Chapter 14: A Choice of Two
"So, Mr Collins, you manufacture and market this Personality Enhancer? Does it work?"
The inside of the shop looked strangely non-functional, with more decorative items such as dried flowers, seashells and oddly draped cloths on display than actual merchandise.
"Sir, all my products work," replied the shop owner. "People call me a charlatan, but I never sell anything that I haven't tested on myself. You can put your trust in everything that bears the name of Collins."
Vimes scrutinized the man: the wild, curly hair that covered not only head and chin, but most of his face, the small visible patches of smooth white skin, the notable bulge in the groin area. Then he glanced at the bottles lined up on the counter.
"Let me guess: Collin's Hair Restorer, Collin's Complexion Cure and, um - " Vimes refrained from reading out the last label, unsure of the exact extent of Lady Vetinari's sensibilities.
"There's no need to take that sarcastic tone," replied Mr Collins.
"I've never been sarcastic in my whole life," said Vimes.
"It is the Personality Enhancer that we're interested in, Mr Collins," said Angelina and ran her fingers along the shelf. "We wondered whether you might have anything that may counteract its effects." After all, she thought, he claims to have tried it on himself, but he doesn't appear to be an excessively sparkling personality. 1)
Mr Collins scratched his head, which took some effort, because there was so much hair to get through before his fingers reached his scalp.
"I'm rather proud of the Personality Enhancer. It really works. Not that my other products don't, of course. But this one has a special ingredient. More special than the others. My late wife, you know, was from Muntab and knew a secret or two."
"How fascinating," said Angelina. "And is there an antidote?"
"Well," he said, "there is Collins' Serene Soother. That's what I took after I'd tried out the Personality Enhancer and found it a bit … strong. I would give you a word of caution, though. The Soother can take some people in a funny way. I was a bit careless with the dosage and took to my bed for four days, barely able to move a muscle."
Angelina and Vimes exchanged glances.
"Sounds like just what we want," said Vimes. "We'll buy it."
"One bottle or two?" asked Mr Collins.
"Oh, the whole lot. Everything you've got." He looked at Angelina. "I take it you have money with you? I'm afraid Corporal Nobbs has raided the petty cash again."
"I don't, I'm afraid," she whispered. "I could go to the bank and - "
"No time," said Vimes. "Mr Collins, I am confiscating your merchandise."
The hairy man stiffened his shoulders.
"Sir," he said, "I know the law. You cannot just confiscate things without a piece of paper signed by your superior officer."
"Is that so?" said Vimes with a menacing grin. "Well, I happen to be the superior officer of the City Watch and I will bloody well confiscate this Serene Soother!"
"Not without a piece of paper, sir," insisted Mr Collins.
"You'll just have to write it yourself," murmured Angelina.
"Don't be ridiculous, man!"
"I'm not ridiculous, I just know my rights."
"The hell you do!"
Vimes' fist came down on the counter, but at the same time Angelina's hand moved there also and placed a ring in front of Mr Collins.
"Will that do for now?" she asked. Her voice trembled. "I shall come back later to redeem it."
Greedily, Mr Collins picked up the ring and examined the stone.
"It's just a Salsalite," he said. "I know a worthless gemstone when I see one."
Now it was Angelina's fist that slammed on the counter. The various little bottles jingled.
"Perhaps you also know solid gold then when you see it," she hissed.
Mr Collins looked as if he was going to make further objections, but Vimes seized him by the collar and growled, "You heard the lady. Now give us the damn bottles or we'll feed you to the river monster."
Two minutes later they walked out of Mr Collins shop, each with a box of little bottles under their arm.
1) Let it be known that the only character in this tale who actually sparkled did achieve this by extraordinary means, but not from the product range of Mr Collins.
~oOoOo~
Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs watched the groups of females rushing past them on the Brass Bridge. It had taken them half an hour or so to begin to find this feminine stampede remarkable, at which point they had accosted a friendly looking elderly woman, who had promptly enlightened them. Since then they had observed the hustling ladies with much interest.
"Well, old Hammerhead will be pleased then," said Sergeant Colon. "She got right worked up about this female voting business."
"She did," conceded Nobby. "Didn't have as much as a mouldy mackerel to spare for me yesterday."
"Ah, women," said Colon, in the tone of voice of Someone Who Knows.
A passing troll lady handed them a small piece of paper which bore the blurred image of Lord Downey. They contemplated it with due curiosity, as men whose primary relationship with the world is not through the written word.
"Make Your Choice Count," read Nobby. "But how can a choice count? I mean, it's not like it's got fingers or anything."
"Ah, Nobby," replied Colon, "let me explain this to you, as your sergeant. This is the kind of sophistel... , sophister..., the kind of clever language these politicians use. It's supposed to be an invective for people to vote."
Nobby scratched his head.
"In that case, shouldn't it say Make your choice be counted?" he asked.
"No, Nobby, that would be too simple," said Colon. "Anybody could just understand that. They need to be more subtle than that."
"You ought to know, Fred. Have you been to vote yet?"
"No," said Colon. "When would I've done that? We've been on duty since the polling stations opened this morning. Can't leave our post, can we?"
Nobby scratched his head.
"Dunno," he said. "Isn't it our duty as good citizens to cast our votes?"
"If you put it like that, Nobby. But we're fulfilling an important role here in keeping an eye on the public, don't forget that."
He hitched up his breastplate as a couple of rather attractive young women, postal workers by the looks of it, walked by.
"I'm just thinking, Fred, as good watchmen we ought to keep an eye on what's happening inside that polling station too. Who knows, some of them young ladies might be breaching the peace again."
"Those girls are still in watch custody, Nobby."
"There could be others."
Sergeant Colon considered this. He considered also, with a sad predictability which he mistook for cunning, the dark wall of raincloud that had risen from a rimward direction and which would make an indoor location more desirable, at least for the next half hour or so.
"I think," he said, "our skills might be required at that polling station. We shall proceed there now and as your senior officer I suggest that you take the opportunity to cast your vote while we're there. I shall cast mine, too."
He straightened up and pulled in his stomach. Nobby extinguished his dog end and stowed it away behind his ear.
"So who are you going to vote for, Fred?" he asked when they turned towards Brewer Street.
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Right, yes. Dartboard all the way, eh?"
"Don't forget the kettle," said Colon primly.
~oOoOo~
Outside Mr Collins' shop Angelina and Vimes stood with their boxes of Collins' Serene Soother, wavering. At least, Angelina did enough wavering for both of them and hence Vimes hesitated just by sheer association.
"So what's our next step?" asked Angelina.
Vimes shrugged and lit a cigar, for which purpose he had to place his box on the ground between his feet.
"Give it to the patient," he said.
"Well, yes," said Angelina, "but how? I'm not entirely sure that we'll get the desired effect by just pouring the stuff into the river. I mean, we don't know how exactly the link between Ankh and the river works, do we?"
"True enough," replied Vimes. "I can't see how you'd get him to take it though, even with a spoonful of sugar."
"I thought we could kind of drizzle it on him from above."
"And how do you propose to do that?"
"I have a magic carpet. That is, Havelock has it stashed away somewhere. I don't quite know how to fly it, but I'm sure I can find out."
Vimes scrutinized her intently.
"You really aren't in the habit of screaming, are you?" he said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Oh, never mind. Just something I read in the paper. Let's get that flying carpet then."
A brisk walk of little more than ten minutes brought them to the Vetinaris' flat in Zephire Street.
"What does it look like?" asked Vimes as soon as they came through the door.
"I'm not too sure. I didn't look very closely at the time. The view below was more interesting. It's just a rug, something like five foot wide. So we're looking for a tube of carpet about my height. It can't be that difficult to find. If you don't mind, I'll look for it myself. I'm not sure the place is tidy enough to let a visitor rummage around. You could put the bottles in here in the meantime."
She handed him a large cotton bag with a long shoulder strap. While Vimes stood in the kitchen and carefully placed bottle after bottle of Collins' Serene Soother into the bag, Angelina went from room to room and looked in all the usual places: in wardrobes, on top of cabinets, under the bed. The flat was small and didn't offer many hiding places, yet after half an hour's intense search she still hadn't seen as much as a thread of magic carpet. At last she met with Vimes in the hallway, pretty much at a loss.
"Do you think he'd have hidden it somewhere else?" asked Vimes. "At my house maybe?"
"Perhaps," said Angelina. "I wonder, though. I think I've gone too much by where I would have put it. But where would Havelock hide it?"
They looked at each other. Then they looked down.
"Unbelievable," said Angelina.
Three minutes later they stood in the tiny square behind the block of flats that temporarily housed the Vetinaris. To keep away from nosy eyes 2) they had taken the carpet out to this sorry strip of yellowish grass that went by the name of a back garden. Soggy laundry hung on the clothes lines - the earlier shower had created a nasty surprise for the reckless housewives who had deserted their posts in order to cast their votes. The carpet hovered a couple of feet above the ground, its edges rippling gently with the appropriate special effect. Angelina sat on it cross-legged and leaned from side to side to get a feel for the thing. It tilted in an almost, but not quite, alarming manner.
"I think I can manage," she said after a while.
"Fine," said Vimes. "Let me get on and then let's go."
He moved towards the carpet, but Angelina made it rise and swerved out of his reach.
"I'll have to do this on my own, Commander," she said.
Vimes lit a new cigar. "And why would that be?"
"It's hard to explain. I think I just feel that anything to do with pollution and with this river is my job. Because that is what Havelock wanted me to do in the first place, to save the river."
"And you think," he said, "that this is enough reason for me to let Lord Vetinari's pregnant wife attack a monster from a flying carpet? Exactly how stupid are you?"
Angelina made a movement which, had it not been for her seated position, would have counted as a stamp of the foot.
"Nowhere near as stupid as you think!" she cried in an irritable tone that indicated the presence of too many troubling pregnancy symptoms. "I don't think I'd be able to steer this thing with another person on it."
"Let me do it then," said Vimes and made a step towards her.
"It's my carpet!" shouted Angelina, hormones soaring, and let the carpet rise. Soon she had reached rooftop level. The carpet wobbled but climbed steadily higher until she was able to steer it out of the garden and over the chimneys. When she looked down into the street she saw Commander Vimes making his way along Upper Broadway towards Pseudopolis Yard. He stopped, looked up and shook his head at her. The carpet floated some twenty yards above rooftop level now. People didn't seem to notice it. Upwards is not a direction that often attracts much attention in Ankh-Morpork, at least in the absence of dragons. Angelina scanned the city panorama for signs of Ankh.
The carpet seemed sluggish at first and moved at barely more than walking pace, but after a while she found a way to lean into the air currents like this and like that and suddenly her aircraft picked up speed. She clutched the bag of bottles and then, in a bid to get her hands free, shoved it under her skirt and wedged it between her knees.
From her airborne position, it wasn't hard to find the river monster; in fact few buildings in the city were high enough to obscure his gruesome muddy shape lurching along the streets between Pon's Bridge and Treacle Mine Road. Actually, those instances when he lurched along the streets were the luckier ones. As usual he went wherever the fancy took him and cared little for what was in the way. She heard faint cries and the splintering of timber.
She decided to approach Ankh from behind, which fortunately was easy enough, since he was going in a straight line without looking left or right. When she had advanced to about twenty yards' distance, she pulled out one of the bottles and unscrewed the lid. Below her, screaming citizens dived for cover as the ambulant mudslide smashed windows and snapped clacks towers.
With the open bottle grasped tightly in her right hand, she manoeuvred the carpet above the river monsters head. He didn't notice. One well-aimed flick of the wrist, and Collins' Serene Soother dripped down the back of Ankh's neck.
It dripped down. Angelina hadn't considered how exactly this would work, but she had somehow assumed that the potion would simply be absorbed into the liquid body of the river man. Alas, it did nothing of the kind. The tonic of salvation pearled off Ankh's skin as if the monster had invested in Collins' Patented Water Repellent Lotion.
Angelina bit her lip. It had been her idea and if it wasn't going according to plan, people would blame her. Vimes would blame her. She stared at the empty bottle as if the label could provide a solution. And it did. Because it occurred to her that what many such bottle labels – those on Lady Sybil's dressing table, for example – said was For External Use Only. This one, however, didn't. Of course not. One was supposed to take a teaspoonful after dinner. Looking at the size of Ankh, a garden spade would have to serve as a spoon, and somehow she didn't think he'd respond well to "Say Ahhh!"
There was only one thing to do if the patient wasn't taking his medicine orally. 3) Angelina opened another bottle and clutched it in a knuckle-whitening grip. She brought the carpet round behind Ankh in a neat curve and in the passing she rammed the bottle, neck down, into the creature's back.
He didn't even twitch. Encouraged by her success, Angelina turned the carpet with only a moderate amount of wobble, armed herself with the next open bottle and swooshed past, planting another injection just below Ankh's shoulder blade. He flinched, which was enough to make her start and withdraw. A few seconds later, she flew by again and thrust an open bottle into his neck. This time, he stopped and looked round, but before he had spotted her, she had retreated to a strategically smart position above his head. The carpet worked like a charm, which, given its magic nature, was probably not surprising.
In the streets below, people had become alerted to what was going on. Small children wriggled out from under their mothers' protective grip and pointed at the flying carpet. At the street corner she saw Vimes, apparently just arrived with half a dozen watchpersons in tow. One of them was Sergeant Detritus, who carried something that looked like a clamp for a really, really big wagon. Angelina wondered briefly if Vimes planned to arrest Ankh, but she didn't have time for such ruminations just now. She decided to go for a double barrelled attack and so, with a bottle in each hand, she brought the carpet down behind Ankh's back and shoved her ammunition willy-nilly somewhere into his hip region.
Ankh began to flail his arms. He finally caught sight of his assailant and started to try and swat Angelina like the onerous midge she must have been in his perception. Her next strike was a close shave; he caught hold of a corner of the carpet and she tugged it out of his sodden hand with the strength of despair. 4) The following few minutes unfolded in a bizarre dance of fluttering carpet, sneakily placed bottles and wildly thrashing muddy limbs. A few times, Angelina was in danger of falling off, and she dropped several bottles which shattered on the cobbles. But more often than not, she hit her aim, which, given the size of it, was not too difficult.
Eventually, she noticed that his movements were slowing down. He seemed to have trouble lifting his arms above shoulder level, and he stopped walking altogether. The tonic was taking its effect. Angelina glanced at the last three bottles in the box. He barely resisted when she placed them, one after another, into his upper right arm. Then she made the carpet hover a couple of yards in front of his face and caught his glance. His eyelids were drooping.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Dirty," he said. "Dirty and stinking and awful. Don't like it. Was so nice and clean not long ago."
Angelina bit her lip.
"I'm sorry," she said." I didn't mean to let you down. I was prevented…"
"You? Who you?"
"You don't know me," said Angelina, "but I know you very well, down to the last chemical. And I saw to it that you were cleaned up, but then I had to leave and couldn't protect you anymore. I'm very sorry. I promise I'll set things right again."
"You promise?" asked the river monster and yawned.
"I promise."
"I'm very tired," said Ankh. "So very, very tired."
"Well," replied Angelina, "don't you have a bed somewhere?"
2) "Nosy eyes" might be pushing it a bit, but "eyey noses" would be infinitely worse.
3) Well, actually, there was another, but let's not go there.
4) Despair about the inevitable dry cleaning bill for the carpet, of course.
~oOoOo~
As soon as the polling stations had closed, hundreds of specially selected respectable citizens 5) busied themselves with the tedious task of counting the votes. For once Ankh-Morpork was amazingly organized, probably because of an urgent curiosity about who had won, and within the hour results were flowing into the Patrician's Palace. The guild leaders and several dozen other illustrious citizens were crammed into the Rats Chamber. Under the keen supervision of Mr Slant, Moist von Lipwig sat at the table reading out the results. A temporarily installed blackboard showed the votes for each candidate, one tally mark for every hundred votes, conscientiously charted by Mr Drumknott. It was a neck-to-neck race.
To heighten the sense of drama, Moist had made sure that one ballot box was delivered to the Rats Chamber unopened. He noted with a tingling sense of excitement that Vetinari's lead was so small that this last ballot box would be decisive indeed. It wasn't long before all other results were duly announced and charted, leaving Moist to break the seal on the last box and pour the ballot papers out onto the table. Together with Mr Slant, he began to unfold them and call out the names of the candidates. Mr Drumknott was now tallying each vote individually, the result so far being thrillingly (or depressingly, depending on one's perspective) even.
Most votes in this box turned out to be for Downey. Within minutes, Vetinari's small lead had melted away. Eventually the last half dozen ballot papers lay in front of the two men, watched eagerly by the crowd. The chalk screeched over the board, a sure sign that Mr Drumknott was showing nerves.
"Downey."
"Vetinari."
"Vetinari."
"Downey."
"Downey."
A single piece of paper remained on the table. Moist glanced at the board. The score was exactly equal. He held his breath.
The atmosphere was so thick with tension that one could have cut it with a knife. 6) Then Mr Slant took the initiative.
Moist cringed. Mr Slant did it all wrong. He didn't clear his throat. He didn't raise a hand. He didn't hold up the last remaining ballot paper with an ominous gesture, nor did he cast a Look at the crowd. He simply seized the ballot paper and unfolded it. After a glance, he handed it to Moist.
Moist stared. Then he blinked. Neither box had been ticked, but across the sheet was written in purple letters that could only be described as garish and provocative: LORD VETINARI RULZ.
Moist rose from his chair, his mind racing to find a suitably dramatic gesture, but before he could so much as open his mouth, Mr Slant had risen also and said in his graveyard voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, the last ballot paper is spoilt. We have a tie."
5) You'd think finding them had been no mean feat in Ankh-Morpork, but Mr Drumknott kept a list.
6) In fact, Mr Dibbler did cut out a sizeable chunk and later tried to sell it in portions as a souvenir of the day, but there is a limit to Morporkian patriotism.