Night Watch - Terry Pratchett [95]
They were building a barricade in Whalebone Lane. It wasn’t a particularly good one, made up mostly of overturned market stalls, a small cart, and quite a lot of household furniture, but it was a Symbol.
Rust’s mustache bristled.
“Right in our faces,” he snapped. “Absolute defiance of constituted authority, Sergeant. Do your duty!”
“And what would that be at this point, sir?” said Vimes.
“Arrest the ringleaders! And your men will pull the barricade down!”
Vimes sighed.
“Very well, sir. If you will stand back…”
He walked up to the domestic clutter, aware of eyes watching him before and behind.
When he was a few feet away, he cupped his hands.
“All right, all right, what’s going on here?” he shouted.
He was aware of whispering. And he was ready for what happened next. When the stone flew over the top of the furniture he caught it in both hands.
“I asked a civil question,” he said. “Come on!”
There was more whispering. He distinctly heard “—that’s the sergeant from last night—” and some sort of sotto voce argument. Then a voice shouted, “Death to the Fascist Oppressors!”
This time the argument was more frantic. He heard someone say, “Oh, all right,” and then, “Death to the Fascist Oppressors, Present Company Excepted! There, is everyone happy now?”
He knew that voice.
“Mr. Reginald Shoe, is it?” he said.
“I regret that I have only one life to lay down for Whalebone Lane!” the voice shouted from somewhere behind a wardrobe.
If only you knew, Vimes thought.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. “Come on, ladies and gentlemen. Is this any way to behave? You can’t take…the law…into your own…hands…”
His voice faltered.
Sometimes it takes the brain a little while to catch up with the mouth.
Vimes turned and looked at the squad, who’d needed no prompting at all to hang back. And then he turned to look at the barricade.
Where, exactly, was the law? Right now?
What did he think he was doing?
The Job, of course. The one that’s in front of you. He’d always done it. And the law had always been…out there, but somewhere close. He’d always been pretty sure where it was, and it definitely had something to do with the badge.
The badge was important. Yes. It was shield-shaped. For protection. He’d thought about that, in the long nights in the darkness. It protected him from The Beast, because the beast was waiting in the darkness of his head.
He’d killed werewolves with his bare hands. He’d been mad with terror at the time, but The Beast had been there inside, giving him strength…
Who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men? A copper, that’s who. After ten years, you thought you’d seen it all, but the shadows always dished up more. You saw how close men lived to The Beast. You found that people like Carcer were not mad. They were incredibly sane. They were simply men without a shield. They’d looked at the world and realized that all the rules didn’t have to apply to them, not if they didn’t want them to. They weren’t fooled by all the little stories. They shook hands with The Beast.
But he, Sam Vimes, had stuck by the badge, except for that time when even that hadn’t been enough and he’d stuck by the bottle instead…
He felt as if he’d stuck by the bottle now. The world was spinning. Where was the law? There was the barricade. Who was it protecting from what? The city was run by a madman and his shadowy chums, so where was the law?
Coppers liked to say that people shouldn’t take the law into their own hands, and they thought they knew what they meant. But they were thinking about peaceful times, and men who went around to sort out a neighbor with a club because his dog had crapped once too often on their doorstep. But at times like these, who did the law belong to? If it shouldn’t be in the hands of the people, where the hell should it be? People who knew better? Then you got Winder and his pals, and how