Chapter 9 - Bovis Stercus

Carlin rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, groaning. She had stayed up far too late the night before with a mound of paperwork and the Al Khali Watch book of clacks ciphers, eventually going to bed after she had accidentally fallen asleep on top of a report.

As it was, she had the Klatchian word for "godsawful bastard" printed, backwards, on her forehead.

She blinked slowly against the rough linen of the pillowcase, trying to figure out, in her half-awake stupor, what had woken her up in the first place. It was fairly quiet in the room they'd given her... an old office no one had been using. Apparently the Patrician had, when approving her request for Hot Pursuit, made sure that she wouldn't have to room with the men. Whether it was because she was an officer or a woman she didn't know, but she appreciated the gesture. It meant she could prance around in her underwear when she felt like it, and underwear prancing was an important part of being herself.

There was an insistent knocking at the door. Oh, right...

"gnnh," she mumbled, a little less eloquent than she had originally intended.

"Commander?" Kareem called through the door.

"The commander is dead," she called back, sticking her head under her pillow. "Come back after the appropriate rituals have been completed, last rites read, etc."

"I've got some coffee for you."

Carlin sat up quickly, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes. "Oh gods, give it to me now!"

Kareem opened the door and stepped in carefully, balancing a tray on his free hand. "Klatchian coffee, too," he said. "Goriff's dad down at Mundane Meals did some up for us." He grinned and handed her the mug. "They're nothing like each other, interestingly enough. His dad's a lot less pigheaded."

Carlin huddled over the coffee cup, sticking her face into the rising steam. "Coooffeeeee," she keened, and sucked it down hurriedly.

Kareem winced. The Commander couldn't hold her drink, but she drank coffee like a champion. Klatchian coffee barely phased her, although she was usually more talkative after drinking a few cups. Of course, with the Commander... well, she was always talkative, coffee or no. "Er, Commander..."

Carlin's only response was blowing bubbles into the scalding liquid.

"You slept in your chainmail again. That can't be healthy."

Carlin drained the mug, tipping her head back to catch the last few drops, and thumped the mug down on the mattress. "Yeah, well," she said, rubbing her eyes. "It's a bugger to take off when you're pooped." She gave him a look. "Any news from the front? How's the Patrician holding up? And has Vimes decided to kick us out yet?"

"Er, maybe you should get out of bed, Commander-"

"What, and let you see me in my knickers? I'm a free woman, captain, but I'm not loose."

"With all due respect, Commander, you did sleep in your uniform."

"Well, yes. But still. Report. And send for more coffee. My brain is still feeling lumpy."

Kareem heaved a sigh. The Commander took some getting used to, and he still hadn't gotten accustomed to her over the five years she'd been the Commander. It was hard enough taking orders from a woman, but taking orders from a woman who swore prolifically, smoked cigars, spoke ill of the monarchy, drank Klatchian coffee as though it were water, and said things like "my brain is still feeling lumpy" was a camel of a different color.

"The Patrician is just as he was when you asked last," he said. "Apparently they're finding it difficult to discern whether or not he's really alive. You know, in his brain. And, well, Commander Vimes..."

Carlin gave him a look. "What about him?"

"Let's just say he's not really in any position to be kicking us out anytime soon."

Hmm. That had gone well.

Vimes sat uncomfortably in the wooden chair, a bemused expression on his face. There was an ugly bruise over his right eye, but he didn't seem to notice it.

The guards who had come to his door hadn't reckoned on meeting Sybil. That had been interesting. She'd used her aristocratic voice and everything. The poor men had marched out of the house before remembering themselves and knocking again in a rather embarrassed way. Vimes was impressed.

Impressed and, more importantly, tied up. Well, tied down, really. He had gone with the guards easily enough, but had immediately been dragged into a dark room and tied to a chair. Someone had hit him, too, which hadn't really been on the menu earlier in the evening.

He was, as Dr Lawn had a tendency to put it, "experiencing some discomfort."

Now... what to do? He taught his Sammies to assess the situation first thing, but he figured he'd already done that. Next on the list was compiling a list of useful information and possible tools.

Information: it was bloody dark.

Tools: some rope, which was unfortunately bound rather tightly around most of his body.

Right, then. Next...

The door opened, and he blinked in the sudden light. Damn, damn! They knew the old Blinding The Prisoners trick... standing in the light so the prisoner couldn't see you. If he couldn't see you, he wouldn't know who you were. If he didn't know who you were, he didn't know whether or not you were likely to hurt him. If he didn't know whether or not you were likely to kill him, he'd get scared and pliable. Well, ha, Vimes knew that trick.

Trouble was he was feeling himself getting a little scared.

"Commander Vimes," said the figure in the doorway. A woman's voice, commanding and pompous. "I hope you know why you have been brought here."

Fear turned to anger, and Vimes growled. "Bloody-mindedness," he said.

The woman paused, then moved into the room. "Yes," she said, "but not on our part by any means. We are much too rational to fall into such traps of the mind."

"'We'? Who's this 'we'? And why the hell am I tied up?"

The woman sighed and sat down in a comfortable chair facing Vimes. "I'll be asking the questions here, Commander," she said in a weary voice. "I'm sure a man of your... caliber can understand the importance of that rule."

Vimes grunted.

"I see," she said after a moment, and wrote something down on a piece of paper. "That's very interesting. Now then... where were you at the time of the assassination?"

"Attempted assassination," Vimes said.

The woman smiled humorlessly. "That is yet to be determined, Commander. Now please answer the question."

"I was inspecting the training facilities, all right? It's supposed to be done once a month."

"Did anyone see you there?"

"Fred Colon saw me, as well as any number of new recruits."

"Hmm." She stared at him for a few moments, then wrote something down. "Now then, Commander... I've come to understand that you actually left the training facilities for a span of about-" she flipped the paper over and glanced at the leaf underneath it "-ten minutes, at roughly the same time as what we shall now call the crime in the interests of simplicity. Do you have anything to say about this?"

Oh, gods. That's right.

"I went outside for a smoke," he said.

Her eyebrows went up. "For ten minutes?"

Vimes glowered. "Everyone knows you can't rush a good cigar."

"And you have witnesses?"

Damn. Damn! Of course there hadn't been any witnesses... he'd wanted privacy. What a day that had been... those damn Al Khali watchmen tearing about the place making things all kinds of difficult, recruits who didn't seem to know one end of a sword from the other, Fred acting especially sergeant-y for reasons unfathomable... all that on top of the usual bluster, and Angua having a bad hair to round it all out.

"... no," he finally said. "I wanted privacy. I went behind the shed by-"

"Interestingly enough, there are certain individuals who have sworn that they saw you outside the palace at that time. A few of your own officers, in fact. Apparently they saluted and you gave them a, quote, 'shifty, uncertain look' and darted off. Do you have anything to declare? Commander Vimes?"

His head was swimming in a purple world full of strange things with knobbly bits. His own officers? Wait, wait... assassins had tried using look-alikes before, hadn't they? Maybe somewhere out there was a banker who looked just like him. Maybe they paid somebody off to lurk around in the general area of the palace looking shifty. Maybe... maybe... maybe he needed to be more stringent with his anti-hallucinogen policies.

That was it. His officers were dabbling in illegal substances! They were obviously experiencing guilt-induced hallucinations created by their own battered brain cells! No other explanation would do!

The purple knobbly things quavered uncertainly, but stopped when Vimes gave them a wild-eyed, furious look.

"Commander Vimes?"

"They must have been on drugs," he said.

Pause. "Ah," she said, and wrote something down. "Thank you, Commander. I think we're all done here. Thank you for your... cooperation." She stood and started to leave the room. Vimes wiggled desperately against the ropes.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Aren't you going to untie me?"

She stopped in the doorway and turned to look at him over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Commander Vimes," she said, her profile outlined against the light. "You're to be detained until a proper trial can be organized." She gave him a meaningful look. "It is so hard to put one together with no Patrician, after all."

"And what do you suggest I do until then, eh?"

"My suggestion, Commander Vimes?" She smiled. "Learn how to sleep sitting up."

To Be Continued