Night Watch

“You messed up my memory? Now you see here—” Vimes half stood, but Sweeper held up his hands placatingly.

“Don't worry, don't worry, it just…made you forget a few minutes,” he said.

“How many minutes?”

“Just a few, just a few. And it had herbs in it. Good for you, herbs. And then we let you sleep. Don't worry, no one is after us. They'll never know you've gone. See this thing here?”

Sweeper picked up an open-work box that lay beside his chair. It had straps like a knapsack, and Vimes could just see a cylinder inside the box.

“This is called a Procrastinator,” said the monk, “and it's a tiny version of the ones over there, the ones that look like your granny's mangle. I'm not going to get technical, but when it's spinning it moves time around you. Did you understand what I just said?”

“No!”

“All right, it's a magic box. Happier?”

“Go on,” said Vimes grimly.

“You wore one of these when I led you here from the Watch House. Because you were wearing it, you were, shall we say, outside time. And after we've had this little talk I'll take you back to the Watch House and the old captain won't know any different. No time is passing in the outside world while we're in the temple. The Procrastinators take care of that. Like I said, they move time around. Actually, what's really happening is that they are moving us back in time at the same time that time moves us forward. We've got others around the place. Good for keeping food fresh. What else can I tell you…oh, yeah. It helps keep track if you just think of things happening one after another. Believe me.”

“This is like a dream,” said Vimes. There was a clink as the handcuffs sprang open.

“Yes, it is, isn't it,” said Sweeper calmly.

“And can your magic box take me home? Move me in time all the way to where I ought to be?”

“This? Hah. No, this is strictly for small-scale stuff—”

“Look, Mr Sweeper, I've spent the last day fighting a right bastard on a roof and getting beaten up twice and sewn up once and, hah, stitched up, too. I've got the impression I should be thanking you for something but I'm damned if I know what it is. What I want is straight answers, mister. I'm the Commander of the Watch in this city!”

“Don't you mean will be?” said Sweeper.

“No! You told me it helps if I think of things happening one after another! Well, yesterday, my yesterday, I was Commander of the Watch and I bloody well still am the Commander of the Watch. I don't care what anyone else thinks. They are not in possession of all the facts!”

“Hold on to that thought,” said Sweeper, standing up. “All right, commander. You want some facts. Let's take a walk in the garden, shall we?”

“Can you get me home?”

“Not yet. It's my professional opinion that you're here for a reason.”

“A reason? I fell through the bloody dome!”

“That helped, yes. Calm down, Mister Vimes. It's all been a great strain, I can see.”

Sweeper led the way out of the hall. There was a big office outside, a hubbub of quiet but purposeful activity. Here and there, among the worn and scratched desks, there were more cylinders like the ones Vimes had seen in the other chamber.

Some of them were turning slowly.

“Very busy, our Ankh-Morpork section,” said Sweeper. “We had to buy the shops on either side.” He picked up a scroll from a basket by one desk, glanced at the contents, and tossed it back with a sigh. “And everyone's overworked,” he added. “We're here at all hours. And when we say ‘all hours’, we know what we're talking about.”

“But what is it you do?” said Vimes.

“We see that things happen.”

“Don't things happen anyway?”

“Depends what things you want. We're the Monks of History, Mister Vimes. We see that it happens.”

“I've never heard of you, and I know this city like the back of my hand,” said Vimes.

“Right. And how often do you really look at the back of your hand, Mister Vimes? We're in Clay Lane, to stop you wondering.”

“What? Those loony monks in the funny foreign building between the pawnbrokers and the shonky shop? The ones who go dancing round the street banging drums and shouting?”

“Well done, Mister Vimes. It's funny how secretly you can move when you're a loony monk dancing through the streets banging a drum.”

“When I was a kid most of my clothes came from the shonky shop in Clay Lane,” said Vimes. “Everyone we knew got their clothes from the shonky shop. Used to be run by a foreign guy with a funny name.”

“Brother Soon Shine Sun,” said Sweeper. “Not a hugely enlightened operative, but a genius when it comes to pricing fourth-hand schmutter.”

“Shirts so worn you could see daylight through 'em and trousers as shiny as glass,” said Vimes. “And by the end of the week half the stuff was in the pawn shop.”

“That's right,” said Sweeper. “You'd pawn your clothes in the pawn shop, but you'd never buy clothes from the pawn shop, 'cos there were Standards, right?”

Vimes nodded. When you got right down to the bottom of the ladder the rungs were very close together and, oh my, weren't the women careful about them. In their own way, they were as haughty as any duchess. You might not have much, but you could have Standards. Clothes might be cheap and old but at least they could be scrubbed. There might be nothing behind the front door worth stealing but at least the doorstep could be clean enough to eat your dinner off, if you could've afforded dinner. And no one ever bought their clothes from the pawn shop. You'd hit bottom when you did that. No, you bought them from Mr Sun at the shonky shop, and you never asked where he got them from.

“I went off to my first proper job in a suit from the shonky shop,” he said. “Seems like centuries ago now.”

“No,” said Sweeper. “It was only last week.”

Silence ballooned. The only sound was the purr of the cylinders dotted around the room.

Then Sweeper added: “It must have occurred to you.”

“Why? I've spent most of the time here being beaten up or unconscious or trying to get home! You mean I'm out there somewhere?”

“Oh, yes. In fact last night you saved the day for your squad by aiming a crossbow at a dangerous miscreant who was attacking your sergeant.”

The silence ballooned larger this time. It seemed to fill the universe.

Eventually, Vimes said: “No. That's not right. That never happened. I would have remembered that. And I can remember a lot about my first weeks in the job.”

“Interesting, isn't it?” said Sweeper. “But is it not written: ‘There's a lot goes on we don't get told’? Mister Vimes, you need a short spell in the Garden of Inner City Tranquillity.”

It was indeed a garden, like a lot of other gardens you got in areas such as Clay Lane. The grey soil was nothing more than old brick dust, elderly cat mess and generalized, semi-rotted dross. At the far end was a three- hole privy. It was built handily by the gate to the back lane so the night-soil men didn't have far to go, but this one had a small stone cylinder turning gently beside it and the gate was barred shut.

The garden didn't get much proper light. Gardens like this never did. You got second-hand light once the richer folk in the taller buildings had finished with it. Some people kept pigeons or rabbits or pigs on their plots, or planted against all experience a few vegetables. But it'd take magic beans to reach the real sunlight in gardens like this.

Nevertheless, someone had made an effort. Most of the spare ground had been covered with gravel of