Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

'He, er, doesn't appear much in the history books,' said Vimes. 'Sometimes there has to be a civil war, and sometimes, afterwards, it's best to pretend something didn't happen. Sometimes people have to do a job, and then they have to be forgotten. He wielded the axe, you know. No-one else'd do it. It was a king's neck, after all. Kings are,' he spat the word, 'special. Even after they'd seen the . . . private rooms, and cleaned up the . . . bits. Even then. No-one'd clean up the world. But he took the axe and cursed them all and did it.'

'What king was it?' said Carrot.

'Lorenzo the Kind,' said Vimes, distantly.

'I've seen his picture in the palace museum,' said Carrot. A fat old man. Surrounded by lots of children.'

'Oh yes,' said Vimes, carefully. 'He was very fond of children.'

Carrot waved at a couple of dwarfs.

'I didn't know this,' he said. 'I thought there was just some wicked rebellion or something.'

Vimes shrugged. 'It's in the history books, if you know where to look.'

And that was the end of the kings of Ankh-Morpork.'

'Oh, there was a surviving son, I think. And a few mad relatives. They were banished. That's supposed to be a terrible fate, for royalty. I can't see it myself.'

'I think I can. And you like the city, sir.'

'Well, yes. But if it was a choice between banishment and having my head chopped off, just help me down with this suitcase. No, we're well rid of kings. But, I mean . . . the city used to work.'

'Still does,' said Carrot.

They passed the Assassins' Guild and drew level with the high, forbidding walls of the Fools' Guild, which occupied the other corner of the block.

'No, it just keeps going. I mean, look up there.'

Carrot obediently raised his gaze.

There was a familiar building on the junction of Broad Way and Alchemists. The façade was ornate, but covered in grime. Gargoyles had colonized it.

The corroded motto over the portico said 'NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THIER DUTY' and in more spacious days that may have been the case, but recently someone had found it necessary to nail up an addendum which read:

DONT ARSK US ABOUT: rocks troll's with sticks All sorts of dragons Mrs Cake Huje green things with teeth Any kinds of black dogs with orange eyebrows Rains of spaniel's. fog.

Mrs Cake

'Oh,' he said. 'The Royal Mail.'

'The Post Office,' corrected Vimes. 'My granddad said that once you could post a letter there and if d be delivered within a month, without fail. You didn't have to give it to a passing dwarf and hope the little bugger wouldn't eat it before . . .'

His voice trailed off.

'Uh. Sorry. No offence meant.'

'None taken,' said Carrot cheerfully.

'It's not that I've got anything against dwarfs. I've always said you'd have to look very hard before you'd find a, a better bunch of highly skilled, law-abiding, hard-working—'

'—little buggers?'

'Yes. No!'

They proceeded.

'That Mrs Cake,' said Carrot, 'definitely a strong-minded woman, eh?'