Night Watch - Terry Pratchett [73]
“Luck played a part,” said Vimes. “And I’ve got three men who carry no personal identification whatsoever in the cells, and another anonymous would-be assassin who has been assassinated.”
“Quite a problem,” said Lawn. “Now me, I just have to deal with simple mysteries like what the rash means.”
“I intend to solve mine quite quickly,” said Vimes.
The Assassin moved quietly from roof to roof until he was well away from the excitement around the Watch House.
His movements could be called catlike, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things.
Eventually he reached one of the upper world’s many hidden places, where several thickets of chimneys made a little hidden space, invisible from the ground and from most of the surrounding roofscape. He didn’t enter it immediately, but circled it for a while, moving with absolute silence from one vantage point to another.
What would have intrigued a watcher who knew the ways of Ankh-Morpork’s Guild of Assassins was how invisible this one was. When he moved, you saw movement; when he stopped, he wasn’t there. Magic would have been suspected and, in an oblique way, the watcher would have been right. Ninety percent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.
At last the man appeared satisfied, and dropped into the space. He picked up a bag from its nesting place between the smoking pots, and there was some faint swishing and heavier breathing that suggested clothes were being changed.
After a minute of so, he emerged from the hidden niche and now, somehow, he was visible. Hard to see, yes, one shadow among others, but nevertheless there in a way that he’d not been before, when he’d been as visible as the breeze.
He dropped lightly onto a lean-to roof and thence to the ground, where he stepped into a handy shadow. Then there was a further transformation. It was done quite easily. The evil little crossbow was disassembled and slipped into the pockets of a clink-free velvet bag, the soft leather slippers were exchanged for a pair of heavier boots that had been stashed in the shadow, and the black hood was pushed back.
He walked lightly around the corner and waited a few minutes, wiping his face.
A coach came along, its torches trailing flame. It slowed briefly, and its door opened and shut.
The assassin settled back in his seat as the coach picked up speed again.
There was a very faint lamp in the carriage. Its glow revealed a female figure relaxing in the shadows opposite. As the coach passed a street torch, there was suggestion of lilac silk.
“You’ve missed a bit,” said the figure. It produced a lilac-colored handkerchief and held it in front of the young man’s face. “Spit,” came the command.
Reluctantly, he did so. A hand wiped his cheek, and then held the cloth up to the light.
“Dark green,” said the woman. “How strange. I understand, Havelock, that you scored zero in your examination for stealthy movement.”
“May I ask how you found that out, Madam?”
“Oh, one hears things,” Madam said lightly. “One just has to hold money up to one’s ear.”
“Well, it was true,” said the Assassin.
“And why was this?”
“The examiner thought I’d used trickery, Madam.”
“And did you?”
“Of course. I thought that was the idea.”
“And you never attended his lessons, he said.”
“Oh, I did. Religiously.”
“He says he never saw you at any of them.”
Havelock smiled. “And your point, Madam, is…?”
Madam laughed. “Will you take some champagne?” There was the sound of a bottle moving in an ice bucket.
“Thank you, Madam, but no.”
“As you wish. I shall. And now…report, please.”
“I can’t believe what I saw. I thought he was a thug. And he is a thug. You can see his muscles thinking for him. But he overrules them moment by moment! I think I saw a genius at work, but…”
“What?”
“He’s just a sergeant, Madam.”
“Don’t underestimate him on that account. It is a very useful rank for the right man. The optimum balance of power and responsibility. Incidentally, they say he can read the street through