Night Watch Read Free Page A

reproachfully.
    Vimes sighed. Igor’s face was full of concern tinged with disappointment. He had been prevented from plying his…craft. He was naturally disappointed.
    “We’ve been through this, Igor. It’s not like sewing a leg back on. And dwarfs are dead set against that sort of thing.”
    “There’s nothing thupernatural about it, thur. I am a man of Natural Philothophy! And he was still warm when they brought him in—”
    “Those are the rules, Igor. Thanks all the same. We know your heart is in the right place—”
    “ They are in the right places , sir,” said Igor reproachfully.
    “That’s what I meant,” Vimes said without missing a beat, just as Igor never did.
    “Oh, very well, sir,” said Igor, giving up. He paused, and then said: “How is her ladyship, sir?”
    Vimes had been expecting this. It was a terrible thing for a mind to do, but his had already presented him with the idea of Igor and Sybil in the same sentence. Not that he disliked Igor. Quite the reverse. There were watchmen walking around the streets right now who wouldn’t have legs if it wasn’t for Igor’s genius with a needle. But—
    “Fine. She’s fine,” he said abruptly.
    “Only I heard that Mrs. Content was a bit worr—”
    “Igor, there are some areas where…look, do you know anything about…women and babies?”
    “Not in so many wordth, sir, but I find that once I’ve got someone on the slab and had a good, you know, rummage around, I can thort out most thingth—”
    Vimes’s imagination actually shut down at this point.
    “Thank you, Igor,” he managed without his voice trembling, “but Mrs. Content is a very experienced midwife.”
    “Jutht as you say, sir,” said Igor, but doubt rode on the words.
    “And now I’ve got to go,” said Vimes. “It’s going to be a long day.”
    He ran down the stairs, tossed the letter to Sergeant Colon, nodded to Carrot, and set off at a fast walk for the Palace.
    After the door had shut one of the watchmen looked up from the desk where he’d been wrestling with a report and the effort of writing down, as policemen do, what ought to have happened.
    “Sarge?”
    “Yes, Corporal Ping?”
    “Why’re some of you wearing purple flowers, Sarge?”
    There was a subtle change in the atmosphere, a suction of sound caused by many pairs of ears listening intently. All the officers in the room had stopped writing.
    “I mean, I saw you and Reg and Nobby wearing ’em this time last year, and I wondered if we were all supposed to…” Ping faltered. Sergeant Colon’s normally amiable eyes had narrowed and the message they were sending was: you’re on thin ice, lad, and it’s starting to creak…
    “I mean, my landlady’s got a garden and I could easily go and cut a—” Ping went on in an uncharacteristic attempt at suicide.
    “You’d wear the lilac today, would you?” said Colon quietly.
    “I just meant that if you wanted me to I could go and—”
    “Were you there?” said Colon, getting to his feet so fast that his chair fell over.
    “Steady, Fred,” murmured Nobby.
    “I didn’t mean…” Ping began. “I mean…was I where, Sarge?”
    Colon leaned on the desk, bringing his round red face an inch away from Ping’s nose.
    “If you don’t know where there was, you weren’t there,” he said in the same quiet voice.
    He stood up straight again.
    “Now me an’ Nobby has got a job to do,” he said. “At ease, Ping. We are going out .”
    “Er…”
    This was not being a good day for Corporal Ping.
    “ Yes? ” said Colon.
    “Er…standing orders, Sarge…you’re the ranking officer, you see, and I’m orderly officer for the day, I wouldn’t ask otherwise but…if you’re going out, Sarge, you’ve got to tell me where you’re going. Just in case anyone has to contact you, see? I got to write it down in the book. In pen and everything,” he added.
    “You know what day it is, Ping?” said Colon.
    “Er…25th of May, Sarge.”
    “And you