spectacles.'
'What, free?' said Throat.
'We-ell, I think maybe you have to pay for the frames,' said the monarchist.
'You're all bloody mad!' shouted Vimes. 'You don't know anything about him and he hasn't even won yet!'
'Bit of a formality, I expect,' said the woman.
'It's a fire-breathing dragon!' screamed Vimes, remembering those nostrils. 'And he's just a guy on a horse, for heaven's sake!'
Throat prodded him gently in the breastplate. 'You got no soul, Cap'n,' he said. 'When a stranger comes into the city under the thrall of the dragon and challenges it with a glittery sword, weeell, there's only one outcome, ain't there? It's probably destiny.'
'Thrall?' shouted Vimes. 'Thrall? You thieving bugger, Throat, you were flogging cuddly dragon dolls yesterday!'
'That's was just business, Cap'n. No need to get excited about it,' said Throat pleasantly.
Vimes went back to the rank in a gloomy rage. Say what you liked about the people of Ankh-Morpork, they had always been staunchly independent, yielding to no man their right to rob, defraud, embezzle and murder on an equal basis. This seemed absolutely right, to Vimes's way of thinking. There was no difference at all between the richest man and the poorest beggar, apart from the fact that the former had lots of money, food, power, fine clothes, and good health. But at least he wasn't any better. Just richer, fatter, more powerful, better dressed and healthier. It had been like that for hundreds of years.
'And now they get one sniff of an ermine robe and they go all gooey,' he muttered.
The dragon was circling the plaza slowly and warily. Vimes craned to see over the heads in front of him.
In the same way that various predators have the silhouette of their prey almost programmed into their genes, it was possible that the shape of someone on a horse holding a sword clicked a few tumblers in a dragon's brain. It was showing keen but wary interest.
Back in the crowd, Vimes shrugged. 'I didn't even know we were a kingdom.'
'Well, we haven't been for ages,' said Lady Ramkin. 'The kings got thrown out, and jolly good job too. They could be quite frightful.'
'But you're, well, from a pos — from a high-born family,' he said. 'I should have thought you'd be all for kings.'
'Some of them were fearful ilks, you know,' she said airily. 'Wives all over the place, and chopping people's heads off, fighting pointless wars, eating with their knife, chucking half-eaten chicken legs over
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