Night Watch

Mister Vimes. No more knives. I can’t run. I surrender. No messing about this time. I give in, okay? Just arrest me? For old times’ sake?”
    The Beast screamed inside Vimes. It screamed that no one would blame him for doing the hangman out of ten dollars and a free breakfast. Yeah, and you could say a swift stab now was the merciful solution, because every hangman knew you could go the easy way or the hard way and there wasn’t one in the country that’d let something like Carcer go the easy way. The gods knew the man deserved it…
    …but young Sam was watching him, across thirty years.
    When we break down, it all breaks down. That’s just how it works. You can bend it, and if you make it hot enough you can bend it in a circle, but you can’t break it. When you break it, it all breaks down until there’s nothing unbroken. It starts here and now.
    He lowered the sword.
    Carcer looked up, grinning, and said, “Never tastes right, does it, haha, an egg without salt…”
    Vimes felt his hand begin to move of its own accord—
    And stopped. Red rage froze.
    There was The Beast, all around him. And that’s all it was. A beast. Useful, but still a beast. You could hold it on a chain, and make it dance, and juggle balls. It didn’t think. It was dumb. What you were, what you were, was not The Beast.
    You didn’t have to do what it wanted. If you did, Carcer won.
    He dropped the sword.
    Carcer stared at him, the gleam of Vimes’s sudden smile more worrying than the rictus of his rage. Then metal gleamed in his hand. But Vimes was already on him, grabbing the hand, slamming it again and again on John Keel’s headstone until the hidden knife dropped from bleeding fingers. He dragged the man upright with both hands forced up behind his back and rammed him hard against the stone.
    “See that up in the sky, Carcer?” he said, his mouth by the man’s ear. “That’s the sunset, that is. That’s the stars. And they’ll shine all the better on my lad Sam tomorrow night ’cos they won’t be shining down on you, Carcer, by reason of the fact that before the dew’s off the leaves in the morning I’ll drag you in front of Vetinari, and we’ll have the witnesses there, lots of ’em, and maybe even a lawyer for you if there’s any of ’em who could plead for you with a straight face, and then, Carcer, we’ll take you to the Tanty, one gallows, no waiting, and you can dance the hemp fandango. And then I’ll bleedin’ well go home and maybe I’ll even have a hard-boiled egg.”
    “You’re hurting!”
    “You know, you’re right there, Carcer!” Vimes managed to get both the man’s wrists in a steel grip, and ripped the sleeve off his own shirt. “I’m hurting and I’m still doing it all by the book.” He wrapped the linen around the wrists a couple of times and knotted it firmly. “I’ll make sure there’s water in your cell, Carcer. I’ll make sure you get breakfast, anything you like. I’ll make sure the hangman doesn’t get sloppy and let you choke to death. I’ll even make sure the trapdoor is greased.” He released the pressure. Carcer stumbled, and Vimes kicked his legs from under him.
    “The machine ain’t broken, Carcer. The machine is waiting for you,” he said, tearing a sleeve off the man’s own shirt and fashioning it into a crude binding for his ankles. “The city will kill you dead. The proper wheels’ll turn. It’ll be fair, I’ll make sure of that. Afterward you won’t be able to say you didn’t have a fair trial. Won’t be able to say a thing, haha. I’ll see to that, too…”
    He stood back.
    “Good evening, Your Grace,” said Lord Vetinari. Vimes spun around. There was a change of texture in the darkness, which could have been man-shaped.
    Vimes snatched up his sword and peered into the night. The shape came forward, became recognizable.
    “How long were you there?” he demanded.
    “Oh…some little while,” said the Patrician. “Like you, I prefer to come alone and…contemplate.”
    “You were very quiet!” said Vimes accusingly.
    “Is that a crime, Your Grace?”
    “And you heard—?”
    “A very neat arrest,” said Vetinari. “Congratulations, Your Grace.”
    Vimes looked at the unblooded sword.
    “I suppose so,” he said, temporarily derailed.
    “On the birth of your son, I meant.”
    “Oh…yes. Oh. Of course. Yes. Well…thank you.”
    “A healthy lad, I am given to understand.”
    “We’d have been just as happy with a