Night Watch

Selachii. “That’s what’s needed, by Io! Lance the boil! This is not a cavalry action, Venturi. And I’ll take those men. Fresh blood.”
    “Selachii, we do have orders—”
    “We have all kinds of orders,” said Selachii. “But we know where the enemy is, don’t we? Aren’t there enough guards here? How many guards does one fool need?”
    “We can’t just—” Lord Venturi began, but Madam said, “I’m sure Charles will see that no harm comes to his lordship.” She took his arm. “He does have his sword, after all…”
    A few minutes later, Madam glanced out of the window and saw that the troops were quietly moving out.
    She also noticed, after watching for some time, that the guard patrolling in the hall seemed to have vanished.

    There were rules. When you had a Guild of Assassins, there had to be rules that everyone knew and that were never, ever broken. *
    An Assassin, a real Assassin, had to look like one—black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day sitting in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?
    And they couldn’t kill a man incapable of defending himself (although a man worth more that AM$10,000 a year was considered automatically capable of defending himself or at least of employing people who were).
    And they had to give the target a chance.
    But there was no helping some people. It was regrettable how many rulers of the city had been inhumed by the men in black because they didn’t recognize a chance when they saw it, didn’t know when they’d gone too far, didn’t care that they’d made too many enemies, didn’t read the signs, didn’t know when to walk away after embezzling a moderate and acceptable amount of cash. They didn’t recognize that the machine had stopped, that the world was ripe for change, that it was time, in fact, to spend more time with their family in case they ended up spending it with their ancestors.
    Of course, the Guild didn’t inhume the rulers on its own behalf. There was a rule about that, too. The Assassins were simply there when needed.
    There was a tradition, once, far back in the past, called the King of the Bean. A special dish was served to all the men of the clan on a certain day of the year. It contained one small hard-baked bean, and whoever got the bean was, possibly after some dental attention, hailed as king. It was quite an inexpensive system, and it worked well, probably because the clever little bald men who actually ran things and paid some attention to possible candidates were experts at palming a bean into the right bowl.
    And while the crops ripened and the tribe thrived and the land was fertile, the king thrived, too. But when, in the fullness of time, crops failed and the ice came back and animals were inexplicably barren, the clever little bald men sharpened their long knives, which were mostly used for cutting mistletoe.
    And on the due night, one of them went into his cave and carefully baked one small bean.
    Of course, that was before people were civilized. These days, no one had to eat beans.

    People were still working on the barricade. It had become a sort of general hobby, a kind of group home-improvement. Fire buckets, some full of water, some of sand, had turned up. In places, the barricade was more impregnable than the city walls, considering how often the latter had been pillaged for stone. There were occasional drumbeats down in the city, and the sound of troop movements.
    “Sergeant?”
    Vimes looked down. A face had appeared at the top of the ladder leading down to the street.
    “Ah, Miss Battye? I didn’t know you were with us.”
    “I didn’t intend to be, but suddenly there was this big wall…”
    She climbed all the way up. She was holding a small bucket.
    “Dr. Lawn presents his compliments and says how come you haven’t beaten up anyone yet?” she said, putting it down. “He says he’s got three tables scrubbed, two buckets of tar on the boil, six ladies rolling bandages, and all he’s had to deal with so far is a nosebleed. You’ve let him down, he says.”
    “Tell him ha, ha, ha,” said Vimes.
    “I’ve brought you up some breakfast,” said Sandra, and Vimes realized that down below, doing their not-very-best to remain unseen, were some of the lads. They were sniggering.
    “Mushrooms?” he said.
    “No,” said the girl. “I was told to tell you that since it’s tomorrow, you’re