Death makes uncertainty principle housecalls now. Well, at least, if you’re the Duke of Ankh-Morpork.
Summary
Vimes and Cheery arrive at Lady Margolotta’s castle and find that she knows a great deal about Vimes. She also tells him that if the Scone of Stone was stolen (which is what she was told) the coronation cannot continue, there will be a war, Albrecht will win, and he will declare Ankh-Morpork dwarfs no longer dwarfen. Cheery tells Vimes that this would null dwarf contracts and make it impossible for them to be buried at home, and so on. Then they head to the von Uberwald castle to meet Angua’s family, who have no interest in talking about their daughter. Cheery later notes that they seemed to have removed a few trophies from their walls, and one of the wolves who reminds Vimes of Angua is sizing him up the whole time. When they arrive back at the embassy, Igor is recovering from being knocked out, having come across a thief… but nothing was stolen as far as they know. Vimes decides that he and Sybil will take a ride so he can head to a clacks tower and get news from home. When they arrive Vimes can tell something’s off, so he grabs his sword and goes in alone, finding Skimmer, who already found the place abandoned. They find a flare they can use to summon workers to fix the tower, and Skimmer tells Vimes to leave and stay safe; he will send up the flare when it’s dark out to be certain towers further away can see it in case the sabotage is worse than they think.
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The Keeper’s Six
The Watchman’s Guild prepare for their strike. In the carriage, Sybil tells Sam that the measurements she did for the carpets on the first floor were all wrong. They get back and Vimes informs Cheery and Detritus that they’ll be attending the ball with them. Then he heads to the room that measured wrong and they find a secret workroom behind a wall, with spy information—Vimes guesses this is Sleep’s place where he gathered all the info he collected for Vetinari. At the tower, Inigo manages to set off the flare, but there’s a knock downstairs and the person doing the knocking is clever enough to get the drop on him. Sybil helps Cheery with her (very bright and sparkly) ballgown and Detritus with his suit, and they all go to the mines for the ball. Dee takes Vimes (who insists on bringing Cheery) aside to finally show him where the Scone of Stone was before it got stolen. There was a ransom note with it from the “Sons of Agi Hammerthief,” demanding that Rhys give up claim to the throne. Dee wants Vimes to work out how it was stolen, and he starts thinking it through. He tells Dee to let him interview the guards on the Scone room tomorrow. As they’re about to be presented to the Low King, Vimes notes that one of the chandeliers is about to fall on them and pulls the king out of the way just in time before blacking out.
Vimes wakes in a dark cell. He’s got three matches and someone has put Skimmer’s one-shot in his pillow. Dee comes and explains that he’s been incarcerated because it’s believed the Skimmer brought down the chandelier… and he’s dead. Vimes is also in trouble for saving the king because he touched him. They plan to leave him down there, so Vimes attacks the dwarfs who bring him his next meal—pointing out that he chose not to use the weapon he was left—and makes a run for it. He eventually makes it to a flight of stairs, but they break beneath him. As he’s hanging on for dear life, Lady Margolotta shows up and offers him a lift, which Vimes is suspicious of until he learns that she’s a teetotaler. She drops him outside in the snow and leaves him there. Vimes head into the forest, finds a makeshift shelter and a small pack of wolves, but he passes out. He awakes the next day uneaten, walks until he finds the hot springs and gets in, using one of his last two matches to light a cigar. That’s when he notices Wolf, and realizes he’s about to die. Wolfgang asks Vimes to explain the plot, and Vimes obliges: The replica Scone was stolen to make another replica, which was sent in their coach because diplomats aren’t searched. Wolfgang wants the dwarfs to go to war and is helping Dee start one, and tells Vimes about their human hunt tradition, demanding that he run. The Watch is on strike and Vetinari notes that there is no crime in the city because everyone is anticipating Vimes’ return.
Angua hears the Game starting up and tells Carrot she means to stop this round because she knows her brother doesn’t play it fair. Vimes arrives at a home with a barn and asks the women (three sisters) there for clothes and a weapon. They give him trousers and an ax, and Vimes climbs up to the top of the barn to get a better view of the landscape, seeing a river and a boathouse. Vimes sets a trap (well, two, one as a decoy) for the wolves and sets the barn on fire, running for the boathouse. He gets into a boat and begins to row, but Wolfgang catches up and points out that he’s headed for a waterfall. Death shows up because of the uncertainty principle, and Vimes goes over the waterfall. He survives, kills one of the werewolves who tries to get to him, then another, and then sees a clacks tower. He makes it out of the water, but the werewolves are waiting, watching him make for a tree on the other side of fat burgs. Wolfgang insists that the werewolves Vimes killed aren’t actually dead and they will get him eventually. Vimes goes up the tree, gets into a fight with a werewolf and they both fall to the ground. Just before Vimes is about to kill him, the wolf morphs and begs for mercy, which gives it time to pin him—but Carrot shows up and kills it with a spear. They talk with Angua, Vimes meets Gavin, they hitch up more wolves to the sled, and as they head back into Bonk, Vimes puts it together half-asleep and shouts “The bloody thing was never bloody stolen!”
Commentary
As usual, we have Vimes being driven to his absolute limit before being found by people who love him (in this case, Carrot) and defused so that he can finally solve his puzzle. Though this time we get the added bonus of Death’s pop-ups because he’s beginning to make uncertainty principle appearances, which is… I mean, it’s a very good joke and I should say that I always appreciate the commitment to Death cameos. You can’t always get away with those sorts of bit parts, but he happily lends himself to the gag, by virtue of genuinely being everywhere.
I do want to take a moment to get into Vimes’ fighting style, which has been brought up in previous books, but really makes the point here. There’s a discussion that happens frequently about superhero narratives, getting into the fact that these films are riddled with gorgeous fight choreo that in no way resembles how actual humans fight. Even in the more gory versions of these narratives (think Netflix’s Daredevil) people often fight far too “honorably” for realism.
These rules do exist amongst mere mortals, of course: Pratchett gets into it by talking about the Marquis of Fantailler etiquette, and polite society certainly has their rules about pugilism and fencing and the rest. But the point is—if you’re ever really in a fight, the entire goal is to stop the other person as quickly as possible. You don’t worry about being flashy or satisfying a code. Which is why Vimes knows to use elbows and knees, and whatever else would be most useful in stopping the other person cold.
Though there is a hilarious parallel to The Clone Wars here that I wasn’t expecting? The point where Vimes almost gets himself killed because the werewolf transforms and begs for his life and he can’t do it, while Carrot quickly offs the guy is so similar to a moment when a bad guy is harassing Obi-Wan about not being able to kill him, and Anakin just spears the guy from behind with his lightsaber. Exact same vibes in a place where I was not expecting it, but the more I think about it, the more that parallel works…
Cheery’s dress for the ball is the most trans thing that has ever happened in the fantasy book. The allegory here is so specific because this is literally a common joke amongst trans people, that we spend a great deal of time dressing up in the clothes we were denied access to, and going extra hard on those styles because of it. Many trans women will not only dress hyper-femme, but sometimes wear the cute lacy, pink, frilly princess stuff they never got to wear growing up. Lots of trans men go through a teenage boy clothing era, and sometimes a boyband phase. Nonbinary folks revel in the genderfuckery and pattern clashes we were discouraged from as youths. Cheery going ham on a bright red dress with sequins and thinking about adding more glitter lines right up with this experience.
And we don’t really get into it enough since Watch books are primarily concerned with Vimes’ point of view, but Cheery Littlebottom is so damn brave. She knows that she’s doing this back at home and it’s going to cause a stir. She knows she will be inviting comments, possibly abuse, for choosing to present herself this way. She’s doing it anyhow, and with very little fanfare. I keep thinking of the line from Feet of Clay about the relief of being who you are at a whisper instead of a shout. It’s not as though Cheery is trying to make a huge statement in these moments—but just quietly being who she is has an enormous impact.
Asides and little thoughts:
- The bit where Vimes mentions that he’s never had problems with dwarfs or werewolves, so “why is the only person who hasn’t tried to blow me out this morning the blood-sucking vampire?” put me directly in mind of John Hammond’s comments about the “blood-sucking lawyer” in Jurassic Park.
- Sorry, but Lady Margolotta saying that Vimes has difficulty with vampires due to the “penetrative aspect” is a helluva way to let us know that Vimes is a top?? I guess? Either that, or she’s telling him he’s a closeted queer??? It’s one or the other (or both). I am taking no other readings at this time.
- I’ve got a lot of feelings about Vimes thinking that hot water is civilization as a fellow city person. I am willing to trek through the woods endlessly provided I know there’s a bath in it for me at the end of the day. No bath, no woods.
- More Chekovian asides, please.
Pratchettisms:
As castles went, this one looked as though it could be taken by a small squad of not very efficient soldiers. Its builder had not been thinking about fortifications. He’d been influenced by fairy tales and possible by some of the more ornamental sorts of cake.
She moved like someone who had grown used to her body and, in general, looked like what Vimes had heard described as “a woman of a certain age.” He’d never been quite certain what age that was.
“Did you just say that last bit?” said Vimes, awash on a sea of diplomacy and damp trousers.
There was a moment of stillness and silence as the troll caught the descending mountain of light.
He hung like a folded pair of old trousers.
He stepped out into a sugar-frosted world, crunchy and glittering.
He pushed his luck. It was clearly too weak to move by itself.
It wasn’t just that his brain was writing checks that his body couldn’t cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn’t got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions.
We’ll be breaking for two weeks and come back fresh next year to finish the book!
