Feet of Clay

inkwell had been overturned, presumably when he'd slipped off the chair. Vimes dipped a finger in the ink and sniffed it. Then he reached for the quill pen beside it, hesitated, took out his dagger, and lifted the long feather gingerly. There seemed to be no cunning little barbs on it, but he put it carefully on one side for Littlebottom to examine later.

He glanced down at the paper Vetinari had been working on.

To his surprise it wasn't writing at all, but a careful drawing. It showed a striding figure, except that the figure was not one person at all but made up of thousands of smaller figures. The effect was like one of the wicker men built by some of the more outlandish tribes near the Hub, when they annually celebrated the great cycle of Nature and their reverence for life by piling as much of it as possible in a great heap and setting fire to it. The composite man was wearing a crown. Vimes pushed the sheet of paper aside and returned his attention to the desk. He brushed the surface carefully for any suspicious splinters. He crouched down and examined the underside.

The light was growing outside. Vimes went into both the rooms alongside and made sure their drapes were open, then went back into Vetinari's room, closed the curtains and the doors, and sidled along the walls looking for any tell-tale speck of light that might indicate a small hole.

Where could you stop? Splinters in the floor? Blowpipes through the keyhole?

He opened the curtains again.

Vetinari had been on the mend yesterday. And now he looked worse. Someone had got to him in the night. How? Slow poison was the devil of a thing. You had to find a way of giving it to the victim every day.

No, you didn't … What was elegant was finding a way of getting him to administer it to himself every day.

Vimes rummaged through the paperwork. Vetinari had obviously felt well enough to get up and walk over here, but here was where he had collapsed.

You couldn't poison a splinter or a nail because he wouldn't keep on nicking himself…

There was a book half-buried in the papers, but it had a lot of bookmarks in it, mostly torn bits of old letters.

What did he do every day?

Vimes opened the book. Every page was covered with handwritten symbols.

You have to get a poison like arsenic into the body. It isn't enough to touch it. Or is it? Is there a kind of arsenic you can pick up through the skin?

No one was getting in. Vimes was almost certain of that.

The food and drink were probably all right, but he'd get Detritus to go and have another one of his little talks with the cooks in any case.

Something he breathed? How could you keep that up day after day without arousing suspicion somewhere? Anyway, you'd have to get your poison into the room.

Something already in the room? Cheery had a different carpet put down and replaced the bed, What else could you do? Strip the paint from the ceiling?

What had Vetinari told Cheery about poisoning? 'You put it where no one will look at all …'

Vimes realized he was still staring at the book. There wasn't anything there that he could recognize. It must be a code of some sort. Knowing Vetinari, it wouldn't be crackable by anyone in a normal frame of mind.

Could you poison a book? But … so what? There were other books. You'd have to know he'd look at this one, continuously. And even then you'd have to get the poison into him. A man might prick his finger once and after that he'd take care.

It sometimes worried Vimes, the way he suspected everything. If you started wondering whether a man could be poisoned by words, you might as well accuse the wallpaper of driving him mad. Mind you, that horrible green colour would drive anyone insane …

'Bingely beepy bleep!'

'Oh, no …'

'This is your six ay-emm wake-up call! Good morning!! Here are your appointments for today, Insert Name Here!! Ten ay-emm …'

'Shut up! Listen, whatever's in my diary for today is definitely not—'

Vimes stopped. He lowered the box.

He went back to the desk. If you assumed one page per day …

Lord Vetinari had a very good memory. But everyone wrote things down, didn't they? You couldn't remember every little thing. Wednesday: 3pm, reign of terror; 3.15pm, clean out scorpion pit …

He held the organizer up to his lips. 'Take a memo,' he said.

'Hooray! Go right ahead. Don't forget to say 'memo' first!!'

'Speak to … blast … Memo: What about Vetinari's journal?'

'Is that it?'

'Yes.'

Someone knocked politely at the door. Vimes opened it carefully. 'Oh, it's you, Littlebottom.'

Vimes blinked. Something wasn't right about the dwarf.

‘I’ll mix up some of Mr Doughnut's jollop right away, sir.' The dwarf looked past Vimes to the bed. 'Ooo … he doesn't look good, does he …?'

'Get someone to move him into a different bedroom,' said Vimes. 'Get the servants to prepare a new room, right?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And, after they've done it, pick a different room at random and move him into it. And change everything, understand? Every stick of furniture, every vase, every rug —'

'Er… yes, sir.'

Vimes hesitated. Now he could put his finger on what had been bothering him for the last twenty seconds.

'Littlebottom.'

'Sir?'

'You … er … you … on your ears?'

'Earrings, sir,' said Cheery nervously. 'Constable Angua gave them to me.'

'Really? Er … right … I didn't think dwarfs wore jewellery, that's all.'

'We're known for rings, sir.'

'Yes, of course.' Rings, yes. No one quite like a dwarf for forging a magical ring. But… magical earrings? Oh, well. There were some waters too deep to wade.

Sergeant Detritus's approach to these matters was almost instinctively correct. He had the palace staff lined up in front of him and was shouting at them at the top of his voice.

Look at old Detritus, Vimes thought as he went down the stairs. Just your basic thick troll a few years ago, now a valuable member of the Watch provided you get him to repeat his orders back to you to make sure he understands you. His armour gleams even brighter than Carrot's because he doesn't get bored with polishing. And he's mastered policing as it is practised by the majority of forces in the universe, which is, basically, screaming angrily at people until they give in. The only reason that he's not a one-troll reign of terror is the ease with which his thought processes can be derailed by anyone who tries something fiendishly cunning, like an outright denial.

'I know you all done it!' he was shouting. 'If the person wot done it does not own up der whole staff, an' I means this, der whole staff will be locked up in der Tanty also we throws der key away!' He pointed a finger at a stout scullerymaid. 'It was you wot done it, own up!'

'No.'

Detritus paused. Then: 'Where was you last night? Own up!'