Feet of Clay (Discworld #19)

Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) Page 3

Vimes's eyes were growing accustomed to the flickering light. The room was full of books, in piles. None of them were on shelves. Each one sprouted bookmarks like squashed fingers.

'I don't understand,' he said. Either Dragon King of Arms had very hunched shoulders or there were wings under his shapeless robe. Some of them could fly like a bat, Vimes recalled. He wondered how old this one was. They could 'live' almost forever...

'I believe you're here because it is considered, ah-ha, appropriate that you have a coat of arms. I am afraid that this is not possible. Ah-ha. A Vimes coat of arms has existed, but it cannot be resurrected. It would be against the rules.'

'What rules?'

There was a thump as a book was taken down and opened.

'I'm sure you know your ancestry, Commander. Your father was Thomas Vimes, his father was Gwilliam Vimes - '

'It's Old Stoneface, isn't it,' said Vimes flatly. 'It's something to do with Old Stoneface.'

'Indeed. Ah-ha. Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes. Your ancestor. Old Stoneface, indeed, as he was called. Commander of the City Watch in 1688. And a regicide. He murdered the last king of Ankh-Morpork, as every schoolboy knows.'

'Executed!'

The shoulders shrugged. 'Nevertheless, the family crest was, as we say in heraldry, Excretus Est Ex Altitudine, That is to say, Depositatum De Latrina. Destroyed. Banned. Made incapable of resurrection. Lands confiscated, house pulled down, page torn out of history. Ah-ha. You know, Commander, it is interesting that so many of, ah-ha, Old Stoneface's descendants' - the inverted commas dropped neatly around the nickname like an old lady carefully picking up something nasty in a pair of tongs - 'have been officers of the Watch. I believe, Commander, that you too have acquired the nickname. Ah-ha. Ah-ha. I have wondered whether there is some inherited urge to expunge the infamy. Ah-ha.'

Vimes gritted his teeth. 'Are you telling me I can't have a coat of arms?'

This is so. Ah-ha.'

'Because my ancestor killed a - ' He paused. 'No, it wasn't even execution,' he said. 'You execute a human being. You slaughter an animal.'

'He was the king,' said Dragon mildly.

'Oh, yes. And it turned out that down in the dungeons he had machines for - '

'Commander,' said the vampire, holding up his hands, 'I feel you do not understand me. Whatever else he was, he was the king. You see, a crown is not like a Watchman's helmet, ah-ha. Even when you take it off, it's still on the head.'

'Stoneface took it off all right!'

'But the king did not even get a trial.'

'No willing judge could be found,' said Vimes.

'Except you... that is, your ancestor...'

'Well? Someone had to do it. Some monsters should not walk under the living sky.'

Dragon found the page he had been looking for and turned the book around. This was his escutcheon,' he said.

Vimes looked down at the familiar sign of the morpork owl perched on an ankh. It was atop a shield divided into four quarters, with a symbol in each quarter.

'What's this crown with a dagger through it?'

'Oh, a traditional symbol, ah-ha. Indicates his role as defender of the crown.'

'Really? And the bunch of rods with an axe in it?' He pointed.

'A fasces. Symbolizes that he is... was an officer of the law. And the axe was an interesting harbinger of things to come, yes? But axes, I'm afraid, solve nothing.'

Vimes stared at the third quarter. It contained a painting of what seemed to be a marble bust.

'Symbolizing his nickname, Old Stoneface ,' said Dragon helpfully. 'He asked that some reference be made. Sometimes heraldry is nothing more than the art of punning.'

'And this last one? A bunch of grapes? Bit of a boozer, was he?' said Vimes sourly.

'No. Ah-ha. Word play. Vimes = Vines.'

'Ah. The art of bad punning,' said Vimes. 'I bet that had you people rolling on the floor.'

Dragon shut the book and sighed. There is seldom a reward for those who do what must be done. Alas, such is precedent, and I am powerless.' The old voice brightened up. 'But, still ... I was extremely pleased, Commander, to hear of your marriage to Lady Sybil. An excellent lineage. One of the most noble families in the city, ah-ha. The Ramkins, the Selachiis, the Venturis, the Nobbses, of course...'

That's it, is it?' said Vimes. 'I just go now?'

'I seldom get visitors,' said Dragon. 'Generally people are seen by the Heralds, but I thought you should get a proper explanation. Ah-ha. We're so busy now. Once we dealt with real heraldry. But this, they tell me, is the Century of the Fruitbat. Now it seems that, as soon as a man opens his second meat-pie shop, he feels impelled to consider himself a gentleman.' He waved a thin white hand at three coats of arms pinned in a row on a board. 'The butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker,' he sneered, but genteelly. 'Well, the candlemaker, in point of fact. Nothing will do but that we burrow through the records and prove them acceptably armigerous...'

Vimes glanced at the three shields. 'Haven't I seen that one before?' he said.

'Ah. Mr Arthur Carry the candlemaker,' said Dragon. 'Suddenly business is booming and he feels he must be a gentleman. A shield bisected by a bend sinister d'une meche en metal gris - that is to say, a steel grey shield indicating his personal determination and zeal (how zealous, ah-ha, these businessmen are!) bisected by a wick. Upper half, a chandelle in a fenetre avec rideaux houlant (a candle lighting a window with a warm glow, ah-ha), lower half two chandeliers illumine (indicating the wretched man sells candles to rich and poor alike). Fortunately his father was a harbourmaster, which fact allowed us to stretch ourselves a little with a crest of a lampe au poisson (fish-shaped lamp), indicating both this and his son's current profession. The motto I left in the common modern tongue and is Art Brought Forth the Candle . I'm sorry, ah-ha, it was naughty but I couldn't resist it.'

'My sides ache,' said Vimes. Something kicked his brain, trying to get attention.

' This one is for Mr Gerhardt Sock, president of the Butchers' Guild,' said Dragon. 'His wife's told him a coat of arms is the thing to have, and who are we to argue with the daughter of a tripe merchant, so we've made him a shield of red, for blood, and blue and white stripes, for a butcher's apron, bisected by a string of sausages, centralis a cleaver held in a gloved hand, a boxing glove, which is, ah-ha, the best we could do for sock . Motto is Futurus Meus est in Visceris, which translates as My Future is in (the) Entrails , both relating to his profession and, ah-ha, alluding to the old practice of telling - '

' - the future from entrails,' said Vimes. 'A-mazing.' Whatever was trying to get into his attention was really jumping up and down now.

'While this one, ah-ha, is for Rudolph Potts of the Bakers' Guild,' said Dragon, pointing to the third shield with a twig-thin finger. 'Can you read it, Commander?'

Vimes gave it a gloomy stare. 'Well, it's divided into three, and there's a rose, a flame and a pot,' he said. 'Er... bakers use fire and the pot's for water, I suppose...'

'And a pun on the name,' said Dragon.

'But, unless he's called Rosie, I...' Then Vimes blinked. 'A rose is a flower. Oh, good grief. Flower, flour. Flour, fire and water? The pot looks like a guzunder to me, though. A chamber pot?'

'The old word for baker waspistor,' said Dragon. 'Why, Commander, we shall make a Herald of you yet! And the motto?'

'Quod Subigo Farinam,' said Vimes, and wrinkled his forehead. ' Because... farinaceous means to do with corn, or flour, doesn't it? ... oh, no ... Because I Knead the Dough ?'

Dragon clapped his hands. 'Well done, sir!'

'This place must simply rock on those long winter evenings,' said Vimes. 'And that's heraldry, is it? Crossword clues and plays on words?'

'Of course there is a great deal more,' said the Dragon. 'These are simple. We more or less have to make them up. Whereas the escutcheon of an old family, such as the Nobbses...'

'Nobbs!' said Vimes, as the penny dropped. That's it! You said Nobbs ! Before - when you were talking about old families!'

'Ah-ha. What? Oh, indeed. Yes. Oh, yes. A fine old family. Although now, sadly, in decay.'

'You don't mean Nobbs as in ... Corporal Nobbs?' said Vimes, horror edging his words.

A book thumped open. In the orange light Vimes had a vague upside-down glimpse of shields, and a rambling, unpruned family tree.

'My word. Would that be a C. W. St J. Nobbs?'

'Er... yes. Yes!'

'Son of Sconner Nobbs and a lady referred to here as Maisie of Elm Street?'

'Probably.'

'Grandson of Slope Nobbs?'

'That sounds about right.'

'Who was the illegitimate son of Edward St John de Nobbes, Earl of Ankh, and a, ah-ha, a parlourmaid of unknown lineage?'

'Good gods!'

'The earl died without issue, except that which, ah-ha, resulted in Slope. We had not been able to trace the scion - hitherto, at any rate.'

'Good gods!'

'You know the gentleman?'

Vimes regarded with amazement a serious and positive sentence about Corporal Nobbs that included the word 'gentleman'. 'Er ... yes,' he said.

'Is he a man of property?'

'Only other people's.'

'Well, ah-ha, do tell him. There is no land or money now, of course, but the title is still extant.'

'Sorry ... let me make sure I understand this. Corporal Nobbs... my Corporal Nobbs... is the Earl of Ankh?'

'He would have to satisfy us as to proof of his lineage but, yes, it would appear so.'

Vimes stared into the gloom. Thus far in his life,

Corporal Nobbs would have been unlikely to satisfy the examiners as to his species.

'Good gods!' Vimes said yet again. 'And I suppose he gets a coat of arms?'

'A particularly fine one.'

'Oh.'

Vimes hadn't even wanted a coat of arms. An hour ago he'd have cheerfully avoided this appointment as he had done so many times before. But...

'Nobby?' he said 'Good gods!'

'Well, well! This has been a very happy meeting,' said Dragon. 'I do so like to keep the records up to date. Ah-ha. Incidentally, how is young Captain Carrot getting along? I'm told his young lady is a werewolf. Ah-ha.'

'Really,' said Vimes.

'Ah-ha.' In the dark, Dragon made a movement that might have been a conspiratorial tap on the side of the nose. 'We know these things!'

'Captain Carrot is doing well,' said Vimes, as icily as he could manage. 'Captain Carrot always does well.'

He slammed the door when he went out. The candle flames wavered.

Constable Angua walked out of an alleyway, doing up her belt.

'That went very well, I thought,' said Carrot, 'and will go some way to earning us the respect of the community.'

'Pff! That man's sleeve! I doubt if he even knows the meaning of the word laundry ,' said Angua, wiping her mouth.

Automatically, they fell into step - the energy-saving policeman's walk, where the pendulum weight of the leg is used to propel the walker along with the minimum of effort. Walking was important, Vimes had always said, and because Vimes had said it Carrot believed it. Walking and talking. Walk far enough and talk to enough people and sooner or later you had an answer.

The respect of the community, thought Angua. That was a Carrot phrase. Well, in fact it was a Vimes phrase, although Sir Samuel usually spat after he said it. But Carrot believed it. It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to 'serve the community' by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get into it sideways.[6]

'I've found something very interesting that you will be very interested to see,' said Carrot, after a while.

'That's interesting,' said Angua.

'But I'm not going to tell you what it is because I want it to be a surprise,' said Carrot.

'Oh. Good.'

Angua walked in thought for a while and then said: 'I wonder if it will be as surprising as the collection of rock samples you showed me last week?'

'That was good, wasn't it?' said Carrot enthusiastically. 'I've been along that street dozens of times and never suspected there was a mineral museum there! All those silicates!'

'Amazing! You'd imagine people would be flocking to it, wouldn't you?'

'Yes, I can't think why they don't!'

Angua reminded herself that Carrot appeared to have in his soul not even a trace element of irony. She told herself that it wasn't his fault he'd been brought up by dwarfs in some mine, and really did think that bits of rock were interesting. The week before they'd visited an iron foundry. That had been interesting, too.

And yet... and yet... you couldn't help liking Carrot. Even people he was arresting liked Carrot. Even old ladies living in a permanent smell of fresh paint liked Carrot. She liked Carrot. A lot. Which was going to make leaving him all the harder.

She was a werewolf. That's all there was to it. You either spent your time trying to make sure people didn't find out or you let them find out and spent your time watching them keep their distance and whisper behind your back, although of course you'd have to turn round to watch that.

Carrot didn't mind. But he minded that other people minded. He minded that even quite friendly colleagues tended to carry a bit of silver somewhere on their person. She could see it upsetting him. She could see the tensions building up, and he didn't know how to deal with them.

It was just as her father had said. Get involved with humans other than at mealtimes and you might as well jump down a silver mine.

'Apparently there's going to be a huge firework display after the celebrations next year,' said Carrot. 'I like fireworks.'

'It beats me why Ankh-Morpork wants to celebrate the fact it had a civil war three hundred years ago/ said Angua, coming back to the here-and-now.

'Why not? We won,' said Carrot.

'Yes, but you lost, too.'

'Always look on the positive side, that's what I say. Ah, here we are.'

Angua looked up at the sign. She'd learned to read dwarf runes now.

' Dwarf Bread Museum ,' she said. 'Gosh. I can't wait.'

Carrot nodded happily and pushed open the door. There was a smell of ancient crusts.

'Coo-ee, Mr Hopkinson?' he called. There was no reply. 'He does go out sometimes,' he said.

'Probably when the excitement gets too much for him,' said Angua. 'Hopkinson? That's not a dwarf name, is it?'

'Oh, he's a human,' said Carrot, stepping inside. 'But an amazing authority. Bread's his life. He wrote the definitive work on offensive baking. Well ... since he's not here I'll just take two tickets and leave tuppence on the desk.'

It didn't look as though Mr Hopkinson got many visitors. There was dust on the floor, and dust on die display cases, and a lot of dust on the exhibits. Most of them were the classic cowpat-like shape, an echo of their taste, but there were also buns, close-combat crumpets, deadly throwing toast and a huge dusty array of other shapes devised by a race that went in for food-fighting in a big and above all terminal way.

'What are we looking for?' Angua said. She sniffed. There was a nastily familiar tang in the air.

'It's... are you ready for this?... it's... the Battle Bread of B'hrian Bloodaxe!' said Carrot, rummaging in a desk by the entrance.

'A loaf of bread? You brought me here to see a loaf of bread?'

She sniffed again. Yes. Blood. Fresh blood.

'That's right,' said Carrot. 'It's only going to be here a couple of weeks on loan. It's the actual bread he personally wielded at the Battle of Koom Valley, killing fifty-seven trolls although' - and here Carrot's tone changed down from enthusiasm to civic respectability - 'that was a long time ago and we shouldn't let ancient history blind us to the realities of a multi-ethnic society in the Century of theFruitbat.'

There was a creak of a door.

Then: 'This battle bread,' said Angua, indistinctly. 'Black, isn't it? Quite a lot bigger than normal bread?'

'Yes, that's right,' said Carrot.

'And Mr Hopkinson ... A short man? Little white pointy beard?'

That's him.'

'And his head all smashed in?' 'What?'

'I think you'd better come and look,' said Angua, backing away.

Dragon King of Arms sat alone among his candles.

So that was Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, he mused. Stupid man. Clearly can't see beyond the chip on his shoulder. And people like that rise to high office these days. Still, such people have their uses, which presumably is why Vetinari has elevated him. Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate...

He sighed, and pulled another tome towards him. It was not much bigger than many others which lined his study, a fact which might have surprised anyone who knew its contents.

He was rather proud of it. It was quite an unusual piece of work, but he had been surprised- or would have been surprised, had Dragon been really surprised at anything at all for the last hundred years or so - at how easy some of it had been. He didn't even need to read it now. He knew it by heart. The family trees were properly planted, the words were down there on the page, and all he had to do was sing along.

The first page was headed: 'The Descent of King Carrot I, by the Grace of the Gods King of Ankh-Morpork'. A long and complex family tree occupied the next dozen pages until it reached:

Married... The words there were merely pencilled in.

'Delphine Angua von Uberwald,' read the Dragon aloud. 'Father - and, ah-ha, sire - Baron Guye von Uberwald, also known as Silvertail; mother, Mme Serafine Soxe-Bloonberg, also known as Yellowfang, of Genua...'

It had been quite an achievement, that part. He had expected his agents to have had some difficulty with the more lupine areas of Angua's ancestry, but it turned out that mountain wolves took quite a lot of interest in that sort of thing as well. Angua's ancestors had definitely been among the leaders of the pack.

Dragon King of Arms grinned. As far as he was concerned, species was a secondary consideration. What really mattered in an individual was a good pedigree.

Ah, well. That was the future as it might have been.

He pushed the book aside. One of the advantages of a life much longer than average was that you saw how fragile the future was. Men said things like 'peace in our time' or 'an empire that will last a thousand years', and less than half a lifetime later no one even remembered who they were, let alone what they had said or where the mob had buried their ashes. What changed history were smaller things. Often a few strokes of the pen would do the trick.

He pulled another tome towards him. The frontispiece bore the words: 'The Descent of King...' Now, what would the man call himself? That at least was not calculable. Oh, well...

Dragon picked up his pencil and wrote: 'Nobbs'.

He smiled in the candlelit room.

People kept on talking about the true king of Ankh-Morpork, but history taught a cruel lesson. It said - often in words of blood - that the true king was the one who got crowned.

Books filled this room, too. That was the first impression - one of dank, oppressive bookishness.

The late Father Tubelcek was sprawled across a drift of fallen books. He was certainly dead. No one could have bled that much and still been alive. Or survived for long with a head like a deflated football. Someone must have hit him with a lump hammer.

'This old lady came running out screaming,' said Constable Visit, saluting. 'So I went in and it was just like this, sir.'

'Just like this, Constable Visit?'

'Yes, sir. And the name's Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets, sir.'

'Who was the old lady?'

'She says she's Mrs Kanacki, sir. She says she always brings him his meals. She says she does for him.'

'Does for him?'

'You know, sir. Cleaning and sweeping.'

There was, indeed, a tray on the floor, along with a broken bowl and some spilled porridge. The lady who did for the old man had been shocked to find that someone else had done for him first.

'Did she touch him?' he said.

'She says not, sir.'

Which meant the old priest had somehow achieved the neatest death Vimes had ever seen. His hands were crossed on his chest. His eyes had been closed.

And something had been put in his mouth. It looked like a rolled-up piece of paper. It gave the corpse a disconcertingly jaunty look, as though he'd decided to have a last cigarette after dying.

Vimes gingerly picked out the little scroll and unrolled it. It was covered with meticulously written but unfamiliar symbols. What made them particularly noteworthy was the fact that their author had apparently made use of the only liquid lying around in huge quantities.

'Yuk,' said Vimes. 'Written in blood. Does this mean anything to anyone?'

'Yes, sir!'

Vimes rolled his eyes. 'Yes, Constable Visit?'

'Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets, sir,' said Constable Visit, looking hurt.

''The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets[7]

I was just about to say it, Constable,' said Vimes. 'Well?'

'It's an ancient Klatchian script,' said Constable Visit. 'One of the desert tribes called the Cenotines, sir. They had a sophisticated but fundamentally flawed...'

'Yes, yes, yes,' said Vimes, who could recognize the verbal foot getting ready to stick itself in the aural door. 'But do you know what it means?'

'I could find out, sir.'

'Good.'

'Incidentally, were you able by any chance to find time to have a look at those leaflets I gave you the other day, sir?'

'Been very busy!' said Vimes automatically.

'Not to worry, sir,' said Visit, and smiled the wan smile of those doing good against great odds. 'When you've got a moment will be fine.'

The old books that had been knocked from the shelves had spilled their pages everywhere. There were splashes of blood on many of them.

'Some of these look religious,' Vimes said. 'You might find something.' He turned. 'Detritus, have a look round, will you?'

Detritus paused in the act of laboriously drawing a chalk outline around the body. 'Yessir. What for, sir?'

'Anything you find.'

'Right, sir.'

With a grunt, Vimes hunkered down and prodded at a grey smear on the floor. 'Dirt,' he said.

'You get dat on floors, sir,' said Detritus, helpfully.

'Except this is off-white. We're on black loam,' said Vimes.

'Ah,' said Sergeant Detritus. 'A Clue.'

'Could be just dirt, of course.'

There was something else. Someone had made an attempt to tidy up the books. They'd stacked several dozen of them in one neat towering pile, one book wide, largest books on the bottom, all the edges squared up with geometrical precision.

'Now that I don't understand,' said Vimes. 'There's a fight. The old man is viciously attacked. Then someone- maybe it was him, dying, maybe it was the murderer - writes something down using the poor man's own blood. And rolls it up neatly and pops it into his mouth like a sweetie. Then he does die and someone shuts his eyes and makes him tidy and piles these books up neatly and... does what? Walks out into the seething hurly-burly that is Ankh-Morpork?'

Sergeant Detritus's honest brow furrowed with the effort of thought. 'Could be a ... could be dere's a footprint outside der window,' he said. 'Dat's always a Clue wort' lookin' for.'

Vimes sighed. Detritus, despite a room-temperature IQ, made a good copper and a damn good sergeant. He had that special type of stupidity that was hard to fool. But the only thing more difficult than getting him to grasp an idea was getting him to let go of it.

![if !supportFootnotes]

[8]

'Detritus,' he said, as kindly as possible. 'There's a thirty-foot drop into the river outside the window. There won't be - ' He paused. This was the river Ankh, after all. 'Any footprints'd be bound to have oozed back by now,' he corrected himself. 'Almost certainly.'

He looked outside, though, just in case. The river gurgled and sucked below him. There were no footprints, even on its famously crusted surface. But there was another smear of dirt on the window-sill.

Vimes scratched some up, and sniffed at it.

'Looks like some more white clay,' he said.

He couldn't think of any white clay around the city. Once you got outside the walls it was thick black loam all the way to the Ramtops. A man walking across it would be two inches taller by the time he got to the other side of a field.

'White clay,' he said. 'Where the hell is white-clay country round here?'

'It a mystery,' said Detritus.

Vimes grinned mirthlessly. It was a mystery. And he didn't like mysteries. Mysteries had a way of getting bigger if you didn't solve them quickly. Mysteries pupped.

Mere murders happened all the time. And usually even Detritus could solve them. When a distraught woman was standing over a fallen husband holding a right-angled poker and crying 'He never should've said that about our Neville!' there was only a limited amount you could do to spin out the case beyond the next coffee break. And when various men or parts thereof were hanging from or nailed to various fixtures in the Mended Drum on a Saturday night, and the other clientele were all looking innocent, you didn't need even a Detritic intelligence to work out what had been happening.

He looked down at the late Father Tubelcek. It was amazing he'd bled so much, with his pipe-cleaner arms and toast-rack chest. He certainly wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight.

Vimes leaned down and gently raised one of the corpse's eyelids. A milky blue eye with a black centre looked back at him from wherever the old priest was now.

A religious old man who lived in a couple of little poky rooms and obviously didn't go out much, from the smell. What kind of threat could he... ?

Constable Visit poked his head around the door. 'There's a dwarf down here with no eyebrows and a frizzled beard says you told him to come, sir,' he said. 'And some citizens say Father Tubelcek is their priest and they want to bury him decently.'

'Ah, that'll be Littlebottom. Send him up,' said Vimes, straightening. Tell the others they'll have to wait.'

Littlebottom climbed the stairs, took in the scene, and managed to reach the window in time to be sick.

'Better now?' said Vimes eventually,

'Er... yes. I hope so.'

'I'll leave you to it, then.'

'Er... what exactly did you want me to do?' said Littlebottom, but Vimes was already half-way down the stairs.

Angua growled. It was the signal to Carrot that he could open his eyes again.

Women, as Colon had remarked to Carrot once when he thought the lad needed advice, could be funny about little things. Maybe they didn't like to be seen without their make-up on, or insisted on buying smaller suitcases than men even though they always took more clothes. In Angua's case she didn't like to be seen en route from human to werewolf shape, or vice versa. It was just something she had a thing about, she said. Carrot could see her in either shape but not in the various ones she occupied on the way through, in case he never wanted to see her again.

Through werewolf eyes the world was different.

For one thing, it was in black-and-white. At least, that small part of it which as a human she'd thought of as 'vision' was monochrome - but who cared that vision had to take a back seat when smell drove instead, laughing and sticking its arm out of the window and making rude gestures at all the other senses? Afterwards, she always remembered the odours as colours and sounds. Blood was rich brown and deep bass, stale bread was a surprisingly tinkly bright blue, and every human being was a four-dimensional kaleidoscopic symphony. For nasal vision meant seeing through time as well as space: a man could stand still for a minute and, an hour later, there he'd still be, to the nose, his odours barely faded.

She prowled the aisles of the Dwarf Bread Museum, muzzle to the ground. Then she went out into the alley for a while and tried there too.

After five minutes she padded back to Carrot and gave him the signal again.

When he re-opened his eyes she was pulling her shirt on over her head. That was one thing where humans had the edge. You couldn't beat a pair of hands.

'I thought you'd be down the street and following someone,' he said.

'Follow who?' said Angua.

'Pardon?'

'I can smell him, and you, and the bread, and that's it.'

'Nothing else?'

'Dirt. Dust. The usual stuff. Oh, there are some old traces, days old. I know you were in here last week, for example. There are lots of smells. Grease, meat, pine resin for some reason, old food... but I'll swear no living thing's been in here in the last day or so but him and us.'

'But you told me everyone leaves a trail.'

'They do.'

Carrot looked down at the late curator. However you phrased it, however broadly you applied your definitions, he definitely couldn't have committed suicide. Not with a loaf of bread.

'Vampires?' said Carrot. 'They can fly...'

Angua sighed. 'Carrot, I could tell if a vampire had been in here in the last month.'

'There's almost half a dollar in pennies in the drawer,' said Carrot. 'Anyway, a thief would be here for the Battle Bread, wouldn't they? It is a very valuable cultural artefact.'

'Has the poor man got any relatives?' said Angua.

'He's got an elderly sister, I believe. I come in once a month just to have a chat. He lets me handle the exhibits, you know.'

'That must be fun,' said Angua, before she could stop herself.

'It's very... satisfying, yes,' said Carrot solemnly. 'It reminds me of home.'

Angua sighed and stepped into the room behind the little museum. It was like the back rooms of museums everywhere, full of junk and things there is no room for on the shelves and also items of doubtful provenance, such as coins dated '52 BC'. There were some benches with shards of dwarf bread on them, a tidy tool rack with various sizes of kneading hammer, and papers all over the place. Against one wall, and occupying a large part of the room, was an oven.

'He researches old recipes,' said Carrot, who seemed to feel he had to promote the old man's expertise even in death.

Angua opened the oven door. Warmth spilled out into the room. 'Hell of a bake oven,' she said. 'What're these things?'

'Ah ... I see he's been making drop scones,' said Carrot. 'Quite deadly at short range.'

She shut the door. 'Let's get back to the Yard and they can send someone out to - '

Angua stopped.

These were always the dangerous moments, just after a shape-change this close to full moon. It wasn't so bad when she was a wolf. She was still as intelligent, or at least she felt as intelligent, although life was a lot simpler and so she was probably just extremely intelligent for a wolf. It was when she became a human again that things were difficult. For a few minutes, until the morphic field fully reasserted itself, all her senses were still keen; smells were still incredibly strong, and her ears could hear sounds way outside the stunted human range. And she could think more about the things she experienced. A wolf could sniff a lamp-post and know that old Bonzo had been past yesterday, and was feeling a bit under the weather, and was still being fed tripe by his owner, but a human mind could actually think about the whys and wherefores.

'There is something else,' she said, and breathed in gently. 'Faint. Not a living thing. But... can't you smell it? Something like dirt, but not quite. It's kind of... yellow-orange...'

'Um...' said Carrot, tactfully. 'Some of us don't have your nose.'

'I've smelled it before, somewhere in this town. Can't remember where... It's strong. Stronger than the other smells. It's a muddy smell.'

'Hah, well, on these streets...'

'No, it's not... exactly mud. Sharper. More treble.'

'You know, sometimes I envy you. It must be nice to be a wolf. Just for a while.'

'It has its drawbacks.' Like fleas, she thought, as they locked up the museum. And the food. And the constant nagging feeling that you should be wearing three bras at once.

She kept telling herself she had it under control and she did, in a way. She prowled the city on moonlit nights and, okay, there was the occasional chicken, but she always remembered where she'd been and went round next day to shove some money under the door.

It was hard to be a vegetarian who had to pick bits of meat out of her teeth in the morning. She was definitely on top of it, though.

Definitely, she reassured herself.

It was Angua's mind that prowled the night, not a werewolf mind. She was almost entirely sure of that. A werewolf wouldn't stop at chickens, not by a long way.

She shuddered.

Who was she kidding? It was easy to be a vegetarian by day. It was preventing yourself from becoming a humanitarian at night that took the real effort.

The first clocks were striking eleven as Vimes's sedan chair wobbled to a halt outside the Patrician's palace. Commander Vimes's legs were beginning to give out, but he ran up five flights of stairs as fast as possible and collapsed on a chair in the waiting salon.

Minutes went past.

You didn't knock on the Patrician's door. He summoned you in the certain knowledge that you would be there.

Vimes sat back, enjoying a moment's peace.

Something inside his coat went: 'Bing bing bingley bing!'

He sighed, pulled out a leather-bound package about the size of a small book, and opened it.

A friendly yet slightly worried face peered up at him from its cage.

'Yes?' said Vimes.

'11 am. Appointment with the Patrician.'

'Yes? Well? It's five past now.'

'Er. So you've had it, have you?' said the imp.

'No.'

'Shall I go on remembering it or what?'

'No. Anyway, you didn't remind me about the College of Arms at ten.'

The imp looked panic-stricken.

That's Tuesday, isn't it? Could've sworn it was Tuesday.'

'It was an hour ago.'

'Oh.' The imp was downcast. 'Er. All right. Sorry. Um. Hey, I could tell you what time it is in Klatch, if you like. Or Genua. Or Hunghung. Any of those places. You name it.'

'I don't need to know the time in Klatch.'

'You might,' said the imp desperately. Think how people will be impressed if, during a dull moment of the conversation, you could say Incidentally, in Klatch it's an hour ago . Or Bes Pelargic. Or Ephebe. Ask me. Go on. I don't mind. Any of those places.'

Vimes sighed inwardly. He had a notebook. He took notes in it. It was always useful. And then Sybil, gods bless her, had brought him this fifteen-function imp which did so many other things, although as far as he could see at least ten of its functions consisted of apologizing for its inefficiency in the other five.

'You could take a memo,' Vimes said.

'Wow! Really? Gosh! Okay. Right. No problem.'

Vimes cleared his throat. 'See Corporal Nobbs re time-keeping; also re Earldom.'

'Er... sorry, is this the memo?'

'Yes.'

'Sorry, you should have said memo first. I'm pretty certain it's in the manual.'

'All right, it was a memo.'

'Sorry, you have to say it again.'