Feet of Clay

There was a forest of mugs in front of Nobby.

‘I mean, I mean, what’s it worth whenallsaidandone?’ he said.

‘You could flog it,’ said Ron.

‘Good point,’ said Sergeant Colon. ‘There’s plenty o’ rich folks who’d give a sack of cash for a title. I mean folks that’s already got the big house and that. They’d give anything to be as nobby as you, Nobby.’

The ninth pint stopped halfway to Nobby’s lips.

‘Could be worth thousands of dollars,’ said Ron encouragingly.

‘At the very least,’ said Colon. ‘They’d fight over it.’

‘You play your cards right and you could retire on something like that,’ said Ron.

The mug remained stationary. Various expressions fought their way around the lumps and excrescences of Nobby’s face, suggesting the terrible battle within.

‘Oh, they would, would they?’ he said at last.

Sergeant Colon tilted unsteadily away. There was an edge in Nobby’s voice he hadn’t heard before.

‘Then you could be rich and common just like you said,’ said Ron, who did not have quite the same eye for mental weather changes. ‘Posh folks’d be falling over themselves for it.’

‘Sell m’ birthright for a spot of massage, is that it?’ said Nobby.

‘It’s “a pot of message”,’ said Sergeant Colon.

‘It’s “a mess of pottage”,’^{52} said a bystander, anxious not to break the flow.

‘Hah! Well, I’ll tell you,’ said Nobby, swaying, ‘there’s some things that can’t be sole. Hah! Hah! Who streals my prurse streals trasph, right?’^{53}

‘Yeah, it’s the trashiest looking purse I ever saw,’ said a voice.

‘—what is a mess of pottage, anyway?’

‘’cos … what good’d a lot of moneneney do me, hey?’

The clientele looked puzzled. This seemed to be a question on the lines of ‘Alcohol, is it nice?’, or ‘Hard work, do you want to do it?’.

‘—what’s messy about it, then?’

‘We-ell,’ said a brave soul, uncertainly, ‘you could use it to buy a big house, lots of grub and … drink and … women and that.’

‘That’s wha’ it takes to make a man happppeyey, is it?’ said Nobby, glassy-eyed.

His fellow-drinkers just stared. This was a metaphysical maze.

‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ said Nobby, the swaying now so regular that he looked like an inverted pendulum, ‘all that stuff’s nothing, nothing! I tell you, compared to pride inna man’s linneneage … eage.’

‘Linneneageeage?’ said Sergeant Colon.

‘Ancescestors and that,’ said Nobby. ‘’T means I’ve got ancescestors and that, which’s more’n you lot’ve got!’

Sergeant Colon choked on his pint.

‘Everyone’s got ancestors,’ said the barman calmly. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t be here.’

Nobby gave him a glassy stare and tried unsuccessfully to focus. ‘Right!’ he said, eventually. ‘Right! Only … only I’ve got more of ’em, d’y’see? The blood of bloody kings is in these veins, am I right?’

‘Temporarily,’ said a voice. There was laughter, but it had an anticipatory ring to it that Colon had learned to respect and fear. It reminded him of two things: (1) he had got only six weeks to retirement,^{54} and (2) it had been quite a long time since he’d been to the lavatory.

Nobby delved into his pocket and pulled out a battered scroll. ‘Y’see this?’ he said, unrolling it with difficulty on the bar. ‘Y’see it? I’ve got a right to arm bears, me. See here? It says “Earl”, right? That’s me. You could, you could, you could have my head up over the door.’

‘Could be,’ said the barman, eyeing the crowd.

‘I mean, y’could change t’name o’ this place, call it the Earl of Ankh, and I’d come in and drink here reg’lar, whaddya say?’ said Nobby. ‘News gets around an earl drinks here, business will go right up. And I wouldn’t’n’t’n’t chargeyouapenny, howaboutit? People’d say, dat’s a high-class pub, is that, Lord de Nobbes drinks there, that’s a place with a bit of tone.’

Someone grabbed Nobby by the throat. Colon didn’t recognize the grabber. He was just one of the scarred, ill-shaven regulars whose function it was, around about this time of an evening, to start opening bottles with his teeth or, if the evening was going really well, with somebody else’s teeth.

‘So we ain’t good enough for you, is that what you’re saying?’ the man demanded.

Nobby waved his scroll. His mouth opened to frame words like — Sergeant Colon just knew — ‘Unhand me, you low-born oaf.’

With tremendous presence of mind and absence of any kind of common sense, Sergeant Colon said: ‘His lordship wants everyone to have a drink with him!’

Compared to the Mended Drum, the Bucket in Gleam Street was an oasis of frigid calm. The Watch had adopted it as their own, as a silent temple to the art of getting drunk. It wasn’t that it sold particularly good beer, because it didn’t. But it did serve it quickly, and quietly, and gave credit. It was one place where Watchmen didn’t have to see things or be disturbed. No one could sink alcohol in silence like a Watchman who’d just come off duty after eight hours on the street. It was as much protection as his helmet and breastplate. The world didn’t hurt so much.