"Ah, your excellency! Isn"t Sybil with you?"
The woman who had entered was Angua, but padded somewhat with years. She was wearing a long, loose green gown, very old fashioned by Ankh-Morpork standards, although there are some styles that never go out of date on the right figure. She was brushing her hair as she walked across the floor.
"Er, she"s staying at the embassy today. We had rather a difficult journey. You would be the Baroness Serafine von Uberwald?"
"And you"re Sam Vimes. Sybil"s letters are all about you. The Baron won"t be long. We were out hunting and lost track of time."
"I expect it"s a lot of work, seeing to the horses," said Vimes politely.
Serafine"s smile went strange for a moment. "Hah. Yes," she said. "Can I get Igor to fetch you a drink?"
"No, thank you."
She sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs and beamed at him. "You"ve met the new king, your excellency?"
"This morning."
"I believe he"s having trouble."
"What makes you think that?" said Vimes.
Serafine looked startled. "I thought everyone knew?" ;No, sir. Just how I think. There"s dwarf bars all over Ankh-Morpork, and they"ve got mining tools wired to the wall, and there"s dwarfs in "em every night quaffing beer and singing sad songs about how they wish they were back in the mountains digging for gold. But if you said to them, fine, the gate"s open, off you go and send us a postcard, they"d say, "Oh, well, yeah I"d love to, but we"ve just got the new workshop finished... Maybe next year we"ll go to Uberwald." "
"They come back to the mountains to die," said the King.
"They live in Ankh-Morpork."
"Why is this, do you think?"
"I couldn"t say. Because no one tells them how to, I suppose."
"And now you want our gold and iron," said the King. "Is there nothing we can keep?"
"Don"t know about that either, sir. I wasn"t trained for this job."
The King muttered something under his breath. Then, much louder, he said, "I can offer you no favours, your excellency. These are difficult times, see."
"But my real job is finding things out," said Vimes, "If there is anything that I could do to - "
The King thrust the papers at Vimes. "Your letters of accreditation, your excellency. Their contents have been noted!"
And that shuts me up, Vimes thought.
"I would ask you one thing, though," the King went on.
"Yes, sir?"
"Really thirty men and a dog?"
"No. There were only seven men. I killed one of them because I had to."
"How did the others die?"
"Er, victims of circumstance, sir."
"Well, then... your secret is safe with me. Good morning, Miss Littlebottom."
Cheery looked stunned.