The Pork Futures Warehouse was…one of those things, the sort that you get in a city that has lived with magic for too long. The occult reasoning, if such it could be called, was this: pork was an important commodity in the city. Future pork, possibly even pork as yet unborn, was routinely traded by the merchants. Therefore, it had to exist somewhere. And the Pork Futures Warehouse came into existence, icy cold within as the pork drifted backwards in time. It was a popular place for cold storage—and for trolls who wanted to think quickly.

Even here, away from the more troubled areas of the city, the people on the streets were…watchful.

And now they watched Vimes and his motley squad pull up outside of the warehouse doors.

“I reckon at least one of us should go in wid you,” Detritus rumbled, as protective as a mother hen. “Chrysophrase won’t be alone, you can bet on dat.” He unslung the Piecemaker, the crossbow he had personally built from a converted siege weapon, the multiple bolts of which tended to shatter in the air from the sheer stress of acceleration. They could remove a door not simply from its frame but also from the world of objects bigger than a match-stick. Its incredible inaccuracy was part of its charm. The rest of the squad very quickly got behind him.

“Only you, then, Sergeant,” said Vimes. “The rest of you, come in only if you hear screaming. Me screaming, that is.” He hesitated, and then pulled out the Gooseberry, which was still humming to itself. “And no interruptions, understand?”

“Yes, Insert Name Here! Hmm hum hmm…”

Vimes pulled open the door. Dead, freezing air poured out around him. Thick frost crackled under his feet. Instantly, his breath twinkled in clouds.

He hated the Pork Futures Warehouse. The semitransparent slabs of yet-to-be-meat hanging in the air, accumulating reality every day, made him shiver for reasons that had nothing to to with temperature. Sam Vimes considered crispy bacon to be a food group in its own right, and the sight of it traveling backwards in time turned his stomach the wrong way.

He took a few steps inside and looked around in the dank, chilly grayness.

“Commander Vimes,” he announced, feeling a bit of a fool.

Here, away from the doors, freezing mist lay knee-high on the floor. Two trolls waded through it toward him. More lichen, he saw. More clan graffiti. More sheep skulls.

“Leave weapons here,” one rumbled.

“Baaa!” said Vimes, striding between them.

There was a click behind him, and the faint song of steel wires—under tension yet yearning to be free. Detritus had shouldered his bow.

“You can try takin’ dis one off’f me if you like,” he volunteered.

Vimes saw, further into the mist, a group of trolls. One or two of them looked like hired grunt. The others though…he sighed. All Detritus needed to do was fire that thing in this direction and quite a lot of the organized crime in the city would suddenly be very disorganized, as would be Vimes if he didn’t hit the floor in time. But he couldn’t allow that. There were rules here that went deeper than the law. Besides, a forty-foot hole in the warehouse wall would take some explaining.

Chrysophrase was sitting on a frost-crusted crate. You could always tell him in a crowd. He wore suits, when few trolls aspired to more that a few scraps of leather.

He even wore a tie, with a diamond pin. And today he had a fur coat around his shoulders. That had to be for show. Trolls liked low temperatures. They could think faster when their brains were cool. That’s why the meeting had been called here. Right, Vimes thought, trying to stop his teeth from chattering, when it’s my turn it’s going to be in a sauna.

“Mr. Vimes! Good o’ you to be comin’,” said Chrysophrase jovially. “Dese gentlemen are all high-toned businessmen of my acquaintance. I ’spect you can put names to faces…”

“Yeah, the Breccia,” said Vimes.

“Now den, Mr. Vimes, you know dat don’t exist,” said Chrysophrase innocently. “We just band togeder to furder troll interests in der city via many charitable concerns. You could say we are community leaders. Dere’s no call for name-callin’.”

Community leaders, Vimes thought. There’d been a lot of talk about community leaders lately, as in “community leaders appealed for calm,” a phrase the Times used so often that the printers probably left it set in type. Vimes wondered who they were and how they were appointed, and, sometimes, if “appealing for calm” meant winking and saying “do not use those shiny new battle-axes in that cupboard over there…no, not that one, the other one.” Hamcrusher had been a community leader.

“You said you wanted to talk to me alone,” he said, nodding toward the shadowy figures. Some of them were hiding their faces.

“Dat is so. Oh, dese gennlemen behind me? Dey will be leaving us now,” said Chrysophrase, waving a hand at them. “Dey’re just here so’ you understand dat one troll, dat is yours truly, is speakin’ for der many. An,’ at de same time, your good sergeant dere, my ol’ frien’ Detritus, is goin’ outside for a smoke, would dat be der case? Dis conversation is between you an’ me or it don’t happen.”

Vimes turned and nodded to Detritus. Reluctantly, with a scowl at Chrysophrase, the sergeant withdrew. So did the trolls. Boots crunched over the frost, and then doors slammed shut.

Vimes and Chrysophrase looked at each other in literally frozen silence.

“I can hear you teeth chattin’,” said Chrysophrase. “Dis place jus’ right for troll, but for you it freezes der brass monkey, right? Dat why I bringed dis fur coat.” He shrugged it off and held it out. “Dere jus’ you and me here, okay?”

Pride was one thing; not being able to feel your fingers was another. Vimes wrapped himself in the fine, warm fur.

“Good. Can’t talk to a man whose ears are froze, eh?” said Chrysophrase, pulling out a big cigar case. “Firstly, I am hearin’ where one of my boys was disrespectful to you. I am hearin’ how him suggestin’ I am de kind of troll dat would get pers’nal, dat would raise a hand to your lovely lady an’ your liddle boy who is growin’ up so fine. Sometimes I am despairin’ o’ young trolls today. Dey show no respec’. Dey have no style. Dey lack finesse. If you are wanting a new rockery in your garden, just say der word.”

“What? Just make sure I never clap eyes on him again,” said Vimes shortly.

“Dat will not be a problem,” said the troll. He indicated a small box, about a foot square, beside the crate. It was far too small to contain a whole troll.

Vimes tried to ignore it, but found this hard.

“Was that all you wanted to see me for?” he said, trying to stop his imagination playing its homemade horrors across his inner eyeballs.

“Smokin’, Mr. Vimes?” Chrysophrase said, flipping open the case. “Der ones on der left is okay for humans. Finest kind.”

“I’ve got my own,” said Vimes, pulling out a battered packet. “What is this about? I’m a busy man.”

Chrysophrase lit a silvery troll cigar and took a long pull. There was a smell like burning tin.

“Yeah, busy because dat ol’ dwarf dies,” he said, not looking at Vimes.

“Well?”

“It was no troll done it,” said Chrysophrase.

“How do you know?”

Now the troll looked directly at Vimes. “If it was, I would have foun’ out by now. I bin askin’ questions.”

“So are we.”

“I bin askin’ questions more louder,” said the troll. “I get lotsa answers. Sometimes I am gettin’ answers to questions I ain’t even asked yet.”

I bet you are, Vimes thought. I have to obey rules.

“Why should you care who kills a dwarf?” he said.

“Mister Vimes! I am a honest citizen! It my public duty to care!” Chrysophrase watched Vimes’s face to see how this was playing, and grinned. “All dis stoopid Koom Valley t’ing is bad for bidness. People are getting edgy, pokin’ around, askin’ questions. I am sittin’ dere gettin’ nervous. An’ den I hear my ol’ friend Mister Vimes is on der case and I am thinkin’, dat Mister Vimes, he may be very insensitive to de nu-unces of troll culture sometimes, but der man is straight as a arrow and der are on him no flies. He will see where dis so-called troll left his club behind an’ he is laughin’ his head off, it is so see-through like glass! Some dwarf did it an’ want to make de trolls look bad, Kew Eee Dee.”

He sat back.

“What club?” said Vimes quietly.

“What’s dat?”

“I haven’t mentioned a club. There was nothing in the paper about a troll club.”

“Dear Mister Vimes, dat’s what der lawn ornaments is sayin’,” said Chrysophrase.

“And dwarfs talk to you, do they?” said Vimes.

The troll looked thoughtfully at the roof, and blew out more smoke.

“Eventually,” he said. “But dat’s jus’ detail. Jus’ between you an’ me, here an’ now. We unnerstan’ dese t’ings. It is clear as anyt’ing dat der crazy dwarfs had a fight, or der ol’ dwarf died o’ bein alive too long, or—”

“—or you asked him a few questions?”

“No callin’ for dat, Mister Vimes. Dat club is nothin’ but a red dried swimmin’ thing. Der dwarfs put it dere.”

“Or a troll did the murder, dropped his club, and ran,” said Vimes. “Or he was clever, and thought ‘No one would believe a troll would be so stupid as to leave his club, so if I do leave it, the dwarfs will get the blame.’ ”

“Hey, good job it so cold in here or I wouldn’t be followin’ you!” Chrysophrase laughed. “But den I ask, a troll gets into a nest o’ dem lousy deep-downers and lays out jus’ one? No way, Hose, eh! He’d whack as many of ’em as he could, thud, thud!”

He looked at Vimes’s puzzlement and sighed.

“See, any troll gettin’ in dere, he’d be a mad troll to start wid. You know how der kids are all wound up? People bin feeding dem dat honor an’ glory an’ destiny stuff, dat coprolite rots your brain faster’n Slab, faster even dan Slide. From what I am hearin’, der dwarf got knocked off for-rensic, all slick an’ quiet. We don’t do dat, Mister Vimes. You played der game, you know it. Get a troll in der middle o’ a load of dwarfs, he is like a fox in der…dem fings wi’ wings, layin’ dem egg fings…”

“Fox in a henhouse?”

“Dat’s der—you know, fur, big ears—”

“Bunny?!”

“Right! Bash one dwarf an’ sneak out? No troll’d stop at one, Mister Vimes. It’s like you people an’ peanuts. Der game got dat right.”

“What’s this game?”

“You never played Thud?” Chrysophrase looked surprised.

“Oh, that. I don’t play games,” said Vimes. “And on the subject of Slab, you do run the biggest pipeline. Just between you and me, here and now.”

“Nah, I’m out o’ dat whole thing,” said Chrysophrase, waving his cigar dismissively. “You could say I am seein’ der error o’ my ways. From now on it’s clean livin’ straight down der middle. Property an’ financial services, dat is der way forward.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Besides, der kids are movin’ in,” Chrysophrase went on. “Sediment’ry trash. And dey cuts Slab w’ bad sulfides an’ cooks it up wi’ ferric chloride an’ crap like dat. You thought Slab was bad? You wait ’til you see Slide. Slab makes a troll go an’ sit down to watch all der pretty colors, be no trouble to no one, nice and quiet. But Slide make him feel like him der biggest, strongest troll in der worl,’ don’t need sleep, don’t need food. After a few weeks, don’t need life. Dat ain’t for me.”

“Yes, why kill your customers?” said Vimes.

“Low blow, Mister Vimes, low blow. Nah, der new kids, half der time dey on Slide deyselves. Too much fightin,’ too much of no respec’.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “I know names and places.”

“It’s your duty as a good citizen to tell me, then,” said Vimes. Ye gods, what does he think I am? But I want those names. Slide sounds nasty. Right now we need battle-crazy trolls like we need a hole in the head, which we’ll probably end up getting.

“Can’t tell you. Dat der problem,” said Chrysophrase. “Dis ain’t der time. You know what’s happening out dere. If der stupid dwarfs want to fight, we’ll need every troll. Dat’s what I sayin.’ I tellin’ my people, give Vimes a chance. Be good citizens, not rockin’ around der boat. People still listenin’ to me an’ my…associates. But not for much longer. I hope you on der case, Mister Vimes?”

“Captain Carrot is investigating right now,” said Vimes.

Chrysophrase’s eyes narrowed again.

“Carrot Ironfoundersson?” he said. “Der big dwarf? He a lovely boy, bright as a button, but to trolls dat won’t look so good, I tell you flat.”

“It doesn’t look that good to dwarfs, if it come to that,” said Vimes. “But it’s my Watch. I’ll not be told who I put on what case.”

“You trust him?” said Chrysophrase.

“Yes!”

“Okay, he a finker, he shiny. But…Ironfoundersson? Dwarf name. Dat a problem right dere. But der name Vimes…dat name means a lot. Can’t be bribed, he once arrested der Patrician, not der sharpest knife in der drawer but honest like anything and he don’t stop digging.” Chrysophrase caught Vimes’s expression. “Dat’s what dey say. I wishin’ Vimes was on dis case, ’cos him like me, bare-knuckle boy, he get at der truth soon enough. And to him I say: no troll did dat t’ing, not like dat.”

Forget that he’s talking street troll, Vimes told himself. That’s just to seem like a good ol’ troll. This is Chrysophrase. He beat out most of the old-style mobsters, who were pretty sharp players themselves, and he holds off the Thieves’ Guild with one hand. And that’s without sitting in a pile of snow. You know he’s right. But…not the sharpest knife in the drawer? Thank you so very much!

But Captain Carrot was shiny, was he? Vimes’s mind always looked for connections, and came up with: “Who is Mr. Shine?”

Chrysophrase was absolutely still, apart from the greenish smoke spiraling up from the cigar. Then, when he spoke, his air was uncharacteristically jovial.

“Him? Oh, a story for kids. Kinda like a troll legend from der far-off days o’ long ahead,” he said.*

“Like a folk hero?”

“Yeah, dat kinda t’ing. Kinda silly t’ing people talk about when times is tricky. Just a willie der wisp, not real. Dis is modern times.”

And that seemed to be that.

Vimes stood up.

“All right, I’ve heard what you say,” he said. “And now I’ve got a Watch to run.”

Chrysophrase puffed his cigar and flicked the ash into the frost, where it sizzled.

“You going back to der Watch house by way o’ Turn Again Lane?” he said.

“No, that’s well out of—” Vimes stopped. There had been a hint of suggestion in the troll’s voice.

“Give my regard to der ol’ lady at next door to der cake shop,” said the troll.

“Er…I will, will I?” said Vimes, nonplussed. “Sergeant!”

The door at the far end opened with a bang, and Detritus ran in, crossbow at the ready. Vimes, aware that one of the troll’s few faults was an inability to understand all the implications of the term “safety catch,” fought down a dreadful urge to dive for the ground.

“Time’s comin’ when we all got to know where we standin’,” mused Chrysophrase, as if talking to the audience of ghostly pork. “An’ who is standin’ next to us.”

As Vimes headed to the door, the troll added: “Give der coat to your lady, Mister Vimes. Wi’ my compliments.”

Vimes stopped dead, and looked down at the coat over his shoulders. It was of some silvery fur, beautifully warm, but not as warm as the rage rising within him. He’d nearly walked out wearing it. He’d come that close.

He shrugged it off and wrapped it into a ball. Quite probably several dozen small rare squeaky things had died to make this, but he could see to it that their deaths were not, in some small way, in vain.

He threw the bundle high in the air, yelled “Sergeant!” and threw himself on the floor. There was the instant slap of the bow, a sound as of a swarm of maddened bees, the plinkplinkplink of arrow fragments turning a circle of metal roof into a colander, and the smell of burnt hair.

Vimes got to his feet. What was falling around him was a kind of hairy snow.

He met Chrysophrase’s gaze.

“Trying to bribe a Watch officer is a serious offense,” he said.

The troll winked. “Honest like anyt’ing, I tell ’em. Nice to have dis little talk, Mister Vimes.”

When they were well outside, Vimes pulled Detritus into an alley, insofar as it was possible to pull a troll anywhere.

“Okay, what do you know about Slide?” he said.

The troll’s red eyes gleamed. “I bin hearin’ rumors.”

“Head to Treacle Mine Road and put a heavy squad together. Go to Turn Again Lane, behind the Scours. There’s a wedding-cake maker up there, I think. You’ve got a nose for drugs. Poke it around, Sergeant.”

“Right!” said Detritus. “You bin told somethin’, sir?”

“Let’s just say I think it’s an earnest of good intent, shall we?” said Vimes.

“Dat’s good, sir,” said the troll. “Ernest who?”

“Er…someone we know wants to show us what a good citizen he is. Get to it, okay?”

Detritus slung his crossbow over his shoulder for ease of carriage and knuckled off at high speed. Vimes leaned against the wall. This was going to be a long day. And now he—

On the wall, just a little above head height, a troll had scored a rough sketch of a cut diamond. You could tell troll graffiti easily—they did it with a fingernail and it was usually an inch deep in the masonry.

Next to the diamond was scored: SHINE.

“Ahem,” said a small voice in his pocket. Vimes sighed, and pulled out the Gooseberry, while still staring at the word.

“Yes?”

“You said you didn’t want to be interrupted…” said the imp defensively.

“Well? What have you got to say?”

“It’s eleven minutes to six, Insert Name Here,” said the imp meekly.

“Good grief! Why didn’t you tell me!” Vimes looked aghast.

“Because you said you didn’t want to be interrupted!” the imp quavered.

“Yes, but not—” Vimes stopped. Eleven minutes. He couldn’t run it, not at this time of day. “Six o’clock is…important,” he muttered.

“You didn’t tell me that!” said the imp, holding its head in its hands. “You just said no interruptions! I’m really, really sorry—”

SHINE forgotten, Vimes looked around desperately at the nearby buildings. There wasn’t much use for clacks towers down here, where the slaughterhouse district met the docks, but he spotted the big semaphore tower atop the dock superintendent’s office.

“Get up there!” he ordered, opening the box. “Tell them you’ve come from me and this is priority one, right? They’re to tell Pseudopolis Yard where I’m starting from! I’ll cross the river on Misbegot Bridge and head along Prouts! The officers at the Yard will know what this is all about! Go!”

The imp went from despair to enthusiasm in an instant. It saluted. “Yes indeed, sir. The Bluenose^TM Integrated Messenger Service will not let you down, Insert Name Here. I shall interface right away!” It leapt down and became a disappearing blur of very pale green.

Vimes ran down to the dockside and began to race upriver, past the ships. The docks were always too crowded, and the road was an obstacle course of bales and ropes and piles of crates, with an argument every ten yards. But Vimes was a runner by nature, and knew all the ways to make progress in the city’s crowded streets. He dodged and leapt, jinked and weaved, and, where necessary, barged. A rope tripped him up; he rolled upright. A stevedore bumped into him; Vimes laid him out with an uppercut and speeded up in case the man had chums around.

This was important…

A shiny, four-horse carriage swung out of Monkey Street, with two footmen clinging to the back of it. Vimes speeded up in a desperate burst, grabbed a handhold, pulled himself up between the astonished footmen, dragged himself across the swaying roof, and dropped down on the seat beside the young driver.

“City Watch,” he announced, flashing his badge. “Keep going straight ahead!”

“But I’m supposed to turn left onto—” the young man began.

“And give it a touch of the whip, if you please,” said Vimes, ignoring him. “This is important!”

“Oh, right! Death-defying high-speed chase, is it?” said the coachman, enthusiasm rising. “Right! I’m the boy for that! You’ve got your man right here, sir. D’you know, I can make this carriage go along for fifty yards on two wheels? Only old Miss Robinson won’t let me. Right side or left side, just say the word! Hyah! Hyah!”

“Look, just—” Vimes began, as the whip cracked overhead.

“O’course, getting the horses to run along on two legs was the trick. Actually, it’s more of a hop, you might say,” the coachman went on, turning his hat around for minimum wind resistance. “Here, want to see my wheelie?”

“Not especially,” said Vimes, staring ahead.

“The hooves don’t ’arf raise sparks when I do me wheelie, I can tell you! Hyah!”

The scenery was blurring. Ahead was the cut-through leading to Two Pint Dock. It was normally covered by a swing bridge—

—normally.

It was swung now. Vimes could see the masts of a ship being warped out of the dock and into the river.

“Oh, don’t you bother about that, sir,” yelled the coachman beside him. “We’ll go along the quay and jump it!”

“You can’t jump a two-master with a four-horse carriage, man!”

“I bet you can if you aim between the masts, sir! Hyah! Hyah!”

Ahead of the coach, men were running for cover. Behind it, the footmen were seeking other employment. Vimes pushed the boy back into his seat, grabbed a handful of reins, put both feet against the brake lever, and hauled.

The wheels locked. The horses began to turn. The coach slid, the metal rims of the wheels sending up sparks and the throaty scream of metal. The horses turned some more. The coach began to swing, dragging the horses with it, whirling them out like fairground mounts. Their hooves made trails of fire across the cobblestones.

At this point, Vimes let go of everything, gripped the underside of the seat with one hand, held on to the rail with the other, shut his eyes, and waited for all the noise to die away.

Blessedly, it did. Only one little sound remained: a petulant banging on the coach roof, caused, probably, by a walking stick. A querulous, elderly female voice could be heard saying: “Johnny? Have you been driving fast again, young man?”

“A bootlegger’s turn!” Johnny breathed, looking at a team of four steaming horses now facing back the way they’d come. “I am impressed!”

He turned to Vimes, who wasn’t there.

The men moving the ship had dropped their ropes and run at the sight of coach and four spinning down the road toward them. The dock entrance was narrow. A man could easily scramble up a rope onto the deck, run across the ship, and let himself down on the cobbles on the other side And this, a man had just done.

Speeding along, Vimes could see that Misbegot Bridge was going to be a struggle. An overloaded hay wagon had wedged itself between the rickety houses that lined the bridge, ripped out part of someone’s upper story, and had shed some of its load in the process. There was a fight going on between the carter and the unimpressed owner of the new bungalow. Valuable seconds were spent struggling over and through the hay until he was hurrying through the backed-up traffic to the other end of the bridge. Ahead of him was the wide thoroughfare known as Prouts, full of vehicles and uphill all the way.

He wasn’t going to make it. It must be gone five to six already. The thought of it, the thought of that little face—

“Mister Vimes!”

He turned. A mail coach had just pulled out onto the road behind him and was coming up at a trot. Carrot was sitting beside the driver and waving frantically at him.

“Get on the step, sir!” he yelled. “You don’t have much time!”

Vimes started to run and, as the coach drew level, jumped onto the door’s step and hung on.

“Isn’t this the mail coach to Quirm?” he shouted, as the driver urged the horses into a canter.

“That’s right, sir,” said Carrot. “I explained it was a matter of extreme importance.”

Vimes redoubled his grip. The mail coaches had good horses. The wheels, not very far away from him, were already a blur.

“How did you get here so quick?” he yelled.

“Shortcut through the Apothecary Gardens, sir!”

“What? That little walk by the river? That’s never wide enough for a coach like this!”

“It was a bit of a squeeze, sir, yes. It got easier when the coach lamps scraped off.”

Vimes took in the state of the coach’s side. The paintwork was scored all along it.

“All right,” he shouted, “tell the driver I’ll meet the bills, of course! But it’ll be wasted, Carrot. Park Lane’ll be jam-packed at this time of day!”

“Don’t worry, sir! I should hang on very tight if I were you, sir!” shouted Carrot, above the rising wind.

Vimes heard the whip crack. This was a real mail coach. Mailbags don’t care if they’re comfortable. He could feel the acceleration.

Park Lane would be coming up very soon. Vimes couldn’t see much, because the wind of their flight was making his eyes water, but up ahead was one of the city’s most fashionable traffic jams. It was bad enough at any time of day, but early evening was particularly horrible, owing to the Ankh-Morpork belief that right of way was the prerogative of the heaviest vehicle or the gobbiest driver. There were minor collisions all the time, which were inevitably followed by both vehicles blocking the junction while the drivers got down to discussing road-safety issues with reference to the first weapon they could get their hands on. And it was into this maelstrom of jostling horses, scurrying pedestrians, and cursing drivers that the mail coach was heading, apparently, at a full gallop.

He shut his eyes and then, hearing a change in the sound of the wheels, risked opening them again.

The coach flew across the junction. Vimes had a momentary glimpse of a huge line, fuming and shouting behind a couple of immovable troll officers, before they were spinning on down toward Scoone Avenue.

“You closed the road? You closed the road!” he yelled as they plunged on.

“And Kings Way, sir. Just in case,” Carrot shouted down.

“You closed two major roads? Two whole damn roads? In the rush hour?”

“Yes, sir,” said Carrot. “It was the only way.”

Vimes hung on, speechless. Would he have dared to do that? But that was Carrot all over. There was a problem, and now it’s gone. Admittedly, the whole city is probably solid with wagons by now, but that’s a new problem.

He’d be home in time. Would a minute have mattered? No, probably not, although his young son appeared to have a very accurate internal clock. Possibly even two minutes would be okay. Three minutes, even. You could go to five, perhaps. But that was just it. If you could go to five minutes, then you’d go to ten, then half an hour, a couple of hours…and not see your son all evening. So that was that. Six o’clock, prompt. Every day. Read to Young Sam. No excuses. He’d promised himself that. No excuses. No excuses at all. Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses.

He had nightmares about being too late.

He had a lot of nightmares about Young Sam. They involved empty cots and darkness.

It had all been too…good. In a few short years, he, Sam Vimes, had gone up in the world like a balloon. He was a Duke, he commanded the Watch, he was powerful, he was married to a woman whose compassion, love, and understanding he knew a man such as he did not deserve, and he was as rich as Creosote. Fortune had rained its gravy, and he’d been the man with the big bowl. And it had all happened so fast.

And then Young Sam had come along. At first it had been fine. The baby was, well, a baby, all lolling head and burping and unfocused eyes, entirely the preserve of his mother. And then, one evening, his son had turned and looked directly at Vimes, with eyes that for his father outshone the lamps of the world, and fear had poured into Sam Vimes’s life in a terrible wave. All this good fortune, all this fierce joy…it was wrong. Surely the universe could not allow this amount of happiness in one man, not without presenting a bill. Somewhere a big wave was cresting, and when it broke over his head it would wash everything away. Some days, he was sure he could hear its distant roar…

Shouting incoherent thanks, he leapt down as the coach slowed, flailed to stay upright, and skidded into his driveway. The front door was already opening when he raced toward it, scattering gravel, and there was Willikins holding up The Book. Vimes grabbed it and pounded up the stairs as, down in the city, the clocks began to mark various approximations of the hour of six o’clock.

Sybil had been adamant about not having a nursemaid. Vimes, for once, had been even more adamant that they got one, and a head cavern girl for the pedigree dragon pens outside. A body could only do so much, after all. He’d won. Purity, who seemed a decent type, had just finished settling Young Sam into his cot when Vimes staggered in. She gave him about one third of a curtsy before she caught his pained expression and remembered last week’s impromptu lecture on The Rights of Man, and then she hurried out. It was important that no one else was here. This moment in time was just for the Sams.

Young Sam pulled himself up against the cot’s rails, and said “Da!” The world went soft.

Vimes stroked his son’s hair. It was funny, really. He spent the day yelling and shouting and talking and bellowing…but here, in this quiet time smelling (thanks to Purity) of soap, he never knew what to say. He was tongue-tied in the presence of fourteen-month-old baby. All the things he thought of saying, like “Who’s Daddy’s little boy, then?” sounded horribly false, as though he’d got them from a book. There was nothing to say nor, in this soft pastel room, anything that needed to be said.

There was a grunt from under the cot. Dribble the dragon was dozing there. Ancient, fireless, with ragged wings and no teeth, he clambered up the stairs every day and took up station under the cot. No one knew why. He made little whistling noises in his sleep.

The happy silence enveloped Vimes, but it couldn’t last. There was The Reading Of The Picture Book to be undertaken. That was the meaning of six o’clock.

It was the same book, every day. The pages of said book were rounded and soft where Young Sam had chewed them, but to one person in this nursery this was the book of books, the greatest story ever told. Vimes didn’t need to read it anymore. He knew it by heart.

It was called “Where’s My Cow?”

The un-identified complainant has lost their cow. That was the story, really.

Page one started promisingly:

Then the author began to get to grips with their material:

At this point, the author had reached an agony of creation and was writing from the racked depths of their soul.

This was a good evening. Young Sam was already grinning widely and crowing along with the plot.

Eventually, the cow would be found. It was that much of a page-turner. Of course, some suspense was lent by the fact that all other animals were presented in some way that could have confused a kitten who perhaps had been raised in a darkened room. The horse was standing in front of a hat stand, as they so often did, and the hippo was eating at a trough against which was an upturned pitchfork. Seen from the wrong direction, the tableau might look for just one second like a cow…

Young Sam loved it, anyway. It must have been the most cuddled book in the world.

Nevertheless, it bothered Vimes, even though he’d got really good at the noises and would go up against any man in his rendition of the HRUUUGH! But is this a book for a city kid? When would he ever hear these noises? In the city, the only sound those animals would make was “sizzle.” But the nursery was full of the conspiracy, with bah-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked.

One evening, after a trying day, he’d tried the Vimes street version:

It had been going really well when Vimes heard a meaningful little cough from the doorway, wherein stood Sybil. Next day, Young Sam, with a child’s unerring instinct for this sort of thing, said “Buglit!” to Purity. And that, although Sybil never raised the subject even when they were alone, was that. From then on Sam stuck rigidly to the authorized version.

He recited it tonight, while wind rattled the windows, and this little nursery world, with its pink-and-blue peace, its creatures who were ever so very soft and wooly and fluffy, seemed to enfold them both. On the nursery clock, a little wooly lamb rocked the seconds away.

When he not quite awoke, in twilight, with ragged strands of dark sleep filling his mind, Vimes stared in incomprehension at the room. Panic filled him. What was this place? Why were there all these grinning animals? What was lying on his foot? Who was this doing the asking, and why was he wrapped in a blue shawl with ducks on it?

Blessed recollection flowed in. Young Sam was fast asleep, with Vimes’s helmet clutched like a teddy bear, and Dribble, always on the lookout for somewhere warm to slump, had rested his head on Vimes’s boot. Already the leather was covered with goo.

Vimes carefully retrieved his helmet, gathered the shawl around him, and wandered down into the big front hall. He could see a light on under the door of the library, and so, still slightly muzzy, he pushed his way in.

Two watchmen stood up. Sybil turned in her chair by the fire. Vimes felt the ducks slither down his shoulders, slowly, and end up in a heap on the floor.

“I let you sleep, Sam,” said Lady Sybil. “You didn’t get in this morning until after three.”

“Everyone’s double-shifting, dear,” said Sam, daring Carrot and Sally to even think about telling anyone they’d seen the boss wearing a blue shawl covered in ducks. “I’ve got to set a good example.”

“I’m sure you intend to, Sam, but you look like a horrible warning,” said Sybil. “When did you last eat?”

“I had a lettuce, tomato, and bacon sandwich, dear,” he said, endeavoring by tone of his voice to suggest that the bacon had been a mere condiment rather than a slab barely covered by the bread.

“I expect you jolly well did,” said Sybil, rather more accurately conveying the fact that she didn’t believe a word of it. “Captain Carrot has something to tell you. Now, you sit down and I’m going to see what’s happened to dinner.”

When she bustled out in the direction of the kitchens, Vimes turned to the watchmen and debated for a moment whether to give that sheepish little grin and eye-roll that between men means “Women, eh?” and decided not to, on the basis that the watchmen consisted of Lance Constable von Humpeding, who’d think he was a fool, and Captain Carrot, who wouldn’t know what it meant.

He settled instead on “Well?”

“We did the best we could, sir,” said Carrot. “I was right. That mine is a very unhappy place.”

“Murder scenes usually are, yes.”

“Actually, I don’t think we found the murder scene, sir.”

“Didn’t you see the body?”

“Yes, sir. I think. Really, sir, you had to be there—”