'Indeed? I have very little,' said the Patrician. He tried to lift himself off the bed, and slumped back.
'I'll mix up a draught,' said Doughnut Jimmy, backing away. 'You're to hold his nose and pour it down his throat twice a day, right? And no oats.'
He hurried out, leaving Cheery alone with the Patrician.
Corporal Littlebottom looked around the room. Vimes hadn't given him much instruction. He'd said: 'I'm sure it won't be the food-tasters. For all they know they might be asked to eat the whole plateful. Still, we'll get Detritus to talk to them. You find out the how, right? And then leave the who to me.'
If you didn't eat or drink a poison, what else was left? Probably you could put it on a pad and make someone breathe it, or dribble some in their ear while they slept. Or they could touch it. Maybe a small dart... Or an insect bite...
The Patrician stirred, and looked at Cheery through watery red eyes. 'Tell me, young man, are you a policeman?'
'Er ... just started, sir.'
'You appear to be of the dwarf persuasion.'
Cheery didn't bother to answer. There was no use denying it. Somehow, people could tell if you were a dwarf just by looking at you.
'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?'