Valley of the Wind Productions presents...
Odd One Out
A Discworld fanfiction by Intrasonic

Chapter 2

There is a rule common throughout every universe. It's a rule so common, it's actually managed to hold true in the Discworld. That rule is: Thou shalt not tell thy boss to go to hell. Or anywhere else unpleasant, for that matter. Breaking the rule tends to lead to a variety of unpleasant circumstances in the near future.

Up in the Oblong Office, in the Palace, the centre of Ankh-Morpork, at least in some sense of the word, Sir/Mister/Commander/Duke Samuel Vimes was beginning to seriously consider ignoring that rule.

"...and I am giving consideration to the possibility that there might be difficulties within the ranks of the Watch..."

It wouldn't accomplish anything, Vimes knew, aside from having Vetinari tell him where to go. Except that His Lordship employed certain people who would make sure he arrived at the destination.
So Vimes resigned himself to standing at attention, staring at the tranditional spot on the wall, listening to the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork explain that a problem existed. And when you were told that a problem existed, it was usually because you were the problem, or else were expected to fix the problem. Frequently both.

"...So I am forced to question whether the Watch is perhaps inadequate for the duties assigned to it. And as Captain Ironfounderson often says, the Watch is none other than the Watchmen. Thus, I am forced to question whether the Watchmen are inadequate."

The man had a way of explaining things, and a great deal of it involved asking questions. He asked questions that you both already knew the answer to. He asked questions that you didn't want to answer. He asked questions about things that you had been hoping like hell he didn't even know about. And then, once your guilt/responsibility had been established, he would ask what you were going to do about it.
And you would invent something, because you knew that if you didn't, he would do something about it.

Vetinari abruptly stopped speaking, as though something novel and unique had suddenly occurred to him. "Tell me, Commander, did you have any thoughts on the matter?"

It was an almost maddening process, and there were many who had lost the proverbial battle by speaking their minds. Or even worse, by trying to be 'cunning' and 'diplomatic'. The smarter people, namely the people who were still around and in charge of various public facilities, didn't try to be cunning or diplomatic. They were the people who had briefly matched up against the Patrician's gaze, which was befitting of such words as icy, steely, piercing, knowing, ruthless, deadly, and many other similar words available in a thesaurus near you. These smarter people would just agree with the "questions", figure out what the hell he expected them to accomplish, agree to it, then desperately figure how to get it done.

Vimes had faced the Patrician plenty of times to know how the game was played. He straightened slightly. "I would hate to think any of my men are being slandered, Sir."
A slow nod. "Indeed, I would hate to think so too. But when a city fails to thrive, the leader is blamed."
Unlike 99% of politicians, Vetinari never spread blame around. He placed it squarely upon the person who was able to solve the problem, which was why problems tended to become fixed in short order. Right now, the problem was the Watch, and he was going to place the blame entirely upon its commander.
Vimes had somewhat resigned himself to that fact already. "Yes sir."
"And when the Watch is failing to do it's duty, it is the Commander who must be held responsible."
"Yes sir."
"Exactly. Now, as I understand it, there was a matter of numerous officers quitting the Watch."
"Yes sir."
"This was while you were away in Uberwald, of course. And I have always believed that mitigating circumstances are not given their due credit. You could hardly have been expected to prevent such an incident at the time."
"Sir."
"But you have now returned. You have been returned for six months, in fact. And is it with great distress that I note a marked difference in the Watch's performance during the before and after of your trip. More specifically, it has decreased."
"Sir."
"Quite so. But I have the utmost confidence that you will be able to explain this to me."
"Not everyone who quit came back, sir."
"Indeed. I imagine it must have terribly distressed you to learn that they were doing well for themselves in other cities, and that taking up employment at a different Watch was actually quite legal. I understand that Captain Ironfounderson experienced a mild amount of disillusionment over that fact."
"I may yet have a chance to thank Mr. Slant for his interpretation, sir."
"I'm certain that you will. And judging from the overtime portion of your budget, while the Watch is employing almost one hundred officers, only twenty-five are full officers. Apparently overtime is not such a mythical entity in the Watch after all."
Vetinari had a way of quoting your words back to you, years later, and this was one of those instances. And all you could was wonder whether it was coincidence or how the hell he could have possibly heard you say it. Vimes had long given up on either choice. "They're only mortal, sir. Most of them, anyway."
"The common solution is to arrange for more people to accomplish the work, you realize?"
"I haven't had time to do that, sir. We're too understaffed to have time to hire and train more watchmen."
"That is quite a conundrum," the Patrician agreed. "And I would be fascinated to learn how you plan on solving it."
Translation: You'd better have a plan, or one will be invented that may not involve you in a long-term sense.
"We're busy dealing with the recent increase in Slab shipments," Vimes began, "but once we've dealt with that-"
"Once you've dealt with that, Commander," Vetinari interrupted, "I imagine that the Watch will find another problem to with. The Watch is quite good at finding problems to deal with. And to its credit, it is good at dealing with them. But I have noticed that it is quite lucklustre when the problem is itself."
"Sir?"
"I am told that the Watch has no facilities to handle its paperwork. I am told that some officers have suffered the loss of as many as nine grandmothers. I am told that there is rampant gambling. I am told that the Commander is an unrefined, common-mouthed simpleton."
"Who told you that, sir?"
"Does it matter?"
"No sir. But compliments are hard to come by."
Vetinari smiled. "Indeed they are. But the rest of what they say is, unfortunately, less complimentary."
Vimes exhaled quietly. "It's all we can do to keep up with the paperwork, sir. If we actually started reading it, we'd never get anything done. And we're still getting paperwork dealing with the paperwork that Colon burned three months ago."
The Patrician glanced down at his own desk, where there was a small variety of papers neatly stacked to the side. "Then you have my heartfelt sympathies, Commander. However, I am feeling generous at this particular moment. So I will make an observation."
Interestingly enough, this was a rare statement for the Patrician. His usual approach was to not offer any observations, and let the other person figure things out for themselves. This of course, despite popular folklore, usually resulted in the person making the wrong choice(1). Which led to Ankh-Morpork's present operating state, which was the envy of many other cities on the Disc (2).
The reason was that it was much easier to count on a person to make a wrong decision, then it was to hope they made a right one. So if you counted on them making a mess of things, you could plan accordingly and come out ahead.
As he was wont to do, the Patrician stood, employing his cane during the short walk between his desk and the window behind him. It was the sort of thing a normal person did when they wanted the next thing they said to sound more poetic to the listener. Not being a normal person, the Patrician tended to do it as a prelude to a remark of a more surgical nature.
Looking out over the city, he exhaled quietly. "The situation I see before me, Commander, reminds me of a man building a house. A very tall house. A surprisingly good house, built from unassuming rubbish in a surprisingly short period of time. And then someone came along and pulled a few pieces of the foundation out from under it."
Vimes didn't say anything, but the look on his face indicated that the analogy wasn't entirely lost on him.
"And when the building collapsed," Vetinari concluded, "it was subsequently revealed that the foundation consisted of only a few strong members."
"Sir."
"Just like a building, commander, the Watch needs a strong foundation. You have done... well for yourself. Indeed, the Watch as a whole has done well. But when the storm strikes, the extraneous portions of the building are blown away. A pruning of the tree, if you will. And you must hope that the remaining branches are the ones that will bear the fruit."
"Sir."
"Quite so," the Patrician agreed. "Now, don't let me keep you any longer."

*****
(1) At which point the Patrician would make the observation that they had screwed up severely.
(2) Not that they'd ever admit it.

Upon arriving in Ankh-Morpork, a newcomer learns two things very quickly. One, it's a BIG city. The biggest city in the Discworld, in fact, the official census listing in at over one million inhabitants. Considering this number is based on income tax returns however, it probably shouldn't be taken too seriously(1), and the actual population is probably even higher.
The second thing they learn is that, while finding somewhere to spend the night is easy(2), finding somewhere to actually live is insanely difficult. In Ankh-Morpork, the dry spots in the alleys are occupied, and even the cardboard boxes have "no vakansy" scribbled on them. The various Guilds in the city are good about sheltering their own members, but this is no help for a newcomer.
A popular solution over the years has been to wander around until you see someone get killed, then quickly figure out where they live and grab the place for yourself. This is usually successful in the long run, although after a few weeks, you begin to seriously consider hurrying the process along.

Lucy hadn't reached that stage quite yet, but she had a hunch she might, eventually. It wasn't as though she was having second thoughts about coming to Ankh-Morpork, but was it too much to ask for some sort of place to spend the night? Every single other town she'd passed through had at least possessed an inn with a few available economy rooms.
She had to admit that it was vastly different than Lancre. Back home, a stranger passing through could easily get a room in a local inn. If they were exceptionally down on their luck, the generosity of the locals could be surprisingly deep, and a household could often spare a bed for a few days in exchange for some work done around the house or farm.
At least she had a job lined up, Lucy reflected, trying to stay optimistic. A few questions had led to a part of town that somehow managed to be even dirtier, that the locals called The Shades. Apparently it was a popular occupation young ladies, being a Seamstress. While her experience with needlework was quite limited, Lucy admitted that she tended to learn fairly quickly. And a few articles of her own clothing could use some repairs too, and there was nothing wrong with learning how to do it herself. Upon reached the Guild of Seamstresses, however, she had determined very quickly that she wasn't interested in the job.
But on a related note, a recent hiring campaign by the aforementioned guild had been making for a city-wide shortage of young, single, reasonably attractive women. Despite the popular moniker that a woman in Ankh-Morpork had the choice of being a housewife, a midwife, or a seamstress, there were many smaller operations that saw the benefits of having a reasonably photogenic member of the female sex managing the more public half of their business.
So it hadn't been too hard to get hired as a saleswoman in a small business. Actually, the man had approached her on one of the main streets - Treacle Mine Road, she remembered - and had asked her if she wanted a job. After briefly ensuring that it had absolutely nothing to do with sewing, she had accepted and agreed to be at work tomorrow. Best of all, the pay was daily, and she could even make a commission. The owner of the business hadn't actually gone into detail on what would be sold, but in a city like this, she could probably do worse, somehow.

"LUCY!!! HIIIIII!!!!!"
Lucy cursed upon hearing the greeting. No one knew her in this city, except...
True to expectations, the same person who had almost inflicted her with terminal boredom on the trip here from Sto Telle, was now approaching her rapidly from another street. Irie von Something, if she recalled right.
Interestingly enough, Irie wasn't carrying her huge array of luggage around anymore... was it possible that she'd actually managed to find somewhere to store it? Somewhere to live, even?
"Are you looking for somewhere to live?!?" Irie asked, somehow radiating the same mix of cuteness, self-righteousness, and too many exclamation marks that she'd possessed during the trip to this city.
Lucy almost laughed with delight, but she kept a poker face as best she could. "Yes, yes, I'm definitely looking for somewhere to live..."
"That's great!" Irie agreed happily. "We can look together!"
The poker face instantly disappeared, replaced by a frown. "You haven't found a place yet?"
"All the men who own the inns told me that they didn't have any free rooms, and even though I knew they were just being spiteful to me because I'm a woman, I didn't see any point in patronizing their business if they were going to be like that!."
Oh yes, she'd forgotten about that part of the trip, Lucy reflected wearily. "But where is your luggage?"
"I set it down while I asked about a room at one inn, and when I got back, it was gone! I think I must have misplaced it, but the men I asked just laughed at me! I think they were mocking my Quest For Independence!"
Translation: Irie had, unsurprisingly, gotten ripped-off within a day of setting foot within Ankh-Morpork. It was probably dumb luck that had arranged for her to be elsewhere while her possessions were stolen.
"That's too bad," Lucy agreed, although she actually meant it more in regards to her own Quest For A Bloody Place To Stay.
"But I won't let such minor setbacks deter me!"
"Of course not. You haven't lost your purse and the clothes you're wearing yet, after all."
"Exactly! So we'll keep looking together!"

*****
(1) It was assumed that 1 in 10 people paid their taxes. Needless to say, this was probably hopelessly optimistic.
(2) The Guild of Seamstresses always had its doors open.

The Watch was just as Vimes had left it. Which was to say, it embodied chaos that wasn't quite controlled, but hadn't quite yet progressed to the uncontrolled state. People were entering and exiting, some willingly, some by force, a few unknowingly on account of having been forcibly subdued at an earlier point.
A person with too much time on their hands might have likened it to Ankh-Morpork in numerous ways.

"Good afternoon, Commander," Cheery greeted, en route to the old privy/her laboratory.
"Good afternoon, Corporal. How is the Rapunzel case?" Vimes inquired curiously.
"I just finished analysing the evidence, sir," she assured him. "And Igor says that the arms are still in good shape."
Some playwrights had been performing a play called "Rapunzel", and it apparently involved a woman with ridiculously long hair letting someone else climb up it. How the woman got down afterwards was unclear, but Vimes suspected that it involved a haircut. Mysteriously, during the climax of the play, which involved the hero climbing up the hair, the actor with the hair had fallen from the building. The pavement had made a valiant effort to catch the woman, but the angle of the woman's neck had proved that a fifty-foot free fall was tall order to cushion.
"And what does the evidence say?"
"The evidence says that they used a fifty-foot iron chain disguised inside a long wing to climb up. And that the iron chain weighed approximately one and a half pounds per foot. And the hero climbing up weighed another 150 pounds."
Vimes sighed, it having been a short leap to figure out what had happened. "Would I be correct in supposing that this woman wasn't able to lift over two hundred pounds with her head?"
"Yes sir. I'm putting the cause of death as a No. 2."
No. 1 was short for 'Suicide'(1).
No. 2 was listed in the officer's handbook as 'Person removing themselves from the census through gross stupidity'. As a matter of fact, it wasn't uncommon for a person to manage to accomplish both a no. 1 and a no. 2 at the same time.
"Good man-er, woman," Vimes approved, continuing towards the office. Right now, he needed thirty seconds of comparative silence. And no matter how busy the Watch House was, the office of Commander Vimes was something of a sacred ground. Somewhat, anyway.
"Commander?"
"Yes, what is it, Nobby?"
An uncharitable soul might have suggested that Corporal Nobbs was the 'missing link'. If that was true, no one ever wanted to see other half of the link, because it probably wasn't a monkey, or even an orangutang.
While Vimes shared that sentiment, he had long ago decided not to hold it against Nobby, because aside from the prospect of any him managing to have offspring, he was largely harmless, except by accident. When you dealt with Nobby, you were dealing with someone who had spent many years making a living as a collector of unwanted items from soldiers on battlefields(2), followed by a considerable stint as a copper where he was able to put his keen sense of avoiding trouble to good use. These days, with the Watch's new policy of not avoiding the criminals, Nobby could still be counted on to not do something stupid, such as fight fairly, which was a quick way to commit a No. 1 in Ankh-Morpork.
The corporal tossed him a piece of paper. "I got given this here message from the Guild of Assassins, demanding the release of one of their assassins."
Vimes scanned it briefly. "That's the one who Sergeant Angua caught yesterday in the middle of an assassination run, wasn't it? The one that made us miss the delivery of slab?"
"Right. He woke up a few hours ago."
Vimes had never liked assassins, not would he in the foreseeable future. Or in any other future. And the assassin had actually managed to wound Angua before he learned the hard way that werewolves could afford to pay less attention to knives than other people. "Tell them that he's going to be released into the river if compensation isn't sent for the Sergeant's injuries."
Carrot made an appearance, briefly occupying the doorway in a manner that few others could manage. "That's alright, Commander. You know Angua heals quickly."
For the millionth time, Vimes wondered how the hell Carrot could actually say that. After all it was his girlfriend who'd gotten stabbed. He strongly suspected that if a madman tried to blow up all of Ankh-Morpork(3), Carrot would only press charges if the plan actually succeeded. Whereas Vimes would happily disarm the bomb by forcibly feeding it to the madman.
"Carrot, the compensation is for her uniform. The blood doesn't wash out very easily, she says. And our budget is for paying salaries, not cleaning bills."
The 'dwarf' gave that idea some thought, then nodding approvingly. "I'm sure the Assassin's Guild will welcome the opportunity to establish a measure of goodwill with the Watch."
It shouldn't be possible to say that with a straight face, Vimes knew. It really shouldn't. "I'm sure they feel the same way, Carrot."
"Maybe we should take a walk down the Street of Cunning Artificers and see if they can't design a special shirt for her..."
Vimes spat, although to his credit, he aimed it at a nearby ashtray. "They're all a bunch of thieves."
"No sir, they're Cunning Artificers. The thieves are all in the Guild of Thieves(4)."
"The prices they charge qualify them, as far as I'm concerned. Nobby, give my message to the Assassin's Guild. Carrot, I want to talk with you in my office."

*****
(1) A very common occurrence in Ankh-Morpork. Fortunately, it was offset by a very low homicide rate. On account of it being so common, 'Suicide' was naturally assigned the first number, which is reasonably hard to misspell in a report.
(2) On the basis that the owners didn't argue when he took them.
(3) Arguably an attempt at civic improvement.
(4) Or in the unlicensed cases, nailed to it.

"...so that's why I didn't take the job at the tailor - it serves that man right for saying that his store only specialized in male fashions!"
"Uh huh," Lucy agreed, just as she'd replied to the last few stories. One thing for certain, it took a special kind of person to be given five jobs on silver platters, and loose them all.
It wasn't that Irie was a bad person. Lucy privately suspected that she couldn't have been, even if she'd tried really hard. She had at least as much intelligence as any one else, she had determination and drive, and she had the kind of figure that most younger girls desperately hoped they'd have when they grew up. Unfortunately, she also had a giant chip on her shoulder regarding the world's view on the female gender. Or at least, what she thought the world's view was.
Irie was, Lucy had finally decided, the kind of person that the feminists of the world would be embarrassed to admit actually existed. Very embarrassed. She would probably assist her chosen cause more by fighting for the other side.
Lancre had no notion of such things, because the men didn't want to do the women's work, and the women thought the men's work was better suited for cattle. And anyone suggesting that women were somehow weaker would be laughed right out of the country(1). Or worse, if they had the misfortune to say it within earshot of a witch. But her time spent in Sto Lat had occasionally brought her in contact with such issues, and after giving it some brief thought, she decided not to really care until it actually affected her(2).

"...and so I decided not to take that job as the blacksmith's apprentice!"
"Uh huh." Lucy didn't know how serious a case of tunnel-vision was required to reach Irie's state of existence, but she desperately hoped it wasn't contagious.
"So what about you, Lucy?"
"Uh huh."
"You said you wanted to be a witch?"
That was enough to snap her out of her automatic response mode. "What? No, I said that I didn't want to be a witch!"
"Oh. Well, that can't be too hard, can it? Just don't be a witch."
"You don't understand. You don't choose to be a witch, it chooses you. You just know that you're supposed to be a witch."
This was apparently fascinating enough to get Irie to briefly drop the exclamation marks. "Oh. I've never known that, so I guess I'm not supposed to be a witch. How come you are?"
Knowing that Irie wouldn't understand anyway, Lucy went for the honest approach. She didn't pretend to understand the specifics, but she already knew what they would add up to if she did. "Because I was stupid and messed around with things that I thought I understood."
"Oh. So how are you going to not be a witch?"
"I'm going to be as un-witchy as possible. Eventually, I'll stop knowing that I'm supposed to be a witch. And then my problem will be solved."
This tidbit of information was slowly digested. "So how do you be un-witchy?"
It was surprisingly complicated, Lucy had been finding. "Well, you have to have a job and earn your own paycheck. You can't take any donations, and you can't wear a black pointed hat or black clothing. You can't mess around occult things or magic spells. You have to bathe regularly, and you can't do unusual things. And you have to make sure you don't see things that no one else can see. And you're not supposed to understand things that other people don't. You have to be completely un-special and very unnoticeable."
"Um... that doesn't sound too hard. You just have to be normal, right?"
"Exactly!" Lucy agreed, with surprising vehemence. "And every time I try, it messes up somehow. So I'm hoping that I can do it in Ankh-Morpork. You couldn't possibly be any less noticeable is this city."
"That sounds a little strange."
Lucy bit back the first retort that came to mind, instead settling for a comparatively polite "Well, you can think whatever you like."
"I didn't mean to insult you," Irie protested, giving the kind of expression normally found on kicked puppies.
Lucy could feel any irritation already dissolving. "I know, I know, I didn't mean it that way. It's just... it has a way of messing up. You were talking about the person in Sto Felis in the complaints department? The person in Sto Telle in the Watch?"
Irie's eyes didn't actually grow as wide as saucers, but they tried really hard. "You mean... that person was YOU?!? WOW!!! I've been trying to catch up you for three cities now! You're incredible!!!"
"You see what I mean? I didn't even want to! I just wanted a normal job and a paycheck." Lucy sighed, feeling her fists try to clench up. "But I couldn't help it - it was like I wasn't actually part of the problem, but standing back and looking at the whole thing. I'd see the same two things that everyone else did, but I was standing back from the world and seeing how they were connected. And I don't want to!"
"Why not?"
"Because that's what a witch does! And I don't want to be a witch!"
"But why don't you want to be a witch?"
"Because-" Lucy cut off her own explanation. "Look, I just don't, alright? I really don't want to be a witch. And I'm going to do whatever it takes to not be one. So let's go find a place to stay that has a roof over it."

*****
(1) In Lancre, this is mostly a vertical trip.
(2) The favourite response by everyone everywhere for everything.

Vimes entered his office, Carrot dutifully following behind and shutting the door behind him.

The office of Commander Vimes was legendary in its own right. Or, if not legendary, at least notorious. It was different things to different people, depending on why you were you were in there.
To an assassin, entering it was known as a popular way to cripple yourself, since Vimes saved up his nastiest and most sadistic ideas throughout the day and tested them out on all the non-standard entrance points.
To anyone stupid enough to come personally to complain about something the Watch had done recently, it was almost akin to the portal of the netherworld, except that they usually left wishing that they'd dealt with the demons.
To the officers, it was the location of The Paperwork, which was the capitalized title informally given to the mound of paperwork that inevitably built up atop, beside, underneath, and inside Vimes' desk. While it had suffered a crippling blow six months ago at the hands of a then-unstable-Captain-Colon(1), it had survived and had quickly grown back to its original size, except that it had matured, growing tougher and more adept at hiding the more important pieces of paper.
And to the Watch in general, it was the location of the mythical wage bill, which, once signed, bestowed wages upon the officers of the Watch. It was usually hidden near the bottom of The Paperwork, which could possibly sense its importance.

"Now would be a good time to try and get some paperwork done, sir," Carrot noted, demonstrating the famed dwarfish talent for subtlety, which did not exist in any way, shape, or form.
Vimes ignored his chief officer, crossing his office and taking a moment to stare out the window at the city. He didn't know what a good time to start on the Paperwork would be, but he was fairly certain that it would have been a long time ago.
Carrot stood at attention, standing in front of The Paperwork, in front of the desk. Commander Vimes sometimes went silent, he had long since learned. And the man occasionally needed a brief moment of peace and quiet. Fortunately, Carrot was a person gifted with the patience of Boj (2), and remained standing in place.

Vimes was in thought. Very deep in thought.
He could remember when the Watch had been composed of only a few men. Even without going back to the time before Carrot had arrived and twisted their world around in his unique way, Vimes could remember when it had just been him, Colon, Nobby, and Carrot. And in their own, albeit thoroughly-unique way, each of them had cared about their job. They were
Watchmen, and somehow, it had meant something beyond the eventual paycheck. Even if they were scared spitless in the face of danger, or actively trying to escape it, there would be some small portion of their brain thinking 'this man/woman/dwarf/troll/other should be arrested' or 'I wonder what else they're guilty of?'. When they said they were Watchmen, it meant something. Even Nobby had recently stopped stealing his commander's cigars, although unconscious
criminals still occasionally awoke in a poorer state. And slowly, the Watch had expanded, slowly recruiting more people.
Yet incredibly enough, the new members had turned out to be watchmen in their own right. And it had slowly begun to dawn on the rest of Ankh-Morpork that perhaps the Watch wasn't the pathetic, inbred lifeform they had thought it was. The pay was actually decent, and you were accorded some respect. Not necessarily the good type, but being able to legally annoy Guilds was an accomplishment in itself. And the widow's benefits were second to none.
And the Watch's membership had exploded, Vimes suddenly finding himself with over fifty officers to direct and order-around. It had been rather overwhelming at times, but he had managed. He had begun to have a sneaking suspicion that he actually liked managing things. At any rate, the Watch had expanded and accomplished even more.
And then Vimes had gone to Uberwald, and so had Carrot. And everything had gone to hell. As Vetinari had put it, the building had collapsed. And the Watch was left with a handful of watchmen. And surprisingly enough, many of the remainders were the original misfits themselves.
There was Nobby, who carried around a certificate signed by the Patrician certifying that he was, in fact, human.
There was Colon, who suffered a breakdown when given the position of anything besides Sergeant and ate for a very large number of people.
There was Carrot, the biggest dwarf in Ankh-Morpork, who everybody, somehow, knew was a king.
There was Angua, who Vimes strongly suspected had been running out of towns to flee from by the time she'd wound up in Ankh-Morpork.
There was Detritus, who had been declared too stupid to even work as a splatter at any bar in the city.
There had been Cuddy, trying to find a job more promising than stuffing rats with fortunes.
There was Cheery, who had seriously failed at being both a dwarf and an alchemist.
There was Dorfl, the first Golem to ever be given a will of his own.
And of course there was Vimes himself, an ex-drunk who had somehow wound up marrying the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork.
There were others around still too, Vimes knew. But they included people like Reg Shoe the zombie, Visit(-the-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets), Downspout the gargoyle, and Igor the... Igor.
Vimes exhaled. "Carrot? Where have all the normal people gone?"
"Sir?"
Vimes didn't elaborate. Of course Carrot wouldn't understand, even if someone better at explaining things were trying to explain it. Carrot would probably say that everyone was normal, in their own uniue way. He'd honestly mean it, and in his own way, he'd be right. But in Vimes' own way, the Watch was full of not-normal people, and he was their leader.
And boy, was he ever qualified, Vimes decided, brushing a new growth of paper from his chair before sitting down. "We need to reorganize the Watch, Carrot. We're understaffed and over-extended."
"We have almost one hundred officers, sir."
"This city has a million people, Carrot. And three-quarters of our officers are still in training. And most of them that make the cut are going to go other cities before long. We need officers in for the long haul."
"I know a lot of citizens who would join the Watch," Carrot pointed out.
"Yes, but they wouldn't make it. We need Watchmen, Carrot. Not citizens signing up for a job. The house needs a stronger foundation."
"The house, sir?" Carrot inquired, demonstrating the famed dwarfish talent for metaphors, which also did not exist in any meaningful sense.
Vimes foolishly tried a dwarfish equivalent. "We can't mine any deeper until we've supported the walls and ceiling."
"Actually, if you make it an open-pit mine, you don't have to worry about-"
"Carrot, nevermind. What I'm saying is that we're scaling back the Watch's operations to something that we can manage properly. Once we have a few more good men-" Vimes saw Carrot's mouth beginning to open. "-a few more men that I approve of, we'll slowly expand our duties again."
"If you think that's a good idea, sir."
"Yes, I definitely think it's a good idea. I want you to oversee closing up the Watch house on Rolling Street, and I want it done by the end of tomorrow. Grab any two on-duty officers to help you out. Just bring back the useful things, and put dust sheets over the rest of it. Hopefully in the future, we'll be opening it up again."
"Yes sir. I'll get started on it right away."
"Good."
Yet strangely enough, Vimes reflected, each of those 'not-normal' people had thrived in the Watch. Most of them had actually gained a surprising degree of respect/fear among their respective communities, and Vimes knew how he got without a Watch to manage. For some of them, it was as though the Watch had given them a chance to stop dodging life and starting building one of their own. For others, it had simply been the chance to stop being whatever they were and become a watchman.
"How are you and Angua doing lately?" Vimes inquired curiously.
"Very well, sir," Carrot assured him. "I think that trip to Uberwald was just what she needed."
That was another Carrot statement, Vimes knew. It was innocent as anything, and was made completely in earnest. But the other interpretation was there too, and the scary thing was that both versions were probably right in their own sense. But Carrot hadn't been the one who had set off an industrial-sized signal flare inside the mouth of Angua's brother.
Time for a slight topic change... "Are she and Detritus patrolling Clean Street?"
"Yes sir, but I'm not sure if they'll find anything by now."

*****
(1) Fred Colon's sanity returned quickly upon his demotion to sergeant. However, he did considerably less paperwork these days.
(2) A mythical man renowned for being very patient when Blind Io tested him with tormenting plagues and illnesses. Throughout them all, Boj endured and waited patiently, trusting that Io knew what was best.(3)
(3) It wasn't very hard, actually. Blind Io had accidentally aimed all the plagues and illnesses on the next-door neighbour, who Boj didn't like very much.

Upon coming to live in city of Ankh-Morpork, the average citizen quickly develops a sense of self-preservation(1). They learn how to be Innocent Bystanders and how to completely avoid hearing anything in a very loud room.
For the citizens who inhabited Clean Street, they were in fine form today.

"It's real quiet."
"Yes. It is. I can't imagine why."

Any readers wanting to take a guess at what Clean Street is like needs only recall the famous Ankh-Morporkian sense of humour. But anyone supposing that this general state of affairs comes from an abundance of traffic would be wrong. The heavier-travelled roads in Ankh-Morpork get more garbage and miscellaneous substances, but they also get ground much flatter into the pavement in the process. The end result is that the busier the street, the more well-kept it appears. The busiest streets need a hammer and chisel to defaced. The unused ones constantly go squish or crunch when you put your foot down.
Yet strangely enough, Clean Street was clean. Very, very, VERY clean.
This was because Clean Street was the kind of street you travelled only when you knew what you were looking for. And when you were looking for that sort of item, you walked lightly. Clean Street handled the jobs that the Street of Cunning Artificers wouldn't even touch. Clean Street transported items that were too hot for AMPS(2) to handle. Clean Street was clean in an apparent sense, because Commander Samuel Vimes was just waiting for an excuse to come down and take a closer at anyone stupid enough to provide an excuse.
As a result, the inhabitants on Clean Street didn't litter, because that's the sort of thing that provides excuses. Garbage was carefully destroyed and disposed of, just as a business shreds their confidential documents.

Today, Sergeant Angua and Sergeant Detritus were patrolling Clean Street, looking for excuses. And between a werewolf's senses and a troll's habit of considering things too obvious for normal people to pick up, it was a testament to Clean Street's modus operandi that nothing had shown itself.

"I don' tink we gonna find anything," Detritus muttered.
"Probably not, no," Angua agreed. "If that damn assassin hadn't shown up last night, we would have had them!"
The troll glanced sideways. "Dat man's cleaning his windows."
"Feh. He's probably the only person in the city doing that. There should be a law against ridiculous cleanliness."
"Dat'd be an excuse."
"Vimes would go for it in a heartbeat," Angua agreed. "We might as well go show up on another street. They won't risk anything after last night around here."

That was all they'd do, she knew. Show up.
Disputes were always resolved before Detritus could arrive on the scene, no matter how fast he got there. And it wasn't just the size factor, either, because trolls started behaving too. As Detritus would have put it, there were rocks, and then there were rocks. And life in the Watch had put the troll solidly into the second category, possibly necessitating a third category before long.
Humans could train their whole life and turn their bodies into machines capable of shattering bricks and bouncing people three times their size. So could trolls. And Detritus had progressed beyond the 'granite' stage quite some time ago. And the Watch had taught him an impressive variety of ways to bash people on the head.

"You want to grab a cup to go?" Angua inquired, gesturing towards a nearby drink stand that catered to all species.
"S'good," the Troll agreed, changing his course.

Disputes also tended to be resolved before Angua could arrive, although it took a slightly more observant eye to spot her in time, especially when she was a wolf. Her true nature wasn't widely known to the public, but the little portion in people's brains devoted to identifying predators tended to take note when she looked at them. And the Ramtops Wolfhound had become a highly avoided breed of dog by the more knowledgeable circles.
Because word got around in Ankh-Morpork quickly enough, and the word on the street for quite some time was that werewolves don't have to have big fangs and a tail to be dangerous. If humans and trolls could train to make themselves obscenely stronger, the undead didn't even need to bother. The laws of physics, already rather strained on Discworld at large, tended to get completely thrown out the window where they were concerned. You could find an obese, lazy, sick, arthritic, out-of-shape, vampire, and they could tie an iron bar in a knot with their bare hands. You tried to stay the hell away from the athletes. And while it wasn't normally quite as pronounced for werewolves, a Bad Hair Day could pronounce it ten times as clearly.

"What'll it be?" the owner inquired of them. "The usual?"
"Large coffee," Angua agreed, "but only one shake of salt."
The owner nodded, giving the salt-shaker the aforementioned single dash of salt before handing it to her. Then he put on some elbow-length gloves, picked up a large pair of blacksmith tongs, and made Detritus' drink.
"One hydrochloric acid, medium strength," he informed the troll. "One lava or two?"
"Jus' one."
"Coming right up... here you go."
Paying for their drinks, they took them and continued on their way.
"I've been cutting back on my salt intake lately," Angua was saying. Apparently most women went nuts over chocolate. She'd never quite understood the appeal, but she had her own little vice in the form of salt. It was probably the wolf half of her. "Carrot says that too much is bad for you, although I don't know if that applies to werewolves."
Detritus nodded understandingly. "Trolls dat have too much salt got to stay outta da rain or dey loose weight. And Ruby, she say s'good I only have sulphur oc-ca-shun-ally."
"So how are you and her getting along lately?"
"S'good. But we not in a hurry. Lotsa trolls dese days, dey gettin' metamorphed real young, and den dey fragmentin' in a couple o' years."
"Good for you both," Angua approved, once she had interpreted the statement.
"You and Carrot happy?" the troll returned. Most trolls weren't given to small talk that didn't involve a slug in the jaw, but Detritus had managed to learn the basics so far.
"Oh, definitely," she assured him.

And all things considered, she was happy.
The world had been a little different since the business in Uberwald. When Shlitzen the bogeyman had given his traditional haunting over what her family back home thought of her, she'd just given the sort of smile normally found on her canine half, and replied that she'd talked with them recently. The news from Uberwald had arrived later on that day, and Shlitzen had very quickly found someone else to haunt. Indeed, she had found herself with a little more respect by the Undead community at large, because even the Undead have a sense for politics.
And the city of Ankh-Morpork wasn't quite as alien as it once had been, Angua was finding. Wolves liked territory that they could call their own. Or was it humans who did? Regardless, it went both ways with her, and it was rather surprising to realize that she was actually starting to treat Ankh-Morpork as her own territory.
"We were thinking of going on a short vacation sometime soon," she continued, "provided we can manage to get the time off. I think it would do Carrot some good to spend some time in a new environment."
Besides, she had a hunch that he might actually be beginning to run out of new people to meet in Ankh-Morpork, and Angua knew that Carrot loved meeting new people. She loved watching him meet new people, especially the part where the new person tried to wrap their minds around the idea of someone like Carrot. It wasn't easy, but in her opinion, it was definitely worth the effort.
"How come der people still act all quiet?" Detritus wanted to know. "I dint even bring my weapon today."
"I can't imagine," Angua replied, stifling a laugh. "You'd think they'd realize that you weren't as dangerous without the Piecemaker, wouldn't you? I mean, all you can do is hit them."
"Yeah. Mebe I try for a few days an dey figure it out. It kinda boring when der criminals not fightin' back."
"Well, maybe you'll get lucky on the next stakeout."
"S'good. I wanna talk with der bastard who been running all dat slab(3)."

It had been during a surprise cold spell last month, when Detritus had suddenly managed to piece together various bits of information regarding the recent increase in the Ankh-Morpork slab market. Following up on his brief brainstorm had been enough to piece together a few possibilities.

"You want to talk with them, huh?"
"Yeah. Wid sign language."

One of those leads had lead to Angua and Detritus staking out Clean Street the previous night. And they had spotted someone passing through on a horse with a large pack attached. And then Angua had run astray of an assassin on night run, which had quickly degenerated into a fight. Before it was over, Angua had been left with a cut down her arm, and the assassin had been left unconscious with a black face(4).
And the original target was long gone, and there had already been reports today of a new batch of slab being sold on the streets. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they'd just missed a golden opportunity. Detritus had taken it particularly hard, and it would undoubtedly go even harder on whoever they caught next.

"Don't worry. Next time, I'll chase them across the entire city if I have to."

*****
(1) Only once they arrive. If they already have one, they usually stay away from Ankh-Morpork.
(2) Ankh-Morpork Postal Service, est. Very Recently.
(3) Think LSD for Trolls. Unlike the vast majority of races, Trolls are silicon-based lifeforms. But the illegal narcotics industry would never let a minor detail like that stop them for long.
(4) Similar to a black eye, but considerably more painful.

"So you're from Uberwald, are you?"
"That's right! I left about two years ago to make my fortune and establish my independence in this male-dominated world!"
Lucy rolled her eyes. "Congratulations."

They had spent the last few hours wandering the streets of Ankh-Morpork, and aside from the occasional leer or wolf-whistle, and frequent "No vacancies", they hadn't found anything to fix their housing problem. Lucy was beginning to despair whether they ever would. At the moment, she couldn't even blame her companion's one-person anti-male propaganda blitz. There were simply NO places to live in this city.
The area they were presently passing through was looking no more promising. And the air was actually managing to smell worse, somehow. And the houses were rapidly deteriorating to the point where the word 'house' no longer applied. Some didn't even warrant the word 'hut'.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the road was labelled 'Sunny Meadow Avenue'.

"It's been hard going," Irie was admitting, "but I just know that I'll be successful in Ankh-Morpork! Especially with you as a role model! I can't possibly fail!"
Oh gods. "Um, look here-"
Insert: One interruption. More specifically, the house they were currently passing had its front door opened by someone's face. Hard.
"Hey!" Irie yelled, looking between the thoroughly-beaten figure lying on the ground and the two individuals who had done the throwing. "What do you think you're doing?!?"
One of the two throwers politely raised his hat. "Our apologies, ladies, we didn't see you there. This is just guild business, sorry for the disturbance."
"You can't just-"
"Darn right you can't!" another voice growled, stomping over to the impromptu meeting. "That man's a tenant of mine. Who's going to pay his rent, I might ask?"
One of the throwers held up a badge. "Thieves Guild Enforcement, mister. This man's been thieving without a license for quite some time now. Sorry, but this man won't be paying any more rent. Besides, yesterday was the first of the month. You've got your rent, and you don't even have to let him use the place for the rest of the month. Good deal for you, right?"
The landlord nodded grudgingly. "Yeah, but it's the principle of thing, y'know? I don't want it said that I'm harbouring unlicenced thieves. Bad for my rep, y'know."
One of the thieves gave the house a look that clearly indicated that the rep had nowhere to go but up. Looking back at the landlord, "Look, we won't tell if you won't, okay? We don't like it said that people can get away with unlicenced thieving."
"Well... okay. But I'm keeping the rent he paid!"
"We have a deal then."
Irie had finally found her voice. "What do you men think you're DOING?"
The thieves stared at her. "We're just eliminating this unlicenced thief. No law against that, is there?"
"It's absolutely despicable what you're doing-Oof!!!"
The last part came from Lucy accidentally driving her elbow into Irie's stomach as she stepped forward. "So that man isn't going to need the house anymore?" she inquired.
The thieves shook their heads as they each took a hold of the presently senseless third thief. "Definitely not."
"Why?" the landlord asked. "You interested?"
"What's the rent?"

In many universes, there is a commodity known as 'waterfront property'. It is highly sought after, to the point where people do ridiculous things to obtain it, up to and including putting their firstborn as a down-payment. While opinions vary, many people believe that it's the closeness to the water that gives them their value, hence the term 'waterfront property'.
This is not the case in Ankh-Morpork.
In Ankh-Morpork, a city built on either side of the great river Ankh, there naturally exists waterfront property. And owing to the adaptation of the river as a liquid landfill, a graveyard, a septic system, and general dumping ground for things that couldn't even be disguised in a sausage, the term 'river' is a term used quite loosely. Children growing up in Ankh-Morpork often amuse themselves by skipping stones on it to see how many sparks they can make. Cement shoes have to be specially made, or else the person tends to float. It moves downhill, but so do glaciers.
In other words, waterfront property is generally only considered preferable to the river itself, and not by much. Any fragile materials in nearby houses are in constant danger of being bio-degraded during the hotter times of the year.

"We paid too much."
"But we're only paying 75 pence a month each. Besides, it's a waterfront location."
"We still paid too much."
"I think it has character."
Lucy looked wearily around the inside of the structure that passed for a house in this part of Ankh-Morpork. It definitely had character, she agreed. It was the kind of character that suggested the house may have been sentient at some point in time, and hadn't been properly embalmed after dying.
Still, it could have been worse, she admitted. Slightly, anyhow. She could have been paying the full rental price for this waterfront location by herself. She and Irie had somehow, through unspoken agreement, decided to share the location and the rent. And no matter how annoying she might turn out to be, for someone born in Lancre and largely raised in a schoolhouse, 75 pence was still 75 pence was money that would probably be useful down the road(1).

"Wow!!!" Irie was exclaiming from another room. "My luggage is all here!"
Lucy decided that the world had a sense of humour, and it was a really sick one. "Yes, it sure was nice of that thief to carry your luggage all the way here, wasn't it?"
"I still think that was a little mean of you to let them drag him away like that."
Yes, it was, Lucy admitted. But at least she would be feeling remorseful under a roof. And it wasn't as though her objecting would have mattered. "I've heard they do things differently around here. Besides, he stole your luggage, remember? And do you really want to still be looking for somewhere to live?"
"Oh. Right. And I guess that man deserved it for trying to take advantage of me!"
"Sure. Whatever works for you."
The house had three rooms, it was quickly determined. There was actually a fourth room, but its outer walls were in such bad shape that they mistook it for a back porch. The first room was also the main one, and it apparently served the purpose of a living room, a dining room, and kitchen and a stable. The second was a bedroom, and possessed a single bed and a dresser, with a glass-less mirror hung on the wall. The third was combination of a bathroom and, if the still-hanging boxer shorts were any indication, a laundry room.
Lucy dragged her finger across the counter, managed to scratch the layer of dust. "We definitely paid too much."
Irie re-entered the main room, still wearing her permanent expression of optimism. "It's a little bit cluttered, but I'm sure we can fix it all up in no time at all! I think the bed's big enough for both of us. Do you snore?"
"I do not snore."
"That's good. Do you think this place is un-witchy enough for you?"
Lucy raised an eyebrow at that comment, possibly half-surprised that Irie had actually listened to what she had said earlier. She gave the room another glance, just for the look of it. Back in Lancre, a witch wouldn't have been caught dead(2) in a place like this. Within days, the entire village would have been overcome with an overwhelming sense of desire and civic responsbility to help a poor woman get her house into working order, eventually leaving the witch with the Lancre equivalent of the Taj Mahal.
Yes, this place was about as un-witchy as it was possible to get. And no witch would have ever consented to sharing their house with someone, nevermind a bed. To say nothing of the presence of the river Ankh in the backyard. And hadn't she been admitting that desperate measures were needed?
"It's great," Lucy decided, a small smile managing to find its way onto her face. "It's absolutely perfect."
"We should try and decorate it a little bit."
"Sure. But we can worry it tomorrow. I just want to get some sleep now."
"Just let me change the sheets. That man didn't take very good care of his bedclothes."
Lucy finally entered the bedroom for herself. "Yes, change the sheets. Maybe we should burn them too."
"Don't be silly! We can use them for something else. Waste not, want not, my father always told me."
Had she possessed more energy, Lucy would have pointed that Lucy's father probably counted as a male. As it was, she just nodded wearily in agreement. "Well, throw it on the back porch, okay? I'll sleep better knowing it's not here."

*****
(1) Contrary to popular belief, the kingdom of Lancre does not operate on a cashless economy. Rather, it operates on an almost-cashless economy, which is not the same thing. Cashless economies simply overcharge in terms of material goods, while in an almost-cashless economy, a tiny bit of money is all there is.
(2) One of the benefits of being a witch is knowing in advance when you're going to die, which ensures that you don't get caught dead anywhere at all.


Morning came early for Sam Vimes. Not because of any Imp Alarm, or by Willikins the butler, or even little Sam starting up a crying spree. It came early because Sam Vimes' body always had a sense for when it was a good time to be awake. And after two decades doing the Night Watch, his body had become trained to work a long time between sleeping periods. It eventually caught up to him, of course, but he was fairly good at putting it off until a semi-convenient time.
So when he woke up with a distinct absence of sun in his face, he instinctively didn't climb out of bed. Rather, he rolled out from under the blankets, easing himself down to the floor before quietly getting to his feet. A glance back to the two-thirds of the bed still occupied indicated that he hadn't woken Sybil, which had been the entire point. His wife needed her rest, what caring for the baby and all. Now to figure out why his body thought he should be awake...
He washed and shaved as he always did, albeit as quietly as possible. Heading downstairs, he grabbed an apple in the kitchen and began to eat it as he made his way through the Ramkin estate, aiming for the front door. And anyone who thought that it was a simple task had never been in the Ramkin estate.
Now to figure out why he'd gotten up so early. There weren't any meetings to attend, there weren't any criminals needing to be interrogated, the paperwork could go hang for awhile... He exited the front door and almost walked into a huge bundle of roses.
He staggered backward, trying to get his bearings. "What the-"
The smiling face peering around the flowers belonged to Angua. "Good morning, Mister Vimes."
"Sergeant?"
"Ah, you're awake," Carrot greeted, peering over the roses with little difficulty. He was holding a package in one hand. "Angua didn't believe me, but I told her that you'd never forget your anniversary!"
Oh bugger.
"But you've been terribly busy lately," Carrot continued, "so we thought we'd just save you the trouble of trying to find a gift and some flowers. Really, I keep telling Angua that she needs to have more faith in people."
Vimes risked a glance towards Angua.
"I guess you're right, Carrot," she agreed, wearing a giant shit-eating grin that would have warranted disciplinary action in any other situation. "Mister Vimes would have never forgotten about something as important as his anniversary."
"Um... of course not," Vimes rallied desperately. "But thank-you very much, captain, sergeant. It's been awful busy lately, what with... um, paperwork and all."
"Funny you should mention that..." Angua agreed, pushing something towards him. "We happened to grab a few pieces of paperwork on the way over..."
Vimes rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself. Two of his officers might be making a fool of him, even if only one was actually trying, but there were limits. "Fancy that. Let's see... we have something that looks suspiciously like a wage bill..."
Carrot was one of those individuals with a natural immunity to sarcasm. "Does it? I didn't see Angua grab the paper, but that's quite a coincidence, sir."
"And this other one... a vacation request for... Captain Carrot and Sergeant Angua... and I see that there's no date written in yet."
"They haven't decided quite yet," Angua agreed, her facial expression unchanged.
"But I'm sure that when they do, the dates filled in will be quite reasonable," Carrot assured him honestly.
Oh gods, Vimes realized. Now two of his officers were blackmailing him into signing a blank cheque for a vacation request. Well, not blackmailing him per se, but he knew that he'd have a hard time ignoring the guilt level if he didn't put his signature down. This was probably setting a bad precedent, he knew, even as he signed both pieces of paper.
It was very considerate of Carrot to conveniently have a pen for him to use.
"Have a happy anniversary, Commander," the captain bid him.
Vimes watched them continue on their way, even as he now held flowers and a gift, unable to keep from smiling. Smiling - at least the pleasant and non-malicious way - wasn't something that came naturally to him. But he was definitely managing it for the moment. Watchman, real watchmen, did their best to look out for each other. Even off-duty, it seemed.
Maybe the Patrician was right, he reflected idly. There had been a pruning, and he was left with the good branches now. Not that he'd doubted that previously, but it seemed to make more sense now, somehow.
He'd have to try and make sure the remaining branches were cared for.

It was eight o'clock in the morning when Lucy found herself arriving at Treacle Mine Road, at the specified corner. Irie was still sleeping back at their 'house', which Lucy presently envied. Irie slept like someone who had more than half a bed to sleep on, and had spent most of the night either lashing out with random limbs, or rolling off the side of the bed completely and loudly waking up and climbing back in.
Unsurprisingly, Lucy hadn't slept for much of last night. They were definitely going to invest in a second bed today. She didn't know where the money would come from, but she would find it. Or else sleep on the floor.
At any rate, a job was a job. So she had gotten herself out of bed and washed up and gotten dressed and made use of some food left by the house's previous owner. Then she had headed over to the location specified by her prospective employer - here.

There was a covered wagon parked in one of the corners, with a blank signboard posted across it. Setting out a semi-clean piece of cloth across the counter, the employer looked to be hard at work setting it up.
"Mr. Dibbler?" she inquired politely.
"You can't prove it!" he immediately protested, before turning around and seeing her. "Oh, I mean, good to see you... Miss Tockley, wasn't it? I'm almost set up here, hold this end of the cloth will you? Rush Hours(1) is going to be starting in a little bit."
Obeying, Lucy held the cloth up against the booth, while he pounded a few rusty nails through it into the booth, making for a marginally more presentable setting.
"There we go," he approved. "Now..."
He gave her a brief up-and-down glance, and nodded approvingly. "Good, good, that's what I like to see. All presentable-like and such."
Lucy nodded neutrally. She'd picked out a selection of clothing that seemed presentable, but not overdone, which seemed quite easy in some parts of Ankh-Morpork.
"Anyhow, you can me Dibbler, or Mr. Dibbler, a couple other people in the city do too. So what I want you to do is sell stuff to people."
"What sort of... stuff?"
"Medi-ca-shuns and herbs and such," he announced proudly. "I'm thinkin' that there's a lot of people in this city who's bodies aren't quite up to par, if you follow me. So I'm gonna beat the rush and start selling them now!"
Lucy looked suspicious. "Medicines?"
"That's right!" Dibbler abruptly lowered his voice. "Well, I say medicines... but what I mean is the batch of unsold fruits and vegetables and suchlike that I've got in the trailer here. But I figured out how it all works!"
"You want me to sell fruits and vegetables and call them medicine?"
"Shh!!! But that's right. That's what all the doctors in the city do, and the stuff cures the folks because the poor buggers believe it will. The only difference being, of course, they charge outrageous prices for it all. I'm gonna beat 'em at their game, and only charge sort of outrageous prices."
Lucy actually gaped. "You want me to sell old produce to people for criminal amounts of money, and tell them it's medicine?"
"Only half-criminal, but you've got the idea," Dibbler approved. "I can see you'll do fine at this."
She'd heard stories about Ankh-Morpork, Lucy admitted. And there was the whole business surrounding the 'house'. And it was a long enough walk from there to here for her to see that goodness, honesty, and charity were worth their weight in river water. But even still... she'd just been hired as a con-artist.
"See, I heard they do this sort of thing over in the Ramtops," Dibbler was saying. "They got these old ladies in black who give out herbs and they cure the person because the sucker believes it! So I'm getting into this before those ladies come down here."
Lucy almost opened her mouth to tell Dibbler what an idiot he was. Yes, it was true that witches in the Ramtops gave out herbs for all types of ailments. Or in the case of Nanny Ogg, a swig of whatever sort of fruit-alcohol was in season. Or in the case of Granny Weatherwax, sugar-water with some dye in it.
The thing was, it wasn't the trick that people thought it was. The gullible people believed that the medication was the real thing, and it cured them. The smarter people saw through that business, and fell for the real trick.

"So just ask them what their trouble is - everybody's got some sort of trouble. Then give 'em something and tell them that it'll cure it. It's a good job if you give it some fancy-shmancy name too..."

Because the reality was that a witch could make a cure out of whatever she wanted. If a witch wanted some sugar-water to cure a bad back, it would. There were stories about how Nana Prudence made a kid eat cow dung to cure a snakebite(2). Occasionally, a witch would explain how occasionally eating fresh fruit was necessary to keep the 'sore throat cure' working, and how the 'coughing cure' wasn't compatible with cigar-smoking, and so forth. A smart person would hear about it and think they'd figured out the witch to be a fraud.
She'd been that way once, Lucy knew. She'd learned the hard way, that a witch's cow-dung cure worked better and lasted far longer than the sparkly-magical kind. And the strongest witches didn't bother with trivial magics like fortune-telling and shooting fire, because they dealt with the tougher problems, such as human nature and stupidity.

"...so it's best if you tell 'em that it came from a long way off. That way they believe it better, and if it don't work, they just blame it on foreigners, instead of someone else, such as you..."

In Lancre, Dibbler would have been hung by his neck, assuming the villagers didn't decide to hang him by some other parts entirely. People who sold false cures were handled very directly and efficiently, because keeping one around was akin to an insult to the local witch, and no one wanted an unhappy witch around.
And now she was being hired to sell false cures to the unsuspecting, ailing, citizens of this city. And to gouge money off them in return. It was absolutely unbelievable. It was disgusting. It was...
...perfect.
It was so perfectly un-witchy, it was practically anti-witch.

"...I gots this atlas here if you need some suggestions for places," Dibbler was rambling, "So, d'you think you're up for it, Miss Tockley?"
Lucy fixed him with a smile. It wasn't a very nice smile. "Mr. Dibbler?"
He leaned back slightly as he took in her expression. "Yes?"
"I took three terms of geography."

*****
(1) Apparently, in some other places, Rush Hour only lasts an hour.
(2) It worked, of course. And the kid never got bitten by a snake again. Neither did anyone else who heard about the cure.


end chapter 2