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Snuff

Snuff

Titel: Snuff Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Terry Pratchett
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had a badge, just like Feeney. People overflowed from the pub as the two of them went up to Vimes, and there was an unheard conversation. They’d wondered why the blacksmith was carrying a megaphone, but now they watched him hand it to Vimes, and Feeney and the blacksmith walked back towards the pub and people parted like a wave to let them through.
    Vimes looked at his watch again. More people were hurrying towards the green. People with an instinct for the dramatic had run home to say that something was up and you’d better come and look. And country people liked a spectacle, or even a serious death, just like city people. They too liked to say, ‘I was there’, even if it came out as ‘I was there, ooh-arr’.
    Vimes put his watch in his pocket for the last time, and raised the megaphone to his lips.
    ‘LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!’ The blacksmith had hammered out a pretty good loudhailer and the voice echoed across the green. ‘I have heard it said, ladies and gentlemen, that in the end all sins are forgiven.’ Out of the corner of his mouth he said, so that only Feeney and the blacksmith could hear, ‘We shall see.’ And then he continued. ‘Bad things have been done. Bad things have been ordered. Bad orders have been obeyed. But they never will be again … will they, ladies and gentlemen? Because there needs to be a law, but before there is a law, there has to be a crime!’
    There was absolute silence in the gloom as he walked over the green to the tower and broke the two bottles of brandy on its woodwork, stepped back a little way and threw the glowing end of his cigar after them.
    In the Opera House the gossip faded and died as Lady Sybil stepped through the curtains and on to the stage. She was a woman of, as they say, ample proportions, although she felt that some of them were more than ample. However, she could afford the very best dressmakers and did indeed have the manner and poise that were the symbol of her class, or at least the class she had been born into, and so she stepped out front of curtain and applause broke out and grew. When she judged that it had gone on long enough she made a little gesture which magically silenced the auditorium.
    Lady Sybil had exactly the right voice for these occasions. Somehow she could make everybody think she was talking just to them. She said, ‘My Lord Patrician, Lady Margolotta, your grace the viceroy, ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen, I am so touched you have all decided to come along to my little twilight soirée, especially since I have been rather naughty and have been very sparing of information.’ Lady Sybil took a deep breath, which caused several elderly gentlemen near the front of the audience to very nearly burst into tears. 35
    ‘I have been privileged recently to find a musician beyond compare, and without more ado I will let you into this wonderful secret. Can we have the house lights down, Jeffrey? Good. Ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to be able to present to you tonight Tears of the Mushroom playing her own composition, the “Twilight Serenade”. I hope you will like it, and, in fact, I know that you will.’
    Lady Sybil stepped back as the curtains dragged themselves aside, and took a chair next to Tears of the Mushroom, who was seated obediently at her concert harp.
    Beneath the seemingly impregnable composure, Sybil’s heart was bouncing like a flamenco dancer. A low light – that had been the thing. The girl shouldn’t be able to see the thousands out there. Sybil had taken her in hand, fearful that sudden exposure to the massed gaze of Ankh-Morpork, far from her home, would have some terrible effect, but in fact it wasn’t working like that. The girl had a curious tranquillity, as if she hadn’t realized that she should be in awe. She smiled at Sybil in her strange way and waited, with fingers poised, over the strings. There was no sound but the susurration of people asking one another what the intense little figure they were seeing really was. Lady Sybil smiled to herself. By the time they realized, it would be too late. She looked at her watch.
    The flames were so high over the Ramkin estate that the blaze could surely be seen all the way to Ankh-Morpork (bet you a gallon of brandy and a brace of turbot). There was barely any wind and it stood there like a beacon.
    Vimes announced to the gathered throng, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the area known as the Shires is under the rule of law tonight, and by that I mean the

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