Jingo. Part 21

"Sergeant Colon?"

"Yessir!"

"See to this, will you?"

"Yessir!"

"Diplomatically."

"Right, sir!" Colon tapped the side of his nose. "Is this politics, sir?"

"Just...just go and fetch the Goriff family and they can..." Vimes waved a hand vaguely. "They can do whatever they like."

He turned and walked up the stairs.

"Someone has to protect my people's rights!" shouted Wazir.

They heard Vimes stop halfway up the stairs. The board creaked under his weight for a second. Then he continued upward, and several of the watchmen started breathing again.

Vimes shut his office door behind him.

Politics! He sat down and scrabbled through the papers. It was much easier to think about crime. Give him good honest crime any time.

He tried to shut out the outside world.

Someone had beheaded Snowy Slopes. That was a fact fact. You couldn't put it down to a shaving accident, or unreasonably strong shampoo.

And Snowy had attempted to shoot the Prince.

And so had Ossie, but Ossie only thought thought he was an a.s.sa.s.sin. Everyone else thought he was a weird little twerp who was as impressionable as wet clay. he was an a.s.sa.s.sin. Everyone else thought he was a weird little twerp who was as impressionable as wet clay.

A lovely idea, though. You used a real real murderer, a nice quiet professional, and then you had-Vimes smiled grimly-someone else to take the fall. And if he hadn't taken a less metaphorical fall the poor twisted little sod would have murderer, a nice quiet professional, and then you had-Vimes smiled grimly-someone else to take the fall. And if he hadn't taken a less metaphorical fall the poor twisted little sod would have believed believed he was the murderer. he was the murderer.

And the Watch was supposed to believe it was a Klatchian plot.

Sand in their sandals...The nerve nerve of it! Did they think he was stupid? He wished Fred had carefully swept up the sand, because he was d.a.m.n well going to find out who'd put it there and they were going to of it! Did they think he was stupid? He wished Fred had carefully swept up the sand, because he was d.a.m.n well going to find out who'd put it there and they were going to eat eat it. Someone wanted Vimes to chase Klatchians. it. Someone wanted Vimes to chase Klatchians.

The man on the burning roof. Did he fit in? Did he have have to fit in? What could Vimes recall? A man in a robe, his face hidden. And a voice of a man not just used to giving commands- to fit in? What could Vimes recall? A man in a robe, his face hidden. And a voice of a man not just used to giving commands-Vimes was used to giving commands-but also used to having commands obeyed, whereas a member of the Watch treated orders as suggestions. was used to giving commands-but also used to having commands obeyed, whereas a member of the Watch treated orders as suggestions.

But some things didn't have to fit. That was where "clues" let you down. And the d.a.m.n notebook. That was the oddest thing yet. So someone someone had carefully ripped out several pages after Snowy had written whatever he'd written. Someone bright enough to know the trick of looking at the pages underneath for faint impressions. had carefully ripped out several pages after Snowy had written whatever he'd written. Someone bright enough to know the trick of looking at the pages underneath for faint impressions.

So why not pinch the whole pad?

It was all too complicated. But somewhere was the one thing that'd make it simple, that would turn it all into sense- He flung down his pencil and wrenched open the door to the stairs.

"What the h.e.l.l's all this noise?" he yelled.

Sergeant Colon was halfway up the stairs.

"It was Mr. Goriff and Mr. Wazir having a bit of what you might call an argy-bargy, sir. Someone set fire to someone else's country two hundred years ago, Carrot says."

"What, just now now?"

"'s all Klatchian to me, sir. Anyway, Wazir's gone off with his nose in a sling."

"Wazir comes from Smale, you see," said Carrot. "And Mr. Gorriff comes from Elharib, and the two countries only stopped fighting ten years ago. Religious differences."

"Run out of weapons?" said Vimes.

"Ran out of rocks, sir. They ran out of weapons last century."

Vimes shook his head. "That always chews me up," he said. "People killing one another just because their G.o.ds have squabbled-"

"Oh, they've got the same G.o.d, sir. Apparently it's over a word in their holy book, sir. The Elharibians say it translates as 'G.o.d' and the Smalies say it's 'man.'"

"How can you mix them up?"

"Well, there's only one tiny dot difference in the script, you see. And some people reckon it's only a bit of fly dirt in any case."

"Centuries of war because a fly c.r.a.pped in the wrong place?"

"It could have been worse," said Carrot. "If it had been slightly to the left the word would have been 'liquorice.'"

Vimes shook his head. Carrot was good at picking up this sort of thing. And I know how to ask for vindaloo, he thought. And it turns out that's just a Klatchian word meaning "mouth-scalding gristle for macho foreign idiots."

"I wish we understood more about Klatch," he said.

Sergeant Colon tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially.

"Know the enemy, eh, sir?" he said.

"Oh, I know the enemy enemy," said Vimes. "It's Klatchians I want to find out about."

"Commander Vimes?"

The watchmen looked round. Vimes narrowed his eyes.

"You're one of Rust's men, aren't you?"

The young man saluted.

"Lieutenant Hornett, sir." He hesitated. "Er...his lordship has sent me to ask you if you and your senior officers would be so good as to come to the palace at your convenience, sir."

"Really? Those were his words?"

The lieutenant decided that honesty was the only policy.

"In fact he said, 'Get Vimes and his mob up here right now,' sir."

"Oh, did he?" said Vimes.

"Bingeley-bingeley beep!" said a small triumphant voice from his pocket. "The time is eleven pee em precisely!"

The door opened before n.o.bby knocked, and a small stout woman glared out at him.

"Yes, I am!" she snapped.

n.o.bby stood with his hand still raised. "Er...are you Mrs. Cake?" he said.

"Yes, but I don't hold with doing it except for money."

n.o.bby's hand did not move.

"Er...you can tell the future, right?" said n.o.bby.

They stared at one another. Then Mrs. Cake thumped her own ear a couple of times, and blinked.

"Drat! Left my precognition on again." Her gaze unfocused for a moment as she replayed the recent conversation in the privacy of her head.

"I think we're sorted out," she said. She looked at n.o.bby and sniffed. "You'd better come in. Mind the carpet, it's just been washed. And I can only give you ten minutes 'cos I've got cabbage boilin."

She led Corporal n.o.bbs into her tiny front room. A lot of it was occupied by a round table covered with a green cloth. There was a crystal ball on the table, not very well covered by a pink knitted lady in a crinoline dress.

Mrs. Cake motioned n.o.bby to sit down. He obediently did so. The smell of cabbage drifted through the room.

"A bloke in the pub told me about you," n.o.bby mumbled. "Said you do mediuming."

"Would you care to tell me your problem?" said Mrs. Cake. She looked at n.o.bby again and, in a state of certainty that had nothing to do with precognition and everything to do with observation, added: "That is, which of your problems do you want to know about?"

n.o.bby coughed. "Er...it's a bit...you know...intimate. Affairs of the heart, sort of thing."

"Are women women involved?" said Mrs. Cake cautiously. involved?" said Mrs. Cake cautiously.

"Er...I hope so. What else is there?"

Mrs. Cake visibly relaxed.

"I just want to know if I'm going to meet any," n.o.bby went on.

"I see." Mrs. Cake gave a kind of facial shrug. It wasn't up to her to tell people how to waste their money. "Well, there's the tenpenny future. That's what you see. And there's the ten-dollar future. That's what you get."

"Ten dollars? That's more'n a week's pay! I'd better take the tenpenny one."

"A very wise choice," said Mrs. Cake. "Give me your paw."

"Hand," said n.o.bby.

"That's what I said."

Mrs. Cake examined n.o.bby's outstretched palm while taking care not to touch it.

"Are you going to moan and roll your eyes and stuff?" said n.o.bby, a man out to get his tenpenn'orth.

"I don't have to take cheek," said Mrs. Cake, without looking up. "That sort of-"

She peered closer, and then gave n.o.bby a sharp look.

"Have you been playing with this hand?"

"Pardon?"

Mrs. Cake whipped the crinoline lady off the crystal and glared into the depths. After a while she shook her head.

"I don't know, I'm sure...oh, well." She cleared her throat and spoke in a more sibylic voice. "Mr. n.o.bbs, I see you surrounded by dusky ladies in a hot place. Looks a bit foreign to me. They're laughing and chatting with you...in fact, one of them's just handed you a drink..."

"None of 'em are shouting or anything?" said n.o.bby, mystified.

"Doesn't look like it," said Mrs. Cake, equally fascinated. "They seem quite happy."

"You can't see any...magnets?"

"What're they?"

"Dunno," n.o.bby admitted. "I 'spect you'd know 'em if you saw 'em."

Mrs. Cake, despite a certain rigidity of character, couldn't help but be aware of a drift in n.o.bby's speculation.

"Some of the ladies look...nubile," she hinted.

"Ah, right," said n.o.bby, his expression not changing in any way.

"If you understand what I mean..."

"Right. Yes. Nubile. Right."

Mrs. Cake gave up. n.o.bby counted out ten pennies.

"And that'll be soon, will it?" said n.o.bby.

"Oh yes. I can't see very far for tenpence."

"Happy young ladies..." mused n.o.bby. "Nubile, too. Definitely something to think about."

After he'd gone, Mrs. Cake went back to her crystal and sneaked a whole ten dollars' worth of precognition for her own curiosity and satisfaction, and laughed about it all afternoon.