** Just a short word for Tindomiel, Twist, Domino, Merrymoll and all the other ladies who get a bit weak-kneed about his lordship. You might want to get some tissues before you read this chapter.- (smile) - Elderberry, I haven't read MR yet. My take on vampires is pretty eclectic. To all the other reviewers, a big hearty thanks from me. **

13. Miscalculation

            There were important things to talk about at the Watch meeting, but Vimes couldn't help looking at Lord Vetinari in light of what Mrs. Figgers had said. It was all hard to believe when you were standing right in front of the man. Everything about him was unromantic. Vimes realized he was about the last person to judge what romantic was, but even he could see that the Patrician wasn't. Vetinari was all  pallor and planes and angles and sharp glances and thin-lipped smiles. He had the infuriating calm that made you want to punch him repeatedly or tell off-colour jokes just to see if he'd blush.

            Even if you stripped fifteen years away, he didn't look the type to fall apart about anything, even if it was the death of a girl he happened to love. Mrs. Figgers may have been wrong. Vimes could always test it. Ask Lord Vetinari to bind a tie.

            Vimes couldn't help himself. Maybe it was worry. Maybe it was fatigue.

            He smiled.

            The Patrician swung his glance away from Captain Carrot.

            "You find the latest number of injured vampires amusing, Vimes?"

            The smile disappeared.

            "No, sir."

            The stare the Patrician gave him lasted several seconds longer than was comfortable.

            "Could you excuse us for a moment, captain?"

            When he and Vimes were alone, Lord Vetinari left his desk and gazed out the window, his hands clasped behind his back.

            "How is Mrs. Figgers these days?"

            One hour. The Patrician had found out and she'd left the Yard just one hour ago.

            "She's fine, sir."

            "Good. Good. She was my mother's servant. She always had my best interests at heart. Usually."

            Vimes didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything.

            "That was a painful chapter of my life, Sir Samuel. From beginning to end, when looked at in hindsight. Isabella Capelli was a brilliant talent and a lovely young woman. She was also, for all too brief a time, a close friend. Alas, not as close as I would have liked."

            He paused.

            Vimes pawed the helmet in his hands.

            "Look, sir, if it's too--"

            "Since you are unstoppably curious, I will tell you why she left for Pseudopolis on that tragic day. She chose to go and attend a prestigious school of architecture rather than give me her hand, despite the advantages marriage would have brought her and her family. It was a responsible decision; her talent required a certain kind of environment to reach its potential. I supported her wholeheartedly." Lord Vetinari took a breath and let it out slowly. "It is dangerous for a nobleman to acquire romantic ideals about marriage. But at the time, I was convinced that Isabella would help me greatly in my work and fulfil the natural craving for companionship that we all have." He turned from the window. "Even me."

            If Vetinari had been wearing dark glasses, Vimes wouldn't have seen anything different about his face. It wasn't flushed with emotion. There was no particular difference to the frown, to the arch of his brows. Everything was in the eyes, a change to the shape, a small difference that resulted in a look of quiet sadness.

            "It hadn't occurred to me that she would refuse," said Vetinari as he walked slowly back to his desk. "I am not one given to miscalculations but I had not had many opportunities to walk the halls of love. I overestimated my own worth. I was a young man, handsome to some, wealthy, noble, intelligent, ambitious. It was safe to assume that any young lady of the middle class would jump at my proposal."

            His fingers curled around the back of his chair.

            "Instead of refusing me directly, she visited me one day excited about being accepted into the Pseudopolis school. I didn't try to influence her decision. I helped her prepare to leave, not knowing just how tragic that coach ride on an icy winter morning would be. After her death, I found it difficult to shake the thought that I should have told her--" He stared into space, silent for a moment. "You are aware, of course, that I am not a demonstrative man, Vimes. I never was. But if I had at least told her…what I should have…perhaps she would not have left. I deeply regretted my silence. Our worst mistakes, the ones we most regret, must be borne like stones chained behind us. We drag them through the years and can only hope the burden will become lighter."

            He sat back at his desk.

            "Happily, time has an erosive effect on the past. The episode with Isabella was before all of this." He waved at the Oblong Office. "Over the years, I thought of her only during nostalgic moods that came, thankfully, ever more rarely. It is ironic that she has returned now when a decade ago," he smiled briefly, "I would have reacted quite differently to seeing her ill in your house. However, age and experience make us more prudent if we allow it. The issue of Isabella is now in my hands and I am doing my best to resolve it. I ask you to leave it to me."

            Vimes found himself agreeing without thinking. He felt like a right heel for talking to Mrs. Figgers in the first place.

            "I'm sorry, sir."

            Lord Vetinari positioned a paper in front of him and lifted a quill.

            "So am I. But we must never let such things distract us from our duty."

**

            The Librarian waddled into the Archchancellor's office with an oversized, leather-bound book under one long, furry arm. Most of the senior faculty were already there shoving for space on the sofa, bickering over the armchairs or attempting to drape themselves gracefully on the window sills. Ponder Stibbons was absent. The Bursar, harmlessly insane on his good days, was busy sticking feathers from Ridcully's fishing lures in his ears. Though the slowly rotting swordfish on the wall over Ridcully's desk gave off the stink of old sushi dinners, the office had become the command center and gathering place for the wizards investigating the issue of Isabella and her gown.

            Ridcully sat squarely in his chair, his fists on the desk.

            "Now that the Librarian is here, we can get started," he said. "I assume Mister Stibbons will be along. Any progress, Runes?"

            "The designs on the gown aren't in any of our books of magic symbols," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "If they are magical, I have no idea what they mean."

            "They do look nice though, don't they?" said the Senior Wrangler.

            A few wizards nodded.

            "Um, Archchancellor?" said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

            "One moment, Chair. Any response from those clacks messages you sent out, Dean?"

            "Not one said they'd ever heard of a gown like it," said the Dean. "I even got a message out to a couple of expats from Agatea and they said dragon gowns were common there but nothing like I described."

            The Bursar, red and yellow feathers sticking out of his ears, struck a pose in front of the window and sang, "I feel pretty…o so pretty…I feel pretty and witty and briiiiiight. And I pity, any girl who isn't me tonight…"

            "Thank you, Bursar," said Ridcully.

            "Archchancellor?"

            "Wait your turn, Chair! I'm going around the room in a logical fashion according to your sitting order, isn't that obvious?" Ridcully rolled his eyes and nodded at the Senior Wrangler. "What have you got?"

            "Well, the Librarian and I think we've found a precedent for Miss Capelli's situation." He waved at the Librarian, who deposited the book in front of Ridcully and opened it to a marked page.

            "Ook," he said. "Ook ook…ook." He turned to look at the Senior Wrangler, who nodded with encouragement. "Ook ook ook, ook?"

            "Yes, that is interesting," said Ridcully. He finished skimming the page. The Dean wandered over for a look.

            "What's it say, Mustrum?"

            "Says here that 700 years ago an Ephebian returned from the dead, in this case fifty years after the fact, with memories of those years intact."

            The Bursar pranced to the middle of the room, swinging his robe, then bobbed back to the window, still singing. "See that pretty girl in that mirror, there?" He pointed coquettishly at the window. "Who could that attractive girl be?"

            "Bursar," said Ridcully, frowning.

            "Such a pretty face…"

            "Bursar."

            "Such a pretty dress…"

            "Bursar!"

            "Such a pretty smile…"

            "BURSAR!"

            "Such a pretty faaaaace!" The Bursar let his extended tenor tone die out, then spun away, waving his arms happily. At a nod from Ridcully, the Dean removed a bottle of Dried Frog Pills from his robe, told the Bursar to open his mouth, close his eyes and get ready for a big surprise. The Bursar obeyed. He swallowed the pills, and gave the Dean a good-natured grin.

            Ridcully nodded. "All right, then, gentlemen. We were talking about an Ephebian bloke who didn't have the sense to stay dead and who remembered things he shouldn't have. Is there more, Senior Wrangler?"   

            "No one knew how it happened. The man apparently lived a normal life. Normal under the circumstances. He died at a regular age. It was the only precedent we've found so far."

            The Chair of Indefinite Studies raised his hand. "Archchanchellor?"

            "All right, Chair. It's your turn. This better be good."

            "It moved."

            There was silence in the office. The wizards mentally interpreted the meaning of those two simple words and none of them came up satisfied.

            "I don't think we're following," said the Dean. "Are you following?" he asked the group. Besides the Bursar, who nodded, the wizards shook their heads.

            "I mean," said the Chair, his hands pressed nervously between his knees, "that the dragon on the back of the gown kind of…" he hesitated.

            "What?"

            "It changed direction."

            The Chair had been assigned to keep an eye on the gown, to check in on it now and then to make sure no wandering student found his way into the cellars and did a fool thing like put it on.

            "It was facing to the left," he said, "and then later it was facing to the right. And then it faced left again."

            "Are you sure?"

            "I called Stibbons to go and look. He must be down there now."

            "Why would the dragon do that?" asked the Senior Wrangler.

            "Maybe it wanted an alternative view."

            "Don't be ridiculous, Runes. All of the cellar walls look the same."

            "But the dragon wouldn't know that until it changed views, would it?"

            "Bibble," said the Bursar calmly. The pills were having the desired effect.

            "And there's something else," said the Chair. "There's something about the colour. That bluish shimmer it has gets worse in the dark, or at least when I put a candle near the fabric."

            "You put a candle near the gown?" said the Dean in an accusing tone.

            "It was an experiment. When I held up the candle, the colours on the gown seemed to get kind of…reflective. Like the whole thing was made of glass. It shined right back at me."

            The wizards paused at the sound of loud flapping of shoes on the floor of the hallway outside, the scraping sound of someone sliding to a stop on the other side of the door, and an audible gasp for air. Ponder burst into the room.

            "It moved!" he gasped.

            "We've established that, Mister Stibbons," said Ridcully. "Which way is the dragon facing now?"

            Ponder swallowed and clutched his chest. He wasn't much of a runner and the cellars were a long way down.

            "The dragon design was facing left and then it suddenly shimmered and when I blinked, it was facing right."

            "What do you think it means?"

            "I have no idea, sir." Ponder slumped into the chair the Librarian vacated for him. "I haven't had much luck on the STUMs issue either. If Miss Capelli had been in or near a library when she changed dimensions, that would make sense. But a garden…" he shook his head.

            "She might not have changed dimensions," said the Senior Wrangler. "We found a precedent for a delayed return from the dead."

            "Then I guess we should talk to Death," said Ponder.

            The wizards looked at one another. They had the power to summon Death, but it wasn't anything they liked to do on a regular basis. The Prince of Eternity got a bit huffy if he was disturbed at an inconvenient time.

            "Maybe we should exhaust all other possibilities first," said the Dean.

            Ponder rubbed his glasses with a corner of his robe. "Now that I think about it, Death really could give us some answers. At least he could tell us if she's really dead. That would help narrow the list of possible solutions. Process of elimination."

            "No Death," said Ridcully firmly. "I heard he's involved in some sort of theatrical production at the moment and frowns on interruptions. We'll do whatever else we can. Death is the last resort. He prefers it that way, you know."