Drumknott meticulously and unnecessarily tidied some paperwork and said, ‘It is indeed so. Young Gravid is a regrettable exception.’
‘Do you think him beyond redemption?’ said Vetinari.
‘Quite likely not,’ said Drumknott, carefully folding a pen wiper. ‘However, Arachne is working in Fourecks at the moment as a filing clerk in our embassy. She pleaded for the position because she’s particularly attracted by venomous spiders.’
‘Well, I suppose every girl should have a hobby,’ said Vetinari. ‘And are there a lot of them in Fourecks?’
‘The place is positively overwhelmed, I am given to understand, sir, and apparently Arachne already has a large selection of them.’
Vetinari said nothing, but remained sitting with eyes closed.
Drumknott cleared his throat. ‘They do say, sir, that in the end all sins are forgiven?’
Reluctantly, Havelock, Lord Vetinari tore his recollection away from the wondrous music that he longed to hear again. ‘Not all, Drumknott, not all.’
In bed that night in Scoone Avenue, listening to the absence of owls and nightjars, Vimes said, ‘You know, dear, I’ll have to go back to the Shires soon. Feeney is a good lad but they need a proper headquarters and the right kind of guidance and that doesn’t mean just Nobby Nobbs and Fred Colon.’
Sybil turned over. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Sam. Fred and Nobby aren’t as bad as all that and might be all that’s needed right now. I mean, they’re coppers, but they amble about extremely slowly and on the whole it’s good to see them around. Right now you’ve got two young men full of vim and vigour and if you don’t want to upset things it might just be that, in that bewildered place, they should be backed up by slow and steady, don’t you think?’
‘You are, as always, right, my dear.’
‘Besides, I’ve seen Fred, and having to rethink his world view has clearly shaken him a little.’
‘He’ll get over it,’ said Vimes. ‘Once you get past the stupid Fred there is, against all expectations, a decent man there.’
Sybil sighed. ‘Yes, Sam, but that decent man needs a holiday out in the sunshine away from the smoke and the grime and the terrible spells.’
‘But they’re the best bits!’ said Vimes, laughing.
‘No, he needs a holiday. Everybody needs a holiday, Sam, even you.’
‘I’ve just had one, dear, thank you.’
‘No, you had a few days interspersed with fighting and floods and murders and I don’t know what else. Look at your desk, make certain everybody is on their toes, and then we’ll go down there for another week, do you hear me, Sam Vimes?’
1 The exchange scheme with the Quirm gendarmerie was working very well: they were getting instruction on policing a la Vimes, while the food in the Pseudopolis Yard canteen had been improved out of all recognition by Captain Emile, even though he used far too much avec.
2 And thenceforth would be glad to get a gentle second place in almost every domestic decision. Lady Sybil took the view that her darling husband’s word was law for the City Watch while, in her own case, it was a polite suggestion to be graciously considered.
3 Apart, that is, from the line of artistically naked ladies along its parapets. They were holding urns; urns is art.
4 It was tricky; to Vimes all men were equal but, well, obviously a sergeant wasn’t as equal as a captain and a captain wasn’t as equal as a commander and as for Corporal Nobby Nobbs … well, nobody could be the equal of Corporal Nobby Nobbs.
5 Metal, in the circumstances, would not be appropriate … or safe.
6 Not to mention Blackboard Monitor Vimes, a figure of note in dwarfish society.
7 Willikins was an excellent butler and/or gentleman’s gentleman when the occasion required it, but in a long career he had also been an enthusiastic street fighter, and knew enough never to turn his back on anybody who could possibly have a weapon on them.
8 Later on Vimes pondered Willikins’ accurate grasp of the plural noun in the circumstances, but there you were; if someone hung around in houses with lots of books in them, some of it rubbed off just as, come to think of it, it had on Vimes.
9 More than once watchmen had found handwritten suicide notes which on careful examination weren’t in the right handwriting.
10 Saddle pork was invented some time around the Year of the Stoat by Reverend Joseph ‘Causality’ Robinson, rector of All Saints and Three Sinners in the parish of Lower Overhang. As far as can be determined from notes made by his contemporaries, the game may be considered an amalgam of spillikins, halma and brandy. No known rules exist, if, indeed, there ever really were any.
11 Sybil had explained to Vimes that in the country one dresses at least a decade earlier than in the city, hence the bustle, and, for Vimes, a pair of breeches: the ancient ones with trap doors front and rear and a slightly distressing smell all over.
12 See Dr Bentley Purchase,
13 It was all a mystery to Vimes, who was absolutely sure that it was impossible to tell the difference between a chicken fart and a turkey fart, but there were those who professed to be able to do so, and he was glad that such people had chosen this outlet for their puzzling inclinations rather than, for example, fill their sink with human skulls, collected in the high street.
