Guards Guards - Patrician

“I was marched through the streets, ” said Urdo van Pew, currently President of the Guild of Thieves, Burglars and Allied Trades. “In broad daylight! With my hands tied together!” He took a few steps towards the Patrician's severe chair of office, waving a finger.

“You know very well that we have kept within the Budget, ” he said. “To be humiliated like that! Like a common criminal! There had better be a full apology, ” he said, “or you will have another strike on your hands. We will be driven to it, despite our natural civic responsibilities, ” he added.

It was the finger. The finger was a mistake. The Patrician was staring coldly at the finger. Van Pew followed his gaze, and quickly lowered the digit. The Patrician was not a man you shook a finger at unless you wanted to end up being able to count only to nine.

“And you say this was one person?” said Lord Vetinari.

“Yes! That is-” Van Pew hesitated.

It did sound weird, now he came to tell someone.

“But there are hundreds of you in there, ” said the Patrician calmly. “Thick as, you should excuse the expression, thieves. ”

Van Pew opened and shut his mouth a few times. The honest answer would have been: yes, and if anyone had come sidling in and skulking around the corridors it would have been the worse for them. It was the way he strode in as if he owned the place that fooled everyone. That and the fact that he kept hitting people and telling them to Mend their Ways.

The Patrician nodded.

“I shall deal with the matter momentarily, ” he said. It was a good word. It always made people hesitate. They were never quite sure whether he meant he'd deal with it now, or just deal with it briefly. And no-one ever dared ask.

Van Pew backed down.

“A full apology, mark you. I have a position to maintain, ” he added.

“Thank you. Do not let me detain you, ” said the Patrician, once again giving the language his own individual spin.

“Right. Good. Thank you. Very well, ” said the thief.

"After all, you have such a lot of work to do," Lord Vetinari went on.

“Well, of course this is the case. ” The thief hesitated. The Patrician's last remark had barbs on it. You found yourself waiting for him to strike.

“Er, ” he said, hoping for a clue.

“With so much business being conducted, that is.”

Panic took over the thief's features. Randomized guilt flooded his mind. It wasn't a case of what had he done, it was a question of what the Patrician had found out about. The man had eyes everywhere, none of them so terrifying as the icy blue ones just above his nose.

“I, er, don't quite follow...” he began.

“Curious choice of targets.” The Patrician picked up a sheet of paper. “ For example, a crystal ball belonging to a fortune teller in Sheer Street. A small ornament from the temple of Offler the Crocodile God. And so on. Gewgaws. ”

“I am afraid I really don't know-” said the head thief. The Patrician leaned forward.

“No unlicensed thieving, surely?” he said.

“I shall look into it directly!” stuttered the head thief. “Depend upon it!”

The Patrician gave him a sweet smile. “I'm sure I can, ” he said. “Thank you for coming to see me. Don't hesitate to leave."

The thief shuffled out. It was always like this with the Patrician, he reflected bitterly. You came to him with a perfectly reasonable complaint. Next thing you knew, you were shuffling out backwards, bowing and scraping, relieved simply to be getting away. You had to hand it to the Patrician, he admitted grudgingly. If you didn't, he sent men to come and take it away.

***

Guards Guards - 51-53