Terry Pratchett: Feet of Clay
v1.0 (22-dec-00) Scanning, layout and quick proof by 4i Publications.

It was a warm spring night when a fist knocked at the door so hard that the hinges bent.
A man opened it and peered out into the street. There was mist coming off the river and it was a cloudy night. He might as well have tried to see through white velvet.
But he thought afterwards that there had been shapes out there, just beyond the light spilling out into the road. A lot of shapes, watching him carefully. He thought maybe there'd been very faint points of light . . .
There was no mistaking the shape right in front of him, though. It was big and dark red and looked like a child's clay model of a man. Its eyes were two embers.
'Well? What do you want at this time of night?'
The golem handed him a slate, on which was written:
WE HEAR YOU WANT A GOLEM.
Of course, golems couldn't speak, could they?
'Hah. Want, yes. Afford, no. I've been asking around but it's wicked the prices you're going for these days . . .'
The golem rubbed the words off the slate and wrote:
TO YOU, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
'You're for sale?'
NO.
The golem lurched aside. Another one stepped into the light.
It was also a golem, the man could see that. But it wasn't like the usual lumpen clay things that you occasionally saw. This one gleamed like a newly polished statue, perfect down to the detailing of the clothes. It reminded him of one of the old pictures of the city's kings, all haughty stance and imperious haircut. In fact, it even had a small coronet moulded on to its head.
'A hundred dollars?' the man said suspiciously. 'What's wrong with it? Who's selling it?'
NOTHING IS WRONG. PERFECT IN ALL DETAIL. NINETY DOLLARS.
'Sounds like someone wants to get rid of it in a hurry . . .'
GOLEM MUST WORK. GOLEM MUST HAVE A MASTER.
'Yeah, right, but you hear stories . . . Going mad and making too many things, and that.'
NOT MAD. EIGHTY DOLLARS.
'It looks . . . new,' said the man, tapping the gleaming chest. 'But no one's making golems any more, that's what's keeping the price up beyond the purse of the small business—' He stopped. 'Is someone making them again?'
EIGHTY DOLLARS.
‘I heard the priests banned making 'em years ago. A man could get in a lot of trouble.'
SEVENTY DOLLARS.
'Who's doing it?'
SIXTY DOLLARS.
'Is he selling them to Albertson? Or Spadger and Williams? It's hard enough competing as it is, and they've got the money to invest in new plant—'
FIFTY DOLLARS.
The man walked around the golem. 'A man can't sit by and watch his company collapse under him because of unfair price cutting, I mean to say . . .'
FORTY DOLLARS.
'Religion is all very well, but what do prophets know about profits, eh? Hmm . . .' He looked up at the shapeless golem in the shadows. 'Was that "thirty dollars" I just saw you write?'
YES.
'I've always liked dealing wholesale. Wait one moment.' He went back inside and returned with a handful of coins. 'Will you be selling any to them other bastards?'
NO.
'Good. Tell your boss it's a pleasure to do business with him. Get along inside, Sunny Jim.'
The white golem walked into the factory. The man, glancing from side to side, trotted in after it and shut the door.
Deeper shadows moved in the dark. There was a faint hissing. Then, rocking slightly, the big heavy shapes moved away.
Shortly afterwards, and around the corner, a beggar holding out a hopeful hand for alms was amazed to find himself suddenly richer by a whole thirty dollars.[1]

 
The Discworld turned against the glittering backdrop of space, spinning very gently on the backs of the four giant elephants that perched on the shell of Great A'Tuin the star turtle. Continents drifted slowly past, topped by weather systems that themselves turned gently against the flow, like waltzers spinning counter to the whirl of the dance. A billion tons of geography rolled slowly through the sky.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science,[2] But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
Even on the Discworld, with its tiny orbiting sun tilting over the turning world, the seasons moved. In Ankh-Morpork, greatest of its cities, spring was nudged aside by summer, and summer was prodded in the back by autumn.
Geographically speaking, there was not a lot of difference within the city itself, although in late spring the scum on the river was often a nice emerald green. The mist of spring became the fog of autumn, which mixed with fumes and smoke from the magical quarter and the workshops of the alchemists until it seemed to have a thick, choking life of its own.
And time moved on.

 
Autumn fog pressed itself against the midnight window-panes.
Blood ran in a trickle across the pages of a rare volume of religious essays, which had been torn in half.
There had been no need for that, thought Father Tubelcek.
A further thought suggested that there had been no need to hit him either. But Father Tubelcek had never been very concerned about that sort of thing. People healed, books didn't. He reached out shakily and tried to gather up the pages, but slumped back again.
The room was spinning.
The door swung open. Heavy footsteps creaked across the floor - one footstep at least, and one dragging noise.
Step. Drag. Step. Drag.
Father Tubelcek tried to focus.' You?' he croaked.
Nod.
'Pick ... up the ... books.'
The old priest watched as the books were retrieved and piled carefully with fingers not well suited to the task.
The newcomer took a quill pen from the debris, carefully wrote something on a scrap of paper, then rolled it up and placed it delicately between Father Tubelcek's lips.
The dying priest tried to smile.
'We don't work like that,' he mumbled, the little cylinder wobbling like a last cigarette. 'We . . . make . . . our . . . own . . . w . . .'
The kneeling figure watched him for a while and then, taking great care, leaned forward slowly and closed his eyes.

 
Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Guard, frowned at himself in the mirror and began to shave.
The razor was a sword of freedom. Shaving was an act of rebellion.
These days, someone ran his bath (every day! -you wouldn't think the human skin could stand it). And someone laid out his clothes (such clothes!). And someone cooked his meals (what meals! — he was putting on weight, he knew). And someone even polislied his boots (and such boots! - no cardboard-soled wrecks but big, well-fitting boots of genuine shiny leather). There was someone to do nearly everything for him, but there were some things a man ought to do for himself, and one of them was shaving.
He knew that Lady Sybil mildly disapproved. Her father had never shaved himself in his life. He had a man for it. Vimes had protested that he'd spent too many years trudging the night-time streets to be happy about anyone else wielding a blade anywhere near his neck, but the real reason, the unspoken reason, was that he hated the very idea of the world being divided into the shaved and the shavers. Or those who wore the shiny boots and those who cleaned the mud off them. Every time he saw Willikins the butler fold his, Vimes's, clothes, he suppressed a terrible urge to kick the butler's shiny backside as an affront to the dignity of man. The razor moved calmly over the stubble of the night.
Yesterday there had been some official dinner. He couldn't recall now what it had been for. He seemed to spend his whole life at the things. Arch, giggling women and braying young men who'd been at the back of the line when the chins were handed out. And, as usual, he'd come back through the fog-bound city in a filthy temper with himself. He'd noticed a light under the kitchen door and heard conversation and laughter, and had gone in. Willikins was there, with the old man who stoked the boiler, and the head gardener, and the boy who cleaned the spoons and lit the fires. They were playing cards. There were bottles of beer on the table.
He'd pulled up a chair, and cracked a few jokes and asked to be dealt in. They'd been . . . welcoming. In a way. But as the game progressed Vimes had been aware of the universe crystallizing around him. It was like becoming a cogwheel in a glass clock. There was no laughter. They'd called him 'sir' and kept clearing their throats. Everything was very . . . careful.
Finally he'd mumbled an excuse and stumbled out. Halfway along the passage he'd thought he'd heard a comment followed by ... well, maybe it was only a chuckle. But it might have been a snigger.
The razor carefully circumnavigated the nose.
Hah. A couple of years ago a man like Willikins would have allowed him into the kitchen only on sufferance. And would have made him take his boots off.
So that's your life now, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes. A jumped-up copper to the nobs and a nob to the rest, eh?
He frowned at the reflection in the mirror.
He'd started out in the gutter, true enough. And now he was on three meat meals a day, good boots, a warm bed at night and, come to that, a wife too. Good old Sybil- although she did tend to talk about curtains these days, but Sergeant Colon had said this happened to wives and was a biological thing and perfectly normal.
He'd actually been rather attached to his old cheap boots. He could read the street in them, the soles were so thin. It'd got so that he could tell where he was on a pitch-dark night just by the feel of the cobbles. Ah, well . . .
There was something mildly strange about Sam Vimes's shaving mirror. It was slightly convex, so that it reflected more of the room than a flat mirror would do, and it gave a very good view of the outbuildings and gardens beyond the window.
Hmm. Going thin on top. Definitely a receding scalp there. Less hair to comb but, on the other hand, more face to wash . . . There was a flicker in the glass. He moved sideways and ducked. The mirror smashed.
There was the sound of feet somewhere beyond the broken window, and then a crash and a scream. Vimes straightened up. He fished the largest piece of mirror out of the shaving bowl and propped it up on the black crossbow bolt that had buried itself in the wall. He finished shaving.
Then he rang the bell for the butler. Willikins materialized. 'Sir?'
Vimes rinsed the razor. 'Get the boy to nip along to the glazier, will you?'
The butler's eyes flickered to the window and then to the shattered mirror. 'Yes, sir. And the bill to go to the Assassins' Guild again, sir?'
'With my compliments. And while he's out he's to call in at that shop in Five And Seven Yard and get me another shaving mirror. The dwarf there knows the kind I like.'
'Yes, sir. And I shall fetch a dustpan and brush directly, sir. Shall I inform her ladyship of this eventuality, sir?'
'No. She always says it's my fault for encouraging them.'
'Very good, sir,' said Willikins.
He dematerialized.
Sam Vimes dried himself off and went downstairs to the morning-room, where he opened the cabinet and took out the new crossbow Sybil had given to him as a wedding present. Sam Vimes was used to the old guard crossbows, which had a nasty habit of firing backwards in a tight corner, but this was a Burleigh and Stronginthearm made-to-measure job with the oiled walnut stock. There was none finer, it was said.
Then he selected a thin cigar and strolled out into the garden.
There was a commotion coming from the dragon house. Vimes entered, and shut the door behind him. He rested the crossbow against the door.
The yammering and squeaking increased. Little gouts of flame puffed above the thick walls of the hatching pens.
Vimes leaned over the nearest one. He picked up a newly hatched dragonette and tickled it under the chin. As it flamed excitedly he lit his cigar and savoured the smoke.
He blew a smoke ring at the figure hanging from the ceiling. 'Good morning,' he said.
The figure twisted frantically. By an amazing feat of muscle control it had managed to catch a foot around a beam as it fell, but it couldn't quite pull itself up. Dropping was not to be thought of. A dozen baby dragons were underneath it, jumping up and down excitedly and flaming.
'Er . . . good morning,' said the hanging figure.
Turned out nice again,' said Vimes, picking up a bucket of coal. 'Although the fog will be back later, I expect.'
He took a small nugget and tossed it to the dragons. They squabbled for it.
Vimes gripped another lump. The young dragon that had caught the coal already had a distinctly longer and hotter flame.
'I suppose,' said the young man, 'that I could not prevail upon you to let me down?'
Another dragon caught some coal and belched a fireball. The young man swung desperately to avoid it.
'Guess,' said Vimes.
'I suspect, on reflection, that it was foolish of me to choose the roof,' said the assassin.
'Probably,' said Vimes. He'd spent several hours a few weeks ago sawing through joists and carefully balancing the roof tiles.
'I should have dropped off the wall and used the shrubbery.'
'Possibly,' said Vimes. He'd set a bear-trap in the shrubbery.
He took some more coal. 'I suppose you wouldn't tell me who hired you?'
Tm afraid not, sir. You know the rules.'
Vimes nodded gravely. 'We had Lady Selachii's son up before the Patrician last week,' said Vimes. 'Now, there's a lad who needs to learn that "no" doesn't mean "y^es> please".'
'Could be, sir.'
'And then there was that business with Lord Rust's boy. You can't shoot servants for putting your shoes the wrong way round, you know. It's too messy. He'll have to learn right from left like the rest of us. And right from wrong, too.' 'I hear what you say, sir.' 'We seem to have reached an impasse,' said Vimes.
'It seems so, sir.'
Vimes aimed a lump at a small bronze and green dragon, which caught it expertly. The heat was getting intense.
'What I don't understand,' he said, 'is why you fellows mainly try it here or at the office. I mean, I walk around a lot, don't I? You could shoot me down in the street, couldn't you?'
'What? Like some common murderer, sir?' Vimes nodded. It was black and twisted, but the Assassins' Guild had honour of a sort. 'How much was I worth?'
'Twenty thousand, sir.' 'It should be higher,' said Vimes. 'I agree.' If the assassin got back to the guild it would be, Vimes thought. Assassins valued their own lives quite highly.
'Let me see now,' said Vimes, examining the end of his cigar. 'Guild takes fifty per cent. That leaves ten thousand dollars.'
The assassin seemed to consider this, and then reached up to his belt and tossed a bag rather clumsily towards Vimes, who caught it.
Vimes picked up his crossbow. 'It seems to me,' he said, 'that if a man were to be let go he might well make it to the door with no more than superficial burns. If he were fast. How fast are you?'
There was no answer.
'Of course, he'd have to be desperate,' said Vimes, wedging the crossbow on the feed table and taking a piece of cord out of his pocket. He lashed the cord to a nail and fastened the other end to the crossbow's string. Then, standing carefully to one side, he eased the trigger.
The string moved very slightly.
The assassin, watching him upside down, seemed to have stopped breathing.
Vimes puffed at his cigar until the end was an inferno. Then he took it out of his mouth and leaned it against the restraining cord so that it would have just a fraction of an inch to burn before the string began to smoulder.
'I’ll leave the door unlocked,' he said. 'I've never been an unreasonable man. I shall watch your career with interest.'
He tossed the rest of the coals to the dragons, and stepped outside.
It looked like being another eventful day in Ankh-Morpork, and it had only just begun.
As Vimes reached the house he heard a whoosh, a click, and the sound of someone running very fast towards the ornamental lake. He smiled.
Willikins was waiting with his coat. 'Remember you have an appointment with his lordship at eleven, Sir Samuel.'
'Yes, yes,' said Vimes.
'And you are to go and see the Heralds at ten. Her ladyship was very explicit, sir. Her exact words were, "Tell him he's not to try to wriggle out of it again," sir.'
'Oh, very well.'
'And her ladyship said please to try not to upset anyone.'
'Tell her I'll try.'
'And your sedan chair is outside, sir.'
Vimes sighed. 'Thank you. There's a man in the ornamental lake. Fish him out and give him a cup of tea, will you? Promising lad, I thought.'
'Certainly, sir.'
The chair. Oh, yes, the chair. It had been a wedding present from the Patrician. Lord Vetinari knew that Vimes loved walking the streets of the city, and so it was very typical of the man that he presented him with something that did not allow him to do so.
It was waiting outside. The two bearers straightened up expectantly.
Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, rebelled again. Perhaps he did have to use the damn thing, but . . .
He looked at the front man and motioned with a thumb to the chair's door.'Get in,' he commanded.
'But sir—'
'It's a nice morning,' said Vimes, taking off his coat again. 'I’ll drive myself.'

 
'Dearest Mumm & Dad

 
Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch was on his day off. He had a routine. First he had breakfast in some handy cafe. Then he wrote his letter home. Letters home always gave him some trouble. Letters from his parents were always interesting, being full of mining statistics and exciting news about new shafts and promising seams. All he had to write about were murders and such things as that.
He chewed the end of his pencil for a moment.

 
Well, it has been an intresting week again [he wrote]. I am running around like a flye with a blue bottom and No Mistake! We are opening another Watch House at Chittling Street which is handy for the Shades, so now we have no Less than 4 including Dolly Sisters and Long Wall, and I am the only Captain so I am around at all hours. Persnally I sometimes mifs the cameraderry of the old days when it was just me and Nobby and Sergeant Colon but this is the Century of the Fruitbat. Sergeant Colon is going to retire at the end of the month, he says Mrs Colon wants him to buy a farm, he says he is looking forward to the peace of the country and being Close to Nature, I'm sure you would wish him well. My friend Nobby is still Nobby only more than he was.

 
Carrot absent-mindedly took a half-eaten mutton chop from his breakfast plate and held it out below the table. There was an unk.

 
Anyway, back to the jobb, also I am sure I have told you about the Cable Street Particulars, although they are still based in Pseudopolis Yard, people do not like it when Watchmen do not wear uniforms but Commander Vimes says criminals dont wear uniforms either so be d*mned to the lot of them.

 
Carrot paused. It said a lot about Captain Carrot that, even after almost two years in Ankh-Morpork, he was still uneasy about 'd*mned'.

 
Commander Vimes says you have to have secret policemen because there are secret crimes . . .

 
Carrot paused again. He loved his uniform. He didn't have any other clothes. The idea of Watchmen in disguise was . . . well, it was unthinkable. It was like those pirates who sailed under false colours. It was like spies. However, he went on dutifully:

 
. . . and Commander Vimes knows what he is talking about I am sure. He says it's not like old fashioned police work which was catching the poor devils too stupid to run away!! Anyhow it all means a lot more work and new faces in the Watch.

 
While he waited for a new sentence to form, Carrot took a sausage from his plate and lowered it. There was another unk. The waiter bustled up.
'Another helping, Mr Carrot? On the house.' Every restaurant and eatery in Ankh-Morpork offered free food to Carrot, in the certain and happy knowledge that he would always insist on paying. 'No, indeed, that was very good. Here we are . . . twenty pence and keep the change,' said Carrot.
'How's your young lady? Haven't seen her today.'
'Angua? Oh, she's . . . around and about, you know. I shall definitely tell her you asked after her, though.'
The dwarf nodded happily, and bustled off. Carrot wrote another few dutiful lines and then said, very softly, 'Is that horse and cart still outside Ironcrust's bakery?'
There was a whine from under the table. 'Really? That's odd. All the deliveries were over hours ago and the flour and grit doesn't usually arrive until the afternoon. Driver still sitting there?' Something barked, quietly. 'And that looks quite a good horse for a delivery cart. And, you know, normally you'd expect the driver to put a nosebag on. And it's the last Thursday in the month. Which is payday at Ironcrust's.' Carrot laid down his pencil and waved a hand politely to catch the waiter's eye. 'Cup of acorn coffee, Mr Gimlet? To take away?'

 
In the Dwarf Bread Museum, in Whirligig Alley, Mr Hopkinson the curator was somewhat excited. Apart from other considerations, he'd just been murdered. But at the moment he was choosing to consider this as an annoying background detail.
He'd been beaten to death with a loaf of bread. This is unlikely even in the worst of human bakeries, but dwarf bread has amazing properties as a weapon of offence. Dwarfs regard baking as part of the art of warfare. When they make rock cakes, no simile is intended.
'Look at this dent here,' said Hopkinson. 'It's quite ruined the crust!'
AND YOUR SKULL TOO, said Death.
'Oh, yes,' said Hopkinson, in the voice of one who regards skulls as ten a penny but is well aware of the rarity value of a good bread exhibit. 'But what was wrong with a simple cosh? Or even a hammer? I could have provided one if asked.'
Death, who was by nature an obsessive personality himself, realized that he was in the presence of a master. The late Mr Hopkinson had a squeaky voice and wore his spectacles on a length of black tape - his ghost now wore their spiritual counterpart - and these were always the signs of a mind that polished the undersides of furniture and stored paperclips by size.
'It really is too bad,' said Mr Hopkinson. 'And ungrateful, too, after the help I gave them with the oven. I really feel I shall have to complain.'
MR HOPKINSON, ARE YOU FULLY AWARE THAT YOU ARE DEAD?
'Dead?' trilled the curator. 'Oh, no. I can't possibly be dead. Not at the moment. It's simply not convenient. I haven't even catalogued the combat muffins.'
NEVERTHELESS.
'No, no. I'm sorry, but it just won't do. You will have to wait. I really cannot be bothered with that sort of nonsense.'
Death was nonplussed. Most people were, after the initial confusion, somewhat relieved when they died. A subconscious weight had been removed. The other cosmic shoe had dropped. The worst had happened and they could, metaphorically, get on with their lives. Few people treated it as a simple annoyance that might go away if you complained enough.
Mr Hopkinson's hand went through a tabletop. 'Oh.'
YOU SEE?
'This is most uncalled-for. Couldn't you have arranged a less awkward time?'
ONLY BY CONSULTATION WITH YOUR MURDERER.
'It all seems very badly organized. I wish to make a complaint. I pay my taxes, after all.'
I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE.
The shade of Mr Hopkinson began to fade. 'It's simply that I've always tried to plan ahead in a sensible way . . .'
I FIND THE BEST APPROACH IS TO TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES.
'That seems very irresponsible . . .'
IT'S ALWAYS WORKED FOR ME.

 
The sedan chair came to a halt outside Pseudopolis Yard. Vimes left the runners to park it and strode in, putting his coat back on.
There had been a time, and it seemed like only yesterday, when the Watch House had been almost empty. There'd be old Sergeant Colon dozing in his chair, and Corporal Nobbs's washing drying in front of the stove. And then suddenly it had all changed . . .
Sergeant Colon was waiting for him with a clipboard. 'Got the reports from the other Watch Houses, sir,' he said, trotting along beside Vimes.
'Anything special?'
'Bin a bit of an odd murder, sir. Down in one of them old houses on Misbegot Bridge. Some old priest. Dunno much about it. The patrol just said it ought to be looked at.'
'Who found him?'
'Constable Visit sir.'
'Oh, gods.'
'Yessir.'
‘I’ll try to get along there this morning. Anything else?'
'Corporal Nobbs is sick, sir,'
'Oh, I know that.'
'I mean off sick, sir.'
'Not his granny's funeral this time?'
'Nossir.'
'How many's he had this year, by the way?'
'Seven, sir.'
'Very odd family, the Nobbses.'
'Yessir.'
'Fred, you don't have to keep calling me "sir".'
'Got comp'ny, sir,' said the sergeant, glancing meaningfully towards a bench in the main office. 'Come for that alchemy job.'
A dwarf smiled nervously at Vimes.
'All right,' said Vimes. ‘I’ll see him in my office.' He reached into his coat and took out the assassin's money pouch. 'Put it in the Widows and Orphans Fund, will you, Fred?'
'Right. Oh, well done, sir. Any more windfalls like this and we'll soon be able to afford some more widows.'
Sergeant Colon went back to his desk, surreptitiously opened his drawer and pulled out the book he was reading. It was called Animal Husbandry. He'd been a bit worried about the title - you heard stories about strange folk in the country — but it turned out to be nothing more than a book about how cattle and pigs and sheep should breed.
Now he was wondering where to get a book that taught them how to read.
Upstairs, Vimes pushed open his office door carefully. The Assassins' Guild played to rules. You could say that about the bastards. It was terribly bad form to kill a bystander. Apart from anything else, you wouldn't get paid. So traps in his office were out of the question, because too many people were in and out of it every day. Even so, it paid to be careful. Vimes was good at making the kind of rich enemies who could afford to employ assassins. The assassins had to be lucky only once, but Vimes had to be lucky all the time.
He slipped into the room and glanced out of the window. He liked to work with it open, even in cold weather. He liked to hear the sounds of the city. But anyone trying to climb up or down to it would run into everything in the way of loose tiles, shifting handholds and treacherous drainpipes that Vimes's ingenuity could contrive. And Vimes had installed spiked railings down below. They were nice and ornamental but they were, above all, spiky.
So far, Vimes was winning.
There was a tentative knock at the door.
It had issued from the knuckles of the dwarf applicant. Vimes ushered him into the office, shut the door, and sat down at his desk.
'So,' he said. 'You're an alchemist. Acid stains on your hands and no eyebrows.'
'That's right, sir.'
'Not usual to find a dwarf in that line of work. You people always seem to toil in your uncle's foundry or something.'
You people, the dwarf noted. 'Can't get the hang of metal,' he said.
'A dwarf who can't get the hang of metal? That must be unique.'
'Pretty rare, sir. But I was quite good at alchemy.'
'Guild member?'
'Not any more, sir.'
'Oh? How did you leave the guild?' 'Through the roof, sir. But I'm pretty certain I know what I did wrong.'
Vimes leaned back. The alchemists are always blowing things up. I never heard of them getting sacked for it.'
'That's because no one's ever blown up the Guild Council, sir.' 'What, all of it?'
'Most of it, sir. All the easily detachable bits, at least.'
Vimes found he was automatically opening the bottom drawer of his desk. He pushed it shut again and, instead, shuffled the papers in front of him. 'What's your name, lad?'
The dwarf swallowed. This was clearly the bit he'd been dreading. 'Littlebottom, sir.' Vimes didn't even look up. 'Ah, yes. It says here. That means you're from the Uberwald mountain area, yes?'
'Why . . . yes, sir,' said Littlebottom, mildly surprised. Humans generally couldn't distinguish between dwarf clans.
'Our Constable Angua comes from there,' said Vimes. 'Now . . . it says here your first name is. . . can't read Fred's handwriting . . . er . . .'
There was nothing for it. 'Cheery, sir,' said Cheery Littlebottom.
'Cheery, eh? Good to see the old naming traditions kept up. Cheery Littlebottom. Fine.'
Littlebottom watched carefully. Not the faintest glimmer of amusement had crossed Vimes's face.
'Yes, sir. Cheery Littlebottom,' he said. And there still wasn't as much as an extra wrinkle there. 'My father was Jolly. Jolly Littlebottom,' he added, as one might prod at a bad tooth to see when the pain will come.
'Really?'
'And . . . his father was Beaky Littlebottom.'
Not a trace, not a smidgeon of a grin twitched anywhere. Vimes merely pushed the paper aside.
'Well, we work for a living here, Littlebottom.'
'Yes, sir.'
'We don't blow things up, Littlebottom.'
'No, sir. I don't blow everything up, sir, Somejust melts.'
Vimes drummed his fingers on the desk. 'Know anything about dead bodies?'
'They were only mildly concussed, sir.'
Vimes sighed. 'Listen. I know about how to be a copper. It^xs mainly walking and talking. But there's lots of things I don't know. You find the scene of a crime and there's some grey powder on the floor. What is it? I don't know. But you fellows know how to mix things up in bowls and can find out. And maybe the dead person doesn't seem to have a mark on them. Were they poisoned? It seems we need someone who knows what colour a liver is supposed to be. I want someone who can look at the ashtray and tell me what kind of cigars I smoke.'
'Pantweed's Slim Panatellas,' said Littlebottom automatically.
'Good gods!'
'You've left the packet on the table, sir.'
Vimes looked down. 'All right,' he said. 'So sometimes it's an easy answer. But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we don't even know if it was the right question.'
He stood up. 'I can't say I like dwarfs much, Littlebottom. But I don't like trolls or humans either, so I suppose that's okay. Well, you're the only applicant. Thirty dollars a month, five dollars living-out allowance, I expect you to work to the job not the clock, there's some mythical creature called "overtime", only no one's even seen its footprints, if troll officers call you a gritsucker they're out, and if you call them rocks you're out, we're just one big family and, when you've been to a few domestic disputes, Littlebottom, I can assure you that you'll see the resemblance, we work as a team and we're pretty much making it up as we go along, and half the time we're not even certain what the law is, so it can get interesting, technically you'll rank as a corporal, only don't go giving orders to real policemen, you're on a month's trial, we'll give you some training just as soon as there's time, now, find an iconograph and meet me on Misbegot Bridge in. . . damn. . . better make it an hour. I've got to see about this blasted coat of arms. Still, dead bodies seldom get deader. Sergeant Detritus!'
There was a series of creaks as something heavy moved along the corridor outside and a troll opened the door.
'Yessir?'
'This is Corporal Littlebottom. Corporal Cheery Littlebottom, whose father was Jolly Littlebottom.
Give him his badge, swear him in, show him where everything is. Very good, Corporal?'
'I shall try to be a credit to the uniform, sir,' said Littlebottom.
'Good,' said Vimes briskly. He looked at Detritus. 'Incidentally, Sergeant, I've got a report here that a troll in uniform nailed one of Chrysoprase's henchmen to a wall by his ears last night. Know anything about that?'
The troll wrinkled its enormous forehead. 'Does it say anything 'bout him selling bags of Slab to troll kids?'
'No. It says he was going to read spiritual literature to his dear old mother,' said Vimes.
'Did Hardcore say he saw dis troll's badge?'
'No, but he says the troll threatened to ram it where the sun doesn't shine,' said Vimes.
Detritus nodded gravely. 'Dat's a long way to go just to ruin a good badge,' he said.
'By the way,' said Vimes, 'that was a lucky guess of yours, guessing that it was Hardcore.'
'It come to me in a flash, sir,' said Detritus. 'I fort: what bastard who sells Slab to kids deserves bein' nailed up by his ears, sir, and . . . bingo. Dis idea just formed in my head.'
'That's what I thought.'
Cheery Littlebottom looked from one impassive face to the other. The Watchmen's eyes never left each other's face, but the words seemed to come from a little distance, as though both of them were reading an invisible script.
Then Detritus shook his head slowly. 'Musta been a impostor, sir. 'S easy to get helmets like ours. None of my trolls'd do anything like dat. Dat would be police brutality, sir.'
'Glad to hear it. Just for the look of the thing, though, I want you to check the trolls' lockers. The Silicon Anti-Defamation League are on to this one.'
'Yes, sir. An' if I find out it was one of my trolls I will be down on dat troll like a ton of rectang'lar buildin' things, sir.'
'Fine. Well, off you go, Littlebottom. Detritus will look after you.'
Littlebottom hesitated. This was uncanny. The man hadn't mentioned axes, or gold. He hadn't even said anything like 'You can make it big in the Watch'. Littlebottom felt really unbalanced.
'Er . . . I did tell you my name, didn't I, sir?'
'Yes. Got it down here,' said Vimes. 'Cheery Littlebottom. Yes?'
'Er . . . yes. That's right. Well, thank you, sir.'
Vimes listened to them go down the passage. Then he carefully shut the door and put his coat over his head so that no one would hear him laughing.
'Cheery Littlebottom!'

 
Cheery ran after the troll called Detritus. The Watch House was beginning to fill up. And it was clear that the Watch dealt with all sorts of things, and that many of them involved shouting.
Two uniformed trolls were standing in front of Sergeant Colon's high desk, with a slightly smaller troll between them. This troll was wearing a downcast expression. It was also wearing a tutu and had a small pair of gauze wings glued to its back.
'—happen to know that trolls don't have any tradition of a Tooth Fairy,' Colon was saying. 'Especially not one called' - he looked down -'Clinkerbell. So how about it we just call it breaking and entering without a Thieves' Guild licence?'
'Is racial prejudice, not letting trolls have a Tooth Fairy,' Clinker bell muttered.
One of the troll guards upended a sack on the desk. Various items of silverware cascaded over the paperwork.
'And this is what you found under their pillows, was it?' said Colon.
'Bless dere little hearts,' said Clinkerbell.
At the next desk a tired dwarf was arguing with a vampire. 'Look,' he said, 'it's not murder. You're dead already, right?'
'He stuck them right in me!'
'Well, I've been down to interview the manager and he said it was an accident. He said he's got nothing against vampires at all. He says he was merely carrying three boxes of HB Eraser Tips and tripped over the edge of your cloak.'
'I don't see why I can't work where I like!'
'Yes, but... in a pencil factory?'
Detritus looked down at Littlebottom and grinned. 'Welcome to life in der big city, Little-bottom,' he said. 'Dat's an int'restin' name.'
'Is it?'
'Most dwarfs have names like Rockheaver or Stronginthearm.'
'Do they?'
Detritus was not one for the fine detail of relationships, but the edge in Littlebottom's voice got through to him. "S a good name, though,' he said.
'What's Slab?' said Cheery.
'It are chloric ammonium an' radium mixed up. It give your head a tingle but melts troll brains. Big problem in der mountains and some buggers are makin' it here in der city and we tryin' to find how it get up dere, Mr Vimes is lettin' me run a' - Detritus concentrated - 'pub-lie a-ware-ness campaign tellin' people what happens to buggers who sells it to kids . . ,' He waved a hand at a large and rather crudely done poster on the wall. It said:

 
Slab: Jus' say 'Aarrghaarrghpleeassennono-noUGH'.

 
He pushed open a door.
'Dis is der ole privy wot we don't use no more, you can use it for mixin' up stuff, it the only place we got now, you have to clean it up first 'cos it smells like a toilet in here.'
He opened another door. 'And this der locker room,' he said. 'You got your own peg and dat, and dere's dese panels for getting changed behind 'cos we knows you dwarfs is modest. It a good life if you don't weaken. Mr Vimes is okay but he a bit weird about some stuff, he keepin' on sayin' stufFlike dis city is a meltin' pot an' all der scum floats to der top, and stuff like dat. I'll give you your helmet an' badge in a minute but first' — he opened a rather larger locker on the other side of the room, which had 'DTRiTUS' painted on it - 'I got to go and hide dis hammer.'

 
Two figures hurried out of Ironcrust's Dwarf Bakery (T'Bread Wi' T'Edge'), threw themselves on to the cart and shouted at the driver to leave urgently.
He turned a pale face towards them and pointed to the road ahead.
There was a wolf there.
Not a usual kind of wolf. It had a blond coat, which around its ears was almost long enough to be a mane. And wolves did not normally sit calmly on their haunches in the middle of a street.
This one was growling. A long, low growl. It was the audible equivalent of a shortening fuse.
The horse was transfixed, too frightened to stay where it was but far too terrified to move.
One of the men carefully reached for a crossbow. The growl rose slightly. He even more carefully took his hand away. The growl subsided again.
'What is it?'
'It's a wolf!'
'In a city? What does it find to eat?'
'Oh, why did you have to ask that?'
'Good morning, gentlemen!' said Carrot, as he stopped leaning against the wall. 'Looks like the fog's rising again. Thieves' Guild licences, please?'
They turned. Carrot gave them a happy smile and nodded encouragingly.
One of the men patted his coat in a theatrical display of absentmindedness.
'Ah. Well. Er. Left the house in a bit of a hurry this morning, must've forgotten—'
'Section Two, Rule One of the Thieves' Guild Charter says that members must carry their cards on all professional occasions,' said Carrot.
'He's not even drawn his sword!' hissed the most stupid of the three-strong gang.
'He doesn't need to, he's got a loaded wolf.'

 
Someone was writing in the gloom, the scritching of their pen the only sound.
Until a door creaked open.
The writer turned as quick as a bird. 'You? I told you never to come back here!'
'I know, I know, but it's that damn thing! The production line stopped and it got out and it's killed that priest!'
'Did anyone see it?'
'In the fog we had last night? I shouldn't think so. But—'
'Then it is not, ah-ha, a matter of significance.'
'No? They're not supposed to kill people. Well . . . that is,' the speaker conceded, 'not by smashing them on the head, anyway.'
'They will if so instructed.'
'I never told it to! Anyway, what if it turns on me?'
'On its master? It can't disobey the words in its head, man.'
The visitor sat down, shaking his head. 'Yeah, but which words? I don't know, I don't know, this is getting too much, that damn thing around all the time—'
'Making you a fat profit—'
'All right, all right, but this other stuff, the poison, I never—'
'Shut up! I'll see you again tonight. You can tell the others that I certainly do have a candidate. And if you dare come here again . . .'

 
The Ankh-Morpork Royal College of Heralds turned out to be a green gate in a wall in Mollymog Street. Vimes tugged on the bell-pull. Something clanged on the other side of the wall and immediately the place erupted in a cacophony of hoots, growls, whistles and trumpetings.
A voice shouted, 'Down, boy! Couchant! I said couchant! No! Not rampant! And thee shall have a sugar lump like a good boy. William! Stop that at once! Put him down! Mildred, let go of Graham!'
The animal noises subsided a bit and footsteps approached. A wicket gate in the main door opened a fraction.
Vimes saw an inch-wide segment of a very short man.
'Yes? Are you the meat man?'
'Commander Vimes,' said Vimes. 'I have an appointment.'
The animal noises started up again.
'Eh?'
'Commander Vimes!' Vimes shouted.
'Oh. I suppose thee'd better come in.'
The door swung open. Vimes stepped through.
Silence fell. Several dozen pairs of eyes regarded Vimes with acute suspicion. Some of the eyes were small and red. Several were big and poked just above the surface of the scummy pond that occupied a lot of space in the yard. Some were on perches.
The yard was fullof animals, but even they were crowded out by the smell of a yard full of animals. And most of them were clearly very old, which didn't do anything for the smell.
A toothless lion yawned at Vimes. A lion running, or at least lounging around loose was amazing in itself, but not so amazing as the fact that it was being used as a cushion by an elderly gryphon, which was asleep with all four claws in the air.
There were hedgehogs, and a greying leopard, and moulting pelicans. Green water surged in the pond and a couple of hippos surfaced and yawned. Nothing was in a cage, and nothing was trying to eat anything else.
'Ah, it takes people like that, first time,' said the old man. He had a wooden leg. 'We're quite a happy little family.'
Vimes turned and found himself looking at a small owl. 'My gods,' he said. 'That's a morpork, isn't it?'
The old man's face broke into a happy smile. 'Ah, I can see thee knows thy heraldry,' he cackled. 'Daphne's ancestors came all the way from some islands on the other side of the Hub, so they did.'
Vimes took out his City Watch badge and stared at the coat of arms embossed thereon.
The old man looked over his shoulder. 'That's not her, o'course,' he said, indicating the owl perched on the Ankh. 'That was her great-grandma, Olive. A morpork on an ankh, see? That is a pune or play on words. Laugh? I nearly started. That's about as funny as you gets round here. We could do with a mate for her, tell you the truth. And a female hippo. I mean, his lordship says we've got two hippos, which is right enough, I'm just saying it's not natural for Roderick and Keith, I ain't passing judgement, it's just not right, that's all I'm saying. What was thy name again?'
'Vimes. Sir Samuel Vimes. My wife made the appointment.'
The old man cackled again. 'Ah, 'tis usually so.'
Moving quite fast despite his wooden leg, the old man led the way through the steaming mounds of multi-species dung to the building on the other side of the yard.
'I expect this is good for the garden, anyway,' said Vimes, trying to make conversation.
'I tried it on my rhubarb,' said the old man, pushing open the door. 'But it grew to twenty feet tall, sir, and then spontaneously caught fire. Mind where the wyvern's been, sir, he's been ill - oh, what a shame. Never mind, it'll scrape off beautiful when it dries. In thee goes, sir.'
The hall inside was as quiet and dark as the yard had been full of light and noise. There was the dry, tombstone smell of old books and church towers.
Above him, when his eyes got used to the darkness, Vimes could make out hanging flags and banners. There were a few windows, but cobwebs and dead flies meant that the light they allowed in was merely grey.
The old man had shut the door and left him alone. Vimes watched through the window as he limped back to continue what he had been doing before Vimes's appearance.
What he had been doing was setting up a living coat of arms.
There was a large shield. Cabbages, actual cabbages, had been nailed to it. The old man said something that Vimes couldn't hear. The little owl fluttered from its perch and landed on a large ankh that had been glued to the top of the shield. The two hippos flopped out of their pool and took up station on either side.
The old man unfolded an easel in front of the scene, placed a canvas on it, picked up a palette and brush, and shouted, 'Hup-la!'
The hippos reared, rather arthritically. The owl spread its wings.
'Good gods,' murmured Vimes. 'I always thought they just made it up!'
'Made it up, sir? Made it up?' said a voice behind him. 'We'd soon be in trouble if we made things up, oh dear me, yes.'
Vimes turned. Another little old man had appeared behind him, blinking happily through thick glasses. He had several scrolls under one arm.
'I'm sorry I couldn't meet you at the gate but we're very busy at the moment,' he said, holding out his spare hand. 'Croissant Rouge Pursuivant.'
'Er . . . you're a small red breakfast roll?' said Vimes, nonplussed.
'No, no. No. It means Red Crescent. It's my title, you see. Very ancient title. I'm a Herald. You'd be Sir Samuel Vimes, yes?'
'Yes/
Red Crescent consulted a scroll. 'Good. Good. How do you feel about weasels?' he said.
'Weasels?'
'We have got some weasels, you see. I know they're not strictly a heraldic animal, but we seem to have some on the strength and frankly I think I'm going to have to let them go unless we can persuade someone to adopt them, and that'd upset Pardessus Chatain Pursuivant. He always locks himself in his shed when he's upset . . .'
'Pardessus . . . you mean the old man out there?' said Vimes.'I mean. . .why's he. . . I thought you ... I mean, a coat of arms is just a design. You don't have to paint it from life!'
Red Crescent looked shocked. 'Well, I suppose if you want to make a complete mockery of the whole thing, yes, you could just make it up. You could do that,' he said. 'Anyway . . . not weasels, then?'
'Personally I'd just as soon not bother,' said Vimes. 'And certainly not with a weasel. My wife said that dragons would—'
'Happily, the occasion will not arise,' said a voice in the shadows.
It wasn't the right sort of voice to hear in any kind of light. It was dust-dry. It sounded as if it came from a mouth that had never known the pleasures of spittle. It sounded dead.
It was.

 
The bakery thieves considered their options.
'I've got my hand on my crossbow,' said the most enterprising of the three.
The most realistic said, 'Have you? Well, I've got my heart in my mouth.'
'Ooo,' said the third. ‘I’ve got a weak heart, me . . .'
'Yeah, but what I mean is ... he's not even wearing a sword. If I take the wolf, the two of you should be able to deal with him with no trouble, right?'
The one clear thinker looked at Captain Carrot. His armour shone. So did the muscles on his bare arms. Even his knees gleamed.
'It seems to me that we have a bit of an impasse, or stand-off,' said Captain Carrot.
'How about if we throw down the money?' said the clear thinker.
'That would certainly help matters,'
'And you'd let us go?'
'No. But it would definitely count in your favour and I would certainly speak up on your behalf.'
The bold one with the crossbow licked his lips and glanced from Carrot to the wolf. 'If you set it on us, I warn you, someone's going to get killed!' he warned.
'Yes, it could happen,' said Carrot, sadly. 'I'd prefer to avoid that, if at all possible.'
He raised his hands. There was something flat and round and about six inches across in each one. 'This,' he said, 'is dwarf bread. Some of Mr Ironcrust's best. It's not classic battle bread, of course, but it's probably good enough for slicing . . .'
Carrot's arm blurred. There was a brief flurry of sawdust, and the flat loaf spun to a stop half-way through the thick timbers of the cart and about half an inch away from the man with the weak heart and, as it turned out, a fragile bladder, too.
The man with the crossbow tore his attention away from the bread only when he felt a slight, damp pressure on his wrist.
There was no way that an animal could have moved that fast, but there it was, and the wolfs expression contrived to indicate very calmly that if the animal so desired the pressure could be increased more or less indefinitely.
'Call it off!' he said, flinging the bow away with his free hand. Tell it to let go!'
'Oh, I never tell her anything,' said Carrot. 'She makes up her own mind.'
There was a clatter of iron-shod boots and half a dozen axe-bearing dwarfs raced out of the bakery gates, kicking up sparks as they skidded to a halt beside Carrot.
'Get them!' shouted Mr Ironcrust. Carrot dropped a hand on top of the dwarfs helmet and turned him around.
'It's me, Mr Ironcrust,' he said. 'I believe these are the men?'
'Right you are, Captain Carrot!' said the dwarf baker. 'C'mon, lads! Let's hang 'em up by the bura'zak-ka![3]'
'Ooo,' murmured the weak of heart, damply.
'Now, now, Mr Ironcrust,' said Carrot patiently. 'We don't practise that punishment in Ankh-Morpork.<![if !supportFootnotes]>[4]'
'They bashed Bjorn Tightbritches senseless! And they kicked Olaf Stronginthearm in the bad'dhakz!<![if !supportFootnotes]>[5] We'll cut their—'
'Mr Ironcrust!'
The dwarf baker hesitated and then, to the amazement and relief of the thieves, took a step backwards. 'Yeah ... all right, Captain Carrot. If you say so.'
'I have business elsewhere, but I would be grateful if you would take them and turn them over to the Thieves' Guild,' said Carrot.
The quick thinker went pale. 'Oh, no! They get really intense about unlicensed thieving! Anything but the Thieves'Guild!'
Carrot turned. The light caught his face in a certain way. 'Anything?' he said.
The unlicensed thieves looked at one another, and then all spoke at once.
'The Thieves' Guild. Fine. No problem.'
'We like the Thieves' Guild.'
'Can't wait. Thieves' Guild, here I come.'
'Fine body of men.'
'Firm but fair.'
'Good,' said Carrot. Then everyone's happy. Oh, yes.' He dug into his money pouch. 'Here's five pence for the loaf, Mr Ironcrust. I've handled the other one, but you should be able to sand it off with no trouble.'
The dwarf blinked at the coins. ' You want to pay me for saving my money?' he said.
'As a tax payer you are entitled to the protection of the Watch,' said Carrot.
There was a delicate pause. Mr Ironcrust stared at his feet. One or two of the other dwarfs started to snigger.
‘I’ll tell you what,' said Carrot, in a kindly voice, ‘I’ll come round when I get a moment and help you fill in the forms, how about that?'
A thief broke the embarrassed silence.
'Er. . . could your. . . little dog... let go of my arm, please?'
The wolf released its grip, jumped down and padded over to Carrot, who raised his hand to his helmet respectfully.
'Good day to you all,' he said, and strode away.
Thieves and victims watched him go.
'Is he real? said the quick thinker.
There was a growl from the baker, then 'You bastards!' he shouted. 'You bastardsl'
'Wha . . . what? You've got the money back, haven't you?'
Two of his employees had to hold Mr Ironcrust back.
'Three years!' he said. 'Three years and no one bothered! Three bloody years and not so much as a knock at the door! And he'll ask me! Oh, yes! He'll be nice about it! He'll probably even go and get the extra forms so I won't be put to the trouble! Why couldn't you buggers have just run away?'

 
Vimes peered around the shadowy, musty room. The voice might as well have come from a tomb.
A panicky look crossed the face of the little Herald. 'Perhaps Sir Samuel would be kind enough to step this way?' said the voice. It was chilly, clipping every syllable with precision. It was the kind of voice that didn't blink.
'That is, in fact, er ... Dragon/ said Red Crescent.
Vimes reached for his sword.
'Dragon King of Arms,' said the man.
'King of Arms?' said Vimes.
'Merely a title,' said the voice. 'Pray enter.'
For some reason the words re-spelled themselves in Vimes's hindbrain as 'prey, enter'.
'King of Arms,' said the voice of Dragon, as Vimes passed into the shadows of the inner sanctum. 'You will not need your sword, Commander. I have been Dragon King of Arms for more than five hundred years but I do not breathe fire, I assure you. Ah-ha. Ah-ha.'
'Ah-ha,' said Vimes. He couldn't see the figure clearly. The light came from a few high and grubby windows, and several dozen candles that burned with black-edged flames. There was a suggestion of hunched shoulders in the shape before him.
'Pray be seated,' said Dragon King of Arms. 'And I would be most indebted if you would look to your left and raise your chin.'
'And expose my neck, you mean?' said Vimes.
'Ah-ha. Ah-ha.'
The figure picked up a candelabrum and moved closer. A hand so skinny as to be skeletal gripped Vimes's chin and moved it gently this way and that.
'Ah, yes. You have the Vimes profile, certainly. But not the Vimes ears. Of course, your maternal grandmother was a Clamp. Ah-ha . . .'
The Vimes hand gripped the Vimes sword again. There was only one type of person that had that much strength in a body so apparently frail.
'I thought so! You are a vampire!' he said. 'You're a bloody vampire.'
'Ah-ha.' It might have been a laugh. It might have been a cough. 'Yes. Vampire, indeed. Yes, I've heard about your views on vampires. "Not really alive but not dead enough," I believe you have said. I think that is rather clever. Ah-ha. Vampire, yes. Bloody, no. Black puddings, yes. The acme of the butcher's art, yes. And if all else fails there are plenty of kosher butchers down in Long Hogmeat. Ah-ha, yes. We all live in the best way we can. Ah-ha. Virgins are safe from me. Ah-ha. For several hundred years, more's the pity. Ah-ha.'
The shape, and the pool of candlelight, moved away.
'I'm afraid your time has been needlessly wasted, Commander Vimes.'
Vimes's eyes were growing accustomed to the flickering light. The room was full of books, in piles. None of them were on shelves. Each one sprouted bookmarks like squashed fingers.
'I don't understand,' he said. Either Dragon King of Arms had very hunched shoulders or there were wings under his shapeless robe. Some of them could fly like a bat, Vimes recalled. He wondered how old this one was. They could 'live' almost forever . . .
'I believe you're here because it is considered, ah-ha, appropriate that you have a coat of arms. I am afraid that this is not possible. Ah-ha. A Vimes coat of arms has existed, but it cannot be resurrected. It would be against the rules.'
'What rules?'
There was a thump as a book was taken down and opened.
'I'm sure you know your ancestry, Commander. Your father was Thomas Vimes, his father was Gwilliam Vimes—'
'It's Old Stoneface, isn't it,' said Vimes flatly. 'It's something to do with Old Stoneface.'
'Indeed. Ah-ha. Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes. Your ancestor. Old Stoneface, indeed, as he was called. Commander of the City Watch in 1688. And a regicide. He murdered the last king of Ankh-Morpork, as every schoolboy knows.'
'Executed!'
The shoulders shrugged. 'Nevertheless, the family crest was, as we say in heraldry, Excretus Est Ex Altitudine, That is to say, Depositatum De Latrina. Destroyed. Banned. Made incapable of resurrection. Lands confiscated, house pulled down, page torn out of history. Ah-ha. You know, Commander, it is interesting that so many of, ah-ha, "Old Stoneface's" descendants' - the inverted commas dropped neatly around the nickname like an old lady carefully picking up something nasty in a pair of tongs - 'have been officers of the Watch. I believe, Commander, that you too have acquired the nickname. Ah-ha. Ah-ha. I have wondered whether there is some inherited urge to expunge the infamy. Ah-ha.'
Vimes gritted his teeth. 'Are you telling me I can't have a coat of arms?'
This is so. Ah-ha.'
'Because my ancestor killed a—' He paused. 'No, it wasn't even execution,' he said. 'You execute a human being. You slaughter an animal.'
'He was the king,' said Dragon mildly.
'Oh, yes. And it turned out that down in the dungeons he had machines for—'
'Commander,' said the vampire, holding up his hands, 'I feel you do not understand me. Whatever else he was, he was the king. You see, a crown is not like a Watchman's helmet, ah-ha. Even when you take it off, it's still on the head.'
'Stoneface took it off all right!'
'But the king did not even get a trial.'
'No willing judge could be found,' said Vimes.
'Except you . . . that is, your ancestor . . .'
'Well? Someone had to do it. Some monsters should not walk under the living sky.'
Dragon found the page he had been looking for and turned the book around. This was his escutcheon,' he said.
Vimes looked down at the familiar sign of the morpork owl perched on an ankh. It was atop a shield divided into four quarters, with a symbol in each quarter.
'What's this crown with a dagger through it?'
'Oh, a traditional symbol, ah-ha. Indicates his role as defender of the crown.'
'Really? And the bunch of rods with an axe in it?' He pointed.
'A fasces. Symbolizes that he is . . . was an officer of the law. And the axe was an interesting harbinger of things to come, yes? But axes, I'm afraid, solve nothing.'
Vimes stared at the third quarter. It contained a painting of what seemed to be a marble bust.
'Symbolizing his nickname, "Old Stoneface",' said Dragon helpfully. 'He asked that some reference be made. Sometimes heraldry is nothing more than the art of punning.'
'And this last one? A bunch of grapes? Bit of a boozer, was he?' said Vimes sourly.
'No. Ah-ha. Word play. Vimes = Vines.'
'Ah. The art of bad punning,' said Vimes. 'I bet that had you people rolling on the floor.'
Dragon shut the book and sighed. There is seldom a reward for those who do what must be done. Alas, such is precedent, and I am powerless.' The old voice brightened up. 'But, still ... I was extremely pleased, Commander, to hear of your marriage to Lady Sybil. An excellent lineage. One of the most noble families in the city, ah-ha. The Ramkins, the Selachiis, the Venturis, the Nobbses, of course . . .'
That's it, is it?' said Vimes. 'I just go now?'
'I seldom get visitors,' said Dragon. 'Generally people are seen by the Heralds, but I thought you should get a proper explanation. Ah-ha. We're so busy now. Once we dealt with real heraldry. But this, they tell me, is the Century of the Fruitbat. Now it seems that, as soon as a man opens his second meat-pie shop, he feels impelled to consider himself a gentleman.' He waved a thin white hand at three coats of arms pinned in a row on a board. 'The butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker,' he sneered, but genteelly. 'Well, the candlemaker, in point of fact. Nothing will do but that we burrow through the records and prove them acceptably armigerous . . .'
Vimes glanced at the three shields. 'Haven't I seen that one before?' he said.
'Ah. Mr Arthur Carry the candlemaker,' said Dragon. 'Suddenly business is booming and he feels he must be a gentleman. A shield bisected by a bend sinister d'une meche en metal gris - that is to say, a steel grey shield indicating his personal determination and zeal (how zealous, ah-ha, these businessmen are!) bisected by a wick. Upper half, a chandelle in a fenetre avec rideaux houlant (a candle lighting a window with a warm glow, ah-ha), lower half two chandeliers illumine (indicating the wretched man sells candles to rich and poor alike). Fortunately his father was a harbourmaster, which fact allowed us to stretch ourselves a little with a crest of a lampe au poisson (fish-shaped lamp), indicating both this and his son's current profession. The motto I left in the common modern tongue and is "Art Brought Forth the Candle". I'm sorry, ah-ha, it was naughty but I couldn't resist it.'
'My sides ache,' said Vimes. Something kicked his brain, trying to get attention.
' This one is for Mr Gerhardt Sock, president of the Butchers' Guild,' said Dragon. 'His wife's told him a coat of arms is the thing to have, and who are we to argue with the daughter of a tripe merchant, so we've made him a shield of red, for blood, and blue and white stripes, for a butcher's apron, bisected by a string of sausages, centralis a cleaver held in a gloved hand, a boxing glove, which is, ah-ha, the best we could do for "sock". Motto is Futurus Meus est in Visceris, which translates as "My Future is in (the) Entrails", both relating to his profession and, ah-ha, alluding to the old practice of telling—'
'—the future from entrails,' said Vimes. 'A-mazing.' Whatever was trying to get into his attention was really jumping up and down now.
'While this one, ah-ha, is for Rudolph Potts of the Bakers' Guild,' said Dragon, pointing to the third shield with a twig-thin finger. 'Can you read it, Commander?'
Vimes gave it a gloomy stare. 'Well, it's divided into three, and there's a rose, a flame and a pot,' he said. 'Er... bakers use fire and the pot's for water, I suppose . . .'
'And a pun on the name,' said Dragon.
'But, unless he's called Rosie, I . . .' Then Vimes blinked. 'A rose is a flower. Oh, good grief. Flower, flour. Flour, fire and water? The pot looks like a guzunder to me, though. A chamber pot?'
'The old word for baker waspistor,' said Dragon. 'Why, Commander, we shall make a Herald of you yet! And the motto?'
'Quod Subigo Farinam,' said Vimes, and wrinkled his forehead. ' "Because" . . . "farinaceous" means to do with corn, or flour, doesn't it? ... oh, no ... "Because I Knead the Dough"?'
Dragon clapped his hands. 'Well done, sir!'
'This place must simply rock on those long winter evenings,' said Vimes. 'And that's heraldry, is it? Crossword clues and plays on words?'
'Of course there is a great deal more,' said the Dragon. 'These are simple. We more or less have to make them up. Whereas the escutcheon of an old family, such as the Nobbses . . .'
'Nobbs!' said Vimes, as the penny dropped. That's it! You said "Nobbs"! Before - when you were talking about old families!'
'Ah-ha. What? Oh, indeed. Yes. Oh, yes. A fine old family. Although now, sadly, in decay.'
'You don't mean Nobbs as in ... Corporal Nobbs?' said Vimes, horror edging his words.
A book thumped open. In the orange light Vimes had a vague upside-down glimpse of shields, and a rambling, unpruned family tree.
'My word. Would that be a C. W. St J. Nobbs?'
'Er... yes. Yes!'
'Son of Sconner Nobbs and a lady referred to here as Maisie of Elm Street?'
'Probably.'
'Grandson of Slope Nobbs?'
'That sounds about right.'
'Who was the illegitimate son of Edward St John de Nobbes, Earl of Ankh, and a, ah-ha, a parlourmaid of unknown lineage?'
'Good gods!'
'The earl died without issue, except that which, ah-ha, resulted in Slope. We had not been able to trace the scion - hitherto, at any rate.'
'Good gods!'
'You know the gentleman?'
Vimes regarded with amazement a serious and positive sentence about Corporal Nobbs that included the word 'gentleman'. 'Er ... yes,' he said.
'Is he a man of property?'
'Only other people's.'
'Well, ah-ha, do tell him. There is no land or money now, of course, but the title is still extant.'
'Sorry ... let me make sure I understand this. Corporal Nobbs... my Corporal Nobbs... is the Earl of Ankh?'
'He would have to satisfy us as to proof of his lineage but, yes, it would appear so.'
Vimes stared into the gloom. Thus far in his life,
Corporal Nobbs would have been unlikely to satisfy the examiners as to his species.
'Good gods!' Vimes said yet again. 'And I suppose he gets a coat of arms?'
'A particularly fine one.'
'Oh.'
Vimes hadn't even wanted a coat of arms. An hour ago he'd have cheerfully avoided this appointment as he had done so many times before. But . . .
'Nobby?' he said 'Good gods!'
'Well, well! This has been a very happy meeting,' said Dragon. 'I do so like to keep the records up to date. Ah-ha. Incidentally, how is young Captain Carrot getting along? I'm told his young lady is a werewolf. Ah-ha.'
'Really,' said Vimes.
'Ah-ha.' In the dark, Dragon made a movement that might have been a conspiratorial tap on the side of the nose. 'We know these things!'
'Captain Carrot is doing well,' said Vimes, as icily as he could manage. 'Captain Carrot always does well.'
He slammed the door when he went out. The candle flames wavered.

 
Constable Angua walked out of an alleyway, doing up her belt.
'That went very well, I thought,' said Carrot, 'and will go some way to earning us the respect of the community.'
'Pff! That man's sleeve! I doubt if he even knows the meaning of the word "laundry",' said Angua, wiping her mouth.
Automatically, they fell into step - the energy-saving policeman's walk, where the pendulum weight of the leg is used to propel the walker along with the minimum of effort. Walking was important, Vimes had always said, and because Vimes had said it Carrot believed it. Walking and talking. Walk far enough and talk to enough people and sooner or later you had an answer.
The respect of the community, thought Angua. That was a Carrot phrase. Well, in fact it was a Vimes phrase, although Sir Samuel usually spat after he said it. But Carrot believed it. It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to 'serve the community' by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get into it sideways.[6]
'I've found something very interesting that you will be very interested to see,' said Carrot, after a while.
'That's interesting,' said Angua.
'But I'm not going to tell you what it is because I want it to be a surprise,' said Carrot.
'Oh. Good.'
Angua walked in thought for a while and then said: 'I wonder if it will be as surprising as the collection of rock samples you showed me last week?'
'That was good, wasn't it?' said Carrot enthusiastically. 'I've been along that street dozens of times and never suspected there was a mineral museum there! All those silicates!'
'Amazing! You'd imagine people would be flocking to it, wouldn't you?'
'Yes, I can't think why they don't!'
Angua reminded herself that Carrot appeared to have in his soul not even a trace element of irony. She told herself that it wasn't his fault he'd been brought up by dwarfs in some mine, and really did think that bits of rock were interesting. The week before they'd visited an iron foundry. That had been interesting, too.
And yet. . . and yet. . . you couldn't help liking Carrot. Even people he was arresting liked Carrot. Even old ladies living in a permanent smell of fresh paint liked Carrot. She liked Carrot. A lot. Which was going to make leaving him all the harder.
She was a werewolf. That's all there was to it. You either spent your time trying to make sure people didn't find out or you let them find out and spent your time watching them keep their distance and whisper behind your back, although of course you'd have to turn round to watch that.
Carrot didn't mind. But he minded that other people minded. He minded that even quite friendly colleagues tended to carry a bit of silver somewhere on their person. She could see it upsetting him. She could see the tensions building up, and he didn't know how to deal with them.
It was just as her father had said. Get involved with humans other than at mealtimes and you might as well jump down a silver mine.
'Apparently there's going to be a huge firework display after the celebrations next year,' said Carrot. 'I like fireworks.'
'It beats me why Ankh-Morpork wants to celebrate the fact it had a civil war three hundred years ago/ said Angua, coming back to the here-and-now.
'Why not? We won,' said Carrot.
'Yes, but you lost, too.'
'Always look on the positive side, that's what I say. Ah, here we are.'
Angua looked up at the sign. She'd learned to read dwarf runes now.
' "Dwarf Bread Museum",' she said. 'Gosh. I can't wait.'
Carrot nodded happily and pushed open the door. There was a smell of ancient crusts.
'Coo-ee, Mr Hopkinson?' he called. There was no reply. 'He does go out sometimes,' he said.
'Probably when the excitement gets too much for him,' said Angua. 'Hopkinson? That's not a dwarf name, is it?'
'Oh, he's a human,' said Carrot, stepping inside. 'But an amazing authority. Bread's his life. He wrote the definitive work on offensive baking. Well ... since he's not here I'll just take two tickets and leave tuppence on the desk.'
It didn't look as though Mr Hopkinson got many visitors. There was dust on the floor, and dust on die display cases, and a lot of dust on the exhibits. Most of them were the classic cowpat-like shape, an echo of their taste, but there were also buns, close-combat crumpets, deadly throwing toast and a huge dusty array of other shapes devised by a race that went in for food-fighting in a big and above all terminal way.
'What are we looking for?' Angua said. She sniffed. There was a nastily familiar tang in the air.
'It's . . . are you ready for this? . . . it's . . . the Battle Bread of B'hrian Bloodaxe!' said Carrot, rummaging in a desk by the entrance.
'A loaf of bread? You brought me here to see a loaf of bread?'
She sniffed again. Yes. Blood. Fresh blood.
'That's right,' said Carrot. 'It's only going to be here a couple of weeks on loan. It's the actual bread he personally wielded at the Battle of Koom Valley, killing fifty-seven trolls although' - and here Carrot's tone changed down from enthusiasm to civic respectability - 'that was a long time ago and we shouldn't let ancient history blind us to the realities of a multi-ethnic society in the Century of theFruitbat.'
There was a creak of a door.
Then: 'This battle bread,' said Angua, indistinctly. 'Black, isn't it? Quite a lot bigger than normal bread?'
'Yes, that's right,' said Carrot.
'And Mr Hopkinson ... A short man? Little white pointy beard?'
That's him.'
'And his head all smashed in?' 'What?'
'I think you'd better come and look,' said Angua, backing away.

 
Dragon King of Arms sat alone among his candles.
So that was Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, he mused. Stupid man. Clearly can't see beyond the chip on his shoulder. And people like that rise to high office these days. Still, such people have their uses, which presumably is why Vetinari has elevated him. Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate . . .
He sighed, and pulled another tome towards him. It was not much bigger than many others which lined his study, a fact which might have surprised anyone who knew its contents.
He was rather proud of it. It was quite an unusual piece of work, but he had been surprised- or would have been surprised, had Dragon been really surprised at anything at all for the last hundred years or so - at how easy some of it had been. He didn't even need to read it now. He knew it by heart. The family trees were properly planted, the words were down there on the page, and all he had to do was sing along.
The first page was headed: 'The Descent of King Carrot I, by the Grace of the Gods King of Ankh-Morpork'. A long and complex family tree occupied the next dozen pages until it reached:
Married . . . The words there were merely pencilled in.
'Delphine Angua von Uberwald,' read the Dragon aloud. 'Father - and, ah-ha, sire - Baron Guye von Uberwald, also known as Silvertail; mother, Mme Serafine Soxe-Bloonberg, also known as Yellowfang, of Genua . . .'
It had been quite an achievement, that part. He had expected his agents to have had some difficulty with the more lupine areas of Angua's ancestry, but it turned out that mountain wolves took quite a lot of interest in that sort of thing as well. Angua's ancestors had definitely been among the leaders of the pack.
Dragon King of Arms grinned. As far as he was concerned, species was a secondary consideration. What really mattered in an individual was a good pedigree.
Ah, well. That was the future as it might have been.
He pushed the book aside. One of the advantages of a life much longer than average was that you saw how fragile the future was. Men said things like 'peace in our time' or 'an empire that will last a thousand years', and less than half a lifetime later no one even remembered who they were, let alone what they had said or where the mob had buried their ashes. What changed history were smaller things. Often a few strokes of the pen would do the trick.
He pulled another tome towards him. The frontispiece bore the words: 'The Descent of King . . .' Now, what would the man call himself? That at least was not calculable. Oh, well . . .
Dragon picked up his pencil and wrote: 'Nobbs'.
He smiled in the candlelit room.
People kept on talking about the true king of Ankh-Morpork, but history taught a cruel lesson. It said - often in words of blood - that the true king was the one who got crowned.

 
Books filled this room, too. That was the first impression - one of dank, oppressive bookishness.
The late Father Tubelcek was sprawled across a drift of fallen books. He was certainly dead. No one could have bled that much and still been alive. Or survived for long with a head like a deflated football. Someone must have hit him with a lump hammer.
'This old lady came running out screaming,' said Constable Visit, saluting. 'So I went in and it was just like this, sir.'
'Just like this, Constable Visit?'
'Yes, sir. And the name's Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets, sir.'
'Who was the old lady?'
'She says she's Mrs Kanacki, sir. She says she always brings him his meals. She says she does for him.'
'Does for him?'
'You know, sir. Cleaning and sweeping.'
There was, indeed, a tray on the floor, along with a broken bowl and some spilled porridge. The lady who did for the old man had been shocked to find that someone else had done for him first.
'Did she touch him?' he said.
'She says not, sir.'
Which meant the old priest had somehow achieved the neatest death Vimes had ever seen. His hands were crossed on his chest. His eyes had been closed.
And something had been put in his mouth. It looked like a rolled-up piece of paper. It gave the corpse a disconcertingly jaunty look, as though he'd decided to have a last cigarette after dying.
Vimes gingerly picked out the little scroll and unrolled it. It was covered with meticulously written but unfamiliar symbols. What made them particularly noteworthy was the fact that their author had apparently made use of the only liquid lying around in huge quantities.
'Yuk,' said Vimes. 'Written in blood. Does this mean anything to anyone?'
'Yes, sir!'
Vimes rolled his eyes. 'Yes, Constable Visit?'
'Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets, sir,' said Constable Visit, looking hurt.
''The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets[7]"
I was just about to say it, Constable,' said Vimes. 'Well?'
'It's an ancient Klatchian script,' said Constable Visit. 'One of the desert tribes called the Cenotines, sir. They had a sophisticated but fundamentally flawed . . .'
'Yes, yes, yes,' said Vimes, who could recognize the verbal foot getting ready to stick itself in the aural door. 'But do you know what it means?'
'I could find out, sir.'
'Good.'
'Incidentally, were you able by any chance to find time to have a look at those leaflets I gave you the other day, sir?'
'Been very busy!' said Vimes automatically.
'Not to worry, sir,' said Visit, and smiled the wan smile of those doing good against great odds. 'When you've got a moment will be fine.'
The old books that had been knocked from the shelves had spilled their pages everywhere. There were splashes of blood on many of them.
'Some of these look religious,' Vimes said. 'You might find something.' He turned. 'Detritus, have a look round, will you?'
Detritus paused in the act of laboriously drawing a chalk outline around the body. 'Yessir. What for, sir?'
'Anything you find.'
'Right, sir.'
With a grunt, Vimes hunkered down and prodded at a grey smear on the floor. 'Dirt,' he said.
'You get dat on floors, sir,' said Detritus, helpfully.
'Except this is off-white. We're on black loam,' said Vimes.
'Ah,' said Sergeant Detritus. 'A Clue.'
'Could be just dirt, of course.'
There was something else. Someone had made an attempt to tidy up the books. They'd stacked several dozen of them in one neat towering pile, one book wide, largest books on the bottom, all the edges squared up with geometrical precision.
'Now that I don't understand,' said Vimes. 'There's a fight. The old man is viciously attacked. Then someone- maybe it was him, dying, maybe it was the murderer - writes something down using the poor man's own blood. And rolls it up neatly and pops it into his mouth like a sweetie. Then he does die and someone shuts his eyes and makes him tidy and piles these books up neatly and . . . does what? Walks out into the seething hurly-burly that is Ankh-Morpork?'
Sergeant Detritus's honest brow furrowed with the effort of thought. 'Could be a ... could be dere's a footprint outside der window,' he said. 'Dat's always a Clue wort' lookin' for.'
Vimes sighed. Detritus, despite a room-temperature IQ, made a good copper and a damn good sergeant. He had that special type of stupidity that was hard to fool. But the only thing more difficult than getting him to grasp an idea was getting him to let go of it.<![if !supportFootnotes]>[8]
'Detritus,' he said, as kindly as possible. 'There's a thirty-foot drop into the river outside the window. There won't be—' He paused. This was the river Ankh, after all. 'Any footprints'd be bound to have oozed back by now,' he corrected himself. 'Almost certainly.'
He looked outside, though, just in case. The river gurgled and sucked below him. There were no footprints, even on its famously crusted surface. But there was another smear of dirt on the window-sill.
Vimes scratched some up, and sniffed at it.
'Looks like some more white clay,' he said.
He couldn't think of any white clay around the city. Once you got outside the walls it was thick black loam all the way to the Ramtops. A man walking across it would be two inches taller by the time he got to the other side of a field.
'White clay,' he said. 'Where the hell is white-clay country round here?'
'It a mystery,' said Detritus.
Vimes grinned mirthlessly. It was a mystery. And he didn't like mysteries. Mysteries had a way of getting bigger if you didn't solve them quickly. Mysteries pupped.
Mere murders happened all the time. And usually even Detritus could solve them. When a distraught woman was standing over a fallen husband holding a right-angled poker and crying 'He never should've said that about our Neville!' there was only a limited amount you could do to spin out the case beyond the next coffee break. And when various men or parts thereof were hanging from or nailed to various fixtures in the Mended Drum on a Saturday night, and the other clientele were all looking innocent, you didn't need even a Detritic intelligence to work out what had been happening.
He looked down at the late Father Tubelcek. It was amazing he'd bled so much, with his pipe-cleaner arms and toast-rack chest. He certainly wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight.
Vimes leaned down and gently raised one of the corpse's eyelids. A milky blue eye with a black centre looked back at him from wherever the old priest was now.
A religious old man who lived in a couple of little poky rooms and obviously didn't go out much, from the smell. What kind of threat could he . . . ?
Constable Visit poked his head around the door. 'There's a dwarf down here with no eyebrows and a frizzled beard says you told him to come, sir,' he said. 'And some citizens say Father Tubelcek is their priest and they want to bury him decently.'
'Ah, that'll be Littlebottom. Send him up,' said Vimes, straightening. Tell the others they'll have to wait.'
Littlebottom climbed the stairs, took in the scene, and managed to reach the window in time to be sick.
'Better now?' said Vimes eventually,
'Er . . . yes. I hope so.'
‘I’ll leave you to it, then.'
'Er. . . what exactly did you want me to do?' said Littlebottom, but Vimes was already half-way down the stairs.

 
Angua growled. It was the signal to Carrot that he could open his eyes again.
Women, as Colon had remarked to Carrot once when he thought the lad needed advice, could be funny about little things. Maybe they didn't like to be seen without their make-up on, or insisted on buying smaller suitcases than men even though they always took more clothes. In Angua's case she didn't like to be seen en route from human to werewolf shape, or vice versa. It was just something she had a thing about, she said. Carrot could see her in either shape but not in the various ones she occupied on the way through, in case he never wanted to see her again.
Through werewolf eyes the world was different.
For one thing, it was in black-and-white. At least, that small part of it which as a human she'd thought of as 'vision' was monochrome - but who cared that vision had to take a back seat when smell drove instead, laughing and sticking its arm out of the window and making rude gestures at all the other senses? Afterwards, she always remembered the odours as colours and sounds. Blood was rich brown and deep bass, stale bread was a surprisingly tinkly bright blue, and every human being was a four-dimensional kaleidoscopic symphony. For nasal vision meant seeing through time as well as space: a man could stand still for a minute and, an hour later, there he'd still be, to the nose, his odours barely faded.
She prowled the aisles of the Dwarf Bread Museum, muzzle to the ground. Then she went out into the alley for a while and tried there too.
After five minutes she padded back to Carrot and gave him the signal again.
When he re-opened his eyes she was pulling her shirt on over her head. That was one thing where humans had the edge. You couldn't beat a pair of hands.
'I thought you'd be down the street and following someone,' he said.
'Follow who?' said Angua.
'Pardon?'
'I can smell him, and you, and the bread, and that's it.'
'Nothing else?'
'Dirt. Dust. The usual stuff. Oh, there are some old traces, days old. I know you were in here last week, for example. There are lots of smells. Grease, meat, pine resin for some reason, old food . . . but I'll swear no living thing's been in here in the last day or so but him and us.'
'But you told me everyone leaves a trail.'
'They do.'
Carrot looked down at the late curator. However you phrased it, however broadly you applied your definitions, he definitely couldn't have committed suicide. Not with a loaf of bread.
'Vampires?' said Carrot. 'They can fly . . .'
Angua sighed. 'Carrot, I could tell if a vampire had been in here in the last month.'
'There's almost half a dollar in pennies in the drawer,' said Carrot. 'Anyway, a thief would be here for the Battle Bread, wouldn't they? It is a very valuable cultural artefact.'
'Has the poor man got any relatives?' said Angua.
'He's got an elderly sister, I believe. I come in once a month just to have a chat. He lets me handle the exhibits, you know.'
'That must be fun,' said Angua, before she could stop herself.
'It's very . . . satisfying, yes,' said Carrot solemnly. 'It reminds me of home.'
Angua sighed and stepped into the room behind the little museum. It was like the back rooms of museums everywhere, full of junk and things there is no room for on the shelves and also items of doubtful provenance, such as coins dated '52 BC'. There were some benches with shards of dwarf bread on them, a tidy tool rack with various sizes of kneading hammer, and papers all over the place. Against one wall, and occupying a large part of the room, was an oven.
'He researches old recipes,' said Carrot, who seemed to feel he had to promote the old man's expertise even in death.
Angua opened the oven door. Warmth spilled out into the room. 'Hell of a bake oven,' she said. 'What're these things?'
'Ah ... I see he's been making drop scones,' said Carrot. 'Quite deadly at short range.'
She shut the door. 'Let's get back to the Yard and they can send someone out to—'
Angua stopped.
These were always the dangerous moments, just after a shape-change this close to full moon. It wasn't so bad when she was a wolf. She was still as intelligent, or at least she felt as intelligent, although life was a lot simpler and so she was probably just extremely intelligent for a wolf. It was when she became a human again that things were difficult. For a few minutes, until the morphic field fully reasserted itself, all her senses were still keen; smells were still incredibly strong, and her ears could hear sounds way outside the stunted human range. And she could think more about the things she experienced. A wolf could sniff a lamp-post and know that old Bonzo had been past yesterday, and was feeling a bit under the weather, and was still being fed tripe by his owner, but a human mind could actually think about the whys and wherefores.
'There is something else,' she said, and breathed in gently. 'Faint. Not a living thing. But. . . can't you smell it? Something like dirt, but not quite. It's kind of... yellow-orange . . .'
'Um . . .' said Carrot, tactfully. 'Some of us don't have your nose.'
'I've smelled it before, somewhere in this town. Can't remember where . . . It's strong. Stronger than the other smells. It's a muddy smell.'
'Hah, well, on these streets . . .'
'No, it's not . . . exactly mud. Sharper. More treble.'
'You know, sometimes I envy you. It must be nice to be a wolf. Just for a while.'
'It has its drawbacks.' Like fleas, she thought, as they locked up the museum. And the food. And the constant nagging feeling that you should be wearing three bras at once.
She kept telling herself she had it under control and she did, in a way. She prowled the city on moonlit nights and, okay, there was the occasional chicken, but she always remembered where she'd been and went round next day to shove some money under the door.
It was hard to be a vegetarian who had to pick bits of meat out of her teeth in the morning. She was definitely on top of it, though.
Definitely, she reassured herself.
It was Angua's mind that prowled the night, not a werewolf mind. She was almost entirely sure of that. A werewolf wouldn't stop at chickens, not by a long way.
She shuddered.
Who was she kidding? It was easy to be a vegetarian by day. It was preventing yourself from becoming a humanitarian at night that took the real effort.

 
The first clocks were striking eleven as Vimes's sedan chair wobbled to a halt outside the Patrician's palace. Commander Vimes's legs were beginning to give out, but he ran up five flights of stairs as fast as possible and collapsed on a chair in the waiting salon.
Minutes went past.
You didn't knock on the Patrician's door. He summoned you in the certain knowledge that you would be there.
Vimes sat back, enjoying a moment's peace.
Something inside his coat went: 'Bing bing bingley bing!'
He sighed, pulled out a leather-bound package about the size of a small book, and opened it.
A friendly yet slightly worried face peered up at him from its cage.
'Yes?' said Vimes.
'11 am. Appointment with the Patrician.'
'Yes? Well? It's five past now.'
'Er. So you've had it, have you?' said the imp.
'No.'
'Shall I go on remembering it or what?'
'No. Anyway, you didn't remind me about the College of Arms at ten.'
The imp looked panic-stricken.
That's Tuesday, isn't it? Could've sworn it was Tuesday.'
'It was an hour ago.'
'Oh.' The imp was downcast. 'Er. All right. Sorry. Um. Hey, I could tell you what time it is in Klatch, if you like. Or Genua. Or Hunghung. Any of those places. You name it.'
'I don't need to know the time in Klatch.'
'You might,' said the imp desperately. Think how people will be impressed if, during a dull moment of the conversation, you could say "Incidentally, in Klatch it's an hour ago". Or Bes Pelargic. Or Ephebe. Ask me. Go on. I don't mind. Any of those places.'
Vimes sighed inwardly. He had a notebook. He took notes in it. It was always useful. And then Sybil, gods bless her, had brought him this fifteen-function imp which did so many other things, although as far as he could see at least ten of its functions consisted of apologizing for its inefficiency in the other five.
'You could take a memo,' Vimes said.
'Wow! Really? Gosh! Okay. Right. No problem.'
Vimes cleared his throat. 'See Corporal Nobbs re time-keeping; also re Earldom.'
'Er . . . sorry, is this the memo?'
'Yes.'
'Sorry, you should have said "memo" first. I'm pretty certain it's in the manual.'
'All right, it was a memo.'
'Sorry, you have to say it again.'
'Memo: See Corporal Nobbs re time-keeping; also re Earldom.'
'Got it,' said the imp. 'Would you like to be reminded of this at any particular time?'
The time here?' said Vimes, nastily. 'Or the time in, say, Klatch?'
'As a matter of fact, I can tell you what time it—'
'I think I'll write it in my notebook, if you don't mind,' said Vimes.
'Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,' said the imp proudly. ‘I’m quite advanced.'
Vimes pulled out his notebook and held it up. 'Like this?' he said.
The imp squinted for a moment. 'Yep,' it said. That's handwriting, sure enough. Curly bits, spiky bits, all joined together. Yep. Handwriting. I'd recognize it anywhere.'
'Aren't you supposed to tell me what it says?'
The imp looked wary. 'Says?' it said. 'It's supposed to make noises?'
Vimes put the battered book away and shut the lid of the organizer. Then he sat back and carried on waiting.
Someone very clever - certainly someone much cleverer than whoever had trained that imp - must have made the clock for the Patrician's waiting room. It went tick-tock like any other clock. But somehow, and against all usual horological practice, the tick and the tock were irregular. Tick tock tick . . . and then the merest fraction of a second longer before. . . tock tick tock. . . and then a tick a fraction of a second earlier than the mind's ear was now prepared for. The effect was enough, after ten minutes, to reduce the thinking processes of even the best-prepared to a sort of porridge. The Patrician must have paid the clockmaker quite highly.
The clock said quarter past eleven.
Vimes walked over to the door and, despite precedent, knocked gently.
There was no sound from within, no murmur of distant voices.
He tried the handle. The door was unlocked.
Lord Vetinari had always said that punctuality was the politeness of princes. , Vimes went in.

 
Cheery dutifully scraped up the crumbly white dirt and then examined the corpse of the late Father Tubelcek.
Anatomy was an important study at the Alchemists' Guild, owing to the ancient theory that the human body represented a microcosm of the universe, although when you saw one opened up it was hard to imagine which part of the universe was small and purple and went blomp-blomp when you prodded it. But in any case you tended to pick up practical anatomy as you went along, and sometimes scraped it off the walls as well. When new students tried an experiment that was particularly successful in terms of explosive force, the result was often a cross between a major laboratory refit and a game of Hunt-the-other-Kidney.
The man had been killed by being repeatedly hit around the head. That was about all you could say. Some kind of very heavy blunt instrument.[9]
What else did Vimes expect Cheery to do?
He looked carefully at the rest of the body. There were no other obvious signs of violence, although . . . there were a few specks of blood on the man's fingers. But, then, there was blood everywhere.
A couple of fingernails were torn. Tubelcek had put up a fight, or at least had tried to shield himself with his hands.
Cheery looked more closely at the fingers. There was something piled under the nails. It had a waxy sheen, like thick grease. He couldn't imagine why it should be there, but maybe his job was to find out. He conscientiously took an envelope out of his pocket and scraped the stuff into it, sealed it up and numbered it.
Then he took his iconograph out of its box and prepared to take a picture of the corpse.
As he did so, something caught his eye.
Father Tubelcek lay there, one eye still open as Vimes had left it, winking at eternity.
Cheery looked closer. He'd thought he'd imagined it. But . . .
Even now he wasn't sure. The mind could play tricks.
He opened the little door of the iconograph and spoke to the imp inside.
'Can you paint a picture of his eye, Sydney?' he said.
The imp squinted out through the lens. 'Just the eye?' it squeaked.
'Yes. As big as you can.'
'You're sick, mister.'
'And shut up,' said Cheery.
He propped the box on the table and sat back. From inside the box there came the swish-swish of brush strokes. At last there was the sound of a handle being turned, and a slightly damp picture rustled out of a slot.
Cheery peered at it. Then he knocked on the box. The hatch opened.
'Yes?'
'Bigger. So big it fills the whole paper. In fact' -Cheery squinted at the picture in his hands - 'just paint the pupil. The bit in the middle.'
'So it fills the whole paper? You're weird.'
Cheery propped the box nearer. There was a clicking of gears as the imp wound the lenses out, and then a few more seconds of busy brush work.
Another damp picture unwound. It showed a big black disc.
Well. . . mainly black.
Cheery looked closer. There was a hint, just a hint . . .
He rapped on the box again.
'Yes, Mr Dwarf Weird Person?' said the imp.
'The bit in the middle. Big as you can, thank you.'
The lenses wound out yet further.
Cheery waited anxiously. In the next room, he could hear Detritus patiently moving around.
The paper wound out for the third time, and the hatch opened. 'That's it,' said the imp. 'I've run out of black.'
And the paper was black . . . except for the tiny little area that wasn't.
The door to the stairs burst open and Constable Visit came in, borne along by the pressure of a small crowd. Cheery guiltily thrust the paper into his pocket.
'This is intolerable!' said a small man with a long black beard. 'We demand you let us in! Who're you, young man?'
'I'm Ch - I'm Corporal Littlebottom,' said Cheery. 'Look, I've got a badge . . .'
'Well, Corporal,' said the man, 'I am Wengel Raddley and I am a man of some standing in this community and I demand that you let us have poor Father Tubelcek this minute!'
'We're, er, we're trying to find out who killed him,' Cheery began.
There was a movement behind Cheery, and the faces in front of him suddenly looked very worried indeed. He turned to see Detritus in the doorway to the next room.
'Everyt'ing okay?' said the troll.
The changed fortunes of the Watch had allowed Detritus to have a proper breastplate rather than a piece of elephant battle armour. As was normal practice for the uniform of a sergeant, the armourer had attempted to do a stylized representation of muscles on it. As far as Detritus was concerned, he hadn't been able to get them all in.
^'Is dere any trouble?' he said.
The crowd backed away.
'None at all, officer,' said Mr Raddley. 'You, er, just loomed suddenly, that's all . . .'
'Dis is correct,' said Detritus. 'I am a loomer. It often happen suddenly. So dere's no trouble, den?'
'No trouble whatsoever, officer.'
'Amazing t'ing, trouble,' rumbled Detritus thoughtfully. 'Always I go lookin' for trouble, an' when I find it people said it ain't dere.'
Mr Raddley drew himself up.
'But we want to take Father Tubelcek away to bury him,' he said.
Detritus turned to Cheery Littlebottom. 'You done everyt'ing you need?'
'I suppose so . . .'
'He dead?'
'Oh, yes.'
'He gonna get any better?'
'Better than dead? I doubt it.'
'Okay, den you people can take him away.'
The two Watchmen stood aside as the body was carried down the stairs.
'Why you takin' pictures of the dead man?' said Detritus.
'Well, er, it might be helpful to see how he was lying.'
Detritus nodded sagely. 'Ah, he was lyin', was he? An' him a holy man, too.'
Littlebottom pulled out the picture and looked at it again. It was almost black. But . . .
A constable arrived at the bottom of the stairs. 'Is there someone up there called' - there was a muffled snigger — 'Cheery Littlebottom?'
'Yes,' said Littlebottom gloomily.
'Well, Commander Vimes says you've to come to the Patrician's palace right now, all right?'
'Dat's Corporal Littlebottom you're talkin' to,' said Detritus.
'It's all right,' said Littlebottom. 'Nothing could make it any worse.'

 
Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows - sometimes it doesn't even need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips.
It had escaped already. From the high window of the Patrician's bedroom, Sam Vimes could see people drifting towards the palace. There wasn't a mob - there wasn't even what you might call a crowd- but the Brownian motion of the streets was bouncing more and more people in his direction.
He relaxed slightly when he saw one or two guards come through the gates.
On the bed, Lord Vetinari opened his eyes.
'Ah . . . Commander Vimes,' he murmured.
'What's been happening, sir?' said Vimes.
'I appear to be lying down, Vimes.'
'You were in your office, sir. Unconscious.'
'Dear me. I must have been . . . overdoing it. Well, thank you. If you would be kind enough to . . . help me up . . .'
Lord Vetinari tried to pull himself upright, swayed, and fell back again. His face was pale. Sweat beaded his forehead.
There was a knock at the door. Vimes opened it a fraction.
'It's me, sir. Fred Colon. I got a message. What's up?'
'Ah, Fred. Who've you got down there so far?'
'There's me and Constable Flint and Constable Slapper, sir.'
'Right. Someone's to go up to my place and get Willikins to bring me my street uniform. And my sword and crossbow. And an overnight bag. And some cigars. And tell Lady Sybil. . . tell Lady Sybil . . . well, they'lljust have to tell Lady Sybil I've got to deal with things down here, that's all.'
'What's happening, sir? Someone downstairs said Lord Vetinari's dead!'
'Dead?' murmured the Patrician from his bed. 'Nonsense!' He jerked himself upright, swung his legs off the bed, and folded up. It was a slow, terrible collapse. Lord Vetinari was a tall man, so there was a long way to fall. And he did it by folding up a joint at a time. His ankles gave way and he fell on his knees. His knees hit the ground with a bang and he bent at the waist. Finally his forehead bounced on the carpet.
'Oh,'he said.
'His lordship's just a bit . . .' Vimes began-then he grabbed Colon and dragged him out of the room. 'I reckon he's been poisoned, Fred, and that's the truth of it.'
Colon looked horrified. 'Ye gods! Do you want me to get a doctor?'
'Are you mad? We want him to live!'
Vimes bit his lip. He'd said the words that were on his mind, and now, without a doubt, the faint smoke of rumour would drift out across the city. 'But someone ought to look at him . . .' he said aloud.
'Damn right!' said Colon. 'You want I should get a wizard?'
'How do we know it wasn't one of them?'
'Ye gods!'
Vimes tried to think. All the doctors in the city were employed by the guilds, and all the guilds hated Vetinari, so ...
'When you've got enough people to spare a runner, send him up to the stables on Kings Down to fetch Doughnut Jimmy,' he said.
Colon looked even more stricken. 'Doughnut? He doesn't know anything about doctoring! He dopes racehorses!'
'Just get him, Fred.'
'What if he won't come?'
'Then say that Commander Vimes knows why Laughing Boy didn't win the Quirm 100 Dollars last week, and say that I know Chrysoprase the troll lost ten thousand on that race.'
Colon was impressed. 'You've got a nasty twist of mind there, sir.'
'There's going to be a lot of people turning up pretty soon. I want a couple of Watchmen outside this room - trolls or dwarfs for preference - and no one is to come in without my permission, right?'
Colon's face contorted as various emotions fought for space. Finally he managed to say, 'But . . . poisoned? He's got food-tasters and everything!'
'Then maybe it was one of them, Fred.'
'My gods, sir! You don't trust anyone, do you?'
'No, Fred. Incidentally, was it you? Just kidding,' Vimes added quickly as Colon's face threatened to burst into tears. 'Off you go. We don't have much time.'
Vimes shut the door and leaned on it. Then he turned the key in the lock and moved a chair under the handle.
Finally he hauled the Patrician off the floor and rolled him on to the bed. There was a grunt from the man, and his eyelids flickered.
Poison, thought Vimes. That's the worst of all. It doesn't make a noise, the poisoner can be miles away, you can't see it, often you can't really smell it or taste it, it could be anywhere - and there it is, doing its work . . .
The Patrician opened his eyes.
'I would like a glass of water,' he said.
There was a jug and a glass by the bed. Vimes picked up the jug, and hesitated. ‘I’ll send someone to get some,' he said.
Lord Vetinari blinked, very slowly.
'Ah, Sir Samuel,' he said, 'but whom can you trust?'

 
There was a crowd in the big audience chamber when Vimes finally went downstairs. They were milling about, worried and unsure, and, like important men everywhere, when they were worried and unsure they got angry.
The first to bustle up to Vimes was Mr Boggis of the Guild of Thieves. 'What's going on, Vimes?' he demanded.
He met Vimes's stare. 'Sir Samuel, I mean,' he said, losing a certain amount of bustle.
'I believe Lord Vetinari has been poisoned,' said Vimes.
The background muttering stopped. Boggis realized that, since he had been the one to ask the question, he was now the man on the spot. 'Er . . . fatally?' he said.
In the silence, a pin would have clanged.
'Not yet,' said Vimes.
Around the hall there was a turning of heads. The focus of the universal attention was Dr Downey, head of the Guild of Assassins.
Downey nodded. 'I'm not aware of any arrangement with regard to Lord Vetinari,' he said. 'Besides, as I am sure is common knowledge, we have set the price for the Patrician at one million dollars.'
'And who has that sort of money, indeed?' said Vimes.
'Well . . . you for one, Sir Samuel,' said Downey. There was some nervous laughter.
'We wish to see Lord Vetinari, in any case,' said Boggis.
'No.'
'No? And why not, pray?'
'Doctor's orders.'
'Really? Which doctor?'
Behind Vimes, Sergeant Colon shut his eyes.
'Dr James Folsom,' said Vimes.
It took a few seconds before someone worked this out. 'What? You can't mean . . . Doughnut Jimmy? He's a horse doctor!'
'So I understand,' said Vimes.
'But why?'
'Because many of his patients survive,' said Vimes. He raised his hands as the protests grew. 'And now, gentlemen, I must leave you. Somewhere there's a poisoner. I'd like to find him before he becomes a murderer.'
He went back up the stairs, trying to ignore the shouts behind him.
'You sure about old Doughnut, sir?' said Colon, catching him up.
'Well, do you trust him?' said Vimes.
'Doughnut? Of course not!'
'Right. He's untrustworthy, and so we don't trust him. So that's all right. But I've seen him revive a horse when everyone else said it was fit only for the knackers. Horse doctors have to get results, Fred.'
And that was true enough. When a human doctor, after much bleeding and cupping, finds that a patient has died out of sheer desperation, he can always say, 'Dear me, will of the gods, that will be thirty dollars please,' and walk away a free man. This is because human beings are not, technically, worth anything. A good racehorse, on the other hand, may be worth twenty thousand dollars. A doctor who lets one hurry off too soon to that great big paddock in the sky may well expect to hear, out of some dark alley, a voice saying something on the lines of 'Mr Chrysoprase is very upset', and find the brief remainder of his life full of incident.
'No one seems to know where Captain Carrot and Angua are,' said Colon. 'It's their day off. And Nobby's nowhere to be found.'
'Well, that's something to be thankful for . . .'
'Bingeley bingeley bong beep,' said a voice from Vimes's pocket.
He lifted out the little organizer and raised the flap.
'Yes?'
'Er ... twelve noon,' said the imp. 'Lunch with Lady Sybil.'
It stared at their faces.
'Er ... that's all right, isn't it?' it said.

 
Cheery Littlebottom wiped his brow.
'Commander Vimes is right. It could be arsenic,' he said. 'It looks like arsenic poisoning to me. Look at his colour.'
'Nasty stuff,' said Doughnut Jimmy. 'Has he been eating his bedding?'
'All the sheets seem to be here, so I suppose the answer is no.'
'How's he pissing?'
'Er. The usual way, I assume.'
Doughnut sucked at his teeth. He had amazing teeth. It was the second thing everyone noticed about him. They were the colour of the inside of an unwashed teapot.
'Walk him round a bit on the loose rein,' he said.
The Patrician opened his eyes. 'You are a doctor, aren't you?' he said.
Doughnut Jimmy gave him an uncertain look. He was not used to patients who could talk. 'Well, yeah ... I have a lot of patients,' he said.
'Indeed? I have very little,' said the Patrician. He tried to lift himself off the bed, and slumped back.
‘I’ll mix up a draught,' said Doughnut Jimmy, backing away. 'You're to hold his nose and pour it down his throat twice a day, right? And no oats.'
He hurried out, leaving Cheery alone with the Patrician.
Corporal Littlebottom looked around the room. Vimes hadn't given him much instruction. He'd said: 'I'm sure it won't be the food-tasters. For all they know they might be asked to eat the whole plateful. Still, we'll get Detritus to talk to them. You find out the how, right? And then leave the who to me.'
If you didn't eat or drink a poison, what else was left? Probably you could put it on a pad and make someone breathe it, or dribble some in their ear while they slept. Or they could touch it. Maybe a small dart... Or an insect bite . . .
The Patrician stirred, and looked at Cheery through watery red eyes. 'Tell me, young man, are you a policeman?'
'Er ... just started, sir.'
'You appear to be of the dwarf persuasion.'
Cheery didn't bother to answer. There was no use denying it. Somehow, people could tell if you were a dwarf just by looking at you.
'Arsenic is a very popular poison,' said the Patrician. 'Hundreds of uses around the home. Crushed diamonds used to be in vogue for hundreds of years, despite the fact they never worked. Giant spiders, too, for some reason. Mercury is for those with patience, aquafortis for those without. Cantharides has its followers. Much can be done with the secretions of various animals. The bodily fluids of the caterpillar of the Quantum Weather Butterfly will render a man quite, quite helpless. But we return to arsenic like an old, old friend.'
There was a drowsiness in the Patrician's voice. 'Is that not so, young Vetinari? Yes indeed, sir. Correct. But where then shall we put it, seeing that all will look for it? In the last place they will look, sir. Wrong. Foolish. We put it where no one will looked//
The voice faded to a murmur.
The bed linen, Cheery thought. Even clothes. Into the skin, slowly . . .
Cheery hammered on the door. A guard opened k.
'Get another bed.'
'What?'
'Another bed. From anywhere. And fresh bed linen.'
He looked down. There wasn't much of a carpet on the floor. Even so, in a bedroom, where people might walk with bare feet . . .
'And take away this rug and bring another one.'
What else?
Detritus came in, nodded at Cheery, and looked carefully around the room. Finally he picked up a battered chair.
'Dis'll have to do,' he said. 'If he want, I can break der back off fit.'
'What?' said Cheery.
'Ole Doughnut said for to get a stool sample,' said Detritus, going out again.
Cheery opened his mouth to stop the troll, and then shrugged. Anyway, the less furniture in here the better . . .
And that seemed about it, short of stripping the wallpaper off the wall.

 
Sam Vimes stared out of the window.
Vetinari hadn't bothered much in the way of bodyguards. He had used –that is, he still did use– food-tasters, but that was common enough. Mind you, Vetinari had added his own special twist. The tasters were well paid and treated, and they were all sons of the chief cook. But his main protection was that he was just that bit more useful alive than dead, from everyone's point of view. The big powerful guilds didn't like him, but they liked him in power a lot more than they liked the idea of someone from a rival guild in the Oblong Office. Besides, Lord Vetinari represented stability. It was a cold and clinical kind of stability, but part of his genius was the discovery that stability was what people wanted more than anything else.
He'd said to Vimes once, in this very room, standing at this very window: They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes, yet what is it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal and tomorrow is pretty much like today.'
Now, Vimes turned around. 'What's my next move, Fred?'
'Dunno, sir.'
Vimes sat down in the Patrician's chair. 'Can you remember the last Patrician?'
'Old Lord Snapcase? And the one before him, Lord Winder. Oh, yeah. Nasty pieces of work, they were. At least this one didn't giggle or wear a dress.'
The past tense, thought Vimes. It creeps in already. Not long past, but already very tense.
'It's gone very quiet downstairs, Fred,' he said.
'Plotting don't make a lot of noise, sir, generally.'
'Vetinari's not dead, Fred.'
'Yessir. But he's not exactly in charge, is he?'
Vimes shrugged. 'No one's in charge, I suppose.'
'Could be, sir. There again, you never know your luck.'
Colon was standing stiffly to attention, with his eyes firmly fixed on the middle distance and his voice pitched carefully to avoid any hint of emotion in the words.
Vimes recognized the stance. He used it himself, when he had to. 'What do you mean, Fred?' he said.
'Not a thing, sir. Figure of speech, sir.'
Vimes sat back.
This morning, he thought, I knew what the day held. I was going to see about that damn coat of arms. Then there was my usual meeting with Vetinari. I was going to read some reports after lunch, maybe go and see how they're getting on with the new Watch House in Chittling Street, and have an early night. Now Fred's suggesting . . . what?
'Listen, Fred, if there is to be a new ruler, it won't be me.'
'Who'll it be, sir?' Colon's voice still held that slow, deliberate tone.
'How should I know? It could be . . .'
The gap opened ahead of him and he could feel his thoughts being sucked into it. 'You're talking about Captain Carrot, aren't you, Fred?'
'Could be, sir. I mean none of the guilds'd let some other guild bloke be ruler now, and everyone likes Captain Carrot, and, well . . . rumour's got about that he's the hair to the throne, sir.'
'There's no proof of that, Sergeant.'
'Not for me to say, sir. Dunno about that. Dunno what is proof,' said Colon, with just a hint of defiance. 'But he's got that sword of his, and the birthmark shaped like a crown, and . . . well, everyone knows he's king. It's his krisma.'
Charisma, thought Vimes. Oh, yes. Carrot has charisma. He makes something happen in people's heads. He can talk a charging leopard into giving up and handing over its teeth and doing good work in the community, and that would really upset the old ladies.
Vimes distrusted charisma. 'No more kings, Fred.'
'Right you are, sir. By the way, Nobby's turned up.'
'The day gets worse and worse, Fred.'
'You said you'd talk to him about all these funerals, sir . . .'
'The job goes on, I suppose. All right, go and tell him to come up here."
Vimes was left to himself.
No more kings. Vimes had difficulty in articulating why this should be so, why the concept revolted in his very bones. After all, a good many of the patricians had been as bad as any king. But they were . . . sort of... bad on equal terms. What set Vimes's teeth on edge was the idea that kings were a different kind of human being. A higher lifeform. Somehow magical. But, huh, there was some magic, at that. Ankh-Morpork still seemed to be littered with Royal this and Royal that, little old men who got paid a few pence a week to do a few meaningless chores, like the Master of the King's Keys or the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, even though there were no keys and certainly no jewels.
Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again.
It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: 'Kings. What a good idea.' Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.
There was a knock at the door. It should not be possible for a knock to sound surreptitious, yet this knock achieved it. It had harmonics. They told the hindbrain: the person knocking will, if no one eventually answers, open the door anyway and sidle in, whereupon he will certainly nick any smokes that are lying around, read any correspondence that catches his eye, open a few drawers, take a nip out of such bottles of alcohol as are discovered, but stop short of major crime because he is not criminal in the sense of making a moral decision but in the sense that a weasel is evil - it is built into his very shape. It was a knock with a lot to say for itself.
'Come in, Nobby,' said Vimes, wearily.
Corporal Nobbs sidled in. It was another special trait of his that he could sidle forwards as well as sideways.
He saluted awkwardly.
There was something absolutely changeless about Corporal Nobbs, Vimes told himself. Even Fred Colon had adapted to the changing nature of the City Watch, but nothing altered Corporal Nobbs in any way. It wouldn't matter what you did to him, there was always something fundamentally Nobby about Corporal Nobbs.
'Nobby . . .'
'Yessir?'
'Er . . . take a seat, Nobby.'
Corporal Nobbs looked suspicious. This was not how a dressing-down was supposed to begin.
'Er, Fred said you wanted to see me, Mr Vimes, on account of timekeeping . . .'
'Did I? Did I? Oh, yes. Nobby, how many grandmothers' funerals have you really been to?'
'Er . . . three . . .' said Nobby, uncomfortably.
Three?'
'It turned out Nanny Nobbs weren't quite dead the first time.'
'So why have you taken all this time off?'
'Don't like to say, sir . . .'
'Why not?'
'You're gonna go spare, sir.'
'Spare?'
'You know, sir ... throw a wobbler.'
'I might, Nobby.' Vimes sighed. 'But it'll be nothing to what'll get heaved if you don't tell me . . .'
'Thing is, it's the tricentre - tricera - this three-hundred-year celebration thing next year, Mr Vimes . . .'
'Yes?'
Nobby licked his lips. 'I dint like to ask for time offspecial. Fred said you were a bit sensitive about it all. But . . . you know I'm in the Peeled Nuts, sir. . .'
Vimes nodded. 'Those clowns who dress up and pretend to fight old battles with blunt swords,' he said.
'The Ankh-Morpork Historical Re-creation Society, sir,' said Nobby, a shade reproachfully.
'That's what I said.'
'Well . . . we're going to recreate the Battle of Ankh-Morpork for the celebrations, see. That means extra practice.'
'It all begins to make sense,' said Vimes, nodding wearily. 'You've been marching up and down with your tin pike, eh? In my time?'
'Er ... not exactly, Mr Vimes . , . er . . . I've been riding up and down on my white horse, to tell the truth
'Oh? Playing at being a general, eh?'
'Er ... a bit more'n a general, sir . . .'
'Goon.'
Nobby's adam's apple bobbed nervously. 'Er . . . I'm going to be King Lorenzo, sir. Er ... you know . . . the last king, the one your . . . er . . .'
The air froze.
'You ... are going to be . . .' Vimes began, unpeeling each word like a sullen grape of wrath.
'I said you'd go spare,' said Nobby. 'Fred Colon said you'd go spare, too.'
'Why are you—?'
'We drew lots, sir.'
'And you lost?'
Nobby squirmed. Er ... not exactly lost, sir. Not precisely lost. More sort of won, sir. Everyone wanted to play him. I mean, you get a horse and a good costume and everything, sir. And he was a king, when all's said and done, sir.'
'The man was a vicious monster!'
'Well, it was all a long time ago, sir,' said Nobby anxiously.
Vimes calmed down a little. 'And who drew the straw to play Stoneface Vimes?'
'Er. . .er. . .'
'Nobby!'
Nobby hung his head. 'No one, sir. No one wanted to play him, sir.' The little corporal swallowed, and then plunged onwards with the air of a man determined to get it all over with. 'So we're making a man out of straw, sir, so he'll burn nicely when we throw him on the bonfire in the evening. There's going to be fireworks, sir,' he added, with dreadful certainty.
Vimes's face shut down. Nobby preferred it when people shouted. He had been shouted at for most of his life. He could handle shouting.
'No one wanted to be Stoneface Vimes,' Vimes said coldly.
'On account of him being on the losing side, sir.'
'Losing? Vimes's Ironheads won. He ruled the city for six months.'
Nobby squirmed again. 'Yeah, but . . . everyone in the Society says he didn't ought to of, sir. They said it was just a fluke, sir. After all, he was outnumbered ten to one, and he had warts, sir. And he was a bit of a bastard, sir, when all's said and done. He did chop off a king's head, sir. You got to be a bit of a nasty type to do that, sir. Saving your presence, Mr Vimes.'
Vimes shook his head. What did it matter, anyway? (But it did matter, somewhere.) It had all been a long time ago. It didn't matter what a bunch of deranged romantics thought. Facts were facts.
'All right, I understand,' he said. 'It's almost funny, really. Because there's something else I've got to tell you, Nobby.'
'Yessir?' said Nobby, looking relieved.
'Do you remember your father?'
Nobby looked about to panic again. 'What kind of question is that to suddenly ask anybody, sir?'
'Purely a social enquiry.'
'Old Sconner, sir? Not much, sir. Never used to see him much except when the milit'ry police used to come for to drag him outa the attic.'
'Do you know much about your, er, antecedents?'
'That is a lie, sir. I haven't got no antecedents, sir, no matter what you might have been tole.'
'Oh. Good. Er ... you don't actually know what "antecedents" means, do you, Nobby?'
Nobby shifted uneasily. He didn't like being questioned by policemen, especially since he was one. 'Not in so many words, sir.'
'You never got told anything about your forebears?' Another worried expression crossed Nobby's face, so Vimes quickly added: 'Your ancestors?'
'Only old Sconner, sir. Sir ... if all this is working up to asking about them sacks of vegetables which went missing from the shop in Treacle Mine Road, I was not anywhere near the—'
Vimes waved a hand vaguely. 'He didn't . . . leave you anything? Or anything?'
'Coupla scars, sir. And this trick elbow of mine. It aches sometimes, when the weather changes. I always remembers ole Sconner when the wind blows from the Hub.'
'Ah, right—'
'And this, o' course . . .' Nobby fished around behind his rusting breastplate. And that was a marvel, too. Even Sergeant Colon's armour could shine, if not actually gleam. But any metal anywhere near Nobby's skin corroded very quickly. The corporal pulled out a leather thong that hung around his neck. There was a gold ring on it. Despite the fact that gold cannot corrode, it had nevertheless developed a patina.
'He left it to me when he was on his deathbed,' said Nobby. 'Well, when I say "left it"
'Did he say anything?'
'Well, yeah, he did say "Give it back, you little bugger!", sir. See, 'e 'ad it on a string round his neck, sir, just like me. But it's not like a proper ring, sir. I'd have flogged it but it's all I got to remember him by. Except when the wind blows from the Hub.'
Vimes took the ring and rubbed it with a finger. It was a seal ring, with a coat of arms on it. Age and wear and the immediate presence of the body of Corporal Nobbs had made it quite unreadable.
'You are armigerous, Nobby.'
Nobby nodded. 'But I got a special shampoo for it, sir.'
Vimes sighed. He was an honest man. He'd always felt that was one of the bigger defects in his personality.
'When you've got a moment, nip along to the College of Heralds in Mollymog Street, will you? Take this ring with you and say I sent you.'
'Er . . .'
'It's all right. Nobby,' said Vimes. 'You won't get into trouble. Not as such.'
'If you say so, sir.'
'And you don't have to bother with the "sir", Nobby.'
'Yessir.'
When Nobby had gone Vimes reached behind the desk and picked up a faded copy of Twurp's Peerage or, as he personally thought of it, the guide to the criminal classes. You wouldn't find slum dwellers in these pages, but you would find their landlords. And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions.
These days they seemed to be bringing out a new edition every week. Dragon had been right about one thing, at least. Everyone in Ankh-Morpork seemed to be hankering after more arms than they were born with.
He looked up de Nobbes.
There even was a damn coat of arms. One supporter of the shield was a hippo, presumably one of the royal hippos of Ankh-Morpork and therefore the ancestor of Roderick and Keith. The other was a bull of some sort, with a very Nobby-like expression; it was holding a golden ankh which, this being the de Nobbes coat of arms, it had probably stolen from somewhere. The shield was red and green; there was a white chevron with five apples on it. Quite what they had to do with warfare was unclear. Perhaps they were some kind of jolly visual pune or play on words that had had them slapping their thighs down at the Royal College of Arms, although probably if Dragon slapped his thigh too hard his leg would fall off.
It was easy enough to imagine an ennobled Nobbs. Because where Nobby went wrong was in thinking small. He sidled into places and pinched things that weren't worth much. If only he'd sidled into continents and stolen entire cities, slaughtering many of the inhabitants in the process, he'd have been a pillar of the community.
There was nothing in the book under 'Vimes'.
Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes wasn't a pillar of the community. He killed a king with his own hands. It needed doing, but the community, whatever that was, didn't always like the people who did what needed to be done or said what had to be said. He put some other people to death as well, that was true, but the city had been lousy, there'd been a lot of stupid wars, we were practically part of the Klatchian empire. Sometimes you needed a bastard. History had wanted surgery. Sometimes Dr Chopper is the only surgeon to hand. There's something final about an axe. But kill one wretched king and everyone calls you a regicide. It wasn't as if it was a habit or anything . . .
Vimes had found old Stoneface's journal in the Unseen University library. The man had been hard, no doubt about that. But they were hard times. He'd written: 'In the Fyres of Struggle let us bake New Men, who Will Notte heed the old Lies.' But the old lies had won in the end.
He said to people: you're free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he'd been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who've seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door—
'Bing bong bingely beep.'
Vimes sighed and pulled out his organizer.
'Yes?'
'Memo: Appointment with bootmaker, 2pm,' said the imp.
'It's not two o'clock yet and that was Tuesday in any case,' said Vimes.
'So I'll cross it off the list of Things To Do, then?'
Vimes put the disorganized organizer back in his pocket and went and looked out of the window again.
Who had a motive for poisoning Lord Vetinari?
No, that wasn't the way to crack it. Probably, if you went to some outlying area of the city and confined your investigations to little old ladies who didn't get out much, what with all the wallpaper over the door and everything, you might be able to find someone without a motive. But the man stayed alive by always arranging matters so that a future without him represented a riskier business than a future with him still upright.
The only people, therefore, who'd risk killing him were madmen - and the gods knew Ankh-Morpork had enough of them — or someone who was absolutely confident that if the city collapsed he'd be standing on top of the pile.
If Fred were right - and the sergeant was generally a good indicator of how the man in the street thought because he was the man in the street - then that person was Captain Carrot. But Carrot was one of the few people in the city who seemed to like Vetinari.
Of course, there was one other person who stood to gain.
Damn, thought Vimes. It's me, isn't it . . .
There was another knock at the door. He didn't recognize this one.
He opened the door cautiously.
'It's me, sir. Littlebottom.'
'Come in, then.' It was nice to know there was at least one person in the world with more problems than him. 'How is his lordship?'
'Stable,' said Littlebottom.
'Dead is stable,' said Vimes.
'I mean he's alive, sir, and sitting up reading. Mr Doughnut made up some sticky stuff that tasted of seaweed, sir, and I mixed up some Gloobool's Salts. Sir, you know the old man in the house on the bridge?'
'What old . . . oh. Yes.' It seemed a long time ago. 'What about him?'
'Well. . . you asked me to look around and ... I took some pictures. This is one, sir.' He handed Vimes a rectangle that was nearly all black.
'Odd. Where'd you get it?'
'Er . . . have you ever heard the story about dead men's eyes, sir?'
'Assume I haven't had a literary education, Littlebottom.'
'Well. . . they say . . .'
'Who say?'
'They, sir. You know, they.'
'The same people who're the "everyone" in "everyone knows"? The people who live in "the community"?'
'Yes, sir. I suppose so, sir.'
Vimes waved a hand. 'Oh, them. Well, go on.'
'They say that the last thing a dying man sees stays imprinted in his eyes, sir.'
'Oh, that. That's just an old story.'
'Yes. Amazing, really. I mean, if it weren't true, you'd have thought it wouldn't have survived, wouldn't you? I thought I saw this little red spark, so I got the imp to paint a really big picture before it faded completely. And, right in the centre . . .'
'Couldn't the imp have made it up?' said Vimes, staring at the picture again.
'They haven't got the imagination to lie, sir. What they see is what you get.'
'Glowing eyes.'
'Two red dots,' said Littlebottom, conscientiously, 'which might indeed be a pair of glowing eyes, sir.'
'Good point, Littlebottom.' Vimes rubbed his chin. 'Blast! I just hope it's not a god of some sort. That's all I need at a time like this. Can you make copies so I can send them to all the Watch Houses?'
'Yes, sir. The imp's got a good memory.'
'Hop to it, then.'
But before Littlebottom could go the door opened again. Vimes looked up. Carrot and Angua were there.
'Carrot? I thought you were on your day off?'
'We found a murder, sir! At the Dwarf Bread Museum. But when we got back to the Watch House they told us Lord Vetinari's dead!'
Did they? thought Vimes. That's rumour for you. If we could modulate it with the truth, how useful it could be . . .
'He's breathing well for a corpse,' he said. 'I think he'll be okay. Someone got past his guard, that's all. I've got a doctor to see him. Don't worry.'
Someone got past his guard, he thought. Yes. And I'm his guard.
'I hope the man's a leader in the field, that's all I can say,' said Carrot severely.
'He's even better than that - he's the doctor to the leaders of the field,' said Vimes. I'm his guard and I didn't see it coming.
'It'd be terrible for the city if anything happened to him!' said Carrot.
Vimes saw nothing but innocent concern behind Carrot's forthright stare. 'It would, wouldn't it?' he said. 'Anyway, it's under control. You said there's been another murder?'
'At the Dwarf Bread Museum. Someone killed Mr Hopkinson with his own bread!'
'Made him eat it?'
'Hit him with it, sir,' said Carrot reproachfully. 'Battle Bread, sir.'
'Is he the old man with the white beard?'
'Yes, sir. You remember, I introduced you to him when I took you to see the Boomerang Biscuit exhibition.'
Angua thought she saw a faint wince of recollection speed guiltily across Vimes's face. 'Who's going around killing old men?' he said to the world at large.
'Don't know, sir. Constable Angua went plain clothes' — Carrot waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially - 'and couldn't find a sniff of anyone. And nothing was taken. This is what it was done with.'
The Battle Bread was much larger than an ordinary loaf. Vimes turned it over gingerly. 'Dwarfs throw it like a discus, right?'
'Yes, sir. At the Seven Mountains games last year Snori Shieldbiter took the tops off a line of six hard-boiled eggs at fifty yards, sir. And that was with just a standard hunting loaf. But this is, well, it's a cultural artefact. We haven't got the baking technology for bread like this any more. It's unique.'
'Valuable?'
'Very, sir.'
'Worth stealing?'
'You'd never be able to get rid of it! Every honest dwarf would recognize it!'
'Hmm. Did you hear about that priest being murdered on Misbegot Bridge?'
Carrot looked shocked. 'Not old Father Tubelcek? Really?'
Vimes stopped himself from asking: 'You know him, then?' Because Carrot knew everyone. If Carrot were to be dropped into some dense tropical jungle it'd be 'Hello, Mr Runs Swiftly Through The Trees! Good morning, Mr Talks To The Forest, what a splendid blowpipe! And what a novel place for a feather!'
'Did he have more than one enemy?' said Vimes.
'Sorry, sir? Why more than one?'
'I should say the fact that he had one is obvious, wouldn't you?'
'He is ... he was a nice old chap,' said Carrot. 'Hardly stirred out. Spends . . . spent all his time with his books. Very religious. I mean, all kinds of religion. Studied them. Bit odd, but no harm in him. Why should anyone want to kill him? Or Mr Hopkinson? A pair of harmless old men?'
Vimes handed him the Battle Bread. 'We shall find out. Constable Angua, I want you to have a look at this one. Take . . . yes, take Corporal Littlebottom,' he said. 'He's been doing some work on it. Angua's from Uberwald too, Littlebottom. Maybe you've got friends in common, that sort of thing.'
Carrot nodded cheerfully. Angua's expression went wooden.
'Ah, h'druk g'har dWatch, Sh'rt'azs!' said Carrot. 'H'h Angua tConstable . . . Angua g'har, b'hk bargr'a Sh'rt'azs Kad'k . . . '[10]
Angua appeared to concentrate. 'Grr'dukk d'buz-h'drak . . .' she managed.
Carrot laughed. 'You just said "small delightful mining tool of a feminine nature"!'
Cheery stared at Angua, who returned the stare blankly while mumbling, 'Well, dwarfish is difficult if you haven't eaten gravel all your life . . .'
Cheery was still staring. 'Er ... thank you,' he managed. 'Er ... I'd better go and tidy up.'
'What about Lord Vetinari?' said Carrot.
'I'm putting my best man on that,' said Vimes. 'Trustworthy, reliable, knows the ins and outs of this place like the back of his hand. I'm handling it, in other words.'
Carrot's hopeful expression faded to hurt puzzlement. 'Don't you want me to?' he said. 'I could—'
'No. Indulge an old man. I want you to go back to the Watch House and take care of things.'
'What things?'
'Everything! Rise to the occasion. Move paper around. There's that new shift rota to draw up. Shout at people! Read reports!'
Carrot saluted. 'Yes, Commander Vimes.'
'Good. Off you go, then.'
And if anything happens to Vetinari, Vimes added to himself as the dejected Carrot went out, no one will be able to say you were anywhere near him.

 
The little grille in the gate of the Royal College of Arms snapped open, to the distant accompaniment of brayings and grunts. 'Yes?' said a voice, 'what dost thee want?'
'I'm Corporal Nobbs,' said Nobby.
An eye applied itself to the grille. It took in the full, dreadful extent of the godly handiwork that was Corporal Nobbs.
'Are you the baboon? We've had one on order for . . .'
'No. I've come about some coat with arms,' said Nobby.
'You?' said the voice. The owner of the voice made it very clear that he was aware there were degrees of nobility from something above kingship stretching all the way down to commoner, and that as far as Corporal Nobbs was concerned an entirely new category - commonest, perhaps - would have to be coined.
'I've been told,' said Nobby, miserably. 'It's about this ring I got.'
'Go round the back door,' said the voice.

 
Cheery was tidying away the makeshift equipment he'd set up in the privy when a sound made him look around. Angua was leaning against the doorway.
'What do you want?' he demanded.
'Nothing. I just thought I'd say: don't worry, I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to.'
'I don't know what you're talking about!'
'I think you're lying.'
Cheery dropped a test tube, and sagged on to a seat. 'How could you tell?' he said. 'Even other dwarfs can't tell! I've been so careful!'
'Shall we just say ... I have special talents?' said Angua.
Cheery started to clean a beaker distractedly.
'I don't know why you're so upset,' said Angua. 'I thought dwarfs hardly recognized the difference between male and female, anyway. Half the dwarfs we bring in here on a No. 23 are female, I know that, and they're the ones that are hardest to subdue . . .'
'What's a No. 23?'
. ' "Running Screaming at People While Drunk and Trying to Cut Their Knees off',' said Angua. 'It's easier to give them numbers than write it down every time. Look, there's plenty of women in this town that'd love to do things the dwarf way. I mean, what're the choices they've got? Barmaid, seamstress or someone's wife. While you can do anything the men do . . .'
'Provided we do only what the men do,' said Cheery.
Angua paused. 'Oh,' she said. 'I see. Hah. Yes. I know that tune.'
'I can't hold an axe!' said Cheery. ‘I’m scared of fights! I think songs about gold are stupid! I hate beer! I can't even drink dwarfishly! When I try to quaff I drown the dwarf behind me!'
'I can see that could be tricky,' said Angua.
'I saw a girl walk down the street here and some men whistled after her! And you can wear dressesl With colours!'
'Oh, dear.' Angua tried not to smile. 'How long have lady dwarfs felt like this? I thought they were happy with the way things are . . .'
'Oh, it's easy to be happy when you don't know any different,' said Cheery bitterly. 'Chainmail trousers are fine if you've never heard of lingerry!'
'Li— oh, yes,' said Angua. 'Lingerie. Yes.' She tried to feel sympathetic and found that she was, really, but she did have to stop herself from saying that at least you don't have to find styles that can easily be undone by paws.
'I thought I could come here and get a different kind of job,' Cheery moaned. 'I'm good at needlework and I went to see the Guild of Seamstresses and—' She stopped, and blushed behind her beard.
'Yes,' said Angua. 'Lots of people make that mistake.' She stood up straight and brushed herself off. 'You've impressed Commander Vimes, anyway. I think you'll like it here. Everyone's got troubles in the Watch. Normal people don't become policemen. You'll get on fine.'
'Commander Vimes is a bit . . .' Cheery began.
'He's okay when he's in a good mood. He needs to drink but he doesn't dare to these days. You know: one drink is too many, two is not enough . . . And that makes him edgy. When he's in a bad mood he'll tread on your toes and then shout at you for not standing up straight.'
* You're normal,' said Cheery, shyly. 'I like you.'
Angua patted her on the head. 'You say that now,* she said, 'but when you've been around here for a while you'll find out that sometimes I can be a bitch . . . What's that?'
'What?'
'That. . . painting. With the eyes . . -.'
'Or two points of red light,' said Cheery.
'Oh, yeah?'
'It's the last thing Father Tubelcek saw, I think,' said the dwarf.
Angua stared at the black rectangle. She sniffed. 'There it is again!' /
Cheery took a step backwards. 'What? What?'
'Where's that smell coming from?' Angua demanded.
'Not me!' said Cheery hurriedly.
Angua grabbed a small dish from the bench and sniffed at it. This is it! I smelled this at the museum! What is it?'
'It's just clay. It was on the floor in the room where the old priest was killed,' said Cheery. 'Probably it came off someone's boot.'
Angua crumbled some of it between her fingers.
'I think it's just potters' clay,' said Cheery. We used to use it at the guild. For making pots,' she added, just in case Angua hadn't grasped things. 'You know? Crucibles and things. This looks like someone tried baking it but didn't get the heat right. See how it crumbles?'
'Pottery,' said Angua. 'I know a potter . , .'
She glanced down at the dwarfs iconograph again.
Please, no, she thought. Not one of them?

 
The front gate of the College of Arms - both front gates - were swung open. The two Heralds bobbed excitedly around Corporal Nobbs as he tottered out.
'Has your lordship got everything he requires?'
'Nfff,' said Nobby.
'If we can be of any help whatsoever—'
'Nnnf.'
'Any help at all—?'
'Nnnf.'
'Sorry about your boots, m'lord, but the wyvern's been ill. It'll brush off no trouble when it dries.' Nobby tottered off along the lane. 'He even walks nobly, wouldn't you say?' 'More . . . nobbly than nobly, I think.' 'It's disgusting that he's a mere corporal, a man of his breeding.'

 
Igneous the troll backed away until he was up against his potter's wheel.
'I never done it,' he said.
'Done what?' said Angua.
Igneous hesitated.
Igneous was huge and . . . well, rocky. He moved around the streets of Ankh-Morpork like a small iceberg and, like an iceberg, there was more to him than immediately met the eye. He was known as a supplier of things. More or less any kind of things. And he was also a wall, which was the same as a fence only a lot harder and tougher to beat. Igneous never asked unnecessary questions, because he couldn't think of any.
'Muffin,* he said, finally. Igneous had always found the general denial was more reliable than the specific refutation.
'Glad to hear it,' said Angua. 'Now. . . where do you get your clay from?'
Igneous's face crinkled as he tried to work out where this line of questioning could possibly go. 'I got re-seats,' he said. 'Every bit prop'ly paid for.'
Angua nodded. It was probably true. Igneous, despite giving the appearance of not being able to count beyond ten without ripping off someone else's arm, and having an intimate involvement in the city's complex hierarchy of crime, was known to pay his bills. If you were going to be successful in the criminal world, you needed a reputation for honesty.
'Have you seen any like this before?' she said, holding out the sample.
'It day,' said Igneous, relaxing a little. 'I see clay all der time. It don't have no serial number. Clay's clay. Got lumps of it out der back. You make bricks an pots and stuff outa it. Dere's loads of potters in dis town and we all got der stuff. Why you wanna know about clay?'
'Can't you tell where it came from?'
Igneous took the tiny piece, sniffed it, and rolled it between his fingers.
'Dis is crank,' he said, looking a lot happier now that the conversation was veering away from more personal concerns. 'Dat's like . . . crappy clay, jus' good enough for dem lady potters wi' dangly earrings wot make coffee mugs wot you can't lift wid both hands.' He rolled it again. 'Also, it got a lotta grog in it. Dat's bitsa old pots, all smashed up real small. Makes it stronger. Any potter got loadsa stuff like dis.' He rubbed it again. 'Dis has been sorta heated up but it ain't prop'ly baked.'
'But you can't say where it came from?'
'Outa der ground is der best I can do, lady,' said Igneous. He relaxed a little now it appeared that enquiries were not to do with such matters as a recent batch of hollow statues and subjects of a similar nature. As sometimes happened in these circumstances, he tried to be helpful. 'Come an' have a look at dis.'
He loped away. The Watchmen followed him through the warehouse, observed by a couple of dozen cautious trolls. No one liked to see policemen up close, especially if the reason you were working at Igneous's place was that it was nice and quiet and you wanted somewhere to lie low for a few weeks. Besides, while it was true that a lot of people came to Ankh-Morpork because it was a city of opportunity, sometimes it was the opportunity not to be hung, skewered or dismantled for whatever crimes you'd left behind in the mountains.
'Just don't look,' said Angua.
'Why?' said Cheery.
'Because there's just us and there's at least two dozen of them,' said Angua. 'And all our clothes were made for people with full sets of arms and legs.'
Igneous went through a doorway and out into the yard behind the factory. Pots were stacked high on pallets. Bricks were curing in long rows. And under a crude roof were several large mounds of clay.
'Dere,' said Igneous generously. 'Clay.'
'Is there a special name for it when it's piled up like that?' said Cheery timorously. She prodded the stuff.
'Yeah,' said Igneous. 'Dat's technic'ly wot we calls a heap.'
Angua shook her head sadly. So much for Clues.
Clay was clay. She'd hoped there were all different sorts, and it turned out to be as common as dirt.
And then Igneous Helped the Police with Their Enquiries. 'D'you mind if youse goes out the back way?' he mumbled. 'Youse makes the help nervous an' I get pots I can't sell.'
He indicated a pair of wide doors in the rear wall, big enough for a cart to get through. Then he fumbled in his apron and produced a large keyring.
The padlock on the gate was big and shiny and new.
'You are afraid of theft?' said Angua.
'Now, lady, dat's unfair,' said Igneous. 'Someone broke der ole lock when dey pinched some stuff tree, four munfs ago.'
'Disgusting, isn't it?' said Angua. 'Makes you wonder why you pay your taxes, I expect.'
In some ways Igneous was a lot brighter than, say, Mr Ironcrust. He ignored the remark. 'It was just stuff,' he said, ushering them towards the open gate as speedily as he dared.
'Was it clay they stole?' said Cheery.
'It don't cost much but it's the principle of the t'ing,' he said. 'It beat me why dey bothered. It come to somet'ng when half a ton of clay can jus' walk out the door.'
Angua looked at the lock again. 'Yes, indeed,' she said distantly.
The gate rattled shut behind them. They were outside, in an alley.
'Fancy anyone stealing a load of clay,' said Cheery. 'Did he tell the Watch?'
'I shouldn't think so,' said Angua. 'Wasps don't complain too loudly when they're stung. Anyway, Detritus thinks Igneous is mixed up with smuggling Slab to the mountains, and so he's itching for an excuse to have a poke around in there . . . Look, this is still technically my day off.' She stepped back and peered up at the high spiked wall around the yard. 'Could you bake clay in a baker's oven?' she said.
'Oh, no.'
'Doesn't get hot enough?'
'No, it's the wrong shape. Some of your pots'd be baked hard while others'd still be green. Why do you ask?'
Why did I ask? Angua thought. Oh, what the hell . . . 'Fancy a drink?'
'Not ale,' said Cheery quickly. 'And nowhere where you have to sing while you drink. Or slap your knees.'
Angua nodded understandingly. 'Somewhere, in fact, without dwarfs?'
'Er ... yes
'Where we're going,' said Angua, 'that won't be a problem.'