Night Watch полностью

“Well, I can see you're a dangerous individual,” he said. “We'd better have you where we can keep an eye on you. Hey, that's right. You can undermine the enemy from within.”

The relieved Reg raised a fist in salute and carried a table to the new barricade with revolutionary speed. There was some hurried conversation behind the old makeshift barricade, already being denuded of Mrs Rutherford's furniture. This was interrupted by the clatter of hoofbeats from the far end of Treacle Mine Road and a sudden burst of instant decisiveness on the part of the remainder of the crowd.

They poured towards the new official barricade, with Lance-Constable Vimes bringing up the rear, fairly well hampered by a dining-room chair.

“Mind out for that!” shouted a female voice from somewhere behind him. “It's one of a set!”

Vimes put his hand on the young man's shoulder. “Just give me your crossbow, will you?” he said.

The horsemen came closer.

Vimes was not good at horsemen. Something in him resented being addressed by anyone eight feet above the ground. He didn't like the sensation of being looked at by nostrils. He didn't like being talked down to.

By the time they'd reached the barricade he'd clambered around to the front of it and was standing in the middle of the street.

They slowed down. It was probably the way he didn't move, and held the crossbow in the nonchalant manner of someone who knows how to use it but has decided not to, for the moment.

“You, there!” said a trooper.

“Yes?” said Vimes.

“Are you in charge?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“Where are your men?”

Vimes jerked a thumb towards the growing barricade. On the top of the heap, Mrs Rutherford's father was snoring peacefully.

“But that's a barricade!” said the trooper.

“Well done.”

“There's a man waving a flag!”

Vimes turned. Surprisingly, it was Reg. Some of the men had brought out the old flag from Tilden's office and stuck it on the barricade, and Reg was the sort to wave any flag going.

“Probably high spirits, sir,” said Vimes. “Don't worry. We're all fine.”

“It's a damn barricade, man. A rebel barricade!” said the second trooper. Oh boy, thought Vimes. They have shiny, shiny breastplates. And wonderfully fresh pink faces.

“Not exactly. In fact it's—”

“Are you stupid, fellow? Don't you know that all barricades are to be torn down by order of the Patrician?”

The third horseman, who had been staring at Vimes, urged his horse a little closer.

“What's that pip on your shoulder, officer?” he said.

“Means I'm Sergeant-at-Arms. Special rank. And who're you?”

“He doesn't have to tell you that!” said the first trooper.

“Really?” said Vimes. The man was getting on his nerves. “Well, you're just a trooper and I'm a bleedin' sergeant and if you dare speak to me like that again I'll have you down off that horse and thump you across the ear, understand?”

Even the horse took a step backwards. The trooper opened his mouth to speak, but the third horseman raised a white-gloved hand.

Oh dear, thought Vimes, focusing on the sleeve of the red jacket. The man was a captain. Not only that, he was an intelligent one, by the look of him. He hadn't mouthed off until he'd had a chance to assess the situation. You got them sometimes. They could be dangerously bright.

“I note, sergeant-at-arms,” said the captain, enunciating the rank with care and without apparent sarcasm, “that the flag over the barricade is the flag of Ankh-Morpork.”

“It's the one out of our Watch House,” said Vimes, and added, “sir.”

“You know that the Patrician has declared that the building of barricades is an act of rebellion?”

“Yessir.”

“And?” said the captain patiently.

“Well, he would say that, sir, wouldn't he…”

The faintest hint of a smile skimmed across the captain's face. “We can't allow lawlessness, sergeant-at-arms. If we all disobeyed the law, where would we be?”

“There's more coppers per person behind that barricade than anywhere else in the city, sir,” said Vimes. “You could say it's the most law-abiding place around.”

Now there was the sound of raised voices from behind the barricade.

“—we own all your helmets, we own all your shoes, we own all your generals, Touch us and you'll loooose…Morporkia, Morporkia, Morpooroorooorooooorrroorrr–”

“Rebel songs, sir!” said trooper number one. The captain sighed.

“If you listen, Hepplewhite, you might note that it is the national anthem sung very badly,” he said.

“We can't allow rebels to sing that, sir!”

Vimes saw the captain's expression. It had a lot to say about idiots.

“Raising the flag and singing the anthem, Hepplewhite, are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason,” said the captain. “And we are urgently required elsewhere.” He saluted Vimes, who found himself returning the salute. “We shall leave you, sergeant-at-arms. I trust your day will be full of interest. I fact, I know it.”