Jingo

are many madmen. A regrettable incident.”
    “Yes, sir.” The man was looking harassed and Vimes felt there was room for a pinch of sympathy.
    “Fred and Nobby don’t like complications either, sir.”
    “We need simple answers, Vimes.”
    “Sir. Fred and Nobby are good at simple.”
    The Patrician turned away and looked out over the city.
    “Ah,” he said, in a quieter voice. “Simple men to see the simple truth.”
    “This is a fact, sir.”
    “You are learning fast, Vimes.”
    “Couldn’t say about that, sir.”
    “And when they have found the simple truth, Vimes?”
    “Can’t argue with the truth, sir.”
    “In my experience, Vimes, you can argue with anything.”

    When Vimes had gone Lord Vetinari sat at his desk for a while, staring at nothing. Then he took a key from a drawer and walked across to a wall, where he pressed a particular area.
    There was a rattle of a counterweight. The wall swung back.
    The Patrician walked softly through the narrow passageway beyond. Here and there it was illuminated by a very faint glow from around the edges of the little panels which, if gently slid back, would allow someone to look out through the eyesockets of a handy portrait.
    They were a relic of a previous ruler. Vetinari never bothered with them. Looking out of someone else’s eyes wasn’t the trick.
    There was a certain amount of travel up dark stairways and along musty corridors. Occasionally he’d make movements the meaning of which might not be readily apparent. He’d touch a wall here and here , apparently without thinking, as he passed. Along one stone-flagged passage, lit only by the gray light from a window forgotten by everyone except the most optimistic flies, he appeared to play a game of hopscotch, robes flying around him and calves twinkling as he skipped from stone to stone.
    These various activities did not seem to cause anything to happen. Eventually he reached a door, which he unlocked. He did this with some caution.
    The air beyond was full of acrid smoke, and the steady pop-pop sound which he had begun to hear further back along the passage was now quite loud. It faltered for a moment, was followed by a much louder bang, and then a piece of hot metal whirled past the Patrician’s ear and buried itself in the wall.
    In the smoke a voice said, “Oh dear.”
    It didn’t seem unhappy, but sounded rather like the voice one might use to a sweet and ingratiating little puppy which, despite one’s best efforts, is sitting next to a spreading damp patch on the carpet.
    As the billows cleared the indistinct shape of the speaker turned to Vetinari with a wan little smile and said, “Fully fifteen seconds this time, my lord! There is no doubt that the principle is sound.”
    That was one of Leonard of Quirm’s traits: he picked up conversations out of the air, he assumed everyone was an interested friend, and he took it for granted that you were as intelligent as he was.
    Vetinari peered at a small heap of bent and twisted metal.
    “What was it, Leonard?” he said.
    “An experimental device for turning chemical energy into rotary motion,” said Leonard. “The problem, you see, is getting the little pellets of black powder into the combustion chamber at exactly the right speed and one at a time. If two ignite together, well, what we have is the external combustion engine.”
    “And, er, what would be the purpose of it?” said the Patrician.
    “I believe it could replace the horse,” said Leonard proudly.
    They looked at the stricken thing.
    “One of the advantages of horses that people often point out,” said Vetinari, after some thought, “is that they very seldom explode. Almost never, in my experience, apart from that unfortunate occurrence in the hot summer a few years ago.” With fastidious fingers he pulled something out of the mess. It was a pair of cubes, made out of some soft white fur and linked together by a piece of string. There were dots on them.
    “Dice?” he said.
    Leonard smiled in an embarrassed fashion. “Yes. I can’t think why I thought they’d help it go better. It was just, well, an idea. You know how it is.”
    Lord Vetinari nodded. He knew how it was. He knew how it was far more than Leonard of Quirm did, which was why there was one key to the door and he had it. Not that the man was a prisoner, except by dull, humdrum standards. He appeared rather grateful to be confined in this light, airy attic with as much wood, paper, sticks of charcoal