Thud! - Terry Pratchett [99]
Vimes appeared in front of them like a whirlwind of wrath.
You scum, you rat-sucking little worm-eaters! You heads-down little scurriers in the dark! What did you bring to my city? What were you thinking? Did you want the deep-downers here? Did you dare deplore what Hamcrusher said, all that bile and ancient lies? Or did you say, “Well, I don’t agree with him, of course, but he’s got a point”? Did you say, “Oh, he goes too far, but it’s about time somebody said it”? And now have you come here to wring your hands and say how dreadful, it was nothing to do with you? Who were the dwarfs in the mobs, then? Aren’t you community leaders? Were you leading them? And why are you here now, you ugly, sniveling grubbers? Is it possible, is it possible, that now, after that bastard’s bodyguards tried to kill my family, you’re here to complain? Have I broken some code, trodden on some ancient toe? To hell with it. To hell with you.
He could feel the words straining, fighting to get out, and the effort of restraining them filled his stomach with acid and made his temples throb. Just one whine, he thought. Just one pompous moan. Go on.
“Well?” he demanded, rubbing his aching hand.
The dwarfs have perceptibly moved backwards. Vimes wondered if they’d read his thoughts; they’d echoed in his brain loudly enough.
A dwarf cleared his throat. “Commander Vimes—” he began.
“You’re Pors Strongingthearm, aren’t you?” Vimes demanded. “One half of Burleigh & Stronginthearm? You make crossbows.”
“Yes, Commander, and—”
“Remove your weapons! All of them! All of you!” Vimes snapped.
The room fell silent. Out of the corner of his eye, Vimes saw a couple of dwarf officers, who had at least been pretending to be engaged in paperwork, rising from their seats.
He was being dangerously stupid, part of him knew, but right now he wanted to hurt a dwarf and he wasn’t allowed to do it with steel. Most of the battle stuff they wore was simply for clang in any case, but a dwarf would sooner drop his drawers than put aside his axe. And these were serious city dwarfs, with seats in the guilds and everything. Ye gods, he was going too far.
He managed to grunt: “All right, keep your battle-axes. Leave everything else at the desk. You’ll get a receipt.”
For a moment, quite a long moment, he thought, no, he hoped they would refuse. But one of them, somewhere in the group, said: “I think we must do this for the commander. These are difficult times. We must learn to fit them.”
Vimes went up to his office, hearing the clinks and clangs behind him, and landed so violently in his chair that this time a wheel snapped off. The receipt was a nasty touch. He was quite pleased with it.
On his desk, on a little stand that Sybil had made for it, was his official baton of office. It was, in fact, the same size as the ordinary coppers’ truncheons, but turned out of rosewood and silver instead of lignum vitae or oak. It still had plenty of weight, though. Certainly enough to leave the words Protecter of thee Kinge’s Piece printed back to front on a dwarf skull.
The dwarfs were ushered in, looking slightly less heavy.
Just one word, Vimes thought as the acid swirled. One damn word. Go on. Just breathe wrong.
“Very well, what can I do for you?” he said.
“Uh, I’m sure you know all of us,” Pors began, trying to smile.
“Probably. The dwarf next to you is Grabpot Thundergust, who has just launched the new Ladies’ Secrets range of perfumes and cosmetics. My wife uses your stuff all the time.”
Thundergust, in traditional chain mail, a three-horned helmet, and with an enormous axe strapped across his back, gave Vimes an embarrassed nod. Vimes’s gaze moved on.
“And you are Setha Ironcrust, proprietor of the chain of bakeries of the same name, and you are surely Gimlet Gimlet, owner of two famous dwarf delicatessens and the newly opened Yo Rat! in Attic Bee Street.” Vimes looked around the office, dwarf after dwarf, until he got back to the front row