Notes: Contains torture/violence. Due to content and formatting restrictions, the slightly odd combination of sex and footnotes have been removed. Please visit AO3 for the uncut version (here /works/6061051/chapters/13894198) which will contain sex scenes in Chapter Two.
Undying thanks to my beta readers, Kon (who doesn't know anything about Discworld) and Creys (who does). Without you both I would still be drowning in a sea of words while trying to write a plot-heavy PWP.
There was the sound of someone swatting a fly.
Vimes opened his eyes. At least, his brain told him that he had opened his eyes, but his eyes themselves were having trouble accepting this as fact, as all they could see was the same inky blackness they saw when they were closed. Vimes briefly contemplated that he might have gone blind, but that minor concern was quickly overshadowed by the rather larger problem of the splitting headache that was carving his head in two. It felt like Fred Colon had taken to living in whatever space was there between his brain and his skull and was trying to bodily squeeze himself out of one ear while Mrs Colon squeezed herself in through the other.
He rolled over on to his front. This turned out to be a terrible decision, Vimes thought, vomiting heartily as a bright mixture of multicoloured flowers danced past his suffering vision and the floor seemed to tip up by forty degrees or so, leaving him feeling as though he was lying on an uncomfortably steep slope inhabited by psychedelic nightmares.
Staring at the rough stone floor and wishing it would stop moving beneath him, Vimes tried to vaguely recall what had happened.
He'd been in the Patrician's Palace before the world had collapsed, he remembered that much. Rather unusually, the request for an audience had come from Drumknott rather than Vetinari, but the effect was much the same – attend a Palace he didn't really want to go to for a meeting with someone he didn't really want to meet. Drumknott had been anxious, but had been trying quite skilfully to conceal it. He probably would have succeeded in front of any other Watchman, except possibly Carrot, who could be unexpectedly perceptive, and Angua, who could smell hidden emotions from two months ago. Vimes had seen a brief glimpse of the back of Vetinari's head through a door which had been left ajar, and that in itself rankled his suspicions because Vetinari always kept the doors closed to give the fears of the people on the other side of them time to build up.
But... it hadn't been Vetinari, had it? It had been Charlie. Drumknott had explained that His Lordship was otherwise engaged, and he had pronounced the italics. Vimes had had the distinct impression that whatever Vetinari was otherwise engaged in, it was a surprise to the clerk.
And then... Drumknott had taken him to the Oblong Office and asked him to search it. Search it for what? But Drumknott had gone, and Charlie had gone with him. Vimes had shrugged and lit a cigar and searched for half an hour, finding exactly the Spartan and humourless office he had expected, with absolutely nothing out of the ordinary... and then something had come out of the ordinary and there had been a searing pain in his skull and blackness in front of his vision. Vimes presumed that was when he had lost consciousness. Still, that was to be expected. Someone had apparently tried to cave his skull in with an inkwell. There were still traces of ink on his shoulders and in his hair.
Vimes propped himself up on his elbows, but this also proved to be a mistake as his head exploded again. Gingerly, he touched the back of his head with one hand and felt, on the side of his skull some bit above his ear, a lump so impressive that, if compared to the size of an egg, it would have been a good meal.
Resisting the urge to puke again, Vimes felt about his person. Some cursory attempt had been made to disarm him, but aside from the aforementioned second head growing above his ear, all his limbs seemed blissfully intact and undamaged.
The fly swatter was at it again, this time grunting with exertion. Vimes blinked slowly. It must be a big fly.
As vague grey shapes loomed out of the murk proving that blindness was just a fleeting paranoia, Vimes was thankfully able to ground himself a little. The floor no longer swam like a drowning dog every time he dared to turn his head and, very slowly, the nausea started to recede.
Sadly the headache did not.
There was the sound of another fly meeting death. Each slap of the swatter caused the ache to swell through Vimes' head, throbbing through his sinuses like a hangover. In fact, Vimes felt very much like he did have a hangover, only it was without the prior feeling of drunken invincibility and was therefore almost everything bad about alcohol without allowing him any of the good. Bollocks to that.
Slowly, Vimes pushed himself to his feet. He swayed a little and threw out a hand to steady himself, gratified when he found there was a convenient wall to lean against.
With every second, his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom. Enough for him to realise that there was not one wall, there were four, rather closer together than he would have liked. One of them had a small window that was letting in the dregs of some dusty, recycled light and one of them had heavy-looking metal door.
It was, in every sense, a prison. There were even bars on the window, an unnecessary detail considering that the window was eight feet off the ground and less than a foot square. Not even Stronginthearm or Cheery would have been able to squeeze through it.
The room was empty except for a small firkin next to him, which seemed to contain an amount of water of questionable freshness, and...
Vimes' eyes focussed slowly on the fuzzy shape of the man who was standing by the wall on the other side of the room. It was not a big room and he was not that far away, but the stagnant murk and the pressing headache made noticing details difficult. Vimes could see enough to tell that the figure was wearing a cloak with a hood, and common sense told him that he must be the man swatting the fly. Which meant that the strange, misshapen lump on the floor must be said fly. Huh, he was right, it was pretty big...
With some vague intention of asking where he was and what had happened and why his head felt as though there was a Klatchian dancing in it, Vimes started to stumble towards the man before his suspicious bastard mind caught up with him and warned that someone who was present when he woke up aching and angry in a cell after being assaulted might not be all that friendly.
It was a good thing that Vimes stopped in his tracks. His mind had time to realise that the fly swatter was, in fact, a whip with several tails and the weird, bent shape on the floor was a person. The end of each whip tail glinted in the half-light, giving away the presence of metal hooks fastened there. The hooks were designed to rip the skin, to scour flesh from bone. Vimes had heard of such implements being taken on to ships to promote discipline at sea. Normally just the presence of the scourge was enough to ensure the hands remained passive and obedient. The poor devil in front of him probably didn't have much of a back left.
Blinking again, Vimes took another slow, tentative step forwards. As much as the bile rose in him at the pathetic bundle on the floor and its hooded assailant, he knew that the least sensible thing for him to do would be to rush in without understanding the situation and risk that terrible weapon tearing into his own body. Probably he would be risking his health for a dead man anyway; if the scourge didn't kill him, the infection and blood loss surely would. Besides, the victim's profile was just visible, and there was something... something about...
Vimes' jaw dropped and he almost vomited again. Despite an unhealthy pallor and slight sunken look, the sharpness of the jaw and the darkness of the eyes and the grown-out remnants of that dratted beard were unmistakeable.
It was Lord Vetinari.
Vimes' mind struggled to comprehend something that he instinctively knew he couldn't be seeing, yet was there in front of him. Maybe the blow to the head had knocked him silly.
Vetinari's hands were bound by rope, his wrists secured to a thick wooden post that rose no more than ten inches from the ground. This meant that he was forced either to remain in his current position, his knees folded beneath his chest and his back exposed in a curve for the whip, or lie flat on his front on the dirty stone floor.
Vimes wondered if he could tackle the man before he could strike with the weapon. He certainly could have, if he had not been half-insensible with the pain in his head. Was it worth trying?
A second hooded man detached himself from the wall – Vimes hadn't noticed him leaning there still and silent – and hissed something to Vetinari in a language that Vimes didn't understand. When Vetinari failed to respond, the man reached down and took a fistful of the Patrician's dark hair, yanking the pale head up and forcing Vetinari to look him in the eye. Vetinari flashed a lightning expression that, though tired and strained, was almost recognisable as one of his brief but frightening smiles. With a look of disgust, the man let go of Vetinari's hair and melted back into the half-shadow.
It was a good thing he hadn't decided to play the hero, Vimes thought to himself. He would have struggled taking down one able-bodied man in this condition, let alone two...
Vimes could see that Lord Vetinari was naked from the waist up, his back and sides gleaming with sweat and blood and smeared with filth. It was impossible to tell, from this distance and in this light, whether the Patrician had been purposefully stripped or whether his clothing had simply disintegrated under the assault. How long had they been whipping him? Presumably for some time before Vimes awoke, if the labyrinth of welts and cuts on the man's pale skin was any indication.
The scourge lashed against Vetinari's back again, ripping away another strip of skin and flesh. Vetinari's body jolted with a grunt, his head bowed further over his bound hands.
The man with the whip placed his booted foot on the back of Vetinari's head and pushed the Patrician's face into a floor strewn with rat droppings. He gave Vimes a smug grin and a sardonic bow before leaving the room, followed by the silent, shadowy second figure. The door slammed behind them with a depressing finality and a click that sounded all too much like that of a lock.
Vetinari raised his head, spitting grit and muck. He had some blood on his face, but it seemed mostly to be from a split lip that was already halfway healed. The nastier part of Vimes' mind suggested that Vetinari had probably brought that one on himself by giving one of his usual smartarse snark answers. These thugs didn't look like the types who had much in the way of patience or humour for Vetinari's usual habit of talking people in circles.
"Ah... Vimes..." said Vetinari. The tone was recognisable, but the voice was weak and faint, hoarse through lack of water and ill-use. Vetinari's words came far slower than usual, and he occasionally had to pause and catch his breath. "I see... I have the pleasure of your company."
"What the bloody hell is going on?!"
"I'm astounded you haven't managed to... work it out for yourself, Commander. You have been kidnapped. Though, I suppose, adultnapped might be a more accurate-"
"The lump on my head told me that," growled Vimes irritably, bending down to study the knots around Lord Vetinari's wrists. "I meant what the hell are you doing here? Did I accidentally stumble into your evening entertainment? Should I show up to appointments wearing chains and straps and a ball-gag?"
"I would urge you not to," coughed Vetinari, somewhat alarmed. "It would make your long and detailed reports so very difficult to understand."
"Listen, you-"
"Unfortunately," Vetinari interrupted Vimes, his voice quiet but still powerful enough to bring instant silence, "I have demonstrated a severe lack of diligence... which I am sure I would be thrilled to tell you about if you would be so kind as to help me up."
Vetinari's breath hitched suddenly and a violent shiver racked his thin frame. Vimes blinked as his brain remembered that, despite his ability to effortlessly be the most infuriating, obfuscating individual on the Disc, Lord Vetinari was only human, and currently a human in a considerable predicament.
"They've been beating you with a flail?" Vimes glanced at the Patrician's torn back as he bent down over the rope. It looked like a particularly clumsy dancer with knives for feet had stumbled a crude tango on it. Vetinari smiled mirthlessly.
"They were using a switch, your grace, but unfortunately it broke."
Vimes muttered something about Vetinari's skin being as iron as his personality. Vetinari tactfully pretended not to hear.
The rope chafed and pinched as Vimes' fingers fumbled with the knot around the post. The Patrician stayed patiently silent as Vimes cursed and muttered to himself and tried to ignore the screaming agony from the lump on his head. The knot was good, the rope stiff, and he had not quite yet gained his night eyes so he was working almost blind in the murky half-light, one of his eyes almost closed by the persistent throbbing ache behind it.
"There!" he said with some smug satisfaction as the rope fell away...
… from the post alone. Vetinari's captors, it seemed, had not been foolish enough to tie the man's hands together and to the post with the same knot.
Vetinari straightened up with a groan, and Vimes heard the click as the Patrician stretched his back. "Thank you, your grace. You have done me a mercy."
"I'm not done yet," muttered Vimes as he started trying to free the slender white hands.
Ten minutes later, he was still trying, with nothing but a frayed edge of rope and raw, reddened, bloody fingers to show for his effort.
"Good gods," he exclaimed for the fourth time, throwing his hands up in frustration. This was also a mistake, he realised, as for the second time coloured stars burst before his eyes and the lump on his skull throbbed in protest.
Vetinari remained with his hands slightly outstretched towards the briefly-dazed Vimes. "Will you be trying again, your grace, or have you satisfied yourself for now?"
Vimes' temper rose. Did Vetinari think he was doing this for fun, just as a way to pass the time? Perhaps as a headache cure? "You do it then," he muttered sullenly, "because I am clearly enjoying myself too much and I have nothing better to do than to scrape my skin off doing a favour for an ingrate." A slight nagging feeling prodded him, crying that he would never have voiced the thought out loud if Vetinari's hands were free. He shooed the thought away guiltily.
To his surprise, the Patrician smiled at him. "Do you know why our hooded friends have chosen rope instead of shackles, your grace, when common sense suggests that shackles would be the stronger, wiser choice?"
"No, and I don't care."
"Shackles," continued Vetinari unperturbed, "will not mould. They are easy to slip out of, particularly for thin wrists and when the metal is wet. Rope has a natural friction which makes slipping the bonds far more inconvenient, and it expands when wet to compensate for the wasting of one's wrists over a long confinement."
"Why should it matter if it's wet?" Vimes growled before he could stop himself, "Sure, it's not exactly satin sheets in here, but we're hardly swimming in damp. I guess you could dip it in the water barrel, or smear it in rat sh-"
"In fact," said Vetinari quietly, "one could even suggest that the more the victim struggles, the more the rope ensures he is bound."
Despite himself, Vimes found his gaze drawn back down to the Patrician's bound hands – and he winced. His eyes had finally fully accustomed to the gloom, and he could now clearly see that the rope was discoloured and swollen in places, though it was not with water. Vetinari's wrists were red and shiny, deep abrasions showing where he had unsuccessfully fought for freedom.
Vimes looked at his fingers, where the blood had dried in little clusters and was starting to peel away.
His clumsy fiddling with the knot must have caused the man pain. He wondered why Vetinari had not stopped him.
Certainly whoever had secured those bonds had realised that Vetinari with his hands free, even a Vetinari half-conscious and riddled with injuries, was one of the most dangerous men alive on the Disc, and every precaution had been taken to ensure that danger was not unleashed on those who had made it their enemy.
"What the hell is going on?" asked Vimes in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "How long have you been in here?"
"Five days, I think. Possibly seven."
"Seven-"
"It is hard to tell exactly," said the Patrician, as smoothly as he could with his voice so ragged. "The light from that window does change with the hour, but retains an impressive monotone of grey and slightly lighter grey. Oh, and I fear I have spent at least some of my stay unconscious, so my timekeeping has, regrettably, suffered somewhat."
Vimes stared. Five to seven days. No wonder Drumknott had been so anxious and yet so vague. It was hard to tell someone in plain Morporkian that the Patrician was missing if you didn't want that news spread around the entire city, even in an otherwise deserted and seemingly secure room like the Oblong Office. Drumknott had wanted Vimes to work out Vetinari was missing and find him...
Well, he'd done it, hadn't he? Just not in the order Drumknott had intended, and certainly not in a way that meant he could be of any use resolving the situation. Here he was just another prisoner, though admittedly one with his hands free.
If he couldn't untie the Patrician, maybe he could do something else useful...
Thank the gods he hadn't been wearing one of his nice shirts under his armour today, he thought to himself as he ripped a chunk of material from one of his sleeves and walked to the firkin to dip it in the water. Sybil would have become passive aggressive at him if he had returned with one of his expensive Cowherd & Edwards' shirts ripped to shreds and covered in various bodily fluids.
"Can I see your back, sir?" he asked, walking back to Vetinari. Vetinari blinked once and wordlessly turned his back on Vimes. It looked like a troll with a chisel had tried to play noughts-and-crosses on his body and, after finishing, had tried to scribble the board out. Confronted with the criss-cross of bleeding whip cuts, Vimes hesitated.
"Uh..."
"Don't worry about causing me pain, your grace," came the Patrician's soft voice, "it is important that the wounds are cleaned."
Starting in the top left, Vimes ran the damp cross as close as he dared to the edges of the topmost welt, wiping away grime and blood. Lord Vetinari's breathing hardly changed, but his muscles tensed and trembled the barest bit and if Vimes had been able to see his face, he would have seen the ice-coloured eyes close quickly. The skin beneath Vimes' hands was red and swollen.
Vimes continued cleaning the other man's back to the best of his abilities with dirty water and a dirty scrap of cloth. A number of questions fired themselves through his already-aching brain. He settled for the easiest.
"Why?"
"It appears... that some sort of sleeping draught was entered into my inkwell. Very effective, I must say."
"The inkwell," said Vimes woodenly, suddenly remembering what he had been hit by. What a useful way to remove evidence; most of it had been smashed by his head and the lower rim of his helmet. Doubtless the Palace staff removing the ink stains from the Office floor would neglect to check them for traces of poison. The only traces remaining were on him, and he hoped to remove them with a bath at the first possible opportunity.
He frowned. "You drink your ink?"
Vetinari gave him a sharp look over his shoulder. The effect was somewhat diminished by the unavoidable wince that crossed his face as Vimes' cloth passed over one of the deeper wounds, where the hooks of the scourge had torn almost down to the bone.
"Aha. I suppose your ignorance can be... excused as, correct me if I am mistaken, you are not a man who writes a great deal."
"No, I'm not."
"I thought as much from reading... your written reports." Vetinari was blissfully unable to see the look on Vimes' face. It was the sort of look that kept a city of criminals from committing crimes in his absence, for fear it would be turned on them. "When writing a great deal, it... becomes necessary to wet the bottom of the pen so the ink continues to flow."
"So you lick the tip of the pen," Vimes finished gloomily.
"Quite so."
Vimes stood back, squeezing the damp scrap of shirt onto the floor. He almost dipped it into the water again to clean it, but held back when he realised that was their drinking supply. He didn't fancy keeping himself hydrated on a barrel of the Patrician's diluted blood.
"I... think I've done as much as I can," he mumbled, dropping the cloth to the floor and wiping his hands on his trousers. "They're still bleeding, and the water won't help that."
Vetinari nodded. He gave a soft groan as he slowly knelt down and eased himself into a sitting position. Vimes noticed he kept his back carefully away from the wall but let his head tilt back to rest against the stone. Vimes stared for a moment before sinking down the wall to sit next to the taller man.
"So a bunch of robed crazies kidnapped you so they could tie you to a post and beat you to shit? Ha," he laughed mirthlessly, "I almost preferred the dragon! What the hell are they after?"
"Information," answered Vetinari quietly. Another shiver ran through his thin body.
Vimes did not consider himself a natural diplomat, but even he knew that this was not the way that foreign affairs were normally conducted. Standard procedure when desiring information from a foreign country was to send in poshly-dressed spies and call them ambassadors, not to kidnap the local tyrant and use him as a target dummy.
"Have you ever heard of Nanoka, Commander?"
"Nanoka?"
"It is not quite a country," Vetinari closed his eyes and pressed his fingers together as though he were praying. "It is a principality of the Agatean Empire, very close to Ting Ling, but it wishes for independence and its citizens – Nanokatians – have decidedly inventive and, from their track record, successful ways of gaining what they want. They have already managed to force Agatean leadership into preliminary negotiations, which is impressive for a geographic area that has only recently ceased burning their elderly to try and divine the weather."
"Ting Ling? That's the other side of the Disc! What's that got to do with Ankh-Morpork?"
"Possibly they want Ankh-Morpork to fund their military endeavours, or support their rebellion," Vetinari answered. "Who knows what goes on in the minds of desperate men, Commander."
His tone of voice had not changed, but Vimes was practised enough in listening to the man and his stupid little inflections and his foibles and idiosyncrasies to know that Vetinari was being evasive.
"What do they want from you?"
"I could not say."
"But you understand their language, don't you? You understand what they're saying? So what do they want?"
"I could not say."
Vimes gave up. He had more chance getting Detritus to recite the Theory of Disc Polarity on a hot summer's day.
"One more thing, then," he growled, leaning his own head back against the wall. "Why am I here?"
Vetinari's tired voice sounded genuinely surprised.
"Why, Sir Samuel, I would have thought that was evident! Because, in all of Ankh-Morpork, you are the man most likely to find me!"
oOo
Vimes opened his eyes with a start when a lance of pain shot through his head and he realised he had dozed off. The light that came through the window was a slightly brighter grey than it had been. He understood what Vetinari meant about it being hard to tell the time of day.
Vetinari...
Vimes glanced next to him. Lord Vetinari was still sitting there, in the same position he had been when Vimes had closed his eyes. His lips were dry and parted, however, and his breath was laboured. Vimes was glad for this, as it was confirmation that he was still alive, and there was not visually much else to tell him that. The dingy light gave Vetinari a grey, waxy pallor that wouldn't have looked amiss on Reg Shoe.
Vimes hesitantly reached out and touched the man's brow – and pulled his hand back. The pale skin was hot and clammy, damp with sweat and the threat of fever.
"Ah, Vimes... you're awake," grated the Patrician in a voice that did not sound like his. "I would like... some water."
Vimes lifted the frail figure to his feet. It was a longer and more difficult process than it would normally be due to the fact that Vetinari was oozing disconcertingly and Vimes' hands, wet with blood and sweat and pus, slipped against the pale skin. More than once, the Patrician sank back down to his knees and Vimes had to readjust his grip and try again. It was with some grudging admiration that Vimes acknowledged Vetinari's toughness, as any noises utterly failed to escape him.
As the thin man unfolded laboriously upright and staggered towards the water firkin supported on Vimes' arm, something small and round dropped from the tattered shreds of his clothing and bounced twice on the floor. Vimes watched it with a jaundiced eye. It looked like a pill.
"What's that?"
"... Insurance," Vetinari answered quietly, without looking at it.
"It's poison," Vimes said flatly. Vetinari smiled wanly and, though he gave no verbal response, he did not need to. The lack of denial was confirmation enough. Vimes' temper rose.
"You bastard. You bloody bastard," he snarled. "Why the hell am I bothering to clean your wounds and save you from fever, then? Poison? For what, are you too vain to bear being seen reacting to treatment that would kill us mere mortals? Is your image of the untouchable bloody tyrant so important to you?"
Vetinari raised his bound hands to shakily tap his forelock. "There are incidences... secrets in here, your grace, which cannot fall into the hands of Ankh-Morpork's worryingly numerous enemies."
"You arrogant -"
"For the good of the city," Vetinari cut across him without missing a beat, though his voice remained as weak as his wasting body. "The wellbeing of Ankh-Morpork and its continuing stability are worth more than the life of one man. I thought you would have known that, your grace." There was a slightly accusatory tone in his voice, as though he were a teacher gently chiding a child for forgetting his multiplication tables. "If our generous hosts had wanted me dead, I have no doubt that I would be. To a man, they are not squeamish. At current, I believe that while alive, I still have the value of whatever knowledge they perceive to be in my head. There is a great deal of knowledge in my head, your grace, and a great deal of that great deal would have serious repercussions for Ankh-Morpork were it to be... publicly released. For the moment, while I could hardly accuse my daily entertainment of being pleasant, it is at least bearable. If, and I sincerely hope this is not the case, that were to change, then I would cease to be of value to the city and, indeed, would be as dangerous as the secrets I could, and most likely would, spill."
Vimes opened his mouth to shout at the man some more, and he paused. From somewhere in the recesses of his memory, he saw Carrot's face in front of him. Personal is not the same as important.
Who else would think like that, besides Carrot and Vetinari? Who else would put Ankh-Morpork, wretched cesspit of scum and selfishness that it was, above their own life? Vimes had always considered the city his, to a degree, but even he would draw the line at defending the daily lawless filth at personal cost, and he was far too cynical to believe the city would ever thank him for his service.
Carrot was almost universally respected in Ankh-Morpork, if not actively liked. Vetinari... got by on being more feared than admired and more useful alive than dead, yet the amount he was willing to give protecting the very people who would throw him to the metaphorical wolves the instant the wind changed... who had done so previously on a number of occasions...
"... No," he choked out at last, the fires of rage dying down to a simmering, smouldering irritation tinged with the barest vestige of an empty sort of sadness.
"No?" enquired Vetinari mildly.
"No. What the hell happens if you do die? Who replaces you? You're a twisty bastard, but at least you let people be if they're innocent. Well, not guilty enough to bother anyone." They were talking about Ankh-Morpork, after all. "If the guilds start feuding, people will get in the way. People will get killed. If it was just you on the line, I wouldn't care -"
"How kind of you to say."
"- but it's not just you. If you die in here, like this, to these... people, then Ankh-Morpork dies with you. There'll be a civil war, and there won't be anything bloody civil about it!"
Vetinari was standing mostly without support now, though he was leaning heavier than he should be against the wall. Vimes took the opportunity to bend down and retrieve the small pill...
… which turned out to be a seed rather than a pill. Vimes held it between a thumb and forefinger. He knew nothing about poisons.
"Is it arsenic?" he asked, remembering the candles.
Vetinari coughed a sound which could have been a laugh.
"It is not. Arsenic, while blessedly easy to procure, is slow to act and has a remarkably high rate of survival if it expelled from the system quickly enough. What you hold in your hand, your grace, is the seed of a certain tree, which contains a natural component known as strychnine."
"Strychnine," Vimes repeated woodenly.
"Yes, Commander. I would advise against touching your mouth or your eyes until you have had a chance to wash your hands."
He scoffed. "Is it really that potent?"
"Oh yes," and Vetinari was deadly serious. "It will kill within half an hour. Hardly a pleasant death, of course – where arsenic can be chronic, strychnine is demonstrably acute – but it comes with a measure of certainty that so often escapes the base elements."
Vimes stared at the little innocent-looking seed.
When he spoke next, the Patrician's voice was almost a whisper. "I want you to administer it to me, your grace, if it appears that I will... say too much."
"No," said Vimes bluntly.
"I have kept it about my person, but my clothing, as you can see, is not surviving this experience with the integrity I would have hoped -"
"No."
The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Vetinari's mouth.
"No, your grace?"
Vimes snorted. "Oh, excuse me, I was mistaken. I meant hell no. If I'm going to kill you, it's going to be on a gibbet at the end of a rope."
The Patrician's expression was unreadable as he stared at Vimes for several seconds longer than was comfortable. Normally Vimes would have adjusted his gaze to a point above and slightly to the left of his ear, but this time he allowed himself to stare directly in to those startlingly blue eyes.
A cold fury rose within him. How many times had he wanted to kill Vetinari, or at least punch the man's infuriatingly omniscient face through the back of his infuriatingly omniscient head? And now Vetinari, the untouchable, unflappable, unemotional tyrant of Ankh-Morpork, had asked for death. Not even hinted in one of his twisty orders-hidden-as-statements-hidden-as-questions, it had been a request as plain as the lump on Vimes' head. Vimes was disconcerted to learn that it hurt almost as much.
He aimed a kick at the closest thing that was not likely to break his foot.
Lord Vetinari closed his eyes patiently as the water firkin flew halfway across the room and rolled the other half on its side, a sad trail of liquid showing its trajectory.
"I really rather wish," he said, with the calmness and resignation of a man confronting a problem of approximate size to a pet fouling a cheap carpet rather than a man seriously considering the looming threat of dehydration, "that you had done that after I had finished drinking from it."
The haze of rage receded slightly as Vimes' rationality caught up.
"Oh," he mumbled as he stared at the firkin, which was now empty except for a tiny puddle of the dregs, "sorry."
Vetinari waved his hands impatiently.
"I could ask for some more, I suppose?" muttered Vimes, feeling slightly guilty. "I guess everyone speaks a bit of Morporkian..." he blinked, realising that they had been blissfully undisturbed for quite some while, particularly considering that their captors knew a man with nothing to hold him back but a lump on his head was able unsupervised to do whatever he wanted with a prisoner as valuable as Vetinari... He suddenly had horrible visions of rotting away into a skeletal, starving, bone-dry husk. "How often do they come in here, anyway?"
"This is the first time they have left me alone for any length of time. I expect they are hoping you will be horrified at what you have witnessed and convince me to divulge my knowledge to save me from further humiliation, or the like."
Vimes stared. Vetinari chuckled weakly at him.
"They are cunning, your grace, but naïve. On some points they are so very well informed, yet on others woefully misguided."
"I see you have everything figured out and under control," Vimes said coldly, kicking the empty firkin again.
"Gratifyingly more so than they," answered Vetinari with words that did not fit his broken voice as he eased himself back into a sitting position and closed his eyes, as sure a sign as any that the conversation was over.
oOo
The room was crude but solid. Vimes had vented his anger on the little firkin, kicking it around the room until Vetinari had opened his eyes to affix him with a Look that stopped his foot mid-kick. Lacking anything meaningful to do, and with Vetinari now obstinately ignoring him, Vimes had walked round and felt every inch of the wall, floor and door that he could reach. There were no convenient latches or spikes or shards of broken glass to cut ropes, nothing that would aid an escape, nothing even that could be used as a weapon. He'd even considered breaking the firkin into a rudimentary club, but the wood was good and strong and the hoops held firmly in place with thick rivets. All he'd got from trying was splintered fingers. As a last resort, Vimes supposed he could throw the firkin, though it was quite light when not full of water and, while capable of delivering a nasty bruise, he did not like to think of what would happen if he made his captors angry. Vetinari aside, he had been treated fairly well, considering, and it would be foolish to waste that because he decided to play hero with a water butt.
Even as boredom threatened to slice into him, there were footsteps outside and the door opened. Vimes had to turn his head away and shield his eyes from the sudden onslaught of brightness which stole his night vision. Three shadows moved through the light; he could see them imprinted on the insides of his closed eyelids. From the sounds of movement, they were three men, one a lot heavier than the others. The last one in closed the door behind him, cutting off the painfully glaring light.
Able to open his eyes again, Vimes saw two robed and hooded Nanokatians standing over Vetinari. Both were quite thin and one was a considerable bit taller than the other. They were talking rapidly to each other in their own language. A surge of anger and hatred rose within him and he started towards them, fists clenching and unclenching, but, as the hairs on the back of his neck prickled and a warning hand fell on his shoulder, he realised where the third man had gone.
The taller Nanokatian hissed something to the man nearest Vetinari, who nodded slowly. Vimes tensed as one of them bent down and took hold of the Patrician's bound wrists, but he became very, very still as the point of a thin-bladed knife drifted perilously close to his eyeball.
"Peace, Grace Vimes", said a heavily-accented voice by his ear, the speaker somehow managing to give "Vimes" two syllables. "It is not for you. Works not, does it? The beating."
"Probably not," spat Vimes, moving his head slowly backwards. The blade moved with him, pointedly illustrating he was not free to move.
"Ah, but Grace. All men fear pain."
Vimes stayed silent, staring almost unseeingly as the two robed figures forced Vetinari onto his back and secured his hands to the wooden post above his head. One of them through a pail of a liquid that smelled strongly of lamp oil over the supine figure. Only Vimes, accustomed as he was to the Patrician's mannerisms, noticed the hitch in his breath as the oil splashed onto his unprotected chest.
One of the men said something in Nanokatian to Vetinari, who answered in the same blank tone that he gave in meetings when someone said something he did not want to hear. The man knelt down next to Vetinari and touched the Patrician's skin just below his sternum.
Almost immediately, with a grunt of exertion, the torturer drove a three inch spike into Vetinari's body, sinking the piece of metal just over an inch into the exposed soft flesh beneath the bone. Lord Vetinari jolted involuntarily and shut his eyes at the point of impact, but otherwise made no sound. As the Nanokatian moved away, Vimes could see the end of the spike jutting upwards from where it was embedded in the Patrician's body. There was very little blood, and that which did seep out was quickly dispersed in the oil which still glistened on the pale skin.
The smaller of the two robed figures stepped forward and knelt next to Vetinari. He held in his hand something thin and white, which he started easing on to the protruding spike with deceptive care. Vimes watched Vetinari's expression, which had suddenly tightened and become stony and closed.
As the man shuffled away from Vetinari again, Vimes looked at the white shape which was now securely fastened to the spike, and which rose and fell with the Patrician's ever-so-slightly uneven breaths.
His mouth dropped open and a sick feeling rose in his throat as he realised that he was looking at a small candle.
"Wait -" he started, but one of the men had already struck a match. Vimes watched, speechless, as the wick caught and flickered, as the wax started to melt and slide downwards...
"Stop it," he said again, turning his head slightly to the Nanokatian who was holding the knife by his face. The man merely flashed a gap-toothed grin.
The candle was not a long one. It was only a used stub, or possibly a cut-off end, and it would not burn for very long on its remaining wax. Luckily after the wax had melted away, there was a good supply of lamp oil waiting.
Vimes looked back at Vetinari, whose gaze was fixed firmly on the flickering flame. Aside from his breathing more deeply than normal, there was no obvious sign of his discomfort. As the tallow stub burned away, however, Vimes noticed the smallest of shivers taking hold of the gaunt frame. One of the robed figures bent close to Vetinari's face and said something in his native tongue. The Patrician remained silent.
He voiced his wordless contempt by tilting his chin to his chest and blowing the candle out.
With a deeply unamused look, the Nanokatian struck another match and relit the wick, aiming a kick at the side of Vetinari's head for his impudence. His heavy boot left a small gash on the Patrician's cheek just below his left eye. Vimes felt the smallest surge of patriotic pride. Take that, you foreign shit-eating motherf-
"Ah Grace Vimes, it is bad, the seeing," said the voice by Vimes' ear. While still holding the knife uncomfortably close to Vimes' unshaven cheek, the owner moved around so he was standing in front of him. Against all common sense and rational possibility, Vimes found himself looking at a man who was almost as stocky as Detritus, if not quite as silicate. The sheer bulk blocked Vimes' view of Vetinari, which was, if he was honest with himself, no small comfort. Vimes was not the type to shy away from blood and was more than willing to inflict pain when he found it necessary, but he abhorred the idea of torture.
The human landmass in front of him successfully blocked his sight, but it was less apt at preventing his other senses from understanding what was happening. His ears most definitely heard the fwmph of fuel suddenly igniting followed by the sharp gasp of a man's broken voice; his nose most definitely picked up on the strong smell of charred skin and burning flesh.
The living wall in front of him grinned again, and Vimes fought the urge to vomit in his face. From somewhere behind the man came the sound of someone speaking Nanokatian again, to be answered by a hoarse, strained voice. Vimes grit his teeth as he realised the second voice belonged to Vetinari, though, all things considered, he sounded remarkably calm for a man who was literally on fire. It would almost be better, Vimes thought, if the bastard would just scream.
And, as if on cue, there was a scream. It was a scream of anger rather than of pain, and it came from the other side of the small but solid metal door. The same door slammed open barely a moment later and another robed and hooded figure rushed in, speaking fast in his native tongue.
There was a sudden flurry of activity. The man in front of Vimes, distracted by the intrusion, moved away. Vimes relaxed a little as the silver blade left the zone he had mentally labelled Far Too Close and lingered instead in the zone labelled Slightly Too Close.
As the man moved, Vimes caught a brief glimpse of Vetinari, whose body was bent in a tense concave arch as though he was trying to suck his chest away from the burning heat, before one of the Nanokatians swiftly threw a heavy cloak over him. There was a hissing noise, followed by a very muted groan.
The four men were almost shouting at each other now. The part of Vimes that was still inextricably connected to the streets started to size them up. One against four? Surely he had been in worse spots? He'd survived a pack of werewolves, after all, even if they had been toying with him.
Before he could even think of picking a fight, however, all four men turned on their heels and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind them. Their loud voices echoed up the corridor. Vimes couldn't understand the words, but the tone alone told him they were nothing he would repeat in front of Sybil.
He waited a moment until the footsteps had fully receded before returning his attention to the shape on the floor. The departing Nanokatians had taken the torch with them, but even without his eyes fully accustomed to the gloom Vimes could see that only Vetinari's bound wrists were uncovered. The rest of his body was covered by the heavy but ragged cloak.
"Commander...?" asked the cloak in a faint voice that was more like a sigh.
Gingerly, his fingers feeling as unwieldy and clumsy as bread loaves, Vimes lifted the cloak off the pitiful figure, doing his best not to snag it on the ugly, wax-covered metal which still stood stubbornly upright like a grim flagpole.
Vetinari's eyes were closed and his cheeks were paler than normal. Ragged breaths passed slowly between his dry, parted lips, but otherwise there was no physical sign of what had just happened.
Except the splash-shaped red area on his chest, which even now was starting to blister...
"I would appreciate," said Vetinari, still with his eyes closed, "if you would help me up, Vimes."
Wordlessly, squinting his way through the enveloping murk, Vimes knelt down and fumblingly undid the rope end which fastened Vetinari's wrists to the short wooden post. The knot was not as tight as it had been when he had first struggled with it, and he managed to release the other man with the callused skin on his fingers mercifully intact.
"And now," said Vetinari, rising shakily into a sitting position, "we do not have much time."
"What did they say?" asked Vimes, watching the Patrician drag himself to his feet. One of the thin hands lingered over the candle spike, the fingers gently brushing the metal. Vetinari's expression barely flickered as he moved his hand away.
"Oh, I hardly pretend to be an expert -"
"Don't play silly buggers!" snapped Vimes, his helplessness-fuelled frustration rising again as Vetinari interrupted his own sentence with a low grunt that only someone who was listening for it would have heard. "I just listened to you speak the damn language of the slanty-eyed shit-spewing bastards, and whatever the hell they were talking about just now was important enough for them to leave you alone when they were having such fun!"
Vetinari looked Vimes in the eye. Vimes was both astonished at how tired the unflappable politician looked and annoyed at himself for being astonished over the bleeding obvious.
"Their leverage is gone."
"Leverage? What leverage?" Why can you never give me a straight bloody answer?!
Lord Vetinari's answer, if one was forthcoming, was interrupted by the door swinging open again. Three of the four Nanokatians entered, including the one who Vimes mentally described as being built like a brick shithouse. The larger of the three laid a heavy hand on Vimes' shoulder, both as a warning and a restraint. Vimes didn't have to see the knife to know it was there.
The other two, seeing Vetinari released from the post and standing on his own, started barking orders in rapid Nanokatian. Vimes noticed that one of them was carrying a sword. It was not the Ankh-Morpork double-bladed broadsword typical of those that hung as decorations in the houses of people like Lord Rust, nor was it the short sword worn by the Watch before Vimes had decided that arming his staff of borderline sociopaths with anything sharper than a cosh was a Very Bad Idea. It had a thin, slender blade with a slight curve and, for being single-bladed, had an unusually prominent fuller. Unlike the dress swords of the Morporkian duchy, which were all glamour and no gore, it looked like a sword designed for killing.
Whereas before they had moved with the leisurely pace of those who knew they had their prey within their power and enjoyed tormenting the helpless, now they moved with the urgent purpose of men whose personal welfare was suddenly at stake.
One of the men grabbed the rope trailing forward from Vetinari's wrists and pulled as the second man jabbed his hands into the Patrician's scabbed back. The man holding the rope tugged sharply again, and Vetinari allowed his hands to be pulled forward. His head bowed in natural motion as the man behind him pushed him, trying to get him to his knees.
Vimes later had to replay what happened next several times in his mind's eye, and even then he couldn't quite get himself up to speed.
Vetinari's head snapped back like a cracking whip. As the top of his skull connected noisily with the Nanokatian's nose, the Patrician thrust his arms upwards and forwards, looping his bound hands over the head of the hooded figure in front of him. The knot by his wrists dug briefly into the struggling man's throat before Vetinari twisted his arms sharply and, with a sickening but somehow satisfying crack, one Nanokatian was crumpling with a broken neck while the other was staggering, dazedly clutching his bloody nose with both hands.
"Vimes!" snapped the Patrician as he kicked the body away from him with his good leg and picked up the fallen sword. There was no way he could wield it properly even if he knew how, not with his hands bound as they were. However, the man with the broken nose posed little threat, and he sank to the floor with a half-sigh as Vetinari ran him through.
Vimes felt the Nanokatian holding him shift and knew his attention was distracted. Quickly, he drove backwards with his arms, grimly elated as both elbows sank into something soft and squishy. The hand fell away from his shoulder and there was a clatter as the knife hit the ground. Half turning, Vimes brought his knee up as the man bent forward over his elbowed stomach.
Crunch. Knee and chin connected hard.
The man swayed but remained standing. Never one for honour when his life was on the line, Vimes opted for the Nobby approach and took the opportunity to kick him inna fork. He collapsed without any further resistance, frothing slightly at the mouth and clutching his voonerables.
"I suggest we leave," said a voice by Vimes' ear, and he looked up to see Vetinari holding the stolen sword and the cloak which had been used to put out his fire. The Patrician was panting quite heavily.
Vimes could hear the Nanokatian behind him being noisily sick. "I agree," he said, and poked his head out of the unlocked door.
To his surprise, they were not in a big building. In fact, it would have been more accurate to say they were in a cottage, though cottages, at least in Vimes' limited experience, did not normally have heavy doors of cast steel. He could see the building's entrance from the door to their prison. It looked as though there were only two other rooms, and through the open door, Vimes could see that one of those was the unoccupied privy. That meant the fourth man, and any others present, were in the last room. Perhaps, if they were quiet, they could sneak out without being heard...
Vimes paused at the door and turned back in time to see Vetinari wiping the sword on the vomiting man, who appeared to have stopped mid-spew and was instead lying suspiciously still.
"You killed -" Vimes started as Vetinari walked towards him.
"Indeed?"
Vetinari brushed past Vimes. With a glance, his ice-blue eyes had taken in the two remaining doors, one open, one closed.
Quietly, the Patrician nudged the final door open with his shoulder. As Vimes had suspected, there was a single robed figure within the small room, who was bent over a table staring fretfully at what looked like a map of Ankh-Morpork and the Sto Plains. Before he could even raise his head, Vetinari slew him without a word.
Vimes followed the Patrician out of the hovel into the streaming sunlight. The first thing he noticed was that it felt good. Being in the dank room for however many hours or days had left him feeling so mouldy and infested with parasites that he wanted to scour his skin off with a grater, but the sun's rays helped to melt away the feeling of dirt.
The second thing that he noticed was that there was nothing to block the sun reaching him. No buildings, no smog, no miasma so thick you could bite into it, no looming citizens of indeterminate species... and that meant that, wherever they were, it was not Ankh-Morpork.
The third thing he noticed was that Lord Vetinari had collapsed.
"Sir?" asked Vimes urgently, crouching next to the Patrician. Vetinari's frail body was racked with shivers, punctuated by his hoarse shallow breathing. By some miracle, he had avoided landing on the sword.
"I appear to be in shock," murmured the Patrician, his eyes opening to focus blearily on Vimes' face. Vimes touched Vetinari's arm and almost pulled his hand away. The pale skin was burning cold. Vetinari was drenched with sweat.
"Yes," he agreed, his voice flat. He didn't know anything about medicine, and from what little he could remember of Igor talking about shock, it was not a good thing to be in.
"My word," said Vetinari faintly.
Vimes took the heavy cloak from Vetinari's weak grip. Carefully, he lifted the unresisting form into a sitting position and wrapped the cloak around the naked shoulders, gently covering the scarred back and burned chest. Some of the blisters were seeping. With as much care as he could manage, Vimes hoisted Vetinari's disconcertingly light frame over his shoulder.
Vetinari mumbled thickly, "just to the palace will do, Drumknott," and fainted clean away.
Desperately, Vimes looked around at a landscape that was mostly grass and rolling hills. In the distance, he could see the rising builks of the Ramtops and there, slightly widdershins, was the unmistakeable bulk of Copperhead.
Turning a little to his left, Vimes' heart rose as he saw the sun's reflection giving away the presence of water. Not quite running, but stumbling as fast as he dared with Vetinari's limp form across his back, he strove forwards across the plains.
oOo
The water turned out to be a small, fast-flowing river. If Vimes's hasty ill-informed geography was correct and they were on the Pseudopolis side of the Sto Plains, then it was most likely a tributary to the Ankh. That meant that following it should take them back to Ankh-Morpork, though the water would no longer be recognisable as such by that point.
The bank was very rocky. Vimes lay Vetinari on the grassiest bit he could see and selected a large, flat-looking stone, which he pushed under the dark head as a poor attempt at a pillow. Catching some water in his cupped hands, he held it over Vetinari's mouth.
Most of the ice-cold melt water, fresh from the Ramtops thaw, splashed over the Patrician's face, but by lucky chance some of it did enter his mouth. Vetinari swallowed some and coughed the rest.
At least he wasn't dead.
Moving the cloak aside a little, Vimes splashed some more water over the angry-looking burn. Large blisters had formed, and the surrounding skin was discoloured a bright angry red. Most of Vetinari's chest hair had been burned away. Trying his best to ignore the lingering smell of scorched flesh, Vimes continued pouring water on the wound. When Vetinari started shivering again, he wrapped the cloak back around him and finally allowed himself to have a drink.
Who knew water that would eventually be part of the Ankh could taste this fresh and watery?
Vimes splashed some on his face. It was cold, but it felt good.
His gaze was drawn back to the spike still sticking out of Vetinari's chest. It hadn't bled much, yet, but even without much medical knowledge, experience and common sense told Vimes that pulling it out would produce much the same effect as a fork being pulled out of one of Dibbler's sausages.
Still... maybe it was better to do it now, while the man was unconscious?
First, of course, he should probably untie the Patrician's hands. Knowing it was useless to waste the skin of his fingers again, Vimes picked up the sword that Vetinari had liberated. Carefully, using the blade only near the very tip to avoid cutting the other man accidentally, he sliced through the thick rope. It was a testament to the sword's sharpness that it severed the heavy bonds effortlessly.
Vetinari's hands, now free from each other, fell to his sides. The rope, however, remained firmly stuck to him, the oozing scabs on his wrists having formed over the weave. To pull the scraps of rope away now would tear away the healing tissue. On the one hand, it was probably wisest to do it now before the wounds healed further, and there was fresh water nearby to clean open cuts... but on the other hand the Patrician's wrists had festered for some time and were probably already infected with something...
Vimes pinched the bridge of his nose. What he wouldn't give for one of Pantweed's panatellas right now...
Pushing the wrist dilemma to the back of his mind, he turned his attention back to the more pressing issue of the chest injury. The Nanokatians had probably not been considerate enough to sterilise the spike before pushing it in, and the wound and surrounding skin needed to be cleaned. Vimes carefully gripped the metal between his thumb and forefinger. Some small globules of wax still clung to it, and they softened very slightly under the heat from his fingertips.
In a single smooth movement, Vimes jerked his hand upwards and the spike was released from Vetinari's body with a soft but unpleasantly wet noise. Vimes flicked the thing away and focussed his attention on the open puncture, which was now free to bleed happily and unencumbered.
Hesitating the slightest moment, Vimes ripped a strip from his undamaged shirt sleeve and dipped it in the river before pressing it as firmly as he dared onto the hole to stem the flow, somehow hoping that Vetinari didn't wake up.
Luckily, the bleeding had almost completely stopped within about five minutes. Perhaps Vetinari really didn't have that much blood in him. Vimes washed the scrap of material as best he could in the river and gently dabbed the skin around the fresh scab, hoping that it wouldn't open again if Vetinari moved. Vimes held a nagging concern that his laying Vetinari on his back had probably reopened some of the whip marks, but the scabs there had had slightly longer to close and were less pressing in his mind than the fresh burn and the gruesome spike.
The Patrician's breathing, at least, seemed to have returned to a rate that wasn't deeply unsettling, and his fever seemed to have gone down, though it may just have been overtaken by the cold sweats of shock. Vimes wondered if the man was still unconscious, or whether he had upgraded to merely sleeping. It struck him that, though he had seen Vetinari comatose several times, he still wasn't even sure that Ankh-Morpork's supreme ruler actually slept if he hadn't been assaulted in some way.
Satisfied with his effort to clean the deep chest injury, Vimes sat back on a rock that had fewer sharp edges than the others, his mouth wishing for a cigar, and wondered what to do next.
oOo
The sun was low in the sky when Vimes looked up and saw Vetinari watching him through one half-closed eye. His left eye was blackened and swollen shut. There was finally some colour in the pale cheeks.
"How are you feeling, sir?" asked Vimes with a cheerfulness he did not feel.
Vetinari tried to raise himself on his elbows, managing to get halfway before his protesting body caught up with his brain and he slowly sank back down onto his injured back with a wince.
"... Considering the circumstances, I imagine I could be a lot worse."
"You look bloody awful."
A lopsided smile flashed across the thin mouth. "A perfect diplomat as always, your grace."
Vimes watched Vetinari move his hands to wipe sweat from his forehead. Both hands rose together, as though still attached by invisible strings. Lengths of blood-swollen rope still trailed from the limbs. Vimes blinked.
"Do you reckon you're strong enough to walk?" he asked bluntly, aware that the obvious answer was No. "Only the sun's going to set soon and I don't fancy hanging around out of doors for much longer, because that means I'll have to Guard, and I've decided I want a day off."
A flicker of a smile passed over Vetinari's lips.
"I was not aware you knew what a day off was, Commander." He sighed slowly. "I would appreciate your help standing."
Wordlessly, Vimes gripped the Patrician under his arms and helped him into a shaky standing position. Even upright, Vetinari leaned heavily on the policeman. Far more heavily than Vimes would have believed for the Patrician, who always seemed so untouchable and in control. Vetinari's skin was still quite cold but was already damp again with sweat.
With Vetinari no longer lying on his back, Vimes could see the lattice of whip marks. He winced at how angry and dirty they seemed. Of course, lying on literal dirt hadn't helped matters.
"I should... clean your back, sir."
"Hmm? Oh. Yes."
Vetinari leaned against him like a tilted beanpole as Vimes tore another strip of his shirt, again thanking his luck that he had thrown on one of his old, cheap threadbare garments before leaving his house. Using one arm to keep the Patrician upright, he bent and quickly dipped the cloth in the river before wiping away as much of the superficial dirt as he could. Vetinari's breath hitched the barest amount when the icy cold damp first touched his torn skin, but he otherwise waited patiently, his head bowed slightly forward, as Vimes gently worked.
Dropping the cloth when he was done, Vimes stooped to pick up the heavy cloak, which he again draped over the Patrician.
"And what is the plan now, your grace?" asked Vetinari, holding the material at his shoulders to fend the evening chill away from his naked chest. His face was far paler than normal. Sweat beaded his brow, streaking grime across his forehead.
"I had a quick look round while you were, er, asleep. There's a land bridge not fifty metres downstream, and it looked pretty well-travelled. I saw a clacks too. I reckon we must be near one of the plains coach routes. We just need to get a coach back into the city."
"Ah. A feat easily accomplished by a resourceful and expert Commander of the Watch."
"I bloody hope so," muttered Vimes under his breath.
oOo
Alacrity Ribbons was running late. He had hoped to pass the clacks tower before sunset and be in Ankh-Morpork in comfortable time to deliver his cabbages and venture on to one of the numerous taverns with his pockets full of cash. He had changed his oxen in Sto Lat and had been assured by the trader that this new pair were fresh and full of zest. Alacrity wasn't sure what zest was but he was fairly sure he was yet to see any, and, though the oxen were certainly fresh, it wasn't in the way he had paid for.
Now that the sun had set, Alacrity merely hoped to get into the city before the bar closed.
Something appeared on the road in front of his cart. The oxen slowed down and stopped quite quickly, because even the most stubborn ox will think twice about ploughing onwards when confronted with a wild-eyed man brandishing a sword in one hand and a semi-conscious person in the other.
Alacrity squinted at the newcomer as he walked round to the side of the cart. He moved strangely and quite slowly, listing to one side as though his internal steering was just a little off. Alacrity realised it was because he was half-supporting, half-carrying another man with his spare arm.
"Look, is this a robbery?" he asked. "'Only we're in Ankh-Morpork territory now and I'm all paid up."
Vimes jerked the hand that held the sword.
"Evenin', trader," he said pleasantly. "Where are you heading?"
"To the city. Got cabbages from Sto Lat and they gotta be there by midnight or else I don't get paid, so if you don't mind, mate, I'll be on-"
Vimes slammed the flat of the sword against the side of the cart. Cabbages rolled inside.
"Do you know who I am?" he demanded.
"Er-" Alacrity looked at the unshaven face, the torn and bloodied shirt, the dirty hands and, most importantly, the foreign-looking but most-definitely sharp sword. A nervous yet slightly mocking smile spread across his face. "No. Don't you?"
Vimes reached forward and grabbed the front of Alacrity's shirt, pulling him closer so their faces almost touched. Despite the sudden uncomfortable closeness of the stranger's mad eyes, Alacrity's attention was wholly focussed on the sword which quivered in front of his gaze as Vimes jerked his head towards the third man, who was leaning heavily on him and was watching with what appeared to Alacrity to be a rather amused expression despite the half-healed split lip and the impressively swollen black eye.
"Do you know who he is?"
"No! Doesn't he?!"
Vimes seemed to consider this. "Right," he said, "you can give us a lift into town."
"You can't-"
Something about Vimes' sudden smile caused Alacrity to fall silent. Once again, he looked the man up and down, taking in the wild glint in those eyes, the bloodied clothes, the bruised knuckles, the way the sword hung loosely but in a manner that suggested the bearer knew how best to use it – and then there was the second man, barely upright but still looking as though he was witnessing a very interesting play, clutching a cloak to him with both hands even though the night was mild and pleasant, with shreds of rope dangling from wrists that were red and raw...
Alacrity swallowed.
"Y'can ride in the back with the cabbages under the tarp," he mumbled, "but I aint waitin' so you'd better hurry up and get on, and tell y'mate not to bleed on the goods."
"How kind," said Vimes the Diplomat.
"Masterfully done, Commander," said Vetinari, not quite under his breath.
When both Vimes and Vetinari were in the cart, Alacrity whipped up his oxen into a gentle sloping meander again. Vimes sat with his lower back leaning against the wooden slats of the rickety transport. It was an old thing, and its wheels were poor; the uneven surface of the road caused it to wobble and jolt, and more than once Vimes found himself covered in cabbage.
Vetinari had settled himself so he was lying on his side, and he calmly watched Vimes pick cabbage leaves off himself.
"Here," Vimes passed Vetinari a snapped-off leaf of white cabbage which had been clinging to his arm. "It's clean enough. It'll be bitter but you should probably eat something."
"Stealing, your grace?" asked Vetinari as he quietly accepted the leaf. It was bruised and slightly wilted, but still fresh enough to be called a vegetable.
"It's not stealing, no one'll buy the loose leaves. Anyway," added Vimes a little guiltily, "I'll get Willikins to send him a dollar or two, that'll cover any costs."
There was silence for a while as Vetinari delicately nibbled at the edge of the leaf.
"Utterly disgusting," he said, swallowing. "Are you not having any yourself, Sir Samuel?"
"I'll pass," muttered Vimes, the crease of his brow a telltale sign of his mind being elsewhere. "I've eaten more recently than you. All I want is a smoke." Besides, Sybil's near-vegetarian variant on BLT sandwiches had long before put him off eating anything that didn't look like a heart attack on a plate.
He turned to look at Vetinari, frowning more deeply, speaking in a tone that was half-accusatory and promised at a slow but steadily building anger.
"You could have done that at any time."
"Done what?"
"Done – that! Nutted the guy in the head and killed all of them. You were never really a prisoner, you could have walked out of that place whenever you bloody well wanted! Why did you wait? Why let them do all that... that to you?"
"Ah." Vetinari sighed softly. "You are quite wrong, of course, as you are so often. The simple answer is that, on my own, I was not certain that I would be able to succeed. As you saw, there were four people there at the minimum. I am fairly sure one or two others came and left during my stay, though I could not claim to be certain on that point. My hands were quite literally tied. I have no doubts as to what my fate would have been if I had tried and failed, and, at the risk of sounding undeservedly conceited, the ideal state of affairs in Ankh-Morpork at the present is one where I am still alive."
Vimes snorted. "What about me, then? Why not break out when I was thrown in there? You must have known that you could with me there too, but you still let them do that crap with the candle."
Vetinari's voice was so quiet it was barely audible. "Leverage, your grace."
"What bloody leverage?"
The Patrician sighed again as though disappointed. "You are not a passive man, Sir Samuel. Our captors were not stupid; they doubtless had intelligence on your, ah, prowess at defending yourself. The fact that you were left with free limbs and relative freedom of movement suggests to me that our gracious hosts had, or believed they had, another means of controlling you. What could that possibly be, Sir Samuel, when you are known to the city as Vetinari's terrier and even I have trouble controlling you?"
An icy cold suspicion washed over Vimes' mind, sinking his thoughts in a powerful, all-consuming dread as he realised was Vetinari was getitng at. He opened his mouth, but the Patrician spoke before he could answer.
"I assumed – quite rightly, I believe – that Lady Sybil and your son were in imminent peril. If I had acted rashly, without being assured of your cooperation, then not only did I run the same risk of failure but there was the potential of your being used as a weapon against me. I have no doubt that if the lives of your family were threatened, you would not hesitate to kill or harm me to save them."
"No, I wouldn't," said Vimes roughly.
"It was only when the one gentleman burst in shouting that I was free to act. I speak a little Nanokatian, or at least enough of it to understand that he was saying your wife and son were in the custody of Watchmen and their agents had no means of getting to them to cause them harm."
Thank the gods for Carrot, thought Vimes, and Cheery and Angua... they must have realised that something had happened to him, and it would have had to be something malicious if Angua's nose hadn't been able to track him down, and they had immediately secured his family...
Vimes had nothing to say to Vetinari after that revelation. Had Vetinari held back more because he was concerned for the well-being of Sybil and Young Sam, or more because he was concerned about what Vimes may be willing to do to him to protect them?
Lord Vetinari did not seem to expect a response. His eyes closed and his expression managing something near to peace, if punctuated by the occasional wince every time the cart crossed a pothole, he lay easily on his side with a cabbage for a pillow.
Vimes watched Vetinari's thin face as the last light of twilight faded away. It looked as though he was asleep, but Vimes wasn't going to stake anything of worth on that assessment. Yet infection could knock out even the strongest and most stubborn, and enough crap and poison must still be festering in the open wounds. He'd been lying on a floor that had been almost furnished with rat droppings and other biological fluids while they burned him. The man was a bastard, but even he hadn't deserved...
Vimes settled back and stifled a yawn, quite unable to keep his eyes open any longer. The sword rested within easy grabbing distance of his hand as his thoughts swirled around getting back to Ankh-Morpork and prodding some serious buttock.
oOo
" - dangerous criminal, I reckon. Prob'ly a murderer from Pseudopolis or summit. Threatened me with a funny foreigner sword and he's gone and kidnapped some poor bloke and beaten the shit out of him too -"
"Where is he now, did you say?"
"Still in my cart! And he's nicked a load of cabbages, I took inventory and there's def'nitely at least four missin'!"
Vimes awoke to voices. He moved his arm to scratch his unshaven chin and dislodged several cabbages which had rolled on top of him during the journey.
"- came straight to you lot and I'm late for delivery too! With eight cabbages short of the order! What are you goin' to bloody do about it?"
"If you will show me where he is, Mr Ribbons, I will apprehend the miscreant and take him into custody."
"And you'll slap a charge on him for aggy-rav-ated assault and a bill for twelve cabbages right? I was in fear of my life the whole time!"
"I'm sure your life is very terrifying, Mr Ribbons," said the watchman solemnly. "He will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
"Bless y'stars, Captain, you're a card."
"Actually, Mr Ribbons, I am a Watchman. Sergeant, will you go around and remove the cover from over there? Constable Visit, you take that corner. Be ready with your weapon just in case. I'll take this side. Excuse me, Mr Ribbons, if you wouldn't mind stepping back-"
Vimes blinked as the tarpaulin was pulled back. He stared up into the pre-dawn murk which shone tiredly through a familiar atmosphere of pollution, stared into a face that he could have honestly kissed with joy.
"Mister Vimes?"
"Captain Carrot, would you mind sending that trader away for a moment?" hissed Vimes, jerking his head towards the unconscious Vetinari. It wouldn't do to have even a rumour of the Patrician's incapacitation escape into the city. "Pretend I'm... pretend I'm a violent criminal or something."
Captain Carrot of the City Watch stared at Vimes. "According to Mr Ribbons, that's what you are, Sir."
"Then he should believe it, Captain. Oh, and get Igor." His head twitched again to Vetinari. "He's not doing too good and I don't want to try and explain if he dies why a Vimes has been found near another dead ruler."
Vimes watched as Carrot's eyes drifted over Vetinari and he nodded slightly. He heard Fred Colon's voice gasp "bloody hell is that Ve-" as Carrot clapped a hand on Alacrity Ribbons' shoulder and carefully steered him away from his cart, saying "all right, Mr Ribbons, I see what you mean. Why don't you go inside and Constable Fiddyment will fill out a receipt for you, re seizure from your cart of two stowaways (human) and," Carrot glanced back briefly, "several crushed or partial cabbage leaves (Sto Lat white)."
"Don't you forget my twenty stolen cabbages!"
Vimes settled his aching head back with a sigh, ignoring Sergeant Colon's confused questions for now. He was quite sure he had never been so happy to see Pseudopolis Yard in his life. He'd answer the questions when Carrot asked them, when Vetinari was being looked after by Igor, because then he wouldn't have to tell the story twice... and then he'd see his wife and Young Sam, and Sybil would scold him for not taking better care of himself but only to hide how worried she'd been...
And then he would finally be able to go home.