Feet of Clay

‘Li— oh, yes,’ said Angua. ‘Lingerie. Yes.’ She tried to feel sympathetic and found that she was, really, but she did have to stop herself from saying that at least you don’t have to find styles that can easily be undone by paws.

‘I thought I could come here and get a different kind of job,’ Cheery moaned. ‘I’m good at needlework and I went to see the Guild of Seamstresses and—’ She stopped, and blushed behind her beard.

‘Yes,’ said Angua. ‘Lots of people make that mistake.’ She stood up straight and brushed herself off. ‘You’ve impressed Commander Vimes, anyway. I think you’ll like it here. Everyone’s got troubles in the Watch. Normal people don’t become policemen. You’ll get on fine.’

‘Commander Vimes is a bit …’ Cheery began.

‘He’s okay when he’s in a good mood. He needs to drink but he doesn’t dare to these days. You know: one drink is too many, two is not enough … And that makes him edgy. When he’s in a bad mood he’ll tread on your toes and then shout at you for not standing up straight.’

‘You’re normal,’ said Cheery, shyly. ‘I like you.’

Angua patted her on the head. ‘You say that now,’ she said, ‘but when you’ve been around here for a while you’ll find out that sometimes I can be a bitch … What’s that?’

‘What?’

‘That … painting. With the eyes …’

‘Or two points of red light,’ said Cheery.

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘It’s the last thing Father Tubelcek saw, I think,’ said the dwarf.

Angua stared at the black rectangle. She sniffed. ‘There it is again!’

Cheery took a step backwards. ‘What? What?’

‘Where’s that smell coming from?’ Angua demanded.

‘Not me!’ said Cheery hurriedly.

Angua grabbed a small dish from the bench and sniffed at it. ‘This is it! I smelled this at the museum! What is it?’

‘It’s just clay. It was on the floor in the room where the old priest was killed,’ said Cheery. ‘Probably it came off someone’s boot.’

Angua crumbled some of it between her fingers.

‘I think it’s just potters’ clay,’ said Cheery. ‘We used to use it at the guild. For making pots,’ she added, just in case Angua hadn’t grasped things. ‘You know? Crucibles and things. This looks like someone tried baking it but didn’t get the heat right. See how it crumbles?’

‘Pottery,’ said Angua. ‘I know a potter …’

She glanced down at the dwarf’s iconograph again.

Please, no, she thought. Not one of them?

The front gate of the College of Arms — both front gates — were swung open. The two Heralds bobbed excitedly around Corporal Nobbs as he tottered out.

‘Has your lordship got everything he requires?’

‘Nfff,’ said Nobby.

‘If we can be of any help whatsoever—’

‘Nnnf.’

‘Any help at all—?’

‘Nnnf.’

‘Sorry about your boots, m’lord, but the wyvern’s been ill. It’ll brush off no trouble when it dries.’

Nobby tottered off along the lane.

‘He even walks nobly, wouldn’t you say?’

‘More … nobbly than nobly, I think.’

‘It’s disgusting that he’s a mere corporal, a man of his breeding.’

Igneous the troll backed away until he was up against his potter’s wheel.^{36}

‘I never done it,’ he said.

‘Done what?’ said Angua.

Igneous hesitated.

Igneous was huge and … well, rocky. He moved around the streets of Ankh-Morpork like a small iceberg and, like an iceberg, there was more to him than immediately met the eye. He was known as a supplier of things. More or less any kind of things. And he was also a wall, which was the same as a fence only a lot harder and tougher to beat. Igneous never asked unnecessary questions, because he couldn’t think of any.

‘Nuffin,’ he said, finally. Igneous had always found the general denial was more reliable than the specific refutation.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Angua. ‘Now … where do you get your clay from?’

Igneous’s face crinkled as he tried to work out where this line of questioning could possibly go. ‘I got re-seats,’ he said. ‘Every bit prop’ly paid for.’

Angua nodded. It was probably true. Igneous, despite giving the appearance of not being able to count beyond ten without ripping off someone else’s arm, and having an intimate involvement in the city’s complex hierarchy of crime, was known to pay his bills. If you were going to be successful in the criminal world, you needed a reputation for honesty.

‘Have you seen any like this before?’ she said, holding out the sample.

‘It clay,’ said Igneous, relaxing a little. ‘I see clay all der time. It don’t have no serial number. Clay’s clay. Got lumps of it out der back. You make bricks an pots and stuff outa it. Dere’s loads of potters in dis town and we all got der stuff. Why you wanna know about clay?’

‘Can’t you tell where it came from?’

Igneous took the tiny piece, sniffed it, and rolled it between his fingers.