'What d'you mean? He doesn't even know!' Vimes heard the wailing in his own voice.
Wonse scowled. 'But he will,' he said. 'And I don't expect he'll even bother to appoint a successor.'
Vimes slowly undipped the verdigrised disc of copper, weighed it in his hand, and then tossed it to Wonse without a word.
For a moment he considered pleading, but something rebelled. He turned, and stalked off through the crowd.
So that was it.
As simple as that. After half a lifetime of service. No more City Watch. Huh. Vimes kicked at the pavement. It'd be some sort of Royal Guard now.
With plumes in their damn helmets.
Well, he'd had enough. It wasn't a proper life anyway, in the Watch. You didn't meet people in the best of circumstances. There must be hundreds of other things he could do, and if he thought for long enough he could probably remember what some of them were.
Pseudopolis Yard was off the route of the procession, and as he stumbled into the Watch House he could hear the distant cheering beyond the rooftops. Across the city the temple gongs were being sounded.
Now they are ringing the gongs, thought Vimes, but soon they will-they will-they will not be ringing the gongs. Not much of an aphorism, he thought, but he could work on it. He had the time, now.
Vimes noticed the mess.
Errol had started eating again. He'd eaten most of the table, the grate, the coal scuttle, several lamps and the squeaky rubber hippo. Now he lay in his box again, skin twitching, whimpering in his sleep.
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