Monstrous Regiment

the paper over and looked at the picture.
    He was still staring at it when Angua returned with Reg and half a bucket of crunchy rabbit bits.
    “Anything interesting, sir?” said Angua ingenuously.
    “Well, yes. You could say that. All plans are changed, all bets are off. Ha! Oh, Mr. de Worde, you poor fool…”
    He handed her the paper. She read the story carefully.
    “Good for them, sir,” she said. “Most of them look fifteen years old, and when you see the size of those dragoons, well, you’ve got to be impressed.”
    “Yes, yes, you could say that, you could say that,” said Vimes, his face gleaming like a man with a joke to share. “Tell me, did de Worde interview any Borogravian high-ups when he arrived?”
    “No, sir. I understand he was turned away. They don’t really know what a reporter is, so I gather the adjutant threw him out and said he was a nuisance.”
    “Dear me, the poor man,” said Vimes, still grinning. “You met Prince Heinrich the other day. Describe him to me…”
    Angua cleared her throat. “Well, sir, he was…largely green, shading to blue, with overtones of grllss and trail of—”
    “I meant describe him to me on the assumption that I’m not a werewolf who sees with his nose,” said Vimes.
    “Oh, yes,” said Angua. “Sorry, sir. Six foot two, 180 pounds, fair hair, green-blue eyes, saber scar on his left cheek, wears a monocle in his right eye, waxed moustache—”
    “Good, well observed. And now look at ‘Captain Horentz’ in the picture, will you?”
    She looked again, and said, very quietly: “Oh dear. They didn’t know?”
    “He wasn’t going to tell them, was he? Would they have seen a picture?”
    Angua shrugged. “I doubt it, sir. I mean, where would they see it? There’s never been a newspaper here until the Times carts turned up last week.”
    “Some woodcut, maybe?”
    “No, they’re an Abomination, unless they’re of the Duchess.”
    “So they really didn’t know. And de Worde has never seen him,” said Vimes. “But you saw him when we arrived the other day. What did you think of him? Just between ourselves.”
    “An arrogant son of a bitch, sir, and I know what I’m talking about. The kind of man who thinks he knows what a woman likes and it’s himself. All very friendly right up until they say no.”
    “Stupid?”
    “I don’t think so. But not as clever as he thinks he is.”
    “Right, ’cos he didn’t tell our writer friend his real name. Did you read the bit at the end?”
    Angua read, at the end of the text: “Perry, the captain threatened and harangued me after the recruits had gone. Alas, I had no time to fish for the manacle key in the privy. Please let the prince know where they are soonest. WDW.”
    “Looks like William didn’t take to him, either,” she said. “I wonder why the prince was out with a scouting party?”
    “You said he was an arrogant son of a bitch,” said Vimes. “Maybe he just wanted to pop across and see if his auntie was still breathing…”
    His voice trailed off. Angua looked at Vimes’s face, which was staring through her. She knew her boss. He thought war was simply another crime, like murder. He didn’t much like people with titles, and regarded being a duke as a job description rather than a lever to greatness. He had an odd sense of humor. And he had a sense for what she thought of as harbingers, those little straws in the wind that said there was a storm coming.
    “In the nuddy,” he chuckled. “Could have slit their throats. Didn’t. They took their boots away and left them to hop home in the nood.” The squad, it seemed, had found a friend.
    She waited.
    “I feel sorry for the Borogravians,” he said.
    “Me too, sir,” said Angua.
    “Oh? Why?”
    “Their religion’s gone bad on them. Have you seen the latest Abominations? They Abominate the smell of beets and people with red hair. In rather shaky writing, sir. And root vegetables are a staple here! Three years ago it was Abominable to grow root crops on ground which had grown grain or peas!”
    Vimes looked blank, and she remembered that he was a city boy. “It means no real crop rotation, sir,” she explained. “The ground sours. Diseases build up. You were right when you said they were going mad. These…commandments are dumb , and any farmer can see that. I imagine people go along with them as best they can, but sooner or later you either have to break them and feel guilty, or keep them and suffer. For no