Guards! Guards!

and the whole clan had sat around in respectful silence as his pen scrittered across the parchment. His aunt had been sent up to Varneshi’s to beg his pardon but could he see his way clear to sparing a smidgen of wax. His sister had been sent down to the village to ask Mistress Garlick the witch how you stopped spelling recommendation.
    Months had gone by.
    And then there’d been the reply. It was fairly grubby, since mail in the Ramtops was generally handed to whoever was going in more or less the right direction, and it was also fairly short. It said, baldly, that his application was accepted, and would he present himself for duty immediately.
    “Just like that?” he said. “I thought there’d be tests and things. To see if I was suitable.”
    “You’re my son,” said the king. “I told them that, see. Stands to reason you’ll be suitable. Probably officer material.”
    He’d pulled a sack from under his chair, rummaged around in it and presented Carrot with a length of metal, more a sword than a saw but only just.
    “This might rightly belong to you,” he said. “When we found the…carts, this was the only thing left. The bandits, you see. Just between you and me—” he beckoned Carrot closer—“we had a witch look at it. In case it was magic. But it isn’t. Quite the most unmagical sword she’d ever seen, she said. They normally have a bit, see, on account of it’s like magnetism, I suppose. Got quite a nice balance, though.”
    He handed it over.
    He rummaged around some more. “And then there’s this.” He held up a shirt. “It’ll protect you.”
    Carrot fingered it carefully. It was made from the wool of Ramtop sheep, which had all the warmth and softness of hog bristles. It was one of the legendary woolly dwarf vests, the kind of vest that needs hinges.
    “Protect me from what?” he said.
    “Colds, and so on,” said the king. “Your mother says you’ve got to wear it. And, er…that reminds me. Mr. Varneshi says he’d like you to drop in on the way down the mountain. He’s got something for you.”
    His father and mother had waved him out of sight. Minty didn’t. Funny, that. She seemed to have been avoiding him lately.
    He’d taken the sword, slung on his back, sandwiches and clean underwear in his pack, and the world, more or less, at his feet. In his pocket was the famous letter from the Patrician, the man who ruled the great fine city of Ankh-Morpork.
    At least, that’s how his mother had referred to it. It certainly had an important-looking crest at the top, but the signature was something like “Lupin Squiggle, Sec’y, pp.”
    Still, if it wasn’t actually signed by the Patrician then it had certainly been written by someone who worked for him. Or in the same building. Probably the Patrician had at least known about the letter. In general terms. Not this letter, perhaps, but probably he knew about the existence of letters in general.
    Carrot walked steadfastly down the mountain paths, disturbing clouds of bumblebees. After a while he unsheathed the sword and made experimental stabs at felonious tree stumps and unlawful assemblies of stinging nettles.
    Varneshi was sitting outside his hut, threading dried mushrooms on a string.
    “Hallo, Carrot,” he said, leading the way inside. “Looking forward to the city?”
    Carrot gave this due consideration.
    “No,” he said.
    “Having second thoughts, are you?”
    “No. I was just walking along,” said Carrot honestly. “I wasn’t thinking about anything much.”
    “Your dad give you the sword, did he?” said Varneshi, rummaging on a fetid shelf.
    “Yes. And a woolly vest to protect me against chills.”
    “Ah. Yes, it can be very damp down there, so I’ve heard. Protection. Very important.” He turned around and added, dramatically, “ This belonged to my great-grandfather.”
    It was a strange, vaguely hemispherical device surrounded by straps.
    “It’s some sort of sling?” said Carrot, after examining it in polite silence.
    Varneshi told him what it was.
    “Codpiece like in fish?” said Carrot, mystified.
    “No. It’s for the fighting,” mumbled Varneshi. “You should wear it all the time. Protects your vitals, like.”
    Carrot tried it on.
    “It’s a bit small, Mr. Varneshi.”
    “That’s because you don’t wear it on your head, you see.”
    Varneshi explained some more, to Carrot’s mounting bewilderment and, subsequently, horror. “My great-grandad used to say,” Varneshi