Night Watch

stand still.”
    To which there wasn’t really any sensible comment that could be made. And the young man must have left after a while, because Maroon didn’t remember seeing him again that day.
    He heard a creak from the office, and poked his head around the door. There was no one there.
    As he made the tea, he thought he heard a rustle from the office, and went to check. It was completely empty. Remarkably so, he thought later on. It was almost as if it was even more empty than it would be if there was just, well, no one in it.
    He went back to his comfy armchair in the cubbyhole, and relaxed.
    In the brass rack, the envelope marked “Bleedwell, J.” slid back slightly.

    There were a lot of explosions. The firecrackers bounced all over the street. Tambourines thudded, a horn blared a chord unknown in nature, and a line of monks danced and danced and twirled around the corner, all chanting at the tops of their voices.
    Vimes, sagging to his knees, was aware of dozens of sandaled feet gyrating past, and grubby robes flying. Rust was yelling something at the dancers who grinned and waved their hands in the air.
    Something square and silvery landed in the dirt.
    And the monks were gone, dancing into an alleyway, yelling and spinning and banging their gongs…
    “Wretched heathens!” said Rust, striding forward. “Have you been hit, Sergeant?”
    Vimes reached down and picked up the silver rectangle.
    A stone clanged off Rust’s breastplate. As he raised his megaphone, a cabbage hit him on the knee.
    Vimes stared at the thing in his hand. It was a cigar case, slim and slightly curved.
    He fumbled it open and read: To Sam with love from your Sybil.
    The world moved. Vimes still felt like a drifting ship. But at the end of the tether there was now the tug of the anchor, pulling the ship around so that it faced the current.
    A barrage of missiles was coming over the barricade. Throwing things was an old Ankh-Morpork custom, and there was something about Rust that made him a natural target. With what dignity he could muster, he raised the megaphone again and got as far as “I hereby warn you—” before a stone spun it out of his hand.
    “Very well, then,” he said and marched stiffly back to the squad. “Sergeant Keel, order the men to fire. One round of arrows, over the top of the barricade.”
    “No,” said Vimes, standing up.
    “I can only assume you’ve been stunned, Sergeant,” said Rust. “Men, prepare to execute that order.”
    “First man that fires, I will personally cut that man down,” said Vimes. He didn’t shout. It was a simple, confident statement of precisely what the future would hold.
    Rust’s expression did not change. He looked Vimes up and down.
    “Is this mutiny, then, Sergeant?” said the Captain.
    “No. I’m not a soldier, sir. I can’t mutiny.”
    “Martial law, Sergeant!” snapped Rust. “It is official! ”
    “Really?” said Vimes, as another rain of rocks and old vegetables came down. “Shields up, lads.”
    Rust turned to Fred Colon. “Corporal, you will put this man under arrest!”
    Colon swallowed.
    “Me?”
    “You, Corporal. Now. ”
    Colon’s pink face mottled with white as the blood drained from it.
    “But he—” he began.
    “You won’t? Then it seems I must,” said the captain. He drew his sword.
    At that Vimes heard the click of a crossbow’s safety catch going off, and groaned. He didn’t remember this happening.
    “You just put that sword away, sir, please,” said the voice of Lance Constable Vimes.
    “You will not shoot me, you young idiot. That would be murder,” said the captain calmly.
    “Not where I’m aiming, sir.”
    Bloody hell, thought Vimes. Maybe the lad was simple. Because one thing Rust wasn’t, was a coward. He thought idiot stubbornness was bravery. He wouldn’t back down in the face of a dozen armed men.
    “Ah, I think I can see the problem, Captain,” Vimes said brightly. “As you were, Lance Constable. There’s been a slight misunderstanding, sir, but this should sort it out—”
    It was a blow he’d remember for a long time. It was sweet. It was textbook. Rust went down like a log.
    By the light of all his burning bridges, Vimes slipped his hand back into his hip pocket. Thank you, Mrs. Goodbody, and your range of little equalizers.
    He turned to the watchmen, who were a tableau of silent horror.
    “Let the record show Sergeant-at-Arms John Keel did that,” he said. “Vimes, what did I tell you about