Night Watch

“Yessir?”

“What make are these crossbows?”

“Er…Hines Brothers, sir. They're Mark Threes.”

“Not Burleigh and Stronginthearm?”

“Never heard of them, sir.”

Damn. Five years too early, thought Vimes. And it was such a good line, too.

“Let me put it another way,” he said to the guards. “Give me any trouble and I will shoot you in the head.” That wasn't a good line, but it did have a certain urgency, and the bonus that it was simple enough even for an Unmentionable to understand.

“You've only got one arrow,” said a guard.

There was a click from beside Vimes. Sam had raised his bow, too.

“There's two now, and since my lad here is in training he might hit you anywhere,” said Vimes. “Drop your swords on the floor! Get out of the door! Run away! Do it now! Don't come back!”

There was a moment of hesitation, just a moment, and then the men ran for it.

“Fred will watch our backs,” said Vimes. “Come on…”

All the Watch Houses were pretty much the same. Stone steps led down to the cellars. Vimes hurried down them, swung open a heavy door—

And stopped.

Cells never smelled that good at the best of times. At the best of times, even at Treacle Mine Road, hygiene consisted of a bucket per cell and as much slopping-out as Snouty felt inclined to do. But, at the worst of times, the cells below Treacle Mine Road never smelled of blood.

The beast stirred.

In this room there was a big wooden chair. In this room there was, by the chair, a rack. The chair was bolted to the floor. It had wide leather straps. The rack held clubs and hammers. In this room, that was all the furnishings.

The floor was dark and sticky. Down the length of it, a gully ran to a drain.

Boards had been nailed over the tiny window at street level. This wasn't a place where light was welcomed. And all the walls, and even the ceiling, were padded heavily with sacks stuffed with straw. Sacks had even been nailed to the door. This was a very thorough cell. Not even sound was meant to escape.

A couple of torches did nothing at all for the darkness except make it dirty.

Behind him, Vimes heard Nancyball throw up.

In a strange kind of dream, he walked across the floor and bent down to pick up something that gleamed in the torchlight. It was a tooth.

He stood up again.

A closed wooden door led off on one side of the cellar; on the other, a wider tunnel almost certainly led to the cells. Vimes took a torch out of its holder, handed it to Sam and pointed along the tunnel—

There were footsteps accompanied by a jingle of keys heading towards the door, and a light growing brighter underneath it.

The beast tensed…

Vimes dragged the largest club out of the rack and stepped swiftly to the wall beside the door. Someone was coming, someone who knew about this room, someone who called themselves a copper…

Getting a firm two-handed grip, Vimes raised the club—

And looked across the stinking room, and saw young Sam watching him, young Sam with his bright shiny badge and face full of…strangeness.

Vimes lowered the club, leaned it delicately against the wall, and pulled the leather cosh from his pocket.

Shackled, not quite understanding, the beast was dragged back into the night…

A man stepped through the door, whistling under his breath, took a few steps into the room, saw young Sam, opened his mouth and then fell fast asleep. He was a big man, and hit the cobbles heavily. He had a leather hood over his head, and was naked to the waist. A big ring of keys hung from his belt.

Vimes darted into the corridor behind the door, ran around a corner, burst into a small, brightly lit room, and grabbed a man he found in there.

This one was a lot smaller, and suppressed a scream as Vimes dragged him up out of his chair.

“And what does daddy do at work all day, mister?” Vimes roared.

The little man was suddenly clairvoyant. One look at Vimes's eyes told him how short his future might be.

“I'm just a clerk! A clerk! I just write things down!” he protested. He held up a pen by way of desperate demonstration.

Vimes looked at the desk. There were compasses there, and other geometer's tools, symbols of Swing's insane sanity. There were books, and folders stuffed with paperwork. And there was a yard-long steel ruler. He grabbed it in his spare hand and slammed it on the desktop. The heavy steel made a satisfying noise.

“And?” he said, his face a few inches from the struggling man.

“And I measure people! It's all in the captain's book! I just measure people! I don't do anything wrong! I'm not a bad man!”

Again the ruler slammed into the desk. But this time Vimes had twisted it, and the steel edge chopped into the wood.

“Want me to cut you down to size, mister?” The little man's eyes rolled.

“Please!”

“Is there another way out of here?” Vimes slapped the rule down on the desk.

The flicker of eyes was enough. Vimes saw a doorway in the wall, almost lost in the wooden panelling.

“Good. Where does it come out?”

“Er—”

Now Vimes was nose to nose with the man who, in police parlance, was helping him with his inquiries.

“You're all alone here,” he said. “You have no friends here. You sat and took notes for a torturer, a bloody torturer! And I see a desk, and it's got a desk drawer, and if you ever, ever want to hold a pen again you'll tell me everything I want to know—”

“Warehouse!” the man gasped. “Next door!”

“Right, sir. Thank you, sir. You've been very helpful,” said Vimes, lowering the limp body to the floor. “Now, sir, I'm just handcuffing you to this desk for a moment, sir, for your protection.”

“Who…who from?”

“Me. I'll kill you if you try to run away, sir.”

Vimes hurried back to the main chamber. The torturer was still out cold. Vimes hauled him up into the chair, with great effort, and pulled off his hood, and recognized the face. The face, yes, but not the person. That is, it was the kind of face you saw a lot of in Ankh-Morpork: big, bruised, and belonging to someone who'd never quite learned that hitting people long after they'd lost consciousness was a wicked thing to do. He wondered if the man actually liked beating people to death. They often didn't think about it. It was just a job.

Well, he wasn't about to ask him. He buckled him in, with every strap, even the one that went across the forehead, pulling the last one tight just as the man came round. The mouth opened, and Vimes stuffed the hood into it.

Then he took the key ring and locked the main door. That should ensure a little extra privacy.