Guards! Guards!

And, as the Patrician privately observed, ten times that number of actual people. The fresh rain glistened on the panorama of towers and rooftops, all unaware of the teeming, rancorous world it was dropping into. Luckier rain fell on upland sheep, or whispered gently over forests, or pattered somewhat incestuously into the sea. Rain that fell on Ankh-Morpork though, was rain that was in trouble. They did terrible things to water, in Ankh-Morpork. Being drunk was only the start of its problems.
    The Patrician liked to feel that he was looking out over a city that worked. Not a beautiful city, or a renowned city, or a well-drained city, and certainly not an architecturally favored city; even its most enthusiastic citizens would agree that, from a high point of vantage, Ankh-Morpork looked as though someone had tried to achieve in stone and wood an effect normally associated with the pavements outside all-night takeaways.
    But it worked. It spun along cheerfully like a gyroscope on the lip of a catastrophe curve. And this, the Patrician firmly believed, was because no one group was ever powerful enough to push it over. Merchants, thieves, assassins, wizards—all competed energetically in the race without really realizing that it needn’t be a race at all, and certainly not trusting one another enough to stop and wonder who had marked out the course and was holding the starting flag.
    The Patrician disliked the word “dictator.” It affronted him. He never told anyone what to do. He didn’t have to, that was the wonderful part. A large part of his life consisted of arranging matters so that this state of affairs continued.
    Of course, there were various groups seeking his overthrow, and this was right and proper and the sign of a vigorous and healthy society. No one could call him unreasonable about the matter. Why, hadn’t he founded most of them himself? And what was so beautiful was the way in which they spent nearly all their time bickering with one another.
    Human nature, the Patrician always said, was a marvelous thing. Once you understood where its levers were.
    He had an unpleasant premonition about this dragon business. If ever there was a creature that didn’t have any obvious levers, it was a dragon. It would have to be sorted out.
    The Patrician didn’t believe in unnecessary cruelty. 1 He did not believe in pointless revenge. But he was a great believer in the need for things to be sorted out.

    Funnily enough, Captain Vimes was thinking the same thing. He found he didn’t like the idea of citizens, even of the Shades, being turned into a mere ceramic tint.
    And it had been done in front of the Watch, more or less. As if the Watch didn’t matter, as if the Watch was just an irrelevant detail. That was what rankled.
    Of course, it was true. That only made it worse.
    What was making him even angrier was that he had disobeyed orders. He had scuffed up the tracks, certainly. But in the bottom drawer of his ancient desk, hidden under a pile of empty bottles, was a plaster cast. He could feel it staring at him through three layers of wood.
    He couldn’t imagine what had got into him. And now he was going even further out onto the limb.
    He reviewed his, for want of a better word, troops. He’d asked the senior pair to turn up in plain clothes. This meant that Sergeant Colon, who’d worn uniform all his life, was looking red-faced and uncomfortable in the suit he wore for funerals. Whereas Nobby—
    “I wonder if I made the word ‘plain’ clear enough?” said Captain Vimes.
    “It’s what I wear outside work, guv,” said Nobby reproachfully.
    “Sir,” corrected Sergeant Colon.
    “My voice is in plain clothes too,” said Nobby. “Initiative, that is.”
    Vimes walked slowly around the corporal.
    “And your plain clothes do not cause old women to faint and small boys to run after you in the street?” he said.
    Nobby shifted uneasily. He wasn’t at home with irony.
    “No, sir, guv,” he said. “It’s all the go, this style.”
    This was broadly true. There was a current fad in Ankh for big, feathered hats, ruffs, slashed doublets with gold frogging, flared pantaloons and boots with ornamental spurs. The trouble was, Vimes reflected, that most of the fashion-conscious had more body to go between these component bits, whereas all that could be said of Corporal Nobbs was that he was in there somewhere.
    It might be advantageous. After all, absolutely no one would ever believe, when they saw