Jingo (8 page)

“There was trouble all over the place yesterday!”

“Yessir.”

“You did
tell
Fred he was to send a bird if there was anything at all?”

“Yessir.”

“The Shades? There’s
always
something—”

“Dead quiet, sir.”

“
Damn
!”

Vimes shook his head at the sheer untrustworthiness of Ankh-Morpork’s criminal fraternity.

“I suppose you couldn’t take a brick and—”

“Lady Sybil was very speffic about how you was to stop here,” said Corporal Nobbs, staring straight ahead.

“Speffic?”

“Yeah, sir. She come and have a word with me. Gave me a dollar,” said Nobby.

“Ah, Sir Samuel!” said a booming voice behind him, “I don’t think you’ve met Prince Khufurah yet, have you?”

He turned. Archchancellor Ridcully was bearing down on him, towing a couple of swarthy men. Vimes hurriedly put on his official face.

“This is Commander Vimes, gentlemen. Sam…no, I’m doing this the wrong way round, aren’t I, got the protocol all wrong—so much to sort out, the Bursar’s locked himself in the safe again, we don’t know how he manages to get the key in there with him, I mean, it’s not even as if it’s got a keyhole on the inside…”

The first man held out a hand as Ridcully bustled off again. “Prince Khufurah,” he said. “My carpet got in only two hours ago.”

“Carpet? Oh…yes…you flew…”

“Yes, very chilly and of course you just can’t get a good meal. And did you get your man, Sir Samuel?”

“What? Pardon?”

“I believe our ambassador told me you had to leave the reception last week…?” The Prince was a tall man who had probably once been quite athletic until the big dinners had finally weighed him down. And he had a beard. All Klatchians had beards. This Klatchian had intelligent eyes, too. Disconcertingly intelligent. You looked into them and several layers of person looked back at you.

“What? Oh. Yes. Yes, we got ’em all right,” said Vimes.

“Well done. He put up a fight, I see.”

Vimes looked surprised. The Prince tapped his jaw thoughtfully. Vimes’s hand flew up and encountered a little bit of tissue on his own chin.

“Ah…er…yes…”

“Commander Vimes
always
gets his man,” said the Prince.

“Well, I wouldn’t say I—”

“Vetinari’s terrier, I’ve heard them call you,” the Prince went on. “Always hot on the chase, they say, and he won’t let go.”

Vimes stared into the calm, knowing gaze.

“I suppose, at the end of the day, we’re all someone’s dog,” he said, weakly.

“In fact it is fortuitous I have met you, commander.”

“It is?”

“I was just wondering about the meaning of the word shouted at me as we were on our way down here. Would you be so kind?”

“Er…if I…”

“I believe it was…let me see now…oh, yes…
towelhead
.”

The Prince’s eyes stayed locked on Vimes’s face.

Vimes was conscious of his own thoughts moving very fast, and they seemed to reach their own decision. We’ll explain later, they said. You’re too tired for explanations. Right now, with this man, it’s oh so much better to be honest…

“It…refers to your headdress,” he said.

“Oh. Is it some kind of obscure joke?”

Of
course
he knows, thought Vimes. And he knows I know…

“No. It’s an insult,” he said eventually.

“Ah? Well, we certainly cannot be held responsible for the ramblings of idiots, commander.” The Prince flashed a smile. “I must commend you, incidentally.”

“I’m sorry?”

“For your breadth of knowledge. I must have asked a dozen people that question
this morning
and, do you know? Not
one
of them knew what it meant. And they
all
seemed to have caught a cough.”

There was a diplomatic pause but, in it, someone sniggered.

Vimes let his glance drift sideways to the other man, who had not been introduced. He was shorter and skinnier than the Prince and, under his black headdress, had the most crowded face Vimes had ever seen. A network of scars surrounded a nose like an eagle’s beak. There was a sort of beard and moustache, but the scars had affected the hair growth so much that they stuck out in strange bunches and at odd angles. The man looked as though he had been hit in the mouth by a hedgehog. He could have been any age. Some of the scars looked fresh.

All in all, the man had a face that any policeman would arrest on sight. There was no possible way it could be innocent of
anything
.

He caught Vimes’s expression and grinned, and Vimes had never seen so much gold in one mouth. He’d never seen so much gold in one
place
.

Vimes realized he was staring when he ought to have been making polite diplomatic conversation.

“So,” he said, “are we going to have a scrap over this Leshp business or what?”

The Prince gave a dismissive shrug.

“Pfui,” he said. “A few square miles of uninhabited fertile ground with superb anchorage in an unsurpassed strategic position? What sort of inconsequence is that for civilized people to war over?”

Once again Vimes felt the gaze on him,
reading
him. Well, the hell with it. He said, “Sorry, I’m not good at this diplomacy business. Did you
mean
what you just said then?”

There was another snigger. Vimes turned and looked at the leering bearded face again. And was aware of a smell, no, a
stench
of cloves.

Good grief, he
chews
the stinking things
…

“Ah,” said the Prince, “you haven’t met 71-hour Ahmed?”

Ahmed grinned again and bowed. “Offendi,” he said, in a voice like a gravel path.

And that seemed to be it. Not “This is 71-hour Ahmed, Cultural Attaché” or “71-hour Ahmed, my bodyguard” or even “71-hour Ahmed, walking strongroom and moth killer.” It was clear that the next move was up to Vimes.

“That’s…er…that’s an unusual name,” he said.

“Not at all,” said the Prince smoothly. “Ahmed is a very common name in my country.”

He leaned forward again. Vimes recognized this as the prelude to a confidential aside. “Incidentally, was that beautiful lady I saw just now your first wife?”

“Er…all my wives,” said Vimes. “That is—”

“Could I offer you twenty camels for her?”

Vimes looked back into the dark eyes for a moment, glanced at 71-hour Ahmed’s 24-carat grin, and said:

“This is another test, isn’t it…?”

The Prince straightened up, looking pleased.

“Well done, Sir Samuel. You’re
good
at this. Do you know, Mr. Boggis of the Thieves’ Guild was prepared to accept fifteen?”

“For Mrs. Boggis?” Vimes waggled a hand dismissively. “Nah…four camels, maybe four camels and a goat in a good light. And when she’s had a shave.”

The milling guests turned at the sound of the Prince’s explosion of laughter.

“Very good! Very good! I am afraid, commander, that some of
your
fellow citizens feel that just because
my
people invented advanced mathematics and all-day camping we are complete barbarians who’d try to buy their wives at the drop of, shall we say, a turban. I am surprised they’re giving me an honorary degree, considering how incredibly backward I am.”

“Oh? What degree is that?” said Vimes. No wonder this man was a diplomat. You couldn’t trust him an inch, he thought in loops, and you couldn’t help liking him despite it.

The Prince pulled a letter out of his robe.

“Apparently it’s a
Doctorum Adamus cum Flabello Dulci
—Is there something wrong, Sir Samuel?”

Vimes managed to turn the treacherous laugh into a coughing fit. “No, no, nothing,” he said. “No.”

He desperately wanted to change the subject. And fortunately there was something here to provide just the opportunity.

“Why has Mr. Ahmed got such a big curved sword slung on his back?” he said.

“Ah, you are a policeman, you notice such things—”

“It’s hardly a concealed weapon, is it? It’s nearly bigger than him. He’s practically a concealed owner!”

“It’s ceremonial,” said the Prince. “And he does fret so if he has to leave it behind.”

“And what exactly is his—”

“Ah, there you are,” said Ridcully. “I think we’re just about ready. You know you go right at the front, Sam—”

“Yes, I know,” said Vimes. “I was just asking His Highness what—”

“—and if you, Your Highness, and you, Mr.…my word, what a big sword, and you come back here and take your place among the honored guests, and we’ll be ready in a brace of sheiks…”

What a thing it is to have a copper’s mind, Vimes thought, as the great file of wizards and guests tried to form a dignified and orderly line behind him. Just because someone makes himself pleasant and likable you start to be suspicious of him, for no other reason than the fact that
anyone
who goes out of their way to be nice to a copper has got something on their mind. Of course, he’s a diplomat, but still…I just hope he never studied ancient languages, and that’s a fact.

Someone tapped Vimes on the shoulder. He turned and looked right into the grin of 71-hour Ahmed.

“If
h
you changing your mind, o
ff
endi, I give
h
you twenty-five camels, no pro
b
lem,” he said, pulling a clove from his teeth. “May your
h
loins be full of fruit.”

He winked. It was the most suggestive gesture Vimes had ever seen. “Is this another—” he began, but the man had vanished into the crowd.

“My loins be full of fruit?” he repeated to himself. “Good grief!”

71-hour Ahmed reappeared at his other elbow in a gust of cloves. “I go, I
h
come back,” he growled happily. “T
h
e Prince
h
says the degree is Doctor of Sweet Fanny Adams. A
h
wizard w
h
eeze, yes? O
h
,
h
ow we are laughing.”

And then he was gone.

The Convivium was Unseen University’s Big Day. Originally it had just been the degree ceremony, but over the years it had developed into a kind of celebration of the amicable relationship between the University and the city, in particular celebrating the fact that people were hardly ever turned to clams anymore. In the absence of anything resembling a Lord Mayor’s Show or a state opening of Parliament, it was one of the few formal opportunities the citizens had of jeering at their social superiors, or at least at people wearing tights and ridiculous costumes.

It had grown so big that it was now held in the city’s Opera House. Distrustful people—that is to say, people like Vimes—considered that this was so there could be a procession. There was nothing like the massed ranks of wizardry walking sedately through the city in a spirit of civic amicability to subtly remind the more thoughtful kind of person that it hadn’t always been this way. Look at us, the wizards seemed to be saying. We used to rule this city. Look at our big staffs with the knobs on the end. Any one of these could do some very serious damage in the wrong hands so it’s a good thing, isn’t it, that they’re in the right hands at the moment? Isn’t it nice that we all get along so well?

And someone, once, had decided that the Commander of the Watch should walk in front, for symbolic reasons. That hadn’t mattered for years because there hadn’t been a Commander of the Watch, but now there was, and he was Sam Vimes. In a red shirt with silly baggy sleeves, red tights, some kind of puffed shorts in a style that went out of fashion, by the look of it, at the time when flint was at the cutting edge of cutting-edge technology, a tiny shiny breastplate and a helmet with feathers in it.

And he really did need some sleep.

And he had to carry the truncheon.

He kept his eyes fixed on the damn thing as he walked out of the University’s main gate. Last night’s rain had cleaned the sky. The city steamed.

If he stared at the truncheon he didn’t have to see who was giggling at him.

The downside was that he had to keep staring at the thing.

It said, on a little tarnished shield that he’d had to clean before reading it,
Protecter of thee Kinge’s Piece
.

That had brightened the occasion slightly.

Feathers and antiques, gold braid and fur…

Perhaps it was because he was tired, or just because he was trying to shut out the world, but Vimes found himself slowing down into the traditional watchman’s walk and the traditional idling thought process.

It was an almost Pavlovian response.
^*
The legs swung, the feet moved, the mind began to work in a certain way. It wasn’t a dream state, exactly. It was just that the ears, nose and eyeballs wired themselves straight into the ancient “suspicious bastard” node of his brain, leaving his higher brain center free to freewheel.

…Fur and tights…what kind of wear was that for a watchman? Bashed-in armor, greasy leather breeches and a tatty shirt with bloodstains on it, someone else’s for preference…that was the stuff…nice feel of the cobbles through his boots, it was really comforting…

Behind him, confusion running up and down the ranks, the procession slowed down to keep in step.

“…Hah,
Protecter of thee Kinge’s Piece
indeed…” he’d said to the old man who’d delivered it, “Which piece did you have in mind?” but that had fallen on stony ears…damn silly thing anyway, he’d thought, a short length of wood with a lump of silver on the end…even a constable got a decent sword, what was he supposed to do,
wave
it at people?…ye gods, it was months since he’d had a good walk through the streets…lot of people about today…some parade on, wasn’t there…?

“Oh dear,” said Captain Carrot, in the crowd. “What’s he doing?”

Next to him an Agatean tourist was industriously pulling the lever of his iconograph.

Commander Vimes stopped and, with a faraway look in his eyes, tucked his truncheon under one arm and reached up to his helmet.