Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

“You never listen, do you?” snapped Brother Watchtower. “It was all explained last week, we don't go around finding anyone, we make a king.”

“I thought he was supposed to turn up. 'Cos of destiny.”

Brother Watchtower sniggered. “We sort of help Destiny along a bit.”

The Supreme Grand Master smiled in the depths of his robe. It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don't need it any more you tell them another lie and tell them they're progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they'll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing.

“Bloody hell, that's clever,” said Brother Doorkeeper. “How do we do that, then?”

“Look, the Supreme Grand Master said what we do, we find some handsome lad who's good at taking orders, he kills the dragon, and Bob's your uncle. Simple. Much more intelligent than waitin' for a so-called real king.”

“But-” Brother Plasterer seemed deep in the toils of cerebration, “if we control the dragon, and we do control the dragon, right? Then we don't need anyone killing it, we just stop summoning it, and everyone'll be happy, right?”

“Ho yes,” said Brother Watchtower nastily, “I can just see it, can you? We just trot out, say 'Hallo, we won't set fire to your houses any more, aren't we nice', do we? The whole point about the thing with the king is that he'll be a, a sort of-”

“Undeniably potent and romantic symbol of absolute authority,” said the Supreme Grand Master smoothly.

“That's it,” said Brother Watchtower. “A potent authority.”

“Oh, I see,” said Brother Plasterer. “Right. Okay. That's what the king'll be.”

“That's it,” said Brother Watchtower.

“No-one going to argue with a potent authority, are they?”

“Too right,” said Brother Watchtower.

“Stroke of luck, then, finding the true king right now,” said Brother Plasterer. “Million to one chance, really.”

“We haven't found the right king. We don't need the right king,” said the Supreme Grand Master wearily. “For the last time! I've just found us a likely lad who looks good in a crown and can take orders and knows how to flourish a sword. Now just listen ...”

Flourishing, of course, was important. It didn't have much to do with wielding. Wielding a sword, the Supreme Grand Master considered, was simply the messy business of dynastic surgery. It was just a matter of thrust and cut. Whereas a king had to flourish one. It had to catch the light in just the right way, leaving watchers in no doubt that here was Destiny's chosen. He'd taken a long time preparing the sword and shield. It had been very expensive. The shield shone like a dollar in a sweep's earhole but the sword, the sword was magnificent . . .

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.”