Night Watch

horse came around the corner she was trying to keep ahead of the heavy, rumbling cart behind.
    As the hurry-up wagon passed the station, the rear door was flung open and two bodies tumbled out onto the wet cobbles.
    The guards rushed forward. One or two of them fired after the retreating cart, and the arrows clattered harmlessly off the black iron strips.
    The other men approached the tied-up bodies with some care. There were groans, punctuated by swearwords. And, pinned to one man, some paperwork.
    They read the note. They did not laugh.

    Vimes unharnessed the old horse, rubbed her down, and checked on her feed. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the feed bins seemed to be filling up in the last day or two. Guilty consciences were at work, maybe.
    Then he walked out into the cool night air. The lights were on in the Watch House. It was a beacon, now that the street lamps had been doused. Beyond the walls of the yard the real night had closed in, the old night with its tendrils of fog and crawling shadows. He relaxed and wore it like an overcoat.
    A shadow near the gate was deeper than it ought to be.
    He felt for his cigar case again, cursed, and pulled a cigar out of his shirtsleeve. He cupped his hands when he lit it, but kept his eyes tight shut to hold the night vision.
    Then he looked up and blew a smoke ring. Yes. Everyone thought black didn’t show up at night. They were wrong.
    He walked over to shut the gate and then pulled out his sword in one fluid movement.
    Sadie raised her head, revealing a pale oval of a face in the depths of her bonnet.
    “Good morning, kind sir,” she said.
    “Good morning, Sadie,” said Vimes wearily. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
    “Madam wants to see you, kind sir.”
    “If you mean Rosie, I’ve been a bit busy—”
    Dotsie’s handbag hit him on the back of the head.
    “Madam doesn’t like waiting, dearie” were the last words he heard before night closed in all the way.

    The Aunts were experts. Probably not even Mossy Lawn could turn someone off with such precision.
    Vimes drifted awake. He was in an armchair. It was extremely comfortable. And someone was shaking him.
    It was Sandra the Real Seamstress. She stared at him and then said, “He looks okay…” Then she stepped back, sat down in another chair, and aimed a crossbow at Vimes.
    “You know,” said Vimes—it really was a comfortable chair, and reminded him of the softness that had gone from his life in the past few days; it hadn’t been all bad—“if someone wants to talk to me, they only have to bloody well ask .”
    “Sadie said you’d only be out for ten minutes, but then you started to snore, so we thought we’d let you sleep for a while,” said Rosie Palm, stepping into view. She was wearing a red, off-the-shoulder evening dress, an impressively large wig, and quite a lot of jewelry.
    “Yes, it costs a lot of money to look as cheap as this, sergeant,” she said, catching his expression. “I can’t stop, I must go and talk to people. Now, if you—”
    “Snapcase has promised you ladies that you’ll be allowed to form a guild, right?” said Vimes. It was another cheating move, but he was fed up with waking up in odd places. “Yes, I thought so. And you believe him? It’s not going to happen. When he’s the Patrician, he’ll look right through you.”
    He’ll end up looking through everyone, he added to himself. Mad Lord Snapcase. Just another Winder, but with fancier waistcoats and more chins. Same cronyism, same piggy ways, same stupid arrogance, one more leech in a line of leeches that’d make Vetinari seem like a breath of clean air. Ha…Vetinari. Yes, he’d be around here somewhere too, no doubt, learning that little expression he had, which never, ever gave you a clue what he was thinking…But he’ll give you the Guild you want so much.
    “Don’t expect anything from Snapcase,” he said aloud. “Remember, there were people who thought Winder was the future, too.”
    He derived some minor pleasure from seeing the look on Rosie Palm’s face. At last she said: “Give him a drink, Sandra. If he moves, shoot an eye out. I’ll let Madam know.”
    “Do you expect me to believe that she’ll fire that?” said Vimes.
    “Sandra has a very useful streak of belligerence,” said Rosie. “A gentleman was being…impolite yesterday, and she came running in and…you’d be surprised at what she did with her mushroom.”
    Vimes eyed the crossbow. The girl had a