Feet of Clay (14 page)

The golem held up its slate, which said:

TONIGHT I CANNOT WORK.

‘What’s this? The bacon slicer never asks for time off!’

IT IS A HOLY DAY.

Sock looked at the red eyes. Old Fishbine had said something about this, hadn’t he, when he’d sold Dorfl? Something like: ‘Sometimes it’ll go off for a few hours because it’s a holy day. It’s the words in its head. If it doesn’t go and trot off to its temple or whatever it is, the words’ll stop working, don’t ask me why. There’s no point in stopping it.’

Five hundred and thirty dollars the thing had cost. He’d thought it was a bargain – and it
was
a bargain, no doubt about that. The damned thing only ever stopped working when it had run out of things to do. Sometimes not even then, according to the stories. You heard about golems flooding out houses because no one told them to stop carrying water from the well, or washing the dishes until the plates were thin as paper. Stupid things. But useful if you kept your eye on them.

And yet … and yet … he could see why no one seemed to keep them for long. It was the way the damned two-handed engine just stood there, taking it all in and putting it … where? And never complained. Or spoke at all.

A man could get worried about a bargain like that, and feel mightily relieved when he was writing out a receipt for the new owner.

‘Seems to me there’s been a
lot
of holy days lately,’ Sock said.

SOME TIMES ARE MORE HOLY THAN OTHERS.

But they
couldn’t
skive off, could they? Work was what a golem
did
.

‘I don’t know how we’re going to manage …’ Sock began.

IT IS A HOLY DAY.

‘Oh, all
right
. You can have time off tomorrow.’

TONIGHT. HOLY DAY STARTS AT SUNSET.

‘Be back quickly, then,’ said Sock, weakly. ‘Or I’ll— You be back quickly, d’you hear?’

That was another thing. You couldn’t threaten the creatures. You certainly couldn’t withhold their pay, because they didn’t get any. You couldn’t frighten them. Fishbine had said that a weaver over Nap Hill way had ordered his golem to smash itself to bits with a hammer – and it had.

YES. I HEAR.

In a way, it didn’t matter who they were. In fact, their anonymity was part of the whole business.
They
thought themselves part of the march of history, the tide of progress and the wave of the future. They were men who felt that The Time Had Come. Regimes can survive barbarian hordes, crazed terrorists and hooded secret societies, but they’re in real trouble when prosperous and anonymous men sit around a big table and think thoughts like that.

One said, ‘At least it’s clean this way. No blood.’

‘And it would be for the good of the city, of course.’

They nodded gravely. No one needed to say that what was good for them was good for Ankh-Morpork.

‘And he won’t die?’

‘Apparently he can be kept merely … unwell. The dosage can be varied, I’m told.’

‘Good. I’d rather have him unwell than dead. I wouldn’t trust Vetinari to stay in a grave.’

‘I’ve heard that he once said he’d prefer to be cremated, as a matter of fact.’

‘Then I just hope they scatter the ashes really
widely
, that’s all.’

‘What about the Watch?’

‘What about it?’

‘Ah.’

Lord Vetinari opened his eyes. Against all rationality, his hair ached.

He concentrated, and a blur by the bed focused into the shape of Samuel Vimes.

‘Ah, Vimes,’ he said weakly.

‘How are you feeling, sir?’

‘Truly dreadful. Who was that little man with the incredibly bandy legs?’

‘That was Doughnut Jimmy, sir. He used to be a jockey on a very fat horse.’

‘A racehorse?’

‘Apparently, sir ‘

‘A fat racehorse? Surely that could never win a race?’

‘I don’t believe it ever did, sir. But Jimmy made a lot of money by not winning races.’

‘Ah. He gave me milk and some sort of sticky potion.’ Vetinari concentrated. ‘I was heartily sick.’

‘So I understand, sir.’

‘Funny phrase, that.
Heartily
sick. I wonder why it’s a cliché? Sounds … jolly. Rather cheerful, really.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Feel like I’ve got a bad dose of’ flu, Vimes. Head not working properly.’

‘Really, sir?’

The Patrician thought for a while. There was obviously something else on his mind. ‘Why did he still smell of horses, Vimes?’ he said at last.

‘He’s a horse doctor, sir. A damn good one. I heard last month he treated Dire Fortune and it didn’t fall over until the last furlong.’

‘Doesn’t sound helpful, Vimes.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, sir. The horse
had
dropped dead coming up to the starting line.’

‘Ah. I
see
. Well, well, well. What a nasty suspicious mind you have, Vimes.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

The Patrician raised himself on his elbows. ‘Should toenails throb, Vimes?’

‘Couldn’t say, sir.’

‘Now, I think I should like to read for a while. Life goes on, eh?’

Vimes went to the window. There was a nightmarish figure crouched on the edge of the balcony outside, staring into the thickening fog.

‘Everything all right, Constable Downspout?’

‘Eff, fir,’ said the apparition.

‘I’ll shut the window now. The fog is coming in.’

‘Fight oo are, fir.’

Vimes closed the window, trapping a few tendrils which gradually faded away.

‘What was that?’ said Lord Vetinari.

‘Constable Downspout’s a gargoyle, sir. He’s no good on parade and bloody useless on the street, but when it comes to staying in one place, sir, you can’t beat him. He’s world champion at not moving. If you want the winner of the 100 Metres Standing Still, that’s him. He spent three days on a roof in the rain when we caught the Park Lane Knobbler. Nothing’ll get past him. And there’s Corporal Gimletsson patrolling the corridor and Constable Glodsnephew on the floor below and Constables Flint and Moraine in the rooms on either side of you, and Sergeant Detritus will be around constantly so that if anyone nods off he’ll kick arse, sir, and you’ll know when he does that ’cos the poor bugger’ll come right through the wall.’

‘Well done, Vimes. Am I right in thinking that all my guards are non-human? They all seem to be dwarfs and trolls.’

‘Safest way, sir.’

‘You’ve thought of everything, Vimes.’

‘Hope so, sir.’

‘Thank you, Vimes.’ Vetinari sat up and took a mass of papers off the bedside table. ‘And now, don’t let me detain you.’

Vimes’s mouth dropped open.

Vetinari looked up. ‘Was there anything else, Commander?’

‘Well … I suppose not, sir. I suppose I’d just better run along, eh?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind. And I’m sure a lot of paperwork has accumulated in my office, so if you’d send someone to fetch it, I would be obliged.’

Vimes shut the door behind him, a little harder than necessary. Gods, it made him livid, the way Vetinari turned him on and off like a switch – and had as much natural gratitude as an alligator. The Patrician relied on Vimes doing his job,
knew
he’d do his job, and that was the extent of his thought on the matter. Well, one day, Vimes would … would …

… would bloody well do his job, of course, because he didn’t know how to do anything else. But realizing that made it all the worse.

Outside the palace the fog was thick and yellow. Vimes nodded to the guards on the door, and looked out at the clinging, swirling clouds.

It was almost a straight line to the Watch House in Pseudopolis Yard. And the fog had brought early night to the city. Not many people were on the streets; they stayed indoors, barring the windows against the damp shreds that seemed to leak in everywhere.

Yes … empty streets, a chilly night, dampness in the air …

Only one thing was needed to make it perfect. He sent the sedan men on home and walked back to one of the guards. ‘You’re Constable Lucker, aren’t you?’

‘Yessir, Sir Samuel.’

‘What size boots do you take?’

Lucker looked panicky. ‘What, sir?’

‘It’s a simple question, man!’

‘Seven and a halfs, sir.’

‘From old Plugger in New Cobblers? The cheap ones?’

‘Yessir!’

‘Can’t have a man guarding the palace in cardboard boots!’ said Vimes, with mock cheerfulness. ‘Off with them, Constable. You can have mine. They’ve still got wyvern – well, whatever it is wyverns do – on them, but they’ll fit you. Don’t stand there with your mouth open. Give me your boots, man. You can keep mine.’ Vimes added: ‘I’ve got lots.’

The constable watched in frightened astonishment as Vimes pulled on the cheap pair and stood upright, stamping a few times with his eyes shut. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I’m in front of the palace, right?’

‘Er … yes, sir. You’ve just come out of it, sir. It’s this big building here.’

‘Ah,’ said Vimes brightly, ‘but I’d know I was here, even if I hadn’t!’

‘Er …’

‘It’s the flagstones,’ said Vimes. ‘They’re an unusual size and slightly dished in the middle. Hadn’t you noticed? Your feet, lad! That’s what you’ll have to learn to think with!’

The bemused constable watched him disappear into the fog, stamping happily.

Corporal the Right Honourable the Earl of Ankh Nobby Nobbs pushed open the Watch-House door and staggered inside.

Sergeant Colon looked up from the desk, and gasped. ‘You okay, Nobby?’ he said, hurrying around to support the swaying figure.

‘It’s terrible, Fred. Terrible!’

‘Here, take a seat. You’re all pale.’

‘I’ve been elevated, Fred!’ moaned Nobby.

‘Nasty! Did you see who did it?’

Nobby wordlessly handed him the scroll Dragon King of Arms had pressed into his hand, and flopped back. He took a tiny length of home-made cigarette from behind his ear and lit it with a shaking hand. ‘I dunno, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘You do your best, you keep your head down, you don’t make any trouble, and then something like this happens to you.’

Colon read the scroll slowly, his lips moving when he came to difficult words like ‘and’ and ‘the’. ‘Nobby, you’ve read this? It says you’re a
lord
!’

‘The old man said they’d have to do a lot of checking up but he thought it was pretty clear what with the ring and all. Fred, what am I gonna
do
?’

‘Sit back and eat off ermine plates, I should think!’

‘That’s just it, Fred. There’s no money. No big house. No land. Not a brass farthing!’

‘What, nothing?’

‘Not a dried pea, Fred.’

‘I thought all the upper crust had pots of money.’

‘Well, I’m the crust on its uppers, Fred. I don’t know anything about lording! I don’t want to have to wear posh clothes and go to hunt balls and all that stuff.’

Sergeant Colon sat down beside him. ‘You never suspected you’d got any posh connections?’

‘Well … my cousin Vincent once got done for indecently assaulting the Duchess of Quirm’s housemaid …’

‘Chambermaid or scullery maid?’

‘Scullery maid, I think.’

‘Probably doesn’t count, then. Does anyone else know about this?’

‘Well,
she
did, and she went and told …’

‘I mean about your lordshipping.’

‘Only Mr Vimes.’

‘Well, there you are,’ said Sergeant Colon, handing him back the scroll. ‘You don’t have to tell anyone. Then you don’t
have
to go around wearing golden trousers, and you needn’t hunt balls unless you’ve lost ’em. You just sit there, and I’ll fetch you a cup of tea, how about that? We’ll see it through, don’t you worry.’

‘You’re a toff, Fred.’

‘That makes two of us, m’lord!’ Colon waggled his eyebrows. ‘Get it? Get it?’

‘Don’t, Fred,’ said Nobby wearily.

The Watch-House door opened.

Fog poured in like smoke. In the midst of it were two red eyes. The parting shreds revealed the massive figure of a golem.

‘Umpk,’ said Sergeant Colon.

The golem held up its slate:

I HAVE COME TO YOU.

‘Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve, er, yeah, I can see that,’ said Colon.

Dorfl turned the slate around. The other side read:

I GIVE MYSELF UP FOR MURDER. IT WAS I WHO KILLED THE OLD PRIEST. THE CRIME IS SOLVED.

Colon, once his lips had stopped moving, scurried behind the suddenly very flimsy defences of his desk and scrabbled through the papers there.

‘You keep it covered, Nobby,’ he said. ‘Make sure it don’t run off.’

‘Why’s
it
going to run off?’ said Nobby.

Sergeant Colon found a relatively clean piece of paper.

‘Well, well, well, I, well, I guess I’d better … What’s your name?’

The golem wrote:

DORFL.

By the time he was on the Brass Bridge (medium-sized cobbles of the rounded sort they called ‘cat heads’, quite a few missing) Vimes was already beginning to wonder if he’d done the right thing.

Autumn fogs were always thick, but he’d never known it this bad. The pall muffled the sounds of the city and turned the brightest lights into dim glows, even though in theory the sun hadn’t set yet.

He walked along by the parapet. A squat, glistening shape loomed in the fog. It was one of the wooden hippos, some distant ancestor of Roderick or Keith. There were four on either side, all looking out towards the sea.

Vimes had walked past them thousands of times. They were old friends. He’d often stood in the lee of
one
on chilly nights, when he was looking for somewhere out of trouble.

That’s what it used to be like, wasn’t it? It hardly seemed that long ago. Just a handful of them in the Watch, staying out of trouble. And then Carrot had arrived, and suddenly the narrow circuit of their lives had opened up, and there were nearly thirty men (oh, including trolls and dwarfs and miscellaneous) in the Watch now, and they didn’t skulk around keeping out of trouble, they went
looking
for trouble, and they found it everywhere they looked. Funny, that. As Vetinari had pointed out in that way of his, the more policemen you had, the more crimes seemed to be committed. But the Watch was back and out there on the streets, and if they weren’t actually as good as Detritus at kicking arse they were definitely prodding buttock.