"You have freedom, Mister Vimes. Isn't that vhat everyvun vants?"
—Margolotta in The Fifth Elephant

"It seems," said Lady Margolotta, staring at the board in front of her, "that you have beaten me."

She was still working out how that could have happened. The pale young man in front of her had been losing, for H—for someone's sake!

Then again, this was exactly the point when you played Stealth Chess: If the Assassin piece entered the Slurks to either side as the chessboard and made a few moves there, it could reappear practically anywhere on the board. And the young man, she reminded herself, was a trained assassin.

"So it seems." The young man didn't smile, which was, Margolotta thought, fortunate for him because gleeful winners tended to get on her nerves—and the blue veins under his skin were shimmering rather enticingly.

"Even so…"

"Hmm?" Her eyes shifted from his carotid to his face.

"I would feel honoured if your ladyship graced me with the opportunity of a return match." He smiled. He had a calculating smile, this young man.

"Vhy? You have already von."

"Yes, but I might not the next time."

Now he had her undivided attention.

"Our match was even," he said simply. "This was the most interesting game of Stealth Chess I have played in a long time, and we play it often in the Assassins' Guild." Now he smiled a real smile. "One might say we are a match for each other, as opponents."

"Hmm." Margolotta watched him more closely. He wasn't conventionally attractive: A gangly young man with a long face and shoulder-length black hair … but with pale skin and clearly visible veins—features that were certainly attractive to a vampire. And he got along well with her dog.

In short, he was a temptation. A temptation sent not by any unknown deity, but by her friend, his aunt Lady Roberta Meserole, who had asked him to pay her a visit on his Grand Sneer. It would have been quite impolite to sink her fangs into—

Oh, well. Better not follow that train of thought.

"My sources are a little vague on the matter, but it seems you had to flee Ankh-Morkpork because you inhumed Lord Vinder?"

The young man was sitting in her library, several books of Uberwaldean philosophy on the table in front of him. Margolotta watched him closely in case the twitching of a brow or, indeed, the speeding up of his pulse revealed the truth of this allegation.

"Oh no, I did not inhume him,"1 the young man said without any sign of surprise. "However, Lord Snapcase watches every younger member of the Assassins' Guild quite closely at the moment. Rumour has it that he wants to invite the assassin who … predeceased his predecessor in order to congratulate him, but I would not bet my travelling cloak on his true intentions."

"Indeed not," Margolotta said thoughtfully.

"You never know what a tyrant who compiles registers might do with them," the young man continued in an equally thoughtful tone, looking directly into her eyes. "The existence of a register means that the aforementioned tyrant now knows my name and address. I thought it wisest not to be there, in case he thought a … reduction of the number of assassins in Ankh-Morpork was due."

"Visely said," Margolotta had to admit. "Perhaps not so vise to go to Ubervald, though."

"Oh, several of my teachers at the Guild recommended Uberwaldean philosophers to me," the young man said. "I thought reading their works might broaden my understanding of politics and its underlying principles."

"It seems you have come to the right place, then." Margolotta gestured around at the high-vaulted room. With its chairs and ladders leading to a second storey with even more books, it resembled the library of a cloister rather than that of a castle.

"Indeed, I believe I have." The young man turned to one of the books on the table. "I found some of the statements in Die Bedingtheit der Werte by Friedhelm Niklas quite enlightening, especially the passage in which he emphasises that the powerful and the wealthy define what is 'good', and usually define that they are 'the good ones' themselves."2

"Ah, is that not a universal truth?" said Margolotta. "There are no good people at all, only people vho claim to be the good ones."

"Oh yes," said the young man. "Not long ago, I watched a play in which one of the characters said: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.3 That seems entirely correct to me."

"Vell," said Margolotta, "In my experience, there are, alvays and only, the bad people. It is just that some of them are on opposite sides."4

The young man turned to her, books forgotten. There was an alertness in his expression that drew her closer. He pulled out a chair for her.

"Do tell me more."

"Such a pity you have to go." Margolotta stepped behind the young man with superhuman speed. She expected him to flinch, but there was nothing—nothing but the suggestion that he might have moved away if only he had wanted to. But he remained standing, and his pulse did not speed up.

"Yes," he said. "I quite enjoyed my stay at your place."

"I only vonder," she said, lifting her chin to bring her lips closer to his neck, "vhat makes you believe I vould let you go."

And there it was, the quickening of a pulse.

"I trust that you will let me go," he said, "and that you will not harm me."

"Oh, but you don't," she whispered close to his ear. "You are afraid."

"As a matter of fact, your ladyship, I am not."

"I can hear your pulse."

"I am aware." He paused. "You can also smell people's fear, I am told. Can you smell fear?"

She hesitated. There was no fear.

She closed her mouth and brushed her lips against his pulse point.

He shuddered, barely perceptible. Margolotta only noticed because she had been waiting for it.

"Interesting." She stepped back.

"Of course I cannot know if you feel the same—if that is, indeed, what vampires feel," he said, "but I do believe that you will not try to subdue me."

"Oh, and vhy is that?" With lightning speed, she stepped to his side. He did not flinch this time either.

"Because you were the first person in years who challenged my skills when we played Stealth Chess," he said. "Because some of the most interesting conversations of my life so far were with you." He paused. "There will be no more if you subdue me."

Margolotta stared into his eyes.

"An intelligent young man indeed."

"So I am told." He smiled. "Your ladyship, it was an honour to meet you." He took her hand and bowed deeply, breathing a kiss on her hand.

"May ve meet again, Havelock Vetinari," she said solemnly.

"I hope we will, Lady Margolotta. I hope we will."

He mounted his horse. She watched him ride through the gates of her castle.

He was right, of course. She would never subdue someone like him, tempting as it might be.

"Thall I clothe the gateth, mithtreth?" said Igor, appearing right behind her in the way only Igors could.

"Yes, close them, please." She turned back to her castle. Quietly, she added: "And I shall spend the evening asking myself if vampires can feel the same…"

"Mithtreth?"

"Nothing, Igor. Nothing."

Notes

I was listening to "Freiheit" (Freedom) by Saltatio Mortis and it gave me quite the Havelotta feels… You can find the German lyrics and an English translation on lyricstranslate.

1 Lady Margolotta might have received a more accurate answer had she asked if he had had anything to do with Lord Winder's death, but as matters stand, giving someone a heart attack does not mean inhuming them in accord with Assassins' Guild statutes.

2 Paraphrased from Zur Genealogie der Moral by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.

3 Written by a certain Discworld playwright named Hwel.

4 Quoted almost verbatim from Guards! Guards!