'You ought to delegate,' said Lady Sybil.

'So he tells me,' muttered Vimes.

'Pardon?'

'Just thinking aloud, dear.' Vimes pushed the paperwork away. 'I'll tell you what... let's have an evening in,' he said. 'There's a nice fire in the drawing room–'

'Er... no, Sam, there isn't.'

'Hasn't young Forthright lit it?' Forthright was the Boy; it came as news to Vimes that this was an official servant position, but the Boy's job was to light the fires, clean the privies, help the gardener and take the blame.

'He's gone off to be a drummer boy in the Duke of Eorle's regiment,' said Lady Sybil.

'Him too? He seemed a bright lad! Isn't he too young?'

'He said he was going to lie about his age.'

'I hope he lies about his musical ability. I've heard him whistling.' Vimes shook his head. 'Whatever possessed him to do such a daft thing?'

'He thinks the uniform will impress the girls.'

Sybil gave him a gentle smile. An evening at home suddenly began to seem very inviting.

'Well, it won't take a genius to find the woodshed,'

said Vimes. 'And then we can bolt the doors and–'

One of the aforesaid doors shook to the sound of frantic knocking.

Vimes caught Sybil's gaze.

'Go on, then. Answer it,' she sighed, and sat down.

The door admitted Corporal Littlebottom, seriously out of breath.

'You... got to come quick, sir... it's... murder this... time!'

Vimes looked helplessly at his wife.

'Of course you must go,' she said.

Angua brushed out her hair in front of the mirror.

'I don't like this,' said Carrot. 'It's not a proper way to behave.'

She patted him on the shoulder. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'Vimes explained it all. You're acting as though we're doing something wrong.'

'I like being a watchman,' said Carrot, still in the mournful depths. 'And you've got to wear a uniform. If you don't wear a uniform it's like spying on people. He knows I think that.'

Angua looked at his short red hair and honest cars.

'I've taken a lot of the work off his shoulders,' Carrot went on. 'He doesn't have to go on patrol at all, but he still tries to do everything.'

'Perhaps he doesn't want you to be quite so helpful?' said Angua, as tactfully as possible.

'It's not as if he's getting any younger, either. I've tried to point that out.'

'That was kind of you.'

'And I've never worn plain clothes.'

'On you they'll never be very plain,' said Angua, pulling on her coat. It was a relief to be out of that

armour. As for Carrot, there was no disguising him. The size, the ears, the red hair, the expression of muscular good–naturedness...

'I suppose a werewolf is in plain clothes all the time, when you think about it,' said Carrot.

'Thank you, Carrot. And you are absolutely right.'

'I just don't feel comfortable, living a lie.'

'Walk a mile on these paws.'

'Pardon?'

'Oh... nothing.'

Goriff's son Janil had been angry. He didn't know why. The anger was built up of a lot of things. The firebomb last night was a big part. So were some of the words he'd been hearing in the street. He'd had an argument with his father about sending that food round to the Watch House this morning. They were an official part of the city. They had those stupid badges. They had uniforms. He was angry about a lot of things, including the fact that he was thirteen.

So when, at nine in the evening while his father was baking bread, the door had slammed back and a man had rushed in, Janil had pulled his father's elderly crossbow from under the counter and aimed it where he thought the heart was and pulled the trigger.

Carrot stamped his feet once or twice and looked around.

'Here,' he said. 'I was standing here. And the Prince was... in that direction.'

Angua obediently walked across the square. Several people turned to look curiously at Carrot.

'All right... stop... no, on a bit... stop... turn a

little bit to the left... I mean my left... back a bit... now throw your arms up...'

He walked over to her and followed her gaze.

'He was shot from the University?'

'Looks like the library building,' said Angua. 'But a wizard wouldn't do it, surely? They keep out of that sort of thing.'

'Oh, it's not too hard to get in there, even when the gates are shut,' said Carrot. 'Let's try the unofficial way, shall we?'

'OK Carrot?'

'Yes?'

'The false moustache... it's not you, you know. And the nose is far too pink'

'Doesn't it make me look inconspicuous?'

'No. And the hat... I should lose the hat, too' It is a good hat,' she added quickly. 'But a brown bowler... it's not your style. It doesn't suit you.'

'Exactly!' said Carrot. 'If it was my style, people would know it's me, right?'

'I mean it makes you look like a twerp, Carrot.'

'Do I normally look like a twerp?'

'No, not–'

'Aha!' Carrot fumbled in the pocket of his large brown overcoat. 'I got this book of disguises from the joke shop in Phedre Road, look. Funny thing, Nobby was in there buying stuff too. I asked him why and he said it was desperate measures. What d'you think he meant by that?'

'I can't imagine,' said Angua.

'It's just amazing the stuff they've got. False hair, false noses, false beards, even false...' He hesitated, and began to blush. 'Even false... you know, chests. For ladies. But I can't imagine for the life of me why they'd want to disguise those.'

He probably couldn't, Angua thought. She took the very small book from Carrot and glanced through it. She sighed.

'Carrot, these disguises are meant for a potato.'

'Are they?'

'Look, they're all on potatoes, see?'

'I thought that was just for display.'

'Carrot, it's got "Mr Spuddy Face" on it.'

Behind his thick black moustache Carrot looked hurt and perplexed. 'What does a potato want a disguise for?' he said.

They'd reached the alley alongside the University that had been known informally as Scholars' Entry for so many centuries that this was now on a nameplate at one end. A couple of student wizards went past.

The unofficial entrance to the University has always been known only to students. What most students failed to remember was that the senior members of the faculty had also been students once, and also liked to get out and about after the official shutting of the gates. This naturally led to a certain amount of embarrassment and diplomacy on dark evenings.

Carrot and Angua waited patiently as a few more students climbed over, followed by the Dean.

'Good evening, sir,' said Carrot, politely.

'Good evening to you, Spuddy,' said the Dean, and ambled off into the night.

'You see?'

'Ah, but he didn't call me Carrot,' said Carrot. 'The principle is sound.'

They dropped down on to lawns of academia and headed for the library.

'It'll be shut,' said Angua.

'Remember, we have a man on the inside,' said Carrot, and knocked.

The door opened a little way. 'Ook?'

Carrot raised his horrible little round hat.

'Good evening, sir, I wonder if we could come in? It's Watch business.'

'Ook eek ook?'

' Er...,

'What did he say?' said Angua.

'If you must know, he said, "My goodness me, a walking potato,"' said Carrot.

The Librarian wrinkled his nose at Angua. He did not like the smell of werewolves. But he beckoned them inside and then left them waiting while he knuckled back to his desk and rummaged in a drawer. He produced a Watch Special Constable's badge on a string, which he hung around the general area where his neck should have been, and then stood as much to attention as an orang–utan can, which is not a great deal. The central ape gets the idea but outlying areas are slow to catch on.

'Ook ook!'

'Was that "How may I be of assistance, Captain Tuber?"' said Angua.

'We need to have a look on the fifth floor, overlooking the square,' said Carrot, a shade coldly.

'Ook oook – ook.'

'He says that's just old storerooms,' said Carrot.

'And that last "ook'?' said Angua.

' "Mr Horrible Hat",' said Carrot.

'Still, he hasn't worked out who you are, eh?' said Angua.

The fifth floor was a corridor of airless rooms, smelling sadly of old, unwanted books. They were stacked not on shelves but on wide racks, bundled up with string. A lot of them were battered and missing their covers. judging by what remained, though, they were old textbooks that not even the most ardent bibliophile could treasure.

Carrot picked up a torn copy of Woddeley's Occult Primer. Several loose pages fell out. Angua picked one up.

"'Chapter Fifteen, Elementary Necromancy",' she read aloud. `Lesson One: Correct Use of Shovel...'

She put it down again and sniffed the air. The presence of the Librarian filled the nasal room like an elephant in a matchbox, but–

'Someone else has been in here,' she said. 'In the last couple of days. Could you leave us, sir? When it comes to odours, you're a bit... forthright…'

'Ook?'

The Librarian nodded at Carrot, shrugged at Angua and ambled out.

'Don't move,' said Angua. 'Stay right where you are, Carrot. Don't disturb the air . .

She inched forward carefully.

Her cars told her the Librarian was down the corridor, because she could hear the floorboards creaking. But her nose told her that he was still here. He was a little fuzzy, but

'I'm going to have to change,' she said. 'I can't get a proper picture this way. It's too strange.'

Carrot obediently shut his eyes. Shed forbidden him to watch her en route from a human to a wolf, because of the unpleasant nature of the shapes in between. Back in Uberwald people went from one shape to the other as naturally as ordinary humans would put on a different coat, but even there it was considered polite to do it behind a bush.

When he re–opened them Angua was slinking forward, her whole being concentrated in her nose.

The olfactory presence of the Librarian was a complex shape, a mere purple blur where he had been moving but almost a solid figure where he'd been standing still. Hands, face, lips... they'd be just the centre of an expanding cloud in a few hours' time, but now she could still smell them out.

There must be only the tiniest air currents in here. There weren't even any flies buzzing in the dead air to cause a ripple of disturbance.

She edged nearer to the window. Vision was a mere shadowy presence, providing a charcoal sketch of a room over which the scents painted their glorious colours.

By the window... by the window...

Yes! A man had stood there, and by the scent of it he hadn't moved for some time. The smell wavered in the air, on the edge of her nasal skill. The curling, billowing traces said that the window had been opened and closed again, and was there just the merest, tiniest suggestion that he'd held an arm out in front of him?

Her nose raced, trying to form original shapes from the patterns hanging in the room like dead smoke...

When she'd finished, Angua went back to her pile of clothes and coughed politely while she was pulling on her boots.

'There was a man standing by the window,' she said. 'Long hair, a bit dry, stinks of expensive shampoo. He was the man who nailed the boards back after Ossie got into the Barbican.'

'Are you sure?'

'Is this nose ever wrong?'

'Sorry. Go on.'

'I'd say he was heavy–set, a bit bulky for his height. He doesn't wash a lot, but when he does he uses Windpike's Soap, the cheap brand. But expensive shampoo, which is odd. Quite new boots. And a green coat.'

You can smell the colour?'

'No. The dye. It comes from Sto Lat, I think. And... I think he shot a bow. An expensive bow. There's a hint of silk in the air, and that's what the strongest bowstrings are made of, isn't it? And you wouldn't put one of those on a cheap bow.'

Carrot stood by the window. 'He got a good view,' he said, and looked down at the floor. And then at the sill. And on the shelves nearby.

'How long was he here?'

'Two or three hours, I'd say.'

'He didn't move around much.'

'No.'

'Or smoke, or spit He just stood and waited. A professional. Mr Vimes was right.'

'A lot more professional than Ossie,' said Angua.

'Green coat,' said Carrot, as if thinking aloud. 'Green coat, green coat...'

'Oh. .. and bad dandruff,' said Angua, standing up.

'Snowy Slopes?!' shouted Carrot.

'What?'

'Really bad dandruff?'

'Oh, yes, it–'

'That's why they call him Snowy,' said Carrot. 'Daceyville Slopes, the man with the reinforced comb. But I'd heard he'd moved to Sto Lat–'

In unison they said: '–where the dye comes from––' 'Is he good with a bow?' said Angua.

'Very good. He's good at killing people he never met, too.'

'He's an Assassin, is he?'

'Oh, no. He just kills people for money. No style. Snowy can't read and write.'

Carrot scratched his head in sympathetic recollection. 'He doesn't even look at complicated pictures. We'd have got him last year, but he shook his head fast and got away while we were trying to dig out Nobby. Well, well. I wonder where he's staying?'

'Don't ask me to follow him in these streets. Thousands of people will have walked over the trail.'

'Oh, there's people who will know. Someone sees everything in this town.'

MR SLOPES?

Snowy Slopes gingerly felt his neck, or at least the neck of his soul. The human soul tends to keep to the shape of the original body for some time after death. Habit is a wonderful thing.

'Who the hell was he?' he said.

NOT SOMEONE YOU KNOW? said Death.

'Well, no! I don't know many people who cut my head off!'

Snowy Slopes's body had knocked against the table as it fell. Several bottles of medicated shampoo now dripped and mixed their contents into the other more intimate fluids from the Slopes corpse.

'That stuff with the special oil in it cost me nearly four dollars,' said Snowy. Yet, somehow, it all seemed slightly... irrelevant now. Death happens to other people. The other person in this case had been him. That is, the one down there. Not the one standing here looking at it. In life, Snowy hadn't even been able to spell 'metaphysical', but he was already beginning to view life in a different way. From the outside, for a start.

'Four dollars,' he repeated. 'I never even had time to try it!'

IT WOULDN'T HAVE WORKED, said Death, patting the man on a fading shoulder. BUT, IF I MIGHT SUGGEST

THAT YOU LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, IT WILL NO

LONGER BE NECESSSARY.

'No more dandruff?' said Snowy, now quite transparent and fading fast.

EVER, said Death. TRUST ME ON THIS.

Commander Vimes ran down darkened streets, trying to buckle on his breastplate as he ran.

'All right, Cheery, what's happening?'

'They say a Klatchian killed someone, sir. There's a mob up in Scandal Alley and it's looking bad. I was on the desk and I thought you ought to be told, sir.'

'Right!'

'And anyway I couldn't find Captain Carrot, sir.'

A little bit of acid ink scribbled its subtle entry on the ledger of Vimes's soul.

'Oh, gods... so who's the officer in charge?'

'Sergeant Detritus, sir.'

It seemed to the dwarf that she was suddenly standing still. Commander Vimes had become a rapidly disappearing blur.

With the calm expression of someone who was methodically doing his duty, Detritus picked up a man and used him to hit some other men. When he had a clear area around him and a groaning heap of former rioters, he climbed the heap and cupped his hands round his mouth.

'Listen to me, youse people!'

A troll shouting at the top of his voice could easily be heard above a riot. When he seemed to have their attention he pulled a scroll out of his breastplate and waved it over his head.

'Dis is der Riot Act,' he said. 'You know what dat means? It means if'n I reads it out and youse don't disb... disp... go away, der Watch can use deadly force, you unnerstand?'

'What did you just use, then?' moaned someone from underneath his feet.

'Dat was you helpin' der Watch,' said Detritus, shifting his weight.

He unrolled the scroll.

Although there was some scuffling in alleyways and shouts from the next street, a ring of silence expanded outwards from the troll. An almost genetic component of the citizens of Ankh–Morpork was their ability to spot an opportunity for amusement.

Detritus held the document at arm's length. And then a few inches from his face. He tried turning it round. a few times.

His lips moved uneasily.

Finally, he leaned down and showed it to Constable Visit.

'What dis word?'

'That's "Whereby", sergeant.'

'I knew dat.'

He straightened up again.

"'Whereby... it is..." ' Beads of the troll equivalent of sweat began to form on Detritus's forehead. `Whereby it is... ack–no–legg–ed. .."'

'Acknowledged,' whispered Constable Visit.

'I knew dat.' Detritus stared at the paper again, and then gave up. 'Youse don't want to stand here listenin' to me all day!' he bellowed. 'Dis is der Riot Act and you've all got to read it, right? Pass it round.'

'What if we don't read it?' said a voice in the crowd.

'You got to read it. It legal.'

'And then what happens?'

'Den I shoot you,' said Detritus.

'That's not allowed!' said another voice. 'You've got to shout "Stop! Armed Watchman!" first.'

'Sure, dat suits me,' said Detritus. He shrugged one huge shoulder to bring his crossbow under his arm. It was a siege bow, intended to be mounted on the cart. The bolt was six feet long. 'It harder to hit runnin' targets.'

He released the safety catch.

'Anyone finishing readin' dat thing yet?'

'Sergeant!'

Vimes pushed his way through the crowd. And it was a crowd now. Ankh–Morpork was always a good audience.

There was a clang as Detritus saluted.

'Were you proposing to shoot these people in cold blood, sergeant?'

'Nossir. just a warning shot inna head, sir.'

'Really? Just give me a moment to talk to them, then.'

Vimes looked at the man next to him. He was holding a flaming torch in one hand and a long length of wood in the other. He gave Vimes the nervously defiant stare of someone who has just felt the ground shift under his feet.

Vimes pulled the torch towards him and lit a cigar. 'What's happening here, friend?'

'The Klatchians have been shooting people, Mr Vimes! Unprovoked attack!'

'Really?'

'People have been killed!'

'Who?'

'I... there were... everyone knows they've been killing people!' The man's mental footsteps found safer ground. 'Who do they think they are, coming over–'

'That's enough,' said Vimes. He stood back and raised his voice.

'I recognize a lot of you,' he said. 'And I know you've got homes to go to. See this?' He pulled his baton of office out of his pocket. 'This says I've got to keep the peace. So in ten seconds I'm going somewhere else to find some peace to keep, but Detritus is going to stay here. And I just hope he doesn't do anything to disgrace the uniform. Or get it very dirty, at least.'

irony was not a degree–level subject among the listeners, but the brighter ones recognized Vimes's expression. It said that here was a man hanging on to his patience by his teeth.

The mob dispersed, going ragged at the edges as people legged it down side alleys, threw away their makeshift weapons and emerged at the other end walking the grave, thoughtful walk of honest citizens.

'All right, what happened?' said Vimes, turning to the troll.

'We're hearing where dis boy shot dis man,' said Detritus. 'We got here, next minute it rainin' people from everywhere, shoutin'.'

'He smote him as Hudrun smote the fleshpots of Ur,' said Constable Visit.[6]

'Smote?' said Vimes, bewildered. 'He killed someone?'

'Not by der way der man was cussing, sir,' said Detritus. 'Hit him in der arm. His friends brought him round der Watch House to complain. He a baker on der night shift. He said he was late for work, he come runnin' in to pick up his dinner, next minute he flat on der floor.'

Vimes walked across the street and tried the door of the shop. It opened a little way, and then fetched up against what seemed to be a barricade. Furniture had been piled up against the window as well.

'How many people were there, constable?'

'A multitude thereof, sir.'

And four people in here, thought Vimes. A family. The door moved a fraction and Vimes realized he was ducking even before the crossbow protruded.

There was the thung of the string. The bolt tumbled rather than sped. It corkscrewed wildly across the alley and was almost moving sideways when it hit the opposite wall.

'Look,' said Vimes, keeping his body down but raising his voice. 'Anyone who got hit with that, it must have been an accident. This is the Watch. Open the door. Otherwise Detritus will open it. And when he opens a door, it stays open. You know what I mean?'

There was no reply.

'All right. Detritus, just step over here–'

There was a hissed argument inside, and then the sound of scraping as furniture was moved.

He tried the door. It swung inwards.

The family were at the far end of the room. Vimes felt eight eyes on him. The atmosphere had a hot, worrying feel, spiced with the smell of burnt food.

Mr Goriff was holding the crossbow gingerly, and the expression on his son's face told Vimes a lot of what he needed to know.

'All right,' he said. 'Now you all listen to me. I'm not arresting anyone right now, you hear? This sounds like one of those things that make his lordship yawn. But you'd do better spending the rest of the night in the Watch House. I can't spare the men to stand guard here. Do you understand? I could arrest you. But this is just a request.'

Mr Goriff cleared his throat.

'The man I shot–' he began, and left the question and the lie hanging in the air.

Vimes forced himself not to glance at the boy. 'Not badly hurt,' he said.

'He... ran in,' said Mr Goriff. 'And after last night–'

'You thought you were being attacked again and grabbed the crossbow?'

'Yes,' said the boy, defiantly, before his father could speak.

There was a brief argument in Klatchian. Then Mr Goriff said:

'We must leave the house?'

'For your own good. We'll try to have someone watch it. Now, get something together and go off with the sergeant. And give me that crossbow.'

Goriff handed it over with a look of relief. It was a typical Saturday Night Special, so badly made and erratic that the only safe place to be when it was fired would be directly behind it, and even then you would be running a risk. And then no–one had told its owner that under the counter in a steamy shop and a perpetual rain of grease wasn't the best place to keep it strung. The string sagged. Probably the only way you

could reliably hurt someone with it was to beat them over the head.

Vimes waited until they'd been ushered out and took a last look around the room. It wasn't large. In the kitchen behind the shop something spicy in a pot was boiling dry. After burning his fingers a couple of times he managed to tip the pot on to the fire to put it out and then, vaguely remembering his mother doing something like this, put the pot under the pump to soak

Then he barricaded the windows as best he could and went out, locking the door behind him. A discreetly obvious brass Thieves' Guild plaque over the door told the world that Mr Goriff had conscientiously paid his annual fee,[7] but the world had plenty of less formal dangers and so Vimes took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and wrote on the door:

UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE WATCH

As an afterthought he signed it:

SGT DETRITUS

In the imaginations of the less civically minded the majesty of the rule of law didn't carry anything like as much weight as the dread of Detritus.

The Riot Act! Where the hell had he dredged that from? Carrot, probably. It hadn't been used for as long as Vimes could remember, and that was no wonder when you knew what it really did. Even Vetinari would hesitate to use it. Now it was nothing more than a phrase. Thank goodness for trollish illiteracy...

It was when Vimes stood back to admire his handiwork that he saw the glow in the sky over Park Lane, almost at the same time as he heard the clatter of iron boots on the street.

'Oh, hello, Littlebottom,' he said. 'What now? Don't tell me – someone's set fire to the Klatchian embassy.'

'All right, sir,' said the dwarf. She stood uncertainly in the middle of the alley, looking worried.

'Well?' said Vimes.

'Er... you said–'

With a sinking feeling Vimes remembered that the generic dwarfish skill with iron was matched only by the fumblefingered grasp of irony.

'The Klatchian embassy is really on fire?'

'Yes, sir!'

Mrs Spent opened the door a crack.

'Yes?'

'I'm a friend of...' Carrot hesitated, wondering if Fred would have given his real name. 'Er... big fat man, suit doesn't fit–'

'The one who goes around with the sex maniac?'

'Pardon?'

'Skinny little twerp, dresses like a clown?'

'They said you'd have a room,' said Carrot desperately.

'They've got it,' said Mrs Spent, trying to shut the door.

'They said I could use it–'

'No sub–lettin'!'

'They said I should pay you two dollars!'

The pressure of the door was released a little.

'On top of what they paid?' said Mrs Spent.

'Of course.'

'Well...' She looked Carrot up and down and sniffed. 'All right. What shift are you on?'

'Sorry?'

'You're a watchman, right?'

'Er...' Carrot hesitated, and then raised his voice. 'No, I am not a watchman. Haha, you think I'm a watchman? Do I look like a watchman?'

'Yes, you do,' said Mrs Spent. 'You're Captain Carrot. I seen you walking about the town. Still, I suppose even coppers have to sleep somewhere.'

On the roof, Angua rolled her eyes.

'No wimmin, no cookin', no music, no pets,' said Mrs Spent, as she led the way up the creaking stairs.

Angua waited in the dark until she heard the window open.

'She's gone,' Carrot hissed.

'There's glass on the tiles out here, just like Fred reported,' said Angua, as she swung herself over the sill. Inside the room she took a deep breath and shut her eyes.

First she had to forget the smell of Carrot – anxious sweat, soap, the lingering hints of armour polish...

...and Fred Colon, all perspiration with a hint of beer, and then the odd ointment Nobby used for his skin condition, and the smells of feet, bodies, clothes, polish, fingernails...

After an hour it was possible for the eye of the nose to see someone walk across the room, frozen in time by their smell. But after a day smells criss–crossed and entangled. You had to take them apart, remove the familiar pieces, and what you had left

'They're so mixed up!'

'All right, all right,' said Carrot soothingly.

'At least three people! But I think one of them is Ossie... It's stronger round the bed... and. ..'

She opened her eyes wide and looked down at the floor. 'Somewhere here!'

'What? What is?'

Angua crouched down with her nose just above the floorboards.

'I can smell it but I can't see it!'

A knife appeared in front of her. Carrot got down on his knees and ran the blade along the dust–filled crack between the floorboards.

Something splintery and brown popped up. It had been trodden on and rolled underfoot, but at this distance even Carrot could pick up traces of the clove smell. 'Do you think Ossie made a lot of apple pies?' he whispered.

'No cookin', remember?' said Angua, and grinned.

'There's something else...'

Carrot levered out more dirt and dust. In it, something glittered. 'Fred said all the glass was outside, didn't he?'

'Yes.'

'Well, supposing we assume that someone didn't pick up all the bits when they broke in?'

'For someone that doesn't like lying, Carrot, you can be quite devious, you know?'

'Just logical. There's glass outside the window, but all that means is that there is glass outside the window. Commander Vimes always says there're no such things as dues. It's how you look at them.'

'You think someone broke in and then carefully put the glass outside?'

'Could be.'

'Carrot? Why are we whispering?'

'No wimmin, remember?'

'And no pets,' said Angua. 'So she's got me coming and going. Don't look like that,' she added, when she saw his face. 'It's only bad taste if someone else says it. I'm allowed.'

Carrot scratched up some more glass fragments. Angua looked under the bed and pulled out the battered magazines.

'Ye gods, do people really read this stuff?' she said, flicking through Bows and Ammo. ' "Testing the Locksley Reflex 7: A Whole Lotta Bow"… "Footsore! We test the Ten Best Caltrops!"... and what's this magazine... ? Warrior of Fortune?'

'There's always little wars somewhere,' said Carrot, pulling out the box of money.

'But will you look at the size of this axe here? "Get A Head, Get A Burleigh and Stronginthearm 'Streetsweeper' and Win By A Neck!" Well, it must be true what they say about men who like big weapons...'

'And that is?' said carrot, lifting the lid of the box.

She looked at the top of his head. As always, Carrot radiated innocence like a small sun. But he'd... They'd... Surely he...

'They, er... they're rather small,' she said.

'Oh, that's true,' said Carrot, picking up some of the Klatchian coins. 'Look at dwarfs. Never happier than with a chopper the same size as them. And Nobby's fascinated by weapons and he's practically dwarfsized.',

'Er... '

Technically, Angua was sure she knew Carrot better than anyone else. She was pretty sure he cared a lot for her. He seldom said so, he just assumed that she knew. She'd known other men, although turning into a wolf for part of the month was one of those little flaws that could put any normal man off and, up until Carrot, always had. And she knew the sort of things men said in what might be called the heat of the moment and then forgot. But when Carrot said things, you knew that he felt that everything was now settled until further notice, so if she made any comment he'd be genuinely surprised that she'd forgotten what it was he had said and would probably quote date and time.

And yet all the time there was this feeling that the greater part of him was always deep, deep inside, looking out. Noone could be so simple, no–one could be so creatively dumb, without being very intelligent. It was like being an actor. Only a very good actor was any good at being a bad actor.

'Rather a lonely person, our Nobby,' said Carrot.

'Well, yes...'

'But Im sure he'll find the right person for him,' Carrot added, cheerfully.

Probably in a bottle, said Angua to herself. She remembered the conversation with him. It was a terrible thing to think, but there was somethin itchy about the thought of Nobby being allowed in

pool, even at the shallow end.

'You know, these coins are odd,' said Carrot.

'How do you mean?' said Angua, grateful for the distraction.

'Why would he be paid in Klatchian wols? He wouldn't be able to spend them here, and the money changers don't give very good rates.' Carrot tossed a coin in the air and caught it. 'When we were leaving, Mr Vimes said to me, "Make sure you find the bunch of dates and the camel hidden under the pillow." I think I know what he meant.'

'Sand on the floor,' said Angua. 'Now, isn't that an obvious clue? You can tell they were Klatchian because of the sand in their sandals!'

'But these cloves...' Carrot prodded the little bud. 'It's not as if it's a common habit, even among Klatchians. That's not a very obvious clue, is it?'

'It smells newer,' said Angua. 'I'd say he was here last night.'

'After Ossie was dead?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'How should I know? What kind of name is 71–hour Ahmed?' said Angua.

Carrot shrugged. 'I don't know. I think Mr Vimes thinks that someone in Ankh–Morpork wants us to believe that Klatchians paid to have the Prince killed. That sounds... nasty but logical. But I don't understand why a real Klatchian would get involved...'

Their eyes met.

'Politics?' they said together.

'For enough money, a lot of people would do anything,' said Angua.

There was a sudden and ferocious knocking at the door.

'Have you got someone in there?' said Mrs Spent.

'Out of the window!' said Carrot.

'Why don't I just stay and rip her throat out?' said Angua. 'All right, all right, it was a joke, all right?' she said, swinging her legs over the sill.

Ankh–Morpork no longer had a fire brigade. The citizens had a rather disturbingly direct way of thinking at times, and it did not take long for people to see the rather obvious flaw in paying a group of people by

the number of fires they put out. The penny really dropped shortly after Charcoal Tuesday.

Since then they had relied on the good old principle of enlightened self–interest. People living dose to a burning building did their best to douse the fire, because the thatch they saved might be their own.

But the crowd watching the burning embassy were doing so in a hollow–eyed, distant way, as if it was all taking place on some distant planet.

They moved aside automatically as Vimes elbowed his way through to the space in front of the gates. Flames were already licking from every groundfloor window, and they could make out scurrying silhouettes in the flickering light.

He turned to the crowd. 'Come on! What's up with you? Get a bucket chain going!'

'It's their bloody embassy,' said a voice.

'Yeah. 's Klatchian soil, right?'

'Can't go on Klatchian soil.'

'That'd be an invasion, that would.'

'They wouldn't let us,' said a small boy holding a bucket.

Vimes looked at the embassy gateway. There were a couple of guards. Their worried glances kept going back from the fire behind them to the crowd in front. They were nervous men, but it was much worse than that, because they were nervous men holding big swords.

He advanced on them, trying to smile and holding his badge out in front of him. It had a shield on it. It was not a very big shield.

'Commander Vimes, Ankh–Morpork City Watch,' he said, in what he hoped was a helpful and friendly voice.

A guard waved him away. 'Hyou be off!'

'Ah...' said Vimes. He looked down at the cobbles of the gateway and then back up at the guard. Somewhere in the flames someone was screaming.

'You! Come here! You see this?' he shouted at the guard, pointing down. The man took a hesitant step forward.

'That's Ankh–Morpork soil down there, my friend,' said Vimes. 'And you're standing on it and you're obstructing me in my–' he rammed his fist as hard as he could into the guard's stomach '–duty!'

He was already kicking out as the other guard rushed him. He caught him on the knee. Something went click. It felt like Vimes's own ankle.

Cursing and limping slightly, he ran on into the embassy and caught a scurrying man by his robe.

'Are there people still in there? Are there people in there?'

The man gave Vimes a panicky look. The armfuls of paper he'd been carrying spilled on to the ground.

Someone else grabbed his shoulder. 'Can you climb, Mr Vimes?'

'Who're–'

The newcomer turned to the cowering paper–carrier and struck him heavily across the face. 'Rescuer of paper!'

As the man fell back his turban was snatched from his head.

'This way!' The figure plunged off through the smoke. Vimes hurried after him until they reached a wall, with a drainpipe attached.

'How did you–?'

'Up! Up!'

Vimes put one foot in the man's cupped hands, managed to get the other one on a bracket, and forced himself upwards.

'Hurry!'

He managed to half climb, half pull himself up the pipe, little fireworks of pain exploding tip and down his legs as he reached a parapet and hauled himself over. The other man rose behind him as if he'd run up the wall.

There was a strip of cloth hiding the lower half of his face. He thrust another strip towards Vimes.

'Across your nose and mouth!' he commanded. 'For the smoke!'

It was boiling across the roof. Beside Vimes a chimneypot gushed a roaring tongue of flame.

The rest of the unwound turban was thrust into his hands.

'You take this side, I'll take the other,' said the apparition, and darted away again into the smoke.

'But wh–'

Vimes could feel the heat through his boots. He edged away across the roof, and heard the shouting coming from below.

When he leaned over the edge here he could see the window some way below him. Someone had smashed a pane, because a hand was waving.

There was more commotion down in the courtyard. Amid a press of figures he could make out the huge shape of Constable Dorfl, a golem and quite definitely fireproof. But Dorfl was bad enough at stairs as it was. There weren't many that could take the weight.

The hand in the smoke stopped waving.

Vimes looked down again.

Can you fly, Mr Vimes?

He looked at the chimney, belching flame.

He looked at the unwound turban.

A lot of Sam Vimes's brain had shut down, although the bits relaying the twinges of pain from his legs were operating with distressing efficiency. But there were still some thoughts operating down around the core, and they delivered for his consideration the insight:

... tough–looking cloth...

He looked back at the chimney. It looked stout enough.

The window was about six feet below.

Vimes began to move automatically.

So, purely theoretically, if a man were to wrap one end of the cloth round the belching stack like this and pay it out like this and lower himself over the parapet like this and kick himself away from the wall like this, then when he swung back again his feet ought to be able to smash his way through the other panes of the window, like this…

A cart squeaked along the wet street. Its progress was erratic because no two of its wheels were the same size, so it rocked and wobbled and skidded and probably involved more effort to pull than it saved overall, especially since its contents appeared to be rubbish. But then, so did its owner.

Who was about the size of a man, but bent almost double, and was covered with hair or rags or quite possibly a matted mixture of both that was so felted and unwashed that small plants had taken root on it. If the thing had stopped walking and crouched down, it would have given an astonishingly good impression of a long–neglected compost heap. As it walked along, it snuffled.

A foot was stuck out to impede its progress.

'Good evening, Stoolie,' said Carrot as the cart halted.

The heap stopped. Part of it tilted upwards.

'Geroff,' it muttered, from somewhere in the thatch.

'Now, now, Stoolie, let's help one another, shall we? You help me, and I'll help you.'

'B'g'r'ff, c'p'r.'

'Well, you tell me things I want to know,' said Carrot, 'and I won't search your cart.'

'I hate gnolls,' said Angua. 'They smell awful.'

'Oh, that's hardly fair. The stressed be a lot dirtier without you and yours, eh, Stoolie?' said Carrot, still speaking quite pleasantly. 'You pick up this, you pick up that, maybe bash it against a wall until it stops struggling–'

' 's a vile acur'cy,' said the gnoll. There was a bubbling noise that might have been a chuckle.

'So I'm hearing you might know where Snowy Slopes is these days,' said Carrot.

'D'nno n'thin'.'

'Fine.' Carrot produced a three–tined garden fork and walked round to the cart, which dripped.

'D'nno n'thin' ab't–' said the gnoll quickly.

'Yes?' said Carrot, fork poised.

'D'nno n'thin' ab't t' sweetsp'p'n M'ney Tr'p L'ne.'

'The one with the Rooms To Let sign?'

'R't.'

'Well done. Thank you for being a good citizen,' said Carrot. 'Incidentally, we passed a dead seagull the way here. Its in Brewer Street. I bet if you hurried you could beat the rush.'

'H't d'gg'ty,' snuffled the gnoll. The cart started to judder forward. The watchmen watched it lurch and scrape around the corner.

'They're good fellows at heart,' said Carrot. 'I think it says a lot for the spirit of tolerance in this city that even gnolls can call it home.'

'They turn my stomach,' said Angua, as they set off again. [.'That one had plants growing on him!'

'Mr Vimes says we ought to do something for them,' said Carrot.

'All heart, that man.'

'With a flamethrower, he says.'

'Wouldn't work. Too soggy. Has anyone ever really found out what they eat?'

'It's better to think of them as... cleaners. You certainly don't see as much rubbish and dead animals on the streets as you used to.'

'Yes, but have you ever seen a gnoll with a brush and shovel?'

'Well, that's society for you, I'm afraid,' said Carrot. 'Everything is dumped on the people below until you find someone who's prepared to eat it. That's what Mr Vimes says.'

'Yes,' said Angua. They walked in silence for a while, and then she said. 'You care a lot about what Mr Vimes says, don't you... ?'

'He is a fine officer and an example to us all.'

'And... you've never thought of getting a job in Quirm or somewhere, have you? The other cities are headhunting Ankh–Morpork watchmen now.'

'What, leave Ankh–Morpork?' The tone of voice included the answer.

'No... I suppose not,' said Angua sadly.

'Anyway, I don't know what Mr Vimes would do without me running around all the time.'

'It's a point of view, certainly,' said Angua.

It wasn't far to Money Trap Lane. It was in a ghetto of what Lord Rust would probably call 'skilled artisans', the people too low down the social scale to be movers and shakers but slightly too high to be easily moved or shook. The sanders and polishers, generally.

The people who hadn't got very much but were proud even of that. There were little clues. Shiny house numbers, for a start. And, on the walls of houses that were effectively just one long continuous row, after centuries of building and inbuilding, very careful boundaries in the paint where people had brushed up to the very border of their property and not a gnat's blink to each side. Carrot always said it showed the people were the kind who instinctively realized that civilization was based on a shared respect for ownership; Angua thought they were just tight little bastards who'd sell you the time of day.

Carrot walked noiselessly down the alley beside the sweetshop. There was a rough wooden staircase going up to the first floor. He pointed silently to the midden below it.

It seemed to consist almost entirely of bottles.

'Big drinker?' Angua mouthed. Carrot shook his head.

She crouched down and looked at the labels, but her nose was already giving her a hint. Dibbler's Homeopathic Shampoo. Mere and Stingbat's Herbal Wash – with Herbs! Rinse 'n' Run Scalp Tonic – with Extra Herbs!...

There were others. Herbs, she thought. Chuck a handful of weeds in the pot and you've got herbs...

Carrot was starting up the stairs when she put her hand on his shoulder. There was another smell. It was one that drove through all the other scents of the streets like a spear. It was one that a werewolf's nose is particularly attuned to.

He nodded and went carefully to the door. Then he pointed down. There was a stain under the gap.

Carrot drew his sword and kicked the door open.

Daceyville Slopes hadn't taken his condition lightly.

Bottles of all shapes and colours occupied most flat surfaces, giving testimony to the alchemist's art and humanity's optimism.

The suds of his latest experiment were still in a bowl on the table, and his body on the floor had a towel around his neck. The watchmen looked down at it. Snowy had cleaned, washed and gone.

'I think we can say life is extinct,' said Carrot.

'Yuk,' said Angua. She grabbed the open shampoo bottle and sniffed deeply. The sickly scent of marinated herbs assailed her sinuses, but anything was better than the sharp, beguiling smell of blood.

'I wonder where his head is at?' said Carrot, in a determinedly matter–of–fact voice. 'Oh, it's rolled over there... What's the horrible smell?'

'This!' Angua flourished the shampoo. 'Four dollars a bottle, it says. Sheesh!'

Angua took another deep sniff at the herbal goo, to drown out the call of the wolf.

'Doesn't look as if they stole anything,' said Carrot. 'Unless they were very neat– What's the matter?'

'Don't ask!'

She managed to get a window open and sucked down great draughts of comparatively fresh air, while Carrot went through the corpse's pockets.

'Er... you can't tell if there's a clove around, can you?' he said.

'Carrot! Please! This is a room with blood all over the floor! Have you any idea? Excuse me...'

She rushed out and down the steps. The alley had the generic smell of all alleys everywhere, overlaid on the basic all–embracing smell of the city. But at least it didn't make your hair grow and your teeth try to lengthen. She leaned against the wall and fought for control. Shampoo? She could have saved Snowy a hell of a lot of money with just one careful bite. Then he'd know all about a really bad hair day...

Carrot came down a couple of minutes later, locking the door behind him.

'Are you feeling better?'

'A bit. ..'

'There was something else,' said Carrot, looking thoughtful. 'I think he wrote a note before he died. But it's all rather odd.' He waved in the air what looked like a cheap notepad. 'This needs careful looking at.' He shook his head. 'Poor old Snowy.'

'He was a killer!'

'Yes, but that's a nasty way to die.'

'Decapitation? With a very sharp sword, by the look of it. I can think of worse.'

'Yes, but I can't help thinking that if only the chap had better hair or had found the right shampoo at an early age he'd have led a different life...'

'Well, at least he won't have to worry about dandruff any more.'

'That was a little tasteless.'

'Sorry, but you know how blood makes me, tense.'

'Your hair always looks amazing,' said Carrot, changing the subject with, Angua thought, unusual tact. 'I don't know what you use, but it's a shame he never tried it.'

'I doubt if he went to the right shop,' said Angua. 'It says "For a Glossy Coat" on the bottles I usually buy– What's the matter?'

'Can you smell smoke?' said Carrot.

'Carrot, it's going to be five minutes before I can smell anything except–'

But he was staring past her, at the big red glow in the sky.

Vimes coughed. And then coughed some more. And eventually opened his streaming eyes in the confident expectation of seeing his own lungs in front of him.

'Class of water, Mr Vimes?'

Vimes peered through the tears at the shifting shape of Fred Colon.

'Thanks, Fred. What's the horrible burning smell?'

'It's you, sir.'

Vimes was sitting on a low wall outside the wreck of the embassy. Cool air washed around him. He felt like underdone beef. The heat was radiating off him.

'You was passed on for a while there, sir,' said Sergeant Colon helpfully. 'But everyone saw you swing in that window, sir! And you threw that woman out for Detritus to catch! That'll be a feather in your cap and no mistake, sir! I bet the ragh– I bet the Klatchians'll be giving you the Order of the Camel or something for this night's work, sir!' Colon beamed, bursting with pride by association.

'A feather in my cap...' murmured Vimes. He undid his helmet and with a certain amount of exhausted delight saw that every single plume had been burned to a stub.

He blinked slowly.

'What about the man, Fred? Did he get out?'

'What man?'

'There was.. .' Vimes blinked again. Various parts of his body, aware that he hadn't been taking calls, were ringing in to complain.

There had been... some man? Vimes had landed on a bed of something, and there was a woman clutching at him, and he had smashed out what was left of the window, seen the big, broad and above all strong arms of Detritus down below, and had thrown her out as politely as the circumstances allowed. Then the man from the roof had come out of the smoke again, carrying another figure over his shoulder, screamed something at him and beckoned him to follow and...

...then the floor had given way...

'There were... two other people in there,' he said, coughing again.

'They didn't get out the front way, then,' said Colon.

'How did I get out?' said Vimes.

'Oh, Dorfl was stamping on the fire down below, sir. Very handy, a ceramic constable. You landed right on him, so of course he stopped what he was doing and brought you out. 's gonna be handshakes and buns all round in the morning, sir!'

There weren't any right now, Vimes noted There were still plenty of people around, carrying bundles, putting out small fires, arguing with one another... but there was a big hole where congratulating–the–hero–of–the–hour should have been.

'Oh, everyone's always a bit preoccupied after something like this, sir,' said Colon, as if reading his thoughts.

'I think I'll have a nice cold bath,' said Vimes, to the world in general. 'And then some sleep. Sybil's got some wonderful ointment for burns... Ah, hello, you two.'

'We saw the fire–' Carrot began, running up. 'Is it all over?'

'Mr Vimes saved the day!' said Sergeant Colon excitedly. 'Just went straight in and saved everyone, in the finest tradition of the Watch!'

'Fred?' said Vimes, wearily.

'Yessir?'

'Fred, the finest tradition of the Watch is having a quiet smoke somewhere out of the wind at 3 a.m. Let's not get carried away, eh?'

Colon looked crestfallen. 'Well–' He began.

Vimes staggered to his feet and patted his sergeant on the back

'Oh, all right, it's a tradition,' he conceded. 'You can do the next one, Fred. And now,' he steadied himself as he stood up, 'I'm going down to the Yard to write my report.'

'You're covered in ash and you're swaying,' said Carrot. 'I should just get on home, sir.'

'Oh no,' said Vimes. 'Got to do the paperwork. Anyone know the time?'

'Bingeley–bingeley beep!' said a cheerful voice from his pocket.

'Damn!' said Vimes, but it was too late.

'It is,' said the voice, which had the squeaky friendly quality that begs to be strangled, 'about... nineish.'

'Nineish?'

'Yep. Nineish. Precisely about nineish.'

Vimes rolled his eyes. 'Precisely about nineish?' he said, pulling a small box out of his pocket and opening the lid. The demon inside gave him an angry look.

'Yesterday you said,' it said, 'that if I, and I quote, Didn't Stop all that Eight Fifty–Six and Six Seconds Precisely business I Would Be Looking at a Hammer From Below. And when I said, Mr Insert Name Here, that this would invalidate my warranty, you said that I could take my warranty and–'

'I thought you'd lost that thing,' said Carrot.

'Hah,' said the Dis–organizer, 'really? You thought he did? I don't call putting something in your trouser pockets just before they go into the wash losing it.'

'That was an accident,' muttered Vimes.

'Oh? Oh? And dropping me in the dragon's feeding bowl, that was accidental too, was it?' The demon mumbled to itself for a moment and then said, 'Anyway, do you want to know your appointments for this evening?'

Vimes looked at the smouldering wreckage of the embassy.

'Do tell,' he said.

'You don't have any,' said the demon sulkily. 'You haven't told me any.'

'You see?' said Vimes. 'That's what drives me lived! Why should I have to tell you? Why didn't you tell me, ' 'Eightish: break up riot at Mundane Meals and stop Detritus shooting people," eh?'

'You didn't tell me to tell you!'

'I didn't know! And that's how real life works! How can I tell you to warn me about things that no–one knows are going to happen? If you were any good, that'd be your job!'

'He writes in the manual,' said the demon nastily. 'Did you know that, everybody? He writes in the manual.'

'Well, of course I make notes–'

'He's actually sneakily trying to keep his diary in the manual so his wife won't find out he's never bothered to learn how to use me,' said the demon.

'What about the Vimes manual, then?' snapped Vimes. 'I notice you've never bothered to learn how to use me!'

The demon hesitated. 'Humans come with a manual?' it said.

'It'd be a damn good idea!' said Vimes.

'True,' murmured Angua.

'It could say things like "Chapter One: Bingeley–bingeley beep and other damn fool things to spring on people at six in the morning," ' said Vimes, his eyes wild. 'And "Toubleshooting: my owner keeps trying to drop me in the privy, what am I doing wrong?" And–'

Carrot patted him gently on the back. 'I should sign off now, sir,' he said gently. 'It's been a busy few days.'

Vimes rubbed his forehead. 'I daresay I could do with a rest,' he said. 'Come on, there's nothing more to see here. Let's go home.'

'I thought you said you weren't going––' Carrot began, but Vimes's mind was already scolding him.

'I meant the Yard, of course,' he said. 'I'll go home afterwards.'

A ball of lamplight floated through the Ramkin library, drifting across the shelves of huge, leatherbound books.

Many of them had never been read, Sybil knew. Various ancestors had simply ordered them from the engravers and put them on the shelves, because a library was something you had to have, don'tcherknow, like a stableyard and a servants' wing and some ghastly landscaping mistake created by 'Bloody Stupid' Johnson, although in the latter case her grandfather had shot the man before he could do any real damage.

She held the lamp higher.

Ramkins looked down their noses at her from their frames, through the brown varnish of the centuries. Portraits were another thing that had been collected out of unregarded habit.

Most of them were of men. They were invariably in armour and always on horseback. And every single

one of them had fought the sworn enemies of AnkhMorpork.

In recent times this had been quite difficult and her grandfather, for example, had to lead an expedition all the way to Howondaland in order to find some sworn enemies, although there was an adequate supply and a lot of swearing by the time he left. Earlier, of course, it had been a lot easier. Ramkin regiments had fought the city's enemies all over the Sto Plains and had inflicted heroic casualties, quite often on people in the opposing armies.[8]

There were a few women among the sitters, none of them holding anything heavier than a glove or a small pet dragon. Their job had largely been to roll bandages and await the return of their husbands with, she liked to think, resolution and fortitude and a general hope that said husbands would return with as many of their bits as possible.

The point was, though, that they never thought about it. There was a war, and off they went. If there wasn't a war, they looked for one. They didn't even use words like 'duty'. It was all built in at bone level.

She sighed. It was all so difficult these days, and Lady Sybil came from a class that was not used to difficulty, or at least the kind that couldn't be sorted out by shouting at a servant. Five hundred years ago one of her ancestors had cut off a Klatchian's head in baffle and had brought it home on a pole, and no–one thought any the worse of him, given what the Klatchians would have cut off if they'd caught him. That seemed straightforward. You fought them, they fought you, everyone knew the rules, and if you got your head cut off you jolly well didn't blub about it afterwards.

Certainly, things were better now. But they were just... more difficult.

And of course some of those antique husbands were away for months or years at a time, and for them wives and families were pretty much like the library and stableyard and the Johnson Exploding Pagoda. You got them sorted out and then didn't think much about it. At least Sam was home every day.

Well, most days. Every night, anyway.

Well... part of most nights, certainly.

At least they ate meals together.

Well, most meals.

Well, at least they made a start on most meals.

Well, at least she knew he was never very far away, just somewhere where he was trying to do too much and run too fast and people were trying to kill him.

All in all, she considered, she was jolly lucky.

Vimes stared at Carrot, who was standing in front of his desk.

'So what does all that add up to?' he said. 'The man we know didn't get the Prince is dead. The man who probably did... is dead. Someone tried very clumsily to make it look as if Ossie was paid by the Klatchians. OK, I can see why someone might want to do that. That's what Fred calls politics. They get Snowy to do the real business, and he helps poor dumb Ossie who's there to take the fall, and then the Watch proves that Ossie was in the pay of the Klatchians and that's another reason for fighting. And Snowy just slopes off. Only someone cured his dandruff for him.'

'After he'd written something, sir,' said Carrot.

'Ah... yes.'

Vimes looked at the notepad retrieved from Snowy's room. It was a crude affair, the wads of mismatched bits of scrap that the engravers sold off cheaply. He sniffed at it.

'Soap on the edges,' he said.

'His new shampoo,' said Carrot. 'First time he'd used it.'

'How do you know?'

'We looked at all the bottles on the heap, sir.'

'Hmm. Looks like fresh blood here, at the spine, where they're stitched together..

'His, sir,' said Angua.

Vimes nodded. You never argued with Angua about blood.

'But none of the actual pages have blood on them... said Vimes. 'Which is a bit odd. Messy business, decapitation. People tend to... spray. So the top page–'

'–has been taken away, sir,' said Carrot, grinning and nodding. 'But that's not the funny part, sir. See if you can guess, sir!'

Vimes glared at him and then moved the lamp closer. 'Very faint impression of writing on. the top page...' he muttered. 'Can't make it out...'

'We can't either, sir. We know he wrote in pencil, sir. There was one on the table.'

'Very faint traces,' said Vimes. 'Blokes like Snowy write as though they're chipping stone.' He flicked the notebook. 'Someone tore out... not just the page he'd written on but several below it as well.'

'Clever, eh, sir? Everyone knows–'

'–you can read the suspicious note by looking at the marks on the page below,' said Vimes. He tossed the book on to the table again. 'Hmm. There's a message there, yes...'

'Perhaps he was blackmailing whoever's behind all this?' said Angua.

'That's not his style,' said Vimes. 'No, what I meant was––'

There was a knock on the door, and Fred Colon entered.

'Brung you a mug of coffee,' he said, 'and there's a bunch of wo– Klatchians to see you downstairs, Mr Vimes. Probably come to give you a medal and gabble at you in their lingo. And if you're on for late supper, Mrs Goriffs doing goat and rice and foreign gravy.'

'I suppose I'd better go down and see them,' said Vimes. 'But I haven't even had time for a wash–'

'That's evidence of your heroic endeavours,' said Colon stoutly.

'Oh, all right.'

Unease began about halfway down the stairs. Vimes had never run into a group of citizens wishing to give him a medal and so he did not have a lot of experience on this score, but the group waiting for him in a tight cluster near the sergeant's desk did not look like a committee of welcome.

They were Klatchian. At least, they were wearing foreign-looking clothes and one or two of them had caught more sun than you generally got in Ankh-Morpork. The feeling crept over Vimes that Klatch was a very big place in which his city and the whole of the Sto Plains would be lost, and so there must be room in it for all kinds of peoples, including this short chap in the red fez who was practically vibrating with indignation.

'Are you the man Vimes?' the enfezzed one demanded.

'Well, I'm Commander Vimes–'

'We demand the release of the Goriff family! And we won't take any excuses!'

Vimes blinked. 'Release?'

'You have locked them up! And confiscated their shop!'

Vimes stared at the man, and then he looked across the room at Sergeant Detritus.

'Where did you put the family, sergeant?'

Detritus saluted. 'In der cells, sir.'

'Aha!' said the man in the fez. 'You admit it!'

'Excuse me, who are you?' said Vimes, blinking with tiredness.

'I don't have to tell you and you can't beat it out of me!' said the man, sticking out his chest.

'Oh, thank you for telling me,' said Vimes. 'I do hate wasted effort.'

'Oh, hello, Mr Wazir,' said Carrot, appearing behind Vimes. 'Did you get the note about that book?'

There was one of those silences that happen when everyone has to reprogramme their faces.

Then Vimes said, 'What?'

'Mr Wazir sells books in Widdy Street,' said Carrot. 'Only I asked him for some books on Klatch, you see, and one of the ones he gave me was The Perfumed Allotment, or, The Garden of Delights. And I didn't mind because the Klatchians invented gardens, sir, so I thought it might be a very useful cultural insight. Get inside the Klatchian mind, as it were. Only it, er, it... er... well, it wasn't about gardening... er...' He started to blush.

'Yes, yes, all right, bring it back if you like,' said Mr Wazir, looking a little derailed.

'I just thought you ought to know in case you hadn't... in case you sold... well... it could shock the impressionable, you know, a book like that...'

'Yes, fine–'

'Corporal Angua was so shocked she couldn't stop laughing.' Carrot went on.

I will have your money sent round directly,' said Wazir. His expression turned vengeful again. He glared at Vimes.

'Books are unimportant at this time! We demand you release my countrymen now!'

'Detritus, why the hell did you put them in the cells?' said Vimes wearily.

'What else we got, sir? Dey're not locked in and dey got dean blankets.'

'There's your explanation,' said Vimes. 'They're our guests.'

'In the cells!' said Wazir, relishing the word.

'They're free to go whenever they like,' said Vimes.

'I'm sure they are now,' said Wazir, contriving to indicate that only his arrival had prevented officially sanctioned bloodshed. 'You can be sure the Patrician will hear about this!'

'He hears about everything else,' said Vimes. 'But if they leave here, who is going to protect them?'

'We are! Their fellow countrymen!'

'How?'

Wazir almost stood to attention. 'By force of arms, if necessary.'

'Oh, good,' said Vimes. 'Then there'll be two mobs–'

'Bingeley–bingeley beep!'

'Damn!' Vimes slapped at his pocket. 'I don't want to know I haven't got any appointments!'

'You have one at eleven pee em. The Rats Chamber, at the palace,' said the Dis–organizer.

'Don't be stupid!'

'Please yourself.'

'And shut up.'

'I was just trying to help.'

'Shut up.' Vimes turned back to the Klatchian bookseller.

'Mr Wazir, if Goriff wants to leave with you, we won't stop him–'

'Aha! You may well try!'

Vimes told himself that there was no reason at all why a Klatchian couldn't be a pompous little troublemaker. But he felt uneasy about it, like a man edging along the side of a very deep crevasse.

'Sergeant Colon?'

'Yessir?'

'See to this, will you?'

'Yessir!'

'Diplomatically.'

'Right, sir!' Colon tapped the side of his nose. 'Is this politics, sir?'

'Just... just go and fetch the Goriff family and they can...' Vimes waved a hand vaguely. 'They can do whatever they like.'

He turned and walked up the stairs.

'Someone has to protect my people's rights!' shouted Wazir.

They heard Vimes stop halfway up the stairs. The board creaked under his weight for a second. Then he continued upwards, and several of the watchmen started breathing again.

Vimes shut his office door behind him.

Politics! He sat down and scrabbled through the papers. It was much easier to think about crime. Give him good honest–crime any time.

He tried to shut out the outside world.

Someone had beheaded Snowy Slopes. That was a fact. You couldn't put it down to a shaving accident, or unreasonably strong shampoo.

And Snowy had attempted to shoot the Prince.

And so had Ossie, but Ossie only thought he was an assassin. Everyone else thought he was a weird little twerp who was as impressionable as wet clay.

A lovely idea, though. You used a real murderer, a nice quite professional, and then you had – Vimes smiled grimly – someone else to take the fall. And if he hadn't taken a less metaphorical fall the poor twisted little sod would have believed he was the murderer.

And the Watch was supposed to believe it was a Klatchian plot.

Sand in their sandals... The nerve of it! Did they think he was stupid? He wished Fred had carefully swept up the sand, because he was damn well going to find out who'd put it there and they were going to eat it. Someone wanted Vimes to chase Klatchians.

The man on the burning roof. Did he fit in? Did he have to fit in? What could Vimes recall? A man in a robe, his face hidden. And a voice of a man not just used to giving commands – Vimes was used to giving commands – but also used to having commands obeyed, whereas a member of the Watch treated orders as suggestions.

But some things didn't have to fit. That was where 'clues' let you down. And the damn notebook. That was the oddest thing yet. So someone had carefully ripped out several pages after Snowy had written whatever he'd written. Someone bright enough to know the trick of looking at the pages underneath for faint impressions.

So why not pinch the whole pad?

It was all too complicated. But somewhere was the one thing that'd make it simple, that would turn it all into sense–

He flung down his pencil and wrenched open the door to the stairs.

'What the hells all this noise?' he yelled.

'Sergeant Colon was halfway up the stairs.

'It was Mr Goriff and Mr Wazir having a bit of what you might call an argy–bargy, sir. Someone set fire to someone else's country two hundred years ago, Carrot says.'

'What, just now?'

' 's all Klatchian to me, sir. Anyway, Wazir's gone off with his nose in a sling.'

'Wazir comes from Smale, you see,' said Carrot. 'And Mr Goriff comes from Elharib, and the two countries only stopped fighting ten years ago. Religious differences.'

'Run out of weapons?' said Vimes.

'Ran out of rocks, sir. They ran out of weapons last century.'

Vimes shook his head. 'That always chews me up,' he said. 'People killing one another just because their gods have squabbled–'

'Oh, they've got the same god, sir. Apparently it's over a word in their holy book, sir. The Elharibians say it translates as "god" and the Smalies say it's ''man".'

'How can you mix them up?'

'Well, there's only one tiny dot difference in the script, you see. And some people reckon it's only a bit of fly dirt m any case.'

'Centuries of war because a fly crapped in the wrong place?'

'It could have been worse,' said Carrot. 'If it had been slightly to the left the word would have been "liquorice".'

Vimes shook his head. Carrot was good at picking up this sort of thing. And I know how to ask for vindaloo, he thought. And it turns out that's just a Klatchian word meaning 'mouth–scalding gristle for macho foreign idiots'.

'I wish we understood more about Klatch,' he said.

'Sergeant Colon tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially.

'Know the enemy, eh, sir?' he said.

'Oh, I know the enemy,' said Vimes. 'It's Klatchians I want to find out about.'

'Commander Vimes?'

The watchmen looked round. Vimes narrowed his eyes.

'You're one of Rust's men, aren't you?'

The young man saluted.

'Lieutenant Hornett, sir.' He hesitated. 'Er... his lordship has sent me to ask you if you and your senior officers would be so good as to come to the palace at your convenience, sir.'

'Really? Those were his words?'

The lieutenant decided that honesty was the only policy.

'In fact he said, "Get Vimes and his mob up here right now," sir.'

'Oh, did he?' said Vimes.

'Bingeley–bingeley beep!' said a small triumphant voice from his pocket. 'The time is eleven pee em precisely!'

The door opened before Nobby knocked, and a small stout woman glared out at him.

'Yes, I am!' she snapped.

Nobby stood with his hand still raised. 'Er... are you Mrs Cake?' he said.

'Yes, but I don't hold with doing it except for money.

Nobby's hand did not move.

'Er... you can tell the future, right?' said Nobby.

They stared at one another. Then Mrs Cake thumped her own ear a couple of times, and blinked.

'Drat! Left my precognition on again.' Her gaze unfocused for a moment as she replayed the recent conversation in the privacy of her head.

'I think we're sorted out,' she said. She looked at Nobby and sniffed. 'You'd better come in. Mind the carpet, it's just been washed. And I can only give you ten minutes 'cos I've got cabbage boilin'.'

She led Corporal Nobbs into her tiny front room. A lot of it was occupied by a round table covered with a green cloth. There was a crystal ball on the table, not very well covered by a pink knitted lady in a crinoline dress.

Mrs Cake motioned Nobby to sit down. He obediently did so. The smell of cabbage drifted through the room.

'A bloke in the pub told me about you,' Nobby mumbled. 'Said you do mediuming.'

'Would you care to tell me your problem?' said Mrs Cake. She looked at Nobby again and, in a state of certainty that had nothing to do with precognition and everything to do with observation, added: 'That is, which of your problems do you want to know about?'

Nobby coughed. 'Er... it's a bit... you know... intimate. Affairs of the heart, sort of thing.'

'Are women involved?' said Mrs Cake cautiously.

'Er... I hope so. What else is there?'

Mrs Cake visibly relaxed.

'I just want to know if I'm going to meet any,' Nobby went on.

'I see.' Mrs Cake gave a kind of facial shrug. It wasn't up to her to tell people how to waste their money. 'Well, there's the tenpenny future. That's what you see. And there's the ten–dollar future. That's what you get.'

'Ten dollars? That's more'n a weeks pay! I'd better take the tenpenny one.'

'A very wise choice,' said Mrs Cake. 'Give me your paw.'

'Hand,' said Nobby.

'That's what I said.'

Mrs Cake examined Nobby's outstretched palm while taking care not to touch it.

'Are you going to moan and roll your eyes and stuff?' said Nobby, a man out to get his tenpenn'orth.

'I don't have to take cheek,' said Mrs Cake, without looking up. 'That sort of––'

She peered closer, and then gave Nobby a sharp look.

'Have you been playing with this hand?'

'Pardon?'

Mrs Cake whipped the crinoline lady off the crystal and glared into the depths. After a while she shook her head.

'I don't know, I'm sure... oh, well.' She cleared her throat and spoke in a more sibyllic voice. 'Mr Nobbs, I see you surrounded by dusky ladies in a hot place. Looks a bit foreign to me. They're laughing and chatting with you... in fact, one of them's just handed you a drink...'

'None of 'ern are shouting or anything?' said Nobby, mystified.

'Doesn't look like it,' said Mrs Cake, equally fascinated. 'They seem quite happy.'

'You can't see any... magnets?'

'What're they?'

'Dunno,' Nobby admitted. 'I 'spect you'd know 'em if you saw 'em.'

Mrs Cake, despite a certain rigidity of character, couldn't help but be aware of a drift in Nobby's  speculation.

'Some of the ladies look... nubile,' she hinted.

'Ah, right,' said Nobby, his expression not changing in any way.

'If you understand what I mean...'

'Right. Yes. Nubile. Right.'

Mrs Cake gave up. Nobby counted out ten pennies.

'And that'll be soon, will it?' said Nobby.

'Oh yes. I can't see very far for tenpence.'

'Happy young ladies...' mused Nobby. 'Nubile, too. Definitely something to think about.'

After he'd gone, Mrs Cake went back to her crystal and sneaked a whole ten dollars' worth of precognition for her own curiosity and satisfaction, and laughed about it all afternoon.

Vimes was only half surprised when the doors to the Rats Chamber opened and there, sitting at the head of the table, was Lord Rust. The Patrician wasn't there.

He was half surprised. That is, at a certain shallow level he thought, that's odd, I thought you couldn't budge the man with a siege weapon. But at a dark level, where the daylight seldom penetrated, he thought: of course. At a time like this men like Rust rise to the top. It's like stirring a swamp with a stick. Really

big bubbles are suddenly on the surface and there's a bad smell about everything. Nevertheless, he saluted and said:

'Lord Vetinari on his holidays, then?'

'Lord Vetinari stepped down this evening, Vimes,' said Lord Rust. 'Pro tem, of course. Just for the duration of the emergency.'

'Really?' said Vimes.

'Yes. And I have to say that he anticipated a certain... cynicism on your part, commander, and therefore asked me to give you this letter. You will see that it is sealed with his seal.'

Vimes looked at the envelope. There was certainly the official seal in the wax, but–

He met Lord Rust's gaze and at least that suspicion faded. Rust wouldn't try a trick like that. Men like Rust had a moral code of sorts, and some things weren't honourable. You could own a street of crowded houses where people lived like cockroaches and the cockroaches lived like kings and that was perfectly OK, but Rust would probably die before he'd descend to forgery.

'I see, sir,' said Vimes. 'You wanted me?'

'Commander Vimes, I must ask you to take the Klatchians resident in the city into custody.'

'On what charge, sir?'

'Commander, we are on the verge of war with Klatch. Surely you understand?'

'No, sir.'

'We are talking about spying, commander. Sabotage, even,' said Lord Rust. 'To be frank... the city is to be placed under martial law.'

'Yessir? What kind of law's that, sir?' said Vimes, staring straight ahead.

'You know very well, Vimes.'

'Is it the kind where you shout "Stop!" before you fire, sir, or the other kind?'

'Ah. I see.' Rust stood up and leaned forward.

'It pleased you to be... smart with Lord Vetinari, and for some reason he indulged you,' he said. 'I, on the other hand, know your type.'

'My type?'