Feet of Clay

shrubbery.”
    “Possibly,” said Vimes. He’d set a bear-trap in the shrubbery.
    He took some more coal. “I suppose you wouldn’t tell me who hired you?”
    “I’m afraid not, sir. You know the rules.”
    Vimes nodded gravely. “We had Lady Selachii’s son up before the Patrician last week,” said Vimes. “Now, there’s a lad who needs to learn that ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘yes, please’.”
    “Could be, sir.”
    “And then there was that business with Lord Rust’s boy. You can’t shoot servants for putting your shoes the wrong way round, you know. It’s too messy. He’ll have to learn right from left like the rest of us. And right from wrong, too.”
    “I hear what you say, sir.”
    “We seem to have reached an impasse,” said Vimes.
    “It seems so, sir.”
    Vimes aimed a lump at a small bronze and green dragon, which caught it expertly. The heat was getting intense.
    “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why you fellows mainly try it here or at the office. I mean, I walk around a lot, don’t I? You could shoot me down in the street, couldn’t you?”
    “What? Like some common murderer, sir?”
    Vimes nodded. It was black and twisted, but the Assassins’ Guild had honor of a sort. “How much was I worth?”
    “Twenty thousand, sir.”
    “It should be higher,” said Vimes.
    “I agree.” If the assassin got back to the guild it would be, Vimes thought. Assassins valued their own lives quite highly.
    “Let me see now,” said Vimes, examining the end of his cigar. “Guild takes fifty per cent. That leaves ten thousand dollars.”
    The assassin seemed to consider this, and then reached up to his belt and tossed a bag rather clumsily towards Vimes, who caught it.
    Vimes picked up his crossbow. “It seems to me,” he said, “that if a man were to be let go he might well make it to the door with no more than superficial burns. If he were fast. How fast are you?”
    There was no answer.
    “Of course, he’d have to be desperate,” said Vimes, wedging the crossbow on the feed table and taking a piece of cord out of his pocket. He lashed the cord to a nail and fastened the other end to the crossbows string. Then, standing carefully to one side, he eased the trigger.
    The string moved slightly.
    The assassin, watching him upside-down seemed to have stopped breathing.
    Vimes puffed at his cigar until the end was an inferno. Then he took it out of his mouth and leaned it against the restraining cord so that it would have just a fraction of an inch to burn before the string began to smolder.
    “I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he said. “I’ve never been an unreasonable man. I shall watch your career with interest.”
    He tossed the rest of the coals to the dragons, and stepped outside.
    It looked like being another eventful day in Ankh-Morpork, and it had only just begun.
    As Vimes reached the house he heard a whoosh, a click, and the sound of someone running very fast towards the ornamental lake. He smiled.
    Willikins was waiting with his coat. “Remember you have an appointment with his Lordship at eleven, Sir Samuel.”
    “Yes, yes,” said Vimes.
    “And you are to go and see the Heralds at ten. Her ladyship was very explicit, sir. Her exact words were, ‘Tell him he’s not to try to wriggle out of it again’, sir.”
    “Oh, very well.”
    “And her ladyship said please to try not to upset anyone.”
    “Tell her I’ll try.”
    “And your sedan chair is outside, sir.”
    Vimes sighed. “Thank you. There’s a man in the ornamental lake. Fish him out and give him a cup of tea, will you? Promising lad, I thought.”
    “Certainly, sir.”
    The chair. Oh, yes, the chair. It had been a wedding present from the Patrician. Lord Vetinari knew that Vimes loved walking the streets of the city, and so it was very typical of the man that he presented him with something that did not allow him to do so.
    It was waiting outside. The two bearers straightened up expectantly.
    Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, rebelled again. Perhaps he did have to use the damn thing, but…
    He looked at the front man and motioned with a thumb to the chair’s door. “Get in,” he commanded.
    “But sir—”
    “It’s a nice morning,” said Vimes, taking off his coat again. “I’ll drive myself.”
“Dearest Mumm & Dad…”
    Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch was on his day off. He had a routine. First he had breakfast in some handy café. Then he wrote his