Guards! Guards!

been very expensive. The shield shone like a dollar in a sweep’s earhole but the sword, the sword was magnificent…
    It was long and shiny. It looked like something some genius of metalwork—one of those little Zen guys who works only by the light of dawn and can beat a club sandwich of folded steels into something with the cutting edge of a scalpel and the stopping-power of a sex-crazed rhinoceros on bad acid—had made and then retired in tears because he’d never, ever, do anything so good again. There were so many jewels on the hilt it had to be sheathed in velvet, you had to look at it through smoked glass. Just laying a hand on it practically conferred kingship.
    As for the lad…he was a distant cousin, keen and vain, and stupid in a passably aristocratic way. Currently he was under guard in a distant farmhouse, with an adequate supply of drink and several young ladies, although what the boy seemed most interested in was mirrors. Probably hero material, the Supreme Grand Master thought glumly.
    “I suppose,” said Brother Watchtower, “that he isn’t the real air to the throne?”
    “What do you mean?” said the Supreme Grand Master.
    “Well, you know how it is. Fate plays funny tricks. Haha. It’d be a laugh, wouldn’t it,” said Brother Watchtower, “if this lad turned out to be the real king. After all this trouble—”
    “There is no real king anymore!” snapped the Supreme Grand Master. “What do you expect? Some people wandering in the wilderness for hundreds and hundreds of years, patiently handing down a sword and a birthmark? Some sort of magic ?” He spat the word. He’d make use of magic, means to an end, end justifies means and so forth, but to go around believing it, believing it had some sort of moral force, like logic, made him wince. “Good grief, man, be logical! Be rational. Even if any of the old royal family survived, the blood line’d be so watered down by now that there must be thousands of people who lay claim to the throne. Even—” he tried to think of the least likely claimant—“even someone like Brother Dunnykin.” He stared at the assembled Brethren. “Don’t see him here tonight, by the way.”
    “Funny thing, that,” said Brother Watchtower thoughtfully. “Didn’t you hear?”
    “What?”
    “He got bitten by a crocodile on his way home last night. Poor little bugger.”
    “What?”
    “Million to one chance. It’d escaped from a menagerie, or something, and was lying low in his back yard. He went to feel under his doormat for his doorkey and it had him by the funes.” 1 Brother Watchtower fumbled under his robe and produced a grubby brown envelope. “We’re having a whip-around to buy him some grapes and that, I don’t know whether you’d like to, er…”
    “Put me down for three dollars,” said the Supreme Grand Master.
    Brother Watchtower nodded. “Funny thing,” he said, “I already have.”
    Just a few more nights, thought the Supreme Grand Master. By tomorrow the people’ll be so desperate, they’d crown even a one-legged troll if he got rid of the dragon. And we’ll have a king, and he’ll have an advisor, a trusted man, of course, and this stupid rabble can go back to the gutter. No more dressing up, no more ritual.
    No more summoning the dragon.
    I can give it up, he thought. I can give it up any time I like.

    The streets outside the Patrician’s palace were thronged. There was a manic air of carnival. Vimes ran a practiced eye over the assortment before him. It was the usual Ankh-Morpork mob in times of crisis; half of them were here to complain, a quarter of them were here to watch the other half, and the remainder were here to rob, importune or sell hot-dogs to the rest. There were a few new faces, though. There were a number of grim men with big swords slung over their shoulders and whips slung on their belts, striding through the crowds.
    “News spreads quick, don’t it,” observed a familiar voice by his ear. “Morning, Captain.”
    Vimes looked into the grinning, cadaverous face of Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler, purveyor of absolutely anything that could be sold hurriedly from an open suitcase in a busy street and was guaranteed to have fallen off the back of an oxcart.
    “Morning, Throat,” said Vimes absently. “What’re you selling?”
    “Genuine article, Captain.” Throat leaned closer. He was the sort of person who could make “Good morning” sound like a once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated