Jingo (3 page)

Littlebottom hurried off.

Vimes glanced out of the window. There was always a certain amount of activity outside the palace but today there was…not so much a crowd as, just, rather more people than you normally saw, hanging around. As if they were waiting for something.

Klatch!

Everyone
knows
it.

Old Detritus was right. You could hear the little pebbles bouncing. It’s not just a few fishermen having a scrap, it’s a hundred years of…well, like two big men trying to fit in one small room, trying to be polite about it, and then one day one of them just
has
to stretch and pretty soon they’re both smashing the furniture.

But it couldn’t really happen, could it? From what he’d heard, the present Seriph was a competent man who was mostly concerned with pacifying the rowdy edges of his empire. And there were Klatchians living in Ankh-Morpork, for heaven’s sake! There were Klatchians
born
in Ankh-Morpork. You saw some lad with a face that’d got camels written all over it, and when he opened his mouth it’d turn out he had an Ankhian accent so thick you could float rocks. Oh, there’s all the jokes about funny food and foreigners, but surely…

Not very funny jokes, come to think of it.

When you hear the bang, there’s no time to wonder how long the little fuse has been fizzing.

There were raised voices when he went back into the Rats Chamber.

“
Because
, Lord Selachii,” the Patrician was saying, “these are
not
the old days. It is no longer considered…
nice
…to send a warship over there to, as you put it, show Johnny Foreigner the error of his ways. For one thing, we haven’t had any warships since the
Mary-Jane
sank four hundred years ago. And times have changed. These days, the whole world watches. And, my lord, you are no longer allowed to say ‘What’re
you
lookin’ at?’ and black their eyes.” He leaned back. “There’s Chimeria, and Khanli, and Ephebe, and Tsort. And Muntab, these days, too. And Omnia. Some of these are powerful nations, gentlemen. Many of them don’t like Klatch’s current expansionist outlook, but they don’t like us much, either.”

“Whyever not?” said Lord Selachii.

“Well, because during our history those we haven’t occupied we’ve tended to wage war on,” said Lord Vetinari. “For some reason the slaughter of thousands of people tends to stick in the memory.”

“Oh,
history
,” said Lord Selachii. “That’s all in the past!”

“A good place for history, agreed,” said the Patrician solemnly.

“I meant: why don’t they like us now? Do we owe them money?”

“No. Mostly they owe
us
money. Which is, of course, a far better reason for their dislike.”

“How about Sto Lat and Pseudopolis and the other cities?” said Lord Downey.

“They don’t like us much, either.”

“Why not? I mean t’say, we do share a common heritage,” said Lord Selachii.

“Yes, my lord, but that common heritage largely consists of having had wars with one another,” said the Patrician. “I can’t see much support there. Which is a little unfortunate because we do not, in fact, have an army. I am not, of course, a military man but I believe that one of those is generally considered vital to the successful prosecution of a war.”

He looked along the table.

“The fact
is
,” he went on, “that Ankh-Morpork has been violently against a standing army.”

“We all know
why
people don’t trust an army,” said Lord Downey. “A lot of armed men, standing around with nothing to do…they start to get ideas…”

Vimes saw the heads turn toward him.

“My word,” he said, with glassy brightness, “can this be a reference to ‘Old Stoneface’ Vimes, who led the city’s militia in a revolt against the rule of a tyrannical monarch in an effort to bring some sort of freedom and justice to the place? I do believe it is! And was he Commander of the Watch at the time? Good heavens, yes, as a matter of fact he was! Was he hanged and dismembered and buried in five graves? And is he a distant ancestor of the current Commander? My word, the coincidences just
pile
up, don’t they?” His voice went from manic cheerfulness to a growl. “Right! That’s got
that
over with. Now—has anyone got any point they wish to make?”

There was a general shifting of position and a group clearing of throats.

“What about mercenaries?” said Boggis.

“The problem with mercenaries,” said the Patrician, “is that they need to be paid to start fighting. And, unless you are very lucky, you end up paying them even more to stop—”

Selachii thumped the table.

“Very well, then, by jingo!” he snarled. “Alone!”

“We could certainly do with one,” said Lord Vetinari. “We need the money. I was about to say that we cannot
afford
mercenaries.”

“How can this be?” said Lord Downey. “Don’t we pay our taxes?”

“Ah, I thought we might come to that,” said Lord Vetinari. He raised his hand and, on cue again, his clerk placed a piece of paper in it.

“Let me see now…ah yes. Guild of Assassins…Gross earnings in the last year: AM$13,207,048. Taxes paid in the last year: forty-seven dollars, twenty-two pence and what on examination turned out to be a Hershebian half-
dong
, worth one-eighth of a penny.”

“That’s all perfectly legal! The Guild of Accountants—”

“Ah yes. Guild of Accountants: gross earnings AM$7,999,011. Taxes paid: nil. But, ah yes, I see they applied for a rebate of AM$200,000.”

“And what we received, I may say, included a Hershebian half-
dong
,” said Mr. Frostrip of the Guild of Accountants.

“What goes around comes around,” said Vetinari calmly.

He tossed the paper aside. “Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum of moo. And I am afraid to say that these days all I get is moo.”

“Are you telling us that Ankh-Morpork is
bankrupt?
” said Downey.

“Of course. While, at the same time, full of rich people. I trust they have been spending their good fortune on swords.”

“And you have
allowed
this wholesale tax avoidance?” said Lord Selachii.

“Oh, the taxes haven’t been avoided,” said Lord Vetinari. “Or even evaded. They just haven’t been paid.”

“That is a disgusting state of affairs!”

The Patrician raised his eyebrows. “Commander Vimes?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Would you be so good as to assemble a squad of your most experienced men, liaise with the tax gatherers and obtain the accumulated back taxes, please? My clerk here will give you a list of the prime defaulters.”

“Right, sir. And if they resist, sir?” said Vimes, smiling nastily.

“Oh, how can they resist, commander? This is the will of our civic leaders.” He took the paper his clerk proffered. “Let me see, now. Top of the list—”

Lord Selachii coughed hurriedly. “Far too late for that sort of nonsense now,” he said.

“Water under the bridge,” said Lord Downey.

“Dead and buried,” said Mr. Slant.

“I paid mine,” said Vimes.

“So let me recap, then,” said Vetinari. “I don’t think anyone wants to see two grown nations scrapping over a piece of rock. We don’t want to fight, but—”

“By jingo, if we do, we’ll show those—” Lord Selachii began.

“We have no ships. We have no men. We have no money, too,” said Lord Vetinari. “Of course, we have the art of diplomacy. It is amazing what you can do with the right words.”

“Unfortunately, the right words are more readily listened to if you also have a sharp stick,” said Lord Downey.

Lord Selachii slapped the table. “We don’t have to
talk
to these people! My lords…gentlemen…it’s up to us to show them we won’t be pushed around! We must re-form the regiments!”

“Oh,
private
armies?” said Vimes. “Under the command of someone whose fitness for it lies in the fact that he can afford to pay for a thousand funny hats?”

Someone leaned forward, halfway along the table. Up to that moment Vimes had thought he was asleep, and when Lord Rust spoke it was, indeed, in a sort of yawn.

“Whose
fitness
, Mister Vimes, lies in a thousand years of breeding for leadership,” he said.

The “Mister” twisted in Vimes’s chest. He knew he was a mister, would always be a mister, was probably a blueprint for mistership, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t be Sir Samuel to someone who pronounced years as “hyahs.”

“Ah, good breeding,” he said. “No, sorry, don’t have any of
that
, if that’s what you need to get your own men killed by sheer—”

“Gentlemen, please,” said the Patrician. He shook his head. “Let’s have no fighting, please. This is, after all, a council of war. As for re-forming the regiments, well, this is of course your ancient right. The supplying of armed men in times of need is one of the duties of a gentleman. History is on your side. The precedents are clear enough, I can’t go against them. I have to say I cannot afford to.”

“You’re going to let them play soldiers?” said Vimes.

“Oh, Commander Vimes,” said Mr. Burleigh, smiling. “As a military man yourself, you must—”

Sometimes people can attract attention by shouting. They might opt for thumping a table, or even take a swing at someone else. But Vimes achieved the effect by freezing, by simply doing nothing. The chill radiated off him. Lines in his face locked like a statue.

“
I am not a military man
.”

And then Burleigh made the mistake of trying to grin disarmingly.

“Well, commander, the helmet and armor and everything…It’s really all the same in the end, isn’t it?”

“
No. It’s not
.”

“Gentlemen…” Lord Vetinari put his hands flat on the table, a sign that the meeting had ended. “I can only repeat that tomorrow I shall be discussing the matter with Prince Khufurah—”

“I’ve heard good reports of him,” said Lord Rust. “Strict but fair. One can only admire what he’s doing in some of those backward regions. A most—”

“No, sir. You are thinking of Prince Cadram,” said Lord Vetinari. “Khufurah is the younger brother. He is arriving here as his brother’s special envoy.”

“Him?
That
one? The man’s a wastrel! A cheat! A liar! They say he takes bri—”

“Thank you for your diplomatic input, Lord Rust,” said the Patrician. “We must deal with facts as they are. There is always a way. Our nations have many interests in common. And of course it says a lot for the seriousness with which Cadram is treating this matter that he is sending his own brother to deal with it. It’s a nod toward the international community.”

“A Klatchian bigwig is coming
here
?” said Vimes. “No one told me!”

“Strange as it may seem, Sir Samuel, I am occasionally capable of governing this city for minutes at a time without seeking your advice and guidance.”

“I meant there’s a lot of anti-Klatchian feeling around—”

“
A really greasy piece of work
—” Lord Rust whispered to Mr. Boggis, in that special aristocratic whisper that carries to the rafters.
“It’s an insult to send him here!”

“I am sure that you will see to it that the streets are safe to walk, Vimes,” said the Patrician sharply. “I know you pride yourself on that sort of thing. Officially he’s here because the wizards have invited him to their big award ceremony. An honorary doctorate, that sort of thing. And one of their lunches afterward. I do like negotiating with people after the faculty of Unseen University have entertained them to lunch. They tend not to move about much and they’ll agree to practically anything if they think there’s a chance of a stomach powder and a small glass of water. And now, gentlemen…if you will excuse me…”

The lords and leaders departed in ones and twos, talking quietly as they walked out into the hall.

The Patrician shuffled his papers into order, running a thin finger along each edge of the pile, and then looked up.

“You appear to be casting a shadow, commander.”

“You’re not
really
going to allow them to re-form the regiments, are you?” said Vimes.

“There is absolutely no law against it, Vimes. And it will keep them occupied. Every official gentleman is entitled, in fact I believe used to be
required
, to raise men when the city required it. And, of course, any citizen has the right to bear arms. Bear that in mind, please.”

“Arms is one thing. Holding weapons in ’em and playing soldiers is another.” Vimes put his knuckles on the table and leaned forward.

“You see, sir,” he said, “I can’t help but think that over there in Klatch a bunch of idiots are doing the same thing. They’re saying to the Seriph ‘It’s time to sort out those devils in Ankh-Morpork, offendi.’ And when a lot of people are running around with weapons and talking daft stuff about war, accidents happen. Have you ever been in a pub when everyone goes armed? Oh, things are a little polite at first, I’ll grant you, and then some twerp drinks out of the wrong mug or picks up someone else’s change by mistake and five minutes later you’re picking noses out of the beer nuts—”

The Patrician looked down at Vimes’s knuckles and stared fixedly until Vimes removed them.

“Vimes, you will be at the wizards’ Convivium tomorrow. I sent you a memo about it.”

“I never—” A vision of the piles of unread paperwork on Vimes’s desk loomed treacherously in his mind. “Ah,” he said.

“The Commander of the Watch leads the procession in full dress uniform. It’s an ancient custom.”

“Me? Walk in front of everyone?”

“Indeed. Very…civic. As I’m sure you recall. It demonstrates the friendly alliance between the University and the civil government which, I may say, seems to consist of their promising to do anything we ask provided we promise not to ask them to do anything. Anyway, it is your duty. Tradition decrees it. And Lady Sybil has agreed to see to it that you are there with a crisp bright shining morning face.”

Vimes took a deep breath. “You asked my
wife
?”

“Certainly. She is very proud of you. She believes you are capable of great things, Vimes. She must be a great comfort to you.”

“Well, I…I mean, I…yes…”