Night Watch by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online Page A

could see it through his eyelids. His left eyelid, anyway. Nothing but pain was happening on the other side of his face. He kept the eye shut, and strained his hearing instead.
    Someone was moving about. There was a clink of metal. A woman’s voice said, “He’s awake.”
    “Are you sure?” said a man’s voice. “How can you tell?”
    “Because I’m good at telling if a man is asleep,” said the woman.
    Vimes opened his eye. He was lying on a bench or table of some sort. A young woman was leaning against the wall next to him, and her dress and bearing and the way she leaned filed her immediately in Vimes’s policemen brain as: seamstress, but one of the bright ones. The man had a long black robe and a silly floppy hat, and got filed under: help, I’m in the hands of a doctor!
    He sat bolt upright.
    “You lay one hand on me and I’ll thump you!” he yelled, trying to swing his legs off the table. Half his head burst into flame.
    “I should take it easy, if I was you,” said the doctor, gently pushing him back. “That was a very nasty cut. And don’t touch the eyepatch!”
    “Cut?” said Vimes, his hand brushing the stiff cloth of an eyepatch. Memories interlocked. “Carcer! Did anyone get him?”
    “Whoever attacked you got away,” said the doctor.
    “After that fall?” said Vimes. “He must’ve been limping, at least! Look, I’ve got to get—”
    And then he noticed all the other things. He’d been picking them up all the time, but only now did the subconscious present the list.
    He wasn’t wearing his own clothes…
    “What happened to my uniform?” he said, and he noticed the I-told-you-so expression the woman gave the doctor.
    “Whoever attacked you stripped you down to your drawers and left you lying in the street,” she said. “I found you some spare clothes at my place. It’s amazing what people leave behind.”
    “Who took my armor?”
    “I never know names,” said the woman. “I saw a bunch of men running off carrying stuff, though.”
    “Ordinary thieves? Didn’t they leave a receipt?”
    “No!” she said, laughing. “Why should they?”
    “And are we allowed to ask questions?” said the doctor, tidying his tools.
    None of this was right…
    “Well, I mean…thank you, yes,” said Vimes.
    “What’s your name?”
    Vimes’s hand stopped halfway to his face again.
    “You mean you don’t know me?” he said.
    “Should we?” said the doctor.
    None of this was right…
    “This is Ankh-Morpork, isn’t it?” said Vimes.
    “Er, yes,” said the doctor, and turned to the woman. “There was a blow to the head,” he said, “but I wouldn’t have thought it was that bad…”
    “Look, I’m wasting time,” said the woman. “Who are you, mister?”
    Everyone in the city knew Vimes, surely? The Guild of Seamstresses certainly did. And the doctor didn’t look stupid. Perhaps this was not the right time to be totally truthful. He might just be somewhere where being a copper wasn’t a good thing to be. It might be dangerous to be Vimes and, right now, he wasn’t well enough to deal with it.
    “Keel,” he said. The name just dropped into his mind; it had been bubbling just under the surface of his thoughts all day, ever since the lilac.
    “Yeah, right,” said the woman, smiling. “Want to make up a first name?”
    “John,” said Vimes.
    “Appropriate. Well… John , it’s like this. Men lying flat out and naked around here aren’t that uncommon. And, it’s a funny thing, but they don’t usually want anyone to know their real name, or where they live. You won’t be the first one Dr. Lawn here has patched up. My name’s Rosie. And now there’s a little fee, you understand? For both of us.”
    “All right, all right, I know how this goes,” said Vimes, holding up his hands. “This is The Shades, right?” They both nodded. “Okay, then. Thank you. I haven’t got any money, obviously, but once I’ve got home—”
    “I’ll escort you, shall I?”