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 any more!” 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 Dunny-kin.” 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.”[14] Brother Watchtower fumbled under his robe and produced a grubby brown envelope. “We’re having a whip-round 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 practised 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 offer. His eyes swivelled back and forth in their sockets, like two rodents trying to find a way out. “Can’t afford to be without it,” he hissed. “Anti-dragon cream. Personal guarantee: if you’re incinerated you get your money back, no quibble.”
“What you’re saying,” said Vimes slowly, “if I understand the wording correctly, is that if I am baked alive by the dragon you’ll return the money?”
“Upon personal application,” said Cut-me-own-Throat. He unscrewed the lid from a jar of vivid green ointment and thrust it under Vimes’s nose. “Made from over fifty different rare spices and herbs to a recipe known only to a bunch of ancient monks what live on some mountain somewhere. One dollar a jar, and I’m cutting my own throat. It’s a public service, really,” he added piously.
“You’ve got to hand it to those ancient monks, brewing it up so quickly,” said Vimes.
“Clever buggers,” agreed Cut-me-own-Throat. “It must be all that meditation and yak yogurt.”
“So what’s happening, Throat?” said Vimes. “Who’re all the guys with the big swords?”
“Dragon hunters, Cap’n. The Patrician announced a reward of fifty thousand dollars to anyone who brings him the dragon’s head. Not attached to the dragon, either; he’s no fool, that man.”
“What?”
“That’s what he said. It’s all written on posters.”
“Fifty thousand dollars!”
“Not chicken feed, eh?”
“More like dragon fodder,” said Vimes. It’d bring trouble, you mark his words. “I’m amazed you’re not grabbing a sword and joining in.”
“I’m more in what you might call the service sector, Cap’n.” Throat looked both ways conspiratorially, and then passed Vimes a slip of parchment.
It said:
Anti-dragon mirror shields A$ 500
Portable lair detectors A$250
Dragon-piercing arrows A$100 per each
Shovels A$5 Picks A$5 Sacks A$l
Vimes handed it back. “Why the sacks?” he said.
“On account of the hoard,” said Throat.
“Oh, yes,” said Vimes gloomily. “Of course.”
“Tell you what,” said Throat, “tell you what. For our boys in brown, ten percent off.”
“And you’re cutting your own throat, Throat?”
“Fifteen percent for officers!” urged Throat, as Vimes walked away. The cause of the slight panic in his voice was soon apparent. He had plenty of competition.
The people of Ankh-Morpork were not by nature heroic but were, by nature, salesmen. In the space of a few feet Vimes could have bought any number of magical weapons Genuine certyfycate of orthenticity with everyone, a cloak of invisibility-a good touch, he thought, and he was really impressed by the way the stallowner was using a mirror with no glass in it- and, by way of lighter relief, dragon biscuits, balloons and windmills on sticks. Copper bracelets guaranteed to bring relief from dragons were a nice thought.
There seemed to be as many sacks and shovels about as there were swords.
Gold, that was it. The hoard. Hah!
Fifty thousand dollars! An officer of the Watch earned thirty dollars a month and had to pay to have his own dents beaten out.
What he couldn’t do with fifty thousand dollars . . .
Vimes thought about this for a while and then thought of the things he could do with fifty thousand dollars. There were so many more of them, for a start.
He almost walked into a group of men clustered around a poster nailed to the wall. It declared, indeed, that the head of the dragon that had terrorised the city would be worth A$50,000 to the brave hero that delivered it to the palace.
One of the cluster, who from his size, weaponry and that way he was slowly tracing the lettering with his finger Vimes decided was a leading hero, was doing the reading for the others.
“-to ter-her pal-ack-ee,” he concluded.
“Fifty thousand,” said one of them reflectively, rubbing his chin.
“Cheap job,” said the intellectual. “Well below the rate. Should be half the kingdom and his daughter’s hand in marriage.”
“Yes, but he ain’t a king. He’s a Patrician.”
“Well, half his Patrimony or whatever. What’s his daughter like?”
The assembled hunters didn’t know.
“He’s not married,” Vimes volunteered. “And he hasn’t got a daughter.”
They turned and looked him up and down. He could see the disdain in their eyes. They probably got through dozens like him every day. ‘ ‘Not got a daughter?” said one of them. “Wants people to kill dragons and he hasn’t got a daughter?”
Vimes felt, in an odd way, that he ought to support the lord of the city. “He’s got a little dog that he’s very fond of,” he said helpfully.