Feet of Clay

Angua paused. 'Oh,' she said. 'I see. Hah. Yes. I know that tune.'

'I can't hold an axe!' said Cheery. ‘I’m scared of fights! I think songs about gold are stupid! I hate beer! I can't even drink dwarfishly! When I try to quaff I drown the dwarf behind me!'

'I can see that could be tricky,' said Angua.

'I saw a girl walk down the street here and some men whistled after her! And you can wear dresses! With colours!'

'Oh, dear.' Angua tried not to smile. 'How long have lady dwarfs felt like this? I thought they were happy with the way things are …'

'Oh, it's easy to be happy when you don't know any different,' said Cheery bitterly. 'Chainmail trousers are fine if you've never heard of lingerry!'

'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 dwarfs 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.

'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.

'Muffin,' 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.

'Dis is crank,' he said, looking a lot happier now that the conversation was veering away from more personal concerns. 'Dat's like … crappy clay, jus' good enough for dem lady potters wi' dangly earrings wot make coffee mugs wot you can't lift wid both hands.' He rolled it again. 'Also, it got a lotta grog in it. Dat's bitsa old pots, all smashed up real small. Makes it stronger. Any potter got loadsa stuff like dis.' He rubbed it again. 'Dis has been sorta heated up but it ain't prop'ly baked.'

'But you can't say where it came from?'

'Outa der ground is der best I can do, lady,' said Igneous. He relaxed a little now it appeared that enquiries were not to do with such matters as a recent batch of hollow statues and subjects of a similar nature. As sometimes happened in these circumstances, he tried to be helpful. 'Come an' have a look at dis.'

He loped away. The Watchmen followed him through the warehouse, observed by a couple of dozen cautious trolls. No one liked to see policemen up close, especially if the reason you were working at Igneous's place was that it was nice and quiet and you wanted somewhere to lie low for a few weeks. Besides, while it was true that a lot of people came to Ankh-Morpork because it was a city of opportunity, sometimes it was the opportunity not to be hung, skewered or dismantled for whatever crimes you'd left behind in the mountains.