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So did they, after a fashion.
And in fact it had turned out very satisfactorily from everyone's point of view. It took the head thieves a very little time to grow paunches and start having coats-of-arms made and meet in a proper building rather than smoky dens, which no one had liked much. A complicated arrangement of receipts and vouchers saw to it that, while everyone was eligible for the attentions of the Guild, no one had too much, and this was very acceptable — at least to those citizens who were rich enough to afford the quite reasonable premiums the Guild charged for an uninterrupted life. There was a strange foreign word for this: inn-sewer-ants. No-one knew exactly what it had originally meant, but Ankh-Morpork had made it its own.
The Watch hadn't liked it, but the plain fact was that the thieves were far better at controlling crime than the Watch had ever been. After all, the Watch had to work twice as hard to cut crime just a little, whereas all the Guild had to do was to work less.
And so the city prospered, while the Watch had dwindled away, like a useless appendix, into a handful of unemployables who no one in their right mind could ever take seriously.
The last thing anyone wanted them to do was get it into their heads to fight crime. But seeing the head thief discommoded was always worth the trouble, the Patrician felt.
...
Captain Vimes knocked very hesitantly at the door, because each tap echoed around his skull.
"Enter. "
Vimes removed his helmet, tucked it under his arm and pushed the door open. Its creak was a blunt saw across the front of his brain.
He always felt uneasy in the presence of Lupine Wonse. Come to that, he felt uneasy in the presence of Lord Vetinari — but that was different, that was down to breeding. And ordinary fear, of course. Whereas he'd known Wonse since their childhood in the Shades. The boy had shown promise even then. He was never a gang leader. Never a gang leader. Hadn't got the strength or stamina for that. And, after all, what was the point in being the gang leader? Behind every gang leader were a couple of lieutenants bucking for promotion. Being a gang leader is not a job with long-term prospects. But in every gang there is a pale youth who's allowed to stay because he's the one who comes up with all the clever ideas, usually to do with old women and unlocked shops; this was Wonse's natural place in the order of things.
Vimes had been one of the middle rankers, the falsetto equivalent of a yes-man. He remembered Wonse as a skinny little kid, always tagging along behind in hand-me-down pants with the kind of odd skipping run he'd invented to keep up with the bigger boys, and forever coming up with fresh ideas to stop them idly ganging up on him, which was the usual recreation if nothing more interesting presented itself. It was superb training for the rigors of adulthood, and Wonse became good at it.
Yes, they'd both started in the gutter. But Wonse had worked his way up whereas, as he himself would be the first to admit, Vimes had merely worked his way along. Every time he seemed to be getting anywhere he spoke his mind, or said the wrong thing. Usually both at once.
That was what made him uncomfortable around Wonse. It was the ticking of the bright clockwork of ambition.
Vimes had never mastered ambition. It was something that happened to other people.
"Ah, Vimes. "
"Sir, " said Vimes woodenly. He didn't try to salute in case he fell over. He wished he'd had time to drink dinner.
Wonse rummaged in the papers of his desk.
"Strange things afoot, Vimes. Serious complaint about you, I'm afraid, " he said. Wonse didn't wear glasses. If he had worn glasses, he'd have peered at Vimes over the top of them.
"Sir?"
"One of your Night Watch men. Seems he arrested the head of the Thieves' Guild. "
Vimes swayed a little and tried hard to focus. He wasn't ready for this sort of thing.
"Sorry, sir, " he said. "Seem to have lost you there. "
"I said, Vimes, that one of your men arrested the head of the Thieves' Guild. "
"One of my men?"
"Yes. "
Vimes's scattered brain cells tried valiantly to regroup. "A member of the Watch?" he said.
Wonse grinned mirthlessly. "Tied him up and left him in front of the palace. There's a bit of a stink about it, I'm afraid. There was a note.... ah... here it is... 'This man is charged with, Conspiracy to commit Crime, under Section 14 (iii) of the General Felonies Act, 1678, by me, Carrot Ironfoundersson. ' "
Vimes squinted at him.
"Fourteen eye-eye-eye?"
"Apparently, " said Wonse.
"What does that mean?"
"I really haven't the faintest notion, " said Wonse drily. "And what about the name... Carrot?"
"But we don't do things like that!" said Vimes. "You can't go around arresting the Thieves' Guild. I mean, we'd be at it all day!"
"Apparently this Carrot thinks otherwise. "
The captain shook his head, and winced. "Carrot? Doesn't ring a bell. " The tone of blurred conviction was enough even for Wonse, who was momentarily taken aback.
"He was quite…" The secretary hesitated. "Carrot, Carrot, " he said. "I've heard the name before.
Seen it written down. " His face went blank. "The volunteer, that was it! Remember me showing you?''
Vimes stared at him. "Wasn't there a letter from, I don't know, some dwarf…?''
"All about serving the community and keeping the streets safe, that's right. Begging that his son would be found suitable for a humble position in the Watch. '' The secretary was rummaging among his files.
"What'd he done?" said Vimes.
"Nothing. That was it. Not a blessed thing. "
Vimes's brow creased as his thoughts shaped themselves around a new concept.
"A volunteer?" he said.
"Yes. "
"He didn't have to join?"
"He wanted to join. And you said it must be a joke, and I said we ought to try and get more ethnic minorities into the Watch. You remember?''
Vimes tried to. It wasn't easy. He was vaguely aware that he drank to forget. What made it rather pointless was that he couldn't remember what it was he was forgetting any more. In the end he just drank to forget about drinking.
A trawl of the chaotic assortment of recollections that he didn't even try to dignify any more by the name of memory produced no clue.
"Do I?" he said helplessly.
Wonse folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward.
"Now look, Captain, " he said. "Lordship wants an explanation. I don't want to have to tell him the captain of the Night Watch hasn't the faintest idea what goes on among the men under, if I may use the term loosely, his command. That sort of thing only leads to trouble, questions asked, that sort of thing. We don't want that, do we. Do we?"
"No, sir, " Vimes muttered. A vague recollection of someone earnestly talking to him in the Bunch of Grapes was bobbing guiltily at the back of his mind. Surely that hadn't been a dwarf? Not unless the qualification had been radically altered, at any rate.
"Of course we don't, " said Wonse. "For old times' sake. And so on. So I'll think of something to tell him and you, Captain, will make a point of finding out what's going on and putting a stop to it. Give this dwarf a short lesson in what it means to be a guard, all right?"
"Haha, " said Vimes dutifully.
"I'm sorry?" said Wonse.
"Oh. Thought you made an ethnic joke, there. Sir. "
"Look, Vimes, I'm being very understanding. In the circumstances. Now, I want you to get out there and sort this out. Do you understand?"
Vimes saluted. The black depression that always lurked ready to take advantage of his sobriety moved in on his tongue.
"Right you are, Mr Secretary, " he said. "I'll see to it that he learns that arresting thieves is against the law. "
He wished he hadn't said that. If he didn't say things like that he'd have been better off now. Captain of the Palace Guard, a big man. Giving him the Watch had been the Patrician's little joke. But Wonse was already reading a new document on his desk. If he noticed the sarcasm, he didn't show it.
"Very good, " he said.
...
Dearest Mother [Carrot wrote] It has been a much better day. I went into the Thieves' Guild and arrested the chief Miscreant and dragged him to the Patrician's Palace. No more trouble from him, I fancy. And Mrs Palm says I can stay in the attic because, it is always useful to have a man around the place. This was because, in the night, there were men the Worse for Drink making a Fuss in one of the Girl's Rooms, and I had to speak to them and they Showed Fight and one of them tried to hurt me with his knee but I had the Protective and Mrs Palm says he has broken his Patella but I needn't pay for a new one.
I do not understand some of the Watch duties. I have a partner, his name is Nobby. He says I am too keen. He says I have got a lot to learn. I think this is true, because, I have only got up to Page 326 in, The Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork. Love to all, Your Son, Carrot.
PS. Love to Minty.
...
It wasn't just the loneliness, it was the back-to-front way of living. That was it, thought Vimes.
The Night Watch got up when the rest of the world was going to bed, and went to bed when dawn drifted over the landscape. You spent your whole time in the damp, dark streets, in a world of shadows. The Night Watch attracted the kind of people who for one reason or another were inclined to that kind of life.
He reached the Watch House. It was an ancient and surprisingly large building, wedged between a tannery and a tailor who made suspicious leather goods. It must have been quite imposing once, but quite a lot of it was now uninhabitable and patrolled only by owls and rats. Over the door a motto in the ancient tongue of the city was now almost eroded by time and grime and lichen, but could just be made out:
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC
It translated-according to Sergeant Colon, who had served in foreign parts and considered himself an expert on languages-as 'To Protect and to Serve'.
Yes. Being a guard must have meant something, once.
Sergeant Colon, he thought, as he stumbled into the musty gloom. Now there was a man who liked the dark. Sergeant Colon owed thirty years of happy marriage to the fact that Mrs Colon worked all day and Sergeant Colon worked all night. They communicated by means of notes. He got her tea ready before he left at night, she left his breakfast nice and hot in the oven in the mornings. They had three grown-up children, all born, Vimes had assumed, as a result of extremely persuasive handwriting.
And Corporal Nobbs... well, anyone like Nobby had unlimited reasons for not wishing to be seen by other people. You didn't have to think hard about that. The only reason you couldn't say that Nobby was close to the animal kingdom was that the animal kingdom would get up and walk away.
And then, of course, there was himself. Just a skinny, unshaven collection of bad habits marinated in alcohol. And that was the Night Watch. Just the three of them. Once there had been dozens, hundreds. And now-just three.
Vimes fumbled his way up the stairs, groped his way into his office, slumped into the primeval leather chair with its prolapsed stuffing, scrabbled at the bottom drawer, grabbed bottle, bit cork, tugged, spat out cork, drank. Began his day.
The world swam into focus.
Life is just chemicals. A drop here, a drip there, everything's changed. A mere dribble of fermented juices and suddenly you're going to live another few hours.
Once, in the days when this had been a respectable district, some hopeful owner of the tavern next door had paid a wizard a considerable sum of money for an illuminated sign, every letter a different colour. Now it worked erratically and sometimes short-circuited in the damp. At the moment the E was a garish pink and flashed on and off at random.
Vimes had grown accustomed to it. It seemed like part of life.
He stared at the flickering play of light on the crumbling plaster for a while, and then raised one sandalled foot and thumped heavily on the floorboards, twice.
After a few minutes a distant wheezing indicated that Sergeant Colon was climbing the stairs.
Vimes counted silently. Colon always paused for six seconds at the top of the flight to get some of his breath back.
On the seventh second the door opened. The sergeant's face appeared around it like a harvest moon.
You could describe Sergeant Colon like this: he was the sort of man who, if he took up a military career, would automatically gravitate to the post of sergeant. You couldn't imagine him ever being a corporal. Or, for that matter, a captain. If he didn't take up a military career, then he looked cut out for something like, perhaps, a sausage butcher; some job where a big red face and a tendency to sweat even in frosty weather were practically part of the specification.
He saluted and, with considerable care, placed a scruffy piece of paper on Vimes's desk and smoothed it out.
"Evenin', Captain, " he said. "Yesterday's incident reports, and that. Also, you owe fourpence to the Tea Club. "
"What's this about a dwarf, Sergeant?" said Vimes abruptly.
Colon's brow wrinkled. "What dwarf?"
"The one who's just joined the Watch. Name of,…" Vimes hesitated,"…Carrot, or something. "
"Him?" Colon's mouth dropped open. "He's a dwarf? I always said you couldn't trust them little buggers! He fooled me all right, Captain, the little sod must of lied about his height!" Colon was a sizeist, at least when it came to people smaller than himself.
"Do you know he arrested the President of the Thieves' Guild this morning?"
"What for?"
"For being president of the Thieves' Guild, it seems. "
The sergeant looked puzzled. "Where's the crime in that?"
"I think perhaps I had better have a word with this Carrot, " said Vimes.
"Didn't you see him, sir?" said Colon. "He said he'd reported to you, sir. "
"I, uh, must have been busy at the time. Lot on my mind, " said Vimes.
"Yes, sir, " said Colon, politely. Vimes had just enough self-respect left to look away and shuffle the strata of paperwork on his desk.
"We've got to get him off the streets as soon as possible, " he muttered. "Next thing you know he'll be bringing in the chief of the Assassins' Guild for bloody well killing people! Where is he?"
"I sent him out with Corporal Nobbs, Captain. I said he'd show him the ropes, sort of thing. "
"You sent a raw recruit out with Nobby?" said Vimes wearily.
Colon stuttered. "Well, sir, experienced man, I thought, Corporal Nobbs could teach him a lot…"
"Let's just hope he's a slow learner, " said Vimes, ramming his brown iron helmet on his head. "Come on. "
When they stepped out of the Watch House there was a ladder against the tavern wall. A bulky man at the top of it swore under his breath as he wrestled with the illuminated sign.
"It's the E that doesn't work properly, " Vimes called up.
"What?"
"The E. And the T sizzles when it rains. It's about time it was fixed. "
"Fixed? Oh. Yes. Fixed. That's what I'm doing all right. Fixing. "
The Watch men splashed off through the puddles.
Brother Watchtower shook his head slowly, and turned his attention once again to his screwdriver.
...
Men like Corporal Nobbs can be found in every armed force. Although their grasp of the minutiae of the Regulations is usually encyclopedic, they take good care never to be promoted beyond, perhaps, corporal. He tended to speak out of the corner of his mouth. He smoked incessantly but the weird thing, Carrot noticed, was that any cigarette smoked by Nobby became a dog-end almost instantly but remained a dog-end indefinitely or until lodged behind his ear, which was a sort of nicotine Elephant's Graveyard. On the rare occasions he took one out of his mouth he held it cupped in his hand.
He was a small, bandy-legged man, with a certain resemblance to a chimpanzee who never got invited to tea parties.
His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old.
"A cushy number, this route, " he said, as they strolled along a damp street in the merchants' quarter. He tried a door handle. It was locked. "You stick with me, " he added, "and I'll see you're all right. Now, you try the handles on the other side of the street. "
"Ah. I understand, Corporal Nobbs. We've got to see if anyone's left their store unlocked, " said Carrot.
"You catch on fast, son. "
"I hope I can apprehend a miscreant in the act, " said Carrot zealously.
"Er, yeah, " said Nobby, uncertainly.
"But if we find a door unlocked I suppose we must summon the owner, " Carrot went on. "And one of us would have to stay to guard things, right?"
"Yeah?" Nobby brightened. "I'll do that, " he said. "Don't you worry about it. Then you could go and find the victim. Owner, I mean. "
He tried another doorknob. It turned under his grip.
"Back in the mountains, " said Carrot, "if a thief was caught, he was hung up by the-"
He paused, idly rattling a doorknob.
Nobby froze.
"By the what?" he said, in horrified fascination.
"Can't remember now, " said Carrot. "My mother said it was too good for them, anyway. Stealing is Wrong. "
Nobby had survived any number of famous massacres by not being there. He let go of the doorknob, and gave it a friendly pat.
"Got it!" said Carrot. Nobby jumped.
"Got what?" he shouted.
"I remember what we hang them up by, " said Carrot.
"Oh, " said Nobby weakly. "Where?"
"We hang them up by the town hall, " said Carrot. "Sometimes for days. They don't do it again, I can tell you. And Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle. "
Nobby leaned his pike against the wall and fumbled a fag-end from the recesses of his ear. One or two things, he decided, needed to be sorted out.
"Why did you have to become a guard, lad?" he said.
"Everyone keeps on asking me that, " said Carrot. "I didn't have to. I wanted to. It will make a Man of me. "
Nobby never looked anyone directly in the eye. He stared at Carrot's right ear in amazement.
"You mean you ain't running away from anything?" he said.
"What would I want to run away from anything for?"
Nobby floundered a bit. "Ah. There's always something. Maybe — maybe you was wrongly accused of something. Like, maybe, " he grinned, "maybe the stores was mysteriously short on certain items and you was unjustly blamed. Or certain items was found in your kit and you never knew how they got there. That sort of thing. You can tell old Nobby. Or, '' he nudged Carrot, "p'raps it was something else, eh? Shershay la fern, eh? Got a girl into trouble?"
"I…" Carrot began, and then remembered that, yes, one should tell the truth, even to odd people like Nobby who didn't seem to know what it was. And the truth was that he was always getting Minty in trouble, although exactly how and why was a bit of a mystery. Just about every time he left after paying calls on her at the Rocksmacker cave, he could hear her father and mother shouting at her. They were always very polite to him, but somehow merely being seen with him was enough to get Minty into trouble.
"Yes, " he said.
"Ah. Often the case, " said Nobby wisely.
"All the time, " said Carrot. "Just about every night, really. "
"Blimey, " said Nobby, impressed. He looked down at the Protective. "Is that why they make you wear that, then?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, don't worry about it, " said Nobby. "Everyone's got their little secret. Or big secret, as it might be. Even the captain. He's only with us because he was Brung Low by a Woman. That's what the sergeant says. Brung low. "
"Goodness, " said Carrot. It sounded painful.
"But I reckon it's 'cos he speaks his mind. Spoke it once too often to the Patrician, I heard. Said the Thieves' Guild was nothing but a pack of thieves, or something. That's why he's with us. Dunno, really. " He looked speculatively at the pavement and then said: "So where're you staying, lad?"
"There's a lady called Mrs Palm-" Carrot began.
Nobby choked on some smoke that went the wrong way.
"In the Shades?" he wheezed. "You're staying there?"
"Oh, yes. "
"Every night?"
"Well, every day, really. Yes. "
"And you've come here to have a man made of you?"
"Yes!"
"I don't think I should like to live where you come from, " said Nobby.
"Look, " said Carrot, thoroughly lost, "I came because Mr Varneshi said it was the finest job in the world, upholding the law and everything. That's right, isn't it?"
"Well, er, " said Nobby. "As to that... I mean, upholding the Law... I mean, once, yes, before we had all the Guilds and stuff... the law, sort of thing, ain't really, I mean, these days, everything's more... oh, I dunno. Basically you just ring your bell and keep your head down. ''
Nobby sighed. Then he grunted, snatched his hourglass from his belt, and peered in at the rapidly-draining sand grains. He put it back, pulled the leather muffler off his bell's clapper, and shook it once or twice, not very loudly.
"Twelve of the clock, " he muttered, "and all's well. "
"And that's it, is it?" said Carrot, as the tiny echoes died away.
"More or less. More or less. " Nobby took a quick drag on his dog-end.
"Just that? No moonlight chases across rooftops? No swinging on chandeliers? Nothing like that?" said Carrot.
"Shouldn't think so, " said Nobby fervently. "I never done anything like that. No-one ever said anything to me about that. " He snatched a puff on the cigarette. "A man could catch his death of cold, chasing around on rooftops. I reckon I'll stick to the bell, if it's all the same to you. "
"Can I have a go?" said Carrot.
Nobby was feeling unbalanced. It can be the only reason why he made the mistake of wordlessly handing Carrot the bell.
Carrot examined it for a few seconds. Then he waved it vigorously over his head.
"Twelve o'clock!" he bellowed. "And all's weeeeelllll!"
The echoes bounced back and forth across the street and finally were overwhelmed by a horrible, thick silence. Several dogs barked somewhere in the night. A baby started crying.
"Ssshh!" hissed Nobby.
"Well, it is all well, isn't it?" said Carrot.
"It won't be if you keep on ringing that bloody bell! Give it here. "
"I don't understand!" said Carrot. "Look, I've got this book Mr Varneshi gave me…" He fumbled for the Laws and Ordinances.
Nobby glanced at them, and shrugged. "Never heard of 'em, " he said. "Now just shut up your row. You don't want to go making a din like that. You could attract all sorts. Come on, this way. "
He grabbed Carrot's arm and bustled him along the street.
"What sorts?" protested Carrot as he was pushed determinedly forward.
"Bad sorts, " muttered Nobby.
"But we're the Watch!"
"Damn right! And we don't want to go tangling with people like that! Remember what happened to Gaskin!"
"I don't remember what happened to Gaskin!" said Carrot, totally bewildered. "Who's Gaskin?"
"Before your time, " mumbled Nobby. He deflated a bit. ' 'Poor bugger. Could of happened to any of us. " He looked up and glared at Carrot. "Now stop all this, you hear? It's getting on my nerves. Moonlight bloody chases, my bum!"
He stalked along the street. Nobby's normal method of locomotion was a kind of sidle, and the combination of stalking and sidling at the same time created a strange effect, like a crab limping.
"But, but, " said Carrot, "in this book it says…"
"I don't want to know from no book, " growled Nobby.
Carrot looked utterly crestfallen.
"But it's the Law…" he began.
He was nearly terminally interrupted by an axe that whirred out of a low doorway beside him and bounced off the opposite wall. It was followed by sounds of splintering timber and breaking glass.
"Hey, Nobby!" said Carrot urgently, "There's a fight going on!"
Nobby glanced at the doorway. "O'course there is, " he said. "It's a dwarf bar. Worst kind. You keep out of there, kid. Them little buggers like to trip you up and then kick twelve kinds of shit out of you. You come along o'Nobby and he'll…"
He grabbed Carrot's tree trunk arm. It was like trying to tow a building.
Carrot had gone pale.
"Dwarfs drinking? And fighting?" he said.
"You bet, " said Nobby. "All the time. And they use the kind of language I wouldn't even use to my own dear mother. You don't want to mix it with them, they're a poisonous bunch of …, hey!, don't you go in there!…"
...
No one knows why dwarfs, who at home in the mountains lead quiet, orderly lives, forget it all when they move to the big city. Something comes over even the most blameless iron-ore miner and prompts him to wear chain-mail all the time, carry an axe, change his name to something like Grabthroat Shinkicker and drink himself into surly oblivion.
It's probably because they do live such quiet and orderly lives back home. After all, probably the first thing a young dwarf wants to do when he hits the big city after seventy years of working for his father at the bottom of a pit is have a big drink and then hit someone.
The fight was one of those enjoyable dwarfish fights with about a hundred participants and one hundred and fifty alliances. The screams, oaths and the ringing of axes on iron helmets mingled with the sounds of a drunken group by the fireplace who — another dwarfish custom — were singing about gold.
Nobby bumped into the back of Carrot, who was watching the scene with horror.
"Look, it's like this every night in here, " said Nobby. "Don't interfere, that's what the sergeant says. It's their ethnic folkways, or somethin'. You don't go messin' with ethnic folkways. "
"But, but, " Carrot stuttered, "these are my people. Sort of. It's shameful, acting like this. What must everyone think?"
"We think they're mean little buggers, " said Nobby. "Now, come on!"
But Carrot had waded into the scuffling mass. He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed something in a language Nobby didn't understand. Practically any language including his native one would have fitted that description, but in this case it was Dwarfish.
"Gr'duzk! Gr'duzk! aaK'zt ezem ke bur'k tze tzim?"[7]
The fighting stopped. A hundred bearded faces glared up at Carrot's stooped figure, their annoyance mingled with surprise.
A battered tankard bounced off his breastplate. Carrot reached down and picked up a struggling figure, without apparent effort.
"J'uk, ydtruz-t'rud-eztuza, hudr'zddezek drez'huk, huzukruk 't b 'tduz g 'ke 'k me 'ek b 'tduzt' be 'tk kce 'drutk ke'hkt'd. aaDb'thuk?"[8]
No dwarf had ever heard so many Old Tongue words from the mouth of anyone over four feet high. They were astonished.
Carrot lowered the offending dwarf to the floor. There were tears in his eyes.
"You're dwarfs!" he said. "Dwarfs shouldn't be acting like this! Look at you all. Aren't you ashamed?"
One hundred bone-hard jaws dropped.
"I mean, look at you!" Carrot shook his head. "Can you imagine what your poor, white-bearded old mother, slaving away back in her little hole, wondering how her son is getting on tonight, can you imagine what she'd think if she saw you now? Your own dear mothers, who first showed you how to use a pickaxe…"
Nobby, standing by the doorway in terror and amazement, was aware of a growing chorus of nose-blowings and muffled sobs as Carrot went on: "…she's probably thinking, I expect he's having a quiet game of dominoes or something…"
A nearby dwarf, wearing a helmet encrusted with six-inch spikes, started to cry gently into his beer.
"And I bet it's a long time since any of you wrote her a letter, too, and you promised to write every week…"
Nobby absent-mindedly took out a grubby handkerchief and passed it to a dwarf who was leaning against the wall, shaking with grief.
"Now, then, " said Carrot kindly. "I don't want to be hard on anyone, but I shall be coming past here every night from now on and I shall expect to see proper standards of dwarf behavior. I know what it's like when you're far from home, but there's no excuse for this sort of thing. " He touched his helmet. "G'hruk, t'uk. "[9]
He gave them all a bright smile and half-walked, half-crouched out of the bar. As he emerged into the street Nobby tapped him on the arm.
"Don't you ever do anything like that to me again, " he fumed. "You're in the City Watch! Don't give me any more of this law business!"
"But it is very important, " said Carrot seriously, trotting after Nobby as he sidled into a narrower street.
"Not as important as stayin' in one piece, " said Nobby. "Dwarf bars! If you've got any sense, my lad, you'll come in here. And shut up. "
Carrot stared up at the building they had reached. It was set back a little from the mud of the street. The sounds of considerable drinking were coming from inside. A battered sign hung over the door. It showed a drum.
"A tavern, is it?" said Carrot, thoughtfully. "Open at this hour?"
"Don't see why not, " said Nobby, pushing open the door. "Damn useful idea. The Mended Drum. "
"And mere drinking?" Carrot thumbed hastily through the book.
"I hope so, " said Nobby. He nodded to the troll which was employed by the Drum as a splatter, [10] "Evenin', Detritus. Just showing the new lad the ropes. "
The troll grunted, and waved a crusted arm.
The inside of the Mended Drum is now legendary as the most famous disreputable tavern on the Discworld, and such a feature of the city that, after recent unavoidable redecorations, the new owner spent days recreating the original patina of dirt, soot and less identifiable substances on the walls and imported a ton of pre-rotted rushes for the floor. The drinkers were the usual bunch of heroes, cut throats, mercenaries, desperadoes and villains, and only microscopic analysis could have told which was which. Thick coils of smoke hung in the air, perhaps to avoid touching the walls.
The conversation dipped fractionally as the two guards wandered in, and then rose to its former level. A couple of cronies waved to Nobby.
He realized that Carrot was busy.
"What you doin'?" he said. "And no talkin' about mothers, right?"
"I'm taking notes," said Carrot, grimly. "I've got a notebook."
"That's the ticket," said Nobby. "You'll like this place. I comes here every night for my supper."
"How do you spell 'contravention'?" said Carrot, turning over a page.
"I don't," said Nobby, pushing through the crowds. A rare impulse to generosity lodged in his mind. "What d'you want to drink?"
"I don't think that would be very appropriate," said Carrot. "Anyway, Strong Drink is a Mocker."
He was aware of a penetrating stare in the back of his neck, and turned and looked into the big, bland and gentle face of an orangutan.
It was seated at the bar with a pint mug and a bowl of peanuts in front of it. It tilted its glass amicably towards Carrot and then drank deeply and noisily by apparently forming its lower lip into a sort of prehensile funnel and making a noise like a canal being drained.
Carrot nudged Nobby.
"There's a monk… " he began.
"Don't say it!" said Nobby urgently. "Don't say the word! It's the Librarian. Works up at the University. Always comes down here for a nightcap of an evening."
"And people don't object?"
"Why should they?" said Nobby. "He always stands his round, just like everyone else."
Carrot turned and looked at the ape again. A number of questions pressed for attention, such as: where does it keep its money? The Librarian caught his gaze, misinterpreted it, and gently pushed the bowl of peanuts towards him.
Carrot pulled himself to his full impressive height and consulted his notebook. The afternoon spent reading The Laws and Ordinances had been well spent.
"Who is the owner, proprietor, lessee, or landlord of these premises?'' he said to Nobby.
"Wassat?" said the small guard. "Landlord? Well, I suppose Charley here is in charge tonight. Why?" He indicated a large, heavy-set man whose face was a net of scars; its owner paused in the act of spreading the dirt more evenly around some glasses by means of a damp cloth, and gave Carrot a conspiratorial wink.
"Charley, this is Carrot," said Nobby. "He's stopping along of Rosie Palm's."
"What, every night?" said Charley.
Carrot cleared his throat.
"If you are in charge," he intoned, "then it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest."
"A rest of what, friend?" said Charley, still polishing.
"Under arrest," said Carrot, "with a view to the presentation of charges to whit l)(i) that on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did a) serve or b) did cause to serve alcoholic beverages after the hours of 12 (twelve) midnight, contrary to the provisions of the Public Ale Houses (Opening) Act of 1678, and l)(ii) on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did serve or did cause to serve alcoholic beverages in containers other than of a size and capacity laid down by aforesaid Act, and 2)(i) that on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did allow customers to carry unsheathed edge weapons of a length greater than 7 (seven) inches, contrary to Section Three of said Act and 2)(ii) that on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did serve alcoholic beverages in premises apparently unlicensed for the sale and/or consumption of said beverages, contrary to Section Three of the aforesaid Act."
There was dead silence as Carrot turned over another page, and went on: "It is also my duty to inform you that it is my intention to lay evidence before the Justices with a view to the consideration of charges under the Public Foregatherings (Gambling) Act, 1567, the Licensed Premises (Hygiene) Acts of 1433, 1456, 1463, 1465, er, and 1470 through 1690, and also," he glanced sideways at the Librarian, who knew trouble when he heard it coming and was hurriedly trying to finish his drink,"the Domestic and Domesticated Animals (Care and Protection) Act, 1673."
The silence that followed held a rare quality of breathless anticipation as the assembled company waited to see what would happen next.
Charley carefully put down the glass, whose smears had been buffed up to a brilliant shine, and looked down at Nobby.
Nobby was endeavoring to pretend that he was totally alone and had no connection whatsoever with anyone who might be standing next to him and coincidentally wearing an identical uniform.
"What'd he mean, Justices?" he said to Nobby. "There ain't no Justices."
Nobby gave a terrified shrug.
"New, is he?" said Charley.
"Make it easy on yourself," said Carrot.
"This is nothing personal, you understand," said Charley to Nobby. "It's just a wossname. Had a wizard in here the other night talking about it. Sort of bendy educational thing, you know?" He appeared to think for a moment. "Learning curve. That was it. It's a learning curve. Detritus, get your big stony arse over here a moment."
Generally, about this time in the Mended Drum, someone throws a glass. And, in fact, this now happened.
...
Captain Vimes ran up Short Street — the longest in the city, which shows the famous Morpork subtle sense of humour in a nutshell — with Sergeant Colon stumbling along behind, protesting.
Nobby was outside the Drum, hopping from one foot to another. In times of danger he had a way of propelling himself from place to place without apparently moving through the intervening space which could put any ordinary matter transporter to shame.
" 'E's fighting in there!" he stuttered, grabbing the captain's arm.
"All by himself?" said the captain.
"No, with everyone!" shouted Nobby, hopping from one foot to the other.
"Oh."
Conscience said: There's three of you. He's wearing the same uniform. He's one of your men. Remember poor old Gaskin.
Another part of his brain, the hated, despicable part which had nevertheless enabled him to survive in the Guards these past ten years, said: It's rude to butt in. We'll wait until he's finished, and then ask him if he wants any assistance. Besides, it isn't Watch policy to interfere in fights. It's a lot simpler to go in afterwards and arrest anyone recumbent.
There was a crash as a nearby window burst outwards and deposited a stunned fighter on the opposite side of the street.
"I think," said the captain carefully, "that we'd better take prompt action."
"That's right," said Sgt Colon, "a man could get hurt standing here."
They sidled cautiously a little way down the street, where the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass wasn't so overpowering, and carefully avoided one another's eyes. There was the occasional scream from within the tavern, and every now and again a mysterious ringing noise, as though someone was hitting a gong with their knee.
They stood in a little pool of embarrassed silence.
"You had your holidays this year, Sergeant?" said Captain Vimes eventually, rocking back and forth on his heels.
And in fact it had turned out very satisfactorily from everyone's point of view. It took the head thieves a very little time to grow paunches and start having coats-of-arms made and meet in a proper building rather than smoky dens, which no one had liked much. A complicated arrangement of receipts and vouchers saw to it that, while everyone was eligible for the attentions of the Guild, no one had too much, and this was very acceptable — at least to those citizens who were rich enough to afford the quite reasonable premiums the Guild charged for an uninterrupted life. There was a strange foreign word for this: inn-sewer-ants. No-one knew exactly what it had originally meant, but Ankh-Morpork had made it its own.
The Watch hadn't liked it, but the plain fact was that the thieves were far better at controlling crime than the Watch had ever been. After all, the Watch had to work twice as hard to cut crime just a little, whereas all the Guild had to do was to work less.
And so the city prospered, while the Watch had dwindled away, like a useless appendix, into a handful of unemployables who no one in their right mind could ever take seriously.
The last thing anyone wanted them to do was get it into their heads to fight crime. But seeing the head thief discommoded was always worth the trouble, the Patrician felt.
...
Captain Vimes knocked very hesitantly at the door, because each tap echoed around his skull.
"Enter. "
Vimes removed his helmet, tucked it under his arm and pushed the door open. Its creak was a blunt saw across the front of his brain.
He always felt uneasy in the presence of Lupine Wonse. Come to that, he felt uneasy in the presence of Lord Vetinari — but that was different, that was down to breeding. And ordinary fear, of course. Whereas he'd known Wonse since their childhood in the Shades. The boy had shown promise even then. He was never a gang leader. Never a gang leader. Hadn't got the strength or stamina for that. And, after all, what was the point in being the gang leader? Behind every gang leader were a couple of lieutenants bucking for promotion. Being a gang leader is not a job with long-term prospects. But in every gang there is a pale youth who's allowed to stay because he's the one who comes up with all the clever ideas, usually to do with old women and unlocked shops; this was Wonse's natural place in the order of things.
Vimes had been one of the middle rankers, the falsetto equivalent of a yes-man. He remembered Wonse as a skinny little kid, always tagging along behind in hand-me-down pants with the kind of odd skipping run he'd invented to keep up with the bigger boys, and forever coming up with fresh ideas to stop them idly ganging up on him, which was the usual recreation if nothing more interesting presented itself. It was superb training for the rigors of adulthood, and Wonse became good at it.
Yes, they'd both started in the gutter. But Wonse had worked his way up whereas, as he himself would be the first to admit, Vimes had merely worked his way along. Every time he seemed to be getting anywhere he spoke his mind, or said the wrong thing. Usually both at once.
That was what made him uncomfortable around Wonse. It was the ticking of the bright clockwork of ambition.
Vimes had never mastered ambition. It was something that happened to other people.
"Ah, Vimes. "
"Sir, " said Vimes woodenly. He didn't try to salute in case he fell over. He wished he'd had time to drink dinner.
Wonse rummaged in the papers of his desk.
"Strange things afoot, Vimes. Serious complaint about you, I'm afraid, " he said. Wonse didn't wear glasses. If he had worn glasses, he'd have peered at Vimes over the top of them.
"Sir?"
"One of your Night Watch men. Seems he arrested the head of the Thieves' Guild. "
Vimes swayed a little and tried hard to focus. He wasn't ready for this sort of thing.
"Sorry, sir, " he said. "Seem to have lost you there. "
"I said, Vimes, that one of your men arrested the head of the Thieves' Guild. "
"One of my men?"
"Yes. "
Vimes's scattered brain cells tried valiantly to regroup. "A member of the Watch?" he said.
Wonse grinned mirthlessly. "Tied him up and left him in front of the palace. There's a bit of a stink about it, I'm afraid. There was a note.... ah... here it is... 'This man is charged with, Conspiracy to commit Crime, under Section 14 (iii) of the General Felonies Act, 1678, by me, Carrot Ironfoundersson. ' "
Vimes squinted at him.
"Fourteen eye-eye-eye?"
"Apparently, " said Wonse.
"What does that mean?"
"I really haven't the faintest notion, " said Wonse drily. "And what about the name... Carrot?"
"But we don't do things like that!" said Vimes. "You can't go around arresting the Thieves' Guild. I mean, we'd be at it all day!"
"Apparently this Carrot thinks otherwise. "
The captain shook his head, and winced. "Carrot? Doesn't ring a bell. " The tone of blurred conviction was enough even for Wonse, who was momentarily taken aback.
"He was quite…" The secretary hesitated. "Carrot, Carrot, " he said. "I've heard the name before.
Seen it written down. " His face went blank. "The volunteer, that was it! Remember me showing you?''
Vimes stared at him. "Wasn't there a letter from, I don't know, some dwarf…?''
"All about serving the community and keeping the streets safe, that's right. Begging that his son would be found suitable for a humble position in the Watch. '' The secretary was rummaging among his files.
"What'd he done?" said Vimes.
"Nothing. That was it. Not a blessed thing. "
Vimes's brow creased as his thoughts shaped themselves around a new concept.
"A volunteer?" he said.
"Yes. "
"He didn't have to join?"
"He wanted to join. And you said it must be a joke, and I said we ought to try and get more ethnic minorities into the Watch. You remember?''
Vimes tried to. It wasn't easy. He was vaguely aware that he drank to forget. What made it rather pointless was that he couldn't remember what it was he was forgetting any more. In the end he just drank to forget about drinking.
A trawl of the chaotic assortment of recollections that he didn't even try to dignify any more by the name of memory produced no clue.
"Do I?" he said helplessly.
Wonse folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward.
"Now look, Captain, " he said. "Lordship wants an explanation. I don't want to have to tell him the captain of the Night Watch hasn't the faintest idea what goes on among the men under, if I may use the term loosely, his command. That sort of thing only leads to trouble, questions asked, that sort of thing. We don't want that, do we. Do we?"
"No, sir, " Vimes muttered. A vague recollection of someone earnestly talking to him in the Bunch of Grapes was bobbing guiltily at the back of his mind. Surely that hadn't been a dwarf? Not unless the qualification had been radically altered, at any rate.
"Of course we don't, " said Wonse. "For old times' sake. And so on. So I'll think of something to tell him and you, Captain, will make a point of finding out what's going on and putting a stop to it. Give this dwarf a short lesson in what it means to be a guard, all right?"
"Haha, " said Vimes dutifully.
"I'm sorry?" said Wonse.
"Oh. Thought you made an ethnic joke, there. Sir. "
"Look, Vimes, I'm being very understanding. In the circumstances. Now, I want you to get out there and sort this out. Do you understand?"
Vimes saluted. The black depression that always lurked ready to take advantage of his sobriety moved in on his tongue.
"Right you are, Mr Secretary, " he said. "I'll see to it that he learns that arresting thieves is against the law. "
He wished he hadn't said that. If he didn't say things like that he'd have been better off now. Captain of the Palace Guard, a big man. Giving him the Watch had been the Patrician's little joke. But Wonse was already reading a new document on his desk. If he noticed the sarcasm, he didn't show it.
"Very good, " he said.
...
Dearest Mother [Carrot wrote] It has been a much better day. I went into the Thieves' Guild and arrested the chief Miscreant and dragged him to the Patrician's Palace. No more trouble from him, I fancy. And Mrs Palm says I can stay in the attic because, it is always useful to have a man around the place. This was because, in the night, there were men the Worse for Drink making a Fuss in one of the Girl's Rooms, and I had to speak to them and they Showed Fight and one of them tried to hurt me with his knee but I had the Protective and Mrs Palm says he has broken his Patella but I needn't pay for a new one.
I do not understand some of the Watch duties. I have a partner, his name is Nobby. He says I am too keen. He says I have got a lot to learn. I think this is true, because, I have only got up to Page 326 in, The Laws and Ordinances of the Cities of Ankh and Morpork. Love to all, Your Son, Carrot.
PS. Love to Minty.
...
It wasn't just the loneliness, it was the back-to-front way of living. That was it, thought Vimes.
The Night Watch got up when the rest of the world was going to bed, and went to bed when dawn drifted over the landscape. You spent your whole time in the damp, dark streets, in a world of shadows. The Night Watch attracted the kind of people who for one reason or another were inclined to that kind of life.
He reached the Watch House. It was an ancient and surprisingly large building, wedged between a tannery and a tailor who made suspicious leather goods. It must have been quite imposing once, but quite a lot of it was now uninhabitable and patrolled only by owls and rats. Over the door a motto in the ancient tongue of the city was now almost eroded by time and grime and lichen, but could just be made out:
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC
It translated-according to Sergeant Colon, who had served in foreign parts and considered himself an expert on languages-as 'To Protect and to Serve'.
Yes. Being a guard must have meant something, once.
Sergeant Colon, he thought, as he stumbled into the musty gloom. Now there was a man who liked the dark. Sergeant Colon owed thirty years of happy marriage to the fact that Mrs Colon worked all day and Sergeant Colon worked all night. They communicated by means of notes. He got her tea ready before he left at night, she left his breakfast nice and hot in the oven in the mornings. They had three grown-up children, all born, Vimes had assumed, as a result of extremely persuasive handwriting.
And Corporal Nobbs... well, anyone like Nobby had unlimited reasons for not wishing to be seen by other people. You didn't have to think hard about that. The only reason you couldn't say that Nobby was close to the animal kingdom was that the animal kingdom would get up and walk away.
And then, of course, there was himself. Just a skinny, unshaven collection of bad habits marinated in alcohol. And that was the Night Watch. Just the three of them. Once there had been dozens, hundreds. And now-just three.
Vimes fumbled his way up the stairs, groped his way into his office, slumped into the primeval leather chair with its prolapsed stuffing, scrabbled at the bottom drawer, grabbed bottle, bit cork, tugged, spat out cork, drank. Began his day.
The world swam into focus.
Life is just chemicals. A drop here, a drip there, everything's changed. A mere dribble of fermented juices and suddenly you're going to live another few hours.
Once, in the days when this had been a respectable district, some hopeful owner of the tavern next door had paid a wizard a considerable sum of money for an illuminated sign, every letter a different colour. Now it worked erratically and sometimes short-circuited in the damp. At the moment the E was a garish pink and flashed on and off at random.
Vimes had grown accustomed to it. It seemed like part of life.
He stared at the flickering play of light on the crumbling plaster for a while, and then raised one sandalled foot and thumped heavily on the floorboards, twice.
After a few minutes a distant wheezing indicated that Sergeant Colon was climbing the stairs.
Vimes counted silently. Colon always paused for six seconds at the top of the flight to get some of his breath back.
On the seventh second the door opened. The sergeant's face appeared around it like a harvest moon.
You could describe Sergeant Colon like this: he was the sort of man who, if he took up a military career, would automatically gravitate to the post of sergeant. You couldn't imagine him ever being a corporal. Or, for that matter, a captain. If he didn't take up a military career, then he looked cut out for something like, perhaps, a sausage butcher; some job where a big red face and a tendency to sweat even in frosty weather were practically part of the specification.
He saluted and, with considerable care, placed a scruffy piece of paper on Vimes's desk and smoothed it out.
"Evenin', Captain, " he said. "Yesterday's incident reports, and that. Also, you owe fourpence to the Tea Club. "
"What's this about a dwarf, Sergeant?" said Vimes abruptly.
Colon's brow wrinkled. "What dwarf?"
"The one who's just joined the Watch. Name of,…" Vimes hesitated,"…Carrot, or something. "
"Him?" Colon's mouth dropped open. "He's a dwarf? I always said you couldn't trust them little buggers! He fooled me all right, Captain, the little sod must of lied about his height!" Colon was a sizeist, at least when it came to people smaller than himself.
"Do you know he arrested the President of the Thieves' Guild this morning?"
"What for?"
"For being president of the Thieves' Guild, it seems. "
The sergeant looked puzzled. "Where's the crime in that?"
"I think perhaps I had better have a word with this Carrot, " said Vimes.
"Didn't you see him, sir?" said Colon. "He said he'd reported to you, sir. "
"I, uh, must have been busy at the time. Lot on my mind, " said Vimes.
"Yes, sir, " said Colon, politely. Vimes had just enough self-respect left to look away and shuffle the strata of paperwork on his desk.
"We've got to get him off the streets as soon as possible, " he muttered. "Next thing you know he'll be bringing in the chief of the Assassins' Guild for bloody well killing people! Where is he?"
"I sent him out with Corporal Nobbs, Captain. I said he'd show him the ropes, sort of thing. "
"You sent a raw recruit out with Nobby?" said Vimes wearily.
Colon stuttered. "Well, sir, experienced man, I thought, Corporal Nobbs could teach him a lot…"
"Let's just hope he's a slow learner, " said Vimes, ramming his brown iron helmet on his head. "Come on. "
When they stepped out of the Watch House there was a ladder against the tavern wall. A bulky man at the top of it swore under his breath as he wrestled with the illuminated sign.
"It's the E that doesn't work properly, " Vimes called up.
"What?"
"The E. And the T sizzles when it rains. It's about time it was fixed. "
"Fixed? Oh. Yes. Fixed. That's what I'm doing all right. Fixing. "
The Watch men splashed off through the puddles.
Brother Watchtower shook his head slowly, and turned his attention once again to his screwdriver.
...
Men like Corporal Nobbs can be found in every armed force. Although their grasp of the minutiae of the Regulations is usually encyclopedic, they take good care never to be promoted beyond, perhaps, corporal. He tended to speak out of the corner of his mouth. He smoked incessantly but the weird thing, Carrot noticed, was that any cigarette smoked by Nobby became a dog-end almost instantly but remained a dog-end indefinitely or until lodged behind his ear, which was a sort of nicotine Elephant's Graveyard. On the rare occasions he took one out of his mouth he held it cupped in his hand.
He was a small, bandy-legged man, with a certain resemblance to a chimpanzee who never got invited to tea parties.
His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old.
"A cushy number, this route, " he said, as they strolled along a damp street in the merchants' quarter. He tried a door handle. It was locked. "You stick with me, " he added, "and I'll see you're all right. Now, you try the handles on the other side of the street. "
"Ah. I understand, Corporal Nobbs. We've got to see if anyone's left their store unlocked, " said Carrot.
"You catch on fast, son. "
"I hope I can apprehend a miscreant in the act, " said Carrot zealously.
"Er, yeah, " said Nobby, uncertainly.
"But if we find a door unlocked I suppose we must summon the owner, " Carrot went on. "And one of us would have to stay to guard things, right?"
"Yeah?" Nobby brightened. "I'll do that, " he said. "Don't you worry about it. Then you could go and find the victim. Owner, I mean. "
He tried another doorknob. It turned under his grip.
"Back in the mountains, " said Carrot, "if a thief was caught, he was hung up by the-"
He paused, idly rattling a doorknob.
Nobby froze.
"By the what?" he said, in horrified fascination.
"Can't remember now, " said Carrot. "My mother said it was too good for them, anyway. Stealing is Wrong. "
Nobby had survived any number of famous massacres by not being there. He let go of the doorknob, and gave it a friendly pat.
"Got it!" said Carrot. Nobby jumped.
"Got what?" he shouted.
"I remember what we hang them up by, " said Carrot.
"Oh, " said Nobby weakly. "Where?"
"We hang them up by the town hall, " said Carrot. "Sometimes for days. They don't do it again, I can tell you. And Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle. "
Nobby leaned his pike against the wall and fumbled a fag-end from the recesses of his ear. One or two things, he decided, needed to be sorted out.
"Why did you have to become a guard, lad?" he said.
"Everyone keeps on asking me that, " said Carrot. "I didn't have to. I wanted to. It will make a Man of me. "
Nobby never looked anyone directly in the eye. He stared at Carrot's right ear in amazement.
"You mean you ain't running away from anything?" he said.
"What would I want to run away from anything for?"
Nobby floundered a bit. "Ah. There's always something. Maybe — maybe you was wrongly accused of something. Like, maybe, " he grinned, "maybe the stores was mysteriously short on certain items and you was unjustly blamed. Or certain items was found in your kit and you never knew how they got there. That sort of thing. You can tell old Nobby. Or, '' he nudged Carrot, "p'raps it was something else, eh? Shershay la fern, eh? Got a girl into trouble?"
"I…" Carrot began, and then remembered that, yes, one should tell the truth, even to odd people like Nobby who didn't seem to know what it was. And the truth was that he was always getting Minty in trouble, although exactly how and why was a bit of a mystery. Just about every time he left after paying calls on her at the Rocksmacker cave, he could hear her father and mother shouting at her. They were always very polite to him, but somehow merely being seen with him was enough to get Minty into trouble.
"Yes, " he said.
"Ah. Often the case, " said Nobby wisely.
"All the time, " said Carrot. "Just about every night, really. "
"Blimey, " said Nobby, impressed. He looked down at the Protective. "Is that why they make you wear that, then?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, don't worry about it, " said Nobby. "Everyone's got their little secret. Or big secret, as it might be. Even the captain. He's only with us because he was Brung Low by a Woman. That's what the sergeant says. Brung low. "
"Goodness, " said Carrot. It sounded painful.
"But I reckon it's 'cos he speaks his mind. Spoke it once too often to the Patrician, I heard. Said the Thieves' Guild was nothing but a pack of thieves, or something. That's why he's with us. Dunno, really. " He looked speculatively at the pavement and then said: "So where're you staying, lad?"
"There's a lady called Mrs Palm-" Carrot began.
Nobby choked on some smoke that went the wrong way.
"In the Shades?" he wheezed. "You're staying there?"
"Oh, yes. "
"Every night?"
"Well, every day, really. Yes. "
"And you've come here to have a man made of you?"
"Yes!"
"I don't think I should like to live where you come from, " said Nobby.
"Look, " said Carrot, thoroughly lost, "I came because Mr Varneshi said it was the finest job in the world, upholding the law and everything. That's right, isn't it?"
"Well, er, " said Nobby. "As to that... I mean, upholding the Law... I mean, once, yes, before we had all the Guilds and stuff... the law, sort of thing, ain't really, I mean, these days, everything's more... oh, I dunno. Basically you just ring your bell and keep your head down. ''
Nobby sighed. Then he grunted, snatched his hourglass from his belt, and peered in at the rapidly-draining sand grains. He put it back, pulled the leather muffler off his bell's clapper, and shook it once or twice, not very loudly.
"Twelve of the clock, " he muttered, "and all's well. "
"And that's it, is it?" said Carrot, as the tiny echoes died away.
"More or less. More or less. " Nobby took a quick drag on his dog-end.
"Just that? No moonlight chases across rooftops? No swinging on chandeliers? Nothing like that?" said Carrot.
"Shouldn't think so, " said Nobby fervently. "I never done anything like that. No-one ever said anything to me about that. " He snatched a puff on the cigarette. "A man could catch his death of cold, chasing around on rooftops. I reckon I'll stick to the bell, if it's all the same to you. "
"Can I have a go?" said Carrot.
Nobby was feeling unbalanced. It can be the only reason why he made the mistake of wordlessly handing Carrot the bell.
Carrot examined it for a few seconds. Then he waved it vigorously over his head.
"Twelve o'clock!" he bellowed. "And all's weeeeelllll!"
The echoes bounced back and forth across the street and finally were overwhelmed by a horrible, thick silence. Several dogs barked somewhere in the night. A baby started crying.
"Ssshh!" hissed Nobby.
"Well, it is all well, isn't it?" said Carrot.
"It won't be if you keep on ringing that bloody bell! Give it here. "
"I don't understand!" said Carrot. "Look, I've got this book Mr Varneshi gave me…" He fumbled for the Laws and Ordinances.
Nobby glanced at them, and shrugged. "Never heard of 'em, " he said. "Now just shut up your row. You don't want to go making a din like that. You could attract all sorts. Come on, this way. "
He grabbed Carrot's arm and bustled him along the street.
"What sorts?" protested Carrot as he was pushed determinedly forward.
"Bad sorts, " muttered Nobby.
"But we're the Watch!"
"Damn right! And we don't want to go tangling with people like that! Remember what happened to Gaskin!"
"I don't remember what happened to Gaskin!" said Carrot, totally bewildered. "Who's Gaskin?"
"Before your time, " mumbled Nobby. He deflated a bit. ' 'Poor bugger. Could of happened to any of us. " He looked up and glared at Carrot. "Now stop all this, you hear? It's getting on my nerves. Moonlight bloody chases, my bum!"
He stalked along the street. Nobby's normal method of locomotion was a kind of sidle, and the combination of stalking and sidling at the same time created a strange effect, like a crab limping.
"But, but, " said Carrot, "in this book it says…"
"I don't want to know from no book, " growled Nobby.
Carrot looked utterly crestfallen.
"But it's the Law…" he began.
He was nearly terminally interrupted by an axe that whirred out of a low doorway beside him and bounced off the opposite wall. It was followed by sounds of splintering timber and breaking glass.
"Hey, Nobby!" said Carrot urgently, "There's a fight going on!"
Nobby glanced at the doorway. "O'course there is, " he said. "It's a dwarf bar. Worst kind. You keep out of there, kid. Them little buggers like to trip you up and then kick twelve kinds of shit out of you. You come along o'Nobby and he'll…"
He grabbed Carrot's tree trunk arm. It was like trying to tow a building.
Carrot had gone pale.
"Dwarfs drinking? And fighting?" he said.
"You bet, " said Nobby. "All the time. And they use the kind of language I wouldn't even use to my own dear mother. You don't want to mix it with them, they're a poisonous bunch of …, hey!, don't you go in there!…"
...
No one knows why dwarfs, who at home in the mountains lead quiet, orderly lives, forget it all when they move to the big city. Something comes over even the most blameless iron-ore miner and prompts him to wear chain-mail all the time, carry an axe, change his name to something like Grabthroat Shinkicker and drink himself into surly oblivion.
It's probably because they do live such quiet and orderly lives back home. After all, probably the first thing a young dwarf wants to do when he hits the big city after seventy years of working for his father at the bottom of a pit is have a big drink and then hit someone.
The fight was one of those enjoyable dwarfish fights with about a hundred participants and one hundred and fifty alliances. The screams, oaths and the ringing of axes on iron helmets mingled with the sounds of a drunken group by the fireplace who — another dwarfish custom — were singing about gold.
Nobby bumped into the back of Carrot, who was watching the scene with horror.
"Look, it's like this every night in here, " said Nobby. "Don't interfere, that's what the sergeant says. It's their ethnic folkways, or somethin'. You don't go messin' with ethnic folkways. "
"But, but, " Carrot stuttered, "these are my people. Sort of. It's shameful, acting like this. What must everyone think?"
"We think they're mean little buggers, " said Nobby. "Now, come on!"
But Carrot had waded into the scuffling mass. He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed something in a language Nobby didn't understand. Practically any language including his native one would have fitted that description, but in this case it was Dwarfish.
"Gr'duzk! Gr'duzk! aaK'zt ezem ke bur'k tze tzim?"[7]
The fighting stopped. A hundred bearded faces glared up at Carrot's stooped figure, their annoyance mingled with surprise.
A battered tankard bounced off his breastplate. Carrot reached down and picked up a struggling figure, without apparent effort.
"J'uk, ydtruz-t'rud-eztuza, hudr'zddezek drez'huk, huzukruk 't b 'tduz g 'ke 'k me 'ek b 'tduzt' be 'tk kce 'drutk ke'hkt'd. aaDb'thuk?"[8]
No dwarf had ever heard so many Old Tongue words from the mouth of anyone over four feet high. They were astonished.
Carrot lowered the offending dwarf to the floor. There were tears in his eyes.
"You're dwarfs!" he said. "Dwarfs shouldn't be acting like this! Look at you all. Aren't you ashamed?"
One hundred bone-hard jaws dropped.
"I mean, look at you!" Carrot shook his head. "Can you imagine what your poor, white-bearded old mother, slaving away back in her little hole, wondering how her son is getting on tonight, can you imagine what she'd think if she saw you now? Your own dear mothers, who first showed you how to use a pickaxe…"
Nobby, standing by the doorway in terror and amazement, was aware of a growing chorus of nose-blowings and muffled sobs as Carrot went on: "…she's probably thinking, I expect he's having a quiet game of dominoes or something…"
A nearby dwarf, wearing a helmet encrusted with six-inch spikes, started to cry gently into his beer.
"And I bet it's a long time since any of you wrote her a letter, too, and you promised to write every week…"
Nobby absent-mindedly took out a grubby handkerchief and passed it to a dwarf who was leaning against the wall, shaking with grief.
"Now, then, " said Carrot kindly. "I don't want to be hard on anyone, but I shall be coming past here every night from now on and I shall expect to see proper standards of dwarf behavior. I know what it's like when you're far from home, but there's no excuse for this sort of thing. " He touched his helmet. "G'hruk, t'uk. "[9]
He gave them all a bright smile and half-walked, half-crouched out of the bar. As he emerged into the street Nobby tapped him on the arm.
"Don't you ever do anything like that to me again, " he fumed. "You're in the City Watch! Don't give me any more of this law business!"
"But it is very important, " said Carrot seriously, trotting after Nobby as he sidled into a narrower street.
"Not as important as stayin' in one piece, " said Nobby. "Dwarf bars! If you've got any sense, my lad, you'll come in here. And shut up. "
Carrot stared up at the building they had reached. It was set back a little from the mud of the street. The sounds of considerable drinking were coming from inside. A battered sign hung over the door. It showed a drum.
"A tavern, is it?" said Carrot, thoughtfully. "Open at this hour?"
"Don't see why not, " said Nobby, pushing open the door. "Damn useful idea. The Mended Drum. "
"And mere drinking?" Carrot thumbed hastily through the book.
"I hope so, " said Nobby. He nodded to the troll which was employed by the Drum as a splatter, [10] "Evenin', Detritus. Just showing the new lad the ropes. "
The troll grunted, and waved a crusted arm.
The inside of the Mended Drum is now legendary as the most famous disreputable tavern on the Discworld, and such a feature of the city that, after recent unavoidable redecorations, the new owner spent days recreating the original patina of dirt, soot and less identifiable substances on the walls and imported a ton of pre-rotted rushes for the floor. The drinkers were the usual bunch of heroes, cut throats, mercenaries, desperadoes and villains, and only microscopic analysis could have told which was which. Thick coils of smoke hung in the air, perhaps to avoid touching the walls.
The conversation dipped fractionally as the two guards wandered in, and then rose to its former level. A couple of cronies waved to Nobby.
He realized that Carrot was busy.
"What you doin'?" he said. "And no talkin' about mothers, right?"
"I'm taking notes," said Carrot, grimly. "I've got a notebook."
"That's the ticket," said Nobby. "You'll like this place. I comes here every night for my supper."
"How do you spell 'contravention'?" said Carrot, turning over a page.
"I don't," said Nobby, pushing through the crowds. A rare impulse to generosity lodged in his mind. "What d'you want to drink?"
"I don't think that would be very appropriate," said Carrot. "Anyway, Strong Drink is a Mocker."
He was aware of a penetrating stare in the back of his neck, and turned and looked into the big, bland and gentle face of an orangutan.
It was seated at the bar with a pint mug and a bowl of peanuts in front of it. It tilted its glass amicably towards Carrot and then drank deeply and noisily by apparently forming its lower lip into a sort of prehensile funnel and making a noise like a canal being drained.
Carrot nudged Nobby.
"There's a monk… " he began.
"Don't say it!" said Nobby urgently. "Don't say the word! It's the Librarian. Works up at the University. Always comes down here for a nightcap of an evening."
"And people don't object?"
"Why should they?" said Nobby. "He always stands his round, just like everyone else."
Carrot turned and looked at the ape again. A number of questions pressed for attention, such as: where does it keep its money? The Librarian caught his gaze, misinterpreted it, and gently pushed the bowl of peanuts towards him.
Carrot pulled himself to his full impressive height and consulted his notebook. The afternoon spent reading The Laws and Ordinances had been well spent.
"Who is the owner, proprietor, lessee, or landlord of these premises?'' he said to Nobby.
"Wassat?" said the small guard. "Landlord? Well, I suppose Charley here is in charge tonight. Why?" He indicated a large, heavy-set man whose face was a net of scars; its owner paused in the act of spreading the dirt more evenly around some glasses by means of a damp cloth, and gave Carrot a conspiratorial wink.
"Charley, this is Carrot," said Nobby. "He's stopping along of Rosie Palm's."
"What, every night?" said Charley.
Carrot cleared his throat.
"If you are in charge," he intoned, "then it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest."
"A rest of what, friend?" said Charley, still polishing.
"Under arrest," said Carrot, "with a view to the presentation of charges to whit l)(i) that on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did a) serve or b) did cause to serve alcoholic beverages after the hours of 12 (twelve) midnight, contrary to the provisions of the Public Ale Houses (Opening) Act of 1678, and l)(ii) on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did serve or did cause to serve alcoholic beverages in containers other than of a size and capacity laid down by aforesaid Act, and 2)(i) that on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did allow customers to carry unsheathed edge weapons of a length greater than 7 (seven) inches, contrary to Section Three of said Act and 2)(ii) that on or about 18th Grune, at a place called the Mended Drum, Filigree Street, you did serve alcoholic beverages in premises apparently unlicensed for the sale and/or consumption of said beverages, contrary to Section Three of the aforesaid Act."
There was dead silence as Carrot turned over another page, and went on: "It is also my duty to inform you that it is my intention to lay evidence before the Justices with a view to the consideration of charges under the Public Foregatherings (Gambling) Act, 1567, the Licensed Premises (Hygiene) Acts of 1433, 1456, 1463, 1465, er, and 1470 through 1690, and also," he glanced sideways at the Librarian, who knew trouble when he heard it coming and was hurriedly trying to finish his drink,"the Domestic and Domesticated Animals (Care and Protection) Act, 1673."
The silence that followed held a rare quality of breathless anticipation as the assembled company waited to see what would happen next.
Charley carefully put down the glass, whose smears had been buffed up to a brilliant shine, and looked down at Nobby.
Nobby was endeavoring to pretend that he was totally alone and had no connection whatsoever with anyone who might be standing next to him and coincidentally wearing an identical uniform.
"What'd he mean, Justices?" he said to Nobby. "There ain't no Justices."
Nobby gave a terrified shrug.
"New, is he?" said Charley.
"Make it easy on yourself," said Carrot.
"This is nothing personal, you understand," said Charley to Nobby. "It's just a wossname. Had a wizard in here the other night talking about it. Sort of bendy educational thing, you know?" He appeared to think for a moment. "Learning curve. That was it. It's a learning curve. Detritus, get your big stony arse over here a moment."
Generally, about this time in the Mended Drum, someone throws a glass. And, in fact, this now happened.
...
Captain Vimes ran up Short Street — the longest in the city, which shows the famous Morpork subtle sense of humour in a nutshell — with Sergeant Colon stumbling along behind, protesting.
Nobby was outside the Drum, hopping from one foot to another. In times of danger he had a way of propelling himself from place to place without apparently moving through the intervening space which could put any ordinary matter transporter to shame.
" 'E's fighting in there!" he stuttered, grabbing the captain's arm.
"All by himself?" said the captain.
"No, with everyone!" shouted Nobby, hopping from one foot to the other.
"Oh."
Conscience said: There's three of you. He's wearing the same uniform. He's one of your men. Remember poor old Gaskin.
Another part of his brain, the hated, despicable part which had nevertheless enabled him to survive in the Guards these past ten years, said: It's rude to butt in. We'll wait until he's finished, and then ask him if he wants any assistance. Besides, it isn't Watch policy to interfere in fights. It's a lot simpler to go in afterwards and arrest anyone recumbent.
There was a crash as a nearby window burst outwards and deposited a stunned fighter on the opposite side of the street.
"I think," said the captain carefully, "that we'd better take prompt action."
"That's right," said Sgt Colon, "a man could get hurt standing here."
They sidled cautiously a little way down the street, where the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass wasn't so overpowering, and carefully avoided one another's eyes. There was the occasional scream from within the tavern, and every now and again a mysterious ringing noise, as though someone was hitting a gong with their knee.
They stood in a little pool of embarrassed silence.
"You had your holidays this year, Sergeant?" said Captain Vimes eventually, rocking back and forth on his heels.