And they couldn't kill a man incapable of defending himself (although a man worth more than AM$ 10,000 a year was considered automatically capable of defending himself or at least of employing people to do it for him). And they had to give the target a chance. But there was no helping some people. It was regrettable how many rulers of the city had been inhumed by the men in black because they didn't recognize a chance when they saw it, didn't know when they'd gone too far, didn't care that they'd made too many enemies, didn't read the signs, didn't know when to walk away after embezzling a moderate and acceptable amount of cash. They didn't realize it when the machine had stopped, when the world was ripe for change, when it was time, in fact, to spend more time with their family in case they ended up spending it with their ancestors. Of course, the Guild didn't inhume their rulers on their own behalf. There was a rule about that, too. They were simply there when needed. There was a tradition, once, far back in the past, called the King of the Bean. A special dish was served to all the men of the clan on a certain day of the year. It contained one small hard-baked bean, and whoever got the bean was, possibly after some dental attention, hailed as King. It was quite an inexpensive system and it worked well, probably because the clever little bald men who actually ran things and paid some attention to possible candidates were experts at palming a bean into the right bowl. And while the crops ripened and the tribe thrived and the land was fertile the King thrived too. But when, in the fullness of time, crops failed and the ice came back and animals were inexplicably barren, the clever little bald men sharpened their long knives, which were mostly used for cutting mistletoe. And on the due night, one of them went into his cave and carefully baked one small bean. Of course, that was before people were civilized. These days, no one had to eat beans. People were still working on the barricade. It had become a sort of general hobby, a kind of group home improvement. Fire buckets, some full of water, some of sand, had turned up. In places the barricade was more impregnable than the city walls, considering how often the latter had been pillaged for stone. There were occasional drumbeats down in the city, and the sound of troop movements. 'Sergeant?' Vimes looked down. A face had appeared at the top of the ladder leading down to the street. 'Ah, Miss Battye? I didn't know you were with us.'
'I didn't intend to be, but suddenly there was this big wall. . .'
She climbed all the way up. She was holding a small bucket. 'Doctor Lawn presents his compliments and says how come you haven't beaten up anyone yet?' she said, putting it down. 'He says he's got three tables scrubbed, two buckets of tar on the boil, six ladies rolling bandages and all he's had to deal with so far is a nose-bleed. You've let him down, he says.'
'Tell him ha, ha, ha,' said Vimes. 'I've brought you up some breakfast,' said Sandra, and Vimes realized that down below, doing their not-very-best to remain unseen, were some of the lads. They were sniggering. 'Mushrooms?' he said. 'No,' said the girl. 'I was told to tell you that since it's tomorrow, you're going to get everything you wished for . . .' For a moment Vimes tensed, not certain where the world was taking him. 'A hard-boiled egg,' said Sandra. 'But Sam Vimes said you probably like the yolk runny and some toast cut up into soldiers.'
'Just like he does,' said Vimes weakly. 'Good guess, that man.' Vimes tossed the egg up into the air, expecting to catch it when it came down. Instead, there was a noise like scissors closing and the air rained runny yolk and bits of shell. And then it rained arrows. The noise level of the conversation had gone up. Madam moved in on the group around Lord Winder. Magically, within ten seconds they were left alone as all the other people in the group saw people across the room that they really had to talk to. 'Who are yer?' said Winder, his eyes surveying her with that care a man takes when he fears that a woman is carrying concealed weaponry. 'Madam Roberta Meserole, my lord.'
'The one from Genua?' Winder snorted, which was his attempt at a snigger. 'I've heard stories about Genua!'
'I could probably tell you a few more, my lord,' said Madam. 'But, right now, it's time for the cake.'
'Yeah,' said Winder. 'Did you know we got another assassin tonight? They keep trying, you know. Eleven years, and still they try. But I get 'em, every time, sneak about though they may.'
'Well done, my lord,' said Madam. It did help that he was an unpleasant person, ugly clear to the bone. In some ways, it made things easier. She turned, and clapped her hands. Surprisingly, this small noise caused a sudden cessation in the chatter. The double doors at the end of the hall opened, and two trumpeters appeared. They took up positions on either side of the door-
'Stop 'em!' Winder yelled, and ducked. His two guards ran down the hall and grabbed the trumpets from the frightened men. They handled them with extreme care, as if expecting them to explode or issue a strange gas. 'Poison darts,' said Winder in a satisfied voice. 'Can't be too careful, madam. In this job you learn to watch every shadow. All right, let 'em play. But no trumpets. I 'ate tubes pointed at me.' There was some bewildered conversation at the other end of the hall, and then the bereft trumpeters stood back and whistled as best they could. Lord Winder laughed as the cake was pushed in. It was in tiers, about man-height, and heavily iced. 'Lovely,' he said, as the crowd clapped. 'I do like some entertainment at a party. And I cut it, do I?' He took a few steps back and nodded at the bodyguards. 'Off you go, boys,' he said. Swords stabbed into the top tier several times. The guards looked at Winder and shook their heads. 'There's such a thing as dwarfs, you know,' he said. They stabbed at the second layer, again meeting no more resistance than can be offered by dried fruit and suet and a crust of marzipan with sugar frosting. 'He could be kneeling down,' said Winder. The audience watched, their smiles frozen. When it became clear that the cake was solid and unoccupied, the food taster was sent for. Most of the guests recognized him. His name was Spymould. He was said to have eaten so much poison in his time that he was proof against anything, and that he ate a toad every day to keep in condition. It was also rumoured that he could turn silver black by breathing on it. He selected a piece of cake and chewed it thoughtfully, staring intently upwards while he did so. 'Hmm,' he said, after a while. 'Well?' said Winder. 'Sorry, milord,' said Spymould. 'Nuffin'. I thought there was a touch of cyanide there but, no luck, it's just the almonds.'
'No poison at all?' said the Patrician. 'You mean it's edible?'
'Well, yes. It'd be all the better for some toad, o'course, but that's just one man's opinion.'
'Perhaps the servants can serve it now, my lord?' said Madam. 'Don't trust servants serving food,' said Winder. 'Sneakin' about. Could slip somethin' in.'
'Do you mind if I do it, then, my lord?'
'Yeah, all right,' said Lord Winder, watching the cake carefully. I'll have the ninth piece you cut.' But in fact he snatched the fifth piece, triumphantly, as if saving something precious from the wreckage. The cake was disassembled. Lord Winder's objection to servants handling food withered once the food was headed for other people, and so the party spread out a little as the guests pondered the ancient question of how to hold a plate and a glass and eat at the same time without using one of those little glass-holding things that clip on the side of the plate and make the user look as though they're four years old. This takes a lot of concentration, and that might have been why everyone was so curiously self-absorbed. The door opened. A figure walked into the room. Winder looked up, over the top of his plate. It was a slim figure, hooded and masked, all in black. Winder stared. Around him, the conversation rose, and a watcher above might have noticed that the drift of the party tides was such that they were leaving a wide empty path, stretching from the door all the way to Winder, whose legs didn't want to move. As it strolled towards him the figure reached both hands behind it and they came back each holding a small pistol bow. There were a couple of small tic noises and the bodyguards collapsed gently towards the floor. Then it tossed the bows behind it, and kept coming. Its footfalls made no sound. 'Brw?' said Winder, staring. His mouth was open, and stuffed with cake. People chattered on. Somewhere, someone had told a joke. There was laughter, perhaps a shade shriller than might normally be the case. The noise level rose again. Winder blinked. Assassins didn't do this. They snuck around. They used the shadows. This didn't happen in real life. This was how it happened in dreams. And now the creature was in front of him. He dropped his spoon, and there was a sudden silence after it clanged on the ground. There was another rule. Wherever possible, the inhumed should be told who the Assassin was, and who had sent him. It was felt by the Guild that this was only fair. Winder did not know this, and it was not widely advertised, but nevertheless, in the midst of terror, eyes wide, he asked the right questions. 'Who sent yer?'
'I come from the city,' said the figure, drawing a thin, silvery sword. 'Who are yer?'
'Think of me as ... your future.'
The figure drew the sword back, but it was too late. Terror's own more subtle knife had done its work. Winder's face was crimson, his eyes were staring at nothing, and coming up from the throat, through the crumbs of cake, was a sound that merged a creak with a sigh. The dark figure lowered its sword, watched for a moment in the echoing silence, and then said: 'Boo.' It reached out one gloved hand and gave the Patrician a push. Winder went over backwards, his plate dropping from his hand and shattering on the tiles. The Assassin held his bloodless sword at arm's length and let it drop on the floor beside the corpse. Then he turned and walked slowly back across the marble floor. He shut the double doors behind him, and the echoes died away. Madam counted slowly to ten before she screamed. That seemed long enough. Lord Winder got to his feet, and looked up at the black-clad figure. 'Another one? Where did you creep in from?' I DO NOT CREEP. Winder's mind felt even fuzzier than it had done over the past few years, but he was certain about cake. He'd been eating cake, and now there wasn't any. Through the mists he saw it, apparently close but, when he tried to reach it, a long way away. A certain realization dawned on him. 'Oh,' he said. YES, said Death. 'Not even time to finish my cake?' NO. THERE IS NO MORE TIME, EVEN FOR CAKE. FOR YOU, THE CAKE IS OVER. YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE. A grapnel thudded into the wall beside Vimes. There were shouts along the barricade. More hooks snaked up and bit into the wood. Another rain of arrows clattered on the roofs of the houses. The attackers weren't ready to risk hitting their own side, but arrows were snapping and bouncing in the street below. Vimes heard shouts, and the clang of arrows on armour. A sound made him turn. A helmeted head rose level with his and the face beneath it blanched in terror when it saw Vimes. 'That was my egg, you bastard!' he screamed, punching the nose. 'With soldiers!' The man fell back, by the sound of it, on to other climbers. Men were yelling all along the parapet.
Vimes pulled out his truncheon. 'At 'em, lads,' he yelled. "Truncheons! Nothing fancy! Bop 'em on the fingers and let gravity do the work! They're goin' down!' He ducked, pressing close to the wood, and tried to find a spyhole- 'They're using big catapults,' said Sandra, who'd found a gap a few feet away. There's a-' Vimes pulled her away. 'What are you doing still up here?' he roared. 'It's safer than the street!' she yelled back, nose to nose with him. 'Not if one of those grapnels hits you it isn't!' He grabbed his knife. 'Here, take this . . . you see a rope anywhere, cut it!' He scurried along behind the shelter of the wobbling parapet, but the defenders were doing very well. It wasn't exactly rocket magic, in any case. The people at ground level were firing out through any crack they could find and, while aiming was not easy, it didn't need to be. There is nothing like the zip and zing of arrows around them to make people nervous at their work. And the climbers were too bunched up. They had to be. If they tried attacking on a broad front there'd be three defenders to greet each man. So they were in one another's way, and every falling man would take a couple more down with him, and the barricade was full of little gaps and holes where a defender with a spear could seriously prod those trying to climb up the outside. This is stupid, Vimes thought. It'd take a thousand men to break through, and that'd only be when the last fifty ran up the slope made of the bodies of all the rest of them. Someone out there is doing the old 'hit them at their strongest point to show 'em we mean business' thinking. Ye gods, is this how we won our wars? So how would I have dealt with this? Well, I'd have said 'Detritus, remove the barricade' and made sure that the defenders heard me, that's what I'd have done. End of problem. There was a scream from further along the parapet. A grapnel had caught one of the watchmen and pulled him hard against the wood. Vimes reached him in time to see a hook dragged into the man's body, through breastplate and mail, as an attacker hauled himself up- Vimes caught the man's sword arm in one hand and punched him with the other, letting him tumble into the melee below. The stricken watchman was Nancyball. His face was blue-white, his mouth opened and shut soundlessly, and blood pooled around his feet. It dripped through the planks. 'Let's get the bloody thing out-' Wiglet said, grabbing the hook. Vimes pushed him away, as a couple of arrows hummed overhead.