Men at Arms (31 page)

“Why?” said Gaspode.

“For decency’s sake!”

Gaspode looked blank. Then he said, “Oh, I get it. Yes, I can see your point, def’nitely. Dear me, you can’t have me looking at a naked woman, oh no. Oggling. Gettin’ ideas. Deary deary me.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Can’t say I do. Can’t say I do. Clothing has never been what you might call a thingy of dog wossname.” Gaspode scratched his ear. “Two metasyntactic variables there. Sorry.”

“It’s different with you. You know what I am. Anyway, dogs are naturally naked.”

“So’re humans—”

Angua changed.

Gaspode’s ear flattened against his head. Despite himself, he whimpered.

Angua stretched.

“You know the worst bit?” she said. “It’s my hair. You can hardly get the tangles out. And my feet are
covered
in mud.”

She tugged a sheet off the bed and draped it around herself as a makeshift toga.

“There,” she said, “you see worse on the street every day. Gaspode?”

“What?”

“You can open your eyes now.”

Gaspode blinked. Angua in both shapes was OK to look at, but the second or two in between, as the morphic signal hunted between stations, was not a sight you wished to see on a full stomach.

“I thought you rolled around on the floor grunting and growing hair and stretching,” he whimpered.

Angua peered at her hair in the mirror while her night vision lasted.

“Whatever for?”

“Does…all that stuff…hurt?”

“It’s a bit like a whole-body sneeze. You’d think he’d have a comb, wouldn’t you? I mean, a
comb
? Everyone’s got a comb…”

“A really…big…sneeze?”

“Even a clothes brush would be something.”

They froze as the door creaked open.

Carrot walked in. He didn’t notice them in the gloom, but trudged to the table. There was a flare and a reek of sulphur as he lit first a match and then a candle.

He removed his helmet, and then sagged as if he’d finally allowed a weight to drop on his shoulders.

They heard him say: “It can’t be right!”

“What can’t?” said Angua.

Carrot spun around.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Your uniform got stolen while you were spying in the Assassins’ Guild,” Gaspode prompted.

“My uniform got stolen,” said Angua, “while I was in the Assassins’ Guild. Spying.” Carrot was still staring at her. “There was some old bloke who kept muttering all the time,” she went on desperately.

“Buggrit? Millennium hand and shrimp?”

“Yes, that’s right—”

“Foul Ole Ron.” Carrot sighed. “Probably sold it for a drink. I know where he lives, though. Remind me to go and have a word with him when I’ve got time.”

“You don’t want to ask her what she was wearing when she was
in
the Guild,” said Gaspode, who had crept under the bed.

“Shut up!” said Angua.

“What?” said Carrot.

“I found out about the room,” said Angua quickly. “Someone called—”

“Edward d’Eath?” said Carrot, sitting down on the bed. The ancient springs went
groing-groing-grink
.

“How did you know that?”

“I think d’Eath stole the gonne. I think he killed Beano. But…Assassins killing without being paid? It’s worse than dwarfs and tools. It’s worse than clowns and faces. I hear Cruces is really upset. He’s got Assassins looking for the boy all over the city.”

“Oh. Well. I’d hate to be in Edward’s shoes when they find him.”

“I’d hate to be in his shoes now. And I know where they are, you see. They’re on his poor feet. And
they’re
dead.”

“The Assassins have found him, then?”

“No. Someone else did. And then Cuddy and Detritus did. If I’m any judge, he’s been dead for several days. You see? That can’t be right! But I rubbed the Beano make-up off and took off the red nose, and it was definitely him. And the wig’s the right kind of red hair. He must have gone straight to Hammerhock.”

“But…someone shot at Detritus.
And
killed the beggar girl.”

“Yes.”

Angua sat down beside him.

“And it couldn’t have been Edward…”

“Hah!” Carrot undid his breastplate and pulled off his mail shirt.

“So we’re looking for someone else. A third man.”

“But there’s no clues! There’s just some man with a gonne! Somewhere in the city! Anywhere! And I’m tired!”

The springs went
glink
again as Carrot stood up and staggered over to the chair and table. He sat down, pulled a piece of paper toward him, inspected a pencil, sharpened it on his sword and, after a moment’s thought, began to write.

Angua watched him in silence. Carrot had a short-sleeved leather vest under his mail. There was a birthmark at the top of his left arm. It was crown-shaped.

“Are you writing it all down, like Captain Vimes did?” she said, after a while.

“No.”

“What
are
you doing, then?”

“I’m writing to my mum and dad.”

“Really?”

“I always write to my mum and dad. I promised them. Anyway, it helps me think. I always write letters home when I’m thinking. My dad sends me lots of good advice, too.”

There was a wooden box in front of Carrot. Letters were stacked in it. Carrot’s father had been in the habit of replying to Carrot on the back of Carrot’s own letters, because paper was hard to come by at the bottom of a dwarf mine.

“What kind of good advice?”

“About mining, usually. Moving rocks. You know. Propping and shoring. You can’t get things wrong in a mine. You have to do things right.”

His pencil scritched on the paper.

The door was still ajar, but there was a tentative tap on it which said, in a kind of metaphorical morse code, that the tapper could see very well that Carrot was in his room with a scantily clad woman and was trying to knock without actually being heard.

Sergeant Colon coughed. The cough had a leer in it.

“Yes, sergeant?” said Carrot, without looking around.

“What do you want me to do next, sir?”

“Send them out in squads, sergeant. At least one human, one dwarf and one troll in each.”

“Yessir. What’ll they be doing, sir?”

“They’ll be being visible, sergeant.”

“Right, sir. Sir? One of the volunteers just now…it’s Mr. Bleakley, sir. From Elm Street? He’s a vampire, well, technic’ly, but he works up at the slaughterhouse so it’s not really—”

“Thank him very much and send him home, sergeant.”

Colon glanced at Angua.

“Yessir. Right,” he said reluctantly. “But he’s not a problem, it’s just that he needs these extra homogoblins in his blo—”

“No!”

“Right. Fine. I’ll, er, I’ll tell him to go away, then.”

Colon shut the door. The
hinge
leered.

“They call you sir,” said Angua. “Do you notice that?”

“I know. It’s not right. People ought to think for themselves, Captain Vimes says. The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to. How do you spell ‘eventuality’?”

“I don’t.”

“OK.” Carrot still didn’t look around. “We’ll hold the city together through the rest of the night, I think. Everyone’s seen sense.”

No they haven’t, said Angua in the privacy of her own head. They’ve seen you. It’s like hypnotism.

People live your vision. You dream, just like Big Fido, only he dreamed a nightmare and you dream for everyone. You really think everyone is basically nice. Just for a moment, while they are near you, everyone else believes it too.

From somewhere outside came the sound of marching knuckles. Detritus’ troop was making another circuit.

Oh, well. He’s got to know sooner or later…

“Carrot?”

“Hmm?”

“You know…when Cuddy and the troll and me joined the Watch—well, you know why it was us three, don’t you?”

“Of course. Minority group representation. One troll, one dwarf, one woman.”

“Ah.” Angua hesitated. It was still moonlight outside. She could tell him, run downstairs, Change and be well outside the city by dawn. She’d have to do it. She was an expert at running away from cities.

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” she said. “You see, there’s a lot of undead in the city and the Patrician insisted that—”

“Give her a kiss,” said Gaspode, from under the bed.

Angua froze. Carrot’s face took on the usual vaguely puzzled look of someone whose ears have just heard what their brain is programmed to believe doesn’t exist. He began to blush.

“Gaspode!” snapped Angua, dropping into Canine.

“I know what I’m doin’. A Man, a Woman. It is Fate,” said Gaspode.

Angua stood up. Carrot shot up too, so fast that his chair fell over.

“I must be going,” she said.

“Um. Don’t go—”

“Now you just reach out,” said Gaspode.

It’d never work, Angua told herself. It never does. Werewolves have to hang around with other werewolves, they’re the only ones who
understand
…

But…

On the other hand…since she’d have to run anyway…

She held up a finger.

“Just one moment,” she said brightly and, in one movement, reached under the bed and pulled out Gaspode by the scruff of his neck.

“You need me!” the dog whimpered, as he was carried to the door. “I mean, what does he know? His idea of a good time is showing you the Colossus of Morpork! Put me—”

The door slammed. Angua leaned on it.

It’ll end up just like it did in Pseudopolis and Quirm and—

“Angua?” said Carrot.

She turned.

“Don’t say anything,” she said. “And it might be all right.”

After a while the bedsprings went
glink
.

And shortly after that, for Corporal Carrot, the Discworld moved. And didn’t even bother to stop to cancel the bread and newspapers.

Corporal Carrot awoke around four a.m., that secret hour known only to the night people, such as criminals, policemen and other misfits. He lay on his half of the narrow bed and stared at the wall.

It had
definitely
been an interesting night.

Although he was indeed simple, he wasn’t stupid, and he’d always been aware of what might be called the
mechanics
. He’d been acquainted with several young ladies, and had taken them on many invigorating walks to see fascinating ironwork and interesting civic buildings until they’d unaccountably lost interest. He’d patrolled the Whore Pits often enough, although Mrs. Palm and the Guild of Seamstresses were trying to persuade the Patrician to rename the area The Street of Negotiable Affection. But he’d never seen them in relation to himself, had never been quite sure, as it were, where he fitted in.

This was probably not something he was going to write to his parents about. They almost certainly knew.

He slid out of bed. The room was stifling hot with the curtains drawn.

Behind him, he heard Angua roll over into the hollow left by his body.

Then, with both hands, and considerable vigor, he threw open the curtains and let in the round, white light of the full moon.

Behind him, he thought he heard Angua sigh in her sleep.

There were thunderstorms out on the plain. Carrot could see lightning flashes stitching the horizon, and he could smell rain. But the air of the city was still and baking, all the hotter for the distant prospect of storms.

The University’s Tower of Art loomed in front of him. He saw it every day. It dominated half the city.

Behind him, the bed went
glink
.

“I think there’s going to be—” he began, and turned.

As he turned away, he missed the glint of moonlight on metal from the top of the tower.

Sergeant Colon sat on the bench outside the baking air of the Watch House.

There was a hammering noise from somewhere inside. Cuddy had come in ten minutes before with a bag of tools, a couple of helmets and a determined expression. Colon was damned if he knew what the little devil was working on.

He counted again, very slowly, ticking off names on his clipboard.

No doubt about it. The Night Watch had almost twenty members now. Maybe more. Detritus had gone critical, and had sworn in a further two men, another troll and a wooden dummy from outside Corksock’s Natty Clothing Co.
^*
If this went on they’d be able to open up the old Watch Houses near the main gates, just like the old days.

He couldn’t
remember
when the Watch last had twenty men.

It had all seemed a good idea at the time. It was certainly keeping the lid on things. But in the morning the Patrician was going to get to hear about it, and demand to see the superior officer.

Now, Sergeant Colon was not entirely clear in his own mind who
was
the superior officer at the moment. He felt that it should be either Captain Vimes or, in some way he couldn’t quite define, Corporal Carrot. But the captain wasn’t around and Corporal Carrot was only a corporal, and Fred Colon had a dreadful apprehension that when Lord Vetinari summoned someone in order to be ironical at them and say things like “Who’s going to pay their wages, pray?” it would be him, Fred Colon, well and truly up the Ankh without a paddle.

They were also running out of ranks. There were only four ranks below the rank of sergeant. Nobby was getting stroppy about anyone else being promoted to corporal, so there was a certain amount of career congestion taking place. Besides, some of the Watch had got it into their heads that the way you got promoted was to conscript half a dozen other guards. At Detritus’ current rate of progress, he was going to be High Supreme Major General by the end of the month.

And what made it all strange was that Carrot was still only a—

Colon looked up when he heard the tinkle of broken glass. Something golden and indistinct crashed through an upper window, landed in the shadows and fled before he could make out what it was.

The Watch House door slammed open and Carrot emerged, sword in hand.

“Where’d it go? Where’d it go?”

“Dunno. What the hell was it?”

Carrot stopped.

“Uh. Not sure,” he said.