'Tis big an' i'ss round an' weighs three to the-' sang Chidder. 'Blast, what've I stepped in?'
'Anyone know where we are?' said Arthur.
'We - we were headed for the Guildhouse,' said Teppic, 'only must of took the wrong way, that's the river up ahead. Can smell it.'
Caution penetrated Arthur's armour of alcohol.
'Could be dangerous pep - plep - people around, this time o' night,' he hazarded.
'Yep,' said Chidder, with satisfaction, 'us. Got ticket to prove it. Got test and everything. Like to see anyone try anything with us.'
'Right,' agreed Teppic, leaning against him for support of a sort. 'We'll slit them from wossname to thingy.'
'Right!'
They lurched uncertainly out on to the Brass Bridge.
In fact there were dangerous people around in the pre-dawn shadows, and currently these were some twenty paces behind them.
The complex system of criminal Guilds had not actually made Ankh-Morpork a safer place, it just rationalised its dangers and put them on a regular and reliable footing. The major Guilds policed the city with more thoroughness and certainly more success than the old Watch had ever managed, and it was true that any freelance and unlicensed thief caught by the Thieves' Guild would soon find himself remanded in custody by social inquiry reports plus having his knees nailed together[9].
However, there were always a few spirits who would venture a precarious living outside the lawless, and the five men of this description were closing cautiously on the trio to introduce them to this week's special offer, a cut throat plus theft and burial in the river mud of your choice.
People normally keep out of the way of assassins because of an instinctive feeling that killing people for very large sums of money is disapproved of by the gods (who generally prefer people to be killed for very small sums of money or for free) and could result in hubris, which is the judgement of the gods. The gods are great believers in justice, at least as far as it extends to humans, and have been known to dispense it so enthusiastically that people miles away are turned into cruet.
However, assassin's black doesn't frighten everyone, and in certain sections of society there is a distinct cachet in killing an assassin. It's rather like smashing a sixer in conkers.
Broadly, therefore, the three even now lurching across the deserted planks of the Brass Bridge were dead drunk assassins and the men behind them were bent on inserting the significant comma.
Chidder wandered into one of the heraldic wooden hippopotami[10] that lined the seaward edge of the bridge, bounced off and flopped over the parapet.
'Feel sick,' he announced.
'Feel free,' said Arthur, 'that's what the river's for.'
Teppic sighed. He was attached to rivers, which he felt were designed to have water lilies on top and crocodiles underneath, and the Ankh always depressed him because if you put a water lily in it, it would dissolve. It drained the huge silty plains all the way to the Ramtop mountains, and by the time it had passed through Ankh-Morpork, pop. One million, it could only be called a liquid because it moved faster than the land around it; actually being sick in it would probably make it, on average, marginally cleaner.
He stared down at the thin trickle that oozed between the central pillars, and then raised his gaze to the grey horizon.
'Sun's coming up,' he announced.
'Don't remember eating that,' muttered Chidder.
Teppic stepped back, and a knife ripped past his nose and buried itself in the buttocks of the hippo next to him.
Five figures stepped out of the mists. The three assassins instinctively drew together.
'You come near me, you'll really regret it,' moaned Chidder, clutching his stomach. 'The cleaning bill will be horrible.'
'Well now, what have we here?' said the leading thief. This is the sort of thing that gets said in these circumstances.
'Thieves' Guild, are you?' said Arthur.
'No,' said the leader, 'we're the small and unrepresentative minority that gets the rest a bad name. Give us your valuables and weapons, please. This won't make any difference to the outcome, you understand. It's just that corpse robbing is unpleasant and degrading.'
'We could rush them,' said Teppic, uncertainly.
'Don't look at me,' said Arthur, 'I couldn't find my arse with an atlas.'