"Yes. Four pages, usually. And that tells you everything about her you need to know. Where is is your father?" your father?"

A flap in the bottom of a nearby door swung back and a large, heavyset wolf trotted in. It glanced around the room, and then shook itself vigorously. The baroness bridled.

"Guye! You know know what I said! It's after six! what I said! It's after six! Change Change when you come in from the garden!" when you come in from the garden!"

The wolf gave her a look, and strolled behind a ma.s.sive oak screen at the far end of the room. There was a...noise, soft and rather strange, not so much an actual sound sound as a change in the texture of the air. as a change in the texture of the air.

The baron walked around from behind the screen, doing up the cord of a tattered dressing gown. The baroness sniffed.

"At least your father wears clothes," she said.

"Clothes are unhealthy, mother," said Wolf, calmly. "Nakedness is purity."

The baron sat down. He was a large, red-faced man, insofar as a face could be seen under the beard, hair, mustache and eyebrows which were engaged in a bitter four-way war over the remaining areas of bare skin.

"Well?" he growled.

"Vimes the thief-taker from Ankh-Morpork is going to be the alleged alleged amba.s.sador," snapped the baroness. amba.s.sador," snapped the baroness.

"Dwarfs?"

"Of course they'll be told."

The baron sat staring at nothing, with the same expression Detritus used when a new thought was being a.s.sembled.

"Bad?" he ventured, at last.

"Ruston, I've told told you about this a thousand times!" said the baroness. "You're spending far too much time Changed! You you about this a thousand times!" said the baroness. "You're spending far too much time Changed! You know know what you're like afterward. Supposing we had official visitors?" what you're like afterward. Supposing we had official visitors?"

"Bite 'em!"

"You see? Go on off to bed and don't come down until you're fit to be human!"

"Vimes could could ruin everything, Father," said Wolfgang. He was now doing handstands, using one hand. ruin everything, Father," said Wolfgang. He was now doing handstands, using one hand.

"Ruston! Down! Down!"

The baron stopped trying to scratch his ear with his leg.

"Do?" he said.

Wolfgang's gleaming body dipped a moment as he changed hands again.

"City life makes men weak. Vimes will be...fun. They do say he likes running, though." He gave a little laugh. "We shall have to see how fast he is."

"His wife says he's very softhearted-Ruston! Don't you dare do that! If you going to do that sort of thing, do it upstairs!"

The baron looked only moderately ashamed, but readjusted his clothing anyway.

"Bandits!" he said.

"Yes, they could be a problem at this time of year," said Wolfgang.

"At least a dozen," said the baroness. "Yes, that should-"

Wolf grunted, upside down.

"No, mother. You are being stupid. His coach must get here safely. You understand? When When he is here...that is a different matter." he is here...that is a different matter."

The baron's ma.s.sive eyebrows tangled with a thought.

"Plan! King!"

"Exactly."

The baroness sighed. "I don't trust that little dwarf."

Wolf somersaulted onto his feet.

"No. But trustworthy or not, he's all we've got. Vimes must get here, with his soft heart. He may even be useful. Perhaps we should...a.s.sist matters."

"Why?" snapped the baroness. "Let Ankh-Morpork look after their own!"

There was a knock on the door while Vimes was having breakfast. Willikins ushered in a small thin man in neat but threadbare black clothes, whose overlarge head gave him the appearance of a lollypop nearing the last suck. He was carrying a black bowler hat like a soldier carries his helmet and walked like a man who had something wrong with his knees.

"I am so sorry to disturb Your Grace..."

Vimes laid down his knife. He'd been peeling an orange. Sybil insisted he eat fruit.

"Not Your Grace," he said. "Just Vimes. Sir Samuel if you must. Are you Vetinari's man?"

"Inigo Skimmer, sir. Mhm, mhm. I am to travel with you to Uberwald."

"Ah, you're the clerk who's going to do all the whispering and winking while I hand around the cuc.u.mber sandwiches, are you?"

"I will try to be of service, sir, although I'm not much of a winker. Mhm, mhm."

"Would you like some breakfast?"

"I ate already, sir. Mhm-mhm."

Vimes looked the clerk up and down. It wasn't so much that his head was big, it was simply that someone appeared to have squeezed the bottom half of it and forced everything up into the top. He was going bald, too, and had carefully teased the remaining strands of hair across the pink dome. It was hard to tell his age. He could be twenty-five and a big worrier, or a fresh-faced forty. Vimes inclined to the former-the man had the look of someone who had spent his life watching the world over the top of a book. And there was that...well, was it a nervous laugh? A giggle? An unfortunate way of clearing his throat?

And that strange way he walked...

"Not even some toast? A piece of fruit? These oranges are fresh from Klatch, I really can recommend them..."

Vimes tossed one at the man. It bounced off his arm, and Skimmer took a step backward, mildly appalled at the upper cla.s.s's habit of fruit hurling.

"Are you all right, sir? Mhm-mhm?"

"Sorry about that," said Vimes. "I was carried away by fruit."

He laid aside his napkin and came around the table, putting his arm around Skimmer's shoulders.

"I'll just take you into the Mildly Yellow drawing room where you can wait," he said, walking him toward the door and patting him on the arm in a friendly way. "The coaches are loaded up. Sybil is re-grouting the bathroom, learning Ancient Klatchian and doing all those other little last minute things women always do. You're with us in the big coach."

Skimmer recoiled. "Oh, I couldn't do that, sir! I'll travel with your retinue. Mhm-mhm. Mhm-mhm."

"If you mean Cheery and Detritus, they're in there with us," said Vimes, noting the look of horror deepen slightly. "You need four for a decent game of cards and the road's as boring as h.e.l.l for most of the way."

"And, er, your servants?"

"Willikins and the cook and Sybil's maid are in the other coach."

"Oh."

Vimes smiled inwardly. He remembered the saying from his childhood: too poor to paint, but too proud to whitewash...

"Bit of a tough choice, is it?" he said. "I'll tell you what, you can come in our coach but we'll give you a hard seat and patronize you from time to time, how about that?"

"I am afraid you are making a mockery of me, Sir Samuel. Mhm-mhm."

"No, but I may be a.s.sisting. And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to nip down to the Yard to sort out a few last minute things."

A quarter of an hour later Vimes walked into the charge room at the Yard. Sergeant Stronginthearm looked up, saluted, and then ducked to avoid the orange that was tossed at his head.

"Sir?" he said, bewildered.

"Just testing, Stronginthearm."

"Did I pa.s.s, sir?"

"Oh yes. Keep the orange. It's full of vitamins."

"My mother always told me those things could kill you, sir."

Carrot was waiting patiently in Vimes's office. Vimes shook his head. He knew all all the places to tread in the corridor and he the places to tread in the corridor and he knew knew he didn't make a sound, and he'd never once caught Carrot reading his paperwork, not even upside down. Just once it'd be nice to catch him out at something. If the man was any straighter you could use him as a plank. he didn't make a sound, and he'd never once caught Carrot reading his paperwork, not even upside down. Just once it'd be nice to catch him out at something. If the man was any straighter you could use him as a plank.

Carrot stood up and saluted.

"Yes, yes, we haven't got a lot of time for that now," said Vimes, sitting behind his desk. "Anything new overnight?"

"An unattributed murder, sir. A tradesman called Wallace Sonky. Found in one of his own vats with his throat cut. No guild seal or note or anything. We are treating it as suspicious."

"Yes, I think that sounds fairly fairly suspicious," said Vimes. "Unless he has a record as a very careless shaver. What kind of vat?" suspicious," said Vimes. "Unless he has a record as a very careless shaver. What kind of vat?"

"Er...rubber, sir."

"Rubber comes in vats? Wouldn't he bounce out?"

"No, sir. It's a liquid in the vat, sir. Mister Sonky makes...rubber things..."

"Hang on, I remember seeing something once...Don't they make things by dipping them in the rubber? You made sort of...the right shapes and dip them in to get gloves, boots...that sort of thing?"

"Er...that...er...sort of thing, sir." of thing, sir."

Something about Carrot's uneasy manner got through to Vimes. And the little file at the back of his brain eventually waved a card.

"Sonky, Sonky...Carrot, we're not talking about Sonky as in 'a packet of Sonkies,' are we?"

Now Carrot was bright red with embarra.s.sment. "Yes, sir!"

"My G.o.ds, what was he dipping in the vat?"

"He'd been thrown in, sir. Apparently."

"But he's practically a national hero!"

"Sir?"

"Captain, the housing shortage in Ankh-Morpork would be a good deal worse if it wasn't for old man Sonky and his penny-a-packet preventatives. Who'd want to do away with him?"

"People do have Views, sir," said Carrot coldly.

Yes, you do, don't you, Vimes thought. Dwarfs don't hold with that sort of thing.

"Well, put some men on it. Anything else?"

"A carter a.s.saulted Constable Swires last night for clamping his cart."

"a.s.sault?"

"Tried to stamp on him, sir."

Vimes had a mental picture of Constable Swires, a gnome six inches tall but a mile high in pent-up aggression.

"How is he?"

"Well, the man can speak, but it'll be a little while before he can climb back on a cart again. Apart from that, it's all run-of-the-mill stuff."