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…Slam!
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
…Slam!
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
…Slam!
“Margolotta, how many rooms are there?”
“On this level? Tvelve.”
“Do you hear them?”
“A vampire and a verevolf?” Lady Margolotta’s chuckles with no trace of joy. “Of course! Most of them are in the singers’ hall! Some in the dining room. My vhole castle is brimming vith them!”
She moves with the grace of a predator on the hunt. She rushes through the rooms one by one, startling the humans and the undead who linger on the sofas or in small groups near the fireplaces. Her castle does not have many corridors per se, but rather a lot of chambers that lie next to each other like toy blocks. To get through, you have to walk into a room to get to another room. She says it helps to control the movements of those who stay in her house.
Vetinari recognises the value of this. He also thinks it would be more effective if Margolotta did not have two hundred rooms on six different levels. Well, five, not counting the singers’ hall and the dining room at the top.
She slams open another door and crosses an empty chamber, her pink ball gown swishing ominously in her wake. Vetinari follows her like a slightly limping shadow, too long and too thin. His cane taps noisily on the floor.
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
In the candle-lit gold and flowery ambience, the two of them look like two feverish bats (if one were very tall and the other wore a pink nightdress).
“It is not the time to jest, Margolotta.”
“I vish I vas! Your Commander–”
Tap-tap-tap-tap! Slam!
“He’s not mine–”
“Your Commander,” insists Lady Margolotta, “no longer smells the vay he used to. And Viscount Grisvold–”
Tap-tap-tap-tap! Slam!
“– is just another Grisvold. The guests mingle vith one another. I cannot... Vait.”
Vetinari stops mid-step. “Yes?”
“I think... I smell blood.” Margolotta’s dark eyes manage to glow like polished obsidian. Her features become sharper. “One level down.”
Vetinari, who begins to feel that he might have strained his leg, immediately forgets that he has legs.
“Lead the way!”
She does, at a speed that Vetinari, as a human, should not be able to keep up with. Adrenaline works small miracles, though, and he no longer needs to use his cane.
“Whose blood?”
“Verevolf’s!”
Vetinari’s mind’s eye conjures up an image of Vimes’s dead body on the ground. He speeds up so that he is arm in arm with Margolotta.
They dash down the spiral staircase, through one of the few large corridors in Bonk Castle, and finally come to a small red door set into a castle wall. They exchange a quick glance, Margolotta bares her teeth, grabs the ornate handle and swings the door open.
Their jaws drop to the floor.
Contrary to their worst expectations, Vimes is not dead. At least, as not-dead as you can be as a werewolf. At a first glance, Viscount Griswold is also holding himself together quite robustly. Almost as robustly as he holds Vimes against the wall.
“Viscount Grisvold?!” gasps Margolotta, in the true manner of a pearl-clutching, scandalised hostess.
There is a panicked sucking sound, and Griswold releases Vimes. They both look towards the door.
Vimes yells. Perhaps in fear. Perhaps because Griswold drops him to the floor like a heavy sack and takes three steps to the back.
Vetinari’s legs carry him across the room without a hint of impulse from his brain. Vimes, pale as moonlight, scrambles to his feet. “Si–Mhm?!”
Vetinari grabs him by the mussed lace collar and pulls him closer. Inspects his neck. Two small puncture wounds are fiercely red and deep, but there seems to be no additional damage. Which means Vimes was...
If Vetinari had to carefully control his breathing before, now it feels as if his lungs are left without air.
“Sir…”
“What were you thinking, Vimes?” he asks. In a tone of voice that some part of him recognizes as Very Revealing and tries to switch to another before it is too late.
Vimes stares at him so lost that it is clear that Vetinari holds more answers than he does, even though it is Vimes who has enthusiastically engaged in a scandalous activity.
Elsewhere, a whole world away (which happens to be slightly to their left), Lady Margolotta is trying to quickly re-categorise the political leanings of her guests.
“Viscount, I’m shocked! You? A conservative?”
“My lady, I... I had no idea...”
“You can’t smell a Verefolk?”
“No! Yes! I mean, yes! –”
“Is your clan avare of your liberal leanings?”
“I have no leanings!”
***
“Vould you like something stronger, Havelock?”
Vetinari lowers himself into a bright pink armchair and uses his cane to pull an equally bright pink leg-rest towards him, then carefully puts it to its intended use. The search has cost him a lot.
He wishes the costs were limited only to the physical sphere.
“Yes. Sherry, if you don’t mind.”
“I do not.”
Lady Margolotta hands him a glass and Vetinari takes a sip, grateful.
“I must... apologise, my friend,” he begins, slowly. “I... had no idea that Vimes would cause such a diplomatic incident. That did not happen, obviously.”
“Obviously. I’m not sure if an assassination attempt vouldn’t have been preferable.” She swirls the liquor in her own glass. “I am rather impressed vith him, though, that Vimes. Grisvold is not the oldest in the clan, but he is still old enough to maintain a very... rigid position on the state of affairs. How Vimes managed to...?” She trails off, shaking her head. “Of all the things that could happen, I didn’t exactly hold onto hope that Vimes vould become the poster verevolf for the new century.”
“My lady.”
“I’m not sure if such progress isn’t too fast for me, personally.”
“My lady.”
“Are you absolutely sure that I cannot reveal his little adventure, at least in a fev rumours? It vould sharpen a fev fangs and raise a fev hairs.”
“My friend,” Vetinari sighs. “Cease. With all due respect.”
Margolotta takes a big swig from her glass. “Vith all due respect? Vith all due respect, Havelock, your Commander has caused trouble in my house.”
“I am aware of that.”
“I hold you responsible.”
“Of course.”
“In a strictly personal sense.”
Vetinari looks at her directly. “Have I failed not only as a political leader, but also as an individual? How am I to recover in your eyes, dear friend?”
“It is your fault, Havelock. You avoid responsibility.”
“My lady...”
“Did you take a good look at Griswold? Dark beard? Lascivious locks, as if painted vith ink? Striking blue eyes?”
Vetinari takes a sip of his sherry. Much too big a sip. “Vimes began to follow him only because the viscount called him, if I remember correctly, ‘a mutt’.”
Lady Margolotta apparently decides to let the sentence speak for itself. Vetinari pinches the bridge of his nose.
His leg pulses with pain.
“Havelock,” the voice of the vampiress is serious. “Vhat has happened is unnatural. I cannot emphasise enough how much it is against all traditional lavs of existence for a vampire and a verevolf to consensually engage in blood drinking. In Bork. In my castle. Personally, it delights me to no end, let there be no misunderstandings betveen us! But I’m concerned as to why it happened. Commander Vimes is completely and utterly dysregulated. Because he has an established bond, and he is being denied it.”
“Margolotta,” Vetinari says slowly. “That… would mean upsetting the status quo.”
“You share a bond with him, Havelock, and it goes back to vhen you vere both human. Do not pretend that this is some sort of recent development! Believe me, it vas very sweet to vatch you two circle each other like two praying mantises. But now Vimes is no longer human. He is vhat a good half of the Überwald territory belongs to. That half hovls, hounds and kills every day. They kill my kind, Havelock.”
She reaches out and puts her hand on his forearm. Vetinari’s grip on his sherry glass tightens.
“Do you know vhat it is to be hunted by a verevolf, my friend?” She seeks his gaze. He avoids it. “A ‘sickness’, some vampires call it. Until a volf is eviscerated, they are always out there somevhere, vaiting. Circling. Once they choose, they do not surrender. They chase and bite dovn.”
“You’re truly encouraging me to upset the balance, my lady.”
“I am not encouraging you at all! I am clarifying the path you are eagerly choosing for yourself, for I still want to maintain the illusion that some inexplicable brain damage has left you unavare of the consequences. You have a bond with this wolf, Havelock. It is up to you vhether you allov that bond to be transformed into something positive – vhich comes at an unfairly lov cost to humans, I note; or whether you allov it to deteriorate into something... natural. Natural in both cruelty and blood. As it should be. After all, it’s just nature’s call, isn’t it?”
The silence that follows is heavy.
Finally, Havelock speaks.
“I consider myself chastened, my lady. I promise not to let you down again.”
“Very good,” Margolotta pats his arm, “because I haven’t chastened you yet. That was my care. But now I think you are ready for a good old vampiric scolding. You know I would never disrespect you by thinking you too fragile or human for it.”
Vetinari smiles, with a hint of ice in it. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Lady Margolotta lets go of his arm. She sets her sherry glass on a nearby table. Vetinari blinks.
She is right in his face. Her dark eyes, wide, ireful, bore into his and resemble a void. Her fangs are long and sharp.
“Take responsibility for your damned wolf,” she spits, “when you are under my roof.”
“He’s a Duke of Ankh, my lady,” he replies icily. “And I shall.”
***
Vetinari’s evening routine is quick and methodological.
He takes a hot bath. The temperature of the water helps to lessen the pulsating ache in his strained leg to a convenient level, until the sensation of slight strain is barely an afterthought in his mind. He uses a lot of soap and does his best to wash every trace of peppermint from his body.
He reattaches the straps with thin, silver needles forged especially for visits to the Uberwald. He changes into fresh clothes - black trousers and a black shirt, laced up the front. He forgoes the robe. He smoothes his hair in front of a mirror.
He recalls the viscount. Inky hair. Dark beard. Striking eyes…
His reflection changes rapidly, now showing a very clear, very distinctive expression that has no place on the Patrician's face. Part of him watches the change with fascination. The other part, the louder one, demands that something be done about it immediately.
Vetinari picks up his cane and heads for Vimes’s room.
***
As he opens the door, Vetinari catches a glimpse of Vimes: sitting on the bed, elbows on knees, head in hands, a picture of defeat. As soon as he hears the door creak, he jumps to attention.
“I’m sor–!”
He cuts himself off. His eyes bulge. His jaw slackens, revealing sharpened, pearly cuspids.
Vetinari closes the door behind him calmly. He clasps both hands on the top of the skullcap and waits.
Vimes’s nostrils flare.
Vetinari lets his scent do the heavy lifting of the conversation. So much for the status quo. He feels as vulnerable as if he were walking around weaponless and in physical pain.
Maybe– maybe this is good.. Maybe this is better than if they had to talk. Maybe…
“What the hell?!”
“Eloquent as ever, Commander.”
“Did that guy poison me? I’m hallucinating.”
“There was no poison involved, at least not that I know of. However, I would very much like to hear an additional explanation of what happened.”
Vimes opens his mouth, clearly about to say something, and then closes it again, raising his hand to rub his neck.
“I… don’t… know.”
Vetinari nods and waits. The fire crackles in the room.
“I…” Vimes begins again. “I wanted to kill so badly. These damned vampires stink! Of death, of decay, all of them twirling around so nobly, as if they were somehow superior…” His teeth show as he snarls. “I knew I couldn’t act like a moron! I knew what I was here for: to keep my mouth shut and my feathered helmet on. I was so angry and… And then that bastard came along, started provoking me… I wanted to beat him to a pulp. I knew I had to do something else, anything else! And I just…! And I– just…”
Vimes sways on his feet.
“Sit, Commander,” Vetinari says in a firm tone.
Vimes does, and then immediately jumps up again. “No!”
“Commander, please, take a good whiff of me and ask yourself, if I am in any position to judge you.”
“Oh, like hell you are! Seamstresses’ Guild is less potent.”
“Do not be dramatic.”
“I’m not! Sir, you’re…” Vimes blushes fiercely and drops his gaze.
So much for the status quo.
“As I suspect then, I smell better than viscount Griswold?”
Vimes yelps. “Yes! No! I mean, he– Sir!”
“Did you consent to him drinking your blood or did he force you in any way?”
“No, I… I consented! I think I wanted to… feel the pain, so… You are furious.”
“Yes. But for a different reason than you were probably willing to bet on, Vimes.”
The fireplace crackles in the silence.
“I’m sorry.”
Vetinari crosses the room in quick strides, tosses the cane on the bed, turns to Vimes and cups his face in both hands. His fingertips brush over the short stubble and the impressive sideburns that Vimes began to grow, frankly against his will, after the Change.
Vimes allows him the tender touch. His eyes are brown, warm and wide-open.
“I regret that I wasn’t honest before. I rarely make mistakes, Vimes. But situations like this must not happen again. If anyone else had found you and the viscount in such a position, you might have been murdered on the spot.”
“Would have given you the upper hand in negotiations, if they tore me apart.”
Vetinari raises an eyebrow at him. Coldly.
“Sorry, sir.”
Vetinari purses his lips in dissatisfaction and leans in for a kiss. It is very gentle. A soft peck on the lips, nothing more.
Vimes sniffs the air audibly. And groans. His breath is hot against Vetinari’s mouth.
Vetinari’s lips ghost over Vimes's lower lip – and he bites down. Hard.
Vimes curses and pulls away, but not too far. He doesn’t back down, and he doesn't do anything to tear Vetinari’s hands off himself. Vetinari still cradles his face and feels the soft facial hair under his fingers.
“What the hell was that for?”
“A punishment.”
Vimes smiles nastily. The bitten lip rapidly reddens. “I thought only those undead fuckers were possessive.”
Vetinari arches an eyebrow again.
“I have it on good authority that there are moments when I am not very different from a vampire.”