Guards! Guards! (14 page)

One of the cluster, who from his size, weaponry and that way he was slowly tracing the lettering with his finger Vimes decided was a leading hero, was doing the reading for the others.

“—to ter-her pal-ack-ee,” he concluded.

“Fifty thousand,” said one of them reflectively, rubbing his chin.

“Cheap job,” said the intellectual. “Well below the rate. Should be half the kingdom and his daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“Yes, but he ain’t a king. He’s a Patrician.”

“Well, half his Patrimony or whatever. What’s his daughter like?”

The assembled hunters didn’t know.

“He’s not married,” Vimes volunteered. “And he hasn’t got a daughter.”

They turned and looked him up and down. He could see the disdain in their eyes. They probably got through dozens like him every day. “Not got a daughter?” said one of them. “Wants people to kill dragons and he hasn’t got a daughter?”

Vimes felt, in an odd way, that he ought to support the lord of the city. “He’s got a little dog that he’s very fond of,” he said helpfully.

“Bleeding disgusting, not even having a daughter,” said one of the hunters. “And what’s fifty thousand dollars these days? You spend that much in nets.”

“S’right,” said another. “People think it’s a fortune, but they don’t reckon on, well, it’s not pensionable, there’s all the medical expenses, you’ve got to buy and maintain your own gear—”

“—wear and tear on virgins—” nodded a small fat hunter.

“Yeah, and then there’s…what?”

“My speciality is unicorns,” the hunter explained, with an embarrassed smile.

“Oh, right.” The first speaker looked like someone who’d always been dying to ask the question. “I thought they were very rare these days.”

“You’re right there. You don’t see many unicorns, either,” said the unicorn hunter. Vimes got the impression that, in his whole life, this was his only joke.

“Yeah, well. Times are hard,” said the first speaker sharply.

“Monsters are getting more uppity, too,” said another. “I heard where this guy, he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door—”

“Pour encourjay lays ortras,” said one of the listeners.

“Right, and you know what? Its mum come and complained. Its actual mum come right down to the hall next day and
complained
. Actually
complained
. That’s the respect you get.”

“The females are always the worst,” said another hunter gloomily. “I knew this cross-eyed gorgon once, oh, she was a terror. Kept turning her own nose to stone.”

“It’s
our
arses on the line every time,” said the intellectual. “I mean, I wish I had a dollar for every horse I’ve had eaten out from underneath me.”

“Right. Fifty thousand dollars? He can stuff it.”

“Yeah.”

“Right. Cheapskate.”

“Let’s go and have a drink.”

“Right.”

They nodded in righteous agreement and strode off toward the Mended Drum, except for the intellectual, who sidled uneasily back to Vimes.

“What sort of dog?” he said.

“What?” said Vimes.

“I said, what sort of dog?”

“A small wire-haired terrier, I think,” said Vimes.

The hunter thought about this for some time. “Nah,” he said eventually, and hurried off after the others.

“He’s got an aunt in Pseudopolis, I believe,” Vimes called after him.

There was no response. The captain of the Watch shrugged, and carried on through the throng to the Patrician’s palace…

…where the Patrician was having a difficult lunchtime.

“Gentlemen!” he snapped. “I really don’t see what else there is to do!”

The assembled civic leaders muttered among themselves.

“At times like this it’s traditional that a hero comes forth,” said the President of the Guild of Assassins. “A dragon slayer. Where is he, that’s what I want to know? Why aren’t our schools turning out young people with the kind of skills society needs?”

“Fifty thousand dollars doesn’t sound much,” said the Chairman of the Guild of Thieves.

“It may not be much to you, my dear sir, but it is all the city can afford,” said the Patrician firmly.

“If it doesn’t afford anymore than that I don’t think there’ll
be
a city for long,” said the thief.

“And what about trade?” said the representative of the Guild of Merchants. “People aren’t going to sail here with a cargo of rare comestibles just to have it incinerated, are they?”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” The Patrician raised his hands in a conciliatory fashion. “It seems to me,” he went on, taking advantage of the brief pause, “that what we have here is a strictly
magical
phenomenon. I would like to hear from our learned friend on this point. Hmm?”

Someone nudged the Archchancellor of Unseen University, who had nodded off.

“Eh? What?” said the wizard, startled into wakefulness.

“We were wondering,” said the Patrician loudly, “what you were intending to do about this dragon of yours?”

The Archchancellor was old, but a lifetime of survival in the world of competitive wizardry and the byzantine politics of Unseen University meant that he could whip up a defensive argument in a split second. You didn’t remain Archchancellor for long if you let
that
sort of ingenuous remark whizz past your ear.

“
My
dragon?” he said.

“It’s well known that the great dragons are extinct,” said the Patrician brusquely. “And, besides, their natural habitat was definitely rural. So it seems to me that this one must be mag—”

“With respect, Lord Vetinari,” said the Archchancellor, “it has often been
claimed
that dragons are extinct, but the current evidence, if I may make so bold, tends to cast a certain doubt on the theory. As to habitat, what we are seeing here is simply a change of behavior pattern, occasioned by the spread of urban areas into the countryside which has led many hitherto rural creatures to adopt, nay in many cases to positively embrace, a more municipal mode of existence, and many of them thrive on the new opportunities thereby opened to them. For example, foxes are always knocking over my dustbins.”

He beamed. He’d managed to get all the way through it without actually needing to engage his brain.

“Are you saying,” said the assassin slowly, “that what we’ve got here is the first
civic
dragon?”

“That’s evolution for you,” said the wizard, happily. “It should do well, too,” he added. “Plenty of nesting sites, and a more than adequate food supply.”

Silence greeted this statement, until the merchant said, “What exactly is it that they
do
eat?”

The thief shrugged. “I seem to recall stories about virgins chained to huge rocks,” he volunteered.

“It’ll starve around here, then,” said the assassin. “We’re on loam.”

“They used to go around ravening,” said the thief. “Dunno if that’s any help…”

“Anyway,” said the leader of the merchants, “it seems to be your problem again, my lord.”

Five minutes later the Patrician was striding the length of the Oblong Office, fuming.

“They were laughing at me,” said the Patrician. “I could tell!”

“Did you suggest a working party?” said Wonse.

“Of course I did! It didn’t do the trick this time. You know, I really am inclined to increase the reward money.”

“I don’t think that would work, my lord. Any proficient monster slayer knows the rate for the job.”

“Ha! Half the kingdom,” muttered the Patrician.

“And your daughter’s hand in marriage,” said Wonse.

“I suppose an aunt isn’t acceptable?” the Patrician said hopefully.

“Tradition demands a daughter, my lord.”

The Patrician nodded gloomily.

“Perhaps we can buy it off,” he said aloud. “Are dragons intelligent?”

“I believe the word traditionally is ‘cunning,’ my lord,” said Wonse. “I understand they have a liking for gold.”

“Really? What do they spend it on?”

“They sleep on it, my lord.”

“What, do you mean in a mattress?”

“No, my lord. On
it
.”

The Patrician turned this fact over in his mind. “Don’t they find it rather knobbly?” he said.

“So I would imagine, sir. I don’t suppose anyone has ever asked.”

“Hmm. Can they talk?”

“They’re apparently good at it, my lord.”

“Ah. Interesting.”

The Patrician was thinking: if it can talk, it can negotiate. If it can negotiate, then I have it by the short—by the small scales, or whatever it is they have.

“And they are said to be silver tongued,” said Wonse. The Patrician leaned back in his chair.

“Only silver?” he said.

There was the sound of muted voices in the passageway outside and Vimes was ushered in.

“Ah, Captain,” said the Patrician, “what progress?”

“I’m sorry, my lord?” said Vimes, as the rain dripped off his cape.

“Towards apprehending this dragon,” said the Patrician firmly.

“The wading bird?” said Vimes.

“You know very well what I mean,” said Vetinari sharply.

“Investigations are in hand,” said Vimes automatically.

The Patrician snorted. “All you have to do is find its lair,” he said. “Once you have the lair, you have the dragon. That’s obvious. Half the city seems to be looking for it.”

“If there is a lair,” said Vimes.

Wonse looked up sharply.

“Why do you say that?”

“We are considering a number of possibilities,” said Vimes woodenly.

“If it has no lair, where does it spend its days?” said the Patrician.

“Inquiries are being pursued,” said Vimes.

“Then pursue them with alacrity. And find the lair,” said the Patrician sourly.

“Yes, sir. Permission to leave, sir?”

“Very well. But I shall expect progress by tonight, do you understand?”

Now why did I wonder if it has a lair? Vimes thought, as he stepped out into the daylight and the crowded square. Because it didn’t look real, that’s why. If it isn’t real, it doesn’t need to do anything we expect. How can it walk out of an alley it didn’t go into?

Once you’ve ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course. That was the trick, all right.

There was also the curious incident of the orangutan in the night-time…

By day the Library buzzed with activity. Vimes moved through it diffidently. Strictly speaking, he could go anywhere in the city, but the University had always held that it fell under thaumaturgical law and he felt it wouldn’t be wise to make the kind of enemies where you were lucky to end up the same temperature, let alone the same shape.

He found the Librarian hunched over his desk. The ape gave him an expectant look.

“Haven’t found it yet. Sorry,” said Vimes. “Enquiries are continuing. But there is a little help you can give me.”

“Oook?”

“Well, this is a magical library, right? I mean, these books are sort of intelligent, isn’t that so? So I’ve been thinking: I bet if I got in here at night, they’d soon kick up a fuss. Because they don’t know me. But if they
did
know me, they’d probably not mind. So whoever took the book would have to be a wizard, wouldn’t they? Or someone who works for the University, at any rate.”

The Librarian glanced from side to side, then grasped Vimes’s hand and led him into the seclusion of a couple of bookshelves. Only then did he nod his head.

“Someone they know?”

A shrug, and then another nod.

“That’s why you told us, is it?”

“Oook.”

“And not the University Council?”

“Oook.”

“Any idea who it is?”

The Librarian shrugged, a decidedly expressive gesture for a body which was basically a sack between a pair of shoulderblades.

“Well, it’s something. Let me know if any other strange things happen, won’t you?” Vimes looked up at the banks of shelves. “Stranger than usual, I mean.”

“Oook.”

“Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet a citizen who regards it as their duty to assist the Watch.”

The Librarian gave him a banana.

Vimes felt curiously elated as he stepped out into the city’s throbbing streets again. He was definitely detecting things. They were little bits of things, like a jigsaw. No one of them made any real sense, but they all hinted at a bigger picture. All he needed to do was find a corner, or a bit of an edge…

He was pretty certain it wasn’t a wizard, whatever the Librarian might think. Not a proper, paid-up wizard. This sort of thing wasn’t their style.

And there was, of course, this business about the lair. The most sensible course would be to wait and see if the dragon turned up tonight, and try and see
where
. That meant a high place. Was there some way of detecting dragons themselves? He’d had a look at Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler’s dragon detectors, which consisted solely of a piece of wood on a metal stick. When the stick was burned through, you’d found your dragon. Like a lot of Cut-me-own-Throat’s devices, it was completely efficient in its own special way while at the same time being totally useless.

There had to be a better way of finding the thing than waiting until your fingers were burned off.

The setting sun spread out on the horizon like a lightly-poached egg.

The rooftops of Ankh-Morpork sprouted a fine array of gargoyles even in normal times, but now they were alive with as ghastly an array of faces as ever were seen outside a woodcut about the evils of gin-drinking among the non-woodcut-buying classes. Many of the faces were attached to bodies holding a fearsome array of homely weapons that had been handed down from generation to generation for centuries, often with some force.

From his perch on the roof of the Watch House Vimes could see the wizards lining the rooftops of the University, and the gangs of opportunist hoard-researchers waiting in the streets, shovels at the ready. If the dragon really did have a bed somewhere in the city, then it would be sleeping on the floor tomorrow.

From somewhere below came the cry of Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler, or one of his colleagues, selling hot sausages. Vimes felt a sudden surge of civic pride. There had to be something right about a citizenry which, when faced with catastrophe, thought about selling sausages to the participants.