Bad Influence Chapter 10
The Truth Will Out
Rosalind Morley Souter
*** Okay, this is it ladies and gentle worms. Hope it goes well! I must warn you, I have had a severe case of writer's block since I began Art College; it seems always the way that when ever my art gets better my writing gets worse and vice versa. It sucks. But ho well. So sorry if it seems a little… well… bad, but I've tried my best.***
Her fingers closed around the silver ball, everyone winced. They heard the sound of burning; they all smelt burning flesh… Elsa looked away, Sam shut his eyes, and even Rex couldn't bear to watch…
Yet…
There was no cry, no noise, nothing.
But they had heard… Or had they?
Carrot hadn't moved, his hand had stayed where it was when he was in the process of throwing and his face was as wooden as he could make it.
Angua threw the ball to her other hand and then back again, her face was blank and calm. Everyone craned to see if the silver had burned her…
Carrot coughed to break the silence "Angua, would you like to show the court your hands please?"
She stood up, carefully put the ball on the table and turned to face the court. They all stared as she held up her hands to reveal unburned, un-blistered, unaffected skin. The ring on her finger glittered in an oddly smug way.
The rabble was almost uncontrollable; it took several bangs of the judge's hammer to finally get silence.
"Order! Order!"
Carrot coughed, the courtroom fell silent. He stared at the audience for a moment and then he glanced at Angua, then back. He spoke eventually and said "There you have it."
Vimes felt his jaw drop in amazement, "Ye Gods, how in the Hells did he do that?" He whispered to Sybil, who shrugged.
"Incredible," said Vetinari distantly, "very well done Captain."
Vimes was beginning to suspect something was going on with Vetinari. He was sharp, in more ways than one; he obviously knew something Vimes didn't. But wasn't that always the way? Vimes felt tempted to ask him if he knew anything, but stopped himself. He would ask Carrot. Best to ask him.
Zara looked horrified, everyone could see she was on the verge of screaming, her eyes had gone an odd shade and she was shaking. Her self control was buckling. Elsa saw Angua's look of sudden empathy, but it didn't seem that anyone else did.
Carrot turned to Zara and asked, still politely and calmly, "I'd like to ask you again, did you kill D'mitre?"
"No!" She snapped "Of course I didn't! You can't prove it!"
Yet he continued "Zara, on the night before the murder, did you change into a werecat-"
"No!"
"Then murder D'mitre in a manner similar to a werewolf-"
"NO!"
"Then plant the body where sergeant Angua was approaching, wait for her to come and attack her with the bomb-"
"NO GODSDAMMIT!"
"Then wound her and tear her clothing so it looked like she changed and fought with D'mitre?"
"No! NO! NO!" She was screaming now, her eyes wide and mad, her hair flying over her face in a tattered main "You can't prove ANYTHING!"
Her face was a bare inch away from his, she looked right into his eyes, big blue honest eyes that held only the truth… but what truth? Sometimes, truth can come inch by inch, not a lie, but a truth that doesn't always reveal itself all at once. Sometimes, people only need to see bits of truth and make their own conclusions. This can be a bad idea; the whole truth is needed sometimes, but other times… a little bit is enough. Enough to tip the scales in your favour. The trouble is, is your favour the right one? In Carrot's eyes Zara, or at least the part of Zara that was still trying to gather itself, saw the whole truth and nothing but, fragmented and divided to produce the reasons why the love he held for his city and his family came first. Because personal may not be the same as important, but when it comes down to it, what becomes important, soon becomes irreversibly personal.
Carrot blinked, Elsa saw he had allowed Zara to look into his eyes for that moment, to let her see why he was doing this. He bowed his head, "No, you're right Zara; I have no proof to my accusations. I cannot accuse you without sufficient evidence."
Vimes thought "Surely that outburst is enough damned proof?" But then… Angua had snapped like that hadn't she? It was almost conclusive proof at the time, but now… it was just a snap of temper. Anyone, Gods knew he had had many like that, could lose their mind for a split second and threaten like that. You didn't need to be a werewolf for that.
Or a werecat.
Carrot pulled back from her for a moment, he nodded and sighed "You are right; we have no proof of your guilt."
The babble in the audience rose a little, before Carrot's gaze settled it right down again. He walked over to the table next to Angua and said "We have proved enough for us, the only thing that remains is to shake hands and be done with this whole business."
A familiar chair pushed back and Mrs D'mitre said, loud and full of self-righteous anger "What about my husband's murderer?! Doesn't anyone care?!"
"We care Mrs D'mitre, but for now we must wrap this up. We will begin an investigation in the morning."
Angua stood up and held out her hand to Zara, the shaking, wild-eyed Zara looked suspiciously at her, then at Carrot. She glared for just a moment and then walked over to shake Angua's hand. She took it and-
The sound that followed sent uproar in the court because no one expected it. The sound, the slight smell of burning and Zara's cry; somewhere between a hiss and a scream. She struggled out of Angua's hand and leapt back across the room, landing on her feet and hissing.
"You tricked me!" She screamed.
Angua inspected her hand, the gold ring steamed slightly; there were small cuts along her hand like claws had dug in…
"Ye Gods…" Vimes breathed, "Of all the underhanded…"
"He's pretty good isn't he?" Said Vetinari, apparently, but not surprisingly, unaffected by the kafuffle.
"Zara, the ring Angua is wearing is gold, almost pure gold and that burns werecats does it not?" Carrot said still calm and inquiring. It was the most unsettling and unnerving tone anyone could adopt in the situation.
"It's a trick! A gods-damned trick!" Zara was raving "The court needs proof!"
"Yes," the judge found his voice somewhere, "Captain, we need proof. How do we know-"
A bundle of papers was placed in front of the judge. He read them carefully, whilst Zara hissed and growled under her breath. He looked at Carrot for a long time and then said "How did you get hold of these papers?"
"I was given them," Carrot replied levelly.
"And they are genuine?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
Carrot stood back and drew his sword slowly. The sound was menacing, but oddly comforting, like a resolution that you would later regret. Carrot placed the sword down in front of the judge on top of the papers. The crowd was stunned, no one dared to even move.
The judge stared at the sword for a long time, his eyes fixed on the blade. It looked to all intents and purposes like a watchmen's sword; practical, unremarkable, plain, but so damned sharp it could cut through a king's sword any day of the week… And here it was, in the hands of a man who loved being a Watchman more than anything. He gave this dull, completely unexceptional sword a shine and nobility only found in the kind of king that might not have even existed in the first place.
Yet here he was.
The judge stared at Carrot's face for a long long time. The man's honest blue eyes fixed at the wall past De Witte, not revealing anything, yet saying quite a lot. The judge sat back a bit and said quietly "I have heard the rumours, I'm sure a lot of people have."
"Yes sir," said Carrot.
"Can I ask you something captain?"
"Yes sir."
"Why?"
Carrot appeared to be thinking for a long time. A lot of the audience looked puzzled and bewildered, Vimes thought "If I had been Old Stoneface, and I had to execute this man because I believed it was for the good of the city, would I have done it? Do I hate kings that much?
Hopefully it would never ever come to that, because I don't think I could ever do that, if I could, what kind of man would I be? Someone who loved a city of people so much that I would kill a good, honest man? Who just so happened to be… But he wasn't. It was a coincidence, a lot of dodgy evidence backed up by a coincidence. And half baked mythology. But if he were king… Gods preserve us; I might be the bastard who has to deliver us from a good man. He can't be king, it would make everything fall away from him and he would end up like the rest of the bastards… A man like Carrot could control the world just by asking politely, he knows that he possesses a powerful gift and he knows he has to keep control over it- The law, the uniform, the badge, the children. His son and daughter and his wife… they keep him remembering who he is, a Captain of the Watch, not a king, a Watch captain under the command of… the law… and me. The bastard who may one day have to kill him. It makes sense. It's so damned obvious we often miss it completely, but it makes sense, only if you think things you never wanted to think. Is that what Carrot's doing now? Testing the judge? To see whether he could really disobey the evidence that lays before him? He has to protect his wife by letting go of those boundaries he's laid for himself for a while. Just a minute is all he needs before he goes back to being the simple, humble Captain of the watch. How's that for irony? Vetinari's probably figured this out already, but he's letting me catch up so he can give me the most sardonic smile he can muster. He'd laugh this one off for months if he ever laughed at all… who knows? Who can ever understand men like Vetinari? Or Carrot? They think the same way, but on different ends of the spectrum. One good, honest and fair like a swing of a sword… the other… ironic, honest and… fair like a crossbow's bolt in the head of a truly, evil, malicious bastard.
Elsa up in the gallery was in complete and utter awe of her father, here he was, a king in the uniform of a policeman. He walked as if he owned the city, her mother always said, he knows the life that lies in the streets and in the buildings and he takes an interest. He cares. He cares for me, my brother and my mother a lot, but he also cares for the people in the city because he knows them. He finds it hard to make his care personal and not general, but he still loves us because… well, we're his children. That was the simple answer. But there was more to this than Elsa felt she couldn't fully understand, she was only a child she knew and she couldn't think like her father just yet… but…
She glanced at Rex; he appeared to be thinking hard to. Like his father. It was frankly uncanny. Maybe he knew? He probably knew more than she did, because… well… he just did. It was probably the family resemblance in play there.
Carrot replied, as if the whole room had been waiting millennia for his answer, the answer that once and for all confirmed Vimes' thoughts.
"What else could I do for the good of the city?" He said.
The silence was only punctured by someone choking satisfactorily on a humbug and a watchman reluctantly administrating the Heimlich Manoeuvre (or whatever the Ankh Morpork equivalent is!).
The judge appeared to have reached a decision, and by the way he slowly reached for his hammer, it was a big one. He appeared to have made up his mind.
Zara was growling and struggling, but Sgt Detritus had decided that he ought to step in and had clamped both of his huge troll hands over her shoulders. She struggled against him, but it was like kicking a mountain.
Vimes felt his heart thump painfully in his chest and Sybil's hand engulfed his.
Elsa squeezed Sam's hand so hard that Sam winced.
Rex just stared.
The judge sighed and raised the hammer and, still keeping his eyes on Carrot, he spoke.
To Be Continued!
*suspence*
