Jingo - Terry Pratchett [66]
“Then if you persist in playing games I will say that before a knight is created he must spend a night’s vigil watching his armor—”
“Practically every night of my life,” said Vimes. “A man doesn’t keep an eye on his armor round here, that man’s got no armor in the morning.”
“In prayer,” said Rust sharply.
“That’s me,” said Vimes. “Not a night has gone by without me thinking, ‘Ye gods, I hope I get through this alive.’”
“—and he must have proved himself on the field of combat. Against other trained men, Vimes. Not vermin and thugs.”
Vimes started to undo the strap of his helmet.
“Well, this isn’t the best of moments, my lord, but if someone’ll hold your coat I can spare you five minutes…”
In Vimes’s eyes Rust recognized the fiery gleam of burning boats.
“I know what you’re doing, Vimes, and I am not going to rise to it,” he said, taking a step back. “In any case, you have had no formal training in arms.”
“That’s true,” said Vimes. “You’ve got me there, right enough. No one ever trained me in arms. I was lucky there.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice so that the watching crowd wouldn’t hear. “Y’see, I know what ‘training in arms’ means, Ronald. There hasn’t been a real war in ages. So it’s all prancing around wearing padded waistcoats and waving swords with knobs on the end so no one’ll really get hurt, isn’t it? But down in the Shades no one’s had any training in arms either. Wouldn’t know an épée from a sabre. No, what they’re good at is a broken bottle in one hand and a length of four-by-two in the other and when you face ’em, Ronnie, you know you aren’t going off for a laugh and a jolly drink afterward, ’cos they want you dead. They want to kill you, you see, Ron? And by the time you’ve swung your nice shiny broadsword they’ve carved their name and address on your stomach. And that’s where I got my training in arms. Well…fists and knees and teeth and elbows, mostly.”
“You, sir, are no gentleman,” said Rust.
“I knew there was something about me that I liked.”
“Can you not even see that you can’t enroll…dwarfs and trolls in an Ankh-Morpork regiment?”
“It just says ‘armed soldiers,’ and dwarfs come with their own axes. A great saving. Besides, if you’ve ever seen them really fight, then you must’ve been on the same side.”
“Vimes—”
“It’s Sir Samuel, my lord.”
Rust seemed to think for a moment.
“Very well, then,” he said. “Then you and your…regiment come under my command—”
“Strangely, no,” said Vimes swiftly. “Under the command of the King or his duly appointed representative, it says in Scavone’s Chivalric Law and Usage. And, of course, there has been no duly appointed representative ever since some complete bastard cut off the last king’s head. Oh, assorted bods appeared to have been ruling the city, but according to the chivalric tradition—”
Rust stopped to think again. He had the look of a lawnmower just after the grass has organized a workers’ collective. There was a definite suggestion that, deep inside, he knew this was not really happening. It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence could be safely ignored. However, it might be necessary to find some motions to go through.
“I think you’ll find that, legally, your position—” he began, and his eyes bulged for a moment as Vimes interrupted him cheerfully.
“Oh, there might be a few problems, I grant you. But if you ask Mr. Slant he’ll say ‘This is a very interesting case,’ which as you know is lawyer-talk for ‘One thousand dollars a day plus expenses and it’ll take months.’ So I’ll leave you to get on with it, shall I? Got such a lot of things to do, you know. I think the swatches for the new uniforms should be in my office about now, it’s so important to look right on the battlefield, isn’t it?”
Rust gave Vimes another look, and then strode away.
Detritus stamped to attention beside Vimes and his salute clanged smartly off his helmet.
“What we doin’ now, sir?”
“We can pack up now, I think. All the lads have joined up?”