Feet of Clay

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.