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The Patrician’s funeral – no, Lord Vetinari’s funeral – was over.
It had been his heart, in the end. An organ no citizen of Ankh-Morpork would have bet a dollar on Vetinari even having had run down and stopped. He hadn’t been young – none of them were young any more – but it had still come as a shock. Vimes had always believed, if he thought about it at all, that he would go first. He was Commander of the Watch, after all. People tried to kill him regularly. Hardly anyone had dared try to kill Vetinari in years.
Now, looking seventy in the eye (or, most of the time, ferociously denying its existence while it crept ever closer), he’d finally been forced to retire from active duty, though he still ran the Watch. But all those years of slog had left him tough as old boot leather, and he could still wallop the youngsters in training if he felt like it. Vetinari had spent those same years in an office, and the work he did weakened the heart, it seemed, instead of strengthening it the way a panicked dash across the city did.
He was going to miss the cunning old bastard.
There was a deferential little cough at his elbow, just as he got up to leave, and Drumknott was there. The secretary was dry-eyed, but there were lines on his face which hadn’t been there a week ago. He’d been much younger than either Vetinari or Vimes. He didn’t look it now. “The Patrician would like to see you, Commander,” he said, and his voice was perhaps a shade less steady than it usually was when he repeated a variation on this phrase. “In his office.”
“Yes,” Vimes said quietly. “I’ll come.”
It was all exactly the same. Of course it was, it had only been a week, and the new Patrician wasn’t one to dismantle what was already working. What wasn’t working, he went at with a hatchet, but what worked, he left alone. Still, it felt strange, going up the same stairs, through the room with the same awful irregular clock, through the same door he always had, and knowing that Vetinari wasn’t going to be there. Until now, he wouldn’t have bet money on the Patrician actually being mortal.
The new Patrician was sitting at the desk, sorting through piles of paper. He looked tired – well, of course he did, it had been a hell of a week – and his new hat was hanging on the back of his chair. He’d always been a man for a hat, as Vimes recalled, which made sense when you had a face so forgettable that your own wife probably didn’t recognize you if you wore new pyjamas to bed. “Lord von Lipwig,” Vimes said, and his voice was a little quieter and more sober than usual.
The younger man looked up and smiled slightly. It wasn’t his bright, friendly professional smile, but something tired and ragged around the edges. “Commander Vimes,” he said, waving at the chairs in front of the big desk. “Take a seat, you must be tired. It’s been… busy.”
Vimes took the chair. He was tired. The death of Vetinari had led to… not riots, precisely, but panic. Vetinari had been around for so long. He’d made everything work so well. Now there was a major power grab on, and no-one was safe, and everyone was frightened, and the Watch had been stretched to snapping point for days, all while Vimes and Sibyl tried to stay on top of all the old and new money grabbing at the suddenly available power.
And then, somehow, without fuss or bother, Moist Von Lipwig was the new Patrician. Half the nobility still didn’t know how it had happened, and several guild leaders were puzzled too. Vimes wasn’t. Moist von Lipwig had been tapdancing through the swamp that was Ankh-Morpork for nearly twenty years, and everything he touched made life better for its people. He’d fixed the Post Office, the money, the golem problem, the railways… he’d been nominated for headship of three different Guilds, and had been taken off the Assassin’s registry years ago because even they were afraid of what might happen if the city’s Mr Fixit got put out of order. He was a valued friend or ally of nearly every real power in the city, and married to one of them… and besides that, the people trusted him. Mr Lipwig was amusing, he put on a show, but more importantly, he got results. When Mr Lipwig took up your cause, your cause was going to be resolved quickly and with considerable panache. And when someone was needed to take up the reins of the city, Harry King, Ms Dearheart, Drumknott, and a number of others (including, though he wouldn’t admit it, Vimes and Sibyl) had banded together and shoved his arse into the Patrician’s seat before he had time to get his feet under him to run.
“It’s not as bad as you might think,” Moist said, absently tidying another pile of papers. “Lord Vetinari kept things very… organized. All the balls in the air.”
“And you’re good at keeping balls in the air,” Vimes admitted, because even when he’d wanted desperately to arrest the little bugger, von Lipwig had impressed him with his ability to tapdance on quicksand.
“Oh yes. And convincing people to do what I want them to do.” Moist rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “A job for life, but not for long. He said that to me once. I don’t remember if it was when he put me in charge of a haunted Post Office or when he put me in charge of a failing Bank of Ankh-Morpork, but he definitely said it. But this is going to be for long, isn’t it? There’s only one way out of the Patrician’s office.”
Vimes felt a flicker of sympathy, though not a very big one. If Moist von Lipwig hadn’t wanted to be Patrician, he shouldn’t have been so obviously the only person with a hope of doing the job properly. If you made a target of yourself, people shot at you. “You could always try embezzling a huge amount of money and running away.”
Moist snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Firstly, I’m so well known now that even I’d get caught. Secondly, between the golems and the werewolves and the vampires, your Watch would have me tracked down within a couple of hours. And thirdly, there’s no point. Ankh-Morpork doesn’t have a huge amount of money. What it has is a huge amount of turnover. Value shuttles in and out so fast that most of the time we never even see the money, it just goes directly from the person we’re charging to the person we’re paying. You and I both have more ready cash than the city does.”
Vetinari had probably known to a penny what Vimes was worth because he was Vetinari and he knew everything. Moist knew because he ran the Guild of Bankers with an iron fist inside a warm, honest, and friendly handshake… or had, until his recent promotion. “A lot of people would suffer if you ran away,” he pointed out, because he’d had plenty of time to learn what worked on the little smartarse.
“I know. I know. That’s the only reason I haven’t already gone, believe me. That and Spike telling me that if I tried she’d have my knees nailed together.” Moist ran a hand through his hair. From the look of it, he’d been doing that a lot. “Oh, that reminds me, there’s an invitation coming for a little private banquet that she’s arranging. Just a few of our own friends and trusted allies, you know… Harry King and Effie, Simnel and his Emily, Mr Bent, a few important goblins… people we trust.”
“And I’m on that list, am I?” It still rankled, just a little, that he’d been put on these terms with a man who had spent his formative years committing so many crimes that at least one was now named after him. Vimes was a copper, and at bottom, Moist von Lipwig would always be a crook.
“Of course. You always have been.” That flickering, I’m-up-to-mischief smile hadn’t changed since they first met. “Even people who hate you trust you. You hate change more than bigots hate goblins, and you’re harder to corrupt than a diamond troll. Not loveable traits, for many, but trustworthy.”
It was a compliment with an insult rolled around it, which was the kind Vimes was most comfortable with, and he chuckled slightly. “And you’re the man in the golden suit and the fancy hat. The man everyone trusts to put on a show and make things work despite all the odds.”
“I’m retiring the suit. A golden suit is good for a Post-Master or a Banker, but it gives people the wrong idea on a Patrician.” Moist leaned back, putting his feet on the desk in a way Vetinari surely never had in his entire life. “I’ve got a couple of tailors working up a wardrobe in shades of grey with tasteful touches of silver, extremely sober, and comfortable to sit in.”
Vimes nodded. And that was why he was Patrician, right there. Moist von Lipwig was a man who thought about details like ‘what is an appropriate wardrobe for a man following Vetinari but clearly not attempting to ape him, that will convey sobriety and responsibility while also not pinching around the middle when I have to sit in meetings for hours’. The new hat, a simple cap of grey velvet with silver embroidery around the edge, had already paved the way. By the time he was finished, the next Patrician would think it was the official uniform, and anyone trying to swan around in red velvet or purple satin would be viewed with deep distrust.
Moist wouldn’t just stop at a uniform, either. He’d cultivate a persona, the way he always did, subtly different each time, perfect for the job at hand. In a year, he’d be known as a model of responsibility and rectitude. He’d have almost as strong a grip on the city as Vetinari had, but he’d do it with a smile and a friendly manner and probably most people would never know… until they tried to cross him, and met the Moist von Lipwig who’d avenged the slaughter of miners on rebellious dwarves, who’d fought like an angry viper on top of a train, who’d ripped the mask of respectability off the Lavish family in front of the crowds, and crossed Vetinari more than once and survived, which was in its way even more impressive. He'd do a good job, Vimes had to admit it, and he couldn’t deny that it was a considerable weight off his shoulders to know that Young Sam would be raising his own family in a city not ruled by the spiritual successor of Lord Winder or Lord Snapcase. Moist von Lipwig was a man who’d shed tears for dead goblins and fight rich bankers for old ladies with a few pennies, and the office wouldn’t change his nature. None of the others had.
“Did you want to see me for a reason?” Vimes asked, after a moment of silence. “Or just a chat?”
“A bit of both.” Moist got up and went over to a large drinks cabinet. “You’re the only person I know who felt the same way about the Patrician that I do. I thought we’d raise a glass, just the two of us.”
Vimes didn’t have to say it – Moist remembered things about people. Without a word said, he poured a measure of brandy for himself, and a small glass of the bright cranberry juice that Vetinari had kept for Vimes, because Sibyl said it was good for him, and brought both glasses back to the desk. He handed the juice to Vimes, leaned against the desk, and looked into his own glass for a moment. Then he raised it solemnly. “To that manipulative old bastard. I commend his soul to whatever god can find it.”
Vimes lifted his glass. “And good luck to them if they do,” he added, and they both grinned at the thought. And Vimes pretended not to notice that Moist’s voice got a little husky, and Moist didn’t acknowledge by so much as a flicker of an eyelash that Vimes had had to cough once or twice, probably because the cranberry juice was so sour.
They would miss that manipulative old bastard. But they’d make sure the city didn’t. They’d keep it running. Which was exactly what the manipulative old bastard had probably planned, decades ago, when he found a basically good-hearted little crook who was almost as slippery as Vetinari himself, and put him in charge of a haunted Post Office. It was, in retrospect, exactly the kind of plan Vetinari had liked, including the part where he’d forced them to work together to keep the Low Queen in power so they’d learn to respect each other.
Yes. Even after his death, things were probably still going exactly the way he’d planned. Vetinari would have planned for his own death the way he planned for everything else… years before anyone else, and perfectly.