Feet of Clay

gray.
    The old man had shut the door and left him alone. Vimes watched through the window as he limped back to continue what he had been doing before Vimes’s appearance.
    What he had been doing was setting up a living coat of arms.
    There was a large shield. Cabbages, actual cabbages, had been nailed to it. The old man said something that Vimes couldn’t hear. The little owl fluttered from its perch and landed on a large ankh that had been glued to the top of the shield. The two hippos flopped out of their pool and took up station on either side.
    The old man unfolded an easel in front of the scene, placed a canvas on it, picked up a palette and brush, and shouted, “Hup-la!”
    The hippos reared, rather arthritically. The owl spread its wings.
    “Good gods,” murmured Vimes. “I always thought they just made it up!”
    “Made it up, sir? Made it up?” said voice behind him. “We’d soon be in trouble if we made things up, oh dear me, yes.”
    Vimes turned. Another little old man had appeared behind him, blinking happily through thick glasses. He had several scrolls under one arm.
    “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the gate but we’re very busy at the moment,” he said, holding out his spare hand. “Croissant Rouge Pursuivant.”
    “Er…you’re a small red breakfast roll?” said Vimes, nonplussed.
    “No, no. No. It means Red Crescent. It’s my title, you see. Very ancient title. I’m a herald. You’d be Sir Samuel Vimes, yes?”
    “Yes.”
    Red Crescent consulted a scroll. “Good. Good. How do you feel about weasels?” he said.
    “Weasels?”
    “We have got some weasels, you see. I know they’re not strictly a heraldic animal, but we seem to have some on the strength and frankly I think I’m going to have to let them go unless we can persuade someone to adopt them, and that’d upset Pardessus Chatain Pursuivant. He always locks himself in his shed when he’s upset…”
    “Pardessus…you mean the old man out there?” said Vimes. “I mean…why’s he…I thought you…I mean, a coat of arms is just a design. You don’t have to paint it from life!”
    Red Crescent looked shocked. “Well, I suppose if you want to make a complete mockery of the whole thing, yes, you could just make it up . You could do that,” he said. “Anyway…not weasels, then?”
    “Personally I’d just as soon not bother,” said Vimes. “And certainly not with a weasel. My wife said that dragons would—”
    “Happily, the occasion will not arise,” said a voice in the shadows.
    It wasn’t the right sort of voice to hear in any kind of light. It was dust-dry. It sounded as if it came from a mouth that had never known the pleasures of spittle. It sounded dead.
    It was.

    The bakery thieves considered their options.
    “I’ve got my hand on my crossbow,” said the most enterprising of the three.
    The most realistic said, “Have you? Well, I’ve got my heart in my mouth.”
    “Ooo,” said the third. “I’ve got a weak heart, me…”
    “Yeah, but what I mean is…he’s not even wearing a sword. If I take the wolf, the two of you should be able to deal with him with no trouble, right?”
    The one clear thinker looked at Captain Carrot. His armor shone. So did the muscles on his bare arms. Even his knees gleamed.
    “It seems to me that we have a bit of an impasse, or stand-off,” said Captain Carrot.
    “How about if we throw down the money?” said the clear thinker.
    “That would certainly help matters.”
    “And you’d let us go?”
    “No. But it would definitely count in your favor and I would certainly speak up on your behalf.”
    The bold one with the crossbow licked his lips and glanced from Carrot to the wolf. “If you set it on us, I warn you, someone’s going to get killed!” he warned.
    “Yes, it could happen,” said Carrot, sadly. “I’d prefer to avoid that, if at all possible.”
    He raised his hands. There was something flat and round and about six inches across in each one. “This,” he said, “is dwarf bread. Some of Mr. Ironcrust’s best. It’s not classic battlebread, of course, but it’s probably good enough for slicing…”
    Carrot’s arm blurred. There was a brief flurry of sawdust, and the flat loaf spun to a stop half-way through the thick timbers of the cart and about half an inch away from the man with the weak heart and, as it turned out, a fragile bladder, too.
    The man with the crossbow tore his attention away from the bread only when he felt