Part 18 (1/2)

”It smells newer,” said Angua. ”I'd say he was here last night.”

”After Ossie was dead?” Ossie was dead?”

”Yes.”

”Why?”

”How should I know? What kind of name is 71-hour Ahmed?” said Angua.

Carrot shrugged. ”I don't know. I think think Mr. Vimes thinks that someone in Ankh-Morpork wants us to believe that Klatchians paid to have the Prince killed. That sounds...nasty but logical. But I don't understand why a Mr. Vimes thinks that someone in Ankh-Morpork wants us to believe that Klatchians paid to have the Prince killed. That sounds...nasty but logical. But I don't understand why a real real Klatchian would get involved...” Klatchian would get involved...”

Their eyes met.

”Politics?” they said together.

”For enough money, a lot of people would do anything anything,” said Angua.

There was a sudden and ferocious knocking at the door.

”Have you got someone in there?” said Mrs. Spent.

”Out of the window!” said Carrot.

”Why don't I just stay and rip her throat out?” said Angua. ”All right, all right, it was a joke joke, all right?” she said, swinging her legs over the sill.

Ankh-Morpork no longer had a fire brigade. The citizens had a rather disturbingly direct way of thinking at times, and it did not take long for people to see the rather obvious flaw in paying a group of people by the number of fires they put out. The penny really dropped shortly after Charcoal Tuesday.

Since then they had relied on the good old principle of enlightened self-interest. People living close to a burning building did their best to douse the fire, because the thatch they saved might be their own.

But the crowd watching the burning emba.s.sy were doing so in a hollow-eyed, distant way, as if it was all taking place on some distant planet.

They moved aside automatically as Vimes elbowed his way through to the s.p.a.ce in front of the gates. Flames were already licking from every ground-floor window, and they could make out scurrying silhouettes in the flickering light.

He turned to the crowd. ”Come on! What's up with you? Get a bucket chain going!”

”It's their their b.l.o.o.d.y emba.s.sy,” said a voice. b.l.o.o.d.y emba.s.sy,” said a voice.

”Yeah. 's Klatchian soil, right?”

”Can't go on Klatchian soil.”

”That'd be an invasion invasion, that would.”

”They wouldn't let us,” said a small boy holding a bucket.

Vimes looked at the emba.s.sy gateway. There were a couple of guards. Their worried glances kept going back from the fire behind them to the crowd in front. They were nervous men, but it was much worse than that, because they were nervous men holding big swords.

He advanced on them, trying to smile and holding his badge out in front of him. It had a s.h.i.+eld on it. It was not a very big s.h.i.+eld.

”Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch,” he said, in what he hoped was a helpful and friendly voice.

A guard waved him away. ”Hyou be off!”

”Ah...” said Vimes. He looked down at the cobbles of the gateway and then back up at the guard. Somewhere in the flames someone was screaming.

”You! Come here! You see this?” he shouted at the guard, pointing down. The man took a hesitant step forward.

”That's Ankh-Morpork soil down there, my friend,” said Vimes. ”And you're standing on it and you're obstructing me in my-” he rammed his fist as hard as he could into the guard's stomach ”-duty!”

He was already kicking out as the other guard rushed him. He caught him on the knee. Something went click. It felt like Vimes's own ankle.

Cursing and limping slightly, he ran on into the emba.s.sy and caught a scurrying man by his robe.

”Are there people still in there? Are there people people in there?” in there?”

The man gave Vimes a panicky look. The armfuls of paper he'd been carrying spilled on to the ground.

Someone else grabbed his shoulder. ”Can you climb, Mr. Vimes?”

”Who're-”

The newcomer turned to the cowering paper-carrier and struck him heavily across the face. ”Rescuer of paper!”

As the man fell back his turban was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his head.

”This way!” The figure plunged off through the smoke. Vimes hurried after him until they reached a wall, with a drainpipe attached.

”How did you-?”

”Up! Up!”

Vimes put one foot in the man's cupped hands, managed to get the other one on a bracket, and forced himself upward.

”Hurry!”

He managed to half climb, half pull himself up the pipe, little fireworks of pain exploding up and down his legs as he reached a parapet and hauled himself over. The other man rose behind him as if he'd run up the wall.

There was a strip of cloth hiding the lower half of his face. He thrust another strip toward Vimes.

”Across your nose and mouth!” he commanded. ”For the smoke!”

It was boiling across the roof. Beside Vimes a chimneypot gushed a roaring tongue of flame.

The rest of the unwound turban was thrust into his hands.

”You take this side, I'll take the other,” said the apparition, and darted away again into the smoke.