Sergeant Detritus's approach to these matters was almost instinctively correct. He had the palace staff lined up in front of him and was shouting at them at the top of his voice.
Look at old Detritus, Vimes thought as he went down the stairs. Just your basic thick troll a few years ago, now a valuable member of the Watch provided you get him to repeat his orders back to you to make sure he understands you. His armour gleams even brighter than Carrot's because he doesn't get bored with polishing. And he's mastered policing as it is practised by the majority of forces in the universe, which is, basically, screaming angrily at people until they give in. The only reason that he's not a one-troll reign of terror is the ease with which his thought processes can be derailed by anyone who tries something fiendishly cunning, like an outright denial.
'I know you all done it!' he was shouting. 'If the person wot done it does not own up der whole staff, an' I means this, der whole staff will be locked up in der Tanty also we throws der key away!' He pointed a finger at a stout scullerymaid. 'It was you wot done it, own up!'
'No.'
Detritus paused. Then: 'Where was you last night? Own up!'
'In bed, of course!'
'Aha, dat a likely story, own up, dat where you always is at night?'
'Of course.'
'Aha, own up, you got witnesses?'
'Sauce!'
'Ah, so you got no witnesses, you done it then, own up!'
'No!'
'Oh . . .'
'All right, all right. Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all for now,' said Vimes, patting him on the shoulder. 'Are all the staff here?'
He glared at the line-up: 'Well? Are you all here?'
There was a certain amount of reluctant shuffling among the ranks, and then someone cautiously put up a hand.
'Mildred Easy hasn't been seen since yesterday,' said its owner. 'She's the upstairs maid. A boy come with a message. She had to go off to see her family.'
Vimes felt the faintest of prickles on the back of his neck. 'Anyone know why?' he said.
'Dunno, sir. She left all her stuff.'
'All right. Sergeant, before you go off shift, get someone to find her. Then go and get some sleep.
The rest of you, go and get on with whatever it is you do. Ah ... Mr Drumknott?'
The Patrician's personal clerk, who'd been watching Detritus's technique with a horrified expression, looked up at him. 'Yes, Commander?'
'What's this book? Is it his lordship's diary?'
Drumknott took the book. 'It looks like it, certainly.'
'Have you been able to crack the code?'
'I didn't know it was in code, Commander.'
'What? You've never looked at it?'
'Why should I, sir? It's not mine.'
'You do know his last secretary tried to kill him?'
'Yes, sir. I ought to say, sir, that I have already been exhaustively interrogated by your men.' Drumknott opened the book and raised his eyebrows.
'What did they say?' said Vimes.
Drumknott looked up thoughtfully. 'Let me see, now . . . "It was you wot done it, own up, everybody seen you, we got lots of people say you done it, you done it all right didn't you, own up." That was, I think, the general approach. And then, I said it wasn't me and that seemed to puzzle the officer concerned.'
Drumknott delicately licked his finger and turned a page.
Vimes stared at him.

 
The sound of saws was brisk on the morning air. Captain Carrot knocked against the timber-yard door, which was eventually opened.
'Good morning, sir!' he said. 'I understand you have a golem here?'
'Had,' said the timber merchant.
'Oh dear, another one,' said Angua.
That made four so far. The one in the foundry had knelt under a hammer, the one in the stonemason's yard was now ten clay toes sticking out from under a two-ton block of limestone, one working in the docks had last been seen in the river, striding towards the sea, and now this one . . .
'It was weird,' said the merchant, thumping the golem's chest. 'Sidney said it went on sawing all the way up to the moment it sawed its head right off. I've got a load of ash planking got to go out this afternoon. Who's going to saw it up, may I ask?'
Angua picked up the golem's head. Insofar as it had any expression at all, it was one of intense concentration,
"ere,' said the merchant, 'Alf told me he heard in the Drum last night that golems have been murderin' people . . .'
'Enquiries are continuing,' said Carrot. 'Now then, Mr ... it's Preble Skink, isn't it? Your brother runs the lamp-oil shop in Cable Street? And your daughter is a maid at the university?'
The man looked astonished. But Carrot knew everyone.
'Yeah . . .'
'Did your golem leave the yard yesterday evening?'
'Well, yeah, early on ... Something about a holy day.' He looked nervously from one to the other. 'You got to let them go, otherwise the words in their heads—'
'And then it came back and worked all night?'
'Yeah. What else would it do? And then Alf came in on early turn and he said it came up outa the saw pit, stood there for a moment, and then . . .'
'Was it sawing pine logs yesterday?' said Angua.
That's right. Where'm I going to get another golem at short notice, may I ask?'
'What's this?' said Angua. She picked up a wood-framed square from a heap of sawdust. This was its slate, was it?' She handed it to Carrot.
' "Thou Shall Not Kill," ' Carrot read slowly. ' "Clay of My Clay. Ashamed." Do you have any idea why it'd write that?'
'Search me,' said Skink. They're always doing dumb things.' He brightened up a bit. 'Hey, perhaps it went potty? Get it? Clay ... pot ... potty?'
'Extremely funny,' said Carrot gravely. 'I will take this as evidence. Good morning.
'Why did you ask about pine logs?' he said to Angua as they stepped outside.
'I smelled the same pine resin in the cellar.'
'Pine resin's just pine resin, isn't it?'
'No. Not to me. That golem was in there.'
They all were,' sighed Carrot. 'And now they're committing suicide.'
'You can't take life you haven't got,' said Angua.
'What shall we call it, then? "Destruction of property"?' said Carrot. 'Anyway, we can't ask them now . . .'He tapped the slate.
'They've given us the answers,' he said. 'Perhaps we can find out what the questions should have been.'

 
'What do you mean, "nothing"?' said Vimes. 'It's got to be the book! He licks his fingers to turn a page, and every day he gets a little dose of arsenic! Fiendishly clever!'
'Sorry, sir,' said Cheery, backing away. 'I can't find a trace. I've used all the tests I know.'
'You're sure?'
'I could send it up to the Unseen University. They've built a new morphic resonator in the High Energy Magic Building. Magic would easily—'
'Don't do that,' said Vimes. 'We'll keep the wizards out of this. Damn! For half an hour there I really thought I'd got it . .
He sat down at his desk. Something new was odd about the dwarf, but again he couldn't quite work out what it was.
'We're missing something here, Littlebottom,' he said.
'Yes, sir.'
'Let's look at the facts. If you want to poison someone slowly you've either got to give them small doses all the time - or, at least, every day. We've covered everything the Patrician does. It can't be the air in the room. You and I have been in there every day. It's not the food, we're pretty sure of that. Is something stinging him? Can you poison a wasp? What we need—'
'’scuse me, sir.'
Vimes turned.
'Detritus? I thought you were off-duty?'
'I got dem to give me der address of dat maid called Easy like you said,' said Detritus, stoically. 'I went up dere and dere was people all lookin' in.'
'What d'you mean?'
'Neighbours and dat. Cryin' women all round der door. An' I remember what you said about dat dipplo word—'
'Diplomacy,' said Vimes.
'Yeah. Not shoutin' at people an' dat. I fought, dis look a delicate situation. Also, dey was throwin' stuff at me. So I came back here. I writ down der address. An' now I'm goin' home.' He saluted, rocked slightly from the force of the blow to the side of his head, and departed.
'Thanks, Detritus,' said Vimes. He looked at the paper written in the troll's big round hand.
'ist Floor Back, 27 Cockbill Street,' he said. 'Good grief!'
'You know it, sir?'
'Should do. I was born in that street,' said Vimes. 'It's down below the Shades. Easy . . . Easy . . . Yes , . . Now I remember. There was a Mrs Easy down the road. Skinny woman. Did a lot of sewing. Big family. Well, we were all big families, it was the only way to keep warm . . .'
He frowned at the paper. It wasn't as if it were any particular lead. Maidservants were always going off to see their mothers, every time there was the least little family upset. What was it his granny had used to say? 'Yer son's yer son till he takes a wife, but yer daughter's yer daughter all yer life.' Sending a Watchman around would almost certainly be a waste of everyone's time . . .
'Well, well . . . Cockbill Street,' he said. He stared at the paper again. You might as well rename the place Memory Lane. No, you couldn't waste Watch resources on a wild-goose chase like that. But he might look in. On his way past. Some time today.
'Er ... Littlebottom?'
'Sir?'
'On your . . . your lips. Red. Er. On your lips
'Lipstick, sir.'
'Oh ... er. Lipstick? Fine. Lipstick.'
'Constable Angua gave it to me, sir.'
"That was kind of her,' said Vimes. 'I expect.'

 
It was called the Rats Chamber. In theory this was because of the decoration; some former resident of the palace had thought that a fresco of dancing rats would be a real decorative coup. There was a pattern of rats woven in the carpet. On the ceiling rats danced in a circle, their tails intertwining at the centre. After half an hour in that room, most people wanted a wash.
Soon, then, there would be a big rush on the hot water. The room was filling up fast.
By common consent the chair was taken and amply filled by Mrs Rosemary Palm, head of the Guild of Seamstresses[15], as one of the most senior guild leaders.
'Quiet, please! Gentlemen!'
The noise level subsided a little.
'Dr Downey?' she said.
The head of the Assassins' Guild nodded. 'My friends, I think we are all aware of the situation—' he began.
'Yeah, so's your accountant!' said a voice in the crowd. There was a ripple of nervous laughter but it didn't last long, because you don't laugh too loud at someone who knows exactly how much you're worth dead.
Dr Downey smiled. 'I can assure you once again, gentlemen - and ladies - that I am aware of no engagement regarding Lord Vetinari. In any case, I cannot imagine that an Assassin would use poison in this case. His lordship spent some time at the Assassins' school. He knows the uses of caution. No doubt he will recover.'
'And if he doesn't?' said Mrs Palm.
'No one lives forever,' said Dr Downey, in the calm voice of a man who personally knew this to be true. Then, no doubt, we'll get a new ruler.'
The room went very silent.
The word 'Who?' hovered silently above every head.
'Thing is ... the thing is . . .' said Gerhardt Sock, head of the Butchers' Guild, 'it's been . . . you've got to admit it... it's been . . . well, think about some of the others ..."
The words 'Lord Snapcase, now ... at least this one isn't actually insane' flickered in the group consciousness.
'I have to admit,' said Mrs Palm, 'that under Vetinari it has certainly been safer to walk the streets—'
'You should know, madam,' said Mr Sock. Mrs Palm gave him an icy look. There were a few sniggers.
'I meant that a modest payment to the Thieves' Guild is all that is required for perfect safety,' she finished.
'And, indeed, a man may visit a house of ill—'
'Negotiable hospitality,' said Mrs Palm quickly.
'Indeed, and be quite confident of not waking up stripped stark naked and beaten black and blue,' said Sock.
'Unless his tastes run that way,' said Mrs Palm. 'We aim to give satisfaction. Very accurately, if required.'
'Life has certainly been more reliable under Vetinari,' said Mr Potts of the Bakers' Guild.
'He does have all street-theatre players and mime artists thrown into the scorpion pit,' said Mr Boggis of the Thieves' Guild.
'True. But let's not forget that he has his bad points too. The man is capricious.'
'You think so? Compared to the ones we had before he's as reliable as a rock.'
'Snapcase was reliable,' said Mr Sock gloomily. 'Remember when he made his horse a city councillor?'
'You've got to admit it wasn't a bad councillor. Compared to some of the others.'
'As I recall, the others at that time were a vase of flowers, a heap of sand and three people who had been beheaded.'
'Remember all those fights? All the little gangs of thieves fighting all the time? It got so that there was hardly any energy left to actually steal things,' said Mr Boggis.
'Things are indeed more . . . reliable now.'
Silence descended again. That was it, wasn't it? Things were reliable now. Whatever else you said about old Vetinari, he made sure today was always followed by tomorrow. If you were murdered in your bed, at least it would be by arrangement.
'Things were more exciting under Lord Snapcase,' someone ventured.
'Yes, right up until the point when your head fell off.'
'The trouble is,' said Mr Boggis, 'that the job makes people mad. You take some chap who's no worse than any of us and after a few months he's talking to moss and having people flayed alive.'
'Vetinari isn't mad.'
'Depends how you look at it. No one can be as sane as he is without being mad.'
'I am only a weak woman,' said Mrs Palm, to the personal disbelief of several present, 'but it does seem to me that there's an opportunity here. Either there's a long struggle to sort out a successor, or we sort it out now. Yes?'
The guild leaders tried to look at one another while simultaneously avoiding everyone else's glances. Who'd be Patrician now? Once there'd have been a huge multi-sided power struggle, but now . . .
You got the power, but you got the problems, too. Things had changed. These days, you had to negotiate and juggle with all the conflicting interests. No one sane had tried to kill Vetinari for years, because the world with him in it was just preferable to one without him.
Besides . . . Vetinari had tamed Ankh-Morpork. He'd tamed it like a dog. He'd taken a minor scavenger among scavengers and lengthened its teeth and strengthened its jaws and built up its muscles and studded its collar and fed it lean steak and then he'd aimed it at the throat of the world.
He'd taken all the gangs and squabbling groups and made them see that a small slice of the cake on a regular basis was better by far than a bigger slice with a dagger in it. He'd made them see that it was better to take a small slice but enlarge the cake.
Ankh-Morpork, alone of all the cities of the plains, had opened its gates, to dwarfs and trolls (alloys are stronger, Vetinari had said). It had worked. They made things. Often they made trouble, but mostly they made wealth. As a result, although Ankh-Morpork still had many enemies, those enemies had to finance their armies with borrowed money. Most of it was borrowed from Ankh-Morpork, at punitive interest. There hadn't been any really big wars for years. Ankh-Morpork had made them unprofitable.
Thousands of years ago the old empire had enforced the Pax Morporkia, which had said to the world: 'Do not fight, or we will kill you.' The Pax had arisen again, but this time it said: 'If you fight, we'll call in your mortgages. And incidentally, that's my pike you're pointing at me. I paid for that shield you're holding. And take my helmet off when you speak to me, you horrible little debtor.'
And now the whole machine, which whirred away so quietly that people had forgotten it was a machine at all and thought that it was just the way the world worked, had given a lurch.
The guild leaders examined their thoughts and decided that what they did not want was power. What they wanted was that tomorrow should be pretty much like today.
'There's the dwarfs,' said Mr Boggis. 'Even if one of us - not that I'm saying it would be one of us, of course - even if someone took over, what about the dwarfs? We get someone like Snapcase again, there's going to be chopped kneecaps in the streets.'
'You're not suggesting we have some sort of. . . vote, are you? Some kind of popularity contest?'
'Oh, no. It's just . . . it's just ... all more complicated now. And power goes to people's heads.'
'And then other people's heads fall off.'
'I wish you wouldn't keep on saying that, whoever you are,' said Mrs Palm. 'Anyone would think you'd had your head cut off.'
'Uh—'
'Oh, it's you, Mr Slant. I do apologize.'
'Speaking as the President of the Guild of Lawyers,' said Mr Slant, the most respected zombie in Ankh-Morpork, 'I must recommend stability in this matter. I wonder if I may offer some advice?'
'How much will it cost us?' said Mr Sock.
'Stability,' said Mr Slant, 'equals monarchy.'
'Oh, now, don't tell us—'
'Look at Klatch,' said Mr Slant doggedly. 'Generations of Seriphs. Result: political stability. Take Pseudopolis. Or Sto Lat. Or even the Agatean Empire—'
'Come on,' said Dr Downey. 'Everyone knows that kings—'
'Oh, monarchs come and go, they depose one another, and so on and so forth,' said Mr Slant. 'But the institution goes on. Besides, I think you'll find that it is possible to work out ... an accommodation.'
He realized that he had the floor. His fingers absent-mindedly touched the seam where his head had been sewn back on. All those years ago Mr Slant had refused to die until he had been paid for the disbursements in the matter of conducting his own defence.
'How do you mean?' said Mr Potts.
'I accept that the question of resurrecting the Ankh-Morpork succession has been raised several times recently,' said Mr Slant.
'Yes. By madmen,' said Mr Boggis. It's part of the symptoms. Put underpants on head, talk to trees, drool, decide that Ankh-Morpork needs a king...'
'Exactly. Supposing sane men were to give it consideration?'
'Go on,' said Dr Downey. 'There have been precedents,' said Mr Slant. 'Monarchies who have found themselves bereft of a convenient monarch have . . . obtained one. Some suitably born member of some other royal line. After all, what is required is someone who, uh, knows the ropes, as I believe the saying goes.'
'Sorry? Are you saying we send out for a king?' said Mr Boggis. 'We put up some kind of advertisement? "Throne vacant, applicant must supply own crown"?'
'In fact,' said Mr Slant, ignoring this, 'I recall that, during the first Empire, Genua wrote to Ankh-Morpork and asked to be sent one of our generals to be their king, their own royal lines having died out through interbreeding so intensively that the last king kept trying to breed with himself. The history books say that we sent our loyal General Tacticus, whose first act after obtaining the crown was to declare a war on Ankh-Morpork. Kings are ... interchangeable.'
'You mentioned something about reaching an accommodation,' said Mr Boggis. 'You mean, we tell a king what to doT
'I like the sound of that,' said Mrs Palm.
'I like the echoes,' said Dr Downey.
'Not tell,' said Mr Slant. 'We . . . agree. Obviously, as king, he would concentrate on those things traditionally associated with kingship—'
'Waving,' said Mr Sock.
'Being gracious,' said Mrs Palm.
'Welcoming ambassadors from foreign countries,' said Mr Potts.
'Shaking hands.'
'Cutting off heads—'
'No! No. No, that will not be part of his duties. Minor affairs of state will be carried out—'
'By his advisors?' said Dr Downey. He leaned back. 'I'm sure I can see where this is going, Mr Slant,' he said. 'But kings, once acquired, are so damn hard to get rid of. Acceptably.'
There have been precedents for that, too,' said Mr Slant.
The Assassin's eyes narrowed.
Tm intrigued, Mr Slant, that as soon as the Lord Vetinari appears to be seriously ill, you pop up with suggestions like this. It sounds like ... a remarkable coincidence.'
There is no mystery, I assure you. Destiny works its course. Surely many of you have heard the rumours - that there is, in this city, someone with a bloodline traceable all the way back to the last royal family? Someone working in this very city in a comparatively humble position? A lowly Watchman, in fact?'
There were some nods, but not very definite ones. They were to nods what a grunt is to 'yes'. The guilds all picked up information. No one wanted to reveal how much, or how little, they personally knew, just in case they knew too little or, even worse, turned out to know too much.
However, Doc Pseudopolis of the Guild of Gamblers put on a careful poker face and said, 'Yes, but the tricentennial is coming up. And in a few years it'll be the Century of the Rat. There's something about centuries that gives people a kind of fever.'
'Nevertheless, the person exists,' said Mr Slant. The evidence stares one in the face if one looks in the right places.'
'Very well,' said Mr Boggis. Tell us the name of this captain.' He often lost large sums at poker.
'Captain?' said Mr Slant. 'I'm sorry to say his natural talents have thus far not commended him to that extent. He is a corporal. Corporal C. W. St J. Nobbs.'
There was silence.
And then there was a strange putt-putting sound, like water negotiating its way through a partially blocked pipe.
Queen Molly of the Beggars' Guild had so far been silent apart from occasional damp sucking noises as she tried to dislodge a particle of her lunch from the things which, because they were still in her mouth and apparently attached, were technically her teeth.
Now she was laughing. The hairs wobbled on every wart. 'Nobby Nobbs?' she said. 'You're talking about Nobby Nobbs?
'He is the last known descendant of the Earl of Ankh, who could trace his descent all the way to a distant cousin to the last king/ said Mr Slant. 'It's the talk of the city.'
'A picture forms in my mind,' said Dr Downey. 'Small monkeylike chap, always smoking very short cigarettes. Spotty. He squeezes them in public.'
'That's Nobby!' Queen Molly chuckled. 'Face like a blind carpenter's thumb!'
'Him? But the man's a tit!'
'And dim as a penny candle,' said Mr Boggis. 'I don't see—'
Suddenly he stopped, and then contracted the contemplative silence that was gradually affecting everyone else around the table.
'Don't see why we shouldn't . . . give this . . . due consideration,' he said, after a while.
The assembled leaders looked at the table. Then they looked at the ceiling. Then they studiously avoided one another's gaze.
'Blood will out,' said Mr Carry.
'When I've watched him go down the street I've always thought: "There's a man who walks in greatness," ' said Mrs Palm.
'He squeezes them in a very regal way, mind you. Very graciously.'
The silence rolled over the assembly again. But it was busy, in the same way that the silence of an anthill is busy.
'I must remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that poor Lord Vetinari is still alive,' said Mrs Palm.
'Indeed, indeed,' said Mr Slant. 'And long may he remain so. I've merely set out for you one option against that day, may it be a long time coming, when we should consider a ... successor.'
'In any case,' said Dr Downey, 'there is no doubt that Vetinari has been over-doing it. If he survives -which is greatly to be hoped, of course - I feel we should require him to step down for the sake of his health. Well done thou good and faithful servant, and so on. Buy him a nice house in the country somewhere. Give him a pension. Make sure there's a seat for him at official dinners. Obviously, if he can be so easily poisoned now he should welcome the release from the chains of office
'What about the wizards?' said Mr Boggis.
'They've never got involved in civic concerns,' said Dr Downey. 'Give 'em four meat meals a day and tip your hat to them and they're happy. They know nothing about politics.'
The silence that followed was broken by the voice of Queen Molly of the Beggars. 'What about Vimes?'
Dr Downey shrugged. 'He is a servant of the city.'
'That's what I mean.'
'Surely we represent the city?'
'Hah! He won't see it that way. And you know what Vimes thinks about kings. It was a Vimes who chopped the head off the last one. There's a bloodline that thinks a swing of an axe can solve anything.'
'Now, Molly, you know Vimes'd probably take an axe to Vetinari if he thought he could get away with it. No love lost there, I fancy.'
'He won't like it. That's all I tell you. Vetinari keeps Vimes wound up. No knowing what happens if he unwinds all at once—'
'He's a public servant!' snapped Dr Downey.
Queen Molly made a face, which was not difficult in one so naturally well endowed, and sat back. 'So this is the new way of things, is it?' she muttered. 'Lot of ordinary men sit around a table and talk and suddenly the world's a different place? The sheep turn round and charge the shepherd?'
'There's a soiree at Lady Selachii's house this evening,' said Dr Downey, ignoring her. 'I believe Nobbs is being invited. Perhaps we can . . . meet him.'

 
Vimes told himself he was really going to inspect the progress on the new Watch House in Chittling Street. Cockbill Street was just round the corner. And then he'd call in, informally. No sense in sparing a man when they were pushed anyway, what with these murders and Vetinari and Detritus's anti-Slab crusade.
He turned the corner, and stopped.
Nothing much had changed. That was the shocking thing. After . . . oh, too many years . . . things had no right not to have changed.
But washing lines still criss-crossed the street between the grey, ancient buildings. Antique paint still peeled in the way cheap paint peeled when it had been painted on wood too old and rotten to take paint. Cockbill Street people were usually too penniless to afford decent paint, but always far too proud to use whitewash.
And the place was slightly smaller than he remembered. That was all.
When had he last come down here? He couldn't remember. It was beyond the Shades, and up until quite recently the Watch had tended to leave that area to its own unspeakable devices.
Unlike the Shades, though, Cockbill Street was clean, with the haunting, empty cleanliness you get when people can't afford to waste dirt. For Cockbill Street was where people lived who were worse than poor, because they didn't know how poor they were. If you asked them they would probably say something like 'mustn't grumble' or 'there's far worse off than us' or 'we've always kept uz heads above water and we don't owe nobody nowt'.
He could hear his granny speaking. 'No one's too poor to buy soap.' Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that"?
Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren't quite obeying them.
People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless. All the laws and rules were for those people stupid enough to think like Cockbill Street people.
It was oddly quiet. Normally there'd be swarms of kids, and carts heading down towards the docks, but today the place had a shut-in look.
In the middle of the road was a chalked hopscotch path.
Vimes felt his knees go weak. It was still here! When had he last seen it? Thirty-five years ago? Forty? So it must have been drawn and redrawn thousands of times.
He'd been pretty good at it. Of course, they'd played it by Ankh-Morpork rules. Instead of kicking a stone they'd kicked William Scuggins. It had been just one of the many inventive games they'd played which had involved kicking, chasing or jumping on William Scuggins until he threw one of his famous wobblers and started frothing and violently attacking himself.
Vimes had been able to drop William in the square of his choice nine times out often. The tenth time, William bit his leg.
In those days, tormenting William and finding enough to eat had made for a simple, straightforward life. There weren't so many questions you didn't know the answers to, except maybe how to stop your leg festering.
Sir Samuel looked around, saw the silent street, and flicked a stone out of the gutter with his foot. Then he booted it surreptitiously along the squares, adjusted his cloak, and hopped and jumped his way up, turned, hopped—
What was it you shouted as you hopped? 'Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper?'? No? Or was it the one that went 'William Scuggins is a bastard'? Now he'd wonder about that all day.
A door opened across the street. Vimes froze, one leg in mid-air, as two black-clothed figures came out slowly and awkwardly.
This was because they were carrying a coffin.
The natural solemnity of the occasion was diminished by their having to squeeze around it and out into the street, pulling the casket after them and allowing two other pairs of bearers to edge their way into the daylight.
Vimes remembered himself in time to lower his other foot, and then remembered even more of himself and snatched his helmet off in respect.
Another coffin emerged. It was a lot smaller. It needed only two people to carry it and that was really one too many.
As mourners trooped out behind them, Vimes fumbled in a pocket for the scrap of paper Detritus had given him. The scene was, in its way, funny, like the bit in a circus where the coach stops and a dozen clowns get out of it. Apartment houses round here made up for their limited number of rooms by having a large number of people occupy them.
He found the paper and unfolded it. First Floor Back, 27 Cockbill Street.
And this was it. He'd arrived in time for a funeral. Two funerals.

 
'Looks like it's a really bad day to be a golem,' said Angua. There was a pottery hand lying in the gutter. 'That's the third one we've seen smashed in the street.'
There was a crash up ahead, and a dwarf came through a window more or less horizontally. His iron helmet struck sparks as he hit the street, but the dwarf was soon up again and plunging back through the adjacent doorway.
He emerged via the window a moment later but was fielded by Carrot, who set him on his feet.
'Hello, Mr Oresmiter! Are you keeping well? And what is happening here?'
'It's that devil Gimlet, Captain Carrot! You should be arresting him!'
'Why, what's he done?'
'He's been poisoning people, that's what!'
Carrot glanced at Angua, then back at Oresmiter. 'Poison?' he said. That's a very serious allegation.'
'You're telling me! I was up all night with Mrs Oresmiter! I didn't think much about it until I came in here this morning and there were other people complaining—'
He tried to struggle out of Carrot's grip. 'You know what?' he said. 'You know what? We looked in his cold room and you know what? You know what? You know what he's been selling as meat?'
'Tell me,' said Carrot.
'Pork and beef!'
'Oh, dear.'
'And lamb!'
'Teh, tch.'
'Hardly any rat at all!'
Carrot shook his head at the duplicity of traders.
'And Snori Glodssonsunclesson said he had Rat Surprise last night and he'll swear there were chicken bones in it!'
Carrot let go of the dwarf. 'You stay here,' he said to Angua and, head bowed, stepped inside Gimlet's Hole Food Delicatessen.
An axe spun towards him. He caught it almost absent-mindedly and tossed it casually aside.
'Ow!'
There was a melee of dwarfs around the counter. The row had already gone well past the stage when it had anything much to do with the subject in hand and, these being dwarfs, now included matters of vital importance such as whose grandfather had stolen whose grandfather's mining claim three hundred years ago and whose axe was at whose throat right now.
But there was something about Carrot's presence. The fighting gradually stopped. The fighters tried to look as if they'd just happened to be standing there. There was a sudden and general 'Axe? What axe? Oh, this axe? I was just showing it to my friend Bjorn here, good old Bjorn' feel to the atmosphere.
'All right,' said Carrot. 'What's all this about poison? Mr Gimlet first.'
'It's a diabolical lie!' shouted Gimlet, from somewhere under the heap. 'I run a wholesome restaurant! My tables are so clean you could eat your dinner off them!'
Carrot raised his hands to stop the outburst this caused. 'Someone said something about rats,' he said.
'I told them, I use only the very best rats!' shouted Gimlet. 'Good plump rats from the best locations! None of your latrine rubbish! And they're hard to come by, let me tell you!'
'And when you can't get them, Mr Gimlet?' said Carrot.
Gimlet paused. Carrot was hard to lie to. 'All right,' he mumbled. 'Maybe when there's not enough I might sort of plump out the stock with some chicken, maybe just a bit of beef—'
'Hah! A bit?' More voices were raised.
'That's right, you should see his cold room, Mr Carrot!'
'Yeah, he uses steak and cuts little legs in it and covers it with rat sauce!'
'I don't know, you try to do your best at very reasonable prices and this is the thanks you get?' said Gimlet hotly. 'It's hard enough to make ends meet as it is!'
'You don't even make 'em of the right meat!'
Carrot sighed. There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.
'All right,' he said. 'But you can't get poisoned by steak. No, honestly. No. No, shut up, all of you. No, I don't care what your mothers told you. Now, I want to know about this poisoning, Gimlet.'
Gimlet struggled to his feet.
'We did Rat Surprise last night for the Sons of Bloodaxe annual dinner,' he said. There was a general groan. 'And it was rat.' He raised his voice against the complaining. 'You can't use anything else - listen - you've got to have the noses poking through the pastry, all right? Some of the best rat we've had in for a long time, let me tell you!'
'And you were all ill afterwards?' said Carrot, taking out his notebook.
'Sweating all night!'
'Couldn't see straight!'
'I reckon I know every knothole on the back of the privy door!'
‘I’ll write that down as a "definitely",' said Carrot. 'Was there anything else on the dinner menu?'
'Vole-au-vents and Cream of Rat,' said Gimlet. 'All hygienically prepared.'
'How do you mean, "hygienically prepared"?' said Carrot.
'The chef is under strict orders to wash his hands afterwards.'
The assembled dwarfs nodded. This was certainly pretty hygienic. You didn't want people going around with ratty hands.
'Anyway, you've all been eating here for years,' said Gimlet, sensing this slight veer in his direction. This is the first time there's been any trouble, isn't it? My rats are famous!'
'Your chicken's going to be pretty famous, too,' said Carrot.
There was laughter this time. Even Gimlet joined in. 'All right, I'm sorry about the chicken. But it was that or very poor rats, and you know I only buy from Wee Mad Arthur. He's trustworthy, whatever else you may say about him. You just can't get better rats. Everyone knows that.'
That'll be Wee Mad Arthur in Gleam Street?' said Carrot.
'Yes. Not a mark on 'em, most of the time.'
'Have you got any left?'
'One or two.' Gimlet's expression changed. 'Here, you don't think he poisoned them, do you? I never did trust that little bugger!'
'Enquiries are continuing,' said Carrot. He tucked his notebook away. 'I'd like some rats, please. Those rats. To go.' He glanced at the menu, patted his pocket and looked questioningly out through the door at Angua.
'You don't have to buy them,' she said wearily. "They're evidence.'
'We can't defraud an innocent tradesman who may be the victim of circumstances,' said Carrot.
'You want ketchup?' said Gimlet. 'Only they're extra with ketchup.'

 
The funeral carriage went slowly through the streets. It looked quite expensive, but that was Cockbill Street for you. People put money by. Vimes remembered that. You always put money by, in Cockbill Street. You saved up for a rainy day even if it was pouring already. And you'd die of shame if people thought you could afford only a cheap funeral.
Half a dozen black-clad mourners came along behind, together with perhaps a score of people who had tried at least to look respectable.
Vimes followed the procession at a distance all the way to the cemetery behind the Temple of Small Gods, where he lurked awkwardly among the gravestones and sombre graveyard trees while the priest mumbled on.
The gods had made the people of Cockbill Street poor, honest and provident, Vimes reflected. They might as well have hung signs saying 'Kick me' on their backs and had done with it. Yet Cockbill Street people tended towards religion, at least of the less demonstrative kind. They always put a little life by for a rainy eternity.
Eventually the crowd around the graves broke up and drifted away with the aimless look of people whose immediate future contains ham rolls.
Vimes spotted a tearful young woman in the main group and advanced carefully. 'Er. . . are you Mildred Easy?' he said.
She nodded. 'Who are you?' She took in the cut of his coat and added, 'sir?'
Was that old Mrs Easy who used to do dressmaking?' said Vimes, taking her gently aside.
That's right
'And the . . . smaller coffin?'
‘That was our William–‘
The girl looked as if she were about to cry again.
'Can we have a talk?' said Vimes. There are some things I hope you can tell me.'
He hated the way his mind worked. A proper human being would have shown respect and quietly walked away. But, as he'd stood among the chilly stones, a horrible apprehension had stolen over him that almost all the answers were in place now, if only he could work out the questions.
She looked around at the other mourners. They had reached the gate and were staring back curiously at the two of them.
'Er ... I know this isn't the right time,' said Vimes. 'But, when the kids play hopscotch in the street, what's the rhyme they sing? "Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper?", isn't it?'
She stared at his worried grin. That's a skipping rhyme,' she said coldly. 'When they play hopscotch they sing "Billy Skunkins is a brass stud". Who are you?'
'I'm Commander Vimes of the Watch,' said Vimes. So ... Willy Scuggins would live on in the street, in disguise and in a fashion . . . And old Stoneface was just some guy on a bonfire . . .
Then her tears came.
'It's all right, it's all right,' said Vimes, as soothingly as he could. 'I was brought up in Cockbill Street, that's why I ... I mean I'm . . . I'm not here on ... I'm not out to ... look, I know you took food home from the palace. That's all right by me. I'm not here to ... oh, damn, would you like my handkerchief? I think your one's full.'
'Everyone does it!'
'Yes, I know.'
'Anyway, cook never says nothing ..." She began to sob again.
'Yes, yes.'
'Everyone takes a few things,' said Mildred Easy. 'It's not like stealing.'
It is, thought Vimes treacherously. But I don't give a damn.
And now . . . he'd got a grip on the long copper rod and was climbing into a high place while the thunder muttered around him. The, er, the last food you sto— were given,' he said. 'What was it?'
'Just some blancmange and some, you know, that sort of jam made out of meat. . .'
'Pate?'
'Yes. I thought it would be a little treat..."
Vimes nodded. Rich, mushy food. The sort you'd give to a baby who was peaky and to a granny who hadn't got any teeth.
Well, he was on the roof now, the clouds were black and threatening, and he might as well wave the lightning conductor. Time to ask . . .
The wrong question, as it proved.
Tell me,' he said, 'what did Mrs Easy die of?'

 
'Let me put it like this,' said Cheery. 'If these rats had been poisoned with lead instead of arsenic, you'd have been able to sharpen their noses and use them as a pencil.'
She lowered the beaker.
'Are you sure?' said Carrot.
'Yes.'
'Wee Mad Arthur wouldn't poison rats, would he? Especially not rats that were going to be eaten.'
'I've heard he doesn't like dwarfs much,' said Angua.
'Yes, but business is business. No one who does a lot of business with dwarfs likes them much, and he must supply every dwarf cafe and delicatessen in the city.'
'Maybe they ate arsenic before he caught them?' said Angua.'People use it as a rat poison, after all . . .'
'Yes,' said Carrot, in a very deliberate way. 'They do.'
'You're not suggesting that Vetinari tucks into a nice rat every day?' said Angua.
'I've heard he uses rats as spies, so I don't think he uses them as elevenses,' said Carrot. 'But it'd be nice to know where Wee Mad Arthur gets his from, don't you think?'
'Commander Vimes said he was looking after the Vetinari case,' said Angua.
'But we're just finding out why Gimlet's rats are full of arsenic/ said Carrot, innocently. 'Anyway, I was going to ask Sergeant Colon to look into it.'
'But . . . Wee Mad Arthur?' said Angua. 'He's mad.'
'Fred can take Nobby with him. I'll go and tell him. Um. Cheery?'
'Yes, Captain?'
'You've been, er, you've been trying to hide your face from me ... oh. Did someone hit you?'
'No, sir!'
'Only your eyes look a bit bruised and your lips-'
'I'm fine, sir!' said Cheery desperately.
'Oh, well, if you say so. I'll... er, I'll. . . look for Sergeant Colon, then ..."
He backed out, embarrassed.
That left the two of them. All girls together, thought Angua. One normal girl between the two of us, at any rate.
'I don't think the mascara works,' Angua said. 'The lipstick's fine but the mascara... I don't think so.'
'I think I need practice.'
'You sure you want to keep the beard?'
'You don't mean . . . shave? Cheery backed away.
'All right, all right. What about the iron helmet?'
'It belonged to my grandmother! It's dwarfish!'
'Fine. Fine. Okay. You've made a good start, anyway.'
'Er ... what do you think of ... this?' said Cheery, handing her a bit of paper.
Angua read it. It was a list of names, although most of them were crossed out:

  Cheery Littlebottom
Cherry
Sherry
Sherri
Lucinda Littlebottom
Sharry
Sharri
Cheri

  'Er ... what do you think?' said Cheery nervously.
' "Lucinda"?' said Angua, raising her eyebrows.
'I've always liked the sound of the name.'
' "Cheri" is nice,' said Angua. 'And it is rather like the one you've got already. The way people spell in this town, no one will actually notice unless you point it out to them.'
Cheery's shoulders sagged with released tension. When you've made up your mind to shout out who you are to the world, it's a relief to know that you can do it in a whisper.
' Cheri' , thought Angua. Now, what does that name conjure up? Does the mental picture include iron boots, iron helmet, a small worried face and a long beard?
Well, it does now.
Somewhere underneath Ankh-Morpork a rat went about its business, ambling unconcernedly through the ruins of a damp cellar. It turned a corner towards the grain store it knew was up ahead, and almost walked into another rat.
This one was standing on its hind-legs, though, and wearing a tiny black robe and carrying a scythe. Such of its snout that could be seen was bone-white.
SQUEAK? it said.
Then the vision faded and revealed a slightly smaller figure. There was nothing in the least rat-like about it, apart from its size. It was human, or at least humanoid. It was dressed in ratskin trousers but was bare above the waist, apart from two bandoliers that criss-crossed its chest. And it was smoking a tiny cigar.
It raised a very small crossbow and fired.
The soul of the rat - for anything so similar in so many ways to human beings certainly has a soul -watched gloomily as the figure took its recent habitation by the tail and towed it away. Then it looked up at the Death of Rats.
'Squeak?' it said.
The Grim Squeaker nodded.
SQUEAK.
A minute later Wee Mad Arthur emerged into the daylight, dragging the rat behind him. There were fifty-seven neatly lined up along the wall, but despite his name Wee Mad Arthur made a point of not killing the young and the pregnant females. It's always a good idea to make sure you've got a job tomorrow.
His sign was still tacked up over the hole. Wee Mad Arthur, as the only insect and vermin exterminator able to meet the enemy on its own terms, found that it paid to advertise.

 
<divstyle='border:solidwindowtext.5pt;padding:1.0pt4.0pt1.0pt4.0pt'>'WEE MAD' ARTHUR
For those little things that get you down
Rats *FREE*
Mise: 1p per ten tails
Moles: 1/2p each
Warsps: 50p per nest. Hornets 20p extra
Cockroaches and similar by aranjement.
Small Fees - BIG JOBS
</div>

 
Arthur took out the world's smallest notebook and a piece of pencil lead. See here, now . . . fifty-eight skins at two a penny, City bounty for the tails at a penny per ten, and the carcases to Gimlet at tuppence per three, the hard-driving dwarf bastard that he was . . .
There was a moment's shadow, and then someone stamped on him.
'Right,' said the owner of the boot. 'Still catching rats without a Guild card, are you? Easiest ten dollars we ever earned, Sid. Let's go and—'
The man was lifted several inches off the ground, whirled around, and hurled against the wall. His companion stared as a streak of dust raced across his boot, but reacted too late.
'He's gone up me trouser! He's gone up me –arrgh!'
There was a crack.
'Me knee! Me knee! He's broken me knee!'
The man who had been flung aside tried to get up, but something scurried across his chest and landed astride his nose.
'Hey, pal?' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Can yer mother sew, pal? Yeah? Then get her to stitch this one!'
He grabbed an eyelid in each hand and thrust his head forward with pin-point precision. There was another crack as the skulls met.
The man with the broken knee tried to drag himself away but Wee Mad Arthur leapt from his stunned comrade and proceeded to kick him. The kicks of a man not much more than six inches high should not hurt, but Wee Mad Arthur seemed to have a lot more mass than his size would allow. Being nutted by Arthur was like being hit by a steel ball from a slingshot. A kick seemed to have all the power of one from a large man, but very painfully concentrated into a smaller area.
'Yez can tell them buggers at the Rat-Catchers' Guild that I works for whoze I want and charges what I like,' he said, between kicks. 'And them shites can stop tryin' to persecute the small businessman . . .'
The other guild enforcer made it to the end of the alley. Arthur gave Sid a final kick and left him in the gutter.
Wee Mad Arthur walked back to his task, shaking his head. He worked for nothing and sold his rats for half the official rate, a heinous crime. Yet Wee Mad Arthur was growing rich because the guild hadn't got its joint heads around the idea of fiscal relativity.
Arthur charged a lot more for his services. A lot more, that is, from the specialized and above all low point of view of Wee Mad Arthur. What Ankh-Morpork had yet to understand was that the smaller you are the more your money is worth.
A dollar for a human bought a loaf of bread that was eaten in a few bites. The same dollar for Wee Mad Arthur bought the same-sized loaf, but it was food for a week and could then be further hollowed out and used as a bedroom.
The size-differential problem was also responsible for his frequent drunkenness. Few publicans were prepared to sell beer by the thimbleful or had gnome-sized mugs. Wee Mad Arthur had to go drinking in a swimming costume.
But he liked his work. No one could clear out rats like Wee Mad Arthur. Old and cunning rats that knew all about traps, deadfalls and poison were helpless in the face of his attack, which was where, in fact, he often attacked. The last thing they felt was a hand gripping each of their ears, and the last thing they saw was his forehead, approaching at speed.
Muttering under his breath, Wee Mad Arthur got back to his calculations. But not for long.
He spun around, forehead cocked.
'It's only us, Wee Mad Arthur,' said Sergeant Colon, stepping back hurriedly.
'That's Mr Wee Mad Arthur to youse, copper,' said Wee Mad Arthur, but he relaxed a little.
'We're Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs,' said Colon.
'Yeah, you remember us, don't you?' said Nobby, in a wheedling voice. 'We was the ones who helped you when you was fighting them three dwarfs last week.'
'Yez pulled me off 'f them, if that's what you mean,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Just when I'd got 'em all down.'
'We want to talk to you about some rats,' said Colon.
'Can't take on any more customers,' said Wee Mad Arthur firmly.
'Some rats you sold to Gimlet's Hole Food Delicatessen a few days ago.'
'What's that to yez?'
'He reckons they was poisoned,' said Nobby, who had taken the precaution of moving behind Colon.
'I never uses poison!'
Colon realized he was backing away from a man six inches high. 'Yeah, well... see ... fing is ... you being in fights and that. . . you don't get on with dwarfs . . . some people might say . . . fing is ... it could look like you might have a grudge.' He took another step back and almost tripped over Nobby.
'Grudge? Why should I have a grudge, pal? It ain't me that gets the kicking!' said Wee Mad Arthur, advancing.
'Good point. Good point,' said Colon. 'Only it'd help, right, if you could tell us ... where you got those rats from . . .'
'Like the Patrician's palace, maybe,' said Nobby.
'The palace? No one catches rats at the palace. That's not allowed. No, I remember those rats. They wuz good fat ones, I wanted a penny each, but he held out for four for threepence, th' ole skinflint that he is.'
'Where did you get them, then?'
Wee Mad Arthur shrugged. 'Down the cattle market. I do the cattle market Tuesdays. Couldn't tell yez where they came from. Them tunnels guz everywhere, see?'
'Could they've eaten poison before you caught them?' said Colon.
Wee Mad Arthur bristled. 'No one puts down poison round there. I won't have it, see? I got all the contracts along the Shambles, and I won't deal with any gobshite who uses poison. I doesn't charge for extermination, see? Guild hates that. But I chooses me customers.' Wee Mad Arthur grinned wickedly. 'I only guz where's there's the finest eating for the rats and I clean up flogging 'em to the lawn ornaments. I find anyone using poison on my patch, they can pay guild rates for guild work, hah, and see how they like it.'
'I can see you're going to be a big man in industrial catering,' said Colon.
Wee Mad Arthur put his head on one side. 'D'youse know what happened to the last man that made a crack like that?' he said.
'Er . . . no . . . ?' said Colon.
'Neither does anyone else,' said Wee Mad Arthur, "cos he was never found. Have yez finished? Only I got a wasps' nest to clean out before I go home.'
'So you were catching them under the Shambles?' Colon persisted.
'All the way along. 'S a good beat. There's tanners, tallow men, butchers, sausage-makers . . . That's good grazing, if you're a rat.'
'Yeah, right,' said Colon. 'Fair enough. Well, I reckon we've taken up enough of your time—'
'How d'you catch wasps?' said Nobby, intrigued. 'Smoke 'em out?'
'’Tis unsporting not to hit them on the wing,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'But if it's a busy day I make up squibs out of that No. i black powder the alchemists sell.' He indicated the laden bandoliers over his shoulders.
'You blow them up?' said Nobby. That don't sound too sporting.'
'Yeah? Just ever tried settin' and lightin' half a dozen fuses and then fightin' your way back out of the entrance before the first one goes off?'

 
'It's a wild-goose chase, Sarge,' said Nobby, as they strolled away. 'Some rats et some poison somewhere and he got them. What're we supposed to do about it? Poisonin' rats ain't illegal.'
Colon scratched his chin. 'I think we could be in a bit of trouble, Nobby,' he said. 'I mean, everyone's been bustling around detectoring and we could end up looking a right couple of noddies. I mean, do you want to go back to the Yard and say we talked to Wee Mad Arthur and he said it wasn't him, end of story? We're humans, right? Well, I am and I know you probably are - and we're definitely bringing up the rear around here. I'm telling you, this ain't my Watch any more, Nobby. Trolls, dwarfs, gargoyles . . . I've nothing against them, you know me, but I'm looking forward to my little farm with chickens round the door. And I wouldn't mind goin' out with something to be proud of.'
'Well, what do you want us to do? Knock on every door round the cattle market and ask 'em if they've got any arsenic in the place?'
'Yep,' said Colon. 'Walk and talk. That's what Vimes always says.'
'There's hundreds of 'em! Anyway, they'd say no.'
'Right, but we got to arsk. T'aint like it used to be, Nobby. This is modern policing. Detectoring. These days, we got to get results. I mean, the Watch is getting bigger. I don't mind ole Detritus bein' a sergeant, he's not bad when you get to know him, but one of these days it could be a dwarf giving out orders, Nobby. It's all right for me 'cos I'll be out on my farm—'
'Nailin' chickens round the door,' said Nobby.
'—but you've got your future to think about. An', the way things are going, maybe the Watch'll be looking for another captain. It'd be a right bugger if he turned out to have a name like Stronginthearm, eh, or Shale. So you'd better look smart.'
'You never wanted to be a captain, Fred?'
'Me? A hofficer? I have my pride, Nobby. I've nothing against hofficering for them as is called to it, but it's not for the likes of me. My place is with the common man.'
'I wish mine was,' said Nobby gloomily. 'Look what was in my pigeonhole this morning.'
He handed the sergeant a square of card, with gold edging. ' "Lady Selachii will be At Home this pm from five onwards, and requests the pleasure of the company of Lord de Nobbes," ' he read.
'Oh.'
‘I’ve heard about these rich ole women,' said Nobby, dejectedly. 'I reckon she wants me to be a giggle-low, is that right?'
'Nah, nah,' said the sergeant, looking at passion's most unlikely plaything. 'I know this stufffrom my uncle. "At Home" is like a bit of a drinks do. It's where all you nobs hob-nob, Nobby. You just drink and scoff and talk about literachoor and the arts.'
'I haven't got any posh clothes,' said Nobby.
'Ah, that's where you score, Nobby,' said Colon. 'Uniforms is okay. Adds a bit of tone, in fact. Especially if you look dashing,' he said, ignoring the evidence that Nobby was, in fact, merely runny.
'Is that a fact?' said Nobby, brightening up a bit. 'I've got a lot more of 'em invites, too,' he said. 'Posh cards what look like they've been nibbled along the edges with gold teeth. Dinners, balls, all kinds of stuff.'
Colon looked down at his friend. A strange and yet persuasive thought crept into his mind. 'We-ell,' he said, 'it's the end of the social Season, see? Time's running out.'
'What for?'
'We-ell. . . could be all them posh women want to marry you off to their daughters who're in Season . . .'
'What?'
'Nothing beats an earl except a duke, and we haven't got one of them. And we ain't got a king, neither. The Earl of Ankh would be what they calls a social catch.' Yes, it was easier if he said it to himself like that. If you substituted 'Nobby Nobbs' for 'Earl of Ankh' it didn't work. But it did work when youjust said 'Earl of Ankh'. There'd be many women who'd be happy to be the mother-in-law of the Earl of Ankh even if it meant having Nobby Nobbs into the bargain.
Well, a few, anyway.
Nobby's eyes gleamed. 'Never thought of that,' he said. 'And some of these girls have a bit of cash, too?'
'More'nyou, Nobby.'
'And of course I owes it to my posterity to see that the line of Nobbses doesn't die out,' Nobby added, thoughtfully.
Colon beamed at him with the rather worried expression of a mad doctor who has bolted on the head, applied the crackling lightning to the electrodes, and is now watching his creation lurch down to the village.
'Cor,' said Nobby, his eyes now unfocusing slightly.
'Right, but before that,' said Colon, ‘I’ll do all the places along the Shambles and you do Chittling Street and then we can push off back to the Yard, job done and dusted. Okay?'

 
'Afternoon, Commander Vimes,' said Carrot, shutting the door behind him. 'Captain Carrot reporting.'
Vimes was slumped in his chair, staring at the window. The fog was creeping up again. Already the Opera House opposite was a little hazy.
'We, er, had a look at as many golems as we could, sir,' said Carrot, trying diplomatically to see if there was a bottle anywhere on the desk. There's hardly any, sir. We found eleven had smashed themselves up or sawn their heads off and by lunchtime people were smashing 'em or taking out their words themselves, sir. It's not nice, sir. There's bits of pottery all over the city. It's as if people were . . . just waiting for the opportunity. It's odd, sir. All they do is work and keep themselves to themselves and don't offer any harm to anyone. And some of the ones that smashed themselves left . . . well, notes, sir. Sort of saying they were sorry and ashamed, sir. They kept on going on about their clay . . .'
Vimes did not respond.
Carrot leaned sideways and down, in case there was a bottle on the floor. 'And Gimlet's Hole Food Delicatessen has been selling poisoned rat. Arsenic, sir. I've asked Sergeant Colon and Nobby to follow that one. It might just be some kind of mix-up, but you never know.'
Vimes turned. Carrot could hear his breathing. Short, sharp bursts, like a man trying to keep himself under control. 'What have we missed, Captain?' he said, in a faraway voice.
'Sir?'
'In his lordship's bedroom. There's the bed. The desk. Things on the desk. The table by the bed. The chair. The rug. Everything. We replaced everything. He eats food. We've checked the food, yes?'
The whole larder, sir.'
Ts that a fact? We might be wrong there. I don't understand how, but we might be wrong. There's some evidence lying in the cemetery that suggests we are.' Vimes was nearly growling. 'What else is there? Littlebottom says there's no marks on him. What else is there? Let's find out the how and with any luck that'll give us the who.'
'He breathes the air more than anyone else, si—'
'But we moved him into another bedroom! Even if someone was, I don't know, pumping poison in . . . they couldn't change rooms with us all watching. It's got to be the food!'
'I've watched them taste it, sir.'
Then it's something we're not seeing, damn it! People are dead, Captain! Mrs Easy's deadl'
'Who, sir?'
'You've never heard of her?'
'Can't say that I have, sir. What did she use to do?'
'Do? Nothing, I suppose. She just brought up nine kids in a couple of rooms you couldn't stretch out in and she sewed shirts for tuppence an hour, every hour the bloody gods sent, and all she did was work and keep herself to herself and she is dead, Captain. And so's her grandson. Aged fourteen months. Because her granddaughter took them some grub from the palace! A bit of a treat for them! And d'you know what? Mildred thought I was going to arrest her for theft! At the damn funeral, for gods' sake!' Vimes's fists opened and closed, his knuckles showing white. 'It's murder now. Not assassination, not politics, it's murder. Because we're not asking the right damn questions!'

 
The door opened.
'Oh, good afternoon, squire,' said Sergeant Colon brightly, touching his helmet. 'Sorry to bother you. I expect it's your busy time, but I've got to ask, just to eliminate you from our enquiries, so to speak. Do you use any arsenic around the place?'
'Er . . . don't leave the officer standing there, Fanley,' said a nervous voice, and the workman stepped aside. 'Good afternoon, officer. How may we help you?'
'Checking up on arsenic, sir. Seems some's been getting where it shouldn't.'
'Er . . . good heavens. Really. I'm sure we don't use any, but do come inside while I check with the foremen. I'm certain there's a pot of tea hot, too.'
Colon looked behind him. The mist was rising. The sky was going grey. 'Wouldn't say no, sir!' he said.
The door closed behind him.
A moment later, there was the faint scrape of the bolts.

 
'Right,' said Vimes. 'Let's start again.' He picked up an imaginary ladle.
'I'm the cook. I've made this nourishing gruel that tastes like dog's water. I'm filling up three bowls. Everyone's watching me. All the bowls have been well washed, right? Okay. The tasters take two, one to taste, and these days the other's for Littlebottom to check, and then a servant - that's you, Carrot - takes the third one and . . .'
'Puts it in the dumbwaiter, sir. There's one up to every room.'
'I thought they carried them up?'
'Six floors? It'd get stone-cold, sir.'
'All right . . . hold on. We've gone too far. You've got the bowl. D'you put it on a tray?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Put it on a tray, then.'
Carrot obediently put the invisible bowl on an invisible tray.
'Anything else?' said Vimes.
'Piece of bread, sir. And we check the loaf.'
'Soup spoon?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, don't just stand there. Put them on . . .'
Carrot detached one hand from the invisible tray to take an invisible piece of bread and an intangible spoon.
'Anything else?' said Vimes. 'Salt and pepper?'
'I think I remember salt and pepper pots, sir.'
'On they go, then.'
Vimes stared hawk-like at the space between Carrot's hands.
'No,' he said. 'We wouldn't have missed that, would we? I mean . . . we wouldn't, would we?'
He reached out and picked up an invisible tube.
'Tell me we checked the salt,' he said.
'That's the pepper, sir,' said Carrot helpfully.
'Salt! Mustard! Vinegar! Pepper!' said Vimes. 'We didn't check all the food and then let his lordship tip poison on to suit his taste, did we? Arsenic's a metal. Can't you get ... metal salts? Tell me we asked ourselves that. We aren't that stupid, are we?'
‘I’ll check directly,' said Carrot. He looked around desperately. ‘I’ll just put the tray down—'
'Not yet,' said Vimes. ‘I’ve been here before. We don't rush off shouting "Give me a towel!" just because we've had one idea. Let's keep looking, shall we? The spoon. What's it made of?'
'Good point. I'll check the cutlery, sir.'
'Now we're cooking with charcoal! What's he been drinking?'
'Boiled water, sir. We've tested the water. And I checked the glasses.'
'Good. So... we've got the tray and you put the tray in the dumbwaiter and then what?'
'The men in the kitchen haul on the ropes and it goes up to the sixth floor.'
'No stops?'
Carrot looked blank.
'It goes up six floors,' said Vimes. 'It's just a shaft with a big box in it that can be pulled up and down, isn't it? I'll bet there's a door into it on every floor.'
'Some of the floors are hardly used these days, sir—'
'Even better for our poisoner, hmm? He just stands there, bold as you like, and waits for the tray to come by, right? We don't know that the meal which arrives is the one that left, do we?'
'Brilliant, sir!'
'It happens at night, I'll swear,' said Vimes. 'He's chipper in the evenings and out like a light next morning. What time is his supper sent up?'
'While he's poorly, around six o'clock, sir,' said Carrot. 'It's got dark by then. Then he gets on with his writing.'
'Right. We've got a lot to do. Come on.'

 
The Patrician was sitting up in bed reading when Vimes entered. 'Ah, Vimes,' he said.
'Your supper will be up shortly, my lord,' said Vimes. 'And can I once again say that our job would be a lot easier if you let us move you out of the palace?'
'I'm sure it would be,' said Lord Vetinari.
There was a rattle from the dumbwaiter. Vimes walked across and opened the doors.
There was a dwarf in the box. He had a knife between his teeth and an axe in each hand, and was glowering with ferocious concentration.
'Good heavens,' said Vetinari weakly. 'I hope at least they've included some mustard.'
'Any problems, Constable?' said Vimes.
'Nofe, fir,' said the dwarf, unfolding himself and removing the knife. 'Very dull all the way up, sir. There was other doors and they all looked pretty unused, but I nailed 'em up anyway like Captain Carrot said, sir.'
'Well done. Down you go.'
Vimes shut the doors. There was more rattling as the dwarf began his descent.
'Every detail covered, eh, Vimes?'
'I hope so, sir.'
The box came back up again, with a tray in it. Vimes took it out.
'What's this?'
'A Klatchian Hots without anchovies,' said Vimes, lifting the cover. 'We got it from Ron's Pizza Hovel round the corner. The way I see it, no one can poison all the food in the city. And the cutlery's from my place.'
'You have the mind of a true policeman, Vimes.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Really? Was it a compliment?' The Patrician prodded at the plate with the air of an explorer in a strange country.
'Has someone already eaten this, Vimes?'
'No, sir. That's just how they chop up the food.'
'Oh, I see. I thought perhaps the food-tasters were getting over-enthusiastic,' said the Patrician. 'My word. What a treat I have to look forward to.'
'I can see you're feeling better, sir,' said Vimes stiffly.
'Thank you, Vimes.'
When Vimes had gone Lord Vetinari ate the pizza, or at least those parts of it he thought he could recognize. Then he put the tray aside and blew out the candle by his bed. He sat in the dark for a while, then felt under his pillow until his finger located a small sharp knife and a box of matches.
Thank goodness for Vimes. There was something endearing about his desperate, burning and above all misplaced competence. If the poor man took any longer he'd have to start giving him hints.

 
In the main office Carrot sat alone, watching Dorfl.
The golem stood where it had been left. Someone had hung a dishcloth on one arm. The top of its head was still open.
Carrot spent a while with his chin on one hand, just staring. Then he opened a desk drawer and took out Dorfl's chem. He examined it. He got up. He walked over to the golem. He placed the words in the head.
An orange glow rose in Dorfl's eyes. What was baked pottery took on that faintest of auras that marked the change between the living and the dead.
Carrot found the golem's slate and pencil and pushed them into Dorfl's hand, then stood back.
The burning gaze followed him as he removed his sword belt, undid his breastplate, took off his jerkin and pulled his woollen vest over his head.
The glow was reflected from his muscles. They glistened in the candlelight.
'No weapons,' said Carrot. 'No armour. You see? Now listen to me . .
Dorfl lurched forward and swung a fist.
Carrot did not move.
The fist stopped a hair's-breadth from Carrot's unblinking eyes.
'I didn't think you could,' he said, as the golem swung again and the fist jerked to a stop a fraction of an inch from Carrot's stomach. 'But sooner or later you'll have to talk to me. Write, anyway. '
Dorfl paused. Then it picked up the slate pencil.
TAKE MY WORDS!
'Tell me about the golem who killed people. '
The pencil did not move.
'The others have killed themselves,' said Carrot.
I KNOW.
'How do you know?'
The golem watched him. Then it wrote:
CLAY OF MY CLAY.
'You feel what other golems feel?' said Carrot.
Dorfl nodded.
'And people are killing golems,' said Carrot. 'I don't know if I can stop that. But I can try. I think I know what's happening, Dorfl. Some of it. I think I know who you were following. Clay of your clay. Shaming you all. Something went wrong. You tried to put it right. I think . . . you all had such hopes. But the words in your head'll defeat you every time . . . '
The golem stayed motionless.
'You sold him, didn't you, ' said Carrot quietly. 'Why?'
The words were scribbled quickly.
GOLEM MUST HAVE A MASTER.
'Why? Because the words say so?'
GOLEM MUST HAVE A MASTER.
Carrot sighed. Men had to breathe, fish had to swim, golems had to have a master. 'I don't know if I can sort this out, but no one else is going to try, believe me,' he said.
Dorfl did not move.
Carrot went back to where he had been standing. 'I'm wondering if the old priest and Mr Hopkinson did something ... or helped to do something,' he said, watching the golem's face. ‘I’m wondering if . . . afterwards . . . something turned against them, found the world a bit too much . . .'
Dorfl remained impassive.
Carrot nodded. 'Anyway, you're free to go. What happens now is up to you. I'll help you if I can. If a golem is a thing then it can't commit murder, and I'll still try to find out why all this is happening. If a golem can commit murder, then you are people, and what is being done to you is terrible and must be stopped. Either way, you win, Dorfl.' He turned his back and fiddled with some papers on his desk. 'The big trouble,' he added, 'is that everyone wants someone else to read their minds for them and then make the world work properly. Even golems, perhaps.'
He turned back to face the golem. 'I know you've all got a secret. But, the way things are going, there won't be any of you left to keep it.'
He looked hopefully at Dorfl.
NO. CLAY OF MY CLAY. I WILL NOT BETRAY.
Carrot sighed. 'Well, I won't force you.' He grinned. 'Although, you know, I could. I could write a few extra words on your chem. Tell you to be talkative.'
The fires rose in Dorfl’s eyes.
'But I won't. Because that would be inhumane. You haven't murdered anyone. I can't deprive you of your freedom because you haven't got any. Go on. You can go. It's not as if I don't know where you live.'
TO WORK IS TO LIVE.
'What is it golems want, Dorfl? I've seen you golems walking around the streets and working all the time, but what is it you actually hope to achieve?'
The slate pencil scribbled.
RESPITE.
Then Dorfl turned around and walked out of the building,
'D*mn!' said Carrot, a difficult linguistic feat. He drummed his fingers on the desk, then got up abruptly, put his clothing back on and stalked down the corridor to find Angua.
She was leaning against the wall in Corporal Littlebottom's office, talking to the dwarf.
'I've sent Dorfl home,' said Carrot.
'Has he got one?' said Angua.
'Well, back to the slaughterhouse, anyway. But it's probably not a good time for a golem to be out alone so I'm just going to stroll along after him and keep . . . Are you all right, Corporal Little-bottom?'
'Yes, sir,' said Cheri.
'You're wearing a. ..a. ..a...' Carrot's mind rebelled at the thought of what the dwarf was wearing and settled for: 'A kilt?'
'Yes, sir. A skirt, sir. A leather one, sir.'
Carrot tried to find a suitable response and had to resort to:'Oh.'
‘I’ll come with you,' said Angua. 'Cheri can keep an eye on the desk.'
'A ... kilt,' said Carrot. 'Oh. Well, er ... just keep an eye on things. We won't be long. And . . . er ... just keep behind the desk, all right?'
'Come on,' said Angua.
When they were out in the fog Carrot said, 'Do you think there's something a bit ... odd about Littlebottom?'
'Seems like a perfectly ordinary female to me,' said Angua.
'Female? He told you he was female?'
'She,' Angua corrected. This is Ankh-Morpork, you know. We've got extra pronouns here.'
She could smell his bewilderment. Of course, everyone knew that, somewhere down under all those layers of leather and chain mail, dwarfs came in enough different types to ensure the future production of more dwarfs, but it was not a subject that dwarfs discussed other than at those essential points in a courtship when embarrassment might otherwise arise.
'Well, I would have thought she'd have the decency to keep it to herself,' Carrot said finally. 'I mean, I've nothing against females. I'm pretty certain my stepmother is one. But I don't think it's very clever, you know, to go around drawing attention to the fact.'
'Carrot, I think you've got something wrong with your head,' said Angua.
'What?'
'I think you may have got it stuck up your bum. I mean, good grief. A bit of make-up and a dress and you're acting as though she'd become Miss Va Va Voom and started dancing on tables down at the Skunk Club!'
There were a few seconds of shocked silence while they both considered the image of a dwarfish strip-tease dancer. Both minds rebelled.
'Anyway,' said Angua, 'if people can't be themselves in Ankh-Morpork, where can they?'
'There'll be trouble when the other dwarfs notice,' said Carrot. 'I could almost see his knees. Her knees.'
'Everyone's got knees.'
'Perhaps, but it's asking for trouble to flaunt them. I mean, I'm used to knees. I can look at knees and think, "Oh, yes, knees, they're just hinges in your legs", but some of the lads—'
Angua sniffed. 'He turned left here. Some of the lads what"?'
'Well ... I don't know how they'll react, that's all. You shouldn't have encouraged her. I mean, of course there's female dwarfs but ... I mean, they have the decency not to show it.'
He heard Angua gasp. Her voice sounded rather far away when she said, 'Carrot, you know I've always respected your attitude to the citizens of Ankh-Morpork.'
'Yes?'
'I’ve been impressed by the way you really seem to be blind to things like shape and colour.'
'Yes?'
'And you always seem to care for people.'
'Yes?'
'And you know that I feel considerable affection for you.' 'Yes?'
'It's just that, sometimes 'Yes?' 'I really, really, really wonder why.'

 
Carriages were thickly parked outside Lady Selachii's mansion when Corporal Nobbs strolled up the drive. He knocked on the door.
A footman opened it. 'Servants' entrance,' said the footman, and made to shut the door again.
But Nobby's outstretched foot had been ready for this. 'Read these,' he said, thrusting two bits of paper at him.
The first one read:

 
I, after hearing evidence from a number of experts, including Mrs Slipdry the midwife, certify that the balance of probability is that the bearer of this document, C. W. St John Nobbs, is a human being.
Signed, Lord Vetinari.

 
The other was the letter from Dragon King of Arms.
The footman's eyes widened. 'Oh, I am terribly sorry, your lordship,' he said. He stared again at Corporal Nobbs. Nobby was clean-shaven - at least, the last time he'd shaved he'd been cleanshaven - but his face had so many minor topological features it looked like a very bad example of slash-and-burn agriculture.
'Oh, dear,' added the footman. He pulled himself together. 'The other visitors normally just have cards.'
Nobby produced a battered deck. 'I'm probably busy hobnobbing right now,' he said. 'But I'm game for a few rounds of Cripple Mr Onion afterwards, if you like.'
The footman looked him up and down. He didn't get out much. He'd heard rumours - who hadn't? -that working in the Watch was the rightful king of Ankh-Morpork. He'd have to admit that, if you wanted to hide a secret heir to the throne, you couldn't possibly hide him more carefully than under the face of C. W. St J. Nobbs.
On the other hand . . . the footman was something of an historian, and knew that in its long history even the throne itself had been occupied by creatures who had been hunchbacked, one-eyed, knuckle-dragging and as ugly as sin. On that basis Nobby was as royal as they came. If, technically, he wasn't hunchbacked, this was only because he was hunched front and sides, too. There might be a time, the footman thought, when it paid to hitch your wagon to a star, even if said star was a red dwarf.
'You've never been to one of these affairs before, m'lord?' he said.
'First time,' said Nobby.
Tm sure your lordship's blood will rise to the occasion,' said the footman weakly.

  I'll have to go, Angua thought as they hurried through the fog. I can't go on living from month to month.
It's not that he's not likeable. You couldn't wish to meet a more caring man.
That's just it. He cares for everyone. He cares about everything. He cares indiscriminately. He knows everything about everyone because everyone interests him_f and the caring is all general and never personal. He doesn't think personal is the same as important.
If only he had some decent human quality, like selfishness.
I'm sure he doesn't think about it that way, but you can tell the werewolf thing is upsetting him underneath. He cares about the things people say behind my back, and he doesn't know how to deal with them.
What was it those dwarfs said the other day? One said something like, 'She feels the need/ and the other one said, 'Yeah, the need to feed.' I saw his expression. I can handle that sort of thing . . . well, most of the time . . . but he can't. If only he'd thump someone. It wouldn't do any good but at least he'd feel better.
It's going to get worse. At best I'm going to get caught in someone's chicken-house, and then the midden is really going to hit the windmill. Or I'll get caught in someone's room . . .
She tried to shut out the thought but it didn't work. You could only control the werewolf, you couldn't tame it.
It's the city. Too many people, too many smells . . .
Maybe it would work if we were just alone somewhere, but if I said, 'It's me or the city,' he wouldn't even see there was a choice.
Sooner or later, I've got to go home. It's the best thing for him.

 
Vimes walked back through the damp night. He knew he was too angry to think properly.
He'd got nowhere, and he'd travelled a long way to get there. He'd got a cartload of facts and he'd done all the right logical things, and to someone, somewhere, he must look like a fool.
He probably looked like a fool to Carrot already. He'd kept coming up with bright ideas - proper policeman's ideas - and each one had turned out to be a joke. He'd bullied and shouted and done all the proper things, and none of it had worked. They hadn't found a thing. They'd merely increased their amount of ignorance.
The ghost of old Mrs Easy rose up in his inner vision. He couldn't remember much about her. He'd been just another snotty kid in a crowd of snotty kids, and she'd been just another worried face somewhere on top of a pinny. One of Cockbill Street's people. She'd taken in needlework to make ends meet and kept up appearances and, like everyone else in the street, had crept through life never asking for anything and getting even less.
What else could he have done? They'd practically scraped the damn wallpaper off the wal—
He stopped.
There was the same wallpaper in both rooms. In every room on that floor. That horrible green wallpaper.
But... no, that couldn't be it. Vetinari had slept in that room for years, if he slept at all. You can't sneak in and redecorate without someone noticing.
In front of him, the fog rolled aside. He caught a glimpse of a candlelit room in a nearby building before the cloud flowed back.
The fog. Yes. Dampness. Creeping in, brushing against the wallpaper. The old, dusty, musty wallpaper . . .
Would Cheery have tested the wallpaper? After all, in a way you didn't actually see it. It wasn't in the room because it was defining what the room was. Could you actually be poisoned by the walls'?
He hardly dared think the thought. If he let his mind settle on the suspicion it'd twist and fly away, like all the others.
But . . . this was it, said his secret soul. All the messing around with suspects and Clues . . . that was just something to keep the body amused while the back of the brain toiled away. Every real copper knew you didn't go around looking for Clues so that you could find out Who Done It. No, you started out with a pretty good idea of Who Done It. That way, you knew what Clues to look for.
He wasn't going to have another day of bafflement interspersed with desperately bright ideas, was he? It was bad enough looking at Corporal Littlebottom's expression, which seemed to be getting a little more colourful every time he saw it.
He'd said, 'Ah, arsenic's a metal, right, so maybe the cutlery has been made of it?' He wouldn't forget the look on the dwarfs face as Cheery tried to explain that, yes, it might be possible to do that, provided you were sure that no one would notice the way it dissolved in the soup almost instantly.
This time he was going to think first.

 
'The Earl of Ankh, Corporal the Rt. Hon. Lord C. W. StJ. Nobbs!'
The buzz of conversation stopped. Heads turned. Somewhere in the crowd someone started to laugh and was hurriedly shushed into silence by their neighbours.
Lady Selachii came forward. She was a tall, angular woman, with the sharp features and aquiline nose that were the hallmarks of the family. The impression was that an axe was being thrown at you.
Then she curtsied.
There were gasps of surprise around her, but she glared at the assembled guests and there was a smattering of bows and curtsies. Somewhere at the back of the room someone started to say, 'But the man's an absolute oik—' and was cut off.
'Has someone dropped something?' said Nobby nervously. ‘I’ll help you look, if you like.'
The footman appeared at his elbow, bearing a tray. 'A drink, m'lord?' he said.
'Yeah, okay, a pint of Winkles,' said Nobby.
Jaws fell. But Lady Selachii's rose to the occasion. 'Winkles?' she said.
'A type of beer, your ladyship,' said the footman.
Her ladyship hesitated only a moment. 'I believe the butler drinks beer,' she said. 'See to it, man. And I'll have a pint of Winkles, too. What a novel idea.'
This caused a certain effect among those guests who knew on which side of the biscuit their pate was spread.
'Indeed! Capital suggestion! A pint of Winkles here, too!'
'Hawhaw! Gweat! Winkles for me!'
'Winkles all round!'
'But the man's an absolute ti—'
'Shut up!'

 
Vimes crossed the Brass Bridge with care, counting the hippos. There was a ninth shape, but it was leaning against the parapet and muttering to itself in a familiar and, to Vimes at least, an unmenacing way. Faint air movements wafted towards him a smell that out-smelled even the river. It proclaimed that ahead of Vimes was a ding-a-ling so big he'd been upgraded to a clang-a-lang.
'. . . Buggrit buggrit I told 'em, stand it up and pull the end orf! Millennium hand and shrimp! I told 'em, sez I, and would they poke . . .'
'Evening, Ron,' said Vimes, without even bothering to look at the figure.
Foul Ole Ron fell into step behind him. 'Buggrit they done me out of it so they did . . .'
'Yes, Ron,' said Vimes.
'. . . And shrimp . . . buggrit, say I, bread it on the butter side . . . Queen Molly says to watch your back, mister.'
'What was that?'
'. . . Sowter fry it!' said Foul Ole Ron innocently. Trouser the lot of'em, they did me out of it, them and their big weasel!'
The beggar lurched around and, filthy coat dragging its hems along the ground, limped away into the fog. His little dog trotted along in front of him.

 
There was pandemonium in the servants' hall.
'Winkles' Old Peculiar?' said the butler.
'Another one hundred and four pints!' said the footman.
The butler shrugged. 'Harry, Sid, Rob and Jeffrey . . . two trays apiece and double down to the King's Head again right now! What else is he doing?'
'Well, they're supposed to be having a poetry reading but he's telling 'em jokes . . .'
'Anecdotes?'
'Not exactly.'

 
It was amazing how it could drizzle and fog at the same time. Wind was blowing both through the open window, and Vimes was forced to shut it. He lit the candles by his desk and opened his notebook. Probably he should use the demonic organizer, but he liked to see things written down fair and square. He could think better when he wrote things down.
He wrote 'Arsenic', and drew a big circle round it. Around the circle he wrote: 'Fr. Tubelcek's fingernails' and 'Rats and 'Vetinari' and 'Mrs Easy'. Lower down the page he wrote: 'Golems', and drew a second circle. Around that one he wrote: 'Fr. Tubelcek?' and 'Mr Hopkinson?'. After some thought he wrote down: 'Stolen clay' and 'Grog'.
And then: 'Why would a golem admit to something it didn't do?'
He stared at the candlelight for a while and then wrote: 'Rats eat stuff.' More time passed.
'What has the priest got that anyone wants?' From downstairs came the sound of armour as a patrol came in. A corporal shouted.
'Words,' wrote Vimes. 'What had Mr Hopkinson got? Dwarf bread? —»• Not stolen. What else had he got?'
Vimes looked at this, too, and then he wrote 'Bakery', stared at the word for a while, and rubbed it out and replaced it with 'Oven?'. He drew a ring around 'Oven?' and a ring around 'Stolen clay', and linked the two.
There'd been arsenic under the old priest's fingernails. Perhaps he'd put down rat poison? There were plenty of uses for arsenic. It wasn't as if you couldn't buy it by the pound from any alchemist.
He wrote down 'Arsenic Monster' and looked at it. You found dirt under fingernails. If people had put up a fight you might find blood or skin. You didn't find grease and arsenic.
He looked at the page again and, after still more thought, wrote: 'Golems aren't alive. But they think they are alive. What do things that are alive do? —» Ans: Breathe, eat, crap.' He paused, staring out at the fog, and then wrote very carefully: 'And make more things.'
Something tingled at the back of his neck.
He circled the late Hopkinson's name and drew a line down the page to another circle, in which he wrote: 'He'd got a big oven.'
Hmm. Cheery had said you couldn't bake clay properly in a bread oven. But maybe you could bake it improperly.
He looked up at the candlelight again.
They couldn't do that, could they? Oh, gods . . . No, surely not ...
But, after all, all you needed was clay. And a holy man who knew how to write the words. And someone to actually sculpt the figure, Vimes supposed, but golems had had hundreds and hundreds of years to learn to be good with their hands . . .
Those great big hands. The ones that looked so very fist-like.
And then the first thing they'd want to do would be to destroy the evidence, wouldn't they? They probably didn't think of it as killing, but more like a sort of switching-off. . .
He drew another rather misshapen circle on his notes.
Grog. Old baked clay, ground up small.
They'd added some of their own clay. Dorfl had a new foot, didn't he - it? It hadn't made it quite right. They'd put part of their own selves into a new golem.
That all sounded - well, Nobby would call it mucky. Vimes didn't know what to call it. It sounded like some sort of secret-society thing. 'Clay of my clay.' My own flesh and blood . . .
Damn hulking things. Aping their betters!
Vimes yawned. Sleep. He'd be better for some sleep. Or something.
He stared at the page. Automatically his hand trailed down to the bottom drawer of his desk, as it always did when he was worried and trying to think. It wasn't as though there was ever a bottle there these days - but old habits died ha ...
There was a soft glassy ching and a faint, seductive slosh.
Vimes's hand came up with a fat bottle. The label said: Bearhugger's Distilleries: The MacAbre, Finest Malt.
The liquid inside almost crawled up the sides of the glass in anticipation.
He stared at it. He'd reached down into the drawer for the whisky bottle and there it was.
But it shouldn't have been. He knew Carrot and Fred Colon kept an eye on him, but he'd never bought a bottle since he'd got married, because he'd promised Sybil, hadn't he . . . ?
But this wasn't any old rotgut. This was The MacAbre . . .
He'd tried it once. He couldn't quite remember why now, since in those days the only spirits he generally drank had the subtlety of a mallet to the inner ear. He must have found the money somehow. Just a sniff of it had been like Hogswatchnight. Just a sniff. . .

 
'And she said, "That's funny - it didn't do that last night"!' said Corporal Nobbs.
He beamed at the company.
There was silence. Then someone in the crowd started to laugh, one of those little uncertain laughs a man laughs who is unsure that he's not going to be silenced by those around him. Another man laughed. Two more picked it up. Then laughter exploded in the group as a whole.
Nobby basked.
'Then there's the one about the Klatchian who walked into a pub with a tiny piano—' he began.
'I think,' said Lady Selachii firmly, 'that the buffet is ready.'
'Got any pig knuckles?' said Nobby cheerfully. 'Goes down a treat with Winkles, a plate of pig knuckles.'
'I don't normally eat extremities,' said Lady Selachii.
'A pig-knuckle sandwich . . . Never tried a pig knuckle? You just can't beat it,' said Nobby.
'It is ... perhaps. . . not the most delicate food?' said Lady Selachii.
'Oh, you can cut the crusts off,' said Nobby. 'Even the toenails. If you're feeling posh.'

 
Sergeant Colon opened his eyes, and groaned. His head ached. They'd hit him with something. It might have been a wall.
They'd tied him up, too. He was trussed hand and foot.
He appeared to be lying in darkness on a wooden floor. There was a greasy smell in the air, which seemed familiar yet annoyingly unrecognizable.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark he could make out very faint lines of light, such as might surround a door. He could also hear voices.
He tried to get up to his knees, and groaned as more pain crackled in his head.
When people tied you up it was bad news. Of course, it was much better news than when they killed you, but it could mean they were just putting you on one side for killing later.
This never used to happen, he told himself. In the old days, if you caught someone thieving, you practically held the door open for him to escape. That way, you got home in one piece.
By using the angle between a wall and a heavy crate he managed to get upright. This was not much of an improvement on his former position, but after the thunder in his head had died away he hopped awkwardly towards the door.
There were still voices on the other side of it.
Someone apart from Sergeant Colon was in trouble.
'—down! You got me here for this'? There's a werewolf in the Watch! Ah-ha. Not one of your freaks. She's a proper bimorphic! If you tossed a coin, she could smell what side it came down!'
'How about if we kill him and drag his body away?'
'You think she couldn't smell the difference between a corpse and a living body?'
Sergeant Colon moaned softly.
'Er, how about we could march him out in the fog-?'
'And they can smell fear, idiot. Ah-ha. Why couldn't you have let him look around? What could he have seen? I know that copper. A fat old coward with all the brains of, ah-ha, a pig. He stinks of fear all the time.'
Sergeant Colon hoped he wasn't about to stink of anything else.
'Send Meshugah after him, ah-ha.'
'Are you sure? It's getting odd. It wanders off and screams in the night, and they're not supposed to do that. And it's cracking up. Trust dumb golems not to do something prop—'
'Everyone knows you can't trust golems. Ah-ha. See to it!'
‘I heard that Vimes is—'
'I've seen to Vimes!'
Colon eased himself away from the door as quietly as possible. He hadn't the faintest idea what this thing called Meshugah the golems had made was, except that it sounded like a fine idea to be wherever it wasn't.
Now, if he were a resourceful type, like Sam Vimes or Captain Carrot, he'd . . . find a nail or something to snap these ropes, wouldn't he? They were really tight, and cut into his wrists because the cord was so thin, little more than string wound and knotted many times. If he could find something to rub it on ...
But, unfortunately, and against all common sense, sometimes people inconsiderately throw their bound enemies into rooms entirely bereft of nails, handy bits of sharp stone, sharp-edged shards of glass or even, in extreme cases, enough pieces of old junk and tools to make a fully functional armoured car.
He managed to get on to his knees again and shuffled across the planks. Even a splinter would do. A lump of metal. A wide-open doorway marked FREEDOM. He'd settle for anything.
What he got was a tiny circle of light on the floor. A knothole in the wood had long ago fallen out, and light - dim orange light — was shining through.
Colon got down and applied his eye to the hole. Unfortunately this also brought his nose into a similar proximity.
The stench was appalling.
There was a suggestion of wateriness, or at least of liquidity. He must be over one of the numerous streams that flowed through the city, although they had of course been built over centuries before and were now used - if their existence was even remembered - for those purposes to which humanity had always put clean fresh water; i.e., making it as turbid and undrinkable as possible. And this one was flowing under the cattle markets. The smell of ammonia bored into Colon's sinuses like a drill.
And yet there was light down there.
He held his breath and took another look.
A couple of feet below him was a very small raft. Haifa dozen rats were laid neatly on it, and a minute scrap of candle was burning.
A tiny rowing boat entered his vision. A rat was in the bottom of it and, sitting amidships and rowing, was—
'Wee Mad Arthur?'
The gnome looked up. 'Who's that there, then?'
'It's me, your good old mate Fred Colon! Can you give me a hand?'
'Wha're yez doing up there?'
Tm all tied up and they're going to kill me! Why does it smell so bad?'
"S the old Cockbill stream. All the cattle pens drain into it.' Wee Mad Arthur grinned. 'Yez can feel it doing yer tubes a power of good, eh? Just call me King of the Golden River, eh?'
'They're going to kill me, Arthur! Don't piss about!'
'Aha, good one!'
Desperate cells flared in Colon's mind. ‘I’ve been on the trail of those blokes who're poisoning your rats,' he said.
The Rat-catchers' Guild!' snarled Arthur, almost dropping an oar. 'I knew it was them, right? This is where I got them rats! There's more of 'em down here, dead as doornails!'
'Right! And I've got to give the names to Commander Vimes! In person! With all my arms and legs on! He's very particular about that sort of thing!'
'Did yez know yez on a trapdoor?' said Arthur. 'Wait right there.'
Arthur rowed out of sight. Colon rolled over. After a while there was a scratching noise in the walls and then someone kicked him in the ear.
'Ow!'
'Would there be any money in this?' said Wee Mad Arthur, holding up his stub of candle. It was a small one, such as might be put on a child's birthday cake.
'What about your public duty?'
'Aye, so there's no money in this?'
'Lots! I promise! Now untie me!'
'This is string they've used,' said Arthur, somewhere around Colon's hands. 'Not proper rope at all.'
Colon felt his hands free, although there was still pressure around his wrists.
'Where's the trapdoor?' he said.
'Yer on it. Handy for dumping stuff. Dunt look as if it been used for years, from underneath. Hey, I been rinding dead rats everywhere down there now!
Fat as yer head and twice as dead! I thought the ones I caught for Gimlet were a wee bit sluggish!'
There was a twang and Colon's legs were free. He sat up cautiously and tried to massage some life back into them.
'Is there any other way out?' he said.
'Plenty for me, none for a silly bigger like yez,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Yer'll have to swim for it.'
'You want me to drop into thatT
'Don't yez worry, yez can't drown in it.'
'You sure?'
'Yeah. But yez may suffocate. Yer know that creek they talk about? The one yez can be up without no paddle?'
'That's not this one, is it?' said Colon.
'It's coz of the cattle pens,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Cattle penned up is always a bit nervous.'
'I know how they feel.'
There was a creak outside the door. Colon managed to get to his feet.
The door opened.
A figure filled the doorway. It was in silhouette because of the light behind it, but Colon looked up into two triangular glowing eyes.
Colon's body, which in many respects was considerably more intelligent than the mind it had to carry around, took over. It made use of the adrenalin-fed start the brain had given it and leapt several feet in the air, pointing its toes as it came down so that the iron tips of Colon's boots hit the trapdoor together.
The filth of years and the rust of iron gave way.
Colon went through. Fortunately his body had the foresight to hold its own nose as he hit the much-maligned stream, which went: Gloop.
Many people, when they're precipitated into water, struggle to breathe. Sergeant Colon struggled not to. The alternative was too horrible to think about.
He rose again, buoyed up in part by various gases released from the ooze. A few feet away, the candle on Wee Mad Arthur's rocking raft started to burn with a blue flame.
Someone landed on his helmet and kicked it like a man spurs on a horse.
'Right turnl Forward!'
Half-walking, half-swimming, Colon struggled down the fetid drain. Terror lent him strength. It would demand repayment with interest later but, for now, he left a wake. Which took several seconds to close up after him.
He didn't stop until a sudden lack of pressure overhead told him that he was in the open air. He grabbed in the darkness, found the greasy pilings of a jetty, and clung to them, wheezing.
'What was that thing?' said Wee Mad Arthur.
'Golem,' Colon panted.
He managed to get a hand on to the planks of the jetty, tried to pull himself up, and sagged back into the water.
'Hey, did I just hear something?' said Wee Mad Arthur.
Sergeant Colon rose like an undersea-launched missile and landed on the jetty, where he folded up.
'Nah, just a bird or something,' said Wee Mad Arthur.
'What do your friends call you, Wee Mad Arthur?' muttered Colon.
'Dunno. Ain't got none.'
'Gosh, that's surprising.'

 
Lord de Nobbes had a lot of friends now. 'Up the hatch! Here's looking at your bottom!' he said.
There were shrieks of laughter.
Nobby grinned happily in the middle of the crowd. He couldn't remember when he had enjoyed himself so much with all his clothes on.
In the far corner of Lady Selachii's drawing-room a door closed discreetly and, in the comfortable smoking-room beyond, anonymous people sat down in leather armchairs and looked at one another expectantly.
Finally one said, 'It's astonishing. Frankly astonishing. The man has actually got charisn'tma.'
'Your meaning?'
'I mean he's so dreadful he fascinates people. Like those stories he was telling . . . Did you notice how people kept encouraging him because they couldn't actually believe anyone would tell jokes like that in mixed company?'
'Actually, I rather liked the one about the very small man playing the piano—'
'And his table manners! Did you notice them?'
'No.'
'Ex-actly!'
'And the smell, don't forget the smell.'
'Not so much bad as ... odd.'
'Actually, I found that after a few minutes the nose shuts down and then it's—'
'My point is that, in some strange way, he attracts people.'
'Like a public hanging.'
There was a period of reflective silence.
'Good humoured little tit, though, in his way.'
'Not too bright, though.'
'Give him his pint of beer and a plate of whatever those things with toenails were and he seems as happy as a pig in muck.'
'I think that's somewhat insulting.'
Tm sorry.'
'I've known some splendid pigs.'
'Indeed.'
'But I can certainly see him drinking his beer and eating feet while he signs the royal proclamations.'
'Yes, indeed. Er. Do you think he can read?'
'Does it matter?'
There was some more silence, filled with the busy racing of minds.
Then someone said, 'Another thing . . . we won't have to worry about establishing a royal succession that might be inconvenient.'
'Why do you think that?'
'Can you see any princess marrying him?'
'We-ell . . . they have been known to kiss frogs . . .'
'Frogs, I grant you.'
'. . . And, of course, power and royalty are powerful aphrodisiacs . . .'
'How powerful, would you say?'
More silence. Then: 'Probably not that powerful.'
'He should do nicely.'
'Splendid.'
'Dragon did well. I suppose the little tit isn't really an earl, by any chance?'
'Don't be silly.'

 
Cheri Littlebottom sat awkwardly on the high stool behind the desk. All she had to do, she'd been told, was check the patrols off and on-duty when the shift changed.
A few of the men gave her an odd look but they said nothing, and she was beginning to relax when the four dwarfs on the King's Way beat came in.
They stared at her. And her ears.
Their eyes travelled downwards. There was no such concept as a modesty panel in Ankh-Morpork. All that was usually visible under the desk was the bottom half of Sergeant Colon. Of the large number of good reasons for shielding the bottom half of Sergeant Colon from view, its potential for engendering lust was not among the top ten.
'That's . . .female clothes, isn't it?' said one of the dwarfs.
Cheri swallowed. Why now? She'd sort of assumed Angua would be around. People always calmed down when she smiled at them, it was really amazing.
'Well?' she quavered. 'So what? I can if I want to.'
'And ... on your ear . , .'
'Well?'
'That's . . . my mother never even . . . urgh . . . that's disgusting! In public, too! What happens if kids come in?'
'I can see your ankles!' said another dwarf.
'I'm going to speak to Captain Carrot about this!' said the third. 'I never thought I'd live to see the day!'
Two of the dwarfs stormed off towards the locker-room. Another one hurried after them, but hesitated as he drew level with the desk. He gave Cheri a frantic look.
'Er ... er ... nice ankles, though,' he said, and then ran.
The fourth dwarf waited until the others had gone and then sidled up.
Cheri was shaking with nervousness. 'Don't you say a thing about my legs!' she said, waving a finger.
'Er . . .' The dwarf looked around hurriedly, and leaned forward. 'Er ... is that. . . lipstick?'
'Yes! What about it?'
'Er . . .' The dwarf leaned forward even more, looked around again, this time conspiratorially, and lowered her voice. 'Er ... could I try it?'

 
Angua and Carrot walked silently through the fog, except for Angua's occasional crisp and brief directions.
Then she stopped. Up until then Dorfl's scent, or at least the fresh scent of old meat and cow dung, had headed quite directly back to the slaughterhouse district.
'It's gone up this alley,' she said. 'That's nearly doubling back. And ... it was moving faster . . . and . . . there's a lot of humans and . . . sausages'?'
Carrot started to run. A lot of people and the smell of sausages meant a performance of the street theatre that was life in Ankh-Morpork.
There was a crowd further up the alley. It had obviously been there for some time, because at the rear was a familiar figure with a tray, craning to see over the tops of the heads.
'What's going on, Mr Dibbler?' said Carrot.
'Oh, hello, cap'n. They've got a golem.'
'Who have?'
'Oh, some blokes. They've just fetched the hammers.'
There was a press of bodies in front of Carrot. He put both hands together and rammed them between a couple of people, and then moved them apart. Grunting and struggling, the crowd opened up like a watercourse in front of the better class of prophet.
Dorfl was standing at bay at the end of the alley. Three men with hammers were approaching the golem cautiously, in the way of mobs, each unwilling to strike the first blow in case the second blow came right back at him.
The golem was crouching back, shielding itself with its slate on which was written:
I AM WORTH 530 DOLLARS.
'Money?' said one of the men. That's all you things think about!'
The slate shattered under a blow.
Then he tried to raise his hammer again. When it didn't budge he very nearly somersaulted backwards.
'Money is all you can think about when all you have is a price,' said Carrot calmly, twisting the hammer out of his grip. 'What do you think you're doing, my friend?'
'You can't stop us!' mumbled the man. 'Everyone knows they're not alive!'
'But I can arrest you for wilful damage to property,' said Carrot.
'One of these killed that old priest!'
'Sorry?' said Carrot. 'If it's just a thing, how can it commit murder? A sword is a thing' - he drew his own sword; it made an almost silken sound- 'and of course you couldn't possibly blame a sword if someone thrust it at you, sir.'
The man went cross-eyed as he tried to focus on the sword.
And, again, Angua felt that touch of bewilderment. Carrot wasn't threatening the man. He wasn't threatening the man. He was merely using the sword to demonstrate a ... well, a point. And that was all. He'd be quite amazed to hear that not everyone would think of it like that.
Part of her said: Someone has to be very complex indeed to be as simple as Carrot.
The man swallowed.
'Good point,' he said.
'Yeah, but . . . you can't trust 'em,' said one of the other hammer-bearers. They sneak around and they never say anything. What are they up to, eh?'
He gave Dorfl a kick. The golem rocked slightly.
'Well, now,' said Carrot. 'That is what I am finding out. In the meantime, I must ask you to go about your business . . .'
The third demolition man had only recently arrived in the city and had gone along with the idea because there are some people who do.
He raised his hammer defiantly and opened his mouth to say, 'Oh, yeah?' but stopped, becausejust by his ear he heard a growl. It was quite low and soft, but it had a complex little waveform which went straight down into a little knobbly bit in his spinal column where it pressed an ancient button marked Primal Terror.
He turned. An attractive watchwoman behind him gave him a friendly smile. That was to say, her mouth turned up at the corners and all her teeth were visible.
He dropped the hammer on his foot.
'Well done,' said Carrot. ‘I’ve always said you can do more with a kind word and a smile.'
The crowd looked at him with the kind of expression people always wore when they looked at Carrot. It was the face-cracking realization that he really did believe what he was saying. The sheer enormity tended to leave people breathless.
They backed away and scurried out of the alley.
Carrot turned back to the golem, which had dropped to its knees and was trying to piece its slate together.
'Come on, Mr Dorfl,' he said. 'We'll walk with you the rest of the way.'

 
'Are you mad?' said Sock, trying to shut the door. 'You think I want that back?'
'He's your property,' said Carrot. 'People were trying to smash him.'
'You should've let them,' said the butcher. 'Haven't you heard the stories? I'm not having one of those under my roof!'
He tried to slam the door again, but Carrot's foot was in it.
'Then I'm afraid you're committing an offence,' said Carrot. To wit, littering.'
'Oh, be serious!'
'I always am,' said Carrot.
'He always is,' said Angua.
Sock waved his hands frantically. 'It can just go away. Shoo! I don't want a killer working in my slaughterhouse! You have it, if you're so keen!'
Carrot grabbed the door and forced it wide open. Sock took a step backwards.
'Are you trying to bribe an officer of the law, Mr Sock?'
'Are you insane?'
'I am always sane,' said Carrot.
'He always is,' sighed Angua.
'Watchmen are not allowed to accept gifts,' said Carrot. He looked around at Dorfl, who was standing forlornly in the street. 'But I will buy him from you. For a fair price.'
Sock looked from Carrot to the golem and then back again. 'Buy? For money?'
'Yes.'
The butcher shrugged. When people were offering you money it was no time to debate their sanity. 'Well, that's different,' he conceded. 'It was worth $530 when I bought it, but of course it's got additional skills now—'
Angua growled. It had been a trying evening and the smell of fresh meat was making her senses twang. 'You were prepared to give it away a moment ago!'
'Well, give, yes, but business is busi—'
‘I’ll pay you a dollar,' said Carrot.
'A dollar? That's daylight robb—'
Angua's hand shot out and grabbed his neck. She could feel the veins, smell his blood and fear . . . She tried to think of cabbages.
'It's night-time,' she growled.
Like the man in the alley, Sock listened to the call of the wild. 'A dollar,' he croaked. 'Right. A fair price. One dollar.'
Carrot produced one. And waved his notebook.
'A receipt is very important,' he said. 'A proper legal transfer of ownership.'
'Right. Right. Right. Happy to oblige.'
Sock glanced desperately at Angua. Somehow, her smile didn't look right. He scribbled a few hasty lines.
Carrot looked over his shoulder.

 
I Gerhardt Sock give the barer full and totarl ownership of the golem Dorfl in xchange for One Dolar and anythinge it doz now is his responisbility and nuthing to doe with me.
Singed, Gerhardt Sock.

 
'Interesting wording, but it does look legal, doesn't it?' said Carrot, taking the paper. Thank you very much, Mr Sock. A nappy solution all round, I feel.'
'Is that it? Can I go now?'
'Certainly, and—'
The door slammed shut.
'Oh, well done,' said Angua. 'So now you own a golem. You do know that anything it does is your responsibility?'
'If that's the truth, why are people smashing them?
'What are you going to use it/or?'
Carrot looked thoughtfully at Dorfl, who was staring at the ground.
'Dorfl?'
The golem looked up.
'Here's your receipt. You don't have to have a master.'
The golem took the little scrap of paper between two thick fingers.
That means you belong to you,' said Carrot encouragingly. 'You own yourself.'
Dorfl shrugged.
'What did you expect?' said Angua. 'Did you think it was going to wave a flag?'
'I don't think he understands,' said Carrot. 'It's quite hard to get some ideas into people's heads . . .'He stopped abruptly.
Carrot took the paper out of Dorfl's unresisting fingers. 'I suppose it might work,' he said. 'It seems a bit-invasive. But what they understand, after all, is the words . . .'
He reached up, opened Dorfl's lid, and dropped the paper inside.
The golem blinked. That is to say, its eyes went dark and then brightened again. It raised one hand very slowly and patted the top of its head. Then it held up the other hand and turned it this way and that, as if it had never seen a hand before. It looked down at its feet and around at the fog-shrouded buildings. It looked at Carrot. It looked up at the clouds above the street. It looked at Carrot again.
Then, very slowly, without bending in any way, it fell backwards and hit the cobbles with a thud. The light faded in its eyes.
There,' said Angua. 'Now it's broken. Can we go?'
There's still a bit of a glow,' said Carrot. 'It must have all been too much for him. We can't leave him here. Maybe if I took the receipt out . . .'
He knelt down by the golem and reached for the trapdoor on its head.
Dorfl's hand moved so quickly it didn't even appear to move. It was just there, gripping Carrot's wrist.
'Ah,' said Carrot, gently pulling his arm back. 'He's obviously . . . feeling better.'
'Thsssss,' said Dorfl. The voice of the golem shivered in the fog.
Golems had a mouth. They were part of the design. But this one was open, revealing a thin line of red light.
'Oh, ye gods,' said Angua, backing away. They can't speak!'
'Thssss!' It was less a syllable than the sound of escaping steam.
‘I’ll find your bit of slate—' Carrot began, looking around hurriedly.
'Thssss!'
Dorfl clambered to its feet, gently pushed him out of the way and strode off.
'Are you happy now?' said Angua. ‘I’m not following the wretched thing! Maybe it's going to throw itself in the river!'
Carrot ran a few steps after the figure, and then stopped and came back.
'Why do you hate them so much?' he said.
'You wouldn't understand. I really think you wouldn't understand,' said Angua. 'It's an ... undead thing. They . . . sort of throw in your face the fact you're not human.'
'But you are human!'
'Three weeks out of four. Can't you understand that, when you have to be careful all the time, it's dreadful to see things like that being accepted? They're not even alive. But they can walk around and they never get people passing remarks about silver or garlic ... up until now, anyway. They're just machines for doing work!'
That's how they're treated, certainly,' said Carrot.
'You're being reasonable again!' snapped Angua. 'You're deliberately seeing everyone's point of view! Can't you try to be unfair even once?'

 
Nobby had been left alone for a moment while the party buzzed around him, so he'd elbowed some waiters away from the buffet and was currently scraping out a bowl with his knife.
'Ah, Lord de Nobbes,' said a voice behind him.
He turned. 'Wotcha,' he said, licking the knife and wiping it on the tablecloth.
'Are you busy, my lord?'
'Just making meself this meat-paste sandwich,' said Nobby.
That's pate de foie gras, my lord.'
"S that what it's called? It doesn't have the kick of Clammer's Beefymite Spread, I know that. Want a quail's egg? They're a bit small.'
'No, thank you—'
There's loads of them,' said Nobby generously. They're free. You don't have to pay.'
'Even so—'
'I can get six in my mouth at once. Watch—'
'Amazing, my lord. I was wondering, however, whether you would care to join a few of us in the smoking-room?'
'Fghmf? Mfgmf fgmf mgghjf?'
'Indeed.' A friendly arm was put around Nobby's shoulders and he was adroitly piloted away from the buffet, but not before he had grabbed a plate of chicken legs. 'So many people want to talk to you . . .'
'Mgffmph?'

 
Sergeant Colon tried to clean himself up, but trying to clean yourself up with water from the Ankh was a difficult manoeuvre. The best you could hope for was an all-over grey.
Fred Colon hadn't reached Vimes's level of sophisticated despair. Vimes took the view that life was so full of things happening erratically in all directions that the chances of any of them making some kind of relevant sense were remote in the extreme. Colon, being by nature more optimistic and by intellect a good deal slower, was still at the Clues are Important stage.
Why had he been tied up with string? There were still loops of it around his arms and legs.
'You sure you don't know where I was?' he said.
'Yez walked into the place,' said Wee Mad Arthur, trotting along beside him. 'How come yez don't know?'
"Cos it was dark and foggy and I wasn't paying attention, that's why. I was just going through the motions.'
'Aha, good one!'
'Don't mess about. Where was I?'
'Don't ask me,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'I just hunts under the whole cattle-market area. I don't bother about what's up top. Like I said, them runs go everywhere.'
'Anyone along there make string?'
'It's all animal stuff, I tell yez. Sausages and soap and stuff like that. Is this the bit where yez gives me the money?'
Colon patted his pockets. They squelched.
'You'll have to come to the Watch House, Wee Mad Arthur.'
'I got a business to run here!'
'I'm swearin' you in as a Special Watchman for the night,' said Colon.
'What's the pay?'
'Dollar a night.'
Wee Mad Arthur's tiny eyes gleamed. They gleamed red.
'Ye gods, you look awful,' said Colon. 'What're you looking at my ear for?'
Wee Mad Arthur said nothing.
Colon turned.
A golem was standing behind him. It was taller than any he'd seen before, and much better proportioned - a human statue rather than the gross shape of the usual golems, and handsome, too, in the cold way of a statue. And its eyes shone like red searchlights.
It raised a fist above its head and opened its mouth. More red light streamed out.
It screamed like a bull.
Wee Mad Arthur kicked Colon on the ankle.
'Are we running or what?' he said.
Colon backed away, still staring at the thing.
'It's. . . it's all right, they can't move fast . . .'he muttered. And then his sensible body gave up on his stupid brain and fired up his legs, spinning him around and shoving him in the opposite direction.
He risked looking over his shoulder. The golem was running after him in long, easy strides.
Wee Mad Arthur caught him up.
Colon was used to proceeding gently. He wasn't built for high speeds, and said so. 'And you certainly can't run faster than that thing!' he wheezed.
'Just so long as I can run faster'n yez,' said Wee Mad Arthur. This way!'
There was a flight of old wooden stairs against the side of a warehouse. The gnome went up them like the rats he hunted. Colon, panting like a steam engine, followed him.
He stopped half-way up and looked around.
The golem had reached the bottom step. It tested it carefully. The wood creaked and the whole stairway, grey with age, trembled.
'It won't take the weight!' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'The bugger's gonna smash it up! Yeah!'
The golem took another step. The wood groaned.
Colon got a grip on himself and hurried on up the stairs.
Behind him, the golem seemed to have satisfied itself that the wood could indeed take its weight, and started to leap from step to step. The rails shook under Colon's hands and the whole structure swayed.
'Come on, will yez?' said Wee Mad Arthur, who had already reached the top. 'It's gaining on yez!'
The golem lunged. The stairs gave way. Colon flung out his hands and grabbed the edge of the roof. Then his body thudded into the side of the building.
There was the distant sound of woodwork hitting cobbles.
'Come on then,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Pull yourself up, yer silly bugger!' 'Can't,' said Colon. 'Why not?' 'It's holding on to my foot . . .'

 
'A cigar, your lordship?'
'Brandy, my lord?'
Lord de Nobbes sat back in the comfort of his chair. His feet only just reached the ground. Brandy and cigars, eh? This was the life all right. He took a deep puff at the cigar.
'We were just talking, my lord, about the future governance of the city now that poor Lord Vetinari's health is so bad . . .'
Nobby nodded. This was the kind of thing you talked about when you were a nob. This was what he'd been born for.
The brandy was giving him a pleasant warm feeling.
'It would obviously upset the current equilibrium if we looked for a new Patrician at this point,' said another armchair. 'What is your view, Lord de Nobbes?'
'Oh, yeah. Right. The guilds'd fight like cats in a sack,' said Nobby. 'Everyone knows that.'
'A masterly summary, if I may say so.'
There was a general murmur of agreement from the other chairs.
Nobby grinned. Oh, yes. This was the bee's pyjamas and no mistake. Hobnobbing with his fellow nobs, talking big talk about important matters instead of having to think up reasons why the tea-money tin was empty . . . oh, yes.
A chair said, 'Besides, are any of the guild leaders up to the task? Oh, they can organize a bunch of tradesmen, but ruling an entire city ... I think not. Gentlemen, perhaps it is time for a new direction. Perhaps it is time for blood to reveal itself.'
Odd way of putting it, Nobby thought, but clearly this was how you were supposed to speak.
'At a time like this,' said a chair, 'the city will surely look at those representatives of its most venerable families. It would be in all our interests if such a one would take up the burden.'
'He'd need his head examined, if you want my opinion,' said Nobby. He took another swig of the brandy and waved the cigar expansively.
'Still, not to worry,' he said. 'Everyone knows we've got a king hanging around. No problem there. Send for Captain Carrot, that's my advice.'