"I... he... took his own life, sire. Out of shame."
The King picked up his axe and turned it so that the long point faced outwards.
"Tell me again."
Now Vimes could hear Dee"s breathing, short and fast.
"He took his own life, sire!"
The King smiled at Vimes. "There"s an old superstition, your excellency, that since the Scone contains a grain of truth it will glow red hot if a lie is told by anyone touching it. Of course, in these more modern times, I shouldn"t think anyone believes it." He turned to Dee.
"Tell me again," he whispered.
As the axe moved slightly the reflected light of the candles flashed along the blade.
"He took his own life! He did!"
"Oh, yes. You said. Thank you," said the King. "And do you recall, Dee, when Slogram sent false word of Bloodaxe"s death in battle to Ironhammer, causing Ironhammer to take his own life in grief, where was the guilt?"
"It was Slogram"s, sir," said Dee promptly. Vimes suspected the answer had come straight from some rote-remembered teaching.
"Yes."
The King let the word hang in the air for a while, and then went on: "And who gave the order to kill the craftsman in Ankh-Morpork?"
"Sire?" said Dee.
"Who gave the order to kill the craftsman in Ankh-Morpork?" The King"s tone did not change. It was the same comfortable, sing-song voice. He sounded as though he would carry on asking the question for ever.
"I know nothing about - "
"Guards, press his hands firmly against the Scone."
They stepped forward. Each one took an arm.
"Again, Dee. Who gave the order?"
Dee writhed as if his hands were burning. "I... I..."
Vimes could see the skin whiten on the dwarf"s hands as he strained to lift them from the stone.
But it"s a fake. I"d swear he destroyed the real one, so he knows it"s a fake, surely? It"s just a lump of plaster, probably still damp in the middle! Vimes tried to think. The original Scone had been in the cave, hadn"t it? Was it? If it wasn"t, where had it been? The werewolves thought they had a fake, and it certainly hadn"t left his sight since. He tried to think through the fog of fatigue.
He"d half wondered, once, whether the original Scone had been the one in the Dwarf Bread Museum. That would have been the way to keep it safe. No one would try to steal something that everyone knew was a fake. The whole thug was the Fifth Elephant, nothing was what it seemed, it was all a fog.
Which one was real?
"Who gave the order, Dee?" said the King.
"Not me! I said they must take all necessary steps to preserve secrecy!"
"To whom did you say this?"
"I can give you names!"
"Later, you will. I promise you, boyo," said the King. "And the werewolves?"
"The Baroness suggested it! That is true!"