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Vimes did not kick the bedroom door down, because Drumknott had told him that “his lordship is resting,” with the kind of pleading expression that meant “so please don’t kick the door down.” He didn’t come in quietly, though.
“Ah. Vimes.” Vetinari neither spoke nor looked up at the sound, though it wasn’t really clear where he was looking as it was. Sort of into the general middle distance. He looked, strangely, more fragile than he’d been looking. More tired. For a split second Vimes wondered if he should come back later, but he’d been holding this in for two days now and two days was long enough, thank you very much.
“How long did you know?” he demanded.
Rather than respond, Vetinari took a sip of whatever was in the mug he was holding. He swallowed. And tilted his head. And thought about it. Vimes wanted to leap at him, and held himself back from doing so only barely, by thinking very hard about what it would feel like to have lead in his shoes.
“A few days before you,” he said at last. “Although I had suspicions before then.”
“A few days?”
“That is what I said, yes.”
“And you kept burning candles?”
Now Vetinari looked at him, blinking slowly. “I require light in the evening, yes. And depending on the weather I sometimes require them during the day.”
“Are you joking with me?!”
“I assure you I am not. Ankh-Morpork is an overcast city. We often have days where--”
Vimes advanced. “You could have bloody well died!”
“But I did not.” Vetinari let his eyes fall again, this time into the contents of his mug.
“That isn’t the point, sir, the point is that you were dying and there was a way to stop and you didn’t tell me!” Vimes was up against the end of the bed now, gripping one of the posts with one hand, balling up blankets in the other. “Do you understand that it’s my job to see that you don’t? Do you understand that I need to know this kind of thing?”
Vetinari was silent for a long, maddening moment. Lead boots, Vimes reminded himself, lead boots, and strangulation would make a moot point out of what he was here to argue over.
“It isn’t, really,” he said, and set down his mug on the side table.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
Vetinari’s eyes swung back to him, locking onto his face, and Vimes almost took a step back. Vetinari had a lot of expressions to choose from to make someone terrified.[1] For some reason Sincerely Blank Stare With Intent Eye Contact was one of the worst. Maybe because Vetinari didn’t actually make true eye contact that often. Now, though, hazel eyes bored into Vimes like a spear.
“I mean,” he said, slow, “that it is not your job to see that I remain alive.”
Vimes stared back into the sharp of his eyes for a long moment, holding, and then exploded: “Like hell it’s not! I’m your guard, aren’t I--”
“You are not.”
Vimes’s mouth stayed open, but no sound came out. Vetinari had said it so flatly, so unexpectedly besides, that he didn’t know how to respond.
“You are not my guard, and you have never been my guard. You are the Commander of the Watch. Your job is, manifestly, to command the City Watch, and to in turn embody the job of the Watch itself, which is to serve and protect the City itself. It is your job to keep the peace, it is your job to enforce the law, and it is your job to report when the law does not seem to be keeping the peace as well as a law ought to do. Nowhere in this job description inheres protect the life of the Patrician.”
Vimes let his hand fall from the bedpost. He could tell his face was screwed up with thinking, was sure that Vetinari must think it looked bloody hilarious, but it was all he could do to try to reconcile all that with the thought that had been the undercurrent of every single thought he’d had for the past few weeks: I’m his guard. Someone got past his guard, and I’m his guard.
“At least I rather hope you don’t think that to be the case,” Vetinari continued, with his eyes still burrowing into Vimes’s. “I rely on you, after all.”
Vimes swallowed in defiance, trying to clear his head. “To what, sir, if not protect your life?”
“To be able to kill me, of course.”
At this Vimes choked out a scoff and turned around. He crossed his arms over his stomach.
“Quite a lot of them would do it,” Vetinari said to his back, “but who among them could?”
“Well, Dragon King of Arms, for one--”
“Did you know that my dissertation in the Assassins’ School was on poison delivery, Vimes? It would be very difficult to kill me slowly via poison. Certainly, it’s harder to remember one’s thesis research when one has been inhaling arsenic for weeks on end, but not so difficult that it would have killed me.”
“But you didn’t stop burning the damn things!”
“Not entirely, no. But I did cut them down, to reduce exposure. And it’s certainly not the fault of the good doctor James not knowing this, but a diet supplemented by selenium and certain plant oils does wonders for the victim of arsenic exposure.”[2]
Once again, Vimes asked, “Are you joking with me?” He wanted to pace, but was holding lead boots so firmly in his mind that at this point he was not sure he wouldn’t just stomp straight through the floor.
“I assure you I am not,” Vetinari said again.
“So you--”
“That isn’t to say that you did nothing at all of importance,” Vetinari interrupted. “I had no way of finding out who was doing it, after all. Your work was, I assure you, quite invaluable.”
“I’m not bloody worried about how helpful I was, sir!”
“No?” Vimes expected him to continue, to follow up with some complicated theory on the state of Vimes’s psyche, but that was all. It seemed to be an actual question, an invitation to say more.
“I don’t see how this is hard to grasp! I’m worried about you dying! Is that really a surprise?!”
There was a moment of silence that stretched so long Vimes was actually briefly worried that Vetinari had fallen asleep, or unconscious again. He turned again to check, but Vetinari was awake as anything, staring at him as though he’d had something on his back, but his gaze didn’t change as Vimes met it.
“Why is that so difficult for you to get? And--” Something Vetinari had said several minutes ago dawned on Vimes again. “What the hell d’you mean, you rely on me to kill you?”
“To be able to kill me.”
“Oh, sorry! I’ll keep the distinction in mind, sir!”
“I don’t trust the rest of them to be able to appropriately decide when I deserve it,” Vetinari said. “They’re a bit trigger-happy, that way.”
Vimes stared at him. At this point it was less that he had nothing to say and more that he had quite a lot of things to say and they were all jonesing to be said immediately, each in front of the other, so distractingly that he couldn’t make up his mind on which ought to be said first.
“I apologize for not telling you that I knew about the candles. I can see it’s upset you,” Vetinari said, reaching back for the mug on the side table.
Lead boots were forgotten. Vimes rounded the corner of the bed so abruptly that Vetinari, in his haste to put his mug back down, sloshed a bit of tea or possibly soup onto the floor.
Vimes leaned down, grabbed him by the shoulder, and snarled into his face, “What is wrong with you?”
Vetinari blinked back at him. Here, again, was Sincerely Blank Stare With Intent Eye Contact, but now it was less terrifying and more infuriating.
“Can you take a minute out of your busy godsdamn day to try to wrap your head around the fact that your wellbeing does actually matter to me?” he said, although he was distantly aware that he might have been yelling. “What is so impossible to understand about the idea that I don’t want you to get bloody poisoned to death or otherwise?! I don’t like seeing you sick, I don’t like seeing you hurt, and I sure as hell don’t love the idea of being the person you don’t trust to guard you but do trust to execute you once you decide you’re tired of playing Patrician!”
“You’ve misinterpreted several key pieces of information, Sir Samuel,” Vetinari retorted, so clearly and so sharply that Vimes stopped shouting, though he didn’t quit the iron grip on his shoulder.
“Go on, then, inform me!” he hissed.
“I do trust you to guard me,” Vetinari said. He looked up at Vimes, and like this, Vimes taller than him for once, it was the accusing green of his eyes under long lashes. “It isn’t your job. I don’t pay you for it. I don’t expect it from you for any other reason than the fact that you are the man that you are, and for reasons that are unclear to me the man that you are is one that has made guarding Vetinari a priority among his values.”
Vimes opened his mouth to answer, but Vetinari held up a single long finger. “And the fact that I trust you to kill me has nothing to do with my own decisions. Indeed, that’s rather the point: that should I begin to make decisions that are wrong, truly wrong, wrong in a way that you, Samuel Vimes, cannot abide, then you will kill me, and I will allow it, because I believe that the only thing that would drive you to actually allow me to die would be your correct interpretation that I have gone too far. That is to say, I will allow myself to die so long as you do. Under any other circumstance, neither one of us would permit it.” He said it like it was nothing, like it was obvious.
Vimes shut his mouth. He opened it again. Shut it again. And then slapped Vetinari across the cheek.
Vetinari looked at the blankets. “Hm,” he said.
It’s always a heady thing, slapping a tyrant, but it was a headier thing still slapping Vetinari.[3] Vimes felt a little dizzy. “And you just decided this on your own?”
“Should I have held a conference with you first, Commander?”
“You trust me enough to make the choice to kill you but not enough to tell me once you found out what was killing you.”
“That wasn’t a matter of trust,” Vetinari began.
“Then what bloody well was it, sir?”
Vetinari was quiet again, for a long time. Vimes sat down at the edge of the bed, which seemed to startle him; he jerked his leg away, and Vimes glanced down, suddenly concerned. “I didn’t-- did I hurt you?”
“No,” Vetinari said hastily. “No. I’m only giving you room.”
“Right,” Vimes said, still looking at the shape of his leg under the blankets. Another time he’d failed to do his job. Though Vetinari said it wasn’t his job, so what was it? Another time he’d failed to… uphold his values? His values of what, keeping the Patrician in one piece? Ha. Keeping Vetinari in one piece, maybe, but let the Patrician go to hell as far as he was concerned.
“Oh,” Vimes said, realizing only belatedly he’d said so aloud.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing. What do you mean it wasn’t a matter of trust?”
“You might slap me again.”
“I will slap you again if you don’t say anything, sir.”
“That would be fair.”
Vimes must have tensed with rage, because Vetinari held up a hand very quickly: “I’ll explain, Commander, if you’ll give me a moment to collect my thoughts, please. I am still a man recovering from arsenic poisoning, if you will recall, my faculties are not yet wholly my own.”
Vimes sat back, crossing his arms over his chest.
It was another minute of silence before Vetinari let out a sigh, and said, “Put simply, I like watching you work.”
“Sir?” Vimes said, voice dancing on the edge of “incensed.”
“You do a better job on your own than you do when I steer you. Historically speaking, that is. And so I-- wanted to see what you would do left unsteered.”
Vimes closed his eyes. “You’re telling me that you willingly inhaled arsenic over the course of days because you thought you’d spoil the show.”
“I said you’d slap me again.”
“Do you realize,” Vimes said, and his eyes flew open as he reached out to grab him by both shoulders, “that it’s not a choice between manipulating Vimes and dropping Vimes out a chute and watching how he dances trying to land on two feet? I mean, honestly, do you understand that there are more options than that, like talking to me, for one?”
“You would be within your rights,” Vetinari said. “If you slapped me.” He offered a small smile.
“Right, look,” Vimes said, and let his hands fall into his own lap. “If you’re going to trust me to decide when you need killing, you’re going to have to trust me with other things, too. Sir.”
“I don’t have to trust you with anything,” Vetinari said. “I am the tyrant of this City, and well-hated at that. It would make perfect sense for me not to trust anyone with anything.”
“But fact is you do,” Vimes snapped.
Vetinari looked at him very steadily for a man who had been circling the drain of death for a fortnight.
“I might do something like this again,” he said.
He didn’t say anything about why, because of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t apologize, because of course he wouldn’t. But there was something about his voice that sounded like several things he didn’t know how to say, and possibly never had.
“I expect you will, sir,” Vimes said tiredly. It was all he could think to say.
“When I do,” Vetinari said, “if you choose to slap me, or if you choose to kill me--”
“I’m not going to kill you over not telling me how to stop you dying, sir.”
“I just meant I would accept your decision.”
“I know you would,” Vimes said, finding with horror that he believed it.
“Obviously I won’t tell you about every attempt on my life,” Vetinari said.
“You should, sir, given that it’s my job to stop those.”
“It’s not your job--”
“It’s my job to keep the peace in the City, isn’t it? You’re a part of the City.”
Vetinari looked shocked, as though he had not considered that Vimes actually believed that. But of course he was. And so was the Patrician, for that matter.
“There’s no need to trouble you with the sheer number of them,” he said, almost airily, like it was a point of pride for him how many people wanted his head on a pike. It probably was.
“Then only tell me about the really important ones, sir.” Vimes’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Vetinari looked directly at him again, then. “I will try,” he said. “I will try.”
Something about the way he said it unsettled Vimes, but not in the usual way, not in that the Patrician wanted him to be unsettled but in that for once Vetinari was attempting to be honest and genuine and possibly straightforward and it was making Vimes feel strange. Sort of a slightly worse cousin to indigestion. It made him scramble up into standing, and take a step back.
“Your tea must be cold,” he said.
“It’s soup, actually. White bone broth. Good for the constitution.”
“Right. I’ll tell Drumknott so someone can come heat it up, all right?”
“Thank you, Vimes.” And if he was thanking Vimes for more than the promise of hot soup, Vimes didn’t want to know. Not yet, anyways. Give it a few more weeks without any arsenic or anything, that’d do it.