Snuff

seemed that shyness was catching: there were maids carrying trays or dusting or sweeping as he walked down through the building, and every time he came near one she turned her back crisply and stood staring at the wall as if her life depended on it.
    By the time he reached a long gallery lined with his wife’s ancestors, Vimes had had enough, and when a young lady carrying a tea tray spun around like the dancer on the top of a musical box he said, “Excuse me, miss, am I as ugly as all that?” Well, that was surely better than asking her why she was so rude, wasn’t it? So why in the name of any three gods did she start to run away, crockery rattling as she headed down the hall? Among the various Vimeses it was the Commander who took over; the Duke would be too forbidding and the Blackboard Monitor just wouldn’t do the trick. “Stop where you are! Put down your tray and turn around slowly!”
    She skidded, she actually skidded and, turning with perfect grace while still clutching the tray, slowed gently to a stop, where she stood shaking with anxiety as Vimes caught up with her and said, “What’s your name, miss?”
    She answered while keeping her face turned away. “Hodges, your grace, I’m very sorry, your grace.” The crockery was still rattling.
    â€œLook,” said Vimes, “I can’t think with all that rattling going on! Just put it down carefully, will you? Nothing bad is going to happen to you, but I’d like to see who I’m talking to, thank you very much.” The face turned reluctantly toward him.
    â€œThere,” he said. “Miss, er, Hodges, what is the matter? You don’t have to run away from me, surely?”
    â€œPlease, sir,” and with that the girl headed for the nearest grezen baize door and vanished through it. It was at this point that Vimes realized there was another maid only a little way behind him, practically camouflaged by her dark uniform and facing the wall and, indeed, trembling. She was surely a witness to all that had happened, so he walked carefully toward her and said, “I don’t want you to say anything. Just nod or shake your head when I ask you a question. Do you understand?” There was a barely perceptible nod. “Good, we make progress! Will you get into trouble if you say anything to me?”
    Another microscopic nod.
    â€œAnd is it likely that you’ll get into trouble because I’ve talked to you?” The maid, rather inventively, gave a shrug.
    â€œAnd the other girl?” Still with her back to him, the unseen girl stuck out her left hand with the thumb emphatically turned down.
    â€œThank you,” said Vimes, to the invisible informant. “You’ve been very helpful.”
    He walked thoughtfully back upstairs, through an avenue of turned backs, and was thankful to encounter Willikins in the laundry on the way. The batman did not turn his back on Vimes, which was a relief. *
    He was folding shirts with the care and attention he might otherwise have marshaled for the neat cutting off of a defeated opponent’s ear. When the cuffs of his own spotlessly clean jacket slid up a little you could just see part of the tattoos on his arm but not, fortunately, spell out anything they said. Vimes said, “Willikins, what are the whirling housemaids all about?”
    Willikins smiled. “Old custom, sir. A reason to it, of course—there often is if it sounds bloody stupid. No offense, commander, but knowing you I’d suggest that you let twirling housemaids spin until you have got the lie of the land, as it were. Besides, her ladyship and Young Sam are in the nursery.”
    A few minutes later Vimes, after a certain amount of trial and error, walked into what was, in a musty kind of way, a paradise.
    Vimes had never had much in the way of relatives. Not many people are anxious to let it be known that their distant ancestor was a regicide. All that, of course, was history and it amazed the new Duke of Ankh that the history books now lauded the memory of Old Stoneface, the watchman who executed the evil bastard on the throne and had suddenly struck a blow for freedom and law. History is what you make it, he had learned, and Lord Vetinari was a man with the access to and the keys of a whole range of persuasive mechanisms left over, as luck would have it, from the regicide days and currently still well oiled in the cellar. History is, indeed, what