Snuff

you if I’m wrong.’
    Brassbound opened his mouth to speak, but Vimes added quickly, ‘You could make your life a little easier and possibly longer, Mister Brassbound, if you were to tell me how many of your jolly parcel of rogues there are on the Fanny .’
    ‘Don’t know, sir. Don’t know who’s still alive, see?’
    Vimes looked at the woman as the boat gave a lurch. It was a strange sensation – for a moment Vimes felt almost weightless – and there was a commotion behind them in the cowshed among the great spinning wheels. When he got his balance he managed to say, ‘I take it that you are Mrs Sillitoe, madam?’
    She nodded. ‘Yes, I am, commander,’ she said as the little girl clung more tightly to her. ‘I know my husband is still alive, because so are we … at the moment.’ She stopped as another surge lifted the entire boat, then the Fanny came down with a splash and a spine-numbing thump, followed by the long-drawn-out bellow of a bullock who had had enough, and the start of a scream.
    Vimes, Feeney and Brassbound picked themselves up off the floor. Mrs Sillitoe and her daughter were, amazingly, still vertical and Mrs Sillitoe wore a grim smile. ‘That sound you heard was one of the pirates dying, I’m extremely pleased to say! That means everyone else in the cowshed is alive. Shall I tell you why? He almost certainly didn’t hop! Those lifts and drops are little slams to me: somewhere behind us a damn slam is getting so big that bits of it are calving off and coming down all the way to us at speed, you see, raising the water level and dropping it again like a stone as they go past – and that’s when you have to know enough to dance to the rhythm! Because if you don’t dance to the rhythm of the slam you’ll dance with the Devil soon enough! A man went down there with a crossbow when the fighting started. By the sound of it he wasn’t familiar with the dance. I expect it was Ten Gallon Charlie who got him when he was on the ground, poor lamb. Charlie is the Bullock Wrangler. If he hits a man once, no one will ever have to hit him again.’ Mrs Sillitoe said that in a matter-of-fact, satisfied voice. ‘If you want to try to steal from our riverboat you have to be prepared for some considerable inconvenience.’
    And I thought the city was on the tough side, Vimes thought. He noticed that a prudent Feeney had rearmed the confiscated crossbow and said, ‘I’m going below to make certain. Mrs Sillitoe, how many other pirates do you think there are?’
    ‘There were four that came aboard as owners of the cargo.’ She began to tick them off on her fingers. ‘Mister Harrison the loadmaster got one of them, but another one stabbed him, the devil. I know only one of them went down to the cowshed, and the other one helped this simpering little bastard rig up the ropes so that if anybody was left to try any funny business we were a hostage, and then went up to the wheelhouse. I was told that we would be all right, provided my husband gets the cargo to Quirm.’ The little girl clung to her dress as the woman continued, her face wooden. ‘Personally, I don’t believe it, but he hasn’t harmed my husband yet. He’s counting, all the time he’s counting. My husband is listening to Old Treachery and remembering! Trying to out-think sixty miles of murderous water! And if he dies, it wins, wherever you are …’
    ‘Feeney, keep your crossbow pointing at this gentleman, will you?’ said Vimes. ‘And if he makes any movement whatsoever, up to and including trying to blow his nose, you have my full authority to shoot him somewhere where it will be seriously inconvenient.’
    He headed to the steps and nodded to Feeney and Mrs Sillitoe, raised a finger and said, ‘Be with you in just one minute!’ And hurried down into the hot and noisome heart of the Wonderful Fanny . Snooker , Vimes thought. Knocking the balls until you have the right one right on cue.
    He felt pressure on his feet surge as the vessel lifted, and instantly jumped into the air, landing neatly as the Fanny slapped back down into the water.
    He was confronted by a man who would surely make even Willikins think twice. ‘You’d be Ten Gallons? Mrs Sillitoe sent me down here. I’m Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch!’
    And the man with a face like a troll and a body to match said, ‘Heard about you. Thought you were dead!’
    ‘I generally look like this at the end of boat trips, Mister Gallons,’ said Vimes.