Vimes leaned on the table and fought to get his breath back.
‘Damn … his … hide,’ he panted.
‘Sir?’
‘He … he called you sire,’ he said. ‘What was in that—’
‘You’re late, captain,’ said Carrot.
‘Late? Late? What do you mean?’ Vimes fought to prevent his brain parting company with reality.
‘You were supposed to have been married—’ Carrot looked at the watch, then snapped it shut and handed it to Vimes. ‘—two minutes ago.’
‘Yes, yes. But he called you sire, I heard him—’
‘Just a trick of the echo, I expect, Mr Vimes.’
A thought broke through to Vimes’ attention. Carrot’s sword was a couple of feet long. He’d run Cruces clean through. But Cruces had been standing with his back to—
Vimes looked at the pillar. It was granite, and a foot thick. There was no cracking. There was just a blade-shaped hole, front to back.
‘Carrot—’ he began.
‘And you look a mess, sir. Got to get you cleaned up.’
Carrot pulled the leather satchel towards him and slung it over his shoulder.
‘Carrot—’
‘Sir?’
‘I order you to give—’
‘No, sir. You can’t order me. Because you are now, sir, no offence meant, a civilian. It’s a new life.’
‘A civilian?’
Vimes rubbed his forehead. It was all colliding in his brain now — the gonne, the sewers, Carrot and the fact that he’d been operating on pure adrenalin, which soon presents its bill and does not give credit. He sagged.
‘But this is my life. Carrot! This is my job.’
‘A hot bath and a drink, sir. That’s what you need,’ said Carrot. ‘Do you a world of good. Let’s go.’
Vimes’ gaze took in the fallen body of Cruces and, then, the gonne. He went to pick it up, and stopped himself in time.
Not even the wizards had something like this. One burst from a staff and they had to go and lie down.
No wonder no one had destroyed it. You couldn’t destroy something as perfect as this. It called out to something deep in the soul. Hold it in your hand, and you had power. More power than any bow or spear — they just stored up your own muscles’ power, when you thought about it. But the gonne gave you power from outside. You didn’t use it, it used you. Cruces had probably been a good man. He’d probably listened kindly enough to Edward, and then he’d taken the gonne, and he’d belonged to it as well.
‘Captain Vimes? I think we’d better get that out of here,’ said Carrot, reaching down.
‘Whatever you do, don’t touch it!’ Vimes warned.
‘Why not? It’s only a device,’ said Carrot. He picked up the gonne by the barrel, regarded it for a moment, and then smashed it against the wall. Bits of metal pin-wheeled away.
‘One of a kind,’ he said. ‘One of a kind is always special, my father used to say. Let’s be going.’
He opened the door.
He shut the door.
‘There’s about a hundred Assassins at the bottom of the stairs,’ he said.
‘How many bolts have you got for your bow?’ said Vimes. He was still staring at the twisted gonne.
‘One.’
‘Then it’s a good thing you won’t have any chance to reload anyway.’
There was a polite knock at the door.
Carrot glanced at Vimes, who shrugged. He opened the door.
It was Downey. He raised an empty hand. ‘You can put down your weapons. I assure you they will not be necessary. Where is Dr Cruces?’
Carrot pointed.
‘Ah.’ He glanced up at the two Watchmen.
‘Would you, please, leave his body with us? We will inhume him in our crypt.’
Vimes pointed at the body.
‘He killed—’
‘And now he is dead. And now I must ask you to leave.’
Downey opened the door. Assassins lined the wide stairs. There wasn’t a weapon in sight. But, with Assassins, there didn’t need to be.
At the bottom lay the body of Angua. The Watchmen walked down slowly, and Carrot knelt and picked it up.
He nodded to Downey.
‘Shortly we will be sending someone to collect the body of Dr Cruces,’ he said.
‘But I thought we had agreed that—’
‘No. It must be seen that he is dead. Things must be seen. Things mustn’t happen in the dark, or behind closed doors.’
‘I am afraid I cannot accede to your request,’ said the Assassin firmly.
‘It wasn’t a request, sir.’
Scores of Assassins watched them walk across the courtyard.
The black gates were shut.
No one seemed about to open them.
‘I agree with you, but perhaps you should have put that another way,’ said Vimes. ‘They don’t look at all happy—’
The doors shattered. A six-foot iron arrow passed Carrot and Vimes and removed a large section of wall on the far side of the courtyard.
A couple of blows removed the rest of the gates, and Detritus stepped through. He looked around at the assembled Assassins, a red glow in his eyes. And growled.
It dawned on the smarter Assassins that there was nothing in their armoury that could kill a troll. They had fine stiletto knives, but they needed sledgehammers.
They had darts armed with exquisite poisons, none of which worked on a troll. No one had ever thought trolls were important enough to be assassinated. Suddenly, Detritus was very important indeed. He had Cuddy’s axe in one hand and his mighty crossbow in the other.
Some of the brighter Assassins turned and ran for it. Some were not as bright. A couple of arrows bounced off Detritus. Their owners saw his face as he turned towards them, and dropped their bows.
Detritus hefted his club.
‘Acting-Constable Detritus!’
The words rang out across the courtyard.
‘Acting-Constable Detritus! Atten-shun!’
Detritus very slowly raised his hand.
Dink.
‘You listen to me, Acting-Constable Detritus,’ said Carrot. ‘If there’s a heaven for Watchmen, and gods I hope there is, then Acting-Constable Cuddy is there right now, drunk as a bloody monkey, with a rat in one hand and a pint of Bearhugger’s in the other, and he’s looking up[28] at us right now and he’s saying: my friend Acting-Constable Detritus won’t forget he’s a guard. Not Detritus.’
There was a long dangerous moment, and then another dink.
‘Thank you, Acting-Constable. You’ll escort Mr Vimes to the University.’ Carrot looked around at the Assassins. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. We may be back.’
The three Watchmen stepped over the wreckage.
Vimes said nothing until they were well out in the street, and then he turned to Carrot.
‘Why did he call you—’
‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take her back to the Watch House.’
Vimes looked down at Angua’s corpse and felt a train of thought derail itself. Some things were too hard to think about. He wanted a nice quiet hour somewhere to put it all together. Personal isn’t the same as important. What sort of person could think like that? And it dawned on him that while Ankh in the past had had its share of evil rulers, and simply bad rulers, it had never yet come under the heel of a good ruler. That might be the most terrifying prospect of all.
‘Sir?’ said Carrot, politely.
‘Uh. We’ll bury her up at Small Gods, how about that?’ said Vimes. ‘It’s sort of a Watch tradition …’
‘Yes, sir. You go off with Detritus. He’s all right when you give him orders. If you don’t mind, I don’t think I’ll be along to the wedding. You know how it is …’