[#006] Odd. (Discworld)

[dictionarywrites]

Theme Prompt: Unexpected company. 
Title: Odd. 
Fandom: Discworld. 
Rating/Warnings: Rated T. No warnings. Vetinari/Drumknott, Vimes. 
Bonus: Yes. 
Word Count: 991.
Summary: When Drumknott, in a sort of informal witness protection, is staying at the Ramkin Estate, Vimes finds something... Odd.

Somebody was trying to kill Rufus Drumknott. This had been the case for over a week now, and while the investigation was underway, and was likely to do with a particular smuggling operation that had been running between Ankh-Morpork and Pseudopolis, they did not yet have any suspects in custody. Drumknott, Vimes was aware, was used to people trying to kill him. He worked in the Patrician’s Palace, where attempted murder was par for the course, and as far as Vimes was aware, at 34 years old, the price on his head at the Assassins’ Guild was set at a modest $225,000.

The plan, as far as Vimes had been told[1], was that Drumknott should be kept neatly under wraps, so that the smugglers would get nervous, thinking the other gang of smugglers had gotten hold of him, and were keeping him captive. This meant that Drumknott had to be secreted somewhere other than the Palace.

This meant, that for a little over a week now, he had been staying at the Ramkin Estate, kept inside, so that no one would catch a glimpse of him. He was driving Vimes, it might be said, insane. In the first four days, he had painstakingly re-catalogued and reshelved the Ramkin Estate library. The library was the most organised Vimes had ever seen it. Unfortunately, this rendered Drumknott entirely without work, and, surprisingly, he wasn’t good at sitting still without something to occupy him.

But that was neither here nor there.

The night before, they had brought Drumknott out into the city, let him make an appearance at a café to see how the word spread, and it had gone… Well. Not that Vimes hadn’t known that the clerk, on some level, could probably take care of himself. But Drumknott was short, and thin, and always looked like a strong wind[2] might knock him down. Seeing him neatly slit a man’s throat with a letter opener had been…

Different.

Anyway, they had things to be getting on with today, and he had just returned from his night shift in the city. It was a little after four, but Drumknott usually woke at five anyway, so it wouldn’t be too much, he supposed, to wake him up, and he knocked on the door before he entered.

No answer.

He pushed open the door to the guest bedroom, stepped inside, and stopped.

Lord Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician on Ankh-Morpork, was sitting up in Drumknott’s bed. The pillows had been pushed up against the golden frame of the head of the bed, his shoulders leaning against them, and he was sipping idly at a cup of tea, his gaze concentrated on a black-bound book in his other hand. He was wearing pyjamas, and he was without his usual black skullcup, which Vimes could see was resting on the bedside table beside him. Vetinari, it was said, barely slept at night. At all hours, it seemed, he was likely working within the Palace. Drumknott, Vimes had discovered in the past week, did sleep – he slept, according to him, a healthy six hours per night.

He was sleeping right now, in fact.

In the Patrician’s lap.

Vimes stared, jaw set, at the little clerk. His feet were tangled in the bedsheets, as they ordinarily were, and he had his arms thrown around Vetinari’s slim hips: his face was pressed right into Vetinari’s lap, and his face was slack in sleep, his breathing even. Curled into the tight space between Drumknott’s belly and Vetinari’s thigh, snoring softly, was the chairman of the Royal Bank, Mr Fusspot[3].

“Good morning, Vimes,” Lord Vetinari said, as if this was a normal state of affairs.

“G’morning, sir,” Vimes said, because he didn’t have a better thing to say.

“There was a break-in last night,” Vetinari said mildly. “One of the young Assassins practising[4]: no harm done, but she almost fell in with the dragons, and Sybil had to call for a doctor to remove her.”

“I see,” Vimes said. “And why are you here?”

“Oh, Sybil invited me to say,” Vetinari said, in a casual tone. He called her Sybil. She called him Havelock. The Patrician, it might be said, was not even the weirdest of his wife’s friends, but nonetheless, Vimes found it jarring every time.

“Did she.”

“Quite.”

“Were you here when it happened?”

“When what happened?”

“The Assassin.”

Vetinari looked at him innocently. The expression didn’t suit him. “Why would I have been here when that happened?”

“Why are you here now?”

Vetinari blinked innocently at Vimes, while smiling a pleasant smile. It was quite unsettling. Vimes watched as Vetinari gently set his cup of tea[5] on the bedside table, and then reached down, curling blue-veined fingers gently through Drumknott’s hair.

Drumknott groaned a vague protest in his sleep. Vetinari’s grip tightened, and Drumknott raised his head, rubbing sleepily at his eye.

“Your excellency?” he asked, looking blearily at Vimes.

He decided, after a night shift, that he didn’t need to deal with this. “Never mind,” he said, reaching back for the door. “Go back to sleep,” he said. “I’ll go through it with you later.” He heard Vetinari chuckle as he closed the door shut behind him, and resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands.

---

[1] He was aware, given that this was Vetinari, that there were likely elements to the plan he was not and would never be made aware of.

[2] Or, he supposed wryly, in Drumknott’s case, an overzealous draught.

[3] For posterity, let us note that Mr Fusspot was a soft, short-haired dog.

[4] The Assassins no longer attempted to kill Vimes, but they liked to practice how they would do it, if they were to try. He was infamously difficult to tell.

[5] Which, Vimes noticed, was Ramkin china, meaning either Vetinari had gone to get it this morning, or Wilikins had brought it to him.