Feet of Clay

'They don't deserve help,' said Vimes.

There was a clank of armour and then a long, deep growl, right outside in the street.

And a scream. And then another scream. And a third scream, modulated with 'NONONOnonononononoNO! … aarghaargh aargh!' Something heavy hit the door.

Vimes turned back to Carrot. 'You and Constable Angua,' he said. 'You … er … get along all right?'

'Fine, sir,' said Carrot.

'Some people might think that, er, there might be, er, problems …'

There was a thud, and then a faint bubbling noise.

'We work around them, sir,' said Carrot, raising his voice slightly.

'I heard that her father's not very happy about her working here …'

'They don't have much law up in Uberwald, sir. They think it's for weak societies. The baron's not a very civic-minded man.'

'He's pretty bloodthirsty, from what I've heard.'

'She wants to stay in the Watch, sir. She likes meeting people.'

From outside came another gurgle. Fingernails scrabbled at a windowpane. Then their owner disappeared abruptly from view.

'Well, it's not for me to judge,' said Vimes.

'No, sir.'

After a few moments of silence the door opened, slowly. Angua walked in, adjusting her clothes, and sat down. All the Watchmen in the room suddenly took a second course of advanced beer-study.

'Er …' Carrot began.

'Flesh wounds,' said Angua. 'But one of them did shoot one of the others in the leg by accident.'

‘I think you'd better put it in your report as 'self-inflicted wounds while resisting arrest',' said Vimes.

'Yes, sir,' said Angua.

'Not all of them,' said Carrot.

'They tried to rob our bar and take a wer — Angua hostage,' said Vimes.

'Oh, I see what you mean, sir,' said Carrot. 'Self-inflicted. Yes. Of course.'

It had gone quiet in the Mended Drum. This was because it is usually very hard to be both loud and unconscious.

Sergeant Colon was impressed at his own cleverness. Throwing a punch could stop a fight, of course, but in this case it had a quarter of rum, gin and sixteen chopped lemons floating in it.

Some people were still upright, however. They were the serious drinkers, who drank as if there was no tomorrow and rather hoped this would be the case.

Fred Colon had reached the convivial drunk stage. He turned to the man beside him. ''S good here, isn't it,' he managed.

'What'm I gonna tell me wife, that's what I want to know …' moaned the man.

'Dunno. Say you've bin bin bin working late,' said Colon. 'An' suck a peppermint before you goes home, that usually works—'

'Working late? Hah! I've bin given the sack! Me! A craftsman! Fifteen years at Spadger and Williams, right, and then they go bust 'cos of Carry undercutting 'em and I get a job at Carry's and, bang, I'm out of a job there, too! 'Surplus to requirements'! Bloody golems! Forcing real people out of a job! What they wanna work for? They got no mouth to feed, hah. But the damn thing goes at it so fast you can't see its bloody arms movin'!'

'Shame.'

'Smash 'em up, that's what I say. I mean, we had a golem at S an' W's but ole Zhlob just used to plod along, y'know, not buzz away like a blue-arsed fly. You wanna watch it, mate, they'll have your job next.'

'Stoneface wouldn't stand fr it,' said Colon, undulating gently.

'Any chance of a job with you lot, then?'

'Dunno,' said Colon. The man seemed to have become two men. 'What's it you do?'

'I'm a Wick-Dipper and End-Teaser, mate,' they said.

'I can see that's a useful trade.'

'Here you go, Fred,' said the barman, tapping him on the shoulder and putting a piece of paper in front of him. Colon watched with interest as figures danced back and forth. He tried to focus on the one at the bottom, but it was too big to take in.

'What's this, then?

'His imperial lordship's bar bill,' said the barman.

'Don't be daft, no one can drink that much … 'm not payin'!'

'I'm including breakages, mind you.'

'Yeah? Like what?'

The barman pulled a heavy hickory stick from its hiding place under the bar. 'Arms? Legs? Suit yourself,' he said.

'Oh, come on, Ron, you've known me for years!'

'Yes, Fred, you've always been a good customer, so what I'll do is, I'll let you shut your eyes first.'

'But that's all the money I've got!'

The barman grinned. 'Lucky one for you, eh?'

Cheery Littlebottom leaned against the corridor wall outside her privy and wheezed.

It was something alchemists learned to do early in their career. As her tutors had said, there were two signs of a good alchemist: the Athletic and the Intellectual. A good alchemist of the first sort was someone who could leap over the bench and be on the far side of a safely thick wall in three seconds, and a good alchemist of the second sort was someone who knew exactly when to do this.

The equipment didn't help. She scrounged what she could from the guild, but a real alchemical laboratory should be full of the kind of glassware that looked as if it were produced during the Guild of Glassblowers All-Comers Hiccuping Contest. A proper alchemist did not have to run tests using as her beaker a mug with a picture of a teddy-bear on it, which Corporal Nobbs was probably going to be very upset about when he found it missing.

When she judged that the fumes had cleared she ventured back into her tiny room.

That was another thing. Her books on alchemy were marvellous objects, every page a work of the engraver's art, but they nowhere contained instructions like 'Be sure to open a window'. They did have instructions like 'Adde Aqua Quirmis to the Zinc untile Rising Gas Yse Vigorously Evolved', but never added 'Don't Doe Thys Atte Home' or even 'And Say Fare-thee-Welle to Thy Eyebrows'.

Anyway …

The glassware remained innocent of the brown-black sheen that, according to The Compound of Alchemic, would indicate arsenic in the sample. She'd tried every type of food and drink she could find in the palace pantries, and pressed into service every bottle and jar she could discover in the Watch House.

She tried one more time with what said on the packet it was Sample #2. Looked like a smear of cheese. Cheese? The various fumes thronging around her head were making her slow. She must have taken some cheese samples. She was pretty sure Sample #17 had been some Lancre Blue Vein, which had reacted vigorously with the acid, blown a small hole in the ceiling and covered half the work-bench with a dark green substance that was setting like tar.

She tested this one anyway.

A few minutes later she was scrabbling furiously through her notebook. The first sample she'd taken from the pantry (one portion of duck pate) was down here as Sample #3. What about #1 and #2? No, #1 had been the