‘You’re not suggesting we have some sort of. . . vote, are you? Some kind of popularity contest?’
‘Oh, no. It’s just . . . it’s just … all more complicated now. And power goes to people’s heads.’
‘And then other people’s heads fall off.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying that, whoever you are,’ said Mrs Palm. ‘Anyone would think you’d had your head cut off.’
‘Uh’
‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Slant. I do apologize.’
‘Speaking as the President of the Guild of Lawyers,’ said Mr Slant, the most respected zombie in Ankh-Morpork, ‘I must recommend stability in this matter. I wonder if I may offer some advice?’
‘How much will it cost us?’ said Mr Sock.
‘Stability,’ said Mr Slant, ‘equals monarchy.’
‘Oh, now, don’t tell us’
‘Look at Klatch,’ said Mr Slant doggedly. ‘Generations of Seriphs. Result: political stability. Take Pseudopolis. Or Sto Lat. Or even the Agatean Empire’
‘Come on,’ said Dr Downey. ‘Everyone knows that kings’
‘Oh, monarchs come and go, they depose one another, and so on and so forth,’ said Mr Slant. ‘But the institution goes on. Besides, I think you’ll find that it is possible to work out … an accommodation.’
He realized that he had the floor. His fingers absent-mindedly touched the seam where his head had been sewn back on. All those years ago Mr Slant had refused to die until he had been paid for the disbursements in the matter of conducting his own defence.
‘How do you mean?’ said Mr Potts.
‘I accept that the question of resurrecting the Ankh-Morpork succession has been raised several times recently,’ said Mr Slant.
‘Yes. By madmen,’ said Mr Boggis. It’s part of the symptoms. Put underpants on head, talk to trees, drool, decide that Ankh-Morpork needs a king…’
‘Exactly. Supposing sane men were to give it consideration?’
‘Go on,’ said Dr Downey. ‘There have been precedents,’ said Mr Slant. ‘Monarchies who have found themselves bereft of a convenient monarch have . . . obtained one. Some suitably born member of some other royal line. After all, what is required is someone who, uh, knows the ropes, as I believe the saying goes.’
‘Sorry? Are you saying we send out for a king?’ said Mr Boggis. ‘We put up some kind of advertisement? “Throne vacant, applicant must supply own crown”?’
‘In fact,’ said Mr Slant, ignoring this, ‘I recall that, during the first Empire, Genua wrote to Ankh-Morpork and asked to be sent one of our generals to be their king, their own royal lines having died out through interbreeding so intensively that the last king kept trying to breed with himself. The history books say that we sent our loyal General Tacticus, whose first act after obtaining the crown was to declare a war on Ankh-Morpork. Kings are … interchangeable.’
‘You mentioned something about reaching an accommodation,’ said Mr Boggis. ‘You mean, we tell a king what to doT
‘I like the sound of that,’ said Mrs Palm.
‘I like the echoes,’ said Dr Downey.
‘Not tell,’ said Mr Slant. ‘We . . . agree. Obviously, as king, he would concentrate on those things traditionally associated with kingship’
‘Waving,’ said Mr Sock.
‘Being gracious,’ said Mrs Palm.
‘Welcoming ambassadors from foreign countries,’ said Mr Potts.
‘Shaking hands.’
‘Cutting off heads’
‘No! No. No, that will not be part of his duties. Minor affairs of state will be carried out’
‘By his advisors?’ said Dr Downey. He leaned back. ‘I’m sure I can see where this is going, Mr Slant,’ he said. ‘But kings, once acquired, are so damn hard to get rid of. Acceptably.’
There have been precedents for that, too,’ said Mr Slant.
The Assassin’s eyes narrowed.
Tm intrigued, Mr Slant, that as soon as the Lord Vetinari appears to be seriously ill, you pop up with suggestions like this. It sounds like … a remarkable coincidence.’
There is no mystery, I assure you. Destiny works its course. Surely many of you have heard the rumours – that there is, in this city, someone with a bloodline traceable all the way back to the last royal family? Someone working in this very city in a comparatively humble position? A lowly Watchman, in fact?’
There were some nods, but not very definite ones. They were to nods what a grunt is to ‘yes’. The guilds all picked up information. No one wanted to reveal how much, or how little, they personally knew, just in case they knew too little or, even worse, turned out to know too much.
However, Doc Pseudopolis of the Guild of Gamblers put on a careful poker face and said, ‘Yes, but the tricentennial is coming up. And in a few years it’ll be the Century of the Rat. There’s something about centuries that gives people a kind of fever.’
‘Nevertheless, the person exists,’ said Mr Slant. The evidence stares one in the face if one looks in the right places.’
‘Very well,’ said Mr Boggis. Tell us the name of this captain.’ He often lost large sums at poker.
‘Captain?’ said Mr Slant. ‘I’m sorry to say his natural talents have thus far not commended him to that extent. He is a corporal. Corporal C. W. St J. Nobbs.’
There was silence.
And then there was a strange putt-putting sound, like water negotiating its way through a partially blocked pipe.
Queen Molly of the Beggars’ Guild had so far been silent apart from occasional damp sucking noises as she tried to dislodge a particle of her lunch from the things which, because they were still in her mouth and apparently attached, were technically her teeth.
Now she was laughing. The hairs wobbled on every wart. ‘Nobby Nobbs?’ she said. ‘You’re talking about Nobby Nobbs?
‘He is the last known descendant of the Earl of Ankh, who could trace his descent all the way to a distant cousin to the last king/ said Mr Slant. ‘It’s the talk of the city.’
‘A picture forms in my mind,’ said Dr Downey. ‘Small monkeylike chap, always smoking very short cigarettes. Spotty. He squeezes them in public.’
‘That’s Nobby!’ Queen Molly chuckled. ‘Face like a blind carpenter’s thumb!’
‘Him? But the man’s a tit!’
‘And dim as a penny candle,’ said Mr Boggis. ‘I don’t see’
Suddenly he stopped, and then contracted the contemplative silence that was gradually affecting everyone else around the table.
‘Don’t see why we shouldn’t . . . give this . . . due consideration,’ he said, after a while.
The assembled leaders looked at the table. Then they looked at the ceiling. Then they studiously avoided one another’s gaze.
‘Blood will out,’ said Mr Carry.
‘When I’ve watched him go down the street I’ve always thought: “There’s a man who walks in greatness,” ‘ said Mrs Palm.
‘He squeezes them in a very regal way, mind you. Very graciously.’
The silence rolled over the assembly again. But it was busy, in the same way that the silence of an anthill is busy.
‘I must remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that poor Lord Vetinari is still alive,’ said Mrs Palm.
‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Mr Slant. ‘And long may he remain so. I’ve merely set out for you one option against that day, may it be a long time coming, when we should consider a … successor.’
‘In any case,’ said Dr Downey, ‘there is no doubt that Vetinari has been over-doing it. If he survives -which is greatly to be hoped, of course – I feel we should require him to step down for the sake of his health. Well done thou good and faithful servant, and so on. Buy him a nice house in the country somewhere. Give him a pension. Make sure there’s a seat for him at official dinners. Obviously, if he can be so easily poisoned now he should welcome the release from the chains of office
‘What about the wizards?’ said Mr Boggis.
‘They’ve never got involved in civic concerns,’ said Dr Downey. ‘Give ’em four meat meals a day and tip your hat to them and they’re happy. They know nothing about politics.’
The silence that followed was broken by the voice of Queen Molly of the Beggars. ‘What about Vimes?’
Dr Downey shrugged. ‘He is a servant of the city.’
‘That’s what I mean.’
‘Surely we represent the city?’
‘Hah! He won’t see it that way. And you know what Vimes thinks about kings. It was a Vimes who chopped the head off the last one. There’s a bloodline that thinks a swing of an axe can solve anything.’
‘Now, Molly, you know Vimes’d probably take an axe to Vetinari if he thought he could get away with it. No love lost there, I fancy.’
‘He won’t like it. That’s all I tell you. Vetinari keeps Vimes wound up. No knowing what happens if he unwinds all at once’
‘He’s a public servant!’ snapped Dr Downey.
Queen Molly made a face, which was not difficult in one so naturally well endowed, and sat back. ‘So this is the new way of things, is it?’ she muttered. ‘Lot of ordinary men sit around a table and talk and suddenly the world’s a different place? The sheep turn round and charge the shepherd?’