Tm intrigued, Mr Slant, that as soon as the Lord Vetinari appears to be seriously ill, you pop up with suggestions like this. It sounds like ... a remarkable coincidence.'
There is no mystery, I assure you. Destiny works its course. Surely many of you have heard the rumours - that there is, in this city, someone with a bloodline traceable all the way back to the last royal family? Someone working in this very city in a comparatively humble position? A lowly Watchman, in fact?'
There were some nods, but not very definite ones. They were to nods what a grunt is to 'yes'. The guilds all picked up information. No one wanted to reveal how much, or how little, they personally knew, just in case they knew too little or, even worse, turned out to know too much.
However, Doc Pseudopolis of the Guild of Gamblers put on a careful poker face and said, 'Yes, but the tricentennial is coming up. And in a few years it'll be the Century of the Rat. There's something about centuries that gives people a kind of fever.'
'Nevertheless, the person exists,' said Mr Slant. The evidence stares one in the face if one looks in the right places.'
'Very well,' said Mr Boggis. Tell us the name of this captain.' He often lost large sums at poker.
'Captain?' said Mr Slant. 'I'm sorry to say his natural talents have thus far not commended him to that extent. He is a corporal. Corporal C. W. St J. Nobbs.'
There was silence.
And then there was a strange putt-putting sound, like water negotiating its way through a partially blocked pipe.
Queen Molly of the Beggars' Guild had so far been silent apart from occasional damp sucking noises as she tried to dislodge a particle of her lunch from the things which, because they were still in her mouth and apparently attached, were technically her teeth.
Now she was laughing. The hairs wobbled on every wart. 'Nobby Nobbs?' she said. 'You're talking about Nobby Nobbs?
'He is the last known descendant of the Earl of Ankh, who could trace his descent all the way to a distant cousin to the last king/ said Mr Slant. 'It's the talk of the city.'
'A picture forms in my mind,' said Dr Downey. 'Small monkeylike chap, always smoking very short cigarettes. Spotty. He squeezes them in public.'
'That's Nobby!' Queen Molly chuckled. 'Face like a blind carpenter's thumb!'
'Him? But the man's a tit!'
'And dim as a penny candle,' said Mr Boggis. 'I don't see - '
Suddenly he stopped, and then contracted the contemplative silence that was gradually affecting everyone else around the table.
'Don't see why we shouldn't... give this... due consideration,' he said, after a while.
The assembled leaders looked at the table. Then they looked at the ceiling. Then they studiously avoided one another's gaze.
'Blood will out,' said Mr Carry.
'When I've watched him go down the street I've always thought: There's a man who walks in greatness, ' said Mrs Palm.
'He squeezes them in a very regal way, mind you. Very graciously.'
The silence rolled over the assembly again. But it was busy, in the same way that the silence of an anthill is busy.
'I must remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that poor Lord Vetinari is still alive,' said Mrs Palm.
'Indeed, indeed,' said Mr Slant. 'And long may he remain so. I've merely set out for you one option against that day, may it be a long time coming, when we should consider a ... successor.'
'In any case,' said Dr Downey, 'there is no doubt that Vetinari has been over-doing it. If he survives -which is greatly to be hoped, of course - I feel we should require him to step down for the sake of his health. Well done thou good and faithful servant, and so on. Buy him a nice house in the country somewhere. Give him a pension. Make sure there's a seat for him at official dinners. Obviously, if he can be so easily poisoned now he should welcome the release from the chains of office
'What about the wizards?' said Mr Boggis.
'They've never got involved in civic concerns,' said Dr Downey. 'Give 'em four meat meals a day and tip your hat to them and they're happy. They know nothing about politics.'
The silence that followed was broken by the voice of Queen Molly of the Beggars. 'What about Vimes?'
Dr Downey shrugged. 'He is a servant of the city.'