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Vimes grabbed Brassbound and stared into his eyes. After a moment he said, “No, I know a killer’s eyes when I see them. That doesn’t mean you ain’t a pirate, though, so we’re going to keep an eye on you, okay, so don’t try anything. I’m trusting you. Heavens help you if I’m wrong.”
Brassbound opened his mouth to speak, but Vimes added quickly, “You could make your life a little easier and possibly longer, Mr. Brassbound, if you were to tell me how many of your jolly parcel of rogues there are on the Fanny.”
“Don’t know, sir. Don’t know who’s still alive, see?”
Vimes looked at the woman as the boat gave a lurch. It was a strange sensation—for a moment Vimes felt almost weightless—and there was a commotion behind them in the cowshed among the great spinning wheels. When he got his balance he managed to say, “I take it that you are Mrs. Sillitoe, madam?”
She nodded. “Yes, I am, commander,” she said as the little girl clung more tightly to her. “I know my husband is still alive, because so are we…at the moment.” She stopped as another surge lifted the entire boat, then the Fanny came down with a splash and a spine-numbing thump, followed by the long-drawn-out bellow of a bullock who had had enough, and the start of a scream.
Vimes, Feeney and Brassbound picked themselves up off the floor. Mrs. Sillitoe and her daughter were, amazingly, still vertical and Mrs. Sillitoe wore a grim smile. “That sound you heard was one of the pirates dying, I’m extremely pleased to say! That means everyone else in the cowshed is alive. Shall I tell you why? He almost certainly didn’t hop! Those lifts and drops are little slams to me: somewhere behind us a damn slam is getting so big that bits of it are calving off and coming down all the way to us at speed, you see, raising the water level and dropping it again like a stone as they go past—and that’s when you have to know enough to dance to the rhythm! Because if you don’t dance to the rhythm of the slam you’ll dance with the Devil soon enough! A man went down there with a crossbow when the fighting started. By the sound of it he wasn’t familiar with the dance. I expect it was Ten Gallon Charlie who got him when he was on the ground, poor lamb. Charlie is the Bullock Wrangler. If he hits a man once, no one will ever have to hit him again.” Mrs. Sillitoe said that in a matter-of-fact, satisfied voice. “If you want to try to steal from our riverboat you have to be prepared for some considerable inconvenience.”
And I thought the city was on the tough side, Vimes thought. He noticed that a prudent Feeney had rearmed the confiscated crossbow and said, “I’m going below to make certain. Mrs. Sillitoe, how many other pirates do you think there are?”
“There were four that came aboard as owners of the cargo.” She began to tick them off on her fingers. “Mr. Harrison the loadmaster got one of them, but another one stabbed him, the devil. I know only one of them went down to the cowshed, and another one helped this simpering little bastard rig up the ropes so that if anybody was left to try any funny business we were hostage, and then that other man went up to the wheelhouse. I was told that we would be all right, provided my husband gets the cargo to Quirm.” The little girl clung to her dress as the woman continued, her face wooden. “Personally, I don’t believe it, but he hasn’t harmed my husband yet. He’s counting, all the time he’s counting. My husband is listening to Old Treachery and remembering! Trying to out-think sixty miles of murderous water! And if he dies, it wins, wherever you are…”
“Feeney, keep your crossbow pointing at this gentleman, will you?” said Vimes. “And if he makes any movement whatsoever, up to and including trying to blow his nose, you have my full authority to shoot him somewhere where it will be seriously inconvenient.”
Vimes headed to the steps and nodded to Feeney and Mrs. Sillitoe, raised a finger and said, “Be with you in just one minute!” And hurried down into the hot and noisome heart of the Wonderful Fanny. Snooker, Vimes thought. Knocking the balls until you have the right one right on cue.
He felt pressure on his feet surge as the vessel lifted, and instantly jumped into the air, landing neatly as the Fanny slapped back down into the water.
He was confronted by a man who would surely make even Willikins think twice. “You’d be Ten Gallons? Mrs. Sillitoe sent me down here. I’m Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch!”
And the man with a face like a troll and a body to match said, “Heard about you. Thought you were dead!”
“I generally look like this at the
end of boat trips, Mr. Gallons,” said Vimes. Then, pointing to an apparent corpse on the floor between them, “What happened to him?”
“I fink he is dead,” Ten Gallons leered. “I’ve never seen a man suffocated by his own nose before.”
It was hard to hear anything down in the cowshed given the complaining of the oxen and the ominous whirring of overstressed gears, but Vimes shouted, “Did he have a crossbow?”
Ten Gallons nodded and fingers thicker than Vimes’s wrist unhooked said weapon off a nail on the wall. “Would come with you, mister, but it’s all the three of us can do to hold things together down here!” He spat. “Ain’t really any hope anyway, the damn slam is right behind us! See you on the other side, copper!”
Vimes nodded at him, examined the crossbow for a moment, made a little adjustment and, satisfied, climbed up the steps.
Vimes looked at the few people left on the Wonderful Fanny who weren’t pouring water on the backs of steaming oxen or trying to hold the boat in one piece and above water. The shocks were indeed getting closer together, he was sure of it, and surely, once there was a big enough hole, the whole damn dam would give way.
All the occupants of the cabin except Brassbound, who fell over, jumped together as yet another surge raised the boat.
There was a sharp intake of breath from Feeney as Vimes went over to the trembling Brassbound, who had clearly realized that he was likely to be the unlucky winner of the first-over-the-side contest. And Feeney actually groaned when Vimes handed the man the recovered crossbow saying, “I told you, Chief Constable, I know a killer when I see one and I need back-up and I’m sure that our Mr. Brassbound is very eager to get himself promptly on to the good side of the law right now, a decision that might well make him look better in court. Am I not right, Mr. Brassbound?”
The young man nodded fervently.
Vimes added, “I’d rather have you down here, Feeney. Until I know exactly who is still on this tub, I’d like you to look after the ladies. Right now I’m not sure I know who’s alive and who’s dead.”
“The Fanny is not a tub, commander,” said Mrs. Sillitoe sharply, “but I’ll forgive you this one time.”
Vimes gave her a little salute as all but Brassbound jumped and once again the idiot floundered.
Vimes turned toward the stairs. “It’s going to be Stratford up there with the pilot, isn’t it, Mr. Brassbound?”
Another, bigger surge this time, and Brassbound landed heavily. He managed to get out, “And he’s heard about you, you know how it is, and he’s determined to get down to the sea before you catch up with him. He’s a killer, sir, a stone killer! Don’t give him a chance, sir, I beg you for all our sakes, and do it quickly for yours!” The air was electric, truly electric. Everything metal shook and jangled. “They say the dam is going to break pretty soon,” said Brassbound.
“Thank you for that, Mr. Brassbound. You sound like a sensible young man to me and I’ll say so to the authorities.”
The worried young man’s face was wreathed in smiles as he said, “And you’re the famous Commander Vimes, sir! I’m glad to be at your back.”
