vimes.

‘And you are to go and see the Heralds at ten. Her ladyship was very explicit, sir. Her exact words were, “Tell him he’s not to try to wriggle out of it again,” sir.’

‘Oh, very well.’

‘And her ladyship said please to try not to upset anyone.’

‘Tell her I’ll try.’

‘And your sedan chair is outside, sir.’

Vimes sighed. ‘Thank you. There’s a man in the ornamental lake. Fish him out and give him a cup of tea, will you? Promising lad, I thought.’

‘Certainly, sir.’

The chair. Oh, yes, the chair. It had been a wedding present from the Patrician. Lord Vetinari knew that Vimes loved walking the streets of the city, and so it was very typical of the man that he presented him with something that did not allow him to do so.

It was waiting outside. The two bearers straightened up expectantly.

Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, rebelled again. Perhaps he did have to use the damn thing, but …

He looked at the front man and motioned with a thumb to the chair’s door. ‘Get in,’ he commanded.

‘But sir—’

‘It’s a nice morning,’ said Vimes, taking off his coat again. ‘I’ll drive myself.’

***

‘Dearest Mumm & Dad …’

Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch was on his day off. He had a routine. First he had breakfast in some handy café. Then he wrote his letter home. Letters home always gave him some trouble. Letters from his parents were always interesting, being full of mining statistics and exciting news about new shafts and promising seams. All he had to write about were murders and such things as that.

He chewed the end of his pencil for a moment.

Well, it has been an intresting week again [he wrote]. I am running around like a flye with a blue bottom and No Mistake! We are opening another Watch House at Chittling Street which is handy for the Shades, so now we have no Less than 4 including Dolly Sisters and Long Wall, and I am the only Captain so I am around at all hours. Persnally I sometimes mifs the cameraderry of the old days when it was just me and Nobby and Sergeant Colon but this is the Century of the Fruitbat. Sergeant Colon is going to retire at the end of the month, he says Mrs Colon wants him to buy a farm,^{4} he says he is looking forward to the peace of the country and being Close to Nature, I’m sure you would wish him well. My friend Nobby is still Nobby only more than he was.

Carrot absentmindedly took a half-eaten mutton chop from his breakfast plate and held it out below the table. There was an unk.