Snuff

‘Stay as long as you like, Fred,’ said Vimes. ‘I’ve got to go, but Nobby’ll be around, and just about everybody else from the Watch or so it seems. Stay as long as you like’ – he glanced at Cheery Littlebottom – ‘but perhaps not too long.’

More thoughts passed as Young Sam’s daily stroll progressed back down the hill and through the village, and when Jiminy appeared at the doorway of the pub and gave Vimes a little nod that spoke volumes, Vimes’s passing thought was that an astute publican knows which way the wind is blowing and adjusts his sails accordingly. No one knew better than he that no one knows where rumours come from and how they are spread, but the little convoy, even though it included Nobby Nobbs and the goblin girl, got smiles and nods where a week ago there would have been blank stares. Because the dreadful truth is that nobody wants to support the losing side.

When they reached Ramkin Hall again Vimes found Sybil in the rose garden, apparently deadheading, something that had to be done because it was on the list of things you had to do in the country whether you liked to do it or not. She glanced up at her husband and then got on with what she was doing, and said quietly, ‘You’ve been worrying people, haven’t you, Sam? Lady Rust popped in unexpectedly for a social visit, right after you left.’ Snip! Snip! went the secateurs, furiously.

‘Did you let her in?’

Snip! Snip! ‘Of course! Of course!’

There was another Snip! Snip! ‘And I gave her tea and chocolate macaroons, too. She may be an ignorant whey-faced bitch who gives herself a title that is not rightfully hers, but there is such a thing as manners, when all is said and done.’ Snip! Snip! Snap! ‘I only did that because that one rather spoils the symmetry, honestly. Anyway, I had a lecture about maintaining standards, and banding together in defence of our culture, you know the sort of thing, it’s always just a code.’

Lady Sybil leaned back with her secateurs poised, and regarded the rose bushes like a bloody-handed revolutionary looking for his next aristocrat. ‘Do you know what the bitch said? She said, “My dear, who cares what happens to a few trolls! Let them take drugs if they want to, that’s what I say.”’ Eyes ablaze, Sybil continued, ‘And so I thought about Sergeant Detritus and how often he’s saved your life, and then there was young Brick, that troll lad he adopted. And it made me so angry that I nearly said something unrepeatable! They think that I’m like them! I hate that! They just don’t get it! They’ve got on well for years without ever having to think differently, and now they don’t know how!’ Snip! Snip! Crack!

‘You’ve just killed a rosebush, dear,’ said Vimes, impressed. It took a pretty good grip to push those blades through an inch of what looked like a small tree.

‘It was a brier, Sam, wouldn’t ever do any good.’

‘You could have given it a chance, perhaps?’

‘Sam Vimes, you treasure your ignorance of gardening, so don’t start weaving a social hypothesis in front of an angry woman holding a blade! There is a difference between plants and people!’

‘Do you think her husband sent her?’ Vimes said, standing back a little. ‘He is in the frame, you know, and I expect by the end of the day to be able to link him to smuggling, trafficking in goblins and certainly attempting to send Jethro Jefferson abroad to get him out of the way. I know what happens to the goblins taken to Howondaland and it’s not good for their health. Jefferson told me that Rust was behind the eviction of the local goblins three years ago. I’m hoping to get confirmation of this very shortly. All in all, it’ll wipe the smile off his aristocratic face, at least.’

The birds were singing and roses were pumping perfume into the air and Lady Sybil dropped the secateurs into her apron pocket.

‘It will shame old Lord Rust, you know.’

‘Don’t think I don’t know that,’ said Vimes. ‘The old boy tried to warn me off when we first got here, which just about shows his talent as a tactician. But I’ll say this for the old bastard: he is honourable, honest and straightforward. It’s a shame that he is also pigheaded, stupid, and incompetent. But you’re right, it’ll hurt him, although he must have killed so many soldiers by his own incompetence that shame should by now be second nature to him, an old friend as it were.’ He sighed. ‘Sybil, every time I have to arrest some twit who thought he could get away with swindling or extortion or blackmail, well, I know that there is probably going to be a family in difficulties, you understand? I think about it. It preys on my mind. The trouble is, the idiots commit the crimes! As it is, I’m trying to spare some of the hangers-on in this case, provided their gratitude results in testimony. I can stretch the law for the greater good, but that’s the end of it.’

Sybil nodded sadly, and then sniffed and said, ‘Can you smell smoke?’