Night Watch

daughter,” said Vimes quickly.
    “Quite so. These are modern times, after all. Oh, I see you have dropped your badge…”
    Vimes glanced at the long grass.
    “I’ll come and find it in the morning,” he said. “But this, ” he picked up the moaning Carcer and slung him over his shoulder with a grunt, “is going back to Pseudopolis Yard right now.”
    They walked slowly down the gravel path, leaving the scent of lilac behind. Ahead was the everyday stink of the world.
    “You know,” said Lord Vetinari after a few moments, “it has often crossed my mind that those men deserve a proper memorial of some sort.”
    “Oh yes?” said Vimes in a noncommittal voice. “In one of the main squares, perhaps?”
    “Yes, that would be a good idea.”
    “Perhaps a tableau in bronze?” said Vimes. “All seven of them raising the flag, perhaps?”
    “Bronze, yes,” said Vetinari.
    “Really? And some sort of inspiring slogan?” said Vimes.
    “Yes, indeed. Something like, perhaps, ‘They Did The Job They Had To Do’?”
    “ No, ” said Vimes, coming to a halt under a lamp by the crypt entrance. “How dare you? How dare you! At this time! In this place! They did the job they didn’t have to do, and they died doing it, and you can’t give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who’d been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It’d just inspire new fools to believe they’re going to be heroes. They wouldn’t want that. Just let them be. Forever .”
    They walked in heavy silence, and then Vetinari said, as if there had been no outburst: “Happily, it appears that the new deacon at the temple has suddenly heard the call.”
    “What call?”
    “I’m never very good at religious matters, but apparently he was filled with a burning desire to spread the good word to the benighted heathens,” said Vetinari.
    “Where?”
    “I suggested Ting Ling.”
    “That’s right on the other side of the world!”
    “Well, a good word can’t be spread too far, Sergeant.”
    “Well, at least it puts—”
    Vimes stopped at the entrance gates. Overhead, another lamp flickered. He dropped Carcer to the ground.
    “You knew? You bloody well knew, didn’t you?”
    “Not until, oh, one second ago,” said Vetinari. “As one man to another, Commander, I must ask you: did you ever wonder why I wore the lilac?”
    “Yeah. I wondered,” said Vimes.
    “But you never asked.”
    “No. I never asked,” said Vimes shortly. “It’s a flower. Anyone can wear a flower.”
    “At this time? In this place?”
    “Tell me, then.”
    “Then I’ll recall the day I was sent on an urgent errand,” said Vetinari. “I had to save the life of a man. Not a usual errand for an Assassin, although, in fact, I had already saved it once before.” He gave Vimes a quizzical look.
    “You’d shot a man who was aiming a crossbow?” said Vimes.
    “An inspired guess, Commander! Yes. I have an eye for the…unique. But now I was fighting time. The streets were blocked. Chaos and confusion were everywhere, and it wasn’t as if I even knew where he could be found. In the end, I took to the rooftops. And thus I came at last to Cable Street, where there was a different sort of confusion.”
    “Tell me what you saw,” said Vimes.
    “I saw a man called Carcer…vanish. And I saw a man called John Keel die. At least, I saw him dead.”
    “Really,” said Vimes.
    “I joined the fight. I snatched up a lilac bloom from a fallen man and, I have to say, held it in my mouth. I’d like to think I made some difference; I certainly killed four men, although I take no particular pride in that. They were thugs, bullies. No real skill. Besides, their leader had apparently fled, and what morale they had had gone with him. The men with the lilac, I have to say, fought like tigers. Not skillfully, I’ll admit, but when they saw that their leader was down they took the other side to pieces. Astonishing.
    “And then, afterward, I took a look at John Keel. It was John Keel. How could there be any question about that? Blood on him, of course. There was blood everywhere. His wounds looked somewhat old, I thought. And death, as we know, changes people. Yet I remember wondering: this much? So I put it down as half a mystery and today…Sergeant…we find the other half of the mystery. It’s wonderful, isn’t it, how alike men can be? I can imagine that even