Guards! Guards!

really interested in finding out where that hoard is, wouldn’t you?” said Vimes experimentally.
    Nobby looked even more shifty than usual. “Well, Cap’n, I was thinking of having a bit of a look around. You know. When I’m off duty, of course,” he added virtuously.
    “Oh, dear,” said Captain Vimes.
    He lifted up the empty bottle and, with great care, put it back in the drawer.

    The Elucidated Brethren were nervous. A kind of fear crackled from brother to brother. It was the fear of someone who, having cheerfully experimented with pouring the powder and wadding the ball, has found that pulling the trigger had led to a godawful bang and pretty soon someone is bound to come and see who’s making all the noise.
    The Supreme Grand Master knew that he had them, though. Sheep and lamb, sheep and lamb. Since they couldn’t do anything much worse than they had already done they might as well press on and damn the world, and pretend they’d wanted it like this all along. Oh, the joy of it…
    Only Brother Plasterer was actually happy.
    “Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers,” he kept saying.
    “Yes, er,” said Brother Doorkeeper. “Only, the thing is, there’s no chance of us sort of accidentally summoning the dragon here , is there?”
    “I—that is, we —have it under perfect control,” said the Supreme Grand Master smoothly. “The power is ours. I can assure you.”
    The Brothers cheered up a little bit.
    “And now,” the Supreme Grand Master continued, “there is the matter of the king.”
    The Brothers looked solemn, except for Brother Plasterer.
    “Have we found him, then?” he said. “That’s a stroke of luck.”
    “You never listen, do you?” snapped Brother Watchtower. “It was all explained last week, we don’t go around finding anyone, we make a king.”
    “I thought he was supposed to turn up. ’Cos of destiny.”
    Brother Watchtower sniggered. “We sort of help Destiny along a bit.”
    The Supreme Grand Master smiled in the depths of his robe. It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they’ll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing.
    “Bloody hell, that’s clever,” said Brother Doorkeeper. “How do we do that, then?”
    “Look, the Supreme Grand Master said what we do, we find some handsome lad who’s good at taking orders, he kills the dragon, and Bob’s your uncle. Simple. Much more intelligent than waitin’ for a so-called real king.”
    “But—” Brother Plasterer seemed deep in the toils of cerebration, “if we control the dragon, and we do control the dragon, right? Then we don’t need anyone killing it, we just stop summoning it, and everyone’ll be happy, right?”
    “Ho yes,” said Brother Watchtower nastily, “I can just see it, can you? We just trot out, say ‘Hallo, we won’t set fire to your houses anymore, aren’t we nice,’ do we? The whole point about the thing with the king is that he’ll be a, a sort of—”
    “Undeniably potent and romantic symbol of absolute authority,” said the Supreme Grand Master smoothly.
    “That’s it,” said Brother Watchtower. “A potent authority.”
    “Oh, I see ,” said Brother Plasterer. “Right. Okay. That’s what the king’ll be.”
    “That’s it,” said Brother Watchtower.
    “No one going to argue with a potent authority, are they?”
    “Too right,” said Brother Watchtower.
    “Stroke of luck, then, finding the true king right now,” said Brother Plasterer. “Million to one chance, really.”
    “We haven’t found the right king. We don’t need the right king,” said the Supreme Grand Master wearily. “For the last time! I’ve just found us a likely lad who looks good in a crown and can take orders and knows how to flourish a sword. Now just listen …”
    Flourishing, of course, was important. It didn’t have much to do with wielding. Wielding a sword, the Supreme Grand Master considered, was simply the messy business of dynastic surgery. It was just a matter of thrust and cut. Whereas a king had to flourish one. It had to catch the light in just the right way, leaving watchers in no doubt that here was Destiny’s chosen. He’d taken a long time preparing the sword and shield. It had