‘You could have given it a chance, perhaps?’
‘Sam Vimes, you treasure your ignorance of gardening, so don’t start weaving a social hypothesis in front of an angry woman holding a blade! There
‘Do you think her husband sent her?’ Vimes said, standing back a little. ‘He is in the frame, you know, and I expect by the end of the day to be able to link him to smuggling, trafficking in goblins and certainly attempting to send Jethro Jefferson abroad to get him out of the way. I know what happens to the goblins taken to Howondaland and it’s not good for their health. Jefferson told me that Rust was behind the eviction of the local goblins three years ago. I’m hoping to get confirmation of this very shortly. All in all, it’ll wipe the smile off his aristocratic face, at least.’
The birds were singing and roses were pumping perfume into the air and Lady Sybil dropped the secateurs into her apron pocket.
‘It will shame
‘Don’t think I don’t know that,’ said Vimes. ‘The old boy tried to warn me off when we first got here, which just about shows his talent as a tactician. But I’ll say this for the old bastard: he is honourable, honest and straightforward. It’s a shame that he is also pigheaded, stupid, and incompetent. But you’re right, it’ll hurt him, although he must have killed so many soldiers by his own incompetence that shame should by now be second nature to him, an old friend as it were.’ He sighed. ‘Sybil, every time I have to arrest some twit who thought he could get away with swindling or extortion or blackmail, well, I know that there is probably going to be a family in difficulties, you understand? I think about it. It preys on my mind. The trouble is, the idiots commit the crimes! As it is, I’m trying to spare some of the hangers-on in this case, provided their gratitude results in testimony. I can stretch the law for the greater good, but that’s the end of it.’
Sybil nodded sadly, and then sniffed and said, ‘Can you smell smoke?’
Willikins, who had been standing patiently, said, ‘Corporal Nobbs and his, ahem, young … lady wandered off into the shrubbery with Young Sam, your ladyship. Sergeant Detritus accompanied them with what I now believe to be called …’ Willikins savoured the word like a toffee, ‘surreptition.’
This last fact was testified to by the shrubbery itself, because no shrubbery, however large, could hide the fact that a troll had just walked through it.
There was a small, neat fire burning in the shrubbery, watched passively by Detritus and Young Sam, and nervously by Corporal Nobbs, who was watching his new young lady cooking something on a spit.
‘Oh, she’s cooking snails,’ said Sybil, with every sign of approval. ‘What a provident young lady.’
‘Snails?’ said Vimes, shocked.
‘Quite traditional in these parts, as a matter of fact,’ said Sybil. ‘My father and his chums used to cook them up sometimes after a drinking session. Very wholesome, and full of vitamins and minerals, or so I understand. Apparently if you feed them on garlic they taste of garlic.’
Vimes shrugged. ‘I suppose that has to be better than them tasting of snails.’
Sybil pulled Sam off to one side and said quietly, ‘I think the goblin girl is the one that they call Shine of the Rainbow. Felicity says she’s very smart.’
‘Well, I don’t think she’ll get anywhere with Nobby,’ said Vimes. ‘He’s carrying a torch for Verity Pushpram. You know, the fishmonger?’
Sybil whispered, ‘She got engaged last month, Sam. To a lad who’s building up his own fishing fleet.’ They stared through the leaves and tiptoed away.
‘But she’s a goblin!’ said Vimes, out of his depth.
‘And he is Nobby Nobbs, Sam. And she is quite attractive in a goblin sort of way, don’t you think? And to be honest, I’m not sure that even Nobby’s old mother knows what species her son is. Frankly, Sam, it’s not our business.’
‘But what if Young Sam eats snails?’
‘Sam, given what he’s already eaten in his short life I wouldn’t worry, if I was you. I expect the girl knows what she’s doing; they generally do, Sam, believe me. Besides, this is limestone country and there’s nothing poisonous for the snails to eat. Don’t worry, Sam!’
‘Yes, but how will—’
‘Don’t worry, Sam!’
‘Yes, but I mean—’
‘Don’t worry, Sam! There’s a troll and a dwarf in Lobbin Clout who have set up home together, so I’ve heard. Good for them, I say, it’s their business and definitely not ours.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘
During the afternoon Sam Vimes worried. He wrote dispatches and walked up to the new tower to send them. Goblins were sitting around the tower now, staring at it. He tapped one of them on the shoulder, handed it the messages and watched it climb the tower as if it were horizontal. A couple of minutes later it came down with a smudged confirmation-of-sending slip, which it handed to him along with a couple of other messages before sitting down to stare at the tower again.
He thought: you have lived your life in and around a cave in a hill and now here is this magical thing that sends words, right on your doorstep. That’s got to command respect! Then he opened the two messages that had arrived for him, carefully folded up the papers and walked back down the hill, breathing carefully and taking care not to punch the air and whoop.
When Vimes reached the cottage of the woman who, to Young Sam, would for ever be the poo lady, he stopped to hear the music. It came and went, there were false starts, and then the world revolved as liquid sound called out of the window. Only then did he dare to knock at the door.
