Men at Arms

else.”
    “Except the sergeant and everyone,” said Cuddy.
    “No…not even them. It’d make everyone very…jumpy.”
    “Just as you say, Corporal Carrot.”
    “We’re dealing with a sick mind here, men.”
    Underground light dawned on Cuddy.
    “Ah,” he said. “You suspect Corporal Nobbs, sir?”
    “This is worse. Come on, let’s get back up.” He looked back toward the big pillar-barred cavern. “Any idea where we are, Cuddy?”
    “Could be under the Palace, sir.”
    “That’s what I reckoned. Of course, the tunnels go everywhere…”
    Carrot’s worried train of thought faltered away on some distant track.
    There was water in the sewers, even in this drought. Springs flowed into them, or water filtered down from far above. Everywhere was the drip and splash of water. And cool, cool air.
    It would almost be pleasant were it not for the sad, hunched corpse of someone that looked for all the world like Beano the clown.

    Vimes dried himself off. Willikins had also laid out a dressing gown with brocade on the sleeves. He put it on, and wandered into his dressing room.
    That was another new thing. The rich even had rooms for dressing in, and clothes to wear while you went into the dressing rooms to get dressed.
    Fresh clothes had been laid out for him. Tonight there was something dashing in red and yellow…
    … about now he’d be patrolling Treacle Mine Road …
    …and a hat. It had a feather in it.
    Vimes dressed himself, and even wore the hat. And he seemed quite normal and composed, until you realized that he avoided meeting his own gaze in the mirror.

    The Watch sat around the big table in the guardroom and in deep gloom. They were Off Duty. They’d never really been Off Duty before.
    “What say we have a game of cards?” said Nobby, brightly. He produced a greasy pack from somewhere in the noisome recesses of his uniform.
    “You won everyone’s wages off them yesterday,” said Sergeant Colon.
    “Now’s the chance to win ’em back, then.”
    “Yeah, but there were five kings in your hand, Nobby.”
    Nobby shuffled the cards.
    “’S’funny, that,” he said, “there’s kings everywhere, when you look.”
    “There certainly is if you look up your sleeve.”
    “No, I mean, there’s Kings Way in Ankh, and kings in cards, and we get the King’s Shilling when we join up,” said Nobby. “We got kings all over the place except on that gold throne in the Palace. I’ll tell you…there wouldn’t be all this trouble around the place if we had a king.”
    Carrot was staring at the ceiling, his eyebrows locked in concentration. Detritus was counting on his fingers.
    “Oh, yes ,” said Sergeant Colon. “Beer’d be a penny a pint, the trees’d bloom again. Oh, yeah. Every time someone stubs a toe in this town, turns out it wouldn’t have happened if there’d been a king. Vimes’d go spare to hear you talk like that.”
    “People’d listen to a king, though,” said Nobby.
    “Vimes’d say that’s the trouble,” said Colon. “It’s like that thing of his about using magic. That stuff makes him angry.”
    “How you get king inna first place?” said Detritus.
    “Someone sawed up a stone,” said Colon.
    “Hah! Anti-siliconism!”
    “Nah, someone pulled a sword out of a stone,” said Nobby.
    “How’d he know it was in there, then?” Colon demanded.
    “It…it was sticking out, wasn’t it?”
    “Where anyone could’ve grabbed it? In this town?”
    “Only the rightful king could do it, see,” said Nobby.
    “Oh, right ,” said Colon. “I understand . Oh, yes . So what you’re saying is , someone’d decided who the rightful king was before he pulled it out? Sounds like a fix to me. Prob’ly someone had a fake hollow stone and some dwarf inside hanging on the other end with a pair of pliers until the right guy came along—”
    A fly bounced on the window pane for a while, then zigzagged across the room and settled on a beam, where Cuddy’s idly thrown axe cut it in half.
    “You got no soul, Fred,” said Nobby. “I wouldn’t’ve minded being a knight in shining armor. That’s what a king does if you’re useful. He makes you a knight.”
    “A night watchman in crappy armor is about your métier,” said Colon, who looked around proudly to see if anyone had noticed the slanty thing over the e. “Nah, catch me being respectful to some bloke because he just pulled a sword out of a stone. That don’t make you a king. Mind you,” he said, “someone