Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was just before dawn and somewhere in the city, a meeting was not being held.

Because it was not being held, no one attended; certainly no one arrived under cover of shadows, creeping into the dimly lit warehouse that had not been chosen specifically for the discretion of its owner.

During the meeting that did not occur, no one quietly and carefully voiced any concerns about…anything. No one cautiously agreed that something should be done about these concerns that, of course, did not exist.

No one planned. Unquestionably, no one… plotted.

And when the meeting did not end an hour later, no one failed to meet anyone else’s eye, and no one agreed it was for the best, in the long run.

No one left as quietly as they’d arrived.

oOo

Somewhere else in the city, a table was laid for breakfast in a cosy drawing room. Sam Vimes sat opposite his wife, and scowled down at the plate in front of him.

On it was a bacon sandwich, allegedly, except the constituent parts were all wrong. The bread was brown and contained chewy bits that Sybil suggested were seeds; he had spent the previous day with several stuck in his teeth. There was no butter, or ketchup. The single slice of bacon was buried within a wedge of lettuce and tomato slices.

He narrowed his eyes at the offending object. “I hate lettuce.”

“I know, dear. But it’s good for you.” Sybil was eating a slice of toast and flicking through a copy of the Times. “Did you see the article about the new wing of the hospital? It was very fair I thought.”

Vimes pushed the plate away. “You know I don’t read that. I don’t know why you do, after what they did to us.”

A small crease appeared in Sybil’s brow. “They printed the truth, Sam. Just because it was a truth you didn’t want anyone to know about doesn’t make it wrong. And then they were very good about printing your response.”

“It was none of their damned business.”

Sybil sighed. “I know, dear. But it’s over and done with now. I’m not sure what point there is in dwelling on it.”

Over and done.

Alright, yes, it had been six months since Vetinari had put an end to the clandestine aspect of their relationship, but to hear it described as over and done still felt…harsh.

Actually, it felt bloody awful; he’d had punches to the gut that were less painful. But he knew Sybil didn’t mean anything by it, so he tried not to let it show on his face.

He constrained himself to a small frown and took a final swig of coffee, then stood. “I’d best be off. I’ll be back late.”

Sybil closed the paper. “Oh, again, Sam…?” She glanced across the room to where their son was sitting on the floor, hitting a stuffed pig with a toy sword.

Vimes followed her gaze, and felt a wave of guilt wash over him. “Sorry, dear.” He bent and gave her a kiss on the cheek; as he pulled away she reached out and clutched his hand.

“Please try to get back for bedtime.” She hesitated. “We’ve been missing you, lately.”

He grunted, and took his hand back gently. He crossed the rug and knelt down, deftly avoiding a blow to the face with the sword as Young Sam swung it wildly.

“Da!” The boy gave him a gummy grin. Sam felt his heart melt, and swept him up into his arms, giving him a tight hug as he wriggled to get away. He pressed a kiss to the side of his son’s head, then darted back out of sword-reach as he put him back down.

He put on his most serious tone. “You take care of your mother, you hear me?”

The boy giggled. Vimes pushed himself back to his feet, feeling old, and stretched.

Life wasn’t all bad, he supposed.

He turned back to Sybil, but she was engrossed in the paper again, so he simply slipped out into the hall and headed off to work.

oOo

He had been halfway to the Yard when a runner had appeared and told him Sergeant Angua had requested his presence on The Maul. He redirected and got there a few minutes later, arriving at the edge of a large crowd.

After some searching he found Angua near the front of the gathering, staring up at the roof of the bank that dominated the wide street. He squinted up to follow her gaze, shielding his eyes from the late autumn sun, and could just make out the figure of a man silhouetted against the sky.

“Morning, Sergeant. What’s going on?”

Angua turned to him, blinking. “Morning, sir. That’s Christopher Chiswick. Apparently his business went under recently and the bank just called in his credit, so now he’s losing his house too. He’s been up there for the last hour.”

Vimes peered around at the crowd, who were watching with anticipation. This kind of thing was second only to hangings for entertainment value in the city. Some crowds, he thought vaguely, might have banded together to find something soft for the poor bastard to land on; Ankh-Morpork was trying to charge admission to the front row and taking bets on how far he’d splash.

He grunted. “Anyone gone up to talk to him?”

“Not yet, sir. The bank manager is being difficult. Says it’s a matter of security. I thought the Duke of Ankh might have more luck.” She gave him a wolfish grin. “This is one of the streets you own, sir.”

“Is it? Excellent.” He hesitated, and looked around. “Er. Don’t suppose Carrot’s about, is he? Stirring motivational speeches are more his thing.”

“No, sir. Sorry. It’s his day off.”

Bugger.

“Fine.” He spotted a man at the front of the crowd whose demeanour was screaming stressed bank manager, and went and had a brief but impactful word. Five minutes later he was letting himself out onto the roof of the bank.

He propped open the door behind him with a handy brick, and winced as he was buffeted by a biting wind. The man was standing at the edge, one hand on a chimney stack beside him but otherwise looking terrifyingly exposed.

Vimes pulled out a cigar and huddled into the shelter provided by the door as he lit it, then crossed the roof, trying to ignore the way the wind whipped the smoke away instantly as he puffed.

He was ten feet away when he realised the man hadn’t noticed him come out.

“Er. Hello?” he called cautiously, bracing himself for the man to fall off the roof in shock. The man did let out a short yell as he whipped his head around, but merely wobbled precariously for a moment before getting a literal and metaphorical grip.

“What? What do you want?” The man looked tense. He appeared to be around Vimes' age, and was wearing an expensive suit of the type Sybil was always suggesting her husband might look rather nice in.

Vimes tried to look casual as he approached, keeping a careful distance until he finally reached the edge, and peered down. The building was only a few stories tall, but Vimes couldn’t quite make out the expressions of the crowd below, so it was probably tall enough .

“Blimey. Long drop, isn’t it.”

The man frowned at him. “That’s the bloody point, man.”

Vimes raised an eyebrow and stepped back, ignoring the way his head swam as he did. He took another puff on the cigar. “Look. Christopher, isn’t it?” The man frowned, and Vimes pressed on. “I’ll level with you. I don’t have a clue what to say, here. Usually I’d send my captain up and he’d come out with something profound and hopeful, and then we could send that crowd down there away without everyone needing to wash their boots before they go home and traipse blood onto the rug. But he’s off visiting a particularly nice collection of antique pencils today, unfortunately, so you’re stuck with me. And me? Well. I’ve recently been told I’ve got the emotional literacy of a stunned bloody hippo.” He took a breath. “So, sorry about that.”

The man was staring at him. Vimes noted he appeared to be gripping the chimney a little more tightly.

“Stunned hippo? Really? Someone actually said that about you?” The man threw another glance over the side.

Vimes shifted slightly, and the man stepped further back against the brickwork.

“Yeah. My wife. As in most matters, I’m not sure she’s wrong.” Vimes paused. “You married?”

“Yes.”

Vimes peered down at the crowd. “She down there?”

The man looked startled. “I bloody hope not!” He craned his head whilst clinging to the chimney, and squinted at the mass of people.

Vimes managed another half step closer while he was distracted. “Well, it won’t be your problem for long if she is, will it?”

The man pulled slowly back, and looked at Vimes. “I suppose.”

“You love her?”

“Of course I bloody do. That’s why I’m bloody up here. I’ve let her down. She deserves better than someone who’s lost everything.” He hesitated. “Once I’m gone she can move on, find someone better.”

Vimes took a long puff on his cigar. “Ah, right. Happy with that plan, is she?”

“What?”

“I mean, I presume you told her what you were plannin’, right? Talked to her about it before you came all the way up here?”

“Well, no. Of course not.”

Vimes frowned. “Ah. Why not?”

“Because…” he trailed off slightly. “She’d have stopped me.”

Vimes watched a look of uncertainty cross his features. “Right. Loves you too, does she?”

The man was silent. Vimes took another casual step and continued.

“See, my wife’s right. Feelings aren’t my strong point. But if I chucked myself off a building rather than talk to her about what was wrong with me…? Well, she’d follow me to the bleedin’ afterlife and kick my backside halfway back home.”

The man gave this some thought. The wind gusted, and Vimes swayed slightly. Chiswick finally seemed to register that Vimes had been getting closer, and looked at him sharply. “Stay back!” He frowned. “You can’t convince me not to do it. She’d be better off without me.”

Vimes shrugged. “Alright.” He looked around. “I’m just going to…sit for a bit.” He lowered himself to the ground then, as Chiswick watched with morbid fascination, carefully swung his legs over the side of the building.

From below, the crowd cheered, clearly anticipating a matinee performance before the main event.

“What are you bloody doing, man?!”

What was he doing? It was a fair question. Vimes thought about it, while the cigar in his hand smouldered.

“I mean, maybe you’re right. Maybe she would be better off without you. Can’t say I haven’t had similar thoughts, on occasion.”

There was a moment of confused silence. “About my wife?”

“What? No.” For gods sake. “About my wife. I’ve not always been the best husband, either, recently.”

He stared out miserably across the rooftops; there was Scoone Avenue, in the gap between the Tower of Art and the Opera House, and he could just about make out his own house by the shine on the carefully oiled roof tiles. He felt an odd pang, looking at it from up here. He pictured Sybil pottering about inside; was she knitting him some of those socks that were more lump than wool? Or were she and Young Sam in the garden, perhaps, learning about insects, or birds, or…well, whatever the hell else you found in a garden? Vimes, a city boy through and through, naturally distrusted the kind of ground that changed texture beneath your feet when it rained.

The man didn’t appear to notice Vimes’ sink into an internal reverie, and simply barked a harsh laugh. “You can’t be as bad as me. Did you lie to your wife for months? Lose your business? Your bloody house ?”

Vimes blinked and looked down at the cigar, which had finally burned down to his fingers. He flicked it away automatically and then winced as he remembered the crowd below. He sighed.

“No business to lose, and it's her house, really, no matter what she tries to get the lawyers to say.” He hesitated. “But the lying…yes. I’ve done plenty of that. Didn’t mean to, of course. Didn’t even realise I was doing it.”

There was a pensive silence for a long moment, then a shuffling. Vimes registered the man carefully lowering himself down beside him. The crowd booed, and the man gave them a gesture that technically counted as Outraging Public Decency, but which Vimes carefully ignored.

“What did you lie about, if not money?” Chiswick asked, once the noise below had settled. “Another woman, was it?”

Vimes hesitated. “Not exactly. But it's all out in the open now, and she’s stuck by me, and I still can’t help but think…”

“You’ve ruined everything?”

“Yeah. But you don’t see me on a bloody rooftop…” he looked about, and continued, “…well, usually, anyway.” He frowned. “What I’m saying is, you have options. Talk to her. Alright, she might curse you. She might want a bloody divorce. But divorced is still better than the alternative. And if she loves you, you can face it together. You’ve got options .”

Say it a third time, Sam. Maybe it’ll sound convincing.

He stared off into the distance again. A half-mile rimwards of his house, he could make out the white bricks of Vetinari’s palace. His stomach twisted.

The man was staring too. “This is bloody Vetinari’s fault. He should be up here, not me. That damned tax.” He shook his head. “I used to think he was alright, but lately…”

“He’s been a right bastard.”

The man looked at him. “Yeah. Exactly.”

There was a yell below, and then a rotten cabbage was hurled through the air in their direction. Vimes and Chiswick leaned aside automatically, and the brassica sailed serenely between them and splattered onto the roof behind them.

The man beside him fumbled inside his jacket and pulled out a hipflask, then took a long swig before passing it to Vimes.

Vimes took it automatically, and then was surprised to find it in his hand. The small steel container felt far heavier than it should. He took a cautious sniff; whisky, and the decent stuff, too. If Chiswick had a couple of bottles of this in his cellar, then half his money problems might be over.

For the last six months Vimes had felt as though he was teetering above the city on a tightrope, and now the smell of the alcohol was promising to hold his hand and steady him down. He knew full well it was bullshit, but gods, it was tempting to believe the lie.

He closed his eyes, and felt the wind on his face.

There was the sound of a throat being cleared from somewhere behind him, and Vimes nearly fell off the roof in surprise. The two men turned as one, and Vimes clocked the blonde hair and Watch uniform and immediately felt like he was twelve years old and caught stealing Sonkies from the corner shop again.

Angua stepped slowly out onto the roof, and Vimes guiltily handed the flask back to Chiswick. “Everything alright, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got someone here to see Mr Chiswick.” She stepped aside, and a squat looking woman came striding out onto the roof and stopped sharply as she took in the scene.

“Christopher! What’s going on?”

Chiswick gave Vimes an embarrassed look. Vimes gave him an attempt at a smile in return, and gestured at the woman with his head. “Options, remember?”

The man looked briefly down at the crowd one final time, and then nodded. “Yes. Thank you.” He looked back at Vimes. “It’s, er. Your Grace, isn’t it?”

“Sam Vimes.”

“Right. Thank you, sir.” Chiswick scooted backwards, and then levered himself to his feet once safely away from the edge. His wife was on him almost instantly, throwing her arms around him, and Vimes looked away as the intimacy caused something inside him to twinge.

As Mrs Chiswick half-dragged, half-berated her husband back into the building, Angua came and sat beside Vimes on the edge of the roof. It was beginning to rain and in the absence of any further entertainment the crowd below was starting to disperse.

“Well done, sir.”

“I didn’t do anything, Sergeant. He didn’t really want to throw himself off a building. He just didn’t want to have a tough bloody conversation with his wife.”

“Maybe. Could have gone badly, though.” She looked at him, sideways. “You alright?”

Vimes sighed. “I didn’t drink any of the damn whisky.”

She frowned. “That wasn’t what I was asking.”

He felt himself redden. “I’m fine, Sergeant.”

“Good. But if you weren’t…I mean, after the stuff with His Lordship…”

Vimes hadn’t told her about the breakup in any detail, but he wouldn’t have any room in his force for a copper who knew as much as she did about him and Vetinari and couldn’t extrapolate the rest. Still; that didn’t mean he was planning to discuss it, any time soon.

“Leave it, Sergeant.”

She hesitated, but didn’t push it. “Yes, sir. Shall we get back down, then? It’s nearly ten.”

Speaking of Vetinari; he was due at a guild leader’s meeting he had finally run out of excuses to avoid.

Shit.

He stared over the edge again, feeling her eyes on him, then sighed. “Right. Yeah.”

Angua was on her feet in a flash, then reached down a hand to help steady him up and the two of them headed wordlessly back down to the ground floor.

He got a grateful handshake from the bank manager – the financial markets apparently becoming skittish when people attempted to evade their fiscal responsibilities in such a publicly terminal manner – and slunk off to the palace.

oOo

Twenty minutes later Vimes was sitting in the Rats Chamber, staring at the axe buried in the table, with only half an ear on the conversation around him.

When he’d planted it there all those years ago, he’d been angry. He’d wanted to send a message to everyone in this room - you rule with the consent of those beneath you; remember that.

Now, he was the Duke of Ankh, the second most powerful man in the city, and the damned thing just seemed to mock him. It added to the general air of misery that permeated these things. Twice in recent months he’d given up and stalked out halfway through meetings, incapable of sitting and listening to any more bullshit from the guilds while Vetinari ignored Vimes as much as he could without making it too obvious.

He dimly registered that Vetinari was talking again, in that icily calm manner he had that meant someone was about to be verbally eviscerated. Or possibly not just verbally, these days. The man had never been a bundle of sunshine, exactly, but as the city had become more enlightened so too had he, it seemed. Recently, though, he had grown…sharper, again. It was a brave man who voiced dissention and risked the ire that seemed barely contained beneath the apparently placid surface. They hadn’t gone back entirely to those dark days before the dragon, when Vimes had spent his nights off in the gutter and the scorpion pits still had scorpions in them, but he wondered if it might not be too far off.

Vimes concentrated, and determined that the current target was Boggis.

No loss there, at least.

He looked up, and caught Downey staring at him.

Downey worried him, too. Ever since that whole incident with Tomas and the poisoning, the head assassin had been suspiciously quiet. He almost never spoke up in the meetings, now, unless directly called upon, and then his answers were clipped and to the point.

He seemed to spend the rest of the time just watching Vimes.

Vimes favoured him with a bright grin, and Downey narrowed his eyes.

“I am sure His Grace can account for that.”

Vimes started at the mention of his title. That was another thing; he was always His Grace now, or the Commander. He realised he couldn’t remember the last time Vetinari had used his name.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. He could remember with absolute clarity how Vetinari had called him Sam when he’d ended things between them; he just preferred not to.

“Account for what?” he asked, gruffly.

There was an uncomfortable silence. “The apparent increase in inappropriate arrests of Thieves’ Guild members, Commander.”

“Oh. Right. It’s the new recruits. Half of ‘em are from outside the city. Takes ‘em a while to understand they need to ask to see a licence before they slap the cuffs on someone. Turns out we’re the only city where they put the thieves in charge.”

The silence dragged on for a long moment, then Vetinari said, sharply, “On the contrary, Your Grace. Ankh-Morpork is merely the only city honest enough to admit they’re in charge.”

There was nervous laughter from around the table. Vimes steeled himself to meet Downey’s gaze, expecting amusement, but the man still had that hunted look.

The conversation moved on. Vimes returned to staring at the axe.

Twenty minutes later, Antimony Parker of the Guild of Greengrocer’s was waxing lyrical about the apparent Parsnip Problem and Vimes felt his brain might be about to melt out of his ears. He stifled a yawn, and his eyes flicked to the head of the table just in time to see Vetinari attempt to cover one of his own with a very subtle and carefully placed hand gesture. The two men locked eyes, and for a second Vimes was reminded starkly of old times. The corner of Vetinari’s lips twitched briefly, and Vimes instinctively felt himself start to grin…

…then Vetinari got himself back under control; his face becoming a mask again as he looked quickly away.

Vimes felt like he’d been slapped. The air rushed out of his lungs and he gasped to fill them again, as six months of misery landed heavily on his chest. Feeling a sudden urge to escape, he stood. The leaders turned to look at him, and then exchanged glances between themselves. Vimes ignored them.

“Sorry. I need to. Er.” He gestured, and then walked out of the room. He was leaning against the wall in the corridor with his hands on his knees, trying to steady himself, when the door opened and Vetinari stepped out into the hall.

Vimes glared up at him, and took a deep breath. “Don’t say a bloody word.”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “I was merely coming to ascertain your wellbeing, Commander.”

“Like you give a damn.” He felt petty saying it, but he enjoyed the expression that flashed across Vetinari’s face, anyway.

The other man sighed. “I suspect there is nothing I could say to convince you otherwise.”

“Nope.”

There was a pause. “Commander, if you would prefer to send Captain Carrot to these meetings -”

“Oh, and have everyone in there wonder what the hell is going on?! I don’t bloody think so.” He had straightened and knew he was getting louder by Vetinari’s expression, so dropped his voice back to a hiss. “I’m fine. This is fine.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

Vetinari stared at him for an age, and then inclined his head. “Very well. You are excused from the remainder of today's meeting, however I will expect you at the next one.” He paused. “Am I to assume that reporting to Drumknott is still your preferred option?”

“Trust me. You don’t want to be in a room alone with me any more than I want to be alone with you.” He wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but Vetinari merely raised an eyebrow.

“As you wish.” The Patrician hesitated. “I am sorry you feel that way, however. Good day, Commander.” He disappeared back into the Rats Chamber.

Six months, Vimes thought. Six months since we were anything more than we are right now…

…’it’ll pass’, my backside.

He leaned back against the wall, and banged his head lightly on the plaster. Then he gave himself a shake, and headed home to see his wife.

oOo

Sybil’s formal dining room was being put to use tonight, with twenty assorted nobles seated around the huge oak table, drinking bottles of wine that cost more than the yearly rent on some of the houses over in Morpork.

Of course, technically it was Vimes’ formal dining room too, but right now he had never felt more like an interloper in his own home. He had sat through the appetisers making vague and awkward small talk whenever required, and studiously avoided eye contact with any of the people around the table.

Finally the talk had turned, as it often did, to Vetinari.

“He’s been ridiculous, lately. I don’t know what he’s thinking with this new tax.” The speaker was the earl of somewhere. Vimes had heard the word ‘priggish’, before, and could now say he had met someone with a face that seemed to accurately embody the concept.

Sybil raised an eyebrow. “I understand it’s young Moist’s idea, mostly.”

“Ha! We know who’s pulling the strings, though. Havelock’s got his sticky fingers all over it.”

“All over him too, probably!” There was a braying laugh.

Vimes watched the steam rise from his soup and ignored the glances he felt land on his skin. He knew damned well that everyone here tonight had read the Times article about him and Vetinari; they’d also no doubt read the very swift retraction, although he suspected that that one had been received with slightly less fervour. In any event, no one had come out and commented on it directly, although it was skirted around on occasion and he suspected it was the kind of gossip that would never quite die away.

“Now, now. That would require our illustrious leader to display some kind of desire, surely.” The speaker raised an eyebrow. “My golem’s got more bloody humanity in it.”

Vimes picked up his spoon and stirred the soup with it. He hated soup. This one was green, which seemed a particularly unpromising colour.

He heard the frown in Sybil’s voice. “Havelock has plenty of humanity, Deidra. He cares very much for the city. He just shows it differently.”

“The city, maybe. But people …? He’s a cold fish, Sybil, you have to admit. It’s not natural. You know what they say about him.”

Vimes had that sensation, again, of eyes crawling across him. He stared resolutely at the bowl and dipped the spoon back into it, then raised the still steaming liquid to his lips and swallowed it in one smooth movement. It scalded pleasantly on the way down.

His wife was speaking. “Yes, I do, and it's ridiculous. People really will gossip about anything. He’s simply private, and rightfully so.”

A new voice spoke up. “What d’you say, Vimes? Speaking as man’s best friend, and all. Is Vetinari any warmer with his terrier?” There was tinkling laughter from around the table.

Evidently they were going to skirt the topic a lot more finely than usual, tonight.

He felt Sybil tense from across the bread rolls and focussed on taking another mouthful of the soup. The heat had burned his tongue and there was only the awful texture to contend with now, at least, so he forced it down then laid his spoon against the rim of the bowl. He took a slow sip of water before answering.

“Nope. The man’s colder than a witch’s ti…”- Sybil coughed and Vimes swiftly changed tack -  “…nose.”

There were roars of laughter, that Vimes suspected were far more related to the quantity of wine consumed than any actual humour in what he’d said.

He focussed on finishing the last of the soup as the conversation moved on, feeling Sybil’s disapproving gaze occasionally, and ignoring it.

Talk turned to the Problem of Klatch, and then the apparent increase in civil disobedience between what one particularly oily young lord referred to as the Lesser Species. Vimes was not asked for his opinion on either issue.

He eyeballed the wine, and after an eternity the main course was brought out and placed before them.

It was chicken, and those fancy potatoes in which the vegetables themselves were merely the vehicle for a heart-attack inducing amount of cream and butter; at least, for everyone, it seemed, except for Vimes, who’s main was accompanied not by deliciously oily carbohydrates but instead by a heap of artfully arranged salad that took up half the available space on the plate. Vimes stared at it for a long moment, making no move to pick up his cutlery.

His head was humming. The conversation around him had continued, and moved onto the difficulties inherent in employing young women who might conceivably want to leave and start having babies, rather than devote themselves slavishly to polishing one’s silverware for the rest of their miserable lives.

Something buried very deep inside Vimes - and that had, for a long time, been becoming increasingly fragile - snapped.

Slowly, as if in a dream, he reached out and picked up the pile of salad with his bare hand. Then, as the conversation fell away and the heads of the assorted nobles turned to watch, he straightened his arm out across the table and let go, allowing crushed salad leaves to rain down on the pretty floral centrepiece. 

The table was now silent. Vimes was dimly aware of twenty pairs of eyes boring into him. He blinked and looked up, and suddenly everyone else found something far more interesting to look at.

Everyone, that is, apart from Sybil. His wife was watching him with an expression that was so soft there really wasn’t any way it should have cut him the way it did.

Whatever internal mechanism had snapped now hit him with the recoil. He stood, mumbled an excuse, and fled.

oOo

He was still pacing half an hour later when Sybil let herself into their bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her.

“I’ve finally managed to get rid of everyone.” She crossed to stand in front of him, interrupting his pacing, and he sat heavily on the bed instead. “Are you alright, Sam?”

He barked a short laugh. “Fine. You know I hate these things.”

“And so you thought you’d throw your dinner around like a child?”

He looked up at her. Sybil very rarely raised her voice beyond its natural slight boom, and she wasn’t being loud now, exactly, but there was a definite undertone that really was more of an overtone.

He frowned. “Maybe if I wasn’t being treat like one, I wouldn’t act like one. I’m sick of the damned salad.”

He kicked himself for immediately undermining his point by sounding like a five year-old.

Sybil folded her arms. “Is that really what this is about? Because you were sulking well before that.”

“I wasn’t sulking!” he sul…said.

Sybil looked up at the ceiling in a manner that suggested she was holding her patience on an increasingly fine tether.

“You were cross all evening. I could tell, and so could everyone else. I really ask so little of you at these things, Sam, and -”

“So little? So bloody little?!” He was on his feet without registering the movement. “No, Sybil, you ask so bloody much. You ask me to sit in a room with people I hate, eating food I can’t bloody stand, talking about stuff they know winds me up.”

“Like Havelock.” She looked at him cooly, and he sat back down heavily as he felt the wind go out of his sails.

“Just…all of it.”

“But him especially. Yes?” Sybil softened slightly. “Please don’t lie to me, Sam.”

He squeezed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Yes. Him especially.” He shrugged, the adrenaline abandoning him, and without it he felt a tiredness that went to the bone. He looked up at his wife helplessly. “I don’t…I don’t know what to do about that.” 

Sybil uncrossed her arms, then moved slowly across the room to the large window. Vimes watched as she looked out across the city for a long moment. When she finally turned back to face him, her expression was carefully neutral.

“Are you happy, Sam? Really?”

He looked at her dully, and tried to decide how to answer that. “Are you?”

The neutral expression gave nothing away. Ramkin steel, he thought. She could lead an army into battle with that expression.

She raised an eyebrow. “You and Young Sam are my world. And I know we’re yours. But…no, I’m not. Because you aren’t. And…” She looked around the bedroom, and now the expression slipped just a fraction. “And loving you brings out the worst in me, Sam. I fell in love with a guard captain. A simple man, who wore boots so thin he could read the street with his toes and had never touched a lettuce leaf in forty years of living. And what did I do? I tried to change him. I loved him so, so much, that I tried to make him into something he isn’t, for selfish reasons. I hate that, Sam. I hate that I’ve become that.”

“You’re looking after me. I know that.” He looked down at his feet, clad in lumpy socks, and felt his chest ache. “I’m trying. I promise, I’m trying to be a good husband. I just…I don’t think I know how.” 

She sighed. “I know, Sam. And I’m trying so hard to be a good wife, and I don’t think I know how to do that, either.” She paused. “Do you know why I found it so difficult, to see you with Havelock?”

He shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the relationship. “I mean, I can imagine. I know I wouldn’t like to see you with anyone else.”

She shook her head. “No, dear. That wasn’t it. I’ve thought about this an awful lot, because if Havelock changed his mind and wanted to try again with you, then I wanted to be able to support that. Because I saw that it made you happy and I see how miserable you are now.” She paused, and took a deep breath. “The thing I found hard was that he loves you as you are. Yes, he promoted you; but all that’s done is made you more… you. He sees how you burn for this city, and he doesn’t try to douse the flames, Sam; he simply adds more kindling and trusts.”

Vimes frowned. “He uses me, you mean.”

“No! Well. In a way, maybe. But it gives you purpose, Sam.” She smiled, faintly. “And I…well.” She raised her eyebrows. “I give you salad.”

Vimes felt something inside his heart start to crack. “You give me love. You gave me a son. You want me to be around to see him grow up; there’s nothing wrong with that. Vetinari gave me a host of bloody titles and sends me off to fight wars for him.”

Sybil scowled. “He sends you off to stop wars. To save lives. And I am damned proud of you for it, Sam. But I know you feel guilty every time you’re late home because of work, and I feel like a nagging wife wanting you to want to be at home. I simply can’t compete with the city. And Havelock…Havelock doesn’t make you choose. To love him is to love the city; it’s one and the same. You and he have the same goals.”

Vimes stared at her. “He doesn’t want me.”

She set her jaw. “That doesn’t mean you should settle for me, Sam. That’s as cruel to me as it is to you.”

Vimes rubbed a hand across his mouth and winced. “Right. I know. I know. And I’m sorry.” Sybil sagged slightly, and he hesitated, then pressed on hoarsely. “But… gods. What are we saying, here?”

Sybil’s lips were so tightly pressed they had nearly vanished, and she looked back across at the window, where the moonlight was streaming in between the open curtains. At some point she had taken out one of the monogrammed lace handkerchiefs he had bought her last Hogswatch, and now he watched her wring it distractedly in her hands.

He saw the exact moment she made a decision, and his stomach twisted right along with the delicate lace. She sighed, then crossed the room and sat beside him on the bed. She took hold of his hand, and squeezed. He stared down numbly at their intertwined fingers.

“You’re Sam’s father. You’re always welcome here, and I fully expect you to be part of his life.”

Vimes felt things grow fuzzy. “But?”

There was a sad, slow pause, before she spoke again. “But I think, Sam, that it may be best if you went and stayed somewhere else, for a while. The Yard, perhaps. Or I’m sure we have a few properties elsewhere in the city that might be empty.”

The words washed over him like the tide. He nodded vaguely.

Divorced is better than the alternative…

…had he really said that?

After a moment, Sybil started to say something else, but Vimes was already up on his feet and heading for the door.

She let him go; Ramkin steel to the end.

He made three stops on his way out of the house. The first was to the nursery, where for a long while he simply stared down at his son, sleeping soundly among his collection of stuffed animals, the wooden sword still clasped tightly in his chubby hand.

The second was to the dining room, where he scowled at the places the wine bottles no longer sat, and tried to ignore the guilt that reared up again at the sight of a limp tomato slice hanging off the centrepiece.

The third and final stop was the kitchen, where he knew the cook kept a lone bottle of brandy hidden carefully away at the back of a cupboard.

Finally, bottle firmly in hand, Sam Vimes headed out into the night.

Chapter Text

Six Months Later

Vimes woke up, and let out a small groan.

The cell bunk was hard underneath him, the thin blankets providing little in the way of protection against the rough surface below. It was more comfortable than the floor, but only just.

One of these days I’m going to invest in a bloody mattress for down here.

Still, it meant he wasn’t puking his guts up this morning. That was always a good start to the day.

The door above creaked open, and Nobby navigated his way down the stairs with a tray.

“Morning, Mister Vimes.”

Vimes watched him deftly juggle the tray as he fished the big keyring from his pocket, then he unlocked the door to the cell and stepped inside.

“Morning, Nobby.” Vimes sat up and stretched, then took the mug of tea that was being proffered. “Thanks.” There was a bacon sandwich on the tray, and he took that too, carefully ignoring the lack of lettuce.

“Carrot’s said he needs you as soon as it’s convenient, sir. There’s a body to be looked at, he says, and a suspect to be interviewed.”

Vimes swallowed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with the tea. “A proper body? Not a Shade’s suicide?”

“Sounds like it. Someone called it in at a tavern near your old gaff. Couple of posh bastards fightin’, apparently”

Fantastic. Bloody toffs killing each other; that’s all he needed.

“Alright. I’ll be right up.”

“No problem, sir. I’ve got one of the lads boiling the kettle for a bucket, in case you wanted to wash off the cell stink before you start bothering the upper-crusts.” He grinned. “No offence, sir.”

Vimes gave him a wan grin in return. “They’d complain even if I turned up smelling of roses, Nobby. But thanks.”

He finished the sandwich in another two bites, then went upstairs to make himself presentable, letting the cell door slam closed behind him.

oOo

An hour later, Vimes was looking at the stocky youth opposite him and fighting down a visceral reaction that owed nothing to logic and reason and absolutely everything to pure animal instinct. 

The scar on his wrist itched, and he rubbed it distractedly against the fabric of his uniform.

Lord Selachii’s youngest boy – James – had a cocky, bullish charm and practically oozed with the rock solid belief that any minute now his daddy was going to turn up and make this whole thing disappear.

The galling thing was that he probably wasn’t wrong about that, and the knowledge made Vimes’ ball his fists tightly under the interview room table.

Mr Slant, the best lawyer in the city – or at least, the most expensive – was sitting beside the boy. Fred Colon was seated awkwardly beside Vimes, looking longingly at the door and sweating. The sergeant had never been at home with anyone who knew which fork to use for oysters. Neither had Vimes, to be fair, but whereas the mere existence of a special fork just for molluscs made Vimes angry, it made Colon seem permanently at risk of folding at the knees.

Vimes looked distastefully at the boy before him and hauled firmly on the rein of his instincts, then woke the imp in the recorder with a tap and went through the spiel as it scratched away. Once the preliminaries were out of the way, he cut straight to it.

“Right, son. Care to explain why we’ve got the body of one of your mates - one Douglas Willoughby - in the morgue, and why there’s dried blood all over your fists?”

He felt Colon tense beside him, but it was Slant who responded.

“My client has no comment.”

The boy leaned back in his chair, eyes darting between the two coppers.

“Your client is going to swing for the murder of his friend, Mister Slant, unless he can give me the name of someone else who might somehow be more culpable than him.” Vimes watched with satisfaction as the boy’s eyes darkened briefly.

“He is fifteen, Vimes. Lord Vetinari won’t hang a child.”

“There’s precedent. Boddy Groats was fourteen when he went to the gallows for killing his baby sister.”

Slant gave a dry smile. “Permit me to rephrase that, Commander. Lord Vetinari is not going to hang a child of one of the noblest lineages in Ankh.”

Vimes heard Colon make a strangled noise beside him.

He gave Slant a bright grin. "Confident in that, are you? Did you hear what he did to that over-enthusiastic assassin last month...?"

Slant couldn't get any paler on account of already being dead, but the boy beside him had no such problem. Vimes watched the blood drain from his face and felt a small spark of satisfaction.

Still; he wanted a confession.

“Look. We’ve got a couple of witnesses giving us statements right now. Your client has literal blood on his hands. We know he’s done it, so what does he have to lose by explaining what went on? Maybe there was a good reason for it.”

Slant opened his mouth to respond, but the boy beat him to it.

“It was self-defence.”

Slant held up a hand. “What I believe my client is suggesting is that whoever assaulted the poor boy, might possibly have done so out of self-defence.”

“Okay. That might change things, then. Are you saying Douglas attacked you?”

The boy narrowed his eyes, and gave a sullen half-shrug.

Vimes sighed. “Alright. What exactly was he doing that you had to use lethal force to defend yourself against?”

The boy stared at him and seemed to think about it for a moment, then leaned over and whispered something in Slant’s ear. The zombie’s eyes widened briefly, and the two had a muttered conversation for a few moments. Finally Slant sat back.

“My client is prepared to make a statement.”

Ten minutes later Vimes stormed out of the interview room, and slammed the door behind him so hard it bounced. 

He charged back up to the main office. A few watchmen were hanging around chatting, but silence fell as Vimes’ mood spread across them like oil spilled on a still forest pond. Ignoring the watchers, he grabbed his coat off a hook and pulled it on, his face like thunder.

“Take his lordship to the Tanty, he can stew in there till his trial. I’m going to speak to Vetinari. If that little bastard reckons he’s getting away with this, he can think again.”

Colon had followed him up, and now he closed the door to the cells far more carefully behind him. “Maybe you should think about this a bit, Sam…?” he suggested, hesitantly.

Vimes turned back to him. “Think about what ? He reckons he can get away with killing someone because of that ? I’m not having it, Fred.”

Colon winced. “I know, but… he’s not wrong, is he? His dad is a big nob.” He saw the look on Vimes’ face and hurried on. “I mean, not as big a one as you are, right enough, but still. This sounds like it might be…well. Political.”

“Political ? No, Fred. It’s bloody murder.”

“Right. Course.” Fred hesitated. “But, I mean. He was provoked, wasn’t ‘e?”

Vimes froze, and the temperature in the room plummeted. The circle around the two men grew subtly larger, as people somehow managed to edge away without in any way appearing to move.

“Provoked ?”

Colon found he was sweating, despite the sudden chill.

“I mean. Yeah. Like he said. That lad should’ve known better than to try something like that on ‘im, right? S’not…” His words dried up as he watched a complicated expression cross Vimes’ features.

“Not what , Fred?” The commander’s tone was low and clipped.

Colon ran a hand across his damp brow. “Well. It’s not natural. Is it?” Vimes was staring at him. Fred pressed on, because he could see no way to retreat. “I mean, there’s laws against it. You can’t blame a lad for gettin’ a bit…tetchy.”

“‘Tetchy?’” Colon shrank back as Vimes took a step towards him. “He beat a boy to death, Fred. A boy not much older than your grandson. Brayed the shit out of him with his bare bloody hands until he died like a dog on the street. And for what?! Because the poor bastard made a stupid pass at him?!” Vimes continued to close the distance between them, and now Colon felt his back press up against the wall. He cast a pleading glance around the room, but the other men seemed to be studiously avoiding eye contact.

Vimes stopped right in front of him. “You tellin’ me you think he deserved it?”

Colon looked pained. “Now, Sam, I didn’t say that.”

“But it’s his own fault, right? Sergeant? ”

“I mean…” Colon gave up, because he’d seen the expression on the other man’s face before, usually just before someone ended up on the floor; Vimes was a few inches shorter than him, but when he was in this mood, he loomed. He swallowed.

“No. ‘spose not. Sir.”

“Right.” Vimes stared at him for a moment, then stepped back and raised his voice so the rest of the watchers could hear. “And for everyone’s information, Vetinari took those laws off the books years ago. He said the city has no business being in anyone’s damn bedroom. So that means we have no business in it either. Understand?”

There was an assortment of confused grunts in acknowledgement. Vimes shook his head, then turned and stalked off. The watching crowd parted hurriedly to let him through.

Colon sighed, and scowled.

Sam was his oldest friend, but sometimes he did let the duke thing go to his head.

oOo

Vetinari was seated at his desk when Vimes bowled headfirst into the Oblong Office, pursued by a breathless Drumknott.

“I’m sorry, sir – he wouldn’t stop.”

Of course he wouldn’t, Vetinari thought. He never does.

Vetinari became aware, again, of the solid weight that had been seated in the pit of his stomach since he’d ended things with Vimes. Every time it seemed to be lessening, the man would reappear, and it would redouble.

Amongst other things it was…irritating. And he knew fine well that it was affecting his behaviour, and that was even more irritating.

The Commander had pulled up sharply on seeing who was seated in one of the chairs. Vetinari made a vague gesture at Drumknott. “It’s fine, Drumknott. But please push my next appointment back half an hour, will you.”

“Yes, sir.” The secretary backed out, looking flustered.

Vetinari allowed his eyes to narrow. “Ah. Your Grace. This is an unexpectedly fortuitous appearance, as Lord Selachii here was just informing me that you appear to have arrested his son, James.”

Vimes was looking decidedly red in the face. “Yes, sir. He’s just confessed to murder.”

Vetinari watched as Selachii’s eyebrows went up. “ Confessed, man? I find that hard to believe. There must have been some coercion involved.”

Vimes practically growled. “None needed, sir. Although I’d have gladly provided some if he hadn’t been so bloody happy to tell me all about it.” He looked at Vetinari. “He killed a sixteen year-old boy who put his hand on his sodding leg and tried to kiss him.”

Ah.

Selachii blustered. “Well, then. He was clearly provoked.”

Vetinari narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, however Vimes had exploded before he could get a word out.

“Provoked! Oh, of course; now I can see exactly where the little shit gets his attitude!”

Selachii jumped to his feet. “How bloody dare you. Havelock, are you going to let him speak to me like that?!”

Vetinari closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Commander…”

“Let me…? Bloody let me…? I’m the Duke of fucking Ankh, Selachii, and don’t you and your murderous little family forget that!”

“Vimes!” The word cracked across the air like a whip. Vetinari was standing now, fists balled on his desk.

Vimes whirled to face him. “Oh, now you remember my bloody name! Well? What.”

“Control yourself. Or leave.”

Vimes stared at him. “Right. Protecting your mates again, is it? I should have bloody known.” He spun back and pointed a finger at Selachii. “Your boy is staying in my cells, and then he’s getting put on bloody trial. We can see what the public makes of it all then.” He glared at Vetinari. “I’d expected better of you.”

Selachii opened his mouth to respond, but Vimes was already storming out of the room. He wrenched open the door so hard it rebounded off the wall, and then from the corridor came the sound of plaster cracking.

Vetinari sat back down slowly. Selachii remained standing, face red.

“Thank you, Havelock. I appreciate your support in this. I have to say, though, I think it’s way past time that man had his badge stripped from him. I could smell the bloody drink on him from here. My butler saw him in a damned gutter last week.”

Vetinari stared at him. “I’m confused, my lord. Which part of that interaction suggested I was in support of you?”

Selachii’s eyes bulged. “What? You can’t seriously mean to say you support him? He wants to hang my son! You were at the boy’s name day party not two years ago.”

“Indeed. And if I recall, the boy had to be stopped from beating a member of the wait staff after they spilled wine on his shoe. A lot of repressed rage, I thought, at the time. Well; it seems he has now stopped repressing it.”

Small droplets of spittle were gathering at the corners of the other man’s mouth. “That is neither here nor there!” He stopped, and took a breath before continuing. “You would do well to think about how this will look for you, Havelock, given those rumours that were flying around last year. The public have turned on rulers for less. Especially once a few of the more influential families have made their allegiances clear.”

Vetinari sat back in his chair and waved a hand vaguely. “If that was intended to be a threat, Robert, then you may consider it received. However, treason is a very serious charge, and I would strongly encourage you to consider whether you would like to join your son on the gallows before you make another.” He paused as the other man’s eyes darkened. “You have other sons; some of them, I understand, have completely managed to avoid killing anyone, as yet. Perhaps they are where you should put your focus.”

Selachii had gone very, very still. “This is not over, Havelock.”

“I’m sure. However, I’m afraid this conversation, at least, is. Good day, my lord.”

The other man turned and stalked out of the room.

Vetinari sighed. Thirty seconds later, Drumknott knocked hesitantly and entered.

“Would you mind signing the chitty for the plasterer, sir? I’d taken him off the retainer since it had been so long since we’d needed him.”

Vetinari held out a hand, and Drumknott passed him a sheet of paper. He scrawled a neat signature at the bottom, then stared at it for a moment.

“Where did he go, when he left?”

“Back towards the Yard, sir.”

“Good.” He handed the slip back to the secretary. “Have someone keep an eye on him, will you? From a distance, of course.”

“Are you worried about assassination, sir?”

Vetinari narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps. He’s still officially off the books with the guild, but Robert is a man who does not stand to be crossed. He may take matters into his own hands.”

“Ah. Yes, sir.” Drumknott went off to see to it, and after a moment Vetinari opened a drawer and pulled out a letter. Things appeared to be coming to a head with Vimes. Perhaps it was time to check in on the progress of his side project.

Vetinari tapped a finger slowly on the desk, and made plans.

oOo

Vimes stormed back into the station. “Is he out of my damned cells?”

There was a sudden emptying of the room as every copper in there suddenly realised they should have been out on patrol twenty minutes ago.

Colon found himself alone at his desk, and looked up cautiously. “Yes, Sam. Locked up tight in the Tanty. No one’ll get to him in there.”

“Good. Keep him there. I don’t care who bloody turns up and tells you otherwise; understand?”

Colon nodded. “Yessir.”

“Right.” Vimes started pacing, and after a minute Colon got up and put the kettle on. Once he had a couple of mugs of tea brewed, he handed one to the other man. Vimes stopped and accepted it with a grunt of thanks, then took a mouthful.

Colon waited until the anger had dropped off the man a bit, then braved a question. “What did his Lordship say?”

Vimes shook his head. “Not much. I think he’s hanging me out to dry on this one, Fred.”

“Ah. What are you going to do, then?”

Vimes sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know.” He looked up, some of the rage returning. “I’m not bloody dropping it, though.”

Colon held up his hands in a placatory gesture. “No, I can see that.” He paused, and looked around the empty station. “This one seems to have got under your skin.”

Vimes opened his mouth to argue, but there was no point; this case had burrowed into him like a tick. And he knew exactly why it had, but it wasn’t a reason he could give Colon.

Suddenly the anger was back in full force; anger at Selachii and Colon and all the other men like them, who meant Vimes woke up every day with a thin streak of shame running through him.

Anger with Vetinari, who didn’t seem to have that shame, but who had still cast Vimes aside so bloody easily.

But mostly anger with himself, for being a damned coward; because every day he let that shame win.

The tea, sweet as it was, suddenly tasted bitter in his mouth. He put the cup down hard on the desk and straightened.

“I’m going out on patrol.”

Colon glanced at him dubiously. “That a good idea, Sam? You know how you get sometimes, when you’re in this kind of mood.” He hesitated. “You sure you don’t want to hang around downstairs, instead?”

“No. Not tonight, Fred.” He saw the look of worry in the other man’s face. “I’ll be fine.”

Colon clearly wasn’t convinced, perhaps because he knew just how many pubs and bars there were in the city.

Vimes knew too; two hundred and twenty-eight. But there was only one he was interested in tonight.

He headed out into the early evening air.

oOo

Vimes did a full lap of his old beat, first, proceeding down to the river and across the bridge to skirt where the city became the Shades, stopping occasionally to smoke a cigar under an archway when the rain got particularly heavy. Then he walked Carrot’s beat, and then Angua’s, but the walk did nothing to settle that nagging little voice inside his head.

It was dark when he finally found himself on Pewter Street, looking for a particular entrance that he would absolutely deny looking for if asked. Halfway along the street was a narrow alley, and he slipped down it, trying to ignore the smell that came up to greet him*. He stopped outside a discreet black door.

The name - Molly’s – was engraved on a small copper plaque in the centre of the wood. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d have walked right past it, and that was exactly how the patrons liked it. Of course, the watch knew all about these kinds of places, tucked away in quiet alleys across the city and catering to some of the more… niche needs of the population. Generally, though, they rarely had cause to visit, since the clientele were so averse to contact with the law that they were effectively self-policing, which was an approach Vetinari was entirely in favour of since it gave him an excuse to keep the watch budget down.

Vimes hesitated outside the door and looked around, but the rain had cleared the streets and there was no one to see him. He ducked inside.

The interior was gloomy, even by Ankh-Morpork standards, but the atmosphere held a distinctive air; red velvet and old oak and hushed conversations. He hesitated, letting his eyes adjust, and realised that every other occupant of the half-full bar was watching him from the shadows. Their gaze followed him cautiously as he shook off the rain and threaded his way through the tables to the bar. He took a seat.

The barman looked him up and down, clocking the uniform, and cleared his throat. “We don’t want any trouble, mister.”

Vimes was aware that the conversation around him had stopped. “I’m not here for trouble. Just a drink.” He spoke just loudly enough for his voice to carry across the room.

The barman looked around at the other drinkers, then nodded. “Alright. What can I get you?”

Conversation resumed, cautiously. Vimes looked at the array of bottles on the back wall. “Whisky.”

It arrived with an umbrella. Vimes stared at it for a minute, then raised an eyebrow at the barman, who shrugged. He picked it out and twirled the stick between the fingers of one hand, watching the colours spin as he swigged the whisky.

Four drinks later, the room had taken on a decidedly soft tint. The conversation around him had grown louder, and he’d managed a few surreptitious glances at the clientele. Everyone looked human, broadly, but he realised that the small handful of people he had taken for ladies were, on closer inspection, not.

It was very much a Gentleman’s Club.

He was lining up his growing collection of paper umbrellas along the bar with a finger when he became aware of a figure sitting down beside him.

“Hello,” the figure said.

Vimes looked up, narrowing his eyes in an attempt to focus. The man looked to be in his thirties; lean, well dressed, clean shaven and with a face that might be called handsome by the charitable and interesting by the honest. Despite this, he had a confidence about him that made his appearance seem low down the list of important attributes, and Vimes found his curiosity reluctantly piqued. He felt something inside him rebel, but with a grim determination he squashed the dissenting voice down.

“Evening.”

The man was watching him carefully. “Can I get you a drink…?”

Vimes looked across at the barman, who was also watching the pair with one hand resting lightly on something just out of sight beneath the countertop. Evidently the man was protective of his regulars, and Vimes supposed he was still an unknown quantity. He had no desire to get acquainted with the Barkeeper’s Friend.

He grunted. “Sure. Whisky.”

The man nodded at the barman and Vimes’ drink appeared. He tipped him a thanks, then fished out the umbrella and took a sip. The man watched him swallow with an expression that was distantly and painfully familiar, and something inside Vimes stirred. He swallowed again, slowly.

“I’ve not seen you in here before, have I?” the man said.

Vimes cleared his throat. “No. Not my usual haunt. You here often, then?”

The man grinned at some private joke, and took a sip of his own drink, which appeared to be some kind of cocktail. “Fairly often. It’s a bit quiet for me. But there’s not exactly many other options, and you do get interesting people in here, sometimes.”

Vimes raised an eyebrow. “Interesting?”

“Yes. Interesting.” He paused. “Watchmen, for example.”

Vimes swilled the rest of his drink around in the glass. “What’s so interesting about watchmen?”

“All sorts of things.” The man’s lips twitched into another smile, and he dropped his voice. “They bring their own handcuffs, for a start.”

Vimes had taken another mouthful of whisky, and now nearly spit it across the bar. Rather than waste it he instead forced himself to swallow, and then coughed as the man laughed.

After a minute of spluttering he managed to get himself together again, and then turned and stared at the man. “How many of my watchmen have shown you their bloody handcuffs, exactly?”

“Oh. Your watchmen, are they? Who are you, then? The Duke of Ankh?” The man had a glint in his eye, and seemed to have moved closer. His knee brushed up against the inside of Vimes’ thigh.

Vimes reddened and waved a hand vaguely. “You know what I mean.”

“Hm. Just a couple. Very memorable experiences, though. I’d be interested in having a few more, for the sake of comparison.”

Vimes felt a hand come to rest cautiously on his knee.

He wondered if this was a bad idea. Well, scratch that; he knew it was a bad idea, he just wasn’t sure which of the many reasons it was bad was the worst.

You’re the Duke of Ankh, he thought hazily. Do you really want to open yourself up to more blackmail?

Except, would it…? What could they threaten him with, now?

He didn’t have to worry about his wife finding out. Alright, they weren’t divorced, yet, so he supposed it would still be considered cheating, technically. And admittedly that ‘technically’ didn’t feel like a particularly good excuse, but the buzz of the whisky and the hand on his knee made it feel good enough.

He also doubted Vetinari could sack him from being a duke, although the thought didn’t seem too worrisome, anyway, at the present moment. He’d never been very good at the diplomatic stuff. He certainly wouldn’t miss the tights.

Could he lose command of the Watch? That might hurt. But what was the worst that might happen, then? He could always go back to being a beat copper. Some of his happiest moments had been scrunching down beneath his helmet, alone in the rain at 3am.

Damage to his reputation? He’d lost that the first time he’d picked up a drink in public again.

The realisation that he had nothing left to lose came with a startling sensation of freedom, then a thumb stroked softly across the inside of his knee, and he tried to remember when it was he’d last been touched.

It also, then, occurred to him to wonder what Vetinari would think, if he were to find out he’d gone home with this interesting man who seemed very much to want to spend some time with him.

Was that another reason this was a bad idea?

He blinked. The man was watching him curiously. Vimes swallowed down the rest of his drink and then cleared his throat.

“Do you have somewhere we can go?”

The man looked surprised, but pleased. “Yes.”

Vimes pulled out a handful of coins and put them down on the bar, then stood, squashing down the rising feeling of anxiety. “Alright. Come on, then.”

The man followed him out, and the barkeeper watched them leave.

oOo

A gala at the palace was the absolute last thing Sybil had wanted to attend, but as it was being held to celebrate the opening of the new wing at the Lady Sybil Free Hospital, her absence would have certainly been noted and gossiped about far more than turning up, doing the rounds and then sneaking away before midnight would be. She had therefore donned a dress that now hung a little too loosely and heels that she hadn’t worn since marrying Sam, and was determined to make a jolly good show of it.

It was, however, her first social engagement without him; or at least, without knowing that he would have been beside her if he hadn’t been out catching dangerous criminals, which was the usual reason for her attending these things alone. It was very different, she mused, coming solo when you knew it was a temporary inconvenience, rather than a most-likely-permanent state of affairs.

Not that they were divorced yet, of course. Neither of them had been quite brave enough to start down that road, despite her lawyer’s increasingly frequent admonishments.

But she could hear the whispers, and feel the looks, and if she had crept off to a quiet corner once or twice throughout the evening to have a little cry, before pulling herself together and going back out to smile and charm, well then that was no one else's damned business.

Now she glanced up at the clock from her position on the edge of the crowd, and decided to tolerate one more dance before making her escape. 

“Good evening, Lady Sybil.”

She froze at the familiar tone, and then Vetinari was beside her, staring out at the crowd. 

“Oh. Good evening, Havelock.”

“I am pleased to see you here. I wasn’t certain you would attend.” He sounded hesitant, she thought, and it irritated her.

“Can’t hide away forever,” she said. “As much as one may wish to.”

“Quite.” They watched the dancers silently for a moment, and then he turned to her. “Would you care for a dance?”

She pressed her lips together. “Not particularly, if I’m being honest. But I can practically feel Miss Cripslock making notes from here, so I suppose it might help the rumours if we do.”

Vetinari gave a fleeting smile. “My thoughts precisely, my lady.” He held out a hand and she took it, then followed him out onto the floor where a space cleared for them as if by magic.

They settled into the familiar pattern of moves. How many times had she danced with Havelock, over the years? Probably many more than she had danced with Sam, actually. She had known Havelock far longer, for a start, and Sam had hated dancing.

He used to do it to make her happy, though, and she flattened the memory down before allowing it to take hold. 

She turned her attention back to Havelock. He had been keeping his distance since the whole thing with Sam, despite her attempts to get them all together to discuss things. Since they had split she had barely seen him at all. As he led her carefully around the floor to the beat, she realised that she had missed him. 

“How have you been, Havelock?” she asked.

He looked as though he was considering how to respond, although his footwork never faltered. “It is fair to say it has been a challenging year, my lady. However, I suspect you would say the same.” He paused. “And I am sorry, for that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What, precisely, are you sorry for?”

His brow furrowed a fraction, and she noticed a few more lines that had appeared around his eyes and on his forehead, and some grey hairs at his temple that she was sure hadn’t been there before. He felt thinner, too, under the places her hands lay. 

“I have caused a lot of pain, with my actions. It was unintentional, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that might make any difference to the people I harmed.”

She sighed, and wondered again how it had ever come about that women were the ones to develop a reputation for being emotional. “Well, that is certainly a very dramatic and self-pitying interpretation of events.”

He blinked in surprise. “You would disagree…?”

“Yes. You merely expressed a desire, Havelock. Sam shared it, and I agreed that you might explore it. The fact that it didn’t work out is just…one of those things. Neither of you behaved badly and I am certainly not some…some paragon of innocence, here. My marriage failed for lots of reasons; many, it may surprise you, entirely unrelated to you.” 

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “That is a very… pragmatic view, my lady.”

“And it is an extremely hard won view, too. If we’d been having this conversation six months ago there is a decent chance I would have put you through the damned window. Thankfully, I have had lots of time to reflect.”

“Ah.” He gave a ghost of a smile. “I fear it is not a view shared by the commander.”

She peered at him. “Has he spoken to you at all?”

“Not about anything other than work. He refuses to be in a room with me unless forced to by virtue of a guild meeting, or other such event. Never alone.” He sighed. “I had failed to anticipate the extent of his stubbornness, I think.”

She grinned. “Ah. A grave error, yet easily done, given the size of it.” She paused and watched him closely for a minute, then said, “What exactly went on between you two, in the end?” Seeing his expression, she added, “Sam never told me the details.”

Vetinari looked briefly pained. “Our relationship was putting you both at risk. I could not in good conscience continue it.”

Sybil frowned. “Did you get Sam’s opinion on it, before you decided that?”

He raised an eyebrow. “No. He was not in possession of all the facts. His assessment of the risk would have been flawed.”

“Good gods, Havelock. For a master of manipulation you really are quite terrible at it when it comes to people you care about, aren’t you? Are you seriously telling me it didn’t occur to you to try to give him all the facts and allow him to come to that conclusion by himself? Were you so determined to be blamed for it all?”

They moved to the music for a few more bars, until finally the patrician put his head to one side. “Apparently so. However, there was an…additional factor, that complicated matters.”

“Which was?”

“You, my lady.”

For a moment she wasn’t sure what to say. “Me? But I was supportive.” Even as it bloody killed me.

“Yes. But I’m afraid I found myself wanting more from your husband than I was ultimately willing to cost him.”

Sybil tried to unpick that for a minute as they danced. “You…you were jealous ? Of me?”

“Of what you had. It was…not my proudest moment.”

“Ha! Yes. I dare say you didn’t enjoy that. I know how you feel about having normal human emotions, Havelock.” She grinned at his grimace of distaste.

“In any event,” he replied, “it is done now. I regret that it seems to have contributed to his current disposition, however.”

Sybil’s grin vanished, and she sighed. “I fear that was more me than you, in the end. I know he’d struggled, since you ended things with him; I saw him battle with himself every time the wine came out. I had hoped he wouldn’t go back over when he left, but from what I can gather he’s drinking again.”

“Yes. I was aware.”

She looked at him curiously. “I presume you’re keeping an eye on him?”

Vetinari looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“Good. Someone needs to. He has such a self-destructive streak, sometimes.”

Vetinari made a noise of agreement. “Unfortunately, when Sam Vimes becomes self-destructive, there tends to be…collateral damage.”

Sybil narrowed her eyes. “You?”

“If certain factions have their way, yes.”

Her eyes crinkled with concern. “Will you be alright?”

Vetinari flashed her a sharp smile, and the final bars of the music died away. “Time will tell, my lady.”

They were interrupted by Drumknott, who murmured into Vetinari’s ear for a minute. She thought she saw his eyes flash darkly for a split second, and then he narrowed them. 

“Thank you for the dance, madam. I’m afraid I have something to take care of, however.”

Sybil tilted her head in a farewell, and Vetinari disappeared off into the crowd, followed by the little secretary. 

She sighed, and made her own escape out of the back door before anyone else noticed.

oOo

Several hours later - and on the other side of the city - Sam Vimes lay down in a gutter, looked up at the stars, and sang himself to sleep.

*Dibbler had once tried to bottle and sell that smell as part of a range called Scents of the City; he’d finally accepted defeat when an unlucky buyer had gotten a whiff and passed out cold in front of Lord Vetinari’s coach. Vetinari had taken one look at the poor figure before having the entire range classified as a biological weapon, and destroyed. 

Chapter Text

Late the next day, Sybil stirred her tea and watched Young Sam play on the floor of the parlour. He was currently focussed on pouring water from one bowl into another with a wooden tumbler carved inexpertly into the shape of a frog. He was doing so with rather more enthusiasm than skill, and she feared the rug was going to be waterlogged by the time he got bored. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to stop him.

Guilt turned one extremely permissive, it seemed.

She sighed, and glanced up at the clock. It was 5.44pm.

At 5.45pm precisely, there was the sound of the front door opening. Her heart leapt briefly in her chest as her husband walked in, and she quickly smothered the feeling and plastered on a practised half-smile.

As he did every visit, Vimes crossed the room and gave her a quick peck on her proffered cheek. Tonight he was also carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper, and he set it down beside her chair. Up close she thought he looked awful, and she couldn’t help but smell the alcohol on him, but she pushed the knowledge down to worry about later as he dropped to his knees on the rug and swept his son into his arms.

“Da!”

Vimes squeezed and the boy laughed and upended the contents of the frog tumbler onto his father. Vimes gave an exaggerated yell and shook himself as he dropped him to the floor, and while the pair laughed together Sybil wondered again if she would ever be fully convinced that she’d done the right thing for both of them.

Sometimes she missed this so badly it burned.

“How are you?” she asked, politely.

He shrugged, and didn’t look at her. “Fine. Got a new case; one of the Selachii boys.” He filled the frog with water and handed it to Young Sam, who moved to tip it directly onto the rug. Vimes winced and grabbed it. “In the bowl, son. That’s it.”

Sybil blinked. “Oh. James, I imagine?”

Vimes grunted. “Yep. Beat a boy to death.”

She put her head to one side. “Deborah Willoughby’s boy? Douglas?”

Vimes looked over at her now. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Ah. She didn’t attend the gala last night, and someone suggested there was something nasty going on.” She watched as Young Sam pushed himself to his feet and tottered over to pick up his toy sword. She pressed her lips together. “That’s unfortunate. His older brother was in the regiments. Died in one of those ridiculous skirmishes in Borogravia, or some such place.”

Vimes grimaced. “I know. I talked to her.”

Of course he had. It was his job to talk to them; to be the one to tell the grieving parents that now their youngest son – the son they’d pinned their remaining hopes and dreams and love on – was lying on a slab in the cold room at the Yard. She could see so easily the damage such a job could do, particularly if you were as sensitive as Sam, although he would deny that particular attribute until his own dying day.

She raised an eyebrow. “How is Robert taking it?”

Vimes frowned. “Hired Slant and then went running straight to the palace.”

“That’s not a surprise, I suppose. The urge to protect your children is strong, even when they’re…troubled. What did Havelock say?” She decided against mentioning she’d spoken to him at the party.

He shrugged. Young Sam was hitting the frog tumbler with the sword now. “Not much.” There was a long pause, then Vimes said, vaguely, “He murdered the lad for trying to kiss him.”

“Oh…oh, dear.” Sybil wasn’t sure how to respond, but she suspected she now at least had some context for the whisky on his breath. “That will shake the society pages when it comes out.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing. This bloody city could use some shaking up.”

Sybil mused on the idea. Ankh Morpork was still reasonably entrenched in the prejudices of the past, although there were more brave souls living openly these days than she ever remembered before. It was still a risky time, though. Sam and Havelock had had the advantage of privilege to protect them, should they have been caught out in a way they were unable to issue a convincing denial for, but you still heard of plenty of people in the poorer classes who might take a beating for the same behaviour. The members of the ruling classes might take more of a social beating. 

They sat quietly for a while, watching Young Sam repeatedly whack the frog with the sword. After a minute, Vimes seemed to remember something. He nodded at the parcel he had brought.

“Got him something, to go with the bloo…that sword.”

She picked it up and unwrapped it; it was a wooden shield, perfectly child sized and painted with the Ramkin family crest. “Oh, look at what daddy has brought you, Sam!”

The boy wandered over, and Vimes helped him slip the shield over his arm. “There you go. Now you can defend yourself as well as attack.” The boy grinned up at him.

The clock on the mantle started to chime six pm. Vimes stood up and grabbed Sam under the arms, swinging him into the air and dodging the armaments. “Bedtime, sonny boy. What are we reading tonight?”

“Where my COOOWWW!”

Vimes gave a theatrical sigh. “Not again.”

“YEEEESSS!”

“Alright, alright. If you insist.”

Sam cackled victoriously.

Sybil smiled up at them. “Will you stay for some supper, after, Sam?”

Vimes grimaced. “Not tonight. Tomorrow, maybe?”

“Of course.” She hesitated. “Like I say; you’re always welcome. If you need…anything.”

A place to go that isn’t a bar. She felt better for knowing Havelock was keeping an eye on him, though.

He grunted an acknowledgement, and then carried the wriggling child up to bed.

Sybil sighed, and went to find something to dry the damned rug with.

oOo

Vimes left Scoone Avenue feeling the same as he always did after a visit; tired, miserable, and vaguely like he’d been hollowed out.

It was getting easier, he supposed. Every closing of the door behind him during that first month had been as painful as swallowing glass. Now it was…manageable.

And the sad fact of it was that he wasn’t really seeing much less of Young Sam, because work had always kept him away from the house and when he had been there, half of his mind had always been on the job. Now he popped in every night for bedtime, and spent a few hours there three or four times a week around the job, and it worked.

Sybil had looked awful, to start with, but even she seemed to be doing better, recently.

He just needed to get a grip on the bloody drink again, now. He’d seen her nose wrinkle when he got close and felt that shame cut deep, too.

As if in response, indistinct images flashed into his mind of the night before; wandering, grasping hands, the rasp of stubble…soft noises, muffled against flesh.

Familiar sensations that were still, somehow, new. Not unpleasant, certainly, but...different.

He pushed the memories away, grimacing. Definitely time to cut out the booze again.

The Yard was quiet when he slipped inside, and got quieter as soon as the lurking coppers caught wind of his arrival. He ignored the whispers and headed up to the small room he’d technically been living in since the breakup, and quickly emptied the half bottle of Bearhuggers he had stashed away there down the sink. Then he opened the windows, letting the cold evening air freshen the room. Feeling better, he went to his office to make a start on some paperwork.

There was a small pile of letters on his desk that he was fairly sure hadn’t been there a few days ago. He could tell by looking at them that they were going to give him a headache; the envelopes were the kind Sybil used, made of heavy paper specially designed to protect their contents from being readable by the pleb delivering it even if held up to the strongest light. His name on the front of each was written in a neat copperplate that screamed private education and raised his hackles immediately. 

Scowling, he ripped open the first one, and scanned it. Feeling his blood pressure rise, he read the three underneath as well, although he needn’t have bothered because the letters within were almost identical in phrasing. He counted the rest; six in total. 

Six noble families, whose combined individual net worth rivalled that of the city itself, had written to him to demand the immediate release of James Selachii. 

Vimes stared at the letters for a while and made a careful note of the signatories, then wandered over to the fire smouldering in the grate and carefully filed them on top of it.

Back on the desk, Carrot had sorted the rest of his paperwork into piles, and on top of one was a note written in the captain's determined scrawl. It said James Selachii was required at the Palace two days hence, to answer to the charge of murder.

Vimes sat heavily in his chair, and stared at the note for a long time until his thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Colon was standing there with a gently steaming mug.

“Coffee, sir?”

“Thanks, Fred.”

The sergeant came in and Vimes watched him cast a glance over his desk in what he probably thought was a surreptitious manner.

“I’m sober, Fred. Don’t worry.”

Colon put the mug down and then hovered uncertainly above it. “Sorry, Sam. But some of the lads are a bit worried, you know?”

Vimes took a sip of the coffee. “I know. I’m getting a hold on it though. Honest.”

Colon looked around the room again, clearly troubled. “You’d been doing pretty well, recently, we thought. But someone said they’d seen you last night…”

Seen him? What? Vimes' eyes widened as he tried to remember the walk back to the stranger’s house from the bar. What had they been doing?

 “Who saw me? Where?”

Fred shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t really matter who, does it? But they said you were weaving around all over the place. About four-ish.”

Four? He felt relief wash over him. That was… after, then. He would have been alone. He felt his pulse settle again, and then, once more, the shame reared its head.

Why should it bloody matter who he was with?

He gave a grunt. “Right. Yeah. Alright. It’s just…everything. Sybil. This case. James bloody Selachii.”

The other man winced. “Is there still no chance of working it out with Sybil? Seem’s a right shame, that.”

“No. Even if we both wanted it, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do, I don’t think. It’s complicated. We’re better off as we are.” He shrugged. 

Colon frowned. “If you say so, Sam.” He hesitated. “What is it about James Selachii that’s got you so bent out of shape, then?”

Vimes took another mouthful of the coffee and wondered how to answer. Fred was his oldest friend, but Vimes had never breathed a word about any of this stuff to him and he wasn’t sure he wanted to start now.

It wasn’t that Fred Colon was a bad man. He simply had Ideas-with-a-capital-I about the world, and they were mostly the same Ideas his dad had held, and his dad before him, and the Fred Colons of the world seemed to be able to go through life without ever having to have an original thought of their own. 

Why should they, when they’d inherited all the ones they’d ever need?

Occasionally, though, some rare person might be able to introduce a new Idea that could take tentative root and then, hopefully, sprout; Vimes had a vague understanding that he was one of those people for Fred. He’d almost completely managed to get the man to stop using the word raghead after the Leshp business, for instance.

Did that mean it fell to him to educate him about all this stuff, though? He wasn’t sure he wanted that job; it sounded bloody exhausting.

But the alternative seemed to be that Fred would forever hold the Idea that only a very particular type of Man liked other Men in the way that most Men liked Women, and that these Men didn’t deserve the protection of the law; that these Men might be murdered, and it could be brushed under the carpet because it was, ultimately, Their Own Fault Really.

He realised belatedly that the list he'd made the night before - of everything he had to lose - had been incomplete; there was also the possibility that making any kind of confession would be the equivalent of throwing a fistful of number one powder and a lit match into his oldest friendship.

He took another mouthful of coffee and stared off across the room while he debated how much of himself he was willing to risk. And then he wondered how long a man could live a lie before it ate him away entirely, and then he thought about three decades of friendship and what that was worth.

Fred watched him patiently.

Finally, he gave a heavy sigh.

Screw it.

“Because, Fred,” he said, “a long time ago, I was Douglas Willoughby.”

The other man frowned blankly. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, back when I was sixteen it was me getting my arse kicked for falling for the wrong person.” He paused. “The wrong type of person.”

He could practically see Fred’s mind working. He took another swig of coffee, and didn’t interrupt, lest he disturb some complicated mental process that destabilised the whole operation. Eventually, the sergeant opened and closed his mouth a few times, then said, “What, like…a bloke?”

“Yes, Fred.”

Colon appeared to be sweating again. “But you’re not…you got married. You’ve got a kid.”

Vimes shrugged. “Yep. I like women. I loved Sybil. But…I like men, too.” He hesitated, then out of honesty added, “Some men, anyway. Not many, mind.” 

He watched Colon process this, and felt a curious mixture of emotions. Now the words were out – and he realised it was the first time he’d said them, explicitly, out loud – he felt like a man setting out a picnic beside an active volcano. But underneath the anxiety, too, was a feeling of elation at having said it, because it made it all feel real in a way it hadn’t before now; even when he was sneaking around with Vetinari.

Colon looked like he was struggling, though, and Vimes took pity on him. “You can sit down, if you want, Fred.”

The sergeant didn’t so much sit as fall into one of the chairs. Vimes took it as a good sign that he hadn’t immediately left, although that might still be an option, he supposed, once the shock had worn off.

Finally, Fred focussed on him. “All this time, and you never said anything?” He frowned. “All those nights on patrol together.”

Vimes hesitated. “Can you blame me, Fred? It’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to shout from the bloody rooftops. Was liable to get my bloody head kicked in. Or worse.” He shrugged. “And anyway, it took a while to figure out. Properly, anyway.”

Fred didn’t seem too happy about that, but didn’t question it. Instead, he drummed his fingers on his leg, and said, “Right. So. Which, er… men…have you…?”

Vimes raised an eyebrow. “You asking if I’ve ever fancied you, Fred?”

“What?! No!” The sergeant's face had gone red, and Vimes felt slightly bad for the teasing.

“Okay, okay. I’m kidding. But I’m not going to get into all that, if it's all the same to you. There was one, in particular, but let’s just say the men have worked out about as well as the women, for me.”

Fred looked at him with suspicion. “Is that why Sybil kicked you out? Did she find out?”

Ah. “No. She’s known for a long time.”

“And she was alright with it?”

Vimes shrugged. “Yep. Gods love her.”

“Huh.” Fred stared back off into space for a while, and after a minute Vimes cleared his throat.

“This doesn’t change anything, Fred. I’m still just…me.”

“Right. Right.” But then Colon stood up, and Vimes saw a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before.

Shit.

The sergeant cleared his throat. “I mean, it’s a modern world, I s’pose. Some of the dwarf lads have been playin’ around with makeup and whatnot, I hear.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m glad you told me. I just…” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to say, really. Sir.”

Gods. He’d been holding himself ready, expecting the conversation to go badly whilst hoping against hope Fred would surprise him, and he knew damned well it could have gone much worse…but still; the reaction stung. Vimes set his jaw and gave a half shrug. “That’s alright, Fred. Just do me a favour and keep it to yourself, for now, will you?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” He paused. “I s’pose I can see why you’re so set on the Selachii kid seeing justice, then. It’s like, personal.”

“Yeah, it is. But it's also the right bloody thing, Fred. The law applies to everyone, and it should protect everyone. Not just the ones who…fit right.”

Fred gave a vague nod, but still didn’t look convinced. Vimes sighed, and tilted his head towards the door. “Dare say you’ve got work to be getting on with?”

“Yessir,” Fred said, and then before Vimes could say anything else the sergeant was heading down the stairs with the kind of speed he usually reserved for hearing Nobby arrive with the morning doughnuts.

Vimes looked at the pile of paperwork, and rubbed a hand tiredly across his face. He knew at least two of the men kept bottles of liquor in their lockers, and the locks were damned easy to pick.

He could still taste traces of the night before and it was so easy, once you’d slipped, to keep sliding. Because this week was already a write off, wasn’t it? There was no point climbing back onto the wagon on a Tuesday. He could try again next week.

A couple of nips would be enough to deal with the dull headache that was starting – the hangover of the hangover. And it would settle his nerves.

Gods knew he’d earned it, after that conversation with Colon.

And so Vimes talked himself into drinking one small excuse at a time, and his hand was rooting through his desk drawer for his lockpicks when his eyes came to rest on an object, half buried under a mound of paper. He stopped rummaging in the drawer and shifted the pile.

The iconograph was of himself, with Young Sam balanced precariously on his shoulders and holding tightly to his hair. It was a nice picture, in a frame that had apparently been decorated by the boy, although Vimes had his doubts about that since he’d spent the last year trying to persuade the child that paint went on the paper and not into the mouth or onto the walls. It had been a gift from Sybil, for his birthday.

He was suddenly hit with the stark realisation that his son deserved a better father.

Tears sprung to his eyes, and he wiped them angrily. Feeling abruptly like a caged animal, he stood up and paced the room as anger flowed over him, making his blood boil and his wrist itch. When pacing didn’t settle him he lashed out, planting a fist into the nearest noticeboard and putting a crack between the bulletins pinned there, then when that still didn’t satisfy the beast he spun and swept the piles of paperwork off the desk and onto the floor. He stood in the middle of the mess, paper drifting down around him, gritting his teeth and breathing heavily.

Anyone watching might have thought he was angry at himself, and he was, a little. But the truth was that the worst of the anger was aimed squarely at the universe, because all he wanted right now was a damned drink, and he couldn’t bloody have one without letting his son down.

It wasn’t fair.

He raged silently at the universe and the universe, in its ineffable vastness, ignored him. Eventually the adrenaline ebbed as he stood there looking at the mess, and he was left feeling numb. Embarrassment crept over him and he grabbed the papers off the floor and dumped them back on the desk.

Did he still want a drink?

Yes.

Right. He slammed the desk drawer closed and stormed out of the room. Colon had disappeared and the big office was empty, so he grabbed the keys to the cells off their hook and let himself downstairs, ignoring the lockers as he passed them. Without allowing himself to think about it he walked into an empty cell, locked the door behind him, and tossed the keys across the room to land on the currently unoccupied custody officer’s desk.

Then he breathed out.

He immediately regretted not bringing a cup of coffee in with him, or some supper, but if he’d waited long enough to sort it the coffee would have been spiked and the supper would have been liquid.

Fred would bring him something, maybe.

…if Fred was still willing to be in a room alone with him, when he came back.

Vimes sighed, laid down on the cell bunk, and decided to try to get some sleep. 

Tomorrow was another day.

oOo

He tossed and turned half the night, but had managed to get into a decent sleep by five am and this time the awakening was far ruder, because someone had barged in loudly and was shaking his shoulder.

“Sir? Wake up, sir. You’re needed at the Palace.”

He grunted without opening his eyes. “No, I’m definitely not.”

“Mister Vimes, someone’s stabbed Lord Vetinari!”

Vimes’ eyes flew open and he sat bold upright on the bunk.

“What?! It wasn’t me!”

Nobby looked confused. “Didn’t think it was, sir.”

He blinked. “Seems like the kind of thing I might be bloody accused of, is all. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Well to be fair, sir, you did confess last time.”

Vimes felt they were getting rapidly off topic. “Look. Whatever. Is he - ” He hesitated, feeling his stomach drop so far it threatened to fall out through his feet. “Is he alive?”

“Yes, sir. He’s in a bad way, though. Dr Lawn is with him.”

A dart of terror pierced his chest, and Vimes flung himself up and charged out of the cell. Nobby ran to keep up, then had to stop for breath at the top of the stairs.

“Cheery’s waitin’ for you in the coach with her kit, sir,” he called after Vimes. The other man waved an acknowledgement and grabbed his coat off the hook on his way, and was dimly aware of the whole station staring at him as he swung it on and stalked out.

The coach outside was Vetinari’s. He jumped in, startling Cheery, and the driver cracked the whip before giving him time to sit. He fell into the seat beside the dwarf and steadied himself.

“What do we know, Corporal?”

Cheery looked grim. “Not much, sir. Mister Drumknott sent the coach and a runner. He just said we were needed and that Lord Vetinari was found seriously injured following the attack.”

“Nobby said it was a stabbing?”

“Apparently. Though Mister Drumknott didn’t say who did it, or when it happened.”

“Ha. I presume that’s what we’re needed for.” He grimaced. Another bloody assassination attempt. But was this one political, or personal?

He recalled the note on his desk last night. James Selachii’s hearing was meant to be starting tomorrow; that seemed like a hell of a coincidence.

Vimes sat back and tried to get a grip on the panic that kept rising - unbidden and unwelcome - whenever he thought about what might await him at the palace. It wouldn’t do any good to worry about it.

He worried about it the whole way, anyway.

oOo

The atmosphere inside the palace was heavy, and Vimes felt it close in around him like an overbearing mother as he and Cheery moved swiftly up the stairs. Vetinari’s quarters were next to the Oblong Office, because he didn’t see the point of them being anywhere else.

Two guards were standing on the door, and they scrutinised Vimes and Cheery intently before allowing them in. Inside, Drumknott was sitting at a desk in the Patrician’s small private parlour, looking pale. The door to the bedroom was closed.

“How is he?” Vimes didn’t mess around with pleasantries.

“Unconscious. I found him in his office two hours ago, on the floor.” He swallowed hard. “There was a lot of blood. I summoned help, and Dr Lawn attended and has sewn up the worst of the injuries. The blood loss was the main worry, it appears.” He saw Vimes’ expression and added, “My immediate concern was his wellbeing. I’m afraid contacting the Watch wasn’t my first priority.”

Vimes frowned and glanced up at the clock. “Fine. So, six-ish? Anyone seen coming in or out?”

“No. I have sequestered the staff who were on duty in the ballroom, however.” He paused, then added, drily, “Just like last time. Although I suppose you weren’t here on that occasion, were you, Commander?”

Vimes felt heat in his cheeks. Last time he’d been in the cells, drunk as a skunk and confessing to a murder that hadn’t actually happened. He grunted noncommittally. “I need to see him.”

Drumknott frowned. “He is unconscious, Commander. He isn’t going to be able to give you a statement.”

“Oh, is that what unconscious means…? I thought I might ask him to tell me whodunnit through the medium of interpretive-bloody-dance.” He grinned humourlessly. “There might be evidence on the…around his injuries.”

Vimes wondered briefly if the man was about to refuse to let him in, in which case he wasn’t entirely convinced he wouldn’t be getting himself dragged out by the guards. He still wasn’t sure what Drumknott had known about his and Vetinari’s relationship, and, since the man was largely employed for his ability to be discreet, his demeanour wasn’t giving anything away. Vimes was fully prepared to pull the second-most-powerful-man-in-the-city card and bully his way in, if needed, but then the secretary sighed.

“Very well.”

He moved to the bedroom door and held it open for them. Vimes entered first and grimaced at the smell of medicinal alcohol that permeated everything. Cheery trailed in after him, and Drumknott followed them both at a cautious distance.

The curtains were closed and the room was dimly lit by candles. Lawn was standing at Vetinari’s side, taking his pulse, and he looked up at their entrance.

“Ah, Commander. We really must stop meeting like this.”

“You’re tellin’ me, doc.” Behind him, Vimes heard Cheery bite back a soft gasp as she took in the frail looking figure beneath the covers. He walked over and stood on the opposite side of the bed to Lawn, trying hard to ignore the familiarity of the room and resisting the urge to reach out and touch the man before him. He cleared his throat. “He going to live?”

Lawn looked at Vimes carefully. “Yes. I think so. He’s very weak, though. He may not wake up for some time.”

Vimes acknowledged this with a grunt, and then finally forced himself to look properly at the figure in the bed.

Vetinari was always pale, but now his visible skin looked virtually translucent. His breathing was shallow and slightly too fast, and there was a sheen of sweat on his brow.

Vimes felt something inside him twist as he looked down at him, and he wrestled it down. “Can we see his injuries?”

Lawn shrugged, and tugged back the covers. Four short lines of stitches crisscrossed the man’s torso, with faint purple bruises starting to appear around them. Vimes narrowed his eyes. After a minute, he said, “Corporal; get some pictures of these.” He looked up at Lawn. “There anything on his back?”

“No, Commander. And I’d prefer if you didn’t turn him right now, in any case.”

Vimes nodded. His eyes had returned to rest on the exposed torso. Cheery quickly set up the iconograph and moved to get the images. “Um. Could you open the curtains a moment, please, Mister Drumknott? I need the light.”

Drumknott hesitated, then carefully pulled aside a drape just enough to let a shard of light land on the figure in the bed. Cheery got the pictures and then peered at Vetinari’s hands, which had several small slashes across the palms. “Defensive injuries, looks like, sir.” She snapped pictures of those, too.

Vimes nodded again. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the stab wounds, and Lawn was now staring at him intently.

Finally, Cheery seemed satisfied and nodded at Drumknott, who let go of the curtain and seemed to relax slightly. Lawn covered Vetinari back up.

“All done, sir. If that’s everything here I’ll get along to the Office and start in there, if that’s ok?”

“Yes, thank you, Corporal. Get word down to the Yard, too. Tell them to double the guards around James Selachii, and say he’s to stay put until this is sorted. And I want every other available man up here to take statements.”

“Yessir.” Cheery left, and Drumknott went to follow her, but before he reached the door Vimes called after him, distractedly.

“Mister Drumknott; stay a moment, will you?”

The secretary paused, then returned hesitantly to stand at the foot of the bed. “Yes, Commander?”

Vimes waited until the door had closed behind Cheery, then finally dragged his gaze from the prostrate figure and pinned it on Drumknott instead.

“Right. When exactly were you planning to tell me that this isn’t Vetinari?”

Drumknott looked startled. “Commander?”

Vimes glanced across at Lawn, who was trying not to look amused. He pointed at the figure on the bed. “That is not Havelock Vetinari. I’d wager it’s the poor bastard who doubles for him when he’s off doing whatever the hell it is he does when he’s reached the end of his rope with the guilds. Charlie.”

Drumknott had paled. Lawn appeared to have lost the fight against his grin and looked like he was finding the whole thing highly entertaining. “Told you he’d be able to tell. You owe me a dollar, Rufus.”

The secretary scowled. “I do believe I said I wouldn’t take that bet.” Then he sighed, and said, “Very good, Commander. You’re correct. It’s not him.” He paused. “If I might ask, what gave it away?”

Vimes froze, and then Lawn answered for him. “The lack of scars, I suspect. Right, Commander? You saw them when his Lordship was poisoned, if I recall.”

Vimes met Lawn’s eyes, and saw there was an understanding there. He gave a small cough. “Yes. He’s got a couple of nasty ones on his belly. If I remember correctly.” Rather than give Drumknott too much time to think about that, he rallied and pressed on. “And if he had defensive wounds then he had time to defend himself, in which case, if that really was Vetinari, we’d be seeing another body in there, too.

“Hmm. Well, anyway; yes. It is, indeed, Charlie. However, since the intention was clearly to assassinate the Patrician, I did not think the actual identity was of any great import. The perpetrator presumably believes he has achieved his objective.”

Vimes pinched his eyes with his fingertips. “So where is Vetinari? The real one?”

Drumknott looked pained. “I am…unsure. Currently.”

“What? Didn’t he tell you where he was going?”

The look became downright agonised. “No. The first I was aware that his Lordship was not in post was after I had discovered what I thought was him, lying in a pool of blood.”

Ah. That’s why he hadn’t been keen to spit up the truth.

Vimes looked down at Charlie. The resemblance was uncanny, and incredibly disconcerting. He looked away, feeling uncomfortable.

“When do you think they swapped?”

Drumknott shrugged. “I thought he seemed quiet last night after the gala, but then, he has been behaving…erratically, recently.”

Has he? Vimes realised with a pang that he wouldn’t know.

“Erratic how?  And what do you consider ‘recent’?”

Drumknott furrowed his brow. “Honestly? He’s seemed slightly off for the better part of the year. Disappearing more often. More…tightly wound.”

Vimes could feel Lawn’s eyes on him again, and ignored it. Evidently he’d done the maths, too.

“You ever ask him what was going on?”

Drumknott looked vaguely scandalised at the thought. “Of course not.” He narrowed his eyes. “I assumed it was something to do with you, however.”

Vimes saw Lawn’s eyebrows shoot up, and continued to ignore him. “Me?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Why would it be something to do with me?! What have I done?”

The secretary scowled in the biggest display of emotion Vimes had ever seen him show, and a hint of genuine irritation crept into his tone. “Really, Vimes? You’re telling me you have no idea of the difficulties you’ve caused this last year?”

Vimes opened and closed his mouth. Lawn was watching with grim fascination.

“What the hell? Difficulties I’ve caused him?”

“Yes, Vimes.” Drumknott shook his head and pursed his lips. “Do you have any idea how many times the guilds have attempted to have you removed from office, this last year, because of your behaviour? Not to mention how many accusations he has had to face over your alleged relationship.”

Vimes gritted his teeth. “My behaviour?  Hang on, is this about my drinking? Good gods, half the bloody guild leaders are borderline psychotic. How many of them have plotted to get rid of him, by now? You can’t be telling me I’m any worse than any of them.”

“Not just your drinking, although it’s poor enough that such an important and powerful civic leader turns up drunk to the guild meetings and has to lock himself in his own cells to keep himself out of the gutters. But even when you have been sober, your behaviour has been increasingly destructive. Your upsetting of anyone of any importance…” he saw the look on Vimes’ face and added, “…even more so than before, and your obvious issues with his Lordship, given that you refuse to be in a room alone with him? People notice these things, Vimes. It makes you look unhinged. But the key point is, after you and him, they are the most powerful people in the city, and they don’t like you. You, though, seem determined to just keep handing them more rope to hang you with. And still, every time, his Lordship mounts the gallows and cuts you down a second before the trapdoor opens. But you carry on, oblivious.” The secretary paused, looking flustered. “And I’m afraid your tantrum with the Selachiis pushed things to a head, yesterday. The noble families are calling for him to step down, if he won’t strip you of your titles and take your badge. Between them and the guilds, I’m afraid you’ve handed them enough rope for two, this time.” He paused, and then remembered himself. “Your Grace.”

It was the most animated Vimes had ever seen the little man, and he felt the blood pound in his veins in response as the shame coursed over him. “He won’t do that. He won’t step down.”

“No, he won’t. But his greatest asset – his biggest gift to the city – has always been stability, and that is being put at risk. Because of you.”

Vimes rubbed a hand across his mouth. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe I’ve caused all that.” Not after what he did to me, he didn’t say.

Drumknott sighed tiredly. “Believe what you will, Commander. Deny it as many times as you wish. But Lord Vetinari has gone to great personal lengths to defend you, this last year. And now he is missing, and somebody has tried to kill him.”

Vimes narrowed his eyes, and saw an opportunity to deflect. “And nearly killed this poor bastard, instead. Has anyone told his family, yet, by the way?”

The secretary grimaced. “Of course. A clerk went first thing. And they will be compensated.”

“Compensated?! Bloody compensated ?! What's the going rate for being stabbed, then? Is it a flat rate or does he get a price per wound?! Should have stuck him a few more sodding times, so the widow could have paid for one of the better burial plots. Good gods, man!” He shook his head. “Have they got a guard on them?”

Drumknott looked at him blankly. “A guard? Why would they need a guard?”

“Because what if they’re not the only other bloody people who know about this little arrangement, and it just so happens that it was Charlie and not Vetinari that someone was targeting…? Then they might be at risk too. What do you think Vetinari would say, if they came to harm?”

“Oh.” Drumknott paled. “I’m…sure that’s not the case.” But he was thinking about it, Vimes saw. “However, I will make some arrangements…” He started to back out of the room, then as he reached the door he turned and practically ran through it.

Vimes watched him go, then turned back to Lawn. The doctor was looking at him curiously.

“Do you really think that’s likely?” he asked.

Vimes grinned. “No. But he was annoying me, and I wanted to shake him up a bit.”

“Ah.” 

Vimes looked back down at the body again, and winced. Lawn noticed.

“Disturbing resemblance, isn’t it.” He paused. “Must be odd for you.”

Vimes looked back up at him. “You did know, then. I wondered if you did.”

“Yes. I saw you together, that night.”

“You never told anyone?”

“No, of course not.” Lawn raised his eyebrows. “Discretion is key, when you provide the kind of services I do.” He paused. “Besides, Vetinari suggested he’d have horrible things done to me if I told anyone.”

Vimes snorted. “These days, that probably just means he’d have you audited.”

The doctor looked thoughtful. “Yes. He has mellowed, in recent years, hasn’t he…? Until recently, anyway. I wonder why.” He gave Vimes a pointed look.

Vimes ignored it. “I’d better try and figure out who’s trying to kill him again, I suppose. I’m sure he’ll expect a bloody answer when he turns back up again.”

He started to walk off, and then Lawn called after him.

“Commander?”

Vimes stopped and turned. “Yes, doc?”

The physician raised his eyebrows. “You ever watched an alcoholic die?”

Vimes felt himself redden. “No.”

“Well, I’ve seen plenty.” Lawn’s expression was gentle. “It’s horrific, Sam. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Right. Yeah.” He hesitated. “I know. I’m working on it, doc.”

“Good. See that you do.” He paused. “Your son doesn’t ever need to see you like that. Trust me.”

Vimes grunted, and then turned and left.

The trouble with feeling guilty about drinking, he thought as he went, is that it really made you need a drink.

Chapter Text

Vimes checked in with Cheery and the men taking statements, then sent a message to Angua to meet him at the Assassin’s Guild.

Then he took the long route there, because it had been a rough morning and he thought better when he walked. 

It had thrown him, seeing Vetinari - Charlie - like that. He had spent so damned long being angry at the man he had wondered if that anger had become part of him, growing inside him like an extra organ; another liver or kidney, perhaps. Maybe a spleen; whatever one of those was.

But that anger had vanished in an agonising instant when he thought he might lose him completely, and now he was simply left with a cavernous hole where it had been ripped from him. 

It was a hole that was crying out to be filled with something at least 80% proof and with a smoky finish, but Lawn’s words were ringing in his ears. He hadn’t watched an alcoholic die, ever; that was true. But he had watched them live, those aging men who had seen too much and lost too much and found peace, of a type, in the bottom of a bottle. There seemed to come a point where that peace became a kind of waking death; the booze their first and last thoughts and then every thought in between, as their body dragged itself through the motions day in and day out until the day it simply couldn’t do it any more. 

Would he put Young Sam through having to watch that, one day? The thought horrified him, and he dismissed it violently. That was them; it would not be him .

He would quit; as soon as this damned case was over. He’d go back to the meetings, even. 

The trouble was, he mused, it was so bloody easy to be an alcoholic when you were rich. You weren’t going to be kicked out of your lodgings for spending your rent on whisky when you owned the damned street. And people made allowances for the wealthy that they never would when he was poor; a duke fished out of the gutter was put in a carriage and sent home as nothing more than an amusing anecdote. The same people would have spat on him when he was broke. It riled him even as he appreciated how much he’d benefited from it, recently.

Still, he wasn’t sure what he made of Drumknott’s claims. Everything he’d seen of Vetinari over the last year suggested he had everything under control, as always. Although now he thought about it, the guild leaders had seemed shiftier. None of them had been able to meet his eye for an age, and he’d assumed it was because he was being a grumpy bastard and barely looking at them either…but maybe it was more than that. Maybe there was some kind of…plot, to get rid of him.

He scowled. He was used to a certain level of paranoia when he drank, but it was something else to realise you might have something to be paranoid about.

He turned a corner, and stopped. He was in front of the Seamstresses Guild, and it occurred to him suddenly that he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen Rosie Palm at a guild meeting. That was unusual; she’d always said if you wanted a share of the feast you needed to be at the table. She even had a somewhar racier version that she rolled out when she's had a few drinks; you needed to be in the bed to have any chance at being fu...bedded.

He frowned, and on impulse crossed the street and knocked on the door. 

The young woman who answered showed him inside when he introduced himself, and he waited in a room that seemed far more office worker than sex worker. He recalled Rosie telling him once that since becoming a guild, she spent far more hours fiddling with numbers than she ever did with men. 

Eventually he was shown up to her office. The woman herself was sitting in an armchair drinking a cup of tea, and she peered at him over the top of it as he sat down opposite her.

“Afternoon, Sam. To what do I owe the pleasure? My girls haven’t been getting into bother, have they?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Your boys, neither.” He shrugged. “I’ve just realised I’ve not seen you about much, recently, and it occurred to me that I should ask why.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, and sipped her tea. “Just realised?”

“Yeah. I’ve not exactly been on top of things, lately. Not sure if you’d noticed.” He smiled drily, and she returned it.

“You don’t say.”

“I wondered if the two might be linked, maybe.”

“What? You being a disgrace and me cutting off the guilds?”

He ignored the first part and focussed on the second. “Cutting them off? So you are avoiding them?” 

Now she shrugged. “Maybe. I dare say you might be wise to, as well, given their current feelings towards you. You’ve certainly been giving them plenty of ammunition, lately; Havelock has had his work cut out throwing himself in front of it.”

Damnit.

“So I’ve been told. Earlier this morning, in fact. I wasn’t sure whether to believe it. His Lordship’s hardly my biggest fan, at the minute.”

She snorted. “I don’t know what’s gone on between you two, but he’s never backed down from a fight about you yet. Despite everything.”

Vimes buried the feeling that tried to come over him at that, and said, “Why are you keeping your distance, then?”

She sipped her tea. “I don’t want any part of them getting rid of you. I think you’re useful. There’s checks and balances, in this city, Sam; there’s got to be, else we’ll end up with another Winder or Snapcase. And you’re part of that. You challenge them, and they don’t like it, but you’re a cog in the machine. Just like the rest of us.” She paused, and gave him another smile. “Besides, my money’s on you and Havelock, and I never liked being on the losing side.”

No, she never did, Vimes mused. He remembered the lilac.

“You’re talking as if it's a war.”

“It is, I suppose. You two against the guild leaders… and the nobles, now.” She saw the look on his face. “The Selachii’s are baying for your blood too, and they’ve got a lot of friends, Sam.”

“I know.” He scowled. “Two of us against all of them, and you still reckon we’ll win…?”

She shrugged again. “Yes.”

Vimes hesitated. “You helped us, a while back, during that business with Dragon King of Arms…and it wasn’t the first time, I understand. Would you help us again?”

“I already am.”

“By staying out if it?”

“Yes.” 

He watched her for a moment, but she didn’t seem inclined to say anything more on the matter, so he stood up. “Right. Suppose I’d best get back to the bloody battle, then.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do stop by again, Sam. It’s always a pleasure to see you. Especially sober.”

He frowned. “Right. Thanks.” He headed for the door, then turned back. “I’ve not seen Anabella, since she handed in her badge. How’s she getting on?”

Rosie looked at him evenly. “Keeping herself busy. Very useful, that girl. Lots of skills.”

“I bet. Give her my regards, will you?” 

“Sure, Sam. And remember, we’re always here if you need us.” She winked at him, and he felt himself blush. He gave an embarrassed grunt, and then let himself back out onto the street. 

oOo

The blush had faded and Angua was waiting for him when he hurried up to the Assassin’s Guild a few minutes later.

The boy on gate duty today had been born and bred in Ankh-Morpork, which meant he recognised Vimes immediately and simply darted off to find Downey when they’d told him why he was there. Vimes was glad, because he wasn’t in the mood for an argument.

The assassin was taking his time, though, so he might end up with one anyway.

Vimes had considered what they knew so far. He was reasonably sure that the attack on Vetinari hadn’t been carried out by a professional, because quite frankly an assassin would have finished the job. Perhaps not on the real Vetinari, but Charlie? He wouldn’t have put up much of a challenge. Still, when your city had a guild whose entire purpose was to solve political problems with targeted murder, it would be remiss not to at least ask them if they’d bloody done it.

Besides; he was still curious about Downey and his newfound reluctance to be a thorn in Vimes’ side, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to try to figure out what had gotten into him.

They were still waiting when Angua cleared her throat. “I meant to ask, sir. Do you have any idea what’s up with Sergeant Colon?”

“Fred?” Oh, hells. “Why, what’s he doing?”

“Oh, he’s just…quiet today. And he smells worried.”

Vimes hesitated. “He not said what’s bothering him?”

“No. But I thought you might know. Or want to know.”

Vimes sighed and winced. “Ah. I think that might be my fault. I had a chat with him yesterday.” He paused, and looked off miserably into the distance. “Mebbe I’ve broken him.”

The werewolf blinked. “Oh. Right. What kind of chat?”

“Er. About me. And my…interests.”

Angua took a minute to figure out what he was going on about, and then understanding dawned. “You told Fred Colon about you and Lord Vetinari?!” Vimes would have found her shock funny, in any other circumstances.

“No! Not that specific. Gods, that might have bloody killed him. Just…in general.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure he’s taken it well.”

Angua relaxed a bit. “Ah.” She furrowed her brow. “I’m sure he’ll come round. You know Colon. It just takes him a while to get his head around new information.”

The young assassin was coming back. Vimes grunted. “Yeah. Hopefully.”

The boy reached them, and seemed slightly out of breath. “Lord Downey invites you to his office, Commander.”

“Excellent. I know the way.” He grinned as he stalked past the black-clothed figure, and Angua gave the boy a weak smile as she followed behind him.

oOo

Downey was sitting at his desk. He didn’t stand when they entered, or offer them a drink, but simply watched them cautiously from behind the neatly ordered piles of paperwork. Vimes glanced at the shelves, but the bottles and jars that had been housed there before appeared to have been removed, and replaced by books and miserable looking busts of long-dead assassins.

Vimes had wondered if the man might be more his old self on his home turf, in comparison to whatever the hell was going on with him in the guild meetings, but it seemed whatever was bothering him transcended locale. 

“How is Lord Vetinari?” Downey asked without preamble, when they’d sat down in the uncomfortable chairs.

Vimes noted the use of the honorific with interest; apparently the two assassins were no longer on first name terms. “He’s going to be fine,” he answered, honestly. “Obviously, we’re very keen to speak to whoever did this, though.”

“Of course. I can assure you there was no contract on him through the Guild, however. Which I imagine was going to be your next question.”

Vimes narrowed his eyes. “Could someone have gone off the books?”

Downey frowned. “I really don’t think any of my members would have done so, Commander. His Lordship is notoriously challenging to even get close to; I doubt very much anyone would risk it. And of course, his death would be very destabilising for the city.”

Vimes shrugged. “That hasn’t stopped people trying before.” He thought he saw Downey’s expression flicker.

“True. However, I am not aware of anyone who thinks so… recklessly at the moment.”

“Not even Robert Selachii…?”

Downey’s eyebrows went up. “Hmm. I can see why you would ask, but…no. He is, of course, incredibly angry. But even he wouldn’t attempt this. And if he had, I dare say he wouldn’t have botched it.”

Vimes thought for a second. “It was fairly amateurish. Could one of the younger students have attempted it? Maybe to try to prove something…?”

He expected a blunt denial, again, but Downey seemed to give it some thought. “No. I can’t think of anyone who would be that cocky. Or suicidal.”

Vimes sat back, and looked at him; Downey looked back evenly. Finally, Vimes said, “Sergeant, would you mind stepping outside, for a moment?”

Angua looked at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Um. Yes, sir. Of course.” She stood, and threw another glance at the two men before slipping out of the office.

Downey looked at Vimes curiously. “Something on your mind, Commander?”

“Yes. What the bloody hell is going on with you?”

Downey narrowed his eyes. “What on the Disc do you mean, man?”

“There. That’s you. Not this quiet, helpful, civic-minded member of society you’ve been playing for the last year.”

Downey’s eyes darkened. “People change, Commander. You certainly did. It seems this last year has had an impact on both of us.”

“I haven’t changed.”

“Of course you have. It’s a common topic of conversation amongst the guild leaders. You are different. Vetinari is different. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the one is linked to the other.”

“Still think there’s something going on between us, do you?”

“No. Not anymore. I am now convinced that whatever was between you has ended, and, I’m afraid to say, the city is the worse for it.”

Vimes blinked. “What?”

Downey put his head to the side. “My concern, Vimes, was always that your relationship would be detrimental to the city. Too much potential for cronyism…too great a risk that the whole tower of cards would be toppled by an argument or betrayal.” He sighed. “And yet I see now that the alternative is worse. Whatever your relationship was, its absence is far more keenly felt. I had hoped, after the initial… denouement, that things would settle swiftly. That has not been the case, however. It seems Havelock now needs somebody to keep him…grounded.” He paused. “He had always been above such trifling concerns as feelings; it made him an effective, if somewhat utilitarian, leader. It seems that now he has had another taste of them, however, he feels their loss and is…hardening, I presume to protect himself. And you and I have seen what happens to tyrants who become hardened to the people around them. Haven’t we, Vimes?”

Vimes considered sticking to his denials, and realised he didn’t have the energy or, lately, the interest in doing so. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the uncomfortable chair. “You’re suggesting I should lie back and think of Ankh-Morpork? For the good of the city…?”

Downey pulled a face. “Not quite how I would have phrased it. But, in essence…I think if there is any possibility that whatever has been done can be undone, then that would be in everyone’s best interests.”

Vimes stared at him. “What happened to you, a year ago?”

The assassin smiled, without humour. “Vetinari gave me a particularly pointed demonstration of just how much he cares for you, Commander. It very nearly killed me.”

Vimes felt suddenly as if the room was too small. “What? What did he do to you? And why?”

Downey gestured dismissively. “It is not important. What I learned about him is more important.” He gave that tight, dark smile again. “It only took me forty years.”

Vimes looked at him for a long moment, but it seemed he’d said all he was going to on the matter of lessons. “Oh good; more cryptic bollocks. Well. I’m not sure anything can be undone. Not by me, anyway.” He paused. “It wasn’t my decision.” Acknowledging it out loud to Downey gave him that odd sensation again.

The other man didn’t seem to register his discomfort. “Really? Ah. Then that is a pity. However, it is evident that Havelock continues to…what is that delightful phrase? Oh, yes; he ‘carries a torch’ for you, still, Commander. So perhaps you may yet…reunite.”

Vimes felt himself lost for words, for a second, then grunted. “Right. Brilliant. Advice on my love life from a damned assassin. Didn’t have that on my bingo card, this year. That must have killed you to say, given how bloody much you hate me.”

Downey looked amused. “As I have said before; hate is a strong word, Vimes. I don’t hate you. I dislike you, yes. That doesn’t stop me from appreciating your value.”

“Well, now you’re just sweet-talking me.” Vimes raised an eyebrow and grinned.

“And you are flirting.”

Vimes felt his eyes widen and stopped grinning. “Am bloody not.”

Downey raised an eyebrow of his own. “If you insist. In any event; if you have no more questions, I do have to get on with some work.”

Vimes was still smarting from the accusation. “Right. No. That was everything.” He stood, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Thanks.”

Downey made a noise like a dignified snort, and Vimes scowled and saw himself out. Angua was halfway down the corridor, talking to a young man in black who looked as though all of his dreams had come true. As Vimes watched, the boy ran a hand through his hair and gave a flustered grin. 

Now, that’s bloody flirting. 

The sergeant spotted him and said something to the youth, who stared over at Vimes and then promptly hurried away down the corridor.

She came over and joined him, and they walked out together.

“Find anything out?” Vimes asked, when they were out of the building and away from any prying ears.

“Not much. I asked him about his classmates, but he didn’t seem to think any of them stood out as particularly odd.”

“I’m surprised he could remember any of their names. He seemed to have something else entirely on his mind.”

She gave him a wry look. “He invited me to spend the summer at his parents' country house with him. Something tells me he’d soon change his tune when he started finding wolf hair in the bed.”

“Ha!” Vimes marvelled once again at the ability of Carrot and Angua’s relationship to survive despite all the odds stacked against them. Surely if a six-foot adopted dwarf could make things work with a damned werewolf, he and Vetinari could have made a decent enough go of it…? At least they were the same bloody species.

They reached the crossroads, and paused to let a cart full of chickens drive past in a haze of sounds and smells. Vimes saw Angua grimace slightly, then they crossed the street and turned down the road back to the Yard.

“Did Downey give you anything more?” Angua asked.

“No. I don’t think it’s an assassin, though. They’d have made sure to finish the damned job. A professional wouldn’t get a man like Vetinari down and then leave any opportunity for him to get back up again.”

“That does sound like suicide.”

“Yep. So…we look at the other possibilities.”

They’d reached the station, and headed inside. “Which are?”

Vimes stopped in the middle of the office. “Anyone else with a grudge against him, starting with the most recent.”

“The Selachii’s would be favourite, then.”

Vimes sighed. “Yes. That’ll be an interestin’ conversation.” He remembered his last meeting with the man, and the pile of letters. He winced.

 Angua saw the expression on his face. “You should take someone with you, for backup, sir.” She wasn’t exactly volunteering, Vimes noticed.

He thought for a minute. “Hmm. Is Carrot around? He gets on well with people.” And is built like an upside-down bloody clacks tower.

There was a hint of relief in her voice. “Should be, sir. He was going to make a start on some of your paperwork.”

“Oh.” Vimes reddened. “Right. Yeah. I’ll go and grab him. Can you speak to Drumknott and get a list of anyone else his Lordship might have annoyed more than usual, recently? It might take a while.”

“Yes, sir.”

Vimes gave her a nod and she disappeared off, then he trudged upstairs to drag Carrot away from the timesheets.

oOo

“No. Get off my property.”

Vimes fought down the rising urge to punch the man currently blocking the door. He had been following their game plan, which was basically for him to stand back and let Carrot do the talking, but Robert Selachii was still furious.

The damned thing was, he knew that if he’d kept his distance and sent any other officers to interview the man, he’d be getting grief for being disrespectful in not coming himself. He couldn’t bloody win.

Carrot was speaking in that eminently reasonable tone he had, saying eminently reasonable things. He was the only person Vimes knew who could make the phrase ‘obstruction of justice’ sound almost apologetic.

Vimes mentally disengaged, because the urge to intervene and arrest the bastard was becoming overwhelming. He was still trying to process what Downey had said about Vetinari, so he thought about that instead for a while, and when Carrot nudged him a while later he blinked and allowed himself to be herded through the now open doorway.

“How did you manage that?” he muttered as they were shown into a tidy parlour.

“I just appealed to his sense of civic-mindedness, sir.”

Vimes detected a flicker in that big, open face. “And?”

“And when that didn’t work, I suggested perhaps Sergeant Detritus might be able to convey my concerns more effectively. Either at the station, or here, quite loudly, on the doorstep.”

“Ah. Fair enough.” Toffs didn’t like trolls, he’d found. They didn’t see why they should be forced to make conversation with someone their ancestor would have had fashioned into a nice pair of earrings and a matching necklace.

It would be an understatement to suggest Selachii and his wife didn’t seem keen to make small talk. The woman was perched tensely on the edge of an armchair, eyes red rimmed and twisting a handkerchief in her hands, whilst her husband stood stiffly off to one side of her.

If that was me, Vimes thought, I’d have a hand on her bloody shoulder, or something.

Their anger curled off them like a fog.

“Ask your damned questions, then, Vimes.”

“Yes, sir.” He kept his tone and expression carefully blank. “Were either of you at the palace, last night?”

“No. We didn’t leave the house.” Robert glared at him. “We had some friends round, if you want a bloody witness.”

“Got their names?”

Lord Selachii gestured dismissively at his wife, who reeled off a list of people in a cracked monotone; several of them, Vimes realised, were behind the letters he’d received, and two had been present for his salad-related dinner party incident. He made a mental note to send someone else to go and check their alibi.

He and Carrot asked a few more questions, but he didn’t get the sense that this pair were involved. Finally he drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sword.

“Who were James’ closest friends?”

Robert narrowed his eyes. “Looking to string them up too, are you?”

“If they tried to kill the patrician, yes. If not, they’ve nothing to fear.”

The woman in the chair answered. “The youngest Rust boy, Toby. Roger St Bernard. And Lady Diane’s daughter, Felicity.”

Vimes looked at her. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Lady Selachii finally looked at him, her lip raised slightly in a snarl. “Don’t you dare thank me.”

Vimes looked into her eyes, and had rarely before seen hatred like it; it pierced him like a skewer. He looked away quickly, and cleared his throat.

“We also need to see James’s room.”

“What? What for?”

“There may be evidence in there.” He very carefully didn’t specify which particular case there might be evidence in there for.

“There won’t be.”

“Still. We need to be the judge of that.” Vimes was aiming for calmly authoritative, though wasn’t sure he was managing it. He could still feel Lady Selachii’s eyes on him.

“Please, sir,” Carrot added. “We could get a warrant, but that would require more officers for a search.” He paused briefly. “I think Corporal Nobbs and Sergeant Detritus are on duty this afternoon, aren’t they, Commander?”

Vimes caught the look on Selachii’s face and said, “Yep.” 

Selachii paused, then shook his head angrily. “Fine,” he spat. “But if there’s a damned thing out of place when you’re done…”

“We’ll be careful not to disturb anything more than necessary.”

Selachii gestured with his head. “Upstairs. First on the right.”

They were halfway up when the woman’s voice called after them.

“One day, I hope someone does to your son what you’re doing to ours, Commander.”

Vimes froze for a moment, his knuckles turning white where he gripped the banister. Then, silently, he continued climbing the stairs.

James’ room was clean and tidy, apart from a few items of clothing tossed carelessly onto a chair in the corner. A chess set was set up on a small table beside the chair, a game evidently in progress. There was a desk in front of the window, and Vimes skimmed vaguely through the drawers while Carrot checked the pockets of the clothes hanging in the wardrobe.

“What are we actually looking for, sir?”

Vimes sighed. “I’m hoping I know it when I see it, Carrot.”

The other man turned to look at him. “Do you really think Lord Vetinari will hang him?”

Vimes shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s not for us to worry about. We just present the case and he makes the decisions.” If he bloody comes back, he thought.

Carrot looked thoughtful. “Rather him than me, I reckon, sir.”

Vimes grunted his agreement, but slightly distractedly. Something he’d seen had triggered something in his brain, but he wasn’t sure what. He squinted down at the desk.

There. That.

An address.

It was scrawled in a boyish script that made something inside Vimes ache, briefly. He carefully tore the page from the notepad, and tucked it into a pocket.

He moved over to the side table beside the boy’s bed. There was a well-thumbed history book on it, and Vimes picked it up and flicked idly through the pages. As he did, an iconograph fell out from where it had evidently been carefully hidden away. Vimes stooped to pick it up, and stared at it.

It was a picture of James, his arm slung casually around the neck of Douglas Willoughby. Both boys were grinning at the picture-taker. Vimes pocketed that, too, and replaced the book back where he’d found it.

Carrot cleared his throat. “All done this side, sir. Nothing of note.”

Vimes turned, feeling deeply tired and badly in need of a drink. “Right. Let’s get out of here and leave these people alone.”

He let Carrot say their goodbyes on the way out, and tried to ignore the atmosphere that permeated the house and that now seemed to be trying to suffocate him.

Back on the street the sun was setting and the lamplighters were doing their rounds. He stopped, and breathed in the fresh evening air like a man emerging from an underground tunnel.

“Should we start checking their alibis, sir?”

“You go ahead, Carrot. I need to head ho...to Sybil’s. It’s almost six.”

“Ah, of course. How is Young Sam, Mister Vimes?”

Vimes smiled. “Good. Growing like a bloody weed. He can nearly headbutt me in the crotch, now.”

Carrot grinned. “Say hello to him from me.”

Vimes assured him he would do so, and then watched as Carrot proceeded off.

He waited until the dwarf was out of sight, and then got his bearings and set off towards Scoone Avenue.

He would put Young Sam to bed, and then there was a bar he needed to visit.

oOo

Sybil had invited him to stay for supper, again, and he had declined, again, because like all terriers, once he’d got a sniff of something he couldn’t rest until he’d shredded it to pieces.

Now he double checked the address on the paper he’d taken from James Selachii’s bedroom, and looked at the small copper plaque on the door in front of him.

He grinned, feeling the kind of tingle that came when you were following a lead and it started to pay off, and pushed open the door to Molly’s.

This time when he walked in, he merely got a quick glance and then the patrons swiftly returned to their conversations. He steeled himself and walked over to the bar, and the barman gave him a nod as he sat down in the same seat as before.

“Whisky?”

He hesitated. “No, just an orange juice. Thanks.”

The barman raised an eyebrow, but put a glass down in front of him a minute later.

Vimes eyeballed the umbrella as he paid for the drink. “Get these on one of Throat’s specials, did you?”

The other man frowned. Vimes grinned and sipped the fruity liquid, then pulled out the iconograph of the two boys and put it on the bar. “You recognise either of these upstanding young citizens?”

The barman didn’t even glance at them. “Nope.”

“That’s a pity. Because one of them is dead, and the other is on the hook for it. But something shady is going on, I reckon, so I’d really like to figure out what it is before the boy swings.”

The barman frowned. “How long do you think I’d stay in business if I started talking to the Watch about my customers? Your type just cause trouble.”

“So he is a customer, then?”

The frown became a deep scowl, and the barman huffed and walked off. Vimes sipped his juice, and looked around the bar. After a few seconds his eyes came to rest on a familiar figure in a corner booth. The man was leaning in and chatting quietly with the figure beside him. 

How cosy.

Vimes picked up his drink and the picture, and went and slid into the booth opposite the man he’d gone home with a few nights ago.

The pair turned to look at him, and he gave his newest friend a bright grin. “Evening.”

The man – whose name Vimes had never gotten around to asking, he realised with some shame – blinked. “Oh. Hello.”

The stranger beside him, meanwhile, was staring at Vimes’ uniform. After a second he started sliding cautiously towards the end of the booth. “Erm. I’m just going to…” He waved vaguely, and then practically ran across the room and out of the door.

The two in the booth watched him go, and the man sighed. “He was nice.”

“Sorry. Probably not very law abiding, though, by the way he legged it at the sight of the uniform. I’d say there was a reasonable chance I just stopped you gettin’ rolled.”

The man looked back at him and frowned. “Look. The other night was fun, but…”

Vimes placed the picture down on the table. “I’m not here about that, don’t worry. I’m just wondering if you recognise either of these two.”

The man gave him a vaguely suspicious look, then leaned over and peered at it. “Oh, yeah. Him on the right. He’s been in here a couple of times, I think. I spoke to him once, a few weeks ago.”

“Was it just talking, you did?”

The man grimaced. “Yes. He was young. Told me he was nineteen, but I didn’t believe that for a second. Seemed younger.” He glanced up at Vimes and gave him a grin. “And as you know, my tastes run in the other direction.”

Vimes felt his cheeks colour, and cleared his throat. “Right. Er. Look - I didn’t catch your name?”

“Edward.” The man stuck out a hand across the table. Vimes reached out and shook it.

“Sam.”

The man looked vaguely puzzled, and Vimes pressed on before he had a chance to get derailed with a discussion about why it might seem familiar. “What was he talking about?”

Edward sat back and seemed to think about it. “He’d had a few too many. He’d tried it on with one of the other regulars, but he’d got turned down. Was crying into his beer about some boy he was in love with.” He looked back down at the picture. “That him?”

Vimes ignored the question. “He definitely said that? That he was in love with someone?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure. Why? What’s happened?”

“One of those boys is dead. The other one killed him.”

“Shit.” Edward looked startled.

Vimes swallowed down the last of his juice. “Yep. Anyway, thanks. And, er…sorry. To have ruined your evening.”

Edward raised an eyebrow. “I mean. You might not have…?”

Vimes suddenly felt incredibly sober. “I’m on duty.”

“Ah. Pity.” Edward smiled, and then his face fell as whatever had been niggling at him finally pushed its way to the front of his mind. He stared at Vimes’ uniform, taking in the expensive overcoat and finally registering the rank insignia. “Wait,” he hissed, dropping his voice. “Not Sam Vimes?”

Vimes’ painful sobriety was suddenly accompanied by the feeling of being completely exposed, and compounding it all was the knowledge that it was far too bloody late to be worrying about it now.

He furrowed his brow, vaguely irritated. “Yeah.”

“Oh, gods.” Edward had gone pale. “You are the fucking Duke of Ankh.”

Vimes sat back, fighting the urge to fold his arms defensively in front of him. “Alright. Yes. I am. And?”

Edward had his head in his hands. “And?! And you’re a duke. And I…and we…” He covered his face. “Ohhh. I did that thing with the handcuffs…”

Vimes was reasonably sure that had they been outdoors, his own reddened cheeks would have formed a beacon that could have been seen from the top of the Tower of Art. “Keep your bloody voice down, will you?!”

Edward rubbed his face with his hands, and then peered at Vimes above them. “Right. Yeah. Sorry.” He hesitated. “Sir.”

“And you can bloody well knock that off!” Vimes glanced around the room, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. “It’s Sam, to you, and that’s all. Right? I didn’t come here to be a duke. I’m just…me.”

The other man nodded slowly. “Okay. Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

“And stop apologising.”

“Sorr…ah. Yeah. Okay.” Edward was still staring at him, but Vimes felt his blood pressure start to come down.

“Good. Just…look. Don’t worry about it.”

“Should I not tell anyone about this, then? I mean, not that I was going to. But is it, um, a state secret? Are some serious looking men going to turn up at my house if I slip up?”

Vimes sighed. “No. But…your discretion would be appreciated.”

Edward nodded. “Sure. Okay. No problem.” He paused. “I mean, everyone did see you leave with me the other night, though, so…”

Vimes remembered vividly, even with the cloud of whisky hanging over the memory. “Yeah. I know. I’m just…not quite ready to do the talking-about-it bit.”

“Fair enough.” Edward seemed to have recovered slightly, and now he grinned again. “Ha. A bloody duke.”

Vimes shook his head. “Gods.” He tucked the iconograph back into a pocket and shuffled towards the end of the bench. “It’s not all it's cracked up to be, trust me.”

Edward gave a brief laugh, and then blinked as something else evidently occurred to him. “Hang on. That thing in the paper, last year. They said you and Vetinari were…oh, fuck.” He looked like he might be sick. “Was that true?” He dropped his voice again and hissed, “Did I take the bloody patrician’s ex home?!”

Vimes stood. “Do yourself a favour. Don’t believe everything you read in that damned rag.”

“Yeah. Right.” He still looked peaky, Vimes thought. But right now, he had bigger fish to fry.

He said goodbye to Edward, who was staring deeply into his drink like a man who was contemplating his future very seriously, and then headed back out to continue his enquiries.

As he walked back through the city, Vimes realised that until he’d been brought up by Edward, it had been hours since he’d thought about Vetinari. He had a vague notion that the empty hole was slowly being filled by police work.

Progress, he thought. Definitely progress.

He proceeded gently along the street and, as he did, he started, softly, to whistle.

oOo 

Back at the palace, guards were still posted on all the doors and at the entrance to Vetinari’s quarters. Vimes made sure they were all people he recognised, then caught up with Drumknott and Lawn. Charlie was still sleeping deeply for much of the time, although he’d been having some spells of being more conscious. Unfortunately, from Vimes’ point of view, these episodes were a kind of twilight waking; half dream, still, and nothing he said made much sense. He had caught the man during one such awakening and tried a few questions; he’d thought they’d been getting somewhere with a description of the attacker, but then the man had started talking about porridge and Vimes had given up. 

There was still no sign of the real Vetinari, and the little secretary was doing his best to hide his worry under an increased level of bustling. He didn’t spare any time for small talk with Vimes, which, given their last conversation, he found himself grateful for.

By now everyone who had been on shift at the time had given statements. Vimes spent a few hours reading over them and drinking endless cups of coffee - delivered by anxious looking maids - in the small parlour, but eventually he felt his eyes start to drift closed, and he sunk back into the armchair.

When something woke him later, the candles had burned down and the room was dark. His brain felt soft and mushy, like a mealy apple. He blinked and pushed himself upright, then tried to focus on the room, but his head swam when he moved. 

He felt like he’d had a pint of Bearhuggers. His stomach lurched.

What the hell? 

He stilled and tried to pull himself together, then heard a cry from the bedroom. Alarmed, he pushed himself out of the chair and staggered to the door. He threw it open, then barged into the door frame and rebounded unsteadily into the room. 

In the soft light he could see Charlie cowering unsteadily in a corner, arms raised defensively and the broken shards of a vase on the floor beside him. Across from the tableau was a maid, looking like she was about to burst into tears. Vimes recognised her as the one that had been bringing him coffee all evening.

“Wha’s going on?” He managed. 

“She’s trying to kill me!” Charlie’s eyes were wide, and he was swaying gently on the spot.

“Oh, sir. I only brought his Lordship his pills, like the doctor asked, and he’s thrown himself off the bed and is accusing me of all sorts.” 

Vimes frowned. “Char… Vetinari, get back in bed before you kill your bloody self.”

“No!” He dropped his voice. “It’s her. It was her that stabbed me! When she brought my breakfast!”

Through the cotton wool, Vimes watched her tense, and part of his brain started jumping up and down, trying to get the rest of his attention. He squeezed his eyes closed, and then opened them again.

“Ma’am. Perhaps you could empty your pockets, show his Lordship you’re not armed.”

The maid was staring at him like a deer who had locked eyes with a hunter, and made no effort to do as he’d asked.

Vimes gave his head a shake, trying vainly to clear it. 

She brought you coffee, and now look at the state you’re in…

“ Pockets, ma’am. Please.”

“Oh, please, sir. This is foolish. I’m just the maid. I’ve worked with His Lordship for years.” Her eyes darted off to the doorway behind him.

Vimes couldn’t think straight, so he gave up trying and drew his sword. “Guards!” he yelled.

The maid stepped back, away from the blade. “Oh, sir, please.”

He was dimly aware of the guards running in, and gestured with the sword. “Search her.”

They hesitated. “Search the maid, sir?”

“Yes!” His head felt like it might explode. 

Slowly, one of the guards approached the frightened looking woman, looking apologetic. “Sorry, Daisy.” He put his hand in her pockets, and it came out empty from both. “Nothing, sir.”

“That’s not a bloody search, man. Check her clothes.”

The guards looked at each other, then at Vimes, then the reluctant volunteer sighed. He turned back to Daisy and ran his hands quickly over her dress, and was about to step back when he reached her thigh, and froze. He patted the outside again. “What’s that, Dais?”

“Nothing, Billy. I swear it. Nothing.” Real tears had appeared in her eyes, now, and were threatening to spill down her cheeks.

Billy glanced back at Vimes, and stepped back. “Lift your skirt, please, miss.”

The girl let out a sob, but did as she was told, lifting her dress to reveal a small blade strapped to her outer thigh. She saw their faces. “It’s…it’s for protection. You know what it’s like for us, Billy. Please. It’s just for protection. I swear.” 

Billy’s face was drawn. “Drop it to the floor, please, miss. Slowly.”

Tears streaming freely now, she fumbled the knife from its holster and dropped it to the rug. Billy picked it up and tucked it away.

Vimes felt his head spin, and forced his thoughts into some sort of order. “She drugged me. Thought she could come in and finish the job while we were both asleep. By the time someone found him in the morning she’d be long gone, I bet.” He gestured with the sword, and staggered slightly. “Take her to the cells, and send for Captain Carrot. He can have a chat with her.” 

While I sleep off whatever the hell she’s dosed me with.

Billy took the woman’s arm and led her, sobbing properly now, into the corridor. 

“I told you! It was the woman with the porridge!” Charlie had sat down heavily in the corner, sweating with exertion and looking like he was barely managing to remain more horizontal than vertical. The image of Vetinari-but-not-Vetinari having a near-hysterical episode in his pyjamas was taxing Vimes’ brain even more. 

“Alright, your Lordship.” Vimes waved at the remaining guard. “Go and fetch Lawn, will you? And get some more guards for the door. She might not have been alone.” He paused. “I’m just going to…sit here.” His legs went out from under him and he thumped heavily to the floor. His eyes closed, and for a while he allowed the world to drift gently away. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling; like being drunk, but without the ever-present sense of guilt.

After an indeterminable amount of time he became dimly aware of a shuffling nearby, and then he looked up and saw Vetinari crouching down above him, looking concerned. “Are you alright, Commander?”

Vimes squinted. “That still you, Charlie?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Vimes frowned and closed his eyes again. “This is too bloody weird.” From somewhere nearby he heard Mossy Lawn arrive and start barking instructions, but his tenuous grip on consciousness had by that point been surrendered and he drifted back off into sleep.

Chapter Text

Vimes woke the next morning with a brain that felt like someone had removed it from his head and wrung it out over the sink at some point during the night. He wasn’t sure it was a kindness that they appeared to have put it back in afterwards.

He groaned.

“Oh, are you awake, sir?”

That sounded like Carrot. Vimes opened his eyes carefully, and looked up into the man’s ruddy-cheeked face.

“Regretfully, Captain.”

Carrot looked at him curiously. “Do you remember what happened last night, sir?”

Vimes pushed himself upright, wincing as his brain rebounded off the insides of his skull. He was on top of a bed in one of the palace guest rooms, and appeared to be still in his uniform. He thanked the gods for small mercies. 

“One of the damned maids drugged me and tried to finish the job on -” he hesitated - “on Vetinari.”

“Yes, sir. We’ve got her in the cells downstairs, for now.”

There was a glass of water on the small table beside the bed, and Vimes grabbed it and downed half of it in one go, then sat for a second as a wave of nausea washed over him and he waited to see if it would stay down. After a minute he belched discreetly. 

“Fine. She given any reason for why she did it?”

“No, sir. It’s fairly odd; she’s worked for his Lordship for four years and not a blemish in her record.”

Vimes grunted. “She seem right in the head?”

Carrot frowned slightly. “She didn’t seem unwell, no, sir.”

“Then there’s a motive somewhere. Dig into her background, see what you can find out about her.”

“Yes, sir. Angua is on it already.”

“Good. Get Visit to give her a hand.”

Carrot winced. “Constable Visit is still on leave, sir.”

“On leave? I don’t remember signing off on that.”

“No, sir. But his mother passed last week, so he’s had to travel home.” He saw the look on Vimes’ face, and continued in a reassuring tone. “You were very busy, at the time, sir. It’s understandable it would have slipped your mind.”

Vimes rubbed a hand across his face, and sighed. “Thanks, Carrot, but we both know I wasn’t bloody busy. I was drunk.”

The other man looked uncomfortable. “Well, I mean…it’s been a difficult few months, for you, sir.”

“It’s no damned excuse.” He swung his legs off the side of the bed, and stopped to steady himself. “Did we send flowers?” 

“Yes, sir. It’s all sorted.”

“Good. Thanks.” He went to add something, but they were interrupted by a sharp rap on the door. It opened without waiting for a response, and then the patrician walked in.

Carrot straightened. “Morning, sir.”

Vimes gave a halfhearted wave. “Morning Cha…sir.”

“May I have a moment with the commander in private, Captain?” 

“Of course, sir.” Carrot gave Vimes a nod, and then left the two alone.

“You alright this morning?” Vimes peered at Charlie, as he sat down in an armchair opposite the bed. “You’re looking better.”

“Thank you, Vimes. I would say the same of you, however I do prefer to retain some semblance of honesty, otherwise we risk the whole facade crumbling about us.”

Vimes frowned, and then he looked at the man properly. “Vetinari?!”

Vetianri looked at him blankly. “Yes , Vimes. Did you hit your head, perhaps, during your eventful evening…?”

Vimes stood up, and then sat rapidly back down as the room spun. “You’re back?!”

The patrician raised an eyebrow. “I see your powers of deduction remain intact; how reassuring. Does that mean you have determined who has tried to kill me, in my absence?”

“Yes. One of your bloody maids, although I don’t know why, yet.” He paused. “Where the hell have you been…?”

Vetinari narrowed his eyes. “I had some personal errands to attend to.”

Vimes shook his head and then regretted it and stopped. “Personal bloody errands. Meanwhile Charlie took a stabbing for you.”

“On this occasion he ‘took a stabbing’, as you so charmingly put it, for the city, Commander. And now he has been sent home to recover in the bosom of his family, with the finest medical care and a healthy paypacket.”

“You think that’ll be enough to make him come back?”

Vetinari paused. “No. I suspect not. Being stabbed is not something one is keen to experience more than once in a lifetime, I’ve found.”

“Yeah. Think you’ve probably buggered up any chance of being able to disappear off again in future, there.”

“So be it.” There was another pause. “I understand you were drugged. Are you recovered?”

Vimes bit back his first instinctive response and instead said, “I’m fine. No worse than a night on the Bearhuggers.”

Vetinari looked at him evenly. “How helpful, then, that you have had plenty of practice in that regard, recently.”

Vimes snorted, and the two sat in silence for a minute. It was the longest they had been alone together in almost a year, Vimes realised. Vetinari was staring at him, and Vimes stared right back; the other man looked older than he remembered, and more drawn. He gave himself a prod, but the anger that had previously been a raging tsunami was still merely a puddle sloshing delicately about the empty hole inside him. Filling the rest of it up was a vague sense of guilt.

“Drumknott said the guilds are out for my blood.”

“He should not have done so.”

“Was he telling the truth?”

A hesitation. “...yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Vetinari waved a hand dismissively. “I was handling it.”

Vimes frowned. “You should have just bloody sacked me.”

“That was never an option, Commander.” It was said quietly and calmly, and Vimes felt his insides twist in response.

“It should have been. Why wasn’t it?”

Vetinari tilted his head. “Your value is not determined by your lowest point, Vimes.”

Vimes grit his teeth. “Right. But what if….what if this isn’t my lowest point? What if this is how I am, now. What if this is the best I’ll ever be again?” He felt his breath catch in his chest as he spoke.

“I do not believe that to be the case.”

“Yeah, well. You also said it’d bloody pass.” Vimes looked away, not wanting to see the other man’s reaction to that. He paused and collected himself, then said, “Rosie Palm seems to think if I go down, you’ll go right along with me.”

“That is a possibility. My refusal to distance myself from you has meant our fates are likely intertwined. However, I do not believe that will be a concern for much longer.”

Vimes turned back to him. “You’ve got a plan?”

Now Vetinari gave a smile of the kind more often found on creatures who lurked beneath the surface of swamps. “Of course.”

Vimes grunted. “Good.” He pushed himself carefully up off the bed again, and this time managed to stay upright. “I’ll trust you can save us both, in that case. But right now I need to go and interview that maid.”

Vetinari stood, too. “Very well. You have two hours, Commander.”

He frowned. “What? Why? What’s happening in two hours?”

The Patrician raised an eyebrow. “The trial of James Selachii, Vimes.”

“Hang on - trial? I’ve not finished investigating yet!” 

“He confessed, did he not?”

“Well, yes, but -”

“Then that is sufficient. I will hear the case in two hours.” His tone suggested there was no further space for discussion about the matter.

Vimes blinked. “Right. Fine.” He was definitely bloody back. “I’d better go and find some coffee, then, if I’m going to have to argue with Slant all bloody afternoon.”

“Indeed. It would be unfortunate if I had to let the boy off because you were unprepared, Commander.”

Vimes scowled. “If I can’t get a bloody conviction with a confession you might as well hang me.”

“I’m sure the Selachii’s would find that a most welcome outcome.”

Vimes snorted. “You got a plan for them, too?”

Vetinari looked at him carefully. “Are you familiar with the term ‘threat display’, Commander?”

“Nope. I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me on it, though.”

That smile again; Vimes firmly ignored the way it made him feel. “Indeed. It is a behaviour that occurs in sharks. A ritualised display that demonstrates the creature’s willingness and ability to fight, should it be required; the objective being to persuade the observer that they should run, rather than engage.”

“You saying that’s what they’re doing? Trying to get me to back down?”

Vetinari shrugged. “I am saying, Commander, that we have two options in response to such a display. Flee, or prepare to fight.”

We, Vimes thought. “Right. I can’t see you fleeing.”

“Quite. In any event; perhaps it may be something to bear in mind, this afternoon.”

Vimes tried to read the other man’s expression, but he’d turned inscrutable, again. He sighed. “Okay. Fine.”

Vetinari inclined his head and then slipped out, leaving Vimes alone again, thinking about the word ‘we’.

oOo

He had managed to squeeze in three cups of black coffee and a quick wash before he called in to see Daisy Hooper, the murderous maid who was sobbing in the cells, and was beginning to feel less like something he would have scraped off his own shoe. 

Their conversation had been short and not very informative, but he was intrigued to learn that she was being represented by Slant. Vimes mused on this for a while, and then summoned a corporal with a message to take to the Yard.

James Selachii arrived shackled between two very large jailers, and was shown into the makeshift dock in the Great Hall. The cockyness was gone completely and he now looked every bit his fifteen years, as well as dirty, hunched and drawn, to boot. The Tanty had that effect on people, Vimes had found. For a moment he almost felt sorry for the boy, and then he cast a glance over the assembled crowd and saw the first two rows were filled with the Selachiis and their society friends. On the opposite side of the room was Deborah Willoughby, sitting alone on a bench and crying quietly while people around her pretended not to notice. All the remaining rows were packed, and the standing room at the back of the hall was also crammed with anyone who could afford to lose a day’s pay to come and watch the spectacle.

William de Worde was seated slightly behind Lady Willoughby, notebook in hand, and he gave Vimes a tight smile when his gaze landed on him. Vimes frowned and turned away.

After a few minutes Vetinari entered, flanked by two guards who took up positions a few feet behind his chair as he sat. A hush fell over the crowd. Vimes noted the man was holding himself with artificial care and he looked across at de Worde, but if the journalist had any suspicion that the patrician before them wasn’t the same one who’d survived an attempted assassination two days ago, he was hiding it well.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is a hearing to determine the guilt - or innocence - of Lord James Selachii, with regards the murder of Lord Douglas Willoughby, and to pass sentence if required.” Vetinari paused to allow a mutter to sweep around the crowd and then die away. “I anticipate that this case will provoke some…strong emotions.” He glanced at the Selachiis. “However. Anyone who behaves in a manner unbecoming to the surroundings will be removed to the cells to calm themselves.” He looked back at Vimes as there was muttering of a more disgruntled nature. “Commander Vimes. Present your case.”

Vimes cleared his throat. “Thank you, sir.” He raised his voice slightly. “Three days ago, at around five am, the Watch were summoned to The Green Dragon on Lustrating Drive. This is a tavern, with rooms to let upstairs. In one of those rooms we found the body of Lord Douglas Willoughby, aged sixteen, who appeared to have been beaten to death. My Igor believes the cause of death to be a significant injury to the back of his head, however it was evident he’d been the victim of a sustained attack prior to this. The owner of the establishment had summoned the Watch on hearing sounds of fighting upstairs.” He paused, as in the background the quiet sobbing from Deborah Willoughby had grown louder; James was staring at Vimes, and was becoming progressively more ashen. Slant was sitting beside the boy, making notes on a legal pad, but otherwise not reacting.

Vimes pressed on. “When we arrived, James Selachii was being held in another room by the tavern’s owner and his friend. There was blood on his hands and clothing.” Vimes glanced down at the statements Carrot had taken, and then looked up at James. “Lord Selachii. The witnesses stated that before we had arrived you had said, ‘I didn’t mean to kill him, I’m sorry’. Do you deny this?”

James looked at Slant first, who gave a nod. 

“No, sir.” There was a murmur from the crowd, which Vetinari silenced with a raised eyebrow. Vimes wondered how hard it had been to persuade the boy that ‘sir’ would go in his favour a damned sight more than the attitude he’d copped with Vimes at the station.

“You were taken to the Yard, where I interviewed you in the presence of Mister Slant and you confessed to the murder. Is that correct?”

Another look at Slant; another nod. “Yes, sir.”

Vimes pulled out the boy’s statement. “Why did you kill Douglas, James?”

James leaned down as Slant gestured and then whispered in his ear. He straightened, and continued. “We’d been drinking, sir. He invited me up to the room to keep going after they’d said we needed to leave. I went up with him.” He paused, and Vimes saw his eyes flick across to where Robert Selachii was sitting; the look lasted less than a second, and then he was staring at Vimes again. “I sat on the bed. He sat next to me. He…he put his hand on my leg. I thought he was joking around. Then he tried to kiss me. I told him no - I felt sick. He tried to convince me to…to…” Colour was high in his cheeks, now. “I got angry. I’m not like that, I didn’t want it. I’m not like that.” Slant winced slightly at the disgust in the tone, but didn’t intervene.

“So, what did you do?” 

The boy shrugged sullenly. “I lost it. I hit him…over and over. Then he fell off the bed and hit the back of his head on the floor. Then he stopped moving.” He glanced back at his father. “It was self defense. I didn’t want any of that. He shouldn’t have tried to kiss me.”

Vetinari watched the confession flatly. “So your argument is that you were defending yourself against unwanted attention from Mister Willoughby. Mister Slant, you have informed your client that this is not a defence to the act itself?”

Slant stood. “Yes, my lord. However, I would argue that although he clearly admits to the act, he lacks the mens rea or 'guilty mind', and we would plead for leniency in sentencing on those grounds. This child does not need to hang for defending himself against the immoral actions of an older man.”

Vimes opened his mouth without thinking. “Older man?! Douglas was sixteen. Barely a year’s difference!” 

“In the eyes of the law, Lord Willoughby was an adult, Commander.” Slant peered at him. Vimes shook his head in disbelief.

“Fine . If that’s how you want to spin it. But if it’s all the bloody same, I hadn’t actually finished presenting my case. Sir.”

“He’s told you what bloody happened, man! He’s confessed!” Robert Selachii had stood, and now he turned to Vetinari. “Godsdamnit, Havelock; get your damned dog under control.” 

The crowd had been listening intently but now the silence took on an anticipatory edge as a hundred people held their breath and watched Vetinari. The only sound in the room came from de Worde as he scribbled away in his notebook.

Threat display, Vimes thought. 

Vetinari’s expression could have been carved from ice, and when he responded his tone was every bit as chilly. “Lord Selachii; you will be seated or you will be removed. In as many pieces as necessary.” The man glared at him for a long moment; Vimes watched as Vetinari’s index finger twitched and the guards flanking him straightened, and then Selachii was sitting back down slowly, not taking his eyes off the patrician. The crowd breathed out.

Vetinari leaned forwards, resting his chin on his hand. “My apologies, Commander. Please. Continue.”

Vimes turned back to face James, and paused. 

Attack, or flee…?

He blinked. Is that even a question?

He sighed loudly. “See, the trouble is, James, that I know you’re lying about why you killed Douglas.”

A buzz erupted from the crowd behind him, and Vetinari immediately rapped his cane on the floor for quiet. In the dock James’ eyes widened, which contrasted amusingly with Slant’s as the zombie narrowed his own. 

When everyone had settled again, Vimes continued. “Are you familiar with an establishment called Molly’s, James?”

A beat. “No.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw de Worde look up, sharply. 

“Interestin’. Because you had the address on a piece of paper in your bedroom.”

James shrugged sullenly. “Must have picked it up somewhere by accident.” 

“Ah. See, I’ve also got a witness who puts you there on several occasions, recently.”

The last remaining tinge of colour drained from James’ face, and Slant finally interjected. “What relevance is this, Commander?”

Vimes took a deep breath. “The relevance is, sir, that Molly’s is a very particular type of bar. A place for gentlemen who prefer the company of other gentlemen to go, where they can meet in peace. And two weeks ago your client not only made overtures to one of the gentlemen, there, but when rejected spent the rest of the evening sobbing into his beer…” - he had to raise his voice now, over the noise from the crowd - “and confessing his love for Douglas Willoughby .” 

He stopped, as the furore drowned him out completely, and turned to look at the Selachiis. He had expected them to be on their feet again, but Robert was simply staring at James with an expression of absolute disgust.

Ah.

Vetinari rapped his cane again, and the noise died down as the crowd waited to hear more of this evidently salacious gossip.

Vimes grimaced. “So why did you really kill Douglas, James?”

The boy glanced nervously at his father, and seemed to freeze. Vimes moved to place himself carefully in his line of sight, blocking his view of the man. 

“James…?”

The silence stretched. Vimes glanced at Vetinari, who raised an eyebrow. He took a step towards the boy. “James; listen to me. Do you want to be hanged for a lie? Is that really better than living with the truth?”

The boy finally dragged his eyes back to Vimes’ face. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke it was barely above a whisper. Nevertheless, it carried across the room.

“I told him. I told him I loved him. And he laughed, and he told me I was sick. And he threatened to tell everyone.”

The silence in the hall was almost palpable.

“Was it everyone you were worried about him telling, James? Or someone in particular?”

James blinked. “My father. He’d have killed me.”

The crowd swivelled as one to stare at Robert Selachii, who was radiating silent fury with the same intensity as a collapsing star might radiate heat. Beside him his wife looked on, impassively.

“So you killed Douglas first. To stop him telling?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A boy you loved?”

James swallowed hard, and Vimes could make out a tear as it escaped his eyes and left a trail down his cheeks. “Yes, sir.”

Vimes opened his mouth to ask another question, but he was interrupted by an anguished wail from behind him. 

“No! No. That’s a lie! Douglas was a good boy. A kind boy.” Deborah Willougby started forward, as if towards the dock, but Vimes turned and grabbed her and gently propelled her back. 

“Take a seat, please, ma’am,” he said, softly.

The woman rounded on him and for a moment he thought she might hit him. He tensed, but then she seemed to wake up; she stared at him, and then looked across at Vetinari. Her eyes narrowed and he watched, then, as she carefully closed herself back down, retreating back inside herself in the same way she had when he’d first broken the news to her. She sat back on the bench, and after a minute Vimes turned back to James. 

He paused, then said, “What reason did you have to think your father would kill you, James?”

James stared at Vimes. “He nearly killed a servant once, for crossing him. He beat us when we stepped out of line; his fists, mostly, but he was quick with the birch, too, when we were growing. And he…he didn’t like, um, well. He called them fags. He was very clear about that. He once said it’d be the end of us, if any of us turned out like that.” 

Vimes grimaced. “Right. Fair enough. But why didn’t you mention any of this when I bloody interviewed you?”

James shrugged miserably. “Mr Slant said he could get me off with a year or two in the Tanty if it was self defense. Then I’d be back at home. Even if he didn’t kill me then, my life wouldn’t be worth living. I’d have been better off hanged if I’d told the truth.”

Robert Selachii was staring at James like a man who had encountered half a bug in his salad, and Vimes felt a twinge of sympathy for the boy. He looked over at Vetinari, who had sat back in his chair and was peering at James over steepled fingers. “Think that’s me done, sir.”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “Mr Slant? Anything more to say?”

“Ah. No, my lord. I think the events speak for themselves, in this case.”

Vetinari sighed, and looked around the hall. The crowd were waiting. He sat forward and opened his mouth to speak.

From the far end of the hall there was a commotion as the large doors opened and a small figure pushed its way through the standing observers.

“Sorry. Look, I said sorry. Well if your foot weren’t in the way I wouldn’t ‘av trod on it, would I…? Can’t hardly blame me for that, can you?”

Vimes closed his eyes briefly, as Nobby wrestled free of the press of bodies and then hurried down the centre aisle towards him. Vetinari raised an eyebrow.

The corporal finally realised he was the centre of attention and stopped dead under Vetinari’s stare. “Um. Sorry to interrupt, your Lordship. Urgent message for Mister Vimes.”

Vetinari raised a finger in acquiescence, and Nobby hurried over to Vimes, who ducked down and listened as the man whispered damply in his ear. He thought for a second, and then muttered something back. Nobby gave a him a casual salute, and then trotted back off down the aisle. The crowd turned to watch him leave, shuffling their feet quickly out of the way.

Vimes straightened and cleared his throat. “Sorry about that, sir.”

“Not to worry, Commander. May I…?”

Vimes gave a small cough. “Of course.”

“Capital.” Vetinari paused, then looked at James Selachii.

“You have admitted, my lord, that you have taken the life of a young man, and that you have lied to those who tried to find the truth of the matter. These facts alone would be sufficient to warrant a sentence of death.” He paused, and drummed his fingers on the table before him. “However. I accept that there were other factors in play that may be considered…mitigation. This city is becoming more enlightened, it is true; still, the fact remains that a great many men such as your father are rooted in the past. Their hatred for certain groups, and consideration of certain acts to be immoral -” he glanced at Slant, “- lead many of us to hide and repress those aspects of ourselves, and to offer violence to those who might risk exposing them.”

Vimes blinked. Many of us? 

Wait. Did he just…?

He looked over at William de Worde. The man was looking up at Vetinari with a startled expression. 

De Worde certainly seems to bloody think so…

Vimes felt himself sway slightly on his feet. He became aware of a gradual muttering behind him, as a few more people caught up.

James was staring at Vetinari with cautious fascination. The patrician ignored the mutterings, and continued speaking.

“I take into account the fact that you have also, through your own fear, brought about the death of someone you cared for, and that you will undoubtedly feel this weigh heavily on you for the remainder of your life. I am therefore inclined to ensure that you have sufficient time to fully appreciate the pain you have caused. You are therefore sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment, to commence immediately.” He paused. “This concludes the matter.”

James sagged as the crowd called and jeered. Vimes didn’t have time to think about what had just happened any further, because from the corner of his eye he saw Lady Willoughby stand and put a hand in her pocket. He stepped smartly in front of her, blocking her path to Vetinari, and dropped his voice so that only she could hear. 

“Ma’am? Please stay where you are. I’m afraid you’re under arrest, on suspicion of conspiracy to murder Lord Vetinari. Please take your hand out of your pocket.”

She dragged her gaze back to Vimes, and he saw that the sentencing had purged the last remaining light from her eyes. She looked at him dully. “I knew he’d side with them, in the end. My sons are dead. My Peter he sent off to die in a damned war, but the Selachii’s murder who they want, and live. Where’s the justice, there?”

Vimes kept one eye on her until Vetinari stood and left the hall, while across the room James Selachii was handcuffed and led away by the jailors. She watched them leave.

He recalled the picture on the mantle, when he had gone to break the news to the woman; a boy almost a decade older than Douglas, wearing a regimental uniform. “How much did you pay Daisy Hooper to try to kill him?”

The woman looked at him. “Enough to start a new life, afterwards. She would have done it for half the price, though.”

The crowd was filing out now the show was over, talking in scandalised tones about Vetinari as they went. He could see Nobby and Angua threading their way through the throng of people toward him. 

He frowned. “Because she was in love with Peter.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes.”

Vimes sighed. “And now she’ll hang for it. Alongside you.”

Lady Willoughby shrugged. “So be it.” She finally pulled her hand out of her pocket. Vimes held out his own, and she smiled and dropped a small flick knife into his palm. 

He raised an eyebrow. “You would never have gotten anywhere near him with this. You’d have been killed where you stood.”

“Probably. A quick end, though, at least. And I’d have been with my boys, again.”

Angua and Nobby had finally drawn level with them. Vimes gestured with his head. “Take her ladyship away. Quietly. I don’t want a bloody riot.” 

He turned as they left, and was immediately accosted by William de Worde, who appeared to have been lurking on the periphery. “Did I just hear you correctly, there, Commander? Lady Willoughby was behind the attempted assassination of Lord Vetinari?”

He scowled. “Yes. We’ll release a full statement in due course.”

“Of course. The front page is going to be busy for a few days, anyway, I would say.” William paused. “Do you have any comment on Lord Vetinari’s startling announcement, Commander?”

“‘Startling announcement?’ What the hell are you on about?”

William shrugged. “You heard what I heard, Vimes. It seems very much like his Lordship was nailing his colours to the mast, there. It’s not like there hasn’t been plenty of speculation over the years.”

“Yes, fuelled by your damned rag.”

William smiled slightly. “Real change starts from the top, Commander. Think of all the people who might be inspired by a few brave, honest souls.”

Vimes grunted. “All I heard was an attempt to sound sympathetic to a confused boy who’d just killed his mate because he was terrified of his dad. Don’t go gettin’ carried away.”

The other man turned and stared at the Selachiis. Robert Selachii was staring away into the distance, his face like thunder. His wife tried to say something to him, and he ignored her. She stood up and walked off, leaving the man alone in an expanding circle of empty space as their friends evidently felt the sudden need to distance themselves. 

William watched the pair thoughtfully. “That seems a tad disingenuous, Commander. Although it is Havelock Vetinari, so it’s no surprise he phrased it to give himself some plausible deniability, in case he needs to retract it.” He looked back at Vimes. “Again.”

Vimes didn’t look at him. The last of the coffee was starting to wear off, and exhaustion was creeping back in. “If you want to know what he meant, I suggest you ask him yourself. And you can bloody quote me on that.”

William raised an eyebrow. “I plan to, Commander. Still; do you have anything to say about the case itself?”

Vimes thought about it. “Yes. ‘It’s a tragic turn of events that nevertheless demonstrates once again that even the rich and powerful aren’t above the damned law.’ Now, feel free to run along and see what Robert Selachii has to say about it all, because I’m sure he’ll have plenty for you.”

William grinned. “Thank you, Commander. I’ve got Sacharissa outside ready to catch Lady Selachii, as well, for her take on it.”

Yes, that could be interesting, Vimes mused. However, he merely raised an eyebrow, and WIlliam disappeared off into the thinning crowd in search of a good byline.

He turned, and spotted Drumknott standing at the edge of the room, trying to catch his attention. Vimes wandered tiredly over.

“His Lordship would like a word in his office, Commander.”

“Yes, I bet he would.” He looked at the secretary, who seemed to be running on an odd kind of energy. “Did you know he was planning that?”

Drumknott hesitated. “No.”

“Did you know that about him?”

Another hesitation. “Yes. In a manner of speaking. He had…alluded to it.”

“Not like Vetinari to be indirect about something.” Vimes grinned, and Drumknott offered a faint smile in return. “I’d better go and see what he wants, I suppose.” He turned, then paused and turned back. “It occurs to me that you didn’t ask if I knew.”

Drumknott raised his eyebrows. “No.”

Vimes stared at him for a moment but the secretary was giving nothing else away, so after a minute he merely grunted and walked off to find Vetinari.

Chapter Text

“Ah, Commander. Thank you for coming. I appreciate you have had a taxing day.”

Vetinari was standing by the window, staring out at the city. Vimes looked around at the empty office, deliberating, and finally crossed the room to stand a careful distance from the man.

He grunted. “Dare say it's not been as taxing as yours is about to get.”

Vetinari allowed the ghost of a smile to grace his lips. “Perhaps.”

Vimes looked sideways at him. “Why did you say that, at the trial? I mean, I presume you know damned well what you’ve just implied.”

“Of course.”

“Then…why?”

Vetinari sighed. “Several reasons. The first is simply that I am tired of the secrecy and denials, Vimes. It is…limiting. As I believe you may be able to attest, recently.”

Vimes frowned. “What d’you mean?”

The eyebrow went up. “Well, you have hardly been a bastion of discretion yourself, I feel it is fair to say.” His tone was mild, but Vimes felt his mind go blank in response.

The bloke from the bar?

He flushed pinkly. “You know about that?” 

“Yes.”

Vimes was staring openly at him, now, but Vetinari’s expression wasn’t giving anything away. “And?”

“And what, Vimes? You are separated from your wife and otherwise…unencumbered. It is not my place to have an opinion on the matter.” His face remained carefully neutral.

Vimes felt the pink turn a deeper shade of red. The man really was a spider at the centre of a damned web. 

“Right. Been spyin’ on me, have you?”

“I hear things, Vimes. Particularly when these things involve the Duke of Ankh making impulsive decisions that might have a…wider societal impact.”

Wider societal impact? It was a drunken fling! But even as he thought it, he knew he was being what Sybil had once referred to as stubbornly obtuse. His actions had consequences, these days, and if it became known that the Duke of Ankh got out of both sides of the bed, well, then; that would affect things. 

“Wait, was that one of the reasons you just bloody outed yourself? In case there was any muck flung at me?” 

“I suppose there is solidarity in numbers, though I would generally expect you to handle any repercussions of that yourself, I’m afraid. However, there was another reason.” Vetinari paused. “The guilds need taking in hand. What I have planned, Commander, requires that I be…difficult to extort. And so I am revealing such information before it can be used against me.” He smiled. “I am opening all of my little boxes, Vimes, and putting the contents on display, as it were.”

Vimes narrowed his eyes. “All of ‘em?”

Vetinari put his head to one side. “If you would prefer that I don’t mention our relationship, then I will of course honour that. However, I am asking whether you might be prepared to deal with the consequences should it become public knowledge through other means.”

“So…not tell people, but not try to bury it if someone threatens to reveal it?”

“Yes.”

Vimes thought about it. “Before I agree to anything, what is it you’re planning, here? What exactly will you be gaining from this?”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “You asked earlier if I had a plan to handle the guilds; this is it, Vimes. Your public exposure of the Selachiis has alienated their friends and they, at least, will be less troublesome for a while. However, I still have a letter from a group of nameless guild leaders calling for your badge and my resignation. I am assured by my informants that they have been plotting for some time and that this is the opening salvo of a larger campaign. My plan is to crush them, Commander, before they get any further. My plan is our mutual survival.”

Vimes felt a small tingle start somewhere deep inside him, and quashed it quickly. That’s not bloody helpful. “Is this linked to your little disappearing act?”

“Yes.”

Vimes considered it. The idea of everyone knowing about him and Vetinari, even now it was over…that was terrifying. But was it any more terrifying than anything else that had happened over the last year? He’d survived every other damned thing that had gone on. And Vetinari was right; the lies and denials were exhausting.

“Fine.” He scowled. “If it comes out, it comes out. Do whatever you want.” 

“Capital.” Vetinari smiled, and Vimes watched as the man crossed to his desk and picked up a handful of slim files. “My coach should just be pulling around. Shall we?”

“Hang on, shall we what ?”

“Address the matter. No time like the present, Vimes. Do come along.” 

The patrician stalked out of the office, leaving Vimes to blink in confusion and then to jog to catch up.

oOo

The trip across the city was almost painfully like old times; or at least the old old times, when they had discussed inconsequential matters and exchanged snarky barbs as Vimes was dragged along to be wheeled out as the Duke of Ankh at another diplomatic event. 

Not the kind of old times in which their coach journeys were an opportunity for some comparatively uninterrupted - and rather enjoyable - time together.

Vimes blushed as he recalled their last such trip, and stared determinedly out of the window for a few minutes until the pang of the memory was safely packed away. He tried to remember the anger, instead, but whenever he thought he’d grasped it again it slipped through his fingers like mist. 

It was, he was coming to realise, impossible to truly hate someone you still loved, no matter how hard you tried.

They pulled up outside a building in the meat district, which was evident even from inside the coach due to the smell. Vimes grimaced.

“Who’s in there?”

“Every guild leader who is involved in attempting to depose us. Twenty of them.”

“Twenty…? ” Vimes felt the blood in his veins take on a chilly quality.

“Yes.” Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “You did antagonise a lot of people, this last year, Vimes.”

“Gods. ” He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “You should have bloody stopped me.”

Vetinari stared at him silently, and Vimes fidgeted under the penetrating gaze before muttering, “Alright. Fine. I know I wouldn’t have bloody listened.”

“On the contrary, I suspect you would merely have made it your mission to antagonise the rest of them, as well.”

Vimes made a noise that neither confirmed nor denied this, and attempted a deflection instead. “What’s in the files?”

“A…reminder.”

Vimes waited a second, but it was evident that was all he was getting, so he bit back a sarcastic response and simply jumped down out of the coach. He stamped his feet in the frosty air and waited while the other man climbed out carefully after him, the stack of folders tucked under his arm.

The patrician walked to the door to the warehouse and rapped on it with his cane.

There was silence for a minute, and he repeated the knock with more force. 

Vimes thought he could hear a muttered conversation from behind the door, and after another few seconds it opened a crack.

“This is private property. Bugger off.”

Vetinari, however, had wedged his cane into the crack, and now he leaned in to allow the speaker to see his face. 

“Think again.”

There was a sudden silence before the muttering increased in intensity for a moment, and a minute later the door opened fully and the man stepped aside. “Ah. Sorry, your lordship. Didn’t realise it was you…and His Grace,” he added, as Vetinari swept past and Vimes ambled in after him.

There was a large table set up in the middle of the cavernous room, although the chairs around it were empty. From the noises coming from the rear of the building Vimes concluded the occupants had evidently made a hasty retreat for the back door once it became apparent that the boss had turned up. 

Vimes frowned. “Should we…”

Vetinari held up a hand, and after another minute the men all filed slowly back in, looking like chastened schoolboys.

Vetinari narrowed his eyes at them. “Ah. I’m afraid I do have guards posted at all of the exits. So, gentlemen; may I suggest you Sit. Back. Down .”

The command in the tone meant even Vimes had to fight the urge to follow the order. His legs twitched and he scowled and planted his feet, while the men hurried back to the chairs and sat down in red-faced silence; there was a brief confusion as each man fought not to be left with the seat at the head of the table. 

Boggis lost. Vimes quickly scanned the rest of the faces but didn’t see Slant or Downey amongst the group, which was a surprise. Whiteface, however, was there, unmistakable in his greasepaint; evidently he was a fool through and through, because it seemed the idea of removing it to remain inconspicuous hadn’t occurred to him. The rest of the men were from an assortment of the smaller guilds; not as powerful individually as the assassins or the seamstresses, perhaps, but still with a sizable membership. Vimes did some quick maths and calculated that between them, they represented a decent chunk of the city’s population. 

He blinked. This could have been an actual problem. 

Boggis was looking around at the men. “My lord. It is good you are here. We are but a few representatives of some of the many guilds who feel -”

“Shut up, sir. I have no interest in hearing who you are, or what you represent. My sources have kept me well informed on both of those counts.” 

The men glanced accusingly around at each other, while Boggis pursed his lips.

Vetinari waited a beat, allowing the silence to become oppressive, and then he walked slowly towards the table, his cane hitting the floor with a smart crack with each deliberate step. The men winced collectively with every impact. 

When he reached it, he walked a leisurely circle behind them, dropping a slim folder onto the table before each man as he went. No one made any move to pick up their file. Finally Vetinari returned to his starting position, and then stared at Boggis.

“Open it.”

Boggis glanced at Vimes, who shrugged. Cautiously, like a man attempting to handle a wasps’ nest but fearing the sting, he flicked open the dull grey file. Vimes squinted and could just make out that the first page consisted of an iconograph, but then Boggis’ eyes bulged widely and he snatched up the folder and slammed it closed. 

“Where the bloody hell did you get that?!”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “I suggest you look at the rest of it, sir.” Boggis glared at him and then cautiously reopened it, keeping the contents hidden from the rest of the table. As he flicked through the remaining sheets of paper he grew progressively paler. The other men watched his face with horrified fascination, and then one by one turned to stare grimly down at their own files.

Boggis reached the last page, and closed the folder. Instead of putting it back down, however, he clutched it tightly to his chest. With his other hand he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead, which was slick with sweat.

Vetinari smiled like a knife. 

“Please, gentlemen. My associates have been very busy; I would hate for their work to go unappreciated.” He narrowed his eyes again. “Open them.”

Around the table the men reached out and picked up their folders, then opened them hesitantly. There was an assortment of very quiet, but very pained, noises against the backdrop of rustling paper.

What the hell has he got on them all? Vimes wondered.

He looked over at Vetinari’s expression, but the man was giving nothing away. 

After another minute every man had finished reading, and was clutching his folder with white knuckles. 

I hope he’s got copies of those, Vimes thought, because he’s not getting them back without breaking every finger in the damned room.

Not that I expect that would be a problem.

On cue, Vetinari said, “You may keep those, gentlemen; I have copies.” Then he sighed, in the manner of a parent who wanted to make it clear he was not angry, but simply disappointed. “I believe that I once advised you that I know everything about you. Where your children go to school and where your wives have their hair done. It seems that many of you have forgotten those conversations.” He paused. “I did not, however. So, in order that you not become so easily forgetful in the future, I thought I would offer you a small keepsake, as a helpful reminder.” He gave another of those sharp little smiles. “You will note that not only do I see you when you’re sleeping, and know when you’re awake; I also know when you’ve been bad. Although, gentlemen, unlike the Hogfather, next time your gift from me will not be a bag of bloodied bones. It will, in fact, be so…much…worse.”

Vimes felt a soft chill creep up his spine.

Boggis, however, had recovered slightly, and was glaring at Vetinari balefully. “Threats, Vetinari? This is why the people will see you gone, one day.” He glanced at Vimes. “The pair of you. The tyrant and his damned drunken terrier.”

“Indeed? Well, I would encourage you to muse on the fact that no one has even come close, as yet. I will use whatever means necessary to keep this city, because the commander and I have no intention of giving it up. Over the years I have tolerated your little plots and petty rebellions, sir, but it seems the time has come to take you in hand.” He glanced around the table. “This ends, here and now. Otherwise the contents of those folders gets sent to every person you’ve ever loved or respected. If that is insufficient threat, then the same person who watched you sleep so soundly from the foot of your bed will be given…new instructions. And he is very skilled, in that regard. Do we have an understanding?”

Boggis attempted to rally. “I’m sure we’re not the only ones with a few skeletons in our closets…”

Whiteface finally spoke. “Shut up, Henry.” Boggis’ mouth dropped open, and the clown continued. “Yes, Vetinari. We do.”

The rest of the table muttered their agreement. 

“Capital. Well then, gentlemen. Don’t let me detain you.” 

The men stood, holding their folders like shields, and shuffled awkwardly out of the door Vimes and Vetinari had come in through. Boggis was the last to go, and Vimes mused that there might be less venom in snakes than in the poisonous look he threw the pair. Vetinari stood tall and still as the men filed past them, then, once they were alone, he crossed back to the table and laid a hand on it carefully. He stood for a moment, pensive, and then turned back to face Vimes.

“I suspect Boggis will find it difficult to drum up further support once word spreads about this.”

“You certainly seem to have made your point. You going to tell me what was in those files, now?”

“A comprehensive record of every morally deviant or politically unwise act each man has been part of over the last three months. Compromising pictures, transcriptions of conversations, copies of letters…and a few images that were entirely innocent. There were several very fetching images of Boggis drooling in his sleep, for example. And one of him in the bath, which I found particularly impressive.”

Vimes frowned. “The clerks managed to get all that?”

Vetinari hesitated. “No.”

“Who, then?”

The pause was longer. “The clerks obtained much of the paperwork. Some of the more intimate pictures were taken by several of Mrs Palm’s more…specialist colleagues, operating on a freelance, clandestine basis; I would not have wanted any of this to be traced back to her.”

Vimes had picked up on the hesitation, and it set his suspicious bastard instincts tingling. He narrowed his eyes.

“Right. And who crept into their bedrooms and took pictures while they were sleeping?”

Vetinari sighed. “Tomas.”

Vimes frowned. “Tomas? He’s dead.” He looked at the expression on Vetinari’s face, which appeared to be specially calculated to be entirely inscrutable. “Isn’t he? Carrot identified his body. We bloody buried him, he’d better have been bloody dead!” By the end of the sentence he was almost shouting, because he knew exactly what Vetinari was going to say next, and the anger that had ebbed like the tide was now back, as a maelstrom.

As ever, Vetinari remained composed in the face of Vimes’ rage. “I’m afraid, Commander, that it was a case of mistaken identity. The body that was found was one of his accomplices.”

“And you didn’t tell me?! He tried to bloody kill me! He nearly bloody killed you! He threatened my whole damned family!”

“I am aware. And that was why, once I realised he was at large, I had to see to it that any reasons to harm you were removed.”

“What reasons ?” Vimes growled. 

“Two, in fact. Downey, who, it turned out, was behind the whole thing.” Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “And… me, Vimes.”

Vimes went very quiet. “You?”

Vetinari’s face looked ever so slightly pained. “Yes.”

“You mean to tell me,” Vimes said, his voice dangerously low, “that you ended things with me because you knew he was still out there?”

“I…”

“And rather than just tell me, and let me make my own damned decisions, you made one for both of us?”

“There were additional factors that informed my decision, Vimes.”

“Right.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth and stared at the other man. “But it was for my own good, right?”

Vetinari winced. “I would not…”

“Of course you wouldn’t. And now you’re telling me that not only is your - what? Your ex ? The man who tried to kill bloody me - is still alive, but that you’re working with him? Why is he not in a damned prison cell?”

Vetinari paused. “He went to ground. At which point I had two options to protect you, once I knew he lived. The first was to find and kill him, which would frankly have been a waste of his skills. The second was to convert him to my cause, and put him to use. I chose the second option.”

“A waste of his skills?”

“Yes. He was a competent assassin, but moreover an incredibly skilled spy, who unfortunately had been manipulated and indoctrinated to the enemy side. I decided channeling him appropriately would be more…useful.”

“Useful. I mean, that’s what it's about, to you, isn’t it? How much use any of us are.” Vimes shook his head and gave a bitter laugh. “Was that really it, though? Or did you just want a chance to get close to him again?” 

Vetinari’s eyes darkened. “That, Vimes, is your paranoia speaking, and I will choose to pretend you did not succumb to the temptation to voice it.”

Vimes gritted his teeth. “Of course you’d avoid the question. So where is he? Got him at the palace, have you?”

“Of course not; don’t be absurd.”

“Absurd is using a man like that to take out your political enemies. Did no one ever teach you the story about the scorpion and the damned frog?” 

“Are you suggesting I am the frog, in this story, Commander?” Vetinari said, a hint of danger in his tone.

Vimes looked back at the man, and another wave of exhaustion washed over him. It seemed like a long time since he’d slept and he was reasonably sure he still had traces of the maid’s drug in his system, because his brain was starting to take on that cotton wool feeling again.

He sighed. “I think…maybe I’m the damned frog.” From his pocket came a bingley-beep, and he pulled out his watch and looked at the time. “Anyway, I can’t have this discussion right now. I’m going to see my son, and then I’m going to bloody bed.”

Vetinari tilted his head. “My coach can drop you at Scoone Avenue.”

“No. I’ll walk. Clear my head.”

Vetinari didn’t look pleased, but merely inclined his head. “Very well.”

Vimes could feel the man’s eyes bring into his back as he left him there, alone in the empty warehouse. Walking slowly back through the streets of the city, he breathed in the frost that hung in the air and felt it seep inside him. 

oOo

By the time he’d walked half the city the Times had run an extra edition featuring Vetinari’s comments on the front page. Sybil had tried to talk to him about it, and he had shut her down as gently as he was able, which frankly wasn’t very gentle at all in his current mood. Thankfully she gave him far more leeway than he probably deserved, and forced him to eat a sandwich before he left.

He’d walked back to the yard afterwards, and ignored the looks from the few guards who were hanging around and whispering over the paper. Then he’d hauled himself up the stairs, fallen into his hard little bed with the scratchy blankets and too thin pillow, and slept for fourteen hours.

He was woken the next morning by a quiet knock on the door, and he grunted for the knocker to come in without turning or moving his head out from underneath the blanket he’d pulled over his head to block out the morning sun.

“Morning, Sam. Brought you some coffee.” There was an awkward, slightly cautious tone to Colon’s voice, but it was accompanied by the sound of a mug being placed down on the bedside table, so Vimes considered that was as much acceptance as he could probably expect from the man right now. He didn’t move.

“Thanks, Fred,” he said, from within the comparative safety of the covers.

There was a pause. “You, er. Feeling alright, are you?”

“I’m not hungover, if that’s what you’re askin’, Fred.” He realised with a vague start that it was true, and that, moreover and for the first time since he could remember, he hadn’t even considered drinking last night. 

More progress, he thought, dully. 

“Oh, good. I just thought…well. When you didn’t come back after the trial, we just figured…” The voice trailed off. 

Vimes closed his eyes in the darkness beneath the covers. “I was with Vetinari.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause, that Vimes couldn’t be bothered to fill. After a minute there was the sound of footsteps, and then a soft click as the door closed.

He let out a small sigh, and wondered how long he could stay here, cocooned against the world. A minute later his musing was interrupted by a quiet cough that made him jump, and he scowled, unseen.

“Gods, Fred! Thought you’d bloody left.”

Fred’s unmistakable footsteps crossed the floor towards the desk by the window, and then there was an alarming creak from its ancient wooden chair as he sat down.

“No. I thought mebbe we should talk, a bit. In private.”

Oh, hell.

“Right, well I’ve just woken up, and frankly I was plannin’ on getting a few more hours kip before any having any kind of conversation, never mind one that needs the bloody door closing. So if it’s about what I said the other night -” 

“That bloke. The ‘one in particular’, you mentioned. Was it Vetinari?”

Vimes hesitated for a moment, staring at the darkness and wondering if it might absorb him into it if he looked long enough. Finally, though, he pushed himself upright and turned, resting his back against the wall, so he could get a look at Fred. The man was slightly flushed in the cheeks and his brow was furrowed in consternation, but he was staring evenly at Vimes. Vimes reached for his cigars, which were on the bedside table next to the cooling cup of coffee, and took another few seconds to light one before responding.

“What makes you say that, Fred?”

“I know I’m not always the sharpest tool in the box, Sam. You don’t ‘ave to tell me that. But I’m still a copper, and I can add two and two and get four. Nine times out of ten, anyway.” He paused. “I read in the paper what he’d said at the trial. And there was that stuff they printed last year. I mean, I know they took it back later, but with the things you said the other day it just…made me think. So that’s what I’ve done. Added it up.” He shrugged, embarrassed. “Am I wrong?”

What was it Vetinari had said? I am asking whether you might be prepared to deal with the consequences should it become public knowledge through other means…

Vimes puffed on the cigar, and let the smoke out in a sigh. “No. You’re not wrong.”

Colon’s eyes widened. “Bloody hell, Sam! Vetinari?! He’s…he’s your bloody boss! And a damned assassin!”

Vimes gave an uncomfortable shrug. “You know I’ve never done anything the easy way, Fred.”

“I know that right enough, but there’s the bloody easy way and the damned suicidal way! What were you thinking!” He had gone pale, and Vimes watched as he rubbed a hand nervously across his mouth. “Bloody Vetinari.”

“Yeah. I know.” He reached out for the coffee and took a swig, his mouth suddenly feeling dry. 

Colon was shaking his head disbelievingly. “Is it still goin’ on?”

“No.”

“Right. Okay. Good. Glad you saw some sense, at least.”

Vimes winced, then admitted, “It was his decision.” 

He had aimed for a light tone, but evidently there was something beneath it that even Colon could hear, because the other man stared at him for a long moment, then frowned slightly. “You, er. You cared for him, then?”

“Yeah. I did.” He looked down into his coffee. “Still do, Fred, since we’re being frank.” He took a mouthful of the bitter liquid, to avoid looking his oldest friend in the face.  

“Oh.” Colon shifted uncomfortably, the chair creaking beneath him. “Cared for, like you cared for that girl you stepped out with for a summer, back when you were still a sergeant? Or…like you cared for Sybil?”

Vimes continued to stare into the coffee, and cleared his throat. “Sybil.”

There was a long silence, and then Colon said, quietly, “Oh, hell. Sam.”

“I know, alright?!” He looked up, cheeks reddening. “It was stupid. Damned stupid. It just bloody happened. I didn’t even realise it was happening, until we ended up in that sodding basement the other year and I thought he might die on me. By that point it was too bloody late. I was sunk, Fred.”

Colon was frowning slightly. “That business when Carrot arrested you? That’s when it started?”

“Yeah.”

“So when did it end? How long were you an’ he…um, together?”

Vimes gave a half shrug. “It ended maybe six months before Sybil and I split. So about a year, all told.”

“You were courting the bloody patrician for a bloody year and you never said anything?!” Colon looked like he might leap - or more likely fall - out of the damned chair at any moment. Vimes winced, whilst at the same time feeling vaguely amused by the word courting.

Was that what he and Vetinari had been doing? He felt sure there should have been more flowers and fewer blackmail and murder attempts, if that was the case.

“Alright, Fred. No point closing the damned door if you’re going to shout loud enough for the sodding street to hear.”

Colon sat back heavily in the chair. “A year, though, Sam! That's…that’s serious. Me an’ the missus were married after eight months. Mind, our eldest came along two months later, which meant we’d ‘ad to put a rush on it. But still.” He shook his head. “A year.”

“Yeah, well. It’s over now.”

“But why? What happened?”

Vimes looked at Colon’s big, open face, and grabbed the bull by its slightly sweaty sideburns. “You sure you want to be hearing about this? I mean, I know it makes you uncomfortable.”

Colon blinked, and looked slightly ashamed. “I mean. Not uncomfortable, as such. I wouldn’t say uncomfortable. I just…remembered what our dad used to say about it all. He never did like pooft-” He caught himself, and, to Vimes’ surprise, stopped before finishing the thought. “Erm. Anyway. I got talking to Angua about it all, and she was pretty good about explainin’ it to me, and so I bin thinking about it more and I reckon there’s more of it about, these days, or I suppose mebbe you just hear about it more. Like those two biddies that live over on Letsbe Avenue, I thought they were sisters but Nobby says they only ‘ave the one bed. But they always give me a couple of hens' eggs when I’m passing.” He took a breath. “So. What I reckon I’m sayin’ is that it was a shock, you…being one of ‘em, right enough. But I realised it’s like you said. You’re still you. You’re…well.” He shrugged, and gave an embarrassed cough. “Vimesy.”

Vimes stared at him for a long moment, then took another mouthful of coffee to wash down the suspicious lump that had appeared in his throat. He gave a small cough. “Thanks, Fred.” He watched the other man wipe a sheen of sweat from his forehead, and pressed on. “Anyway. Apparently his Lordship finished things to protect me.” His tone was so caustic you could have scrubbed the privy with it.

Colon frowned. “What the hell could be so bad he’d need to protect you from it? I mean, you’re a damned scrapper, Sam. I’ve seen you take out assassins without breaking a sweat. And remember last month when those three lads jumped you in the Shades? You’d had a skinful and you still sent ‘em running home crying for their mums.”

Vimes felt a faint swell of pride at that, mixed with a tinge of embarrassment as he remembered how he’d also puked most of the skinful straight back up afterwards, all over his uniform. “Right? It’s bloody ridiculous.”

But the other man was now looking thoughtful. “Still. Looking at it, I suppose it’s not like he ended it because of you, right? Like when Doris Witchety told Nobby she couldn’t see herself shackin’ up with a man who’d always ‘ave to show the guard at the zoo his special letter to get let back out after a visit. I mean, he must’ve still cared for you too, to be wanting you protected, yeah?”

Vimes blinked. “I suppose.”

“Well then,” Colon declared, with the confidence of a man who had been married for three decades and had spent 90% of that time working opposite shifts to his wife. “Mebbe if you just convince him you can take care of yourself, he might change ‘is mind.”

Vimes scowled. “He knows I can take care of myself, Fred. He’s just…”

“...scared?”

He stared at Colon. “I was going to say stubborn. Vetinari doesn’t get scared.”

“I mean, not over normal stuff, I dare say. But he’s not exactly normal. No offence.” He shrugged. “Mebbe the emotional stuff scares him.”

Vimes decided to think about that later, because it was too big a concept to squeeze in beside all the other thoughts this conversation was prompting, chief of which was, when did Fred Colon start giving relationship advice and was he really listening to it. He gave his head a metaphorical shake. 

“Anyway. What makes you think I want him to change his bloody mind? I’m not going round begging him to take me back. I’ve got some pride.” 

Colon looked sideways at him. “Right. Keep it at the bottom of a bottle, do you?”

Vimes felt like he’d been punched in the belly. He opened his mouth and then closed it. “That’s a bit harsh, Fred.”

The sergeant gave a half shrug. “Sorry, Sam. But you don’t do well on your own; you never have done. This city weighs you down. You’ve always been better with someone to share the load.”

“I’m not going to be in a relationship with someone just because I can’t keep myself sober when I’m single. That’s not fair on them.”

“I ain’t suggesting that. But if the pair of you still care about each other, it seems daft not to try to work through it, especially if the alternative is Nobby bringing you breakfast in the cells four times a week until you sort yourself out.” He glanced around the room, and Vimes was glad he’d got rid of the empties when he had. “When did you last have a drink?”

Vimes thought back. “The night we arrested James Selachii. Four days.” 

“Okay. That’s good. Get yourself back to the meetings, Sam. Get stuck back into the work. Four’ll soon be fourteen. Then forty. You’ve done it before.” Colon put his hands on his thighs and pushed himself up to standing. “You’re the Duke of Ankh. Start actin’ like it. Sir.”

“Yes, sarge.” Vimes raised an eyebrow and took a mouthful of the now-cold coffee, then stubbed out his cigar on the ashtray on the table beside him and said, “Thanks, Fred.”

“No worries, sir.” He paused. “Um. If you do work things out with Vetinari, you won’t tell him I said he wasn't normal, will you?”

Vimes grinned. “Course not.” 

“Good.” Colon crossed to the door and pulled it open. “Oh, my missus wants to know if you’ll come round for dinner, Sunday. Full disclosure, though, I think she’s wantin’ to fix you up with a friend of hers.”

“I think life’s complicated enough for me at the minute, don’t you, Fred? But thank her for the offer. I’ll take the meal but not the date, if that’s an option.”

“Sure. Six alright?”

Vimes hesitated. “Better make it seven; I think the group I used to go to still meets at Small Gods at six.”

Colon nodded. “Righto. We’ll see you then.” He closed the door behind him. Vimes finished the last dregs of the coffee, and debated sliding back down into the bed for a while longer. 

But Colon’s words were ringing in his head. Get stuck back into the work. 

He sighed. There was bound to be some paperwork Carrot hadn’t had a chance to get to yet; he’d start there.

Chapter Text

It was almost a month later. 

The dinner at Colon’s had been fine. Pleasant, in fact. Vimes hadn’t had a home cooked meal for a while, and at the end of the night Mrs Colon had packed him off with enough leftovers to keep him fed for several days. She’d also given him a tight hug, and told him not to be a stranger, which made him feel several kinds of ways as he shuffled off into the night, avoiding any street with a bar on it on his  trudge back to the Yard. 

The paperwork had taken him three days to sort through, and he’d had a headache for a solid two of them. His hand kept wanting to drift towards the empty drawer in his desk and if he stopped for too long he started thinking, which was worse than the headache. So he kept going.

On the fourth day a murder case had come in, and he’d practically ripped the file out of Carrot’s hands when he’d appeared in the office with it. He’d thrown himself into it with everything he had, and had it solved almost depressingly quickly. But underneath the frustration was the old sense of satisfaction; still there, just more…diffuse. After that he’d made an effort to pick up work each day, even if it was something he’d usually have thrown at the new recruits to practice on. 

He’d started walking a beat again too, though always alongside someone else. Training, he’d called it, and if it happened to mean he wasn’t tempted to nip in anywhere for a snifter, well; that was just a bonus.

And each evening, after kissing his son goodnight and tucking him into bed, he’d gone to a different church hall or warehouse or - on one interesting occasion - someone’s front parlour, and sat and talked with people who understood. 

That was depressing, too, once he realised he recognised a few of the faces from last time around. He didn’t manage to work up the nerve to ask what had happened to the ones who were missing.

Three days ago he’d finally sat and had a conversation with Sybil. A proper one, over a cup of tea and some biscuits while Young Sam was off being shown some of the lesser known sights of the city by Carrot and Angua. 

It had gone…well, he supposed. She was going to speak to her lawyer, who would have some papers drawn up, and very shortly he would be divorced and middle aged, but with a very fair share of the estate and as much time with Young Sam as he wanted, as long as he moved out of the Yard and into somewhere the boy wouldn’t be exposed to quite as many criminals. Vimes had commented that that ruled out anywhere the Selachiis tended to congregate, and Sybil had raised an unamused eyebrow. She had finally given him a list of suitable properties, and he had taken a brief glance and picked the one that was furthest from anywhere that sold alcohol without bothering to look any more closely at it. 

He had told her about the conversations with Vetinari and Colon, and had been surprised when she had sided with the sergeant about the man.

“You should talk to Havelock, Sam,” she’d said, sipping her tea and staring at him over the top of the dainty cup. “Things have changed now. It sounds like Tomas is leashed. The guilds are subdued. The nobles are certainly keeping a low profile. And the piece in the Times about him was quite positive, I thought. Certainly I’ve yet to see anyone seriously clutch their pearls over it all. Maybe it’s time…?”

He had grunted and changed the subject, and then Carrot had arrived back with Young Sam riding high on his shoulders and Angua trailing after them, looking bemused.

Vimes had stood as they walked in and Carrot had reached up and passed the boy down to his father, who took him and then immediately placed him down on the ground when he’d threatened to wriggle his way into a four foot drop onto a solid floor.

“You have fun?” he’d asked.

“Yes! We sawed a cow and it did a great big poo!”

Vimes had looked up at Carrot, who was blushing. “We also went to the troll museum, sir. The cow was just on the way.”

Sybil had chuckled, and they had chatted a little more before he’d left to go back to work.

But her words had been playing on his mind for the last few days, and now, here he was; sitting in the anteroom of the Oblong Office, waiting to be summoned and feeling nausea gnaw at his stomach.

He’d had to stop himself getting up and walking out twice already.

Drumknott kept glancing up at him from his little desk in the corner, and then looking quickly away.

“What?” Vimes finally asked.

The secretary looked blank. “Sorry, Commander?”

“You keep looking at me. What’s wrong?”

Drumknott went slightly pink. “Nothing, Vimes. I was merely thinking that you look a little better.”

“‘Better’ ? Better how?”

The secretary sighed, and put down the paperwork he was ordering. “You look less like you’ve been rolling around the floor of a tavern. And I can’t smell you from here, which is certainly an improvement.”

Vimes frowned and gave himself an exploratory sniff. He did smell vaguely of soap. “Right. Good.”

He was spared any more of Drumknott’s observations by the sound of a bell dinging from inside the office. 

“You may go in, Commander.”

Vimes stood, and once again fought the urge to walk out of the palace and keep walking until he was back at his house. Or possibly he wouldn’t stop at that big, empty building; maybe he could keep going until he reached Quirm. 

Or Klatch.

But Drumknott was watching him curiously, so finally he gave an embarrassed cough and forced himself to push open the office door.

Vetinari was seated at his desk and looked up as Vimes entered, his expression carefully blank. “Good afternoon, Commander.”

“Afternoon, sir.” Vimes felt like the walk across the room took far longer than it used to, but eventually he was in front of the desk, and he focussed on the wall behind the man’s ear and tried to sneak a look at Vetinari without actually looking at him. He needn’t have bothered; the man looked exactly the same as he had the last time they'd met, and Vimes realised he could simply close his eyes and picture in detail every feature, every hair, every microexpression that the man might make.

But Vetinari was speaking, and he pulled his attention back to the present.

“I confess I was somewhat surprised to see you in my appointments for the day, Vimes. What was it you were wishing to discuss, precisely?”

Vimes shifted uncomfortably. “Couple of things, sir. Thought I might start by apologising.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Vetinari’s eyebrow lift carefully. “Apologising?”

“Yes. For putting you in the position of having to defend me. To the guilds.” He winced. “I know I’ve been…difficult.”

Vetinari sat back and looked at Vimes evenly. “I understand you’ve been attending the temperance meetings again, recently.”

Vimes debated asking whether there would ever come a point where Vetinari didn’t know almost as much about his life as Vimes himself did, but found he couldn’t work up the anger for it right now, so he simply replied, “Yeah. I have. Nearly a month.”

Vimes half saw, half felt Vetinari’s eyes flicker from his face down across his chest and arms and over the armour that he’d actually bloody polished, this morning, and he once again fought the urge to run. 

“Good. I understand such apologies are often part of the process?” 

Vimes shrugged. “That’s not why I’m doing it. I just figured I owe you it. Could have gone badly for both of us.”

The patrician stared at him. “Perhaps. However; I suspect I also owe you an apology.”

Vimes blinked, and frowned. “Didn’t think you did that.”

Vetinari’s lip twitched as though trying to smile, but the rest of his face shut it down before it had chance to take root. “On occasion. In any event; I should have told you about Tomas being alive. And I should have told you the truth about why I believed we should end things. So; I am sorry.”

“The truth…?” Vimes narrowed his eyes. “You lied?”

“Not precisely. It merely wasn’t the whole truth.”

Vimes hesitated. “Colon thought maybe you might have been scared.”

There was a long silence, and Vimes couldn’t resist glancing down at the man. He thought he would remember the expression on Vetinari’s face for the rest of his life. 

“Sergeant Colon…?” Vetinari said, faintly.

Vimes bit back a smile of his own. “Yeah. We had a bit of a chat about it a while back.” He paused, to enjoy the moment a bit longer. Vetinari hadn’t blinked for almost thirty seconds. “That’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, you were the one who said I should be prepared for it to come out?”

The patrician leaned forwards and put his chin in his hand as he stared at Vimes. “Sergeant Frederick Colon. He is the one you chose to speak to about…us.” 

Vimes shrugged. “He worked it out after your little stunt at the trial. People aren’t stupid, sir.”

“Do you hear yourself, Commander?”

Now Vimes grinned. “Alright; fine. Most people are idiots. But Fred’s my oldest friend; he knows me.” He paused. "Was he wrong...?"

Vetinari narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps...not."

There was silence for a moment, as Vimes took that in, then eventually Vetinari said, "Did the sergeant have any more pearls of wisdom to impart?"

Vimes hesitated, because this was the other reason he’d come today, and it wasn’t going to get any easier the longer he put it off. “He, er. Reckons I should try to work things out with you. See if you’d be open to trying again. So does Sybil.”

Vetinari sat back again, and looked at him silently for a while. “And what do you think, Vimes?”

Vimes rubbed a hand across his mouth and looked away, towards the window. He’d deliberately taken Vetinari’s last appointment of the day so he wouldn’t feel like he had to rush, and outside the sun had set, leaving the city in darkness. He stared out at the windows of houses lit by flickering candles in the distance, rather than look at Vetinari's face and risk losing the confidence to finish before he’d even started.

“I know why you ended it. I think I do, anyway. It’s…what we have. What we had. It was a lot. It surprised me, to be honest. I figured we’d kill each other after a few weeks, given how much we always bloody argued. But it's like Sybil said; we’ve got the same goals. This city is our priority, and I think that’s why we worked. I knew if I was late to meet you or had to cancel because of work it would be fine; it wouldn’t have occurred to you to get cross about it.” 

He paused, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Sybil said to love the city was to love you. And that sounds like soppy bullshit, I know, but it’s true, I think. But still, I was split; between the city - you - and my family. You said it yourself, you wanted more than I could give you. And Fred was right. That was bloody scary for you.” He paused to listen, but there was no sound coming from behind the desk. He licked his lips, and pressed on. “So you were protecting me, but you were protecting yourself, too. I get it, now.” 

He stopped. The only sound was the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. Finally, he turned back to look at the man. “You told me it’d pass. But it’s been a year. And it hasn’t.”

Vetinari was staring at him. “Not at all?”

“No. I thought it had. When I was angry at you, that anger was all there was. And then I saw you - well, Charlie - hurt, in that bed, and it was all just…there again. The, er. Love. Felt like having your head shoved underwater and held there. Like drowning.” He turned back to stare out into the darkness. “And I know that’s not a healthy way to live, but the other alternative is...I go. Leave you and my family and go live in bloody Sto Lat, or somewhere. And the fact is, I’m every bit as much of this city as you are; it’s in my blood and under my damned skin. So you’re asking what I think?” He took a deep breath. “I think I’m here asking you to try again.”

“For the sake of the city?” Vetinari asked, mildly.

“No. For my own bloody sake. The city is an added bonus.” 

Vetinari drummed his fingers on his desk for a few seconds and then stood and walked to the window. He clasped his hands behind his back as he looked out across the rooftops. “I’m curious, Vimes. What would be different, this time, do you think?”

That wasn’t an outright no, Vimes thought. His nerves sang.

He shrugged, although Vetinari had his back to him. “I’m sick of lying. I never liked the sneaking around. So I thought…maybe we could do it properly. Out in the open. In a few weeks I’m going to be divorced. We’re both past the point of hiding who we are, I think.” He hesitated. “Have you had any bother, after what you said at the trial?”

“I have had letters from several religious leaders expressing polite concern about the state of my immortal soul should I not renounce my… sinful urges. Apparently men like ourselves are going to burn in hell, Commander. However, I have also had rather a lot of correspondence from individuals thanking me for giving them the confidence to speak up about their own…predilections. So we will at least be in good company, while we burn.” He sighed. “The Times keep requesting an interview on the matter. I have been declining, so far.”

“Right. So…screw it, then. The public won’t care. You said it yourself - as long as tomorrow is the same as today they’re happy. The guilds will fling accusations of nepotism at us, but you’re a bloody tyrant. That stone should barely leave a scratch.” He stared at Vetinari’s back, and tried to get a read on the man. “And…I’ll get over the Tomas stuff. I know he’s been useful, so if you need him around then I'll deal with it. I was just bloody frustrated at being kept in the dark. I should know to trust you about that stuff by now.” He hesitated. “But look; if I’m wasting my breath here, tell me and I’ll leave. And we’ll never mention it again.” 

And I’ll go and find a job in Sto Bloody Lat.

After an eternal minute, Vetinari turned to face him, leaning back to sit against the window sill. 

“Tomas is no longer in the city. He has found employment elsewhere.”

Vimes grimaced. “Thank bloody Offler for that. Wasn’t sure about that bit of it, to be honest.”

Vetinari permitted himself a small smile and then raised an eyebrow. “And your friend from the bar? Edward?”

“He’s…hang on, you knew his bloody name?”

“Of course, Vimes,” Vetinari said. “I had the clerks look into him.”

“You background checked a bloke I went home with once ?!” Vimes felt his cheeks redden, but wasn’t sure whether it was anger or embarrassment. “Good gods, I thought I had bloody issues.”

Vetinari had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. “It was partly for security reasons, Vimes. He had intimate access to the Duke of Ankh. I simply wished to ensure he wasn’t going to cause problems.”

“Partly for security reasons?”

Vetinari looked at him for a long moment. “Yes. Partly from a desire to protect the city. Partly from a desire to protect you, when you were at your most vulnerable. And partly because I was - and, indeed, still am - in love with you, too, Vimes. And that is not a state of being that comes easily to me. Particularly, I might add, when the person I am apparently in love with is behaving like a damned fool, at times.”

Vimes blinked. 

He loves you. Still loves you.

Fine. But that doesn’t mean he wants to try again. 

Vimes hauled on the reins of the tentative flurry of excitement that reared up inside him.

“Alright. That's fair.” He paused, and for a long moment they simply looked at each other. “You. Er. You love me?” He took a cautious step forward, closing the distance between them a little as Vetinari watched him carefully.

“Yes, Sam,” he said, softly. “Of course.”

Vimes felt his stomach twist at hearing his name like that. “Okay. Good.” He took another step, bringing him to the edge of Vetinari’s personal space. “He was just a guy. I was drunk. And lonely, I suppose.”

Vetinari put his head to one side. “Understandable. Did it help?”

“For a couple of hours. Then…no.”

“A couple of hours… ?”

Vimes shrugged. “He was a cuddler.” He grinned as he watched Vetinari try to suppress a scowl. “Don’t worry. I think I scared him off. Doubt I’ll see him again.”

Vetinari relaxed slightly, whilst clearly trying hard not to look like he was doing so. “Ah.” His hands, which had been ever so slightly clenched, now came to rest lightly on the window ledge at his sides.

Vimes took another step, the toes of his boots now almost touching those of Vetinari’s, and from this distance he had to look up slightly to meet the man’s steady gaze. He wondered how it was possible the other man didn’t hear the blood pounding in his veins, this close, but Vetinari seemed completely unruffled. 

Slowly, carefully, Vimes reached out and slid two fingers in between the layers of fabric where the shabby black robe closed, and ran his thumb lightly across the front of a button.

Vetinari raised an eyebrow as he looked down at him.

“I have not yet given you an answer, Vimes.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “But I figured even if it was a no, I might at least get an opportunity for a proper goodbye, this time.” He hesitated. “Is it a no?”

Vetinari didn’t answer. Instead he brought his hand up to rest on the side of Vimes’ neck, while his thumb stroked up the soft skin of his throat and ghosted over his Adam’s apple. Vimes swallowed at the sensation and fought down a shiver. After a moment the hand continued its journey upwards, and Vimes instinctively closed his eyes and turned his face to nuzzle into the palm of the man’s hand as it cupped his cheek.

They stood for a few seconds, frozen, and then Vimes cleared his throat. “If this is a no, you’re giving off some bloody mixed signals. Just sayin’.”

He became dully aware that Vetinari’s free hand was moving. It found its way to his waist and exerted a slight pressure to pull him in closer, bringing him between the man’s planted feet. The hand on his face shifted, and the fingers curled beneath Vimes’ chin and tipped his face upwards again. Vetinari peered down; so close now that if Vimes were to stick out his tongue, he could run it along Vetinari’s lower lip. Vimes leaned in the rest of the way with his body, pressing in against the slim figure and bringing his free hand to rest on Vetinari’s hip. 

There was a moment that seemed, from Vimes’ point of view, to last nearly forever. He watched Vetinari’s brow furrow slightly, and smelled the mint of his toothpaste and the faint trace of bergamot that lingered from his shaving soap; scents and sensations all so painfully familiar and yet that he’d somehow half forgotten. His hands balled themselves into fists where they gripped the heavy fabric of the man’s robe. 

He breathed it all in, then said, hoarsely, “Is this a yes… ?”

Vetinari’s lips parted slightly, and he sighed. “Yes, Sam.” 

Vimes felt his heart lurch, and for a moment he was standing outside himself, watching it all. But then Vetinari dipped his head and pressed his lips softly to Vimes’, and the shock of the sensation somehow both grounded him and simultaneously sent him soaring. For a moment he froze, and then instinct kicked in and he was kissing back desperately, his hands coming up and burying themselves in the other man’s hair as he held him in place and crowded against him. 

Vetinari’s fingers trailed slowly up and into Vimes’ hair, making his scalp tingle beneath them and his head swim. The sensation reminded him suddenly of the first burning swallows of whisky after a long dry spell and he gasped and pulled back, feeling the need to catch his breath. Vetinari let him go and dropped the hand back to his neck, stroking his thumb along the line of his jaw. He looked at Vimes curiously.

“Everything alright, Vimes?”

Vimes licked his lips. “Yeah. Just…you know. It’s been a while.”

Vetinari smiled slightly. “Yes. Of course. We can take things slowly, if you’d prefer?”

“Slowly? Bugger that. I’ve not waited a damned year for slowly.” 

A glint came to Vetinari’s eye, and Vimes lunged in and kissed him again, nipping the man’s lower lip with his teeth and tasting a hint of blood. Vetinari made a noise in the back of his throat, and then Vimes found himself pinned firmly against the wall behind the desk with no real awareness of how he’d got there.

Bloody assassins…

But Vetinari was still kissing him, and was pressed so tightly to him it gave every impression that he was, in fact, attempting to meld them together.

Vimes could therefore feel every inch of the man’s… interest, pressing against him, and he failed to suppress a groan when Vetinari’s hand slipped down between them and touched him through the fabric. He felt Vetinari’s answering smirk through the kiss.

A minute later he pulled briefly back to breathe, tilting his head back against the wall and licking his lips. Vetinari’s hand continued its deliberate movements for a few seconds, and then withdrew and joined its counterpart in moving to the laces of his breeches. Vimes took the opportunity to grab Vetinari’s face with both hands and pulled him back down for another kiss.

The fingers slowed only slightly as Vetinari was temporarily distracted, and once he had succeeded in unlacing them he pulled back and looked at Vimes, who was decidedly flushed.

Vimes cleared his throat. “At the meetings, they say that when you quit the drinking, it sometimes gets replaced by something else.”

“Indeed? Another addiction?” Vetinari murmured, as his fingers slipped inside the breeches and stroked across the wiry hairs of Vimes’ lower belly.

“Yeah.” Vimes closed his eyes at the sensation, and moistened his lips. “Since we’re…well, opening all of our boxes, you should know…I think in my case, that might mean…this.” He paused. “You.”

There was a silence, so he pushed on. “And I know that’s a lot, so if you wanted to change your mind…” He trailed off.

The hand stopped moving. Vimes opened his eyes warily to find Vetinari staring down at him, his pupils large and dark. Once he was sure he had Vimes’ full attention he raised an eyebrow, took a silent half-step back and then, looking him in the eye the whole time, dropped smoothly to his knees. 

“Ah. Okay. Guessing that’s not a problem, then?” Vimes said hoarsely, and then the hands were back at his breeches and he stopped worrying about it entirely for the next few short - but incredibly satisfying - minutes.

They were briefly interrupted when Vimes was enthusiastically returning the favour some time later, as Vetinari’s sleeve caught the bell on the desk and accidentally summoned Drumknott; thankfully the startled man scuttled back out before either of them could get a word out, so it didn’t put too much of a dampener on things. 

oOo

Afterwards the pair sat on the floor of the office, legs splayed before them and backs against the wall. Vimes fished a slightly battered cigar out of his pocket, then lit it and took a long puff. Beside him Vetinari finished straightening his robe but made no attempt to get up. Vimes stared down at where their thighs were pressed lightly together, then gave the other man a sideways look.

“Did Drumknott know about us, before?”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “Not… explicitly.”

Vimes grinned. “Well, I suppose he does now. Pretty explicitly.”

“Yes.” The patrician sighed. “Perhaps I should give him another raise.”

“Ha!” Vimes puffed on the cigar for a few minutes while they sat in companionable silence. “Downey will be pleased. He was egging me on to work it out with you. For the sake of the city.”

“Hm. Donald was always reasonably pragmatic, in that respect.”

Vimes frowned. “What exactly did you do to him, last year? He’s been going around like a kicked dog.”

Vetinari waved a hand vaguely. “A small dose of strychnine. Merely a message.”

Vimes blinked. “I should probably arrest you for that.”

The patrician smiled. “An excellent start to a new relationship, I’m sure. Would you like me to find your handcuffs? They are around here somewhere…”

The other man blushed. “I’ll let it slide. I doubt he’d testify against you anyway. But I will bloody arrest you, if I ever have to. This doesn’t get you any special treatment. Just so you’re clear.”

“Of course, Commander. If I thought otherwise, we would not be doing this.”

Vimes grudgingly settled back. “Good.” He paused, and then something else occurred to him. “Ha! De Worde will be furious.”

Vetinari narrowed his eyes. “Briefly, perhaps. Then he will enjoy the sales.”

The two sat for a moment, picturing possible headlines. Vimes cleared his throat. “You sure about this? Doing it properly? You’ve got more to lose than me at this point.”

“Equally as much to gain, however,” Vetinari said, and Vimes felt his stomach churn with a quiet excitement. The patrician sighed, and pushed himself up to standing, favouring his bad leg slightly. “So yes. I don’t believe we have any other option.” He offered Vimes a hand and the man grabbed it and pulled himself up, wincing as the stiff muscles stretched.

“True.” He walked over to the desk, shaking his own leg to try and wake it up a bit as he went. “Gods, I’m getting too old for the floor.” He spotted his handcuffs and tucked them back into his belt, then carefully righted the upturned bell, blushing as he did. “Or the desk.”

Vetinari snorted slightly. “I do have a perfectly adequate bed, Vimes. Once we no longer need to be so secretive, you could join me in it more often.”

A light went on in Vimes’ eyes. “Right. Announce it tomorrow, then?”

The other man smiled. “If you wish.” He paused. “Ah. I should probably send a message to my aunt, first. I imagine I will never hear the end of it if she finds out from the Times.”

Vimes frowned. “Will she be alright about it?”

The patrician made a dismissive gesture. “She will be fine with it. Although I find myself relieved I never told her you were John Keel. That could have been an interesting conversation.” 

The frown deepened. “Why?”

Vetinari gave a delicate cough. “I believe she was conscious of a certain… enamourment…I harboured for him.”

Vimes stared at him for a moment, confused. “Enamourment ? Wait, you had a bloody crush on Keel… ?!”

The patrician wasn’t known for his ruddy complexion, but his cheeks coloured faintly into a hue a more descriptive writer might describe as rosewater, or perhaps gossamer pink. “On you, as Keel, Vimes.”

“All those years, and you never said anything!”

“Until the night your son was born, Vimes, you had never been Keel. There was nothing to say.”

Vimes screwed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods. I bloody hate time travel.”

“Quite. Anyway; she is aware of my preferences.” Vetinari gave his leg a few more experimental stretches and then crossed to stand beside him at the desk.

“Okay. That’s good, then?” Vimes looked around, then pulled out a small pocket ashtray and stubbed out the cigar on it. He tucked it all back away in a pocket. 

“Yes.” Vetinari paused. “I would suggest you inform Lady Sybil in person, also.”

Vimes winced. “Mmm. She said she’d be alright with it, but…”

“The theory and the reality may be different.”

“Yeah. I should give her the heads up to expect some questions at her game night tomorrow.”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “Please pass on my regards to her. And…my thanks.” He saw Vimes' expression. “She is a good woman, Vimes. She has been incredibly tolerant of all this.”

Vimes winced. “I know. I suppose I just wasn’t as good at balancing my loyalties as I bloody thought.” He looked up at the clock. “Bugger. Talking of which, I need to head off, it’s nearly bedtime.”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “Take my coach, if you wish.”

“Thanks, but this time of night I could probably crawl there faster.” He looked around, then glanced at the office door. “Oh, hell. I left my coat with Drumknott.”

Vetinari gave a smile that was almost a smirk. “Well, if it is any consolation, Vimes, I now have to work with the man every day knowing he has seen far more of me than either of us would ever have preferred him to see. So; I’m sure you can handle a slightly awkward exchange in a corridor.”

Vimes grinned, and after a brief hesitation stepped in and gave the man a quick kiss on the cheek. As he did it he felt suddenly foolish, and he felt his own cheeks redden as he pulled away, but while Vetinari looked slightly startled, Vimes also thought he looked quietly pleased.

Vimes coughed. “Um. Tomorrow, then?”

Vetinari blinked. “Yes. I will tell Mister de Worde he has a one o’clock appointment with us. And we will let the chips fall where they may.” 

Drumknott had been nowhere to be seen when Vimes had sidled into the anteroom, but his coat was folded neatly on the secretary’s desk. He slung it over an arm and jogged down the stairs with a surprisingly energetic step.

Outside, spring was on its way and the evening had turned slightly warmer, so once on the street he slowed a fraction to appreciate the walk. He felt that odd twist in his belly again, at the knowledge that by tomorrow night everything would be out in the open. It was a somewhat daunting thought.

But it was also pretty…good? He double checked; yep, it definitely felt good, too. It had been a while since he’d had that feeling, and he took a few minutes to enjoy it.

And, if he was lucky, by tomorrow evening lots of very powerful people were going to be absolutely bloody furious with him.

Sir Samuel Vimes - also known as His Grace, His Excellency, the Duke of Ankh; and wasn’t that hilarious - grinned widely, swung his arms, and started to whistle.

Chapter Text

Day One

“Please, sit, Mister de Worde.”

William looked at the man behind the desk and then across the room, to where Commander Vimes was standing at the window and leaning casually against the frame, his back to the pair as he stared out at the city.

He sat, cautiously. “Why am I here, sir?”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “You have left eighteen messages requesting an interview since the Selachii trial. I have simply decided to grant you your request.”

William blinked, and his hand moved quickly to pull out his notebook and pencil. “Why? What changed your mind?”

Vetinari sighed, and glanced at the clock. “You have…six minutes, Mister de Worde. My patience is limited. Choose your questions carefully.”

“Fine.” William licked his lips as he thought. “Those comments at the trial; were they intentional? Did you mean to imply what you did?”

Vetinari looked at him evenly. “Do you believe I am in the habit of speaking incautiously, Mister de Worde? Those words were as carefully chosen as any others I may utter.”

“So, what people are saying is correct? You have…relations…with men, instead of women?” William glanced over at the commander, but the man was still paying them no apparent mind.

Vetinari allowed a beat to pass, then said, “Relationships, rather than relations. And not instead of; as well as.”

“You have had relationships with men, though, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Many?”

Vetinari frowned slightly. “Two.”

William paused, and tapped his pen on his notebook. “Are you in such a relationship currently?”

Another beat. “Yes.”

William stared at him, and Vetinari looked back calmly. The journalist took a deep breath. “Is your current relationship with Commander Vimes?” 

Across the room Vimes turned around, folded his arms and leaned casually back against the window ledge. 

“Yep,” he said. 

Vetinari inclined his head.

William leapt to his feet and pointed at the pair. “I knew it! You made me print a damned retraction last year. I knew that tip was right.”

Vetinari narrowed his eyes. “Sit down, Mister de Worde. And be glad you have the kind of ruler who merely demanded the article be removed, and not your head.” He paused. “Feel free to print that.”

William looked over at Vimes, who was giving him a nasty little grin. He sat back down and frowned, shaking his head. “Of course. How progressive of you, my lord.” He sighed, then glanced up at the clock and flipped irritably to a new page of his notebook. “Right. How long has this been going on, then? Is this why your marriage to Lady Sybil ended, Commander?”

Vimes scowled. “No. And that’s none of your damned business.”

Vetinari continued. “We will not be answering any questions on the private details of our relationship. You may be assured that things will continue as they always have for the citizens of the city. That remains our primary concern.”

“But this is a huge risk, isn’t it? The two most powerful people in the city, in a relationship? What happens when it ends…?”

Vetinari shrugged. “I will have the Commander thrown into the dungeons. Or he will have me thrown in one of his cells, again. Perhaps we will have each other beheaded. Who knows?” William’s eyes widened. Vetinari watched it happen and looked vaguely amused, then continued. “Or, Mister de Worde, we will put our differences aside as adults and work it out. I am assured these things are possible. Commander Vimes and Lady Sybil maintain a very amicable relationship, as I’m sure you are aware.” He looked up at the clock. “And I’m afraid your time is up, sir.”

William finished scribbling and then tapped his notebook again, looking badly like he wanted to ask more and debating whether to push his luck. Finally Vimes cleared his throat pointedly, and the journalist stood slowly. “Alright. I’ll be running an early afternoon edition, so this will hit the stands by three. Front page, of course. I’m only telling you as a courtesy, because wild trolls couldn’t make me retract this again. My lords.”

“Of course,” Vetinari said. “We are aware of how this works, Mister de Worde. You would not be here if we were at all likely to have a change of heart.”

William registered the ‘we’, and looked at Vimes. “Any final comments from yourself, Commander?”

“Yes. You can tell anyone who has a problem with any of it that I can be found at Pseudopolis Yard most days between nine and ten am, and that I would be happy to discuss it with them. Man to man, as it were.” He grinned brightly.

William glanced back at Vetinari, who gave him a look that seemed to indicate amused tolerance; a ‘what can you do?’ kind of expression. William felt himself blush slightly, and scribbled that quickly on his pad before tucking it away into his pocket.

“I doubt very much anyone would be foolish enough to take you up on your offer, Commander.” He thought for a long moment, then gave a small cough. “Off the record, I think this is…a very brave step. I’ve got my concerns, of course, about the specifics. But the principle, I think, will be very…reassuring…for a lot of people who have, um. Let’s say, less traditional kinds of relationships.”

The two men stared at him, then Vetinari said, “Let us hope so. Now, please; don’t let us detain you.”

William grinned. “Right. Thank you both.” 

He walked fairly sedately until he was out of sight of the pair, then gradually increased his speed until finally he was running down Broad Way towards the press, headline ringing in his ears the whole way;

VETINARI’S TERRIER: NOT JUST MAN’S BEST FRIEND!!!

Day Two

Boggis wasn’t at the guild meeting. Whiteface was, though, and Vimes suspected the greasepaint was hiding a pallid complexion beneath the grim countenance. 

He looked down the table from his position at the far end. The Times had run its story the day before, and none of the men had managed to meet his eye yet. 

Rosie Palm, however, had breezed confidently in five minutes ago, and greeted him enthusiastically before sitting beside him and pointedly ignoring the rest of the attendees.

Finally Vetinari swept in. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.” He sat down at the head of the table. “Shall we press on? I have an engagement at three.”

There was silence from everyone. The men around the table all looked at each other. 

“Very well.” Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “In the interests of getting out of here before Hogswatch; does anybody have any questions regarding the article in the Times, yesterday…?”

Every head at the table swivelled to look at Vimes, who grinned brightly at them. The heads turned back to stare at Vetinari again; all, that is, except for that of Downey, who continued looking at Vimes for a few more seconds with a smug smile plastered on his face. 

Vimes narrowed his eyes, but that just made the man’s grin widen a fraction, and then the assassin finally turned away. 

Slant gave a cough so dry dust sprayed the air. “Is it true then, my lord?”

Vetinari gave him a sharp smile. “Yes.”

The zombie frowned. “Sir, the legal aspects of a Patrician maintaining an intimate relationship with the Commander of the Watch - ”

“Are non-existent, sir,” Vetinari interrupted. “The last time there was a Commander of the Watch, the city had a king.” He paused. “I needn’t remind you how that ended.”

The heads turned silently back to Vimes, who gave them another grin. The heads swivelled sharply back.  

Vetinari continued. “So, there were no laws made to address a situation that could not exist. In any event -” he sat back slightly and waved a hand, “- if there were any such laws, as patrician it would be within my remit to remove them. Along with anything else that needed removing, I suggest.”

Slant tapped a finger on the table for a minute, then evidently decided not to risk finding out what else could be removed. “Ah. Of course, my lord.”

Vetinari looked around the table. “Excellent. Any further questions?”

Finally Mr Burleigh gave a delicate cough. “Is Mister Boggis not joining us…?”

Vetinari gave a bright, brittle smile. “No. Mister Boggis is spending some time thinking carefully about his future within the city. Although that does lead nicely onto our first agenda item.” He looked around at them all. “So. Would anyone else like to own up to plotting a coup against me…?”

Vimes snorted. 

The silence around the table was now so dense it would have pulled small asteroids into its orbit, had any drifted by at that particular moment.

“Capital. In which case; shall we move on? I believe we were going to once again going to discuss the traffic on Broad Way, if, indeed, we can stand the excitement.” Vetinari looked up, and met Vimes’ gaze. “Commander, would you care to tell us exactly what you’re planning to do to address this issue?”

The heads swivelled back to him. 

Some things never change, Vimes thought. 

Thankfully . 

“Right. Well, sir…” 

Day One Hundred and Eighty Six

“No, what I’m saying is, what would happen if I arrested both of ‘em.” Vimes had to stride to keep up with Vetinari as they walked down the corridor to the Oblong Office. 

Vetinari sighed. “Vimes, I’m failing to see what crime has been committed.” They reached the door, and Vimes held it open automatically for the other man. Vetinari raised an eyebrow at him, but slipped in past him and headed for his desk. 

“Annoying the bloody Commander of the Watch, for a start.” Vimes followed behind, and then something caught his eye and he stopped. “New chairs…?”

Vetinari sat and glanced over towards the window, where two comfortable looking armchairs were placed around a low table. “Yes. You looked uncomfortable in the old ones.”

“Oh.” Vimes was momentarily lost for words. Vetinari filled the silence. 

“If we arrested everyone who annoyed you, Vimes, I fear we would quickly run out of people to actually keep the city running.”

Vimes frowned vaguely, then crossed over and sat in one of the chairs; there were even footstools. And a cushion. He shuffled a bit, then put his feet up and looked over at the other man. “You got this for me?”

“Well, you are spending a lot of your time here in one capacity or another. It seemed a sensible investment, since I know how obstinate you become when you’re in a bad mood.”

“Ha! You think this’ll help?”

Vetinari gave him a sharp smile. “I suspect not, however, one must live in hope, Vimes.”

Vimes opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. 

“Enter.”

There was silence. Vetinari sighed. “Drumknott, you may enter.”

Drumknott came in, peering carefully around the door first. “Ah. Sorry, sir. I knew the Commander was here…”

“Yes, yes. What did you want, Drumknott?”

“I have something that requires a signature urgently, sir. And the files you requested.”

Vimes only half listened to the rest of the conversation. There was a copy of the Times folded on the arm of the chair and he picked it up and leafed through it, noting that the crossword had already been completed. He grinned to himself. 

Finally Drumknott finished and slipped back out. The patrician pulled a file from the stack and passed it silently over to Vimes, then took another for himself and started leafing through it.

Vimes read the file, jotting a few corrections and suggestions as he went. For a while the only sounds were the soft rustling of paper, the ticking of the clock and the patter of rain against the window.

Eventually, a maid appeared with a tray of tea and placed it down in front of Vimes. He put the file down and poured them each a cup, then quietly put Vetinari’s beside his elbow. The patrician glanced at it, and then looked up at him with vague amusement.

“Thank you, Vimes.”

Vimes gave an embarrassed grunt. He sat back down and opened another file, then closed it again as something occurred to him. “Anyway, you make the damned laws. One word from you and annoying me would be a bloody offence.”

Vetinari didn’t look up from his work. “I fear, Vimes, that creating an offence specifically of ‘annoying the patrician’s paramour’ might only give further credence to the nepotism accusations.”

Vimes winced. “Paramour ? Is that what we’re calling me?”

“Would you prefer lover, perhaps? Consort? Boyfriend?”

The other man looked horrified. “Good gods, no. I’m nearly bloody fifty.” 

Vetinari smiled slightly. “ Beau, then? Or swain? Or the preternaturally inoffensive partner… ?”

Vimes stared off into the distance for a minute. “Those are all bloody awful.” 

“Indeed.”

He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “I suppose the advantage of paramour is that no bugger else will know what you’re on about.”

Vetinari carefully turned a page in the file he was reading. “You may be underestimating the public’s skills with the language, I’m afraid, Vimes. After all, you knew what I was talking about.”

Vimes scowled at him. “Alright, Mister 'I-went-to-the-Assassin’s-school -and-specialised-in-bloody-languages'.”

The patrician raised a careful eyebrow. “Are you finished with that report?”

Vimes grunted and re-opened the file. 

Outside, the rain continued to fall.

Day Three Hundred and Ninety Two

From his position by a pillar, Vimes watched several hundred foreign dignitaries coast about the ballroom like ancient warships. 

He was dimly aware of a figure materialising beside him, smelling faintly of cloves. 

“Evening, Commander Vimes.”

“Evening, Mister Ahmed.”

The D’reg pulled out a cigar holder and offered the other man one. Vimes accepted, then sniffed it cautiously. “Pantweeds?”

“Yes, Commander Vimes. I always pick up a few cases when I come to the city.” He paused, and stared at the crowd as Vimes lit the cigar and took a puff. “Your good lady wife is not with you tonight…?”

Vimes turned and narrowed his eyes. “Don’t play the bloody fool with me, Mister Ahmed. You know damned well we divorced a year ago. And I’d bet a hundred dollars you know why. So if you’ve got something to say about it, then spit it out.”

71-Hour Ahmed smiled. “Sorry, Commander. Of course I am aware. I simply wished to see your reaction, to be frank.”

Vimes grunted. Vetinari came into view across the room, and the two men watched him for a while. 

“I have to be honest, I can’t say I saw this one coming, Commander. Though now I see why you disliked the term master .”

Vimes picked up a glass of something that looked like fruit juice from a passing tray, and took a cautious sip, then a mouthful. “Illegal in Klatch, isn’t it?” he asked, ignoring the master comment.

Ahmed shrugged. “Technically, although only, of course, if you’re caught. But I attended school here, remember? So I have a somewhat more…liberal view.”

Vimes looked sideways at him. “You went to the Assassin’s. From what Vetinari tells me about his school days, I imagine you certainly do.”

The D’reg grinned. “Lot of it about, there, certainly.”

Vetinari had spotted them, and now he maneuvered his way through the crowd and took up position next to Vimes. “Ah. Good evening, Mister Ahmed.”

“Your lordship. I hope you’re not working Commander Vimes here too hard.”

Vimes scowled and took another mouthful of juice, but Vetinari smiled. “Not nearly as hard as he would like me too, I suspect, sir.”

There was a coughing as Vimes choked on his drink, and tried unsuccessfully not to spray it over his shirt. Ahmed let out a hearty laugh.

“Ah, very good, Lord Vetinari. Very good. If you will excuse me, though, I will go and make the acquaintance of some of the ladies and gentlemen by the buffet, and leave you two to…catch up.”

They watched him wander off, and Vimes put his cigar out in what was left of the juice and gave it to a nearby waiter, who failed to hide his distaste at what he’d been handed. Then he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed ineffectually at his damp shirt. Vetinari watched him for a moment before taking the handkerchief from his hand, and using it to wipe some of the sticky liquid from where it had somehow landed on Vimes’ neck. 

Vimes stared at him. A few people in their orbit glanced over, and then fairly swiftly looked away. 

Vetinari finished wiping and finally noticed his expression. He handed back the handkerchief. “I was not going to let you parade around all night looking as though you were unable to find your own mouth, Vimes. Not when you now reflect on me .”

Vimes blinked. “Fine. But I thought you said no funny stuff when we were at work.”

The patrician looked vaguely surprised. “It’s after ten pm, Vimes. I think you can consider yourself off duty.”

“Really?”

“Yes, of course.” 

Was that a glint, in Vetinari’s eye…?

Vimes could see people watching them curiously, and not half as subtly as they probably thought they were. He felt his rebellious streak raise its head.

“Alright. Good.” He reached out a hand and grabbed the front of Vetinari’s robe, and tugged; firmly enough to get the man moving, but not so firmly that Vetinari couldn’t stop him if he wanted.

But he didn’t try to, and so that was how Vimes ended up kissing the tyrant of Ankh Morpork in front of an audience of fairly startled dignitaries. 

After a few seconds he was dimly aware of a hush spreading across the closest spectators. He pulled back and felt his cheeks burn, then from somewhere deep within the crowd came a good natured heckle. 

He scowled, blushing harder. Vetinari was looking at him with amusement. 

He coughed. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologise, Vimes.” The other man raised an eyebrow. “I think, perhaps, it may be time for us to retire for the evening, however…?”

The glint was back, and before he could say another word Vimes had his hand on the small of Vetinari’s back and was guiding him swiftly through the crowd.

Day Five Thousand, Four Hundred and Seventy Five

Vimes would be the first to admit he wasn’t really a wedding person, but he supposed it was always going to be a bit different when it was your son getting married.

As it was, he’d wiped a couple of sneaky tears away during the vows, using a handkerchief Vetinari had handed him, and given himself a stern talking to. By the time the ceremony was over and there was just the party left to survive, he had almost entirely recovered his gruff exterior.

The happy couple were glowing. He’d kissed his new daughter-in-law on the cheek and given Sam a hug; Vetinari - Uncle Havelock, to Young Sam - had shaken hands and offered congratulations, and then the newlywed pair had vanished off into the crowd to mingle.

Sybil had glided up to Vimes and Vetinari, looking incredible in a pale blue gown decorated with thousands of tiny diamantes, her hand resting lightly on the arm of a gentleman wearing a matching cummerbund and looking, to Vimes’ eye, remarkably happy about it.

“Sam, Havelock. You remember Roger, don’t you?”

Vimes did remember Roger; he was the Earl of…somewhere…and he had a sneaking suspicion that Vetinari had played some part in introducing him to Sybil. He put out his hand, and the man shook it.

“Of course. Roger. Thank you for coming.”

“Congratulations, Your Grace; Lord Vetinari.” Vetinari inclined his head, and Roger continued. “Beautiful ceremony, wasn’t it?”

Vimes grimaced. “Yes. Mind you, for what it cost it wants to have bloody been.”

Sybil scowled playfully at him. “Now, Sam. Hopefully we’ll only be doing it the once.”

Roger looked confused. “I thought it was traditionally the bride's parents who paid for the wedding?”

Sybil dropped her voice. “Emma’s mother wasn’t in any position to pay for it, poor thing. Of course Sam would have been happy with any old thing, but I think a girl deserves a nice wedding.”

Vimes watched as Roger beamed at her, and then someone called to the earl from across the room. “Ah. Excuse me, everyone.” He patted Sybil’s hand and slipped off through the crowd, while Sybil watched him. 

Her eyes were sparkling almost as much as the dress, Vimes mused. 

“You two, er. Official, then?”

She looked back at him, blushing slightly. “Well, yes; I suppose. We’re talking about moving in together.”

Vimes blinked. “Into Scoone Avenue?”

“Yes.” She peered at him, and saw his expression. “You haven’t lived there for fifteen years, dear. You live in a palace, remember?”

Vimes frowned and shuffled uncomfortably, and looked at Vetinari, who provided no backup at all. “I mean, I know. But…”

“I think it is an excellent idea, my lady.” 

Sybil smiled broadly. “Thank you, Havelock.” There was a brief commotion somewhere by the buffet, and Sybil peered across the crowd. “Oh, drat. Someone’s dropped a salmon. Excuse me, both of you.” She set sail across the floor, the guests parting like the sea before her.

Vimes turned back to face Vetinari, his brow furrowed. “You did have the clerks look into him before you introduced them, didn’t you?”

“Of course, Vimes. The worst that could be said of him is that he is slightly dull, but I understand he is home every night for tea and is very rarely called upon to perform high stakes rooftop chases by moonlight. He keeps bees.”

Vimes considered this. “Alright, but isn’t she bored ?”

“I suspect, like most people, she has found that it is a trade off; a small amount of boredom may seem like a fair deal in exchange for knowing your partner is unlikely to be murdered by criminals, slavers, insane golems or radicalised dwarves.”

Vimes stared after her. “That’s hardly fair. There was only one insane golem.”

“Nevertheless. I anticipate we may be getting an invitation to another wedding, shortly.”

He blinked. “Surely not. Who gets married in their sixties?”

“People who are in love, Vimes, I imagine.”

Vimes turned to look at him. “Did you ever want to get married?”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “Is that a proposal, Commander?”

The other man narrowed his eyes. “You know damned well it was just a question.”

Vetinari shrugged. “No. It never appealed. I presumed you felt the same, since you never brought it up.”

Vimes grimaced, and took a sip of his drink. “Gods, no. I was a terrible husband. I’ve got no desire to be a contractually-bound disappointment ever again.”

“Then I’m curious; why did you ask?”

Vimes shrugged awkwardly. “Well, I mean, if you had wanted to, I suppose I could have…reconsidered.”

Vetinari stared at him for a long moment, until the other man started to blush under the intensity of the gaze. Finally Vetinari reached out and cupped his face with a hand, then stepped in and brushed their lips together. Vimes kissed back, and for a whole minute managed to forget they were in public.

Finally Vetinari pulled away, though remained close enough for Vimes to feel the heat coming from him. 

Vimes gave a small cough. “I would, you know. If you wanted to.”

“Thank you, Vimes. I believe the reason we have survived so long together, however, is because I would not ask you to.”

Vimes shrugged. “You never ask me for anything, really. Outside of the job, anyway. You can, you know, though. I’m not going anywhere.”

Vetinari gave a small smile. “In that case, Vimes...would you join me for a dance?”

The other man winced. “Sure. I suppose it's cheaper than a wedding.” He sighed and held out a hand. “Come on, then.”

Vetinari took the proffered hand, and then they went and joined the crowd on the dance floor, and Vetinari got not one, but two dances; because if you couldn't dance at your son's wedding, when could you...?

Day Seven Thousand, Three Hundred and Eighty Four

“Do you recall that you once told me I could ask you for anything, Vimes?” Vetinari asked. 

They were sitting on a sunny veranda, looking out across the palace gardens whilst eating breakfast. The scent of lilacs filled the air; both men had sprigs pinned to their clothes and a few had been placed in a small vase on the table. A few fat, slow bees were crawling over the nearby flowers.

Vimes looked up from his eggs, and frowned. “At Sam’s wedding? Yes, I remember.” He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Why? What are you going to ask for?”

Vetinari sipped his black tea. “I have been considering…retirement.”

The other man blinked. “Really? Retirement? I didn’t think that would be your thing.”

The patrician sighed. “We’re getting old, Vimes. I can feel myself getting slower. It took me twenty minutes to solve the Times crossword, yesterday.” He raised an eyebrow, and Vimes fought down a grin.

“Twenty minutes? Might as well take you out back and shoot you now.”

“Quite. Anyway. It made me think; the Undertaking is complete. The city is running with the bare minimum of my input; Lipwig handles most of it now. No one has tried to kill either of us for years. It might be time to formally hand over the reins, as it were.”

Vimes sat back, his eggs forgotten. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

He wasn’t wrong, Vimes thought; the city was flourishing. Obviously it wasn’t perfect - the Shades was still the Shades, although it was shrinking a little more each year and the murders were occurring further and further apart. Ankh-Morpork was no longer the carbuncle on the arse of the continent; it was now merely a moderately-sized pimple. But the Undertaking had proven a success, after a rocky few years, and now they had ambassadors and engineers from across the Disc coming to look at it and taking ideas back to their own cities. And any engineer who had trained in Ankh-Morpork would have his choice of jobs anywhere in the world; Young Sam and his wife were currently working on some project over in Genua.

“Right. So you hand over to Moist and then…what? What would you do?” The thought of the city without Vetinari at the helm was…well, he couldn’t imagine it.

“I thought, perhaps, some travel. There is talk that the railway will soon stretch to the Counterweight Continent.”

Vimes stared, dimly aware that his mouth was slightly open. He closed it. “Oh.”

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “A compelling point, Vimes.”

He scowled. “Well, you’ve kind of sprung it on me. And I know you’ve been up for six bloody hours already, but some of us still sleep past 3am.” He rubbed his face. “So what were you going to ask?”

“I’d have thought it obvious, Vimes. I was hoping you would retire also, and join me.”

Vimes looked at him from across the congealing eggs, and tried to come up with some sort of sensible response.

He couldn’t retire. He’d once told Vetinari the city was in his blood and under his skin, and that was as true now as it was then.

But… but. The other man was right. He wasn’t getting any younger, and Carrot had taken over most of the day to day running of things in the Watch. The lad was definitely due a promotion, and there was only one place he could go, since he seemed as determined to stick around the city as Vimes was.

Could he retire…?

Vetinari was watching him carefully. He floundered for something to say.

“I always thought I’d die on the job, to be honest.” 

“A cheerful prospect, indeed. However, I would encourage you to consider one possible alternative; that of dying peacefully in your comfortable bed at an advanced age.”

“With you by my side?” Vimes gave a wan grin.

“Preferably, yes.”

Twenty years, Vimes thought. Twenty years and he can still make my pulse race with two bloody words.

There was a buzzing nearby as a bee alighted briefly on the vase of lilac. Vimes stared at it for a moment, lost in thought, before wafting it gently away with his napkin. 

They watched it fly off together, quietly, then Vimes said, “Alright.”

Vetinari looked back at him, an expression of faint surprise on his features. “Was that a yes?”

Vimes was transported back, suddenly, to Vetinari’s office, the night he’d turned up and asked him to try again. “Yes , Havelock.”

Vetinari sat back in his chair, and smiled; one of those rare and genuine smiles that made his eyes crinkle slightly, and that Vimes was fairly sure no one else but him ever got to see. 

“That surprised you, didn’t it?” he said.

“Yes. I had anticipated you would take much more persuasion.”

He shrugged, and grinned. “Well, you really sold it to me with the dyin’ in bed thing.” 

Vetinari’s hand was resting on the table beside his tea, and now Vimes reached over and covered it with his own. Vetinari carefully interlaced their fingers, and then he brought Vimes’ hand to his mouth and laid a soft kiss on his knuckles. 

Then, hand in hand, they sat for a while, and watched the bees.