Jingo. Part 12

"Yes, indeed," said Vetinari. "But my eye was drawn to this little sketch here. The war machine..."

"Oh, that? A mere nothing. Have you ever noticed the way in which the dew on roses-"

"This bit here...what is it for?" said Vetinari, pointing persistently.

"Oh, that? That's just the throwing arm for the b.a.l.l.s of molten sulfur," said Leonard, picking up a plate of small cakes. "I calculate that one should get a range of almost half a mile, if one detaches the endless belt from the driving wheels and uses the oxen to wind the windla.s.s."

"Really?" said Vetinari, taking in the carefully numbered parts. "And it could be built?"

"What? Oh, yes. Macaroon? In theory."

"In theory?"

"No one would ever actually do it. Raining unquenchable fire down upon fellow humans? Hah!" Leonard sprayed macaroon crumbs. "You'd never find an artisan to build it, or a soldier who would pull the lever...That's part 3(b) on the plan, just here, look..."

"Ah, yes," said Vetinari. "Anyway," he added, "I imagine these huge power arms here couldn't possibly be operated without them breaking..."

"Seasoned ash and yew, laminated and held together by special steel bolts," said Leonard promptly. "I made a few calculations, just there below the sketch of light on a raindrop. As an intellectual exercise, obviously."

Vetinari ran his eye along several lines of Leonard's spidery mirror-writing.

"Oh, yes," he said glumly. He put the paper aside.

"Have I told you that the Klatchian situation is intensely political? Prince Cadram is trying to do a great deal very fast. He needs to consolidate his position. He is depending on support that is somewhat volatile. There are many plotting against him, I understand."

"Really? Well, this is the sort of thing people do," said Leonard. "Incidentally, I've recently been examining cobwebs and, I know this will interest you, their strength in relation to their weight is much greater even than our best steel wire. Isn't that fascinating?"

"What kind of weapon do you intend to make out of them?" said the Patrician.

"Sorry?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking aloud."

"And you haven't touched your tea," said Leonard.

Vetinari looked around the room. It was full of...things. Tubes and odd paper kites and things that looked like the skeletons of ancient beasts. One of Leonard's saving graces, in a very real real sense from Vetinari's point of view, was his strange attention span. It wasn't that he soon got bored with things. He didn't seem to get bored with sense from Vetinari's point of view, was his strange attention span. It wasn't that he soon got bored with things. He didn't seem to get bored with anything anything. But since he was interested in everything in the universe all the time the end result tended to be that an experimental device for disemboweling people at a distance then became a string-weaving machine and ended up as an instrument for ascertaining the specific gravity of cheese.

He was as easily distracted as a kitten. All that business with the flying machine, for example. Giant bat wings hung from the ceiling even now. The Patrician had been more than happy to let him waste his time on that idea, because it was obvious to anyone that no human being would ever be able to flap the wings hard enough.

He needn't have worried. Leonard was his own distraction. He had ended up spending ages designing a special tray so that people could eat their meals in the air.

A truly innocent man. And yet always, always, some little part of him would sketch these wretchedly beguiling engines, with their clouds of smoke and carefully numbered engineering diagrams...

"What's this?" Vetinari said, pointing to yet another doodle. It showed a man holding a large metal sphere.

"That? Oh, something of a toy, really. Makes use of the strange properties of some otherwise quite useless metals. They don't like being squeezed squeezed. So they go bang. With extreme alacrity."

"Another weapon..."

"Certainly not, my lord! It would be no possible use as a weapon! I did think it might have a place in the mining industries, though."

"Really..."

"For when they need to move mountains out of the way."

"Tell me," Vetinari said, putting this paper aside as well, "you don't have any relatives in Klatch, do you?"

"I don't believe so. My family lived in Quirm for generations."

"Oh. Good. But...very clever people in Klatch, are they?"

"Oh, in many disciplines they practically wrote the scroll. Fine metalwork, for example."

"Metalwork..." The Patrician sighed.

"And alchemy, of course. Affir Al-chema's Principia Explosia Principia Explosia has been has been the the seminal work for more than a hundred years." seminal work for more than a hundred years."

"Alchemy," said the Patrician, glumly. "Sulfur and so forth..."

"Yes, indeed."

"But the way you put it, these major achievements were some considerable time ago..." Lord Vetinari sounded like a man straining to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

"Certainly! I would be astonished if they haven't made considerable progress!" said Leonard of Quirm happily.

"Ah?" The Patrician sank a little in his chair. It had turned out that the end of the tunnel was on fire.

"A splendid people with much to recommend them," said Leonard. "I always thought it was the presence of the desert. It leads to an urgency of thought. It makes you aware of the briefness of life."

The Patrician glanced at another page. Between a sketch of a bird's wing and a careful drawing of a ball-joint was a little doodle of something with spiked wheels and spinning blades. And then there was the device for moving mountains aside...

"The desert is not required," he said. He sighed again and pushed the pages aside. "Have you heard about the lost continent of Leshp?" he said.

"Oh, yes. I did some sketches there a few years ago," said Leonard. "Some interesting aspects, I recall. More tea? I fear you've let that one get cold. Was there anything you particularly wanted?"

The Patrician pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm not sure. There is a small problem developing. I thought perhaps you could help. Unfortunately," the Patrician glanced at the sketches again, "I suspect that you can." He stood up, straightened his robe and forced a smile. "You have everything you require?"

"Some more wire would be nice," said Leonard. "And I have run out of Burnt Umber."

"I shall have some sent along directly," said Vetinari. "And now, if you will excuse me-"

He let himself out.

Leonard nodded happily as he cleared away the teacups. The infernal combustion engine was carried to the heap of sc.r.a.p metal beside the small forge, and he fetched a ladder and removed the piston from the ceiling.

He'd just opened out his easel to start work on a new design when he was aware of a distant pattering. It sounded like someone running but also occasionally pausing to hop sideways on one leg.

Then there was a pause, such as might be made by someone adjusting their clothing and getting their breath back.

The door opened and the Patrician returned. He sat down and looked carefully at Leonard of Quirm.

"You did what what?" he said.

Vimes turned the clove over and over under the magnifying gla.s.s.

"I see tooth marks," he said.

"Yes sir," said Littlebottom, who represented in her entirety the Watch's forensic department. "Looks like someone was chewing it like a toothpick."

Vimes sat back. "I would say," he said, "that this was last touched by a swarthy man of about my height. He had several gold teeth. And a beard. And a slight cast in one eye. Scarred. He was carrying a large weapon. Curved, I'd say. And you'd have to call what he was wearing a turban because it wasn't moving fast enough to be a badger."

Littlebottom looked astonished.

"Detectoring is like gambling," said Vimes, putting down the clove. "The secret is to know the winner in advance. Thank you, corporal. Write down that description and make sure everyone gets a copy, please. He goes by the name of 71-hour Ahmed, heaven knows why. And then go and get some rest."

Vimes turned to face Carrot and Angua, who had crammed into the tiny little room, and nodded at the girl.

"I followed the clove smell all the way down to the docks," she said.

"And then?"

"Then I lost it, sir." Angua looked embarra.s.sed. "I didn't have any trouble through the fish market, sir. Or in the slaughterhouse district. And then it went into the spice market-"

"Ah. I see. And didn't come out again?"

"In a way, sir. Or came out going fifty different ways. Sorry."

"Can't be helped. Carrot?"

"I did what you said, sir. The top of the Opera House is about the right distance from our archery b.u.t.ts. I used a bow just like the one he used, sir-"

Vimes raised a finger. Carrot stared, and then said slowly: "...like...the one you found next to him..."

"Right. And?"

"It's a Burleigh and Stronginthearm 'Shureshotte Five,' sir. A bow for the expert. I'm not a great bowman but I could at least hit the target at that elevation. But..."

"I'm ahead of you," said Vimes. "You're a big lad, Carrot. Our late Ossie had arms like n.o.bby. I could put my hand round them."

"Yes, sir. It's a hundred-pound draw. I doubt if he could even pull the string back."

"I'd hate to watch him try. Good grief...the only thing he could be sure of hitting with a bow like that would be his foot. By the way, do you think anyone saw you up there?"

"I doubt it, sir. I was right in among the chimneys and the air vents."

Vimes sighed. "Captain, I expect if you'd done it in a cellar at midnight his lordship would have said 'Wasn't it rather dark down there?' next morning."

He took out the by now rather creased picture. There was Carrot-or at least Carrot's arm and ear-as he ran toward the procession. And there, among the people in the procession turning to look at him, was the face of the Prince. There was no sign of 71-hour Ahmed. He'd been at the soiree, hadn't he? But then there'd been all that milling around at the door, people changing places, treading on one another's robes, nipping back to the privy, walking into one another...He could have gone anywhere anywhere.

"And the Prince fell as you got to him? With the arrow in his back? He was still facing you?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sure of that. Everyone else was milling around, of course..."

"So he was shot in the back by a man in front of him who could not possibly have used the bow that he didn't shoot him with from the wrong direction..."

There was a tapping at the window.

"That'll be Downspout," said Vimes, without looking around. "I sent him on an errand..."

Downspout never quite fitted in. It wasn't that he didn't get on with people, because he hardly ever met met people, except those whose activities took them above, say, second-floor level. Constable Downspout's beat was the rooftops. Very slowly. He'd come down for the Watch's Hogswatch party and had poured gravy in his ears to show willing, but gargoyles got very nervy indoors at ground level and he had soon exited via the chimney and his paper squeaker had echoed out forlornly amongst the snowy rooftops all night. people, except those whose activities took them above, say, second-floor level. Constable Downspout's beat was the rooftops. Very slowly. He'd come down for the Watch's Hogswatch party and had poured gravy in his ears to show willing, but gargoyles got very nervy indoors at ground level and he had soon exited via the chimney and his paper squeaker had echoed out forlornly amongst the snowy rooftops all night.

But gargoyles were good at watching, and good at remembering, and very, very good at being patient.

Vimes opened the window. Moving jerkily, Downspout unfolded himself into the room and then quickly scrambled up on to a corner of Vimes's desk, for the comfort that it brought.

Angua and Carrot stared at the arrow the gargoyle held in his hand.

"Ah, well done," said Vimes, in the same even voice. "Where did you find it, Downspout?"

Downspout spluttered a series of guttural syllables only p.r.o.nounceable by someone with a mouth shaped like a pipe.

"In the wall on the second floor of the dress shop in the Plaza of Broken Moons," Carrot translated.

"eshk," said Downspout.

"That's barely halfway to Sator Square, sir."

"Yes," said Vimes. "A small weak man trying to pull a heavy bow, the arrow wobbling all over the place...Thank you very much, Downspout. There will be an extra pigeon for you this week."

"nkorr," said Downspout, and clambered back out of the window.

"Excuse me, sir?" said Angua. She took the arrow from Vimes and, closing her eyes, sniffed at it gingerly.

"Oh, yes...Ossie," she said. "All over it..."

"Thank you, corporal. It's as well to be sure."

Carrot took the arrow from the werewolf and looked at it critically. "Huh. Peac.o.c.k feathers and a plated point. It's the sort of thing an amateur buys because he thinks it'll magically improve his shot. Showy."

"Right," said Vimes. "You, Carrot, and you, Angua...you're on the case."