Feet of Clay

very particular about that sort of thing!'

'Did yez know yez on a trapdoor?' said Arthur. 'Wait right there.'

Arthur rowed out of sight. Colon rolled over. After a while there was a scratching noise in the walls and then someone kicked him in the ear.

'Ow!'

'Would there be any money in this?' said Wee Mad Arthur, holding up his stub of candle. It was a small one, such as might be put on a child's birthday cake.

'What about your public duty?'

'Aye, so there's no money in this?'

'Lots! I promise! Now untie me!'

'This is string they've used,' said Arthur, somewhere around Colon's hands. 'Not proper rope at all.'

Colon felt his hands free, although there was still pressure around his wrists.

'Where's the trapdoor?' he said.

'Yer on it. Handy for dumping stuff. Dunt look as if it been used for years, from underneath. Hey, I been rinding dead rats everywhere down there now! Fat as yer head and twice as dead! I thought the ones I caught for Gimlet were a wee bit sluggish!'

There was a twang and Colon's legs were free. He sat up cautiously and tried to massage some life back into them.

'Is there any other way out?' he said.

'Plenty for me, none for a silly bigger like yez,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Yer'll have to swim for it.'

'You want me to drop into that?'

'Don't yez worry, yez can't drown in it.'

'You sure?'

'Yeah. But yez may suffocate. Yer know that creek they talk about? The one yez can be up without no paddle?'

'That's not this one, is it?' said Colon.

'It's coz of the cattle pens,' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Cattle penned up is always a bit nervous.'

'I know how they feel.'

There was a creak outside the door. Colon managed to get to his feet.

The door opened.

A figure filled the doorway. It was in silhouette because of the light behind it, but Colon looked up into two triangular glowing eyes.

Colon's body, which in many respects was considerably more intelligent than the mind it had to carry around, took over. It made use of the adrenalin-fed start the brain had given it and leapt several feet in the air, pointing its toes as it came down so that the iron tips of Colon's boots hit the trapdoor together.

The filth of years and the rust of iron gave way.

Colon went through. Fortunately his body had the foresight to hold its own nose as he hit the much-maligned stream, which went: Gloop.

Many people, when they're precipitated into water, struggle to breathe. Sergeant Colon struggled not to. The alternative was too horrible to think about.

He rose again, buoyed up in part by various gases released from the ooze. A few feet away, the candle on Wee Mad Arthur's rocking raft started to burn with a blue flame.

Someone landed on his helmet and kicked it like a man spurs on a horse.

'Right turn! Forward!'

Half-walking, half-swimming, Colon struggled down the fetid drain. Terror lent him strength. It would demand repayment with interest later but, for now, he left a wake. Which took several seconds to close up after him.

He didn't stop until a sudden lack of pressure overhead told him that he was in the open air. He grabbed in the darkness, found the greasy pilings of a jetty, and clung to them, wheezing.

'What was that thing?' said Wee Mad Arthur.

'Golem,' Colon panted.

He managed to get a hand on to the planks of the jetty, tried to pull himself up, and sagged back into the water.

'Hey, did I just hear something?' said Wee Mad Arthur.

Sergeant Colon rose like an undersea-launched missile and landed on the jetty, where he folded up.

'Nah, just a bird or something,' said Wee Mad Arthur.

'What do your friends call you, Wee Mad Arthur?' muttered Colon.

'Dunno. Ain't got none.'

'Gosh, that's surprising.'

Lord de Nobbes had a lot of friends now. 'Up the hatch! Here's looking at your bottom!' he said.

There were shrieks of laughter.

Nobby grinned happily in the middle of the crowd. He couldn't remember when he had enjoyed himself so much with all his clothes on.

In the far corner of Lady Selachii's drawing-room a door closed discreetly and, in the comfortable smoking- room beyond, anonymous people sat down in leather armchairs and looked at one another expectantly.

Finally one said, 'It's astonishing. Frankly astonishing. The man has actually got charisma.'

'Your meaning?'

'I mean he's so dreadful he fascinates people. Like those stories he was telling … Did you notice how people kept encouraging him because they couldn't actually believe anyone would tell jokes like that in mixed company?'

'Actually, I rather liked the one about the very small man playing the piano—'

'And his table manners! Did you notice them?'

'No.'

'Ex-actly!'

'And the smell, don't forget the smell.'

'Not so much bad as … odd.'

'Actually, I found that after a few minutes the nose shuts down and then it's—'

'My point is that, in some strange way, he attracts people.'

'Like a public hanging.'

There was a period of reflective silence.

'Good humoured little tit, though, in his way.'

'Not too bright, though.'

'Give him his pint of beer and a plate of whatever those things with toenails were and he seems as happy as a pig in muck.'

'I think that's somewhat insulting.'

'I'm sorry.'

'I've known some splendid pigs.'

'Indeed.'

'But I can certainly see him drinking his beer and eating feet while he signs the royal proclamations.'

'Yes, indeed. Er. Do you think he can read?'

'Does it matter?'

There was some more silence, filled with the busy racing of minds.

Then someone said, 'Another thing … we won't have to worry about establishing a royal succession that might be inconvenient.'

'Why do you think that?'

'Can you see any princess marrying him?'

'We-ell … they have been known to kiss frogs …'

'Frogs, I grant you.'