brain thief cont'd

[holli]

Through the rest of lunch, Sam managed to keep the awkwardness to a minimum, achieving something like a natural flow of conversation with Meg. It helped that she was interesting: her work was interesting, her viewpoint as an outsider to the city was interesting, her opinions were interesting-- and she was funny. Sam liked girls who liked to laugh. At the end of lunch, though, she excused herself to use the ladies’, and Mina materialized beside the table the instant she was gone. “*So*, Sam,” she began, and Sam rolled his eyes. “What’s the verdict? Will there be a second date?”

“Mina, shove off,” Sam said. “I’m going to get enough nonsense from Hettie and Penny, I don’t need it from you, too.”

“Well, I like her, anyway,” Mina said. “I think she’s good for you. And she doesn’t seem a bit intimidated to be on a date with Ankh’s Most Eligible Bachelor.”

Sam could never lie to Mina. “Yes, well,” he muttered, and Mina’s eyes widened.

“Sam. She does *know* who she’d on a date with, doesn’t she?” Sam didn’t answer. “Doesn’t she?”

“It’s a bit complicated,” Sam said, looking down at his hands. “I may have... stretched the truth a little.”

“Oh, *Sam*.” The worst part was, Mina didn’t even look angry. Disappointed, maybe, which was worse. “You’ve got to tell her.”

“And scare her off? No thank you,” Sam said. “I’ll tell her when I’m damn well ready to, Mina. In the meantime, can I enjoy the novelty of being around a girl I like without the bloody Viscount floating overhead like a storm cloud?”

Whatever Mina had been about to say in response was cut off by Meg’s return from the loo. “That was an amazing meal, Mina,” she said happily. “I officially love Klatchian food. Sam, will you walk me back to the hospital?”

“I’d be glad to,” Sam said hastily, and ignored Mina’s warning look.

***

Sam dropped Meg off at the hospital, and took the Underground to Five and Seven Yard. It was only a few blocks from there to Scoone Avenue. The train wasn’t too badly crowded, but Sam stood anyway, hanging from a strap and watching the dwarf shops that lined the station begin to blur as the train accelerated. After a few minutes, he noticed that a man sitting across the aisle was giving him a long, speculative look.

“Here, now,” the man said, finally, “You’re Old Stoneface’s son, aren’t you?”

“Er,” said Sam, suddenly uncomfortable. “Yes, I’m Sam Vimes.”

The man elbowed the girl sitting next to him. “Would you look at that, Cicely?” he said. “Sam Vimes, riding the Underground with the rest of us.” Cicely giggled. With a sinking heart, Sam began to suspect that she had read That Article.

“You know, lad, your dad arrested me once,” the man said, with an air of one remembering the good old days. “On a Drunk and Disorderly, it was. Spent a night in the cells, but no hard feelings-- ‘e was just doing his job. ‘Course, I don’t suppose he’s had to do that sort of thing in a long while, eh?”

“Well, he’s retired,” Sam said. “So no, not lately.”

“I think it was terribly brave of you to become a policeman too,” said Cicely, batting her eyelashes at him in a disquieting way. “I mean, you could have done anything you liked.”

“Nah,” said Sam. “And miss out on the best job in the world?”

The man guffawed. “Said like a fellow who’s never needed to work for a living! Lad, you and I know you’re born to bigger things than the Watch. But it’s good of you to work when you don’t have to. Shows character, like.”

Sam smiled politely, and thanked the man, and didn’t give any outward sign that he was clenching his teeth at all. Someone looking closely might have noticed his white-knuckled grip on the hanging strap, but Sam found that most people didn’t look too closely at all. That was the trouble, of course.

Sam was in a foul mood the rest of the way to Mum and Dad’s. Of all the bloody patronizing--! As though he was just *playing* at being a copper, as though he didn’t pay his rent and buy his groceries like anyone else, as though he was just marking time until his real life as a useless nob got started.

If there was one thing Sam hated, really hated, about being born Sam Vimes, it was the way that perfect strangers acted as though they had a right to his life. The way people just assumed things, about who Sam was, who he was going to be, and didn’t feel the least bit of compunction about imposing those opinions on Sam. The way that people looked at him and saw the Viscount, or the Duke-in-waiting, or a rich bastard who didn’t need to do an honest day’s work-- and they never saw Sam. Not really.

In was in this savage mood that he arrived at the old house in Scoone Avenue, and it was very nearly the last straw when Mum came in from the dragon house, saw him, and said, “Oh, good! Dear, there’s a reception at the palace tonight, and your father and I were hoping you’d come--” She stopped when she got a better look at Sam’s face. “Oh, dear. Was someone being stupid, darling?”

Sam did his best to smooth out his expression. “Yeah, Mum. It’s all right. I can come along if Dad wants the moral support. Have you got a change of clothes for me?”

“In your old room. I hope it wasn’t too bad, Sam-- I know how people can get. Especially since That Article. But at least they ran a very good photograph of you, you know.”

Sam’s dad had three walls of one drawing room devoted to press clippings, and a hallway for the newspaper cartoons. Mum had only just started a wall for Sam; so far it took up a few square feet.

“Sure, Mum.” Sam gave her a kiss on the cheek. Mum knew all about people assuming things because of who you were born as, at least. They had always had that in common. “I’ll be ready in a bit.”

She smiled maternally at him, and Sam went upstairs to get changed.

***

Officially, the Watch school had begun when Sam was four, and the first classes were enrolled. But really it had begun much earlier, when Sam was only a few days old, and his father had cradled him in his arms, stroked his wispy hair, and said, “I’ll send him to the Assassins’ school over a whole *heap* of dead bodies, Sybil.” Not that Sam ever knew it, but that’s really where it started.

There was, of course, a long tradition of Guild schools in the city; the children of Guild members were educated in them without fee, as were those whose non-Guild parents could scrape up the money. Outside the Guild schools, most went to little neighborhood grammar schools for a few years, to learn the rudiments of reading and writing and sums; the rest went to those schools variously known as Life, the Real World, and Hard Knocks.

The Watch School’s official name was the Guild of Policemen’s Academy, but no one called it that. The Guild of Policemen did exist, in a nominal way; it had been formed by Nobby some indeterminate number of years ago during what Captain Carrot politely called “a labor dispute” and Captain Angua called “a bloody mess.” Now it existed mostly to give the School a polite veneer of officiality, and to supplement Nobby’s income when he remembered to collect the dues.

The Watch School was unusual in that it did not collect fees from any of its students, whether or not they were any relation of a Watchman. Instead, it extended charity scholarships, sponsored by the Watch (but really by the Watch Commander) to promising students from all round the city. And, of course, it schooled the children of Watchmen and former Watchmen, giving them a well-rounded education that, despite an emphasis on police work, could serve graduates well in a broad range of jobs.

This was the version you got in the brochure. In reality, what Commander Vimes was accomplishing was a sneak attack on the city’s class barriers, a quiet democratization of education that ensured rapid economic mobility for children of the city’s poorest families. Sam Vimes, Senior didn’t know what a liberal arts education was, but he knew a good school turned out people who knew how to think, and he ensured that *his* school did so.

Young Sam didn’t see the Watch School this way, of course. For him, it had been a second home from the ages of four to eighteen, the place he met most of his best friends, and a fairly central part of his identity. It was where he had decided he wanted to be a copper, like his dad, and where he had earned the skills that allowed him to become one.

So naturally, Sam took it somewhat amiss when posh Assassins’ School gits looked down their long noses at Watch School kids. Just now, he was having some trouble restraining himself from punching one horse-faced idiot right in the neck. It was only Mum’s warning glare that kept him from sidling over to the two expensively-dressed young men standing a few feet away, over by the buffet table, and inserting a few choice words--or fists-- into their conversation.

“Well, honestly,” the one in the silly hat was saying, “it’s not as though anyone in the city can rival the Guild for quality of education. I mean, there are those that might *try*,” and, yes, that was a snooty glance in Dad’s direction, “but for a true *classical* education, there’s really no other option.”

Oh, how Sam hated posh parties. He excused himself to Mum, nodded at Dad and Mr. Lipwig, and walked off across the room, dodging knots of well-dressed people, avoiding those that tried to catch his eye. The de Worde boys were here, and he didn’t mind them-- they were a few years younger, and a little bit tiring, but they were Watch School kids when you got down to it-- but what Sam really wanted was to be alone. And, if he remembered correctly, there was an alcove just along here where he could do that.

But the alcove was occupied. Luckily for Sam, it was occupied by someone he could stand.

"Hi, Aggie," Sam said. "Home from school again?"

Agatha Rust offered him a crooked smile. More than once, Sam had wondered how the Rust family, which ran to underbites and unthinking arrogance, had produced a girl like Agatha, who had a sharp little chin and an even sharper mind. She had wanted to go to the Watch School, which to Sam's way of thinking proved she had good sense, but her parents had sent her to the Quirm College for Young Ladies instead, thus setting off an endless game of cat and mouse between Agatha, her parents, and the College wardens.

"Mum says I can stay home until they replace the shutters on my dormitory," Aggie said. "With stronger hinges, I guess. Not that it's my fault they didn't think of the hinges when they replaced the locks."

Aggie was the College's all-time record holder for successful running-away attempts, a fact of which she was enormously proud.

"That's nice," said Sam. "I'll tell Penny you said hello."

Penny and Aggie had somehow managed to establish a fast friendship, despite moving in completely different social circles and only seeing each other a few times a year. They wrote letters, apparently, when Aggie was away at school.

“Thanks, Sam,” Aggie said. “So, what’s this I hear about you and some girl from Lancre?”

“Oh, come *on*!” Sam said. “I know news travels fast, but-- that fast? I’ve only been out with her once!”

“Well, you told Hettie, who told her cousin Rue, who told Joyful, who told Penny, who told me,” Aggie explained. “And I didn’t hear that you’d been out with her. When did this happen?”

“Just this afternoon, which is a fact that you are to keep strictly to yourself,” Sam said warningly. “If I wanted Penny or Joyful or Rue to know, I’d have told them.”

“Oh, all right,” Aggie said, pulling a face at him. “But you should know Rue’s quite crushed. She’s mad for you, you know.”

“Yeah, her, her sisters, and eight of her cousins,” Sam said.

“Well, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be,” Aggie said. “You are, after all--” Sam groaned, and put his hands over his ears, but Aggie kept going, relentless-- “Ankh’s Most Eligible Bachelor.”

“Not you too,” Sam moaned.

“Well, I actually know you, so no,” Aggie said. “But I hope this girl from Lancre knows what she’s getting into.”

“I just hope she doesn’t,” Sam muttered, but waved it off when Agatha shot him a questioning look. “C’mon,” he said, “back to the party. People will be wondering where we’ve gone.”

Agatha grumbled, but agreed, and the two of them walked back together.

***

Comments

[petra]

You make me weirdly proud of Sam, since I had nothing to do with his upbringing or creation. But I love him for being angry, and I love Sybil for supporting him.

Aggie Rust either jumped some levels in the family tree or got the Queen Ynci treatment somewhere along the way. In either case, I approve.