Disclaimer: I don't own Discworld, I don't own the characters, this is just for fun and I make no profit with it.
Of Secret Contracts
"What," asked Vimes in a tightly controlled voice in which the anger was nonetheless bleeding through, "do you mean?"
The Patrician gave the Commander's hands that were currently resting on his desk a long, long look; Vimes didn't step back, like he usually would have; his hands clenched to fists on the desk. It was so quiet that Vimes was sure he could hear the unnerving tick-tock of the clock in the next room.
Eventually, the Patrician glanced back up at him, and steepled his fingers.
"I believe my meaning was clear, Commander," he said in an even, if faintly concerned voice. "I said that there is no need to worry –"
"I heard you the first time!" Vimes snapped, and leant down even further over the desk. "How can you know the Guild won't take a contract on Carrot?"
"This might come as a surprise, your Grace," Vetinari said mildly, though the look in his eyes was icy cold, "but I do try to be informed on what happens in this city." He gave Vimes' hands another glance. "Do take your hands off my desk, please," he added coldly.
Vimes did, and stumbled back. He didn't stop glaring at the man across of him.
"Do you," he asked, looking the Patrician square in the eyes, "have an assassin's contract on Carrot?"
There was a silence. Vetinari raised an eyebrow.
Vimes puffed out air, and wished for a cigar; the silence and the glacial stare he was subjected to were beginning to get to him, and make the easy courage of anger evaporate.
"He doesn't want to be king," he snapped.
"You sound very certain."
"I am. And even if he did, I wouldn't let him."
He made a few agitated steps back and forth; now that he was there, he remembered that he really hated having actual conversations with Vetinari.
"In that case," Vetinari said slowly, "I am not quite sure what you are concerned about, Commander."
"I won't have the assassins after one of my men. Dwarfs," he added hurriedly; it would be just like Vetinari to comment on the technically correct incorrectness.
"Allow me to reiterate my previous statement." Vimes sent him a cold glare. "The Guild never takes more than one contract on one person."
"I know that. Are you saying that I'm supposed to accept they'll be after him if he ever changes his mind? I won't."
"What would you do?" asked Vetinari.
"I –" Vimes broke off and forced himself not to ball his hands to fists, and thought I would arrest him, of course, only he trusted that whatever it was that set off the contract would be beyond the point where it was that simple...
"Exactly," Vetinari concluded swiftly, and went on before Vimes could protest. "Now that your worries have been put to rest..."
Vimes found himself outside the palace without even thinking. He absently nodded at the lone figure perched high up right beneath the roof that saluted him, viciously lit a match on the palace's walls, and took a few long drags of his cigar, even as his feet found their way on the familiar cobblestones.
Damn Vetinari, anyway. Vimes was sure he could find a way into the Guild's archive – probably not without considerable losses to the watch, however, and that couldn't even be considered; at any rate, it would be against the law, and he was upholding the law in a city in which bloody assassinations were legal. If you had enough money to pay the Guild's high rates, of course, else you were just screwed – the guild didn't take well to concurrence.
He stomped out the cigar only five streets later: getting to do this was a peek to richness that was frighteningly easy getting used to. It wasn't like getting to see – or tear up – the contract would change anything; Vetinari had already more or less told him what was inside. Had wanted him to know, of course. As if he wouldn't prevent Carrot from moving into that direction in any case, without the man's death hanging above him.