**Thanks for the reviews! The plot has to thicken a bit more before I give you too many answers, so be patient! Enjoy the ride and stay tuned for drunkenness, fighting, cross-dressing (almost) and shocking revelations. **

7. Protection at Rock-Bottom Prices

            First thing in the morning, Lord Sack-Woddel was found slumped in the armchair in his library, a book in his lap. The title was "Vampires: A History." The maid who found him screamed at the sight of his blue lips and protruding eyes, and his head lolling into the wing of the chair. She didn't see beneath his dressing gown that his veins had collapsed.

            The Watch was called in immediately, and it was Vimes who noticed the slip of paper between two pages of the book. With a handkerchief, he pulled it out.

            The poor, the working class, the nobles. Three classes, three  meals. Who shall it be next?

            The note was unsigned, of course, just his luck, thought Vimes. Normally, psychopaths liked to give themselves a name in these situations. Something to go by. But unsigned or no, it was a clue, and though Vimes didn't hold much with those, it was more than he had before.

            "What do you want us to do with him, sir?" asked Captain Carrot quietly. Lord Sack-Woddel had been a lifelong bachelor, a harmless old thing alone in his big house with the servants. Vimes was uncomfortable that this had happened on the turnwise side of the Ankh, in a house so close to his. Scoone Avenue was just around the corner and he had a pregnant wife… With a shock, he realized how he was thinking.

            "Somebody has to care what happens to him," he said. "Find the next of kin, wherever they are. In the meantime…" Vimes turned away from the body. There was no formal morgue in Ankh-Morpork. Murders weren't normal. "Put him in the ice house. Keep a guard on twenty four hours."

            The nobles were going to go spare. Vampires taking a nibble out of a potter was one thing, but a lord…that hit too close to home. Vimes estimated fifteen minutes before the entire committee of Lords Selachii, Venturii, Rust et al would show up at Pseudopolis Yard, purple-faced with rage, demanding to know what he was doing about this.

            What was he doing? He looked around at the watchmen quietly opening desk drawers, looking at the bookcase, rifling through papers. He'd told them to do it because it had to be done, even if he thought nothing would be found. What could he do?

            "Anything, Littlebottom?"

            The dwarf Cheery Littlebottom, currently the only member of the Watch's crack forensics team, straightened from the armchair that held Lord Sack-Woddel and held up a pair of tweezers. From the tip dangled a very long, very silky strand of blue black hair.

            "I'd bet anything it's a woman's hair, sir," she said.

            Vimes rubbed his chin. "Check it with the household staff."

             Sergeant Angua appeared at his elbow. "May I?" Cheery held the hair higher and Angua leaned toward it, her eyes closed, sniffing.

            "That's her," she said.

            "Her?"

            "It's faint but unmistakable, sir. Vampires have a certain kind of scent."

            "We're looking for a…" he lowered his voice, "…female vampire?"

            "Looks like it, sir."

            "Can you follow the scent?"

            Angua shook her head. "It's summer, sir. The moment it gets outside, the smell of the Ankh will overpower it."

            "What should I do with this, sir?" asked Cheery.

            "Check it with the staff anyway." Vimes rubbed his eyes. There was definitely a lack of sleep in his life. Two nights, two sets of murders. One in the handworker's district, one in Ankh. There was…

            He slapped his forehead. The loud crack of it made every watchman in the room turn. He pulled the note he'd found out of his pocket and looked at it again. Three classes, three meals. The workers and the nobles he knew about. The poor. The poor…

            "Carrot!" he shouted as he ran out into the hall.

            The captain rushed back in from his examination of Lord Sack-Woddel's ice house.

            "Sir?"

            "Take some people up to the Shades. Knock on every door, and I mean every damn door until you find out who's been killed by a vampire in the last week or so. All right?"

            "Wouldn't they have reported--?"

            "It's the Shades, Carrot! Do they ever report anything? Just do it." Vimes excitedly searched his pockets for a new cigar. "Sergeant!"

            Angua appeared just as he was lighting up in the hallway.

            "Sir?"

            He took her aside and spoke quietly. "Do you have any vampire friends?"

            "Not really, sir."

            Vimes face fell. "None? Not even at that bar you go to?"

            "Well, I wouldn't call them friends, sir. Acquaintances."

            "On friendly terms with any?"

            Angua shrugged. Friendly terms had many meanings, and at the moment, she was supposed to be on friendly terms with Carrot.

            "We need a friendly vampire, Angua. Somebody who can advise us. Do you have any idea how little we know about the vampire population in the city?"

            "I can imagine."

            "Can you find someone?"

            "They're not very nice about informants, sir."

            "Not informant. Advisor."

            "I'll see what I can do."

            Vimes directed the removal of the body and rushed off to the Palace to tell Vetinari the news. If he didn't already know it.

***

            The carriage lurched again and came to another full stop. Shouts could be heard outside, curses, the braying of donkeys, riders whipping horses. Noon in Ankh-Morpork was normally a trying time for anyone using the roadways, but on that brilliantly sunny day it was chaos. Gridlock traffic on Turnwise Broadway and nobody knew why. Some days, there were just too many carts, coaches, horses, mules and people on the streets. By the time the driver of Vetinari's coach noticed the seriousness of the situation, it was too late to take a detour. Five minutes out of the Palace gates and they were stuck.

            The Patrician flipped the shade down and sighed. His daily schedule was minutely planned and never, ever took into account traffic jams. Appointments awaited him in his office. Concerns about the disturbing developments in the city crowded out almost everything else. Vimes was beside himself, raring with energy but at a loss as to what more he could do besides be on the look out for suspicious-looking, possibly female vampires which meant, of course, most of them. The nobles had crashed the Watch meeting and demanded swift and violent action.

            A Committee for the Expulsion of Vampires had showed up to demand -- surprise surprise -- the expulsion of all vampires from Ankh-Morpork. They left his office just as representatives of one of the Black Ribbon clubs dropped by wearing large hats, sun glasses, mufflers and clothing that covered almost every inch of skin. Teetotalers could stand weak daylight. The Expulsion Committee didn't care who the vampires were; once a bloodsucker, always a bloodsucker. There was a scuffle in the antechamber outside the Oblong Office. 

            Beside him in the carriage sat Isabella, who was of course an entirely different problem. Lord Vetinari wasn't prepared to discount a connection between her and what was happening in the city, but even without one, she was a problem. A big enough one that despite the fifty other things he needed to be doing, he couldn't allow her to go to the wizards without him.

            Deep into the night they'd sat opposite one another at the conference table in the Oblong Office talking of politics in Uberwald. Isabella knew about the power struggles between the feudal elements there and Lady Margolotta's success at consolidating a significant portion of the country under her control. And the more recent developments: A dozen vampires killed since Vimes left Uberwald, victims of the worsening conflict between the Reds and Blacks. The leader of the Blacks was a vampire named Lothar but the power behind the throne, so to speak, was Margolotta. Abstinent four years, apparently. Isabella said Margolotta's letters over those years had explained why she did it, the challenge of self control. It confirmed what Vimes had told the Patrician after his return from the crowning of the Dwarf King.

            Lord Vetinari and Isabella talked of the influence that the mostly Black vampire expatriate community in Ankh-Morpork had on their compatriots back home in Uberwald. They talked of belief and of human – or in this case, vampire – nature. Festus had reported in his dispatches that the ripening conflict in Uberwald involved nothing less than the future of vampirism.

            And Isabella Capelli, dead 15 years, was perfectly aware of it all. 

            To be on the safe side, the Patrician had asked her if she was a vampire herself. She showed her teeth (no fangs) and suggested they go to Unseen University just before noon when the August sun was nearly at its highest. He took that as a no.

            Enterprising merchants started shouting out their wares, taking advantage of potential customers trapped in the roadway.

            "Stakes! Get yer fresh chopped stakes!"

            Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler gave Isabella an honest merchant's grin through the open coach window.

            "Good day to you, milady. And a fine one it is, eh? The sun is shining like a blessing but I ask you, what protection have ye got when night falls?"

            "Protection from what, Mr. Dibbler?"

            There was a Dibbler in every town, anywhere where a man trying to make a buck stumbles on a brilliant scheme to make it big. This time, the scheme was hanging in sharp bits from a rope around his neck.

            Dibbler looked around as if to be sure they were alone, then leaned closer. "Vampires got a taste for tender young ladies," he said conspiratorially. "Well known fact."

            "Is it?"

            "Oh, yeah. Ten ladies got a visit, if you know what I mean, just last night."

            "I hadn't heard that," said Isabella, looking with amusement at Vetinari. He put a hand over his eyes.

            "Now I think about it, it was fifteen," said Dibbler. "A young and, if I may say in the presence of your gentleman there, attractive lady can not afford to be without protection." He held up a sharpened and rather dilapidated wooden stake the length of Isabella's forearm. "Guaranteed to kill ninety five percent of vampires."

            "By giving them splinters?" she said, eyeing the dry rot.

            "Right through the heart, milady. You got to get'em through the heart."

            "My word."

            "Gruesome, but in these trying times, we must be prepared for anything," said Dibbler sagely. "Each and every stake was blessed by at least one high priest, and my current supply was rubbed up against a copy of the Book of Om. The tips were dipped in water from the fabled Holy Well of Agatea. That's triple protection." Dibbler winked. "This Anti-Vampire Security System has been valued at thirty dollars but it can be yours for just ten."

            "Good gods," said Isabella, a hand over her smile.

            "Buy now and I'll throw in a free gourmet sausage. Garlic-flavoured."

            "Ten dollars is a lot of money."

            "Is your life worth less?" asked Dibbler with a convincing smile.

            "Is yours?" asked Lord Vetinari, leaning over Isabella and glaring through two icy blue eyes.

            Dibbler stared at the Patrician, then cleared his throat.

            "An honour to see yer lordship, er… Fine day, eh? Yessir, Special Palace Discount, all this for five dollars." He waved the stake.

            The Patrician's glare didn't budge. Dibbler cleared his throat again. "Two dollars. But that's the last offer. I'm cutting me own throat as it is."

            The Patrician smiled. This upset Dibbler more than when the Patrician didn't smile.

            "All right. One dollar. And I can offer that only cause the wood's from one of the lamp posts up in…" At the fixed expression on the Patrician's face, Dibbler's entrepreneurial spirit deflated.

            "I've got ten cents," said Isabella, holding up a coin.

            "That'll do, milady. Here's your stake. Have a good day." If Dibbler had been wearing a cap, he would've touched the brim. "Good day to you too, er, yer lordship."

            A bit of wood flaked off the stake. "I don't think you could use this thing as a picket in a fence," said Isabella.

            The carriage moved a whopping ten feet and came to a rest. The Patrician glanced at his pocket watch and closed it with an irritated snap.

            "You mentioned last night a tunnel under the river for commercial traffic," he said. "Is that really possible?"

            "I got the idea one night in the palace dungeon when I saw the Helmet-headed Shipworm drilling through a wooden plank bed," said Isabella. "Amazing. He had--"

            "One moment. Why were you in the dungeon?"          

            "You always said a ruler shouldn't have a dungeon he wouldn't like to spend a night in himself. We had a bit of a camp-out once." She waved a hand. "But that's not interesting. The Shipworm, that was something. His head is shaped like this," Isabella steepled her hands over her hair, "and he uses it to bore through wood. The best part is, he excretes this sticky substance as he goes and it shores up the tunnel behind him. I saw that and thought, why can't it work on a bigger scale?"

            "I hesitate to think of the type and amount of excretion necessary for that."

            "Think of an iron arch as high a you want the tunnel to be. Maybe it's only…ten feet long. Closed at the end with wooden slats. Sink it into the soft soil under the river so that workers inside are in something of an air pocket. They can brick the walls while the shield holds back the soil and water." Isabella sat back and sighed. "Theoretically. I don't know how to make the thing safe for the workers. If the wood is too weak, the tunnel will flood. And I don't want to talk about what kind of foul vapours are probably sitting under the river. The workers would suffocate. Leonard hasn't been much of a help on this either. Two out of his three shield prototypes exploded."

            "And the third?"

            "He sat on it by accident."

            The Patrician registered a complete lack of surprise.

            "Perhaps you could draw a schematic for me nevertheless," he said.

            There was a moment of déjà vu, a sudden feeling that he'd had this conversation with Isabella before. Yet she'd never mentioned a tunnel when he knew her; her enthusiasm had been largely centered on buildings and bridges. Perhaps she went through phases over the years. Her map had showed new streets, gardens, reservoirs, a harbour.

            "How in the world would I pay for all of that?" he said absently.

            "Pay for what?"

            "Large municipal building projects. Reservoirs, parks and hospitals are not self-financing."

            Isabella looked surprised. "You don't trade with the Counterweight Continent?"

            "I beg your…?"

            The Patrician kept contact with the Agatean Empire at a minimum, mostly because of the rich gold deposits there that would devalue the Ankh-Morpork dollar, which didn't have enough gold in it to fill a tooth. Assuming Isabella's version of events was true, she was married to a Patrician who'd figured out a way to turn trade with the Empire to Ankh-Morpork's advantage. Lord Vetinari was slightly irritated that he hadn't managed to do that himself.

            There were shouts from outside and the carriage suddenly lurched forward. The horses reached a steady walk. At the turn to the Maul, the Patrician looked out the window just as they passed two bad-tempered mules, a clutch of angry workmen in overalls, several farmers, a large sow, a group of hearty market women with baskets over their arms, and a pair of scruffy lads on top of a vegetable cart with three wheels. They were gathered at the side of the road at the behest of Sergeant Colon, who seemed to be explaining something as Corporal Nobbs held up first a green paddle, then a red. The Traffic Division of the City Watch at work.

            Lord Vetinari leaned back. A tunnel under the Ankh for commercial traffic. A toll of some kind might make such a thing financially feasible if the technical aspects could be worked out…

***

            Klieg lay in Beber's coffin but couldn't sleep. The lord had been an unsatisfying meal, and all the more so now that she'd discovered what lay ahead of her, the possibilities in the glorious Isabella. She wished it was night, that she could go out into the air. Perhaps she would kiss her that night.

            Her mission, though…

            Klieg turned over in the coffin, lying on her stomach now, her cheek on her arm and thought of the last time she and Lady Margolotta had spoken about Havelock Vetinari.

            "I imagine he has grown to be a very distingvished man," she'd said, black smoke from her cigarette curling to the ceiling of the parlour in her castle. "A gentleman. He vas a delight as a young man, you know. A treat." And she'd taken another puff through her cigarette holder.

            Smoking was an affectation Margolotta took to dampen her craving for blood, but Klieg hated it for a different reason. The smell. Margolotta's basic scent had changed for the worse, and Klieg was sensitive to such things. She'd taken to breathing through her mouth in Margolotta's presence. Yet the tobacco leaves, Black Scopani, grown in total darkness, she loved the smell of those. Unburned. Pure. She carried a bit around with her and held them to her nose when she tired of smelling so many unwashed humans on the streets of Ankh-Morpork.

            Klieg knew what a treat Vetinari had been because Margolotta had told her the story so many times. To the point of irritation and beyond. Klieg knew that he'd arrived in Uberwald on the Grand Sneer, a tour noblemen made of foreign countries before settling down for a life of leisure and mischief. He was eighteen. When his companions continued their journey, he stayed for some weeks.

            Every detail had been told to Klieg. Every chess remis, every conversation on human nature and control and political manipulation. A genius in the making, Margolotta had said. A ruler preparing for his realm. If Klieg hadn't also heard Margolotta in her less enthusiastic moments – when she spoke of Vetinari's single-minded ambition, his obssessiveness, cynicism, coldness and pessimism about the ability of people to change in a fundamental way – Klieg would have imagined him some kind of a perfect being. A giant striding twenty feet tall over the pigmy citizens of Ankh-Morpork.

            Reality, of course, was different.

            Klieg tossed in Beber's coffin again but couldn't find a comfortable position. 

            The feast of Isabella first. There would be time for Vetinari afterward. Lady Margolotta was not there to monitor her.