Snuff

‘I know what I can call you, mister …’

Vimes felt the smooth brass of the surrogate knuckles, polished as they had been by years of abrasion from his pants and, needless to say, the occasional chin. As he dug down, they almost leapt to his grasp.

‘Sorry about this, your grace,’ said Jiminy as he pushed him gently out of the way and said to the smith. ‘Well now, Jethro, what’s this all about, then?’

‘Your grace?’ sneered Jethro. ‘I ain’t going to call you that! I ain’t going to lick your boots like all the others do! Coming back here, lording it over us, ordering us about as if you owned the place! And that’s it, isn’t it? You do own the place! One man with all this country! That’s not right! You tell me, how did that happen? Go on, you tell me!’

Vimes shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not an expert, but as I understand it my wife’s ancestors fought somebody for it.’

The blacksmith’s face bloomed with an evil pleasure as he threw off his leather apron. ‘Well, okay. No problem. That’s how it’s done, is it? Fair enough. Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll fight you for it, here and now, and, tell you what I’ll do, I’ll fight you with one hand strapped behind my back, on account of you being a bit shorter than me.’

Vimes heard a slight wooden sound behind him: it was the sound of a barman stealthily pulling a two-foot-long rosewood truncheon from its accustomed place under the bar.

Jethro must have heard it too, because he called out, ‘And don’t you try anything with that, Jim. You know I’ll have it out of your hands before you know what’s happening, and this time I’ll shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.’

Vimes took a look at the rest of the clientele, who were doing remarkable impersonations of stone statues. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you really don’t want to fight me.’

‘I do, indeed I do! You said it yourself. Some ancestor got all of this by fighting for it, yeah? Who said it’s the time to stop fighting?’

‘Burleigh and Stronginthearm, sir,’ said a polite yet chilly voice behind the big man. To Vimes’s shock it was Willikins. ‘I’m not cruel, sir, I won’t shoot you in the guts, but I will make you realize how much you took your toes for granted. No, please do not make any sudden movements. Burleigh and Stronginthearm crossbows have notoriously responsive triggers.’

Vimes resumed breathing again when Jethro raised his hands. Somewhere in all that rage there must have been a halfpennyworth of self-preservation. Nevertheless the blacksmith glared at him and said, ‘You need to be protected by a hired killer, do you?’

‘In point of fact, sir,’ said Willikins smoothly, ‘I am employed by Commander Vimes as a gentleman’s gentleman, and I require this crossbow because sometimes his socks fight back.’ He looked at Vimes. ‘Do you have any instructions, commander?’ and then he shouted, ‘Don’t move, mister, because as far as I know a blacksmith needs two hands to work with.’ He turned back to Vimes. ‘Do excuse that interjection, commander, but I know his sort.’

‘Willikins, I rather think you are his sort.’

‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir, and I wouldn’t trust me one little inch, sir. I knows a bad one when I sees them. I have a mirror.’

‘Now, I want you to put that bloody thing down, Willikins. People could get hurt!’ Vimes said in his formal voice.

‘Yes, sir, that would have been my intention. I could not face her ladyship if anything had happened to you.’

Vimes looked from Willikins to Jethro. Here was a boil that needed lancing. But you couldn’t blame the lad. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought the same way himself, many times. ‘Willikins,’ he said, ‘please put that wretched thing down carefully and get out your notebook. Thank you. Now please write down as follows: “I, Samuel Vimes, somewhat reluctantly the Duke of Ankh, do intend to Duke it out, ha-ha, with my friend Jethro …” What’s your full name again, Jethro?’

‘Now look here, mister, I didn’t—’

‘I asked you your damn name, mister! Jiminy, what’s his surname?’

‘Jefferson,’ said the landlord, holding his truncheon like a security blanket. ‘But look, your grace, you don’t want to go …’

Vimes ignored him and went on, ‘Now where was I? Oh, yes: “my friend Jethro Jefferson, in a friendly fight for the ownership of the Manor and environs, whatever the hell they are, which will go to the which of us that does not first cry ‘uncle’, and should it be myself that utters the same, there will be no repercussions of any sort upon my friend Jethro, or on my man Willikins, who pleaded with me not to engage in this friendly bout of fisticuffs.” Got that, Willikins? I’ll even give you a get-out-of-jail-free card to show to her ladyship if I get bruised. Now give it to me to sign.’

Willikins handed over the notebook with reluctance. ‘I don’t think it’ll work on her ladyship, sir. Look, dukes aren’t expected to go around—’ His voice faltered in the face of Vimes’s smile.

‘You were going to say that dukes shouldn’t fight, weren’t you, Willikins? And if you had, I would have said that the word “duke” absolutely means that you do fight.’

‘Oh, very well, sir,’ said Willikins, ‘but perhaps you ought to warn him … ?’

Willikins was interrupted by the pub’s customers pushing their way out at speed and running through the village, leaving Jethro standing alone and bewildered. Halfway towards the man, Vimes turned to look back at Willikins and said, ‘You may think you see me lighting a cigar, Willikins, but on this occasion, I think, your eyes may turn out to be at fault, do you understand?’

‘Yes, and in fact I am deaf as well, commander.’

‘Good lad. Now let’s get outside where there’s less glass and a better view.’

Jethro looked like a man who had had the ground cut from under his feet but didn’t know how to fall down.