Feet of Clay

'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.

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'WEE MAD' ARTHUR

For those little things that get you down