I was going to put a long introduction here, but it was almost longer
than the fanfic, so I forbode. The only thing I will say here, gentle
readers, is that, but for one event towards the end, which isn't
actually chronicled (because apparently has Rules about that
sort of thing), this story goes absolutely nowhere. It's possibly, up
to that event, the most pointless piece of fanfic I've ever written.

There aren't even any Night Watch spoilers. Really, I think it was
just an excuse for me to play with my new copy of The Streets of
Ankh-Morpork.

Thanks to Mary and Lunar for the betas and reassurances. I appreciate
both.

COLD SNAP

The dwarfs dwarfhandled their overloaded, creaking cart along the
street, peering ahead in fog. Ice formed on the cart and hung from
their beards.
All it needed was one frozen puddle.
Good old Dame Fortune. You can /depend/ on her.
- The Truth

Pseudopolis Yard, in quite nearly the centre of the city, was on a
small island created by the curve of the Ankh river on three sides and
a small diversion of the river, called the Cut, on the fourth. You had
to cross a bridge to get to it from most anywhere else in Ankh-Morpork.

Usually, Sam Vimes nipped around the Opera House and took an alley from
the Yard out to Body Street, over the Cut and down King's Way to Scoone
Avenue, where the Ramkin mansion stood at the corner. Sometimes, if he
was feeling contrary and didn't want to walk King's Way, he'd take
Holofernes over to the Maudlin Bridge, and follow Chrononhotonthologos
street down to Scoone, but that was a much longer walk and usually, by
the end of the day, much though he loved walking, he just wanted to go
home.

This was certainly one of those times.

His breath puffed in the air as he walked down Body street, and when he
looked forward he noticed that the Cut was frozen. He pulled the thin
cloak tighter around his shoulders and hurried on.

It wasn't even September yet - it hadn't even been chilly this
morning! He hadn't taken his greatcoat, hadn't even thought about
taking his greatcoat, and he'd spent most of the day, as he seemed to
spend all of his days now, working in his office and down in the main
rooms of the Yard. He'd barely had time to step outside all day.

Then there'd been a few rather /energetic/ prisoners brought in, and
he'd been tied up with helping subdue and interrogate, and by the time
that was done, it was nearly ten in the evening and the outdoors were a
world of freezing cold.

He shivered, adding one more degree of speed to his walk. Normally he
liked weather like this, but normally he had a heavier coat.

Still, there was something about the city...

It was one of the two quiet periods that he'd so loved in the old Night
Watch; people who did their business by day had gone home, and the
drunks were still drinking, and the people who did their business by
night hadn't yet finished breakfast.

The streets were empty, and in the tooth-chattering cold, it was
relatively peaceful. There was a sharpness in the air that almost made
his city beautiful.

Sam Vimes strongly suspected himself of romanticising the city, because
he knew on the one hand that he wouldn't give it up for all the gold in
the Aurient, and he knew on the other that it was an ugly, greedy,
smelly place with too many people and not enough soap. But when you
walked over the bridge on the frozen Cut and looked out to where it
re-joined the Ankh, which twisted away towards the Hubwards river gate,
and that sharp clean smell of pure /cold/ was in the air, well, you had
to be a Watchman to think this way, but it was a good city.

It was /his/ city.

Think that all you like, Sam Vimes, said the little hard voice inside
him that tended to ruin perfectly good moments, but while you think
it, how about making at least an attempt not to lose your extremities?

He puffed hot breath onto his hands, and rubbed them together as he
passed the alley down to Five and Seven yard. From here you could see
the Ramkin mansion, rearing up above the cityscape like a dragon
crouched over the street.

There was a light on, down in the kitchens, and another in their
bedroom window. The sight of it, on nights like this, always did
something strange to his stomach; he wasn't a particularly sensitive
man in many ways, but he did love Sybil and he did love his home, and
it made him feel a bit warm on the insides, seeing that light.

He let himself into the front hall, which was stone and, if possible,
just as cold as the outside; his fingers were numb as he unbuckled his
breastplate.

"Good evening, sir," Wilikins said, appearing behind him to take the
backplate that was slipping off his shoulders. He helped Vimes out of
the chain-mail and accepted the helmet while Vimes hung his sword-belt
on the peg on the wall and put his truncheon in the umbrella-stand.

"Bigods, Wilikins, it's cold out," Vimes said, as he untied his boots.
"Shouldn't be this bad, this early."

"Yes, sir. The kitchen has been prepared. There is tea, cocoa, or hot
soup, if sir would like."

"Sir would very much like, Wilikins. I'll have some tea upstairs, if
that's all right."

"I shall bring two cups," Wilikins said, vanishing into the back
recesses of the house. Vimes' fingers tingled as he ascended the
staircase to the warmer upstairs level.

"Sam, is that you?" Sybil called, stepping out of the bedroom. She was
carrying a thick woolly blanket, which enveloped him in the mild smell
of mothballs as she wrapped it around his shoulders. "You must be
half-frozen. I thought about sending the coach, but I didn't know if
you were at the Yard."

He accepted her kiss and returned it, quite aware that his nose was
like a chunk of ice.

"How'd it get so blasted cold so quickly, that's what I want to know,"
he said, crossing to the fireplace.

Before his marriage, Vimes' idea of a bedroom was a room with a bed in
it. A dresser or a washstand, if you wanted to get posh. It was a place
you went when you slept and walked out of when you woke. It had been a
quite interesting class-culture lesson for both of them, his moving
into the mansion. Apparently, the rich lived a good deal of their
lives in the bedroom, and furnished it accordingly.

This bedroom had the bed, of course, a great big thing that'd been
around forever, but it also had more furniture than the house Vimes had
grown up in. It didn't need a washstand, because it connected to the
bathroom, but there was a writing desk near the fireplace for Sybil,
piled high with correspondence and breeding books; there was a table by
the window, for Vimes, piled high with police reports and empty cigar
packets; a couch by the fire, a couple of pegs for their dressing-gowns,
two bureaus, a bookcase, a standing mirror...

Vimes settled himself on the couch, stretching his bare feet out
towards the fire and pulling the blanket up over his nose. Warmth
flowed into him.

"They're saying it's going to be a freezing winter," Sybil continued,
from somewhere behind him. He could /feel/ cold-tense muscles relaxing.
"Of course, there's also a rumour that it's one of the wizards up at
the University and a spell gone wrong, so perhaps by morning it'll
have run itself out."

"The edges of the Ankh were starting to freeze over when I left the
Yard. Is that the tea?" he asked, as a quiet metallic clank sounded
somewhere off to his left.

"Would you like it on the couch?" asked Sybil.

"No, I'll get up," he said. When he looked out from under the blanket,
she was pouring for them, sitting at his little table by the window. He
pulled a chair around and let the blanket fall on the back.

"It's not natural," he said, as he sipped the scalding tea. "Must be
the wizards. I'm up to have a word with Ridcully tomorrow, you may be
sure of that."

"Don't get turned into a newt, please," Sybil said, with a smile. He
grinned at her. "I don't want to have to keep my husband in a
terrarium." He flicked his tongue out, lizard-like, and she laughed.
"You're in a good mood tonight, Sam."

"It was a good day. Carrot finally got hold of old Barker Long - did I
tell you about him?"

"The man who's been rearranging peoples' furniture?"

"Yes, we're doing him for 'breaking and decorating'. Now there's a
crime you don't get every day, even in Ankh-Morpork."

"I thought it was sort of sweet of him."

"Lord Selachii didn't think so."

"Lord Selachii needed the remodel."

Vimes nodded over his tea. "Well, I don't think Barker cares too much,
he's already gone and scrubbed out the cells and done some maintenance
work on the beds. He's got an urge to improve, no doubt about it."

"Was that what kept you late?"

He sighed, and shook his head, rising to lean against the window-frame,
looking out at the street below. The glass put off a mild chill. "That
was some...less pleasant business. Just a couple of rowdies Ping and
Visit brought in. The young ones don't know how to deal with that sort
yet."

There was silence for a while. He decided he'd fully regained feeling
in his toes.

"I should have sent the coach," Sybil said quietly.

"Nonsense. I like to walk."

"You could have frozen. You'll be sick tomorrow."

"I won't. It's fine, Sybil, honest." He leaned over her shoulder and
kissed her cheek. She gave him a weak smile.

"I know you like to walk, but I still worry," she said. He circled to
crouch, facing her, and set his tea on the table.

"I know you do. But here I am, safe, warm, and with all my bits still
attached," he said, spreading his arms. "Now. Why don't you...come to
bed, and we'll see about keeping warm tonight, hm?"

***

Lady Sybil Vimes lay in the big bed, staring up at the ends of the
bedposts and the ceiling. By gods, Sam Vimes could be a charming man
when he wanted to. Unfortunately, she was probably the only person in
the city who knew it. He didn't want to be charming very often.

She had expected him to arrive home, warm up, and probably fall asleep
in front of the fire. This had been a pleasant surprise.

Next to her, her husband grunted in his sleep, mumbling something
incoherently.

Sybil was relatively good at maths, and had also learned probably more
than anyone thought a lady should know about, well, children and
things. Mrs. Content had been her father's laundress for many years,
and as a girl Sybil had spent a lot of time in the laundry, talking
with her. In addition to the laundry business, Mrs. Content was
midwife for most of the servant families in the area, and she'd often
ranted about how simple it was for a young girl /not/ to get pregnant,
if she knew how to count and could divide by two.

She was almost positive she should have divided-by-two before she let
Sam make that invitation. Certainly before she accepted it.

It wasn't that she didn't like children, and it wasn't that she didn't
want children of her own, but she /wasn't/ young anymore, and neither
was Sam if it came to that.

But, a little voice said quietly, Sam doesn't live a safe life. What
are you going to do if you lose him someday?

And it'd be good to have an heir to pass the family lands on to. Her
father had been very disappointed that he didn't have a grandson to
leave the estate to, before he died. He'd even have settled for a
granddaughter, in those last couple of months.

Besides, she didn't /know/ anything yet. It was all rather wonderfully
uncertain.

Sybil smiled, and closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep, warmed by
the blankets and by Sam's presence.

In a couple of weeks, she'd go and have a word with old Mrs. Content.

END