Feet of Clay

him. Colon watched with interest as figures danced back and forth. He tried to focus on the one at the bottom, but it was too big to take in.
    “What’s this, then?”
    “His imperial lordship’s bar bill,” said the barman.
    “Don’t be daft, no one can drink that much…I’m not payin’!”
    “I’m including breakages, mind you.”
    “Yeah? Like what?”
    The barman pulled a heavy hickory stick from its hiding place under the bar. “Arms? Legs? Suit yourself,” he said.
    “Oh, come on , Ron, you’ve known me for years!”
    “Yes, Fred, you’ve always been a good customer, so what I’ll do is, I’ll let you shut your eyes first.”
    “But that’s all the money I’ve got!”
    The barman grinned. “Lucky one for you, eh?”

    Cheery Littlebottom leaned against the corridor wall outside her privy and wheezed.
    It was something alchemists learned to do early in their career. As her tutors had said, there were two signs of a good alchemist: the Athletic and the Intellectual. A good alchemist of the first sort was someone who could leap over the bench and be on the far side of a safely thick wall in three seconds, and a good alchemist of the second sort was someone who knew exactly when to do this.
    The equipment didn’t help. She scrounged what she could from the guild, but a real alchemical laboratory should be full of the kind of glassware that looked as if it were produced during the Guild of Glassblowers All-Comers Hiccuping Contest. A proper alchemist did not have to run tests using as her beaker a mug with a picture of a teddy-bear on it, which Corporal Nobbs was probably going to be very upset about when he found it missing.
    When she judged that the fumes had cleared she ventured back into her tiny room.
    That was another thing. Her books on alchemy were marvelous objects, every page a work of the engraver’s art, but they nowhere contained instructions like “Be sure to open a window.” They did have instructions like “Adde Aqua Quirmis to the Zinc untile Rising Gas Yse Vigorously Evolved,” but never added “Don’t Doe Thys Atte Home” or even “And Say Fare-Thee-Welle to Thy Eyebrows.”
    Anyway…
    The glassware remained innocent of the brown-black sheen that, according to The Compound of Alchemie , would indicate arsenic in the sample. She’d tried every type of food and drink she could find in the palace pantries, and pressed into service every bottle and jar she could discover in the Watch House.
    She tried one more time with what said on the packet it was Sample #2. Looked like a smear of cheese. Cheese? The various fumes thronging around her head were making her slow. She must have taken some cheese samples. She was pretty sure Sample #17 had been some Lancre Blue Vein, which had reacted vigorously with the acid, blown a small hole in the ceiling and covered half the work-bench with a dark green substance that was setting like tar.
    She tested this one anyway.
    A few minutes later she was scrabbling furiously through her notebook. The first sample she’d taken from the pantry (one portion of duck pâté) was down here as Sample #3. What about #1 and #2? No, #1 had been the white clay from Misbegot Bridge, so what had been #2?
    She found it.
    But that couldn’t be right!
    She looked up at the glass tube. Metallic arsenic grinned back at her.
    She’d retained a bit of the sample. She could test again, but…perhaps it would be better to tell someone…
    She hurried along to the main office, where a troll was on duty. “Where’s Commander Vimes?”
    The troll grinned. “In der Gleam…Littlebottom.”
    “Thank you .”
    The troll turned back to address a worried-looking monk in a brown cassock. “And?” he said.
    “Best if he tells it himself,” said the monk. “I only work on the next bench.” He put a small jar of dust on the desk. It had a bow tie around it.
    “I want to complain most emphatically ,” said the dust, in a shrill little voice. “I was working there only five minutes and then splash . It’s going to take days to get back into shape!”
    “Working where?” said the troll
    “Nonesuch Ecclesiastical Supplies,” said the worried monk, helpfully.
    “Holy water section,” said the vampire.

    “You’ve found arsenic?” said Vimes.
    “Yes, sir. Lots. The sample’s full of it. But…”
    “Well?”
    Cheery looked at her feet. “I tried my process again with a test sample, sir, and I’m sure I’m doing it right…”
    “Good. What