Feet of Clay

‘Many people prefer to savour the bouquet,’ said a quietly horrified chair. ‘They enjoy sniffing it.’

Nobby looked at his glass with the red-veined eyes of one who’d heard rumours about what the upper crust got up to. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’ll go on stickin’ it in my mouth, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘If we may get to the point,’ said another chair, ‘a king would not have to spend every moment running the city. He would of course have people to do that. Advisors. Counsellors. People of experience.’

‘So what’d he have to do?’ said Nobby.

‘He’d have to reign,’ said a chair.

‘Wave.’

‘Preside at banquets.’

‘Sign things.’

‘Guzzle good brandy disgustingly.’

‘Reign.’

‘Sounds like a good job to me,’ said Nobby. ‘All right for some, eh?’

‘Of course, a king would have to be someone who could recognize a hint if it was dropped on his head from a great height,’ said a speaker sharply, but the other chairs shushed him into silence.

Nobby managed to find his mouth after several goes and took another long pull at his cigar. ‘Seems to me,’ he said, ‘seems to me, what you want to do is find some nob with time on his hands and say, “Yo, it’s your lucky day. Let’s see you wave that hand.”’

‘Ah! That’s a good idea! Does any name cross your mind, my lord? Have a drop more brandy.’

‘Why, thanks, you’re a toff. O’ course, so ’m I, eh? That’s right, flunkey, all the way to the top. No, can’t think of anyone that fits the bill.’

‘In fact, my lord, we were indeed thinking of offering the crown to you—’

Nobby’s eyes bulged. And then his cheek bulged.

It is not a good idea to spray finest brandy across the room, especially when your lighted cigar is in the way.^{84} The flame hit the far wall, where it left a perfect chrysanthemum of scorched woodwork, while in accordance with a fundamental rule of physics Nobby’s chair screamed back on its castors and thudded into the door.

‘King?’ Nobby coughed, and then they had to slap him on the back until he got his breath again. ‘King?’ he wheezed. ‘And have Mr Vimes cut me head off?’

‘All the brandy you can drink, my lord,’ said a wheedling voice.

‘’S no good if you ain’t got a throat for it to go down!’

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘Mr Vimes’d go spare! He’d go spare!’

‘Good heavens, man—’

‘My lord,’ someone corrected.

‘My lord, I mean — when you’re king you can tell that wretched Sir Samuel what to do. You’ll be, as you would call it, “the boss”. You could—’

‘Tell ole Stoneface what to do?’ said Nobby.

‘That’s right!’

‘I’d be a king and tell ole Stoneface what to do?’ said Nobby.

‘Yes!’

Nobby stared into the smoky gloom.

‘He’d go spare!’

‘Listen, you silly little man—’

‘My lord—’

‘You silly little lord, you’d be able to have him executed if you wished!’

‘I couldn’t do that!’

‘Why not?’

‘He’d go spare!’

‘The man calls himself an officer of the law, and whose law does he listen to, eh? Where does his law come from?’

‘I don’t know!’ groaned Nobby. ‘He says it comes up through his boots!’ He looked around. The shadows in the smoke seemed to be closing in.

‘I can’t be king! Ole Vimes’d go spare!’

‘Will you stop saying that!’

Nobby pulled at his collar.

‘’S a bit hot and smoky in here,’ he mumbled. ‘Which way’s the window?’

‘Over there—’

The chair rocked. Nobby hit the glass helmet-first, landed on top of a waiting carriage, bounced off and ran into the night, trying to escape destiny in general and axes in particular.

***

Cheri Littlebottom strode into the palace kitchens and fired her crossbow into the ceiling.

‘Don’t nobody move!’ she yelled.

The Patrician’s domestic staff looked up from their dinner.

‘When you say don’t nobody move,’ said Drumknott carefully, fastidiously taking a piece of plaster off his plate, ‘do you in fact mean—’

‘All right, Corporal, I’ll take over now,’ said Vimes, patting Cheri on the shoulder. ‘Is Mildred Easy here?’

All heads turned.

Mildred’s spoon dropped into her soup.

‘It’s all right,’ said Vimes. ‘I just need to ask you a few more questions—’

‘I’m … s-s-sorry, sir—’

‘You haven’t done anything wrong,’ said Vimes, walking around the table. ‘But you didn’t just take food home for your family, did you?’

‘S-sir?’

‘What else did you take?’

Mildred looked at the suddenly blank expressions on the faces of the other servants. ‘There was the old sheets but Mrs Dipplock did s-say I could have—’

‘No, not that,’ said Vimes.

Mildred licked her dry lips. ‘Er, there was … there was some boot polish …’

‘Look,’ said Vimes, as kindly as possible, ‘everyone takes small things from the place where they work. Small stuff that no one notices. No one thinks of it as stealing. It’s like … it’s like rights. Odds and ends. Ends, Miss Easy? I’m thinking about the word “ends”.’

‘Er … you mean … the candle ends, sir?’

Vimes took a deep breath. It was such a relief to be right, even though you knew you’d only got there by trying every possible way to be wrong. ‘Ah,’ he said.

‘B-but that’s not stealing, sir. I’ve never stolen nothing, s-sir!’