Excerpt:

I mentally tuned out at this point. Nothing ever happened in the County, so the briefings were always the same. A few complaints about broken fences, foxes getting at chickens, maybe a few raised voices in Crab and Dragon pub. Then we would divide into our usual pairs and “patrol the boundries.” Which essentially meant wandering around County tipping our hats, saying hello and pretending to refuse the offers of free beer and cake. I had put on half a stone since arriving in the County two months earlier.

If this all sounds like a spectacularly boring life for a watchman, I can assure you that it was absolutely intentional. Thanks to what the official record called “a matter of serious concern over the officers professional conduct and ability,” and what my superior officer called “a massive cock up.” I had been posted out here to the middle of nowhere and nothing happening as punishment.

What my superior officer didn't know, was that the whole thing cock up and punishment, had been planned by me from the start.

I should explain a little more carefully. I was born in the fag end of the Old Market district in the Imperial capital of Pandem. At that time the Old Market district was the worst kind of slum. When you're brought up in a family of fourteen in a hovel big enough to sleep one comfortably if they like the cold and rain and have to share a bed with twelve children and at least as many rats, you'll do almost anything to escape it. My father died when I was nine, not that he was much use when he was alive, and I found myself sleeping in a gutter. Goodness knows what happened to the rest of my family.

For a street rat like me, the watch with their smart black jackets and shiny helmets, truncheons and steel toe capped boots, seem like the luckiest men in the world. I had plenty of experience with those sticks and boots and believe me, they are very well made. Joining the watch to get out of the gutter was an obvious choice. So I applied at the minimum age of fourteen and was snapped up, thanks to a keen attitude, a stupid look and not asking any questions.

Unfortunately, the watch didn't turn out to be quite the paradise I had hoped for.

The one thing that none of the posters, the recruiters or the sergeants don't tell you, is that policing Pandem is spectacularly dangerous. I found that out pretty quickly. I got friendly with an old hand, an experienced officer all of twenty two on my first day. Within a week he was stabbed in the eye trying to break up a bar fight. I became disillusioned pretty quickly after that. Not that I gave a stuff about him you understand, I don't even remember his name, but it was all too easy to see how that could have been me on the wrong end of that knife.

After that I did my best to keep my head down and my mouth shut in the hope of survival. At least I had a decent pair of boots and two and half meals a day.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to keep your head down when your job consists of patrolling the streets at night looking for trouble, breaking up bar fights and beating the hell out of hardened criminals. It gets even worse during tax season when you have to escort the official tax collectors and suddenly everyone's a hardened criminal.