Jingo

“Oh.”

“Only I'd ask Fred, but he wouldn't understand, and I fink you would understand on account of you being a woman. Most of the time, anyway. No offence meant.”

“What do you want, Nobby?”

“It's about my… sexual nature, miss.”

Angua said nothing. Rain banged off Nobby's illfitting helmet.

“I think it's time I looked it full in the face, miss.”

Angua cursed her graphic imagination again.

“And, er… how were you thinking of doing that, Nobby?”

“I mean, I sent off for stuff, miss, Creams an' that.”

“Creams,” said Angua flatly.

“That you rub on,” said Nobby helpfully.

“Rub on.”

“And a thing you do exercises with—”

“Oh gods…”

“Sorry, miss?”

“What? Oh… I was just thinking of something else. Do go on. Exercises?”

“Yeah. To build up my biceps and that.”

“Oh, exercises. Really?” Nobby did not appear to have any biceps to speak of. There wasn't really anything for them to be on. Technically he had arms, because his hands were attached to his shoulders, but that was about all you could say.

Horrified interest got the better of her.

“Why, Nobby?”

He looked down, sheepishly.

“Well… I mean… you know… girls an' that…” To her amazement, Nobby was blushing.

“You mean you…” she began. “You want to… you're looking for…”

“Oh, I'm not just after… I mean, if you want a thing done properly then… I mean, no,” said Nobby reproachfully. “What I'm saying is, as you get older, you know, you think about settlin' down, findin' someone who'll go with you hand in hand down life's bumpy highway— Why's your mouth open?”

Angua shut it abruptly.

“But I just don't seem to meet girls,” Nobby said. “Well, I mean, I meet girls, and then they rush off.”

“Despite the cream.”

“Right.”

“And the exercises.”

“Yes.”

“Well, you've covered all the angles, I can see that,” said Angua. “Beats me where you're going wrong.” She sighed. “What about Stamina Thrum, in Elm Street?”

“She's got a wooden leg.”

“Well, then… Verity Pushpram, nice girl, she runs the clam and cockle barrow in Rime Street?”

“Hammerhead? Stinks of fish all the time. And she's got a squint.”

“She's got her own business, though. Does wonderful chowder, too.”

“And a squint.”

“Not exactly a squint, Nobby.”

“Yes, but you know what I mean.”

Angua had to admit that she did. Verity had the opposite of a squint. Both eyes appeared to be endeavouring to see the adjacent ear. When you talked to her, you had to suppress a feeling that she was about to walk off in two directions. But she could gut fish like a champion.

She sighed again. She was familiar with the syndrome. They said they wanted a soulmate and helpmeet but sooner or later the list would include a skin like silk and a chest fit for a herd of cows.

Except for Carrot. That was almost… almost one of the annoying things about him. She suspected he wouldn't mind if she shaved her head or grew a beard. It wasn't that he wouldn't notice, he just wouldn't mind, and for some reason that was very aggravating.

“The only thing I can suggest,” she said, “is that women are quite often attracted to men who can make them laugh.”

Nobby brightened. “Really?” he said. “I ought to be well in there, then.”

“Good.”

“People laugh at me all the time.”

High above, quite oblivious of the rain that had already soaked him to the skin, Ossie Brunt checked the oilskin cover round his bow and settled down for the long wait.

Rain was a copper's friend. Tonight people were making do with indoor crime.

Vimes stood in the lee of one of the fountains in Sator Square. The fountain hadn't worked for years, but he was getting just as wet as if it were in full flow. He'd never experienced truly horizontal rain before.

There was no one around. The rain marched across the square like… like an army…

Now there was an image from his youth. Funny how they hung around in the dark alleys of your brain and suddenly jumped out on you.

Rain falling on water…

Ah, yes… When he was a little lad he'd pretended that the raindrops splashing in the running gutters were soldiers. Millions of soldiers. And the bubbles that sometimes went floating by were men on horseback.

Right now he couldn't remember what the occasional dead dog had been. Some kind of siege weapon, possibly.^{22}

Water swirled around his boots and dripped off his cape. When he tried to light a cigar the wind blew the match out and the rain poured off his helmet and soaked the cigar in any case.

He grinned in the night.

He was, temporarily, a happy man. He was cold, wet and alone, trying to keep out of the worst of the weather at three o'clock on a ferocious morning. He'd spent some of the best nights of his life like this. At such times you could just… sort of hunch your shoulders like this and let your head pull in like this and you became a little hutch of warmth and peace, the rain banging on your helmet, the mind just ticking over, sorting out the world…

It was like this in the old days, when no one cared about the Watch and all you really had to do was keep out of trouble. Those were the days when there wasn't as much to do.

But there was as much to do, said an inner voice. You just didn't do it.

He could feel the official truncheon hanging heavily in the special pocket that Sybil herself had sewn in his breeches. Why is it just a bit of wood? he'd asked himself when he'd unwrapped it. Why not a sword? That's the symbol of power. And then he'd realized why it couldn't ever be a sword.

“Ho there, good citizen! May I ask your business this brisk morning?”

He sighed. There was a lantern appearing through the murk, surrounded by a halo of water.

Ho there, good citizen… There was only one person in the city who would say something like that and mean it.

“It's me, captain.”

The halo drew nearer and illuminated the damp face of Captain Carrot. The young man ripped off a salute — at godsdam three in the morning, Vimes thought — that would have brought a happy tear to the eye of the most psychotic drill sergeant.

“What're you doing out, sir?”

“I just wanted to… check up on things,” said Vimes.

“You could have left it all to me, sir,” said Carrot. “Delegation is the key to successful command.”

“Really? Is it?” said Vimes sourly. “My word, we live and learn, don't we.” And you certainly learn, he added