Feet of Clay

from?”
    “I don’t know!” groaned Nobby. “He says it comes up through his boots!” He looked around. The shadows in the smoke seemed to be closing in.
    “I can’t be king! Ole Vimes’d go spare!”
    “ Will you stop saying that! ”
    Nobby pulled at his collar.
    “’S a bit hot and smoky in here,” he mumbled. “Which way’s the window?”
    “Over there—”
    The chair rocked. Nobby hit the glass helmet-first, landed on top of a waiting carriage, bounced off and ran into the night, trying to escape destiny in general and axes in particular.

    Cheri Littlebottom strode into the palace kitchens and fired her crossbow into the ceiling.
    “Don’t nobody move!” she yelled.
    The Patrician’s domestic staff looked up from their dinner.
    “When you say don’t nobody move,” said Drumknott carefully, fastidiously taking a piece of plaster off his plate, “do you in fact mean—?”
    “All right, Corporal, I’ll take over now,” said Vimes, patting Cheri on the shoulder. “Is Mildred Easy here?”
    All heads turned.
    Mildred’s spoon dropped into her soup.
    “It’s all right,” said Vimes. “I just need to ask you a few more questions—”
    “I’m…s-s-sorry, sir—”
    “You haven’t done anything wrong,” said Vimes, walking around the table. “But you didn’t just take food home for your family, did you?”
    “S-sir?”
    “What else did you take?”
    Mildred looked at the suddenly blank expressions on the faces of the other servants. “There was the old sheets but Mrs. Dipplock did s-say I could have—”
    “No, not that,” said Vimes.
    Mildred licked her dry lips. “Er, there was…there was some boot polish…”
    “Look,” said Vimes, as kindly as possible, “ everyone takes small things from the place where they work. Small stuff that no one notices. No one thinks of it as stealing. It’s like…it’s like rights . Odds and ends. Ends, Miss Easy? I’m thinking about the word ‘ends’.”
    “Er…you mean…the candle ends, sir?”
    Vimes took a deep breath. It was such a relief to be right, even though you knew you’d only got there by trying every possible way to be wrong. “ Ah .” he said.
    “B-but that’s not stealing, sir. I’ve never stolen nothing, s-sir!”
    “But you take home the candle stubs? Still half an hour of light in ’em, I expect, if you burn them in a saucer?” said Vimes gently.
    “But that’s not stealing, sir! That’s perks , sir.”
    Sam Vimes smacked his forehead. “Perks! Of course! That was the word I was looking for. Perks! Everyone’s got to have perks, aren’t I right? Well, that’s fine, then,” he said. “I expect you get the ones from the bedrooms, yes?”
    Even through her nervousness, Mildred Easy was able to grin the grin of someone with an Entitlement that lesser beings hadn’t got. “Yessir. I’m allowed , sir. They’re much better than the ole coarse ones we use in the main halls, sir.”
    “And you put in fresh candles when necessary, do you?”
    “Yessir.”
    Probably slightly more often than necessary , Vimes thought. No point in letting them burn down too much…
    “Perhaps you can show me where they’re kept, miss?”
    The maid looked along the table to the housekeeper, who glanced at Commander Vimes and then nodded. She was bright enough to know when something that sounded like a question really wasn’t one.
    “We keep them in the candle pantry next door, sir,” said Mildred.
    “Lead the way, please.”
    It wasn’t a big room, but its shelves were stacked floor to ceiling with candles. There were the yard-high ones used in the public halls and the small everyday ones used everywhere else, sorted according to quality.
    “These are what we uses in his Lordship’s rooms, sir.” She handed him twelve inches of white candle.
    “Oh, yes… very good quality. Number Fives. Nice white tallow,” said Vimes, tossing it up and down. “We burn these at home. The stuff we use at the Yard is damn’ near pork dripping. We get ours from Carry’s in the Shambles now. Very reasonable prices. We used to deal with Spadger and Williams but Mr. Carry’s really cornered the market these days, hasn’t he?”
    “Yessir. And he delivers ’em special, sir.”
    “And you put these candles in his lordship’s room every day?”
    “Yessir.”
    “Anywhere else?”
    “Oh, no sir. His lordship’s particular about that! We just use Number Threes.”
    “And you take your, er, perks