Snuff

clacks tower tremble as the young man carefully lowered himself from one spar to another, testing every one before putting his weight on it. He dropped the last few feet and held out his hand to Vimes. ‘Pleased to meet you, Sir Samuel! Sorry it’s shaky, but we were still working on it last night. A real rush job! Needs must when Lord Vetinari drives, you might say. We’ll do it properly later if that’s okay by you? I’ve got it lined up on a Grand Trunk tower, and they’ll bounce it to anywhere you want, plus a feed down to a clacks on your house, too. Of course you’ll have to have somebody manning this one to maintain the link, but from what I see that won’t be a problem.’ The young man saluted Vimes and added, ‘Best of luck to you, sir, and now I’m off to have my meal and a wash.’

There was another clang on the helmet of Nobby Nobbs, and a wad of paper wrapped around a pebble fell at his feet.

The young clacksman picked it up proprietorially and read the message. ‘Oh, it’s just an acknowledgement of service closure, confirming that I am standing down for a break. My assistant typed it. He didn’t really need to pass it on, but he is a conscientious little bugger and I have never seen such a quick study. Show him how to do something once and that’s enough! Reliable little devil as well. And with those big hands he has no problem with the keyboard.’

As the man strode off whistling down the hill, Vimes jumped to a conclusion like a grasshopper. ‘Stinky! Just you come down here, you little perisher!’ he yelled.

‘Right here, commander!’ The little goblin was already standing almost between Vimes’s boots.

‘You? You! You operating a clacks? Can you read?’

Stinky held out both large hands. ‘No, but can look, but can remember! Green man say, “Stinky, this pointy thing it called A” and Stinky don’t need telling twice, and he say, “This one, look like bum, he called B”. Good fun!’ The cracked voice wheedled, but in a way that seemed to Vimes to be full of cynical knowingness. ‘The goblin is useful, goblin is trustworthy, goblin is helpful? Goblin isn’t dead!’

And it seemed to Vimes that he was the only one hearing these words. Young Sam had shuffled up to hold Stinky’s hand, but had thought better of it. Under his breath, Sam Vimes said, ‘What are you, Stinky?’

‘What are you, Sam Vimes?’ Stinky grinned. ‘Hang, Sam Vimes. Hang together or hang separately. Above all, hang on. Hang, Mister Vimes.’

Vimes sighed. ‘I think it’s quite likely that I might,’ he said gloomily. He looked around to find himself pinned in the gazes of Young Sam, Nobby Nobbs and the goblin girl who had been looking at Nobby as if the little corporal was an Adonis. Embarrassed, he shrugged and said, ‘Just a passing thought.’

*

However you put it, Fred Colon was one of Vimes’s oldest friends – and it was sobering to think that so was Nobby Nobbs. Vimes found the sergeant halfway down the goblin cave looking strangely pink, bemused, but nevertheless quite cheerful, possibly because he was eating a roasted rabbit like there was no tomorrow – which clearly had been the case for the rabbit. Cheery was watching him with some care from a distance, and when she saw Vimes gave him a smile and a thumbs-up sign, which was reassuring.

Fred Colon tried to salute, but had to think about it for a moment. ‘Sorry about this, Mister Vimes, had some kind of nasty turn. All a bit vague, really, and suddenly here I am among these people.’

Vimes held his breath and Colon continued, ‘Very nice, very helpful, very generous, too. They’ve been giving me all kinds of mushrooms, extremely tasty. Not very well versed in the trouser department, but I speak as I find. Makes a man think; I ain’t sure what, but it does.’ He looked around with a strange fluorescence in his eyes. ‘Nice in here, isn’t it? Nice and calm away from the maddening crowd. Wouldn’t mind staying here for a bit … Nice.’

Sergeant Colon stopped, flung the rabbit bones over his shoulder and reached down quickly into the mess of stones beside him. He picked one up. Was it Vimes’s imagination or did it twinkle for a moment as it once again turned into just a stone.

‘Stay as long as you like, Fred,’ said Vimes. ‘I’ve got to go, but Nobby’ll be around, and just about everybody else from the Watch or so it seems. Stay as long as you like’ – he glanced at Cheery Littlebottom – ‘but perhaps not too long.’

More thoughts passed as Young Sam’s daily stroll progressed back down the hill and through the village, and when Jiminy appeared at the doorway of the pub and gave Vimes a little nod that spoke volumes, Vimes’s passing thought was that an astute publican knows which way the wind is blowing and adjusts his sails accordingly. No one knew better than he that no one knows where rumours come from and how they are spread, but the little convoy, even though it included Nobby Nobbs and the goblin girl, got smiles and nods where a week ago there would have been blank stares. Because the dreadful truth is that nobody wants to support the losing side.

When they reached Ramkin Hall again Vimes found Sybil in the rose garden, apparently deadheading, something that had to be done because it was on the list of things you had to do in the country whether you liked to do it or not. She glanced up at her husband and then got on with what she was doing, and said quietly, ‘You’ve been worrying people, haven’t you, Sam? Lady Rust popped in unexpectedly for a social visit, right after you left.’ Snip! Snip! went the secateurs, furiously.

‘Did you let her in?’

Snip! Snip! ‘Of course! Of course!’

There was another Snip! Snip! ‘And I gave her tea and chocolate macaroons, too. She may be an ignorant whey-faced bitch who gives herself a title that is not rightfully hers, but there is such a thing as manners, when all is said and done.’ Snip! Snip! Snap! ‘I only did that because that one rather spoils the symmetry, honestly. Anyway, I had a lecture about maintaining standards, and banding together in defence of our culture, you know the sort of thing, it’s always just a code.’

Lady Sybil leaned back with her secateurs poised, and regarded the rose bushes like a bloody-handed revolutionary looking for his next aristocrat. ‘Do you know what the bitch said? She said, “My dear, who cares what happens to a few trolls! Let them take drugs if they want to, that’s what I say.”’ Eyes ablaze, Sybil continued, ‘And so I thought about Sergeant Detritus and how often he’s saved your life, and then there was young Brick, that troll lad he adopted. And it made me so angry that I nearly said something unrepeatable! They think that I’m like them! I hate that! They just don’t get it! They’ve got on well for years without ever having to think differently, and now they don’t know how!’ Snip! Snip! Crack!

‘You’ve just killed a rosebush, dear,’ said Vimes, impressed. It took a pretty good grip to push those blades through an inch of what looked like a small tree.

‘It was a brier, Sam, wouldn’t ever do any good.’