Jingo. Part 11

"What can I say, sir? I saw someone up on the tower, I ran, someone shot the Prince with an arrow and then I found the man at the bottom of the tower very obviously dead, with a broken bow and a lot of rock beside him. The storm last night probably loosened things up. I can't make up facts that don't exist, sir."

Carrot watched the faces round the table. The general expression was one of relief.

"A lone bowman," said Vetinari. "An idiot with some kind of mad grudge. Who died in the execution of the, uh, attempted execution. And, of course, valiant action by our watchmen probably at least prevented an immediately fatal shot."

"Valiant action?" said Downey. "I know Captain Carrot here ran toward the VIPs and Vimes headed for the tower, but frankly, Vimes, your strange behavior beforehand-"

"Somewhat immaterial now," said Lord Vetinari. Once again he adopted a slightly faraway voice, as if reporting to somebody else. "If Commander Vimes had not slowed down the procession, the wretch would undoubtedly have got a much better shot. As it was, the man panicked. Yes...the Prince, possibly, would accept that."

"Prince?" said Vimes. "But the poor devil-"

"His brother," said the Patrician.

"Ah. The nice one?"

"Thank you, commander," said the Patrician. "Thank you, gentlemen. Do not let me detain you. Oh, Vimes...just a brief word, if you would be so good. Not you, Captain Carrot. I'm sure someone is committing some crime somewhere."

Vimes remained staring at the far wall while the room emptied. Vetinari left his chair and went over to the window.

"Strange days indeed, commander," he said.

"Sir."

"For example, I gather that this afternoon Captain Carrot was on the roof of the Opera House firing arrows down toward the archery b.u.t.ts."

"Very keen lad, sir."

"It could well be that the distance between the Opera House and the targets is about the same, you know, as the distance between the top of the Barbican and the spot where the Prince was. .h.i.t."

"Just fancy that, sir."

Vetinari sighed. "And why was he doing this?"

"It's a funny thing, sir, but he was telling me the other day that in fact it is still law that every citizen should do one hour's archery practice every day. Apparently the law was made in 1356 and it's never been-"

"Do you know why I sent Captain Carrot away just now, Vimes?"

"Couldn't say, sir."

"Captain Carrot is an honest young man, Vimes."

"Yes, sir."

"And did you know that he winces when he hears you tell a direct lie?"

"Really, sir?" d.a.m.n d.a.m.n.

"I can't stand to see his poor face twitch all the time, Vimes."

"Very thoughtful of you, sir."

"Where was the second bowman, Vimes?"

d.a.m.n! "Second bowman, sir?"

"Have you ever had a hankering to go on the stage, Vimes?"

Yes, at the moment I'd leap on it wherever it's heading, thought Vimes.

"No, sir."

"Pity. I am certain you're a great loss to the acting profession. I believe you said the man had put the boards back after him."

"Yes, sir."

"Nailed them back?" them back?"

Blast. "Yes, sir."

"From the outside."

d.a.m.n. "Yes, sir."

"A particularly resourceful resourceful lone bowman, then." lone bowman, then."

Vimes didn't bother to comment. Vetinari sat down at his desk, raised his steepled fingers to his lips and stared at Vimes over the top of them.

"Colon and n.o.bbs are investigating this? Really?"

"Yes, sir."

"If I were to ask you why, you'd pretend not to understand?"

Vimes let his forehead wrinkle in honest perplexity. "Sir?"

"If you say 'Sir?' again in that stupid voice, Vimes, I swear there will be trouble."

"They're good men, sir."

"However, some people might consider them to be unimaginative, stolid and...how can I put this?...possessed of an inbuilt disposition to accept the first explanation that presents itself and then bunk off somewhere for a quiet smoke? A certain lack of imagination? An ability to get out of their depth on a wet pavement? A tendency to rush to judgment?"

"I hope you are not impugning my men, sir."

"Vimes, Sergeant Colon and Corporal n.o.bbs have never been been pugn'd in their entire lives." pugn'd in their entire lives."

"Sir?"

"And yet...in fact, we do not need need complications, Vimes. An ingenious lone madman...well, there are many madmen. A regrettable incident." complications, Vimes. An ingenious lone madman...well, there are many madmen. A regrettable incident."

"Yes, sir." The man was looking hara.s.sed and Vimes felt there was room for a pinch of sympathy.

"Fred and n.o.bby don't like complications either, sir."

"We need simple answers, Vimes."

"Sir. Fred and n.o.bby are good good at simple." at simple."

The Patrician turned away and looked out over the city.

"Ah," he said, in a quieter voice. "Simple men to see the simple truth."

"This is a fact, sir."

"You are learning fast, Vimes."

"Couldn't say about that, sir."

"And when they have found the simple truth, Vimes?"

"Can't argue with the truth, sir."

"In my experience, Vimes, you can argue with anything."

When Vimes had gone Lord Vetinari sat at his desk for a while, staring at nothing. Then he took a key from a drawer and walked across to a wall, where he pressed a particular area.

There was a rattle of a counterweight. The wall swung back.

The Patrician walked softly through the narrow pa.s.sageway beyond. Here and there it was illuminated by a very faint glow from around the edges of the little panels which, if gently slid back, would allow someone to look out through the eyesockets of a handy portrait.

They were a relic of a previous ruler. Vetinari never bothered with them. Looking out of someone else's eyes wasn't the trick.

There was a certain amount of travel up dark stairways and along musty corridors. Occasionally he'd make movements the meaning of which might not be readily apparent. He'd touch a wall here here and and here here, apparently without thinking, as he pa.s.sed. Along one stone-flagged pa.s.sage, lit only by the gray light from a window forgotten by everyone except the most optimistic flies, he appeared to play a game of hopscotch, robes flying around him and calves twinkling as he skipped from stone to stone.

These various activities did not seem to cause anything to happen. Eventually he reached a door, which he unlocked. He did this with some caution.

The air beyond was full of acrid smoke, and the steady pop-pop pop-pop sound which he had begun to hear further back along the pa.s.sage was now quite loud. It faltered for a moment, was followed by a much louder bang, and then a piece of hot metal whirled past the Patrician's ear and buried itself in the wall. sound which he had begun to hear further back along the pa.s.sage was now quite loud. It faltered for a moment, was followed by a much louder bang, and then a piece of hot metal whirled past the Patrician's ear and buried itself in the wall.

In the smoke a voice said, "Oh dear."

It didn't seem unhappy, but sounded rather like the voice one might use to a sweet and ingratiating little puppy which, despite one's best efforts, is sitting next to a spreading damp patch on the carpet.

As the billows cleared the indistinct shape of the speaker turned to Vetinari with a wan little smile and said, "Fully fifteen seconds this time, my lord! There is no doubt that the principle principle is sound." is sound."

That was one of Leonard of Quirm's traits: he picked up conversations out of the air, he a.s.sumed everyone was an interested friend, and he took it for granted that you were as intelligent as he was.

Vetinari peered at a small heap of bent and twisted metal.

"What was it, Leonard?" he said.

"An experimental device for turning chemical energy into rotary motion," said Leonard. "The problem, you see, is getting the little pellets of black powder into the combustion chamber at exactly the right speed and one at a time. If two ignite together, well, what we have is the external external combustion engine." combustion engine."

"And, er, what would be the purpose of it?" said the Patrician.

"I believe it could replace the horse," said Leonard proudly.

They looked at the stricken thing.

"One of the advantages of horses that people often point out," said Vetinari, after some thought, "is that they very seldom explode. Almost never, in my experience, apart from that unfortunate occurrence in the hot summer a few years ago." With fastidious fingers he pulled something out of the mess. It was a pair of cubes, made out of some soft white fur and linked together by a piece of string. There were dots on them.

"Dice?" he said.

Leonard smiled in an embarra.s.sed fas.h.i.+on. "Yes. I can't think why I thought they'd help it go better. It was just, well, an idea. You know how it is."

Lord Vetinari nodded. He knew how it was. He knew how it was far more than Leonard of Quirm did, which was why there was one key to the door and he had it. Not that the man was a prisoner, except by dull, humdrum standards. He appeared rather grateful to be confined in this light, airy attic with as much wood, paper, sticks of charcoal and paint as he desired and no rent or food bills to pay.

In any case, you couldn't really imprison someone like Leonard of Quirm. The most you could do was lock up his body. The G.o.ds alone knew where his mind went. And, although he had so much cleverness it leaked continually, he couldn't tell you which way the political wind was blowing even if you fitted him with sails.

Leonard's incredible brain sizzled away alarmingly, an overloaded chip pan on the Stove of Life. It was impossible to know what he would think of next, because he was constantly reprogrammed by the whole universe. The sight of a waterfall or a soaring bird would send him spinning down some new path of practical speculation that invariably ended in a heap of wire and springs and a cry of "I think I know what I did wrong." He'd been a member of most of the craft guilds in the city but had been thrown out for getting impossibly high marks in the exams or, in some cases, correcting the questions. It was said that he'd accidentally blown up the Alchemists' Guild using nothing more than a gla.s.s of water, a spoonful of acid, two lengths of wire and a Ping-Pong ball.

Any sensible ruler would have killed off Leonard, and Lord Vetinari was extremely sensible and often wondered why he had not done so. He'd decided that it was because, imprisoned in the priceless, inquiring amber of Leonard's ma.s.sive mind, underneath all that bright investigative genius was a kind of willful innocence that might in lesser men be called stupidity. It was the seat and soul of that force which, down the millennia, had caused mankind to stick its fingers in the electric light socket of the Universe and play with the switch to see what happened-and then be very surprised when it did.

It was, in short, something useful. And if the Patrician was anything, he was the political equivalent of the old lady who saves bits of string because you never know when they might come in handy.

After all, you couldn't plan for every eventuality, because that would involve knowing what was going to happen, and if you knew knew what was going to happen, you could probably see to it that it didn't, or at least happened to someone else. So the Patrician never planned. Plans often got in the way. what was going to happen, you could probably see to it that it didn't, or at least happened to someone else. So the Patrician never planned. Plans often got in the way.

And, finally, he kept Leonard around because the man was easy to talk to. He never understood what Lord Vetinari was talking about, he had a world view about as complex as that of a concussed duckling and, above all, never really paid attention. This made him an excellent confidant. After all, when you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.

"I've just made some tea," said Leonard. "Will you join me?"

He followed the Patrician's gaze to a brown stain all up one wall, which ended in a star of molten metal in the plaster.

"I'm afraid the automatical tea engine went wrong," he said. "I shall have to make it by hand."

"So kind," said Lord Vetinari.

He sat down amidst the easels and, while Leonard busied himself at the fireplace, leafed through the latest sketches. Leonard sketched as automatically as other people scratched; genius-a certain kind kind of genius-fell off him like dandruff. of genius-fell off him like dandruff.

There was a picture of a man drawing, the lines catching the figure so accurately it appeared to stand out of the paper. And around it, because Leonard never wasted white s.p.a.ce, were other other sketches, scattered aimlessly. A thumb. A bowl of flowers. A device, apparently, for sharpening pencils by water power... sketches, scattered aimlessly. A thumb. A bowl of flowers. A device, apparently, for sharpening pencils by water power...

Vetinari found what he was looking for in the bottom left-hand corner, sandwiched between a sketch for a new type of screw and a tool for opening oysters. It, or something very much like it, was always there somewhere.

One of the things that made Leonard such a rare prize, and kept him under such secure lock and key, was that he really didn't see any difference between the thumb and the roses and the pencil-sharpener and this this.

"Ah, the self-portrait," said Leonard, returning with two cups.