Guards! Guards!

orangutan flopped down off the wall, grabbed a couple of bars, and pulled. Muscles shunted back and forward across its barrel chest in a complex pavane of effort. The mouthful of yellow teeth gaped in silent concentration.
    There were a couple of dull “things” as the bars gave up and broke free. The ape flung them aside and reached into the gaping hole. Then the longest arm of the Law grabbed the astonished Vimes under his shoulders and pulled him through in one movement.

    The rank surveyed their handiwork.
    “Right,” said Nobby. “Now, what are the chances of a man standing on one leg with his hat on backward and a handkerchief in his mouth hitting a dragon’s voonerables?”
    “Mmph,” said Colon.
    “It’s pretty long odds,” said Carrot. “I reckon the hanky is a bit over the top, though.”
    Colon spat it out. “Make up your minds,” he said. “Me leg’s going to sleep.”

    Vimes picked himself up off the greasy cobbles and stared at the Librarian. He was experiencing something which had come as a shock to many people, usually in much more unpleasant circumstances such as a brawl started in the Mended Drum when the ape wanted a bit of peace and quiet to enjoy a reflective pint, which was this: the Librarian might look like a stuffed rubber sack, but what it was stuffed with was muscle.
    “That was amazing,” was all he could find to say. He looked down at the twisted bars, and felt his mind darken. He grabbed the bent metal. “You don’t happen to know where Wonse is, do you?” he added.
    “Eeek!” The Librarian thrust a tattered piece of parchment under his nose. “Eeek!”
    Vimes read the words.
    It hathe pleased…whereas…at the stroke of noone…a maiden pure, yet high born…compact between ruler and rulèd…
    “In my city!” he growled. “In my bloody city!”
    He grabbed the Librarian by two handfuls of chest hair and pulled him up to eye height.
    “What time is it?” he shouted.
    “Oook!”
    A long red-haired arm unfolded itself upward. Vimes’s gaze followed the pointing finger. The sun definitely had the look of a heavenly body that was nearly at the crest of its orbit and looking forward to a long, lazy coasting toward the blankets of dusk…
    “I’m not bloody well going to have it, understand?” Vimes shouted, shaking the ape back and forth.
    “Oook,” the Librarian pointed out, patiently.
    “What? Oh. Sorry.” Vimes lowered the ape, who wisely didn’t make an issue of it because a man angry enough to lift 300lbs of orangutan without noticing is a man with too much on his mind.
    Now he was staring around the courtyard.
    “Any way out of here?” he said. “Without climbing the walls I mean.”
    He didn’t wait for an answer but loped around the walls until he reached a narrow, grubby door, and kicked it open. It hadn’t been locked anyway, but he kicked it just the same. The Librarian trailed along behind, swinging on his knuckles.
    The kitchen on the other side of the door was almost deserted, the staff having finally lost their nerve and decided that all prudent chefs refrained from working in an establishment where there was a mouth bigger than they were. A couple of palace guards were eating a cold lunch.
    “Now,” said Vimes, as they half-rose, “I don’t want to have to—”
    They didn’t seem to want to listen. One of them reached for a crossbow.
    “Oh, the hell with it.” Vimes grabbed a butcher’s knife from a block beside it and threw it.
    There is an art in throwing knives and, even then, you need the right kind of knife. Otherwise it does just what this one did, which is miss completely.
    The guard with the bow leaned sideways, righted himself, and found that a purple fingernail was gently blocking the firing mechanism. He looked around. The Librarian hit him right on top of his helmet.
    The other guard shrank back, waving his hands frantically.
    “Nonono!” he said. “It’s a misunderstanding! What was it you said you didn’t want to have to do? Nice monkey!”
    “Oh, dear,” said Vimes. “ Wrong !”
    He ignored the terrified screaming and rummaged through the debris of the kitchen until he came up with a cleaver. He’d never felt really at home with swords, but a cleaver was a different matter. A cleaver had weight. It had purpose. A sword might have a certain nobility about it, unless it was the one belonging for example to Nobby, which relied on rust to hold it together, but what a cleaver had was a tremendous