'Arsenic is a very popular poison,' said the Patrician. 'Hundreds of uses around the home. Crushed diamonds used to be in vogue for hundreds of years, despite the fact they never worked. Giant spiders, too, for some reason. Mercury is for those with patience, aquafortis for those without. Cantharides has its followers. Much can be done with the secretions of various animals. The bodily fluids of the caterpillar of the Quantum Weather Butterfly will render a man quite, quite helpless. But we return to arsenic like an old, old friend.'
There was a drowsiness in the Patrician's voice. 'Is that not so, young Vetinari? Yes indeed, sir. Correct. But where then shall we put it, seeing that all will look for it? In the last place they will look, sir. Wrong. Foolish. We put it where no one will looked//
The voice faded to a murmur.
The bed linen, Cheery thought. Even clothes. Into the skin, slowly...
Cheery hammered on the door. A guard opened k.
'Get another bed.'
'What?'
'Another bed. From anywhere. And fresh bed linen.'
He looked down. There wasn't much of a carpet on the floor. Even so, in a bedroom, where people might walk with bare feet...
'And take away this rug and bring another one.'
What else?
Detritus came in, nodded at Cheery, and looked carefully around the room. Finally he picked up a battered chair.
'Dis'll have to do,' he said. 'If he want, I can break der back off fit.'
'What?' said Cheery.
'Ole Doughnut said for to get a stool sample,' said Detritus, going out again.
Cheery opened his mouth to stop the troll, and then shrugged. Anyway, the less furniture in here the better...
And that seemed about it, short of stripping the wallpaper off the wall.
Sam Vimes stared out of the window.
Vetinari hadn't bothered much in the way of bodyguards. He had used ¨Cthat is, he still did use¨C food-tasters, but that was common enough. Mind you, Vetinari had added his own special twist. The tasters were well paid and treated, and they were all sons of the chief cook. But his main protection was that he was just that bit more useful alive than dead, from everyone's point of view. The big powerful guilds didn't like him, but they liked him in power a lot more than they liked the idea of someone from a rival guild in the Oblong Office. Besides, Lord Vetinari represented stability. It was a cold and clinical kind of stability, but part of his genius was the discovery that stability was what people wanted more than anything else.
He'd said to Vimes once, in this very room, standing at this very window: They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes, yet what is it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal and tomorrow is pretty much like today.'
Now, Vimes turned around. 'What's my next move, Fred?'
'Dunno, sir.'
Vimes sat down in the Patrician's chair. 'Can you remember the last Patrician?'
'Old Lord Snapcase? And the one before him, Lord Winder. Oh, yeah. Nasty pieces of work, they were. At least this one didn't giggle or wear a dress.'
The past tense, thought Vimes. It creeps in already. Not long past, but already very tense.
'It's gone very quiet downstairs, Fred,' he said.
'Plotting don't make a lot of noise, sir, generally.'
'Vetinari's not dead, Fred.'
'Yessir. But he's not exactly in charge, is he?'
Vimes shrugged. 'No one's in charge, I suppose.'