Jingo

“Discussed it with him, have you?” said Vimes.

“Not yet.”

Vimes opened and shut his mouth a few times. The Patrician went back to his desk and picked up a sheet of paper.

“And, of course, other details would have to be taken care of…” he said.

“Such as?” Vimes croaked.

“The Vimes coat of arms would be resurrected, of course. It would have to be. I know Lady Sybil was extremely upset when she found you weren't entitled to one. And a coronet, I believe, with knobs on—”

“You can take that coronet with the knobs on and—”

“—which I hope you will wear on formal occasions, such as, for example, the unveiling of the statue which has for so long disgraced the city by its absence.”

For once, Vimes managed to get ahead of the conversation.

“Old Stoneface again?” he said. “That part of it, is it? A statue to old Stoneface?”

“Well done,” said Lord Vetinari. “Not of you, obviously. Putting up a statue to someone who tried to stop a war is not very, um, statuesque. Of course, if you had butchered five hundred of your own men out of arrogant carelessness, we'd be melting the bronze already. No. I was thinking of the first Vimes who tried to make a future and merely made history. I thought perhaps somewhere in Peach Pie Street—”

They watched one another like cats, like poker players.

“Top of Broad Way,” Vimes said hoarsely. “Right in front of the palace.”

The Patrician glanced out of the window. “Agreed. I shall enjoy looking at it.”

“And right up close to the wall. Out of the wind.”

“Certainly.”

Vimes looked nonplussed for a moment. “We lost people—”

“Seventeen, caught in skirmishes of one sort or another,” said Lord Vetinari.

“I want—”

“Financial arrangements will be made for widows and dependants.”

Vimes gave up.

“Well done, sir!” said Carrot.

The new duke rubbed his chin.

“But that means I'll have to be married to a duchess,” he said. “That's a big fat word, duchess. And Sybil's never been very interested in that sort of thing.”

“I bow to your knowledge of the female psyche,” said Vetinari. “I saw her face just now. No doubt when she next takes tea with her friends, who I believe include the Duchess of Quirm and Lady Selachii, she will be entirely unmoved and not faintly smug in any way.”

Vimes hesitated. Sybil was an amazingly level-headed woman, of course, and this sort of thing… She'd left it entirely up to him, hadn't she?… This sort of thing wouldn't… Well, of course she wouldn't, she… Of course she would, wouldn't she? She wouldn't swank, she'd just be very comfortable knowing that they knew that she knew that they knew…

“All right,” he said, “but, look I thought only a king could make someone a duke. It's not like all these knights and barons, that's just, well, political, but something like a duke needs a—”

He looked at Vetinari. And then at Carrot. Vetinari had said that he'd been reminded…

“I'm sure, if ever there is a king in Ankh-Morpork again, he will choose to ratify my decision,” said Vetinari smoothly. “And if there never is a king, well, I see no practical problems.”

“I'm bought and sold, aren't I?” said Vimes, shaking his head. “Bought and sold.”

“Not at all,” said Vetinari.

“Yes, I am. We all are. Even Rust. And all those poor buggers who went off to get slaughtered. We're not part of the big picture, right? We're just bought and sold.”

Vetinari was suddenly in front of Vimes, his chair hitting the floor behind his desk.

“Really? Men marched away, Vimes. And men marched back. How glorious the battles would have been that they never had to fight!” He hesitated, and then shrugged. “And you say bought and sold? All right. But not, I think, needlessly spent.” The Patrician flashed one of those sharp, fleeting little smiles to say that something that wasn't very funny had nevertheless amused him. “Veni, vici… Vetinari.”

Seaweed floated away on aimless currents. Apart from the driftwood, there was nothing to show that Leshp had ever been.

Seabirds wheeled. But their cries were more or less drowned out by the argument going on just above sea level.

“It is entirely our wood, you nodding acquaintance of a dog!”

“Oh? Really? On your side of the island, is it? I don't think so!”

“It floated up!”

“How do you know we didn't have some driftwood on our side of the island? Anyway, we've still got a barrel of fresh water, camel breath!”

“All right! We'll share! You can have half the raft!”

“Aha! Aha! Want to negotiate, eh, now we've got you over a barrel?”

“Can we just say yes, Dad? I'm fed up with treading water!”

“And you'll have to do your share of the paddling.”

“Of course.”

The birds glided and turned, white scribbles against the clear blue sky.

“To Ankh-Morpork!”

“To Klatch!”