"Delicate ones?"

"Indeed, your grace."

"If he"s been killed won"t that be an act of war?"

"Yes and no, your grace."

"What? Sleeps was - is our man!"

Inigo looked awkward. "It would depend on... exactly where he was and what he was doing..."

Vimes gave him a blank look, and then the penny dropped and operated his brain. "Spying?"

"Acquiring information. Everyone does it, mmm, mhm."

"Yes, but if you find a diplomat going too far you just send him home with a sharp note, don"t you?"

"Around the Circle Sea, your grace, that is the case. Here they may have a different approach."

"Something rather sharper than a note?"

"Exactly. Mmm."

One of the guards was Captain Tantony. There was some minor difficulty, but the argument that, since he was guarding Vimes, he might as well be where Vimes was, eventually carried some weight. Tantony had the look of an agonizingly logical man.

He kept giving Vimes curious looks as the coach rattled out of the town. Beside him sat Cheery with her legs dangling. Vimes noticed, although it was not the kind of thing he generally made a habit of noticing, that the shape of her breastplate had been subtly altered, probably by the same armourer that Angua went to, to indicate that the chest underneath it was not quite the same shape of chest that you got under the armour of, say, Corporal Nobbs, although of course probably no one had a chest the same shape as that of Corporal Nobbs.

She was wearing her high-heeled iron boots, too.

"Look, you don"t have to come," he said out loud.

"Yes, I do."

"I mean I could go and get Detritus instead. Although I suppose there"d be even more upshot if I took a troll into a dwarf mine. I mean, rather than a... a..."

"Girl," said Cheery helpfully.

"Er, yes." Vimes felt the coach slow to a halt, even though they hadn"t left the town yet, and he looked out.

In front of them, across a small square, was a fort of sorts, but with much larger gates than you"d expect for its size. As Vimes stared at them they were swung open from within.

Inside was a slope. All the fort consisted of were four walls around a large, sloping tunnel.

"The dwarfs live underneath the town?" he said, as the light from outside was gradually replaced by the infrequent glow of torches. But they clearly showed the coach was rattling past a long, long line of stationary carts. The pools of light revealed horses, and drivers talking in groups.

"Under quite a lot of Uberwald," said Cheery. "This is just the nearest entrance, sir. We"ll probably have to stop in a minute because the horses don"t like - ah."

The coach stopped again, and the coachman banged on the side to indicate that this was the end of the line. The queue of carts wound off down another tunnel, but the coach had stopped in a small cave with a big door. A couple of dwarfs were waiting there. They had axes slung across their backs, although by dwarf standards this counted merely as "politely dressed" rather than "heavily armed". Their attitude, however, was in the international language of people guarding gates everywhere. "Commander Sam Vimes, Ankh-Morpork Ci -  Ambassador from Ankh-Morpork," said Vimes, handing one of them his papers. At least it was not hard to assume a lofty air with dwarfs.

To his surprise, the document was read thoroughly, one dwarf looking over the other one"s shoulder and pointing out interesting sub

clauses. The official seal was carefully examined.

One guard pointed to Cheery. "Kra"k?"

"My official guard," said Vimes. "Included in "associated members of staff" on page two," he added helpfully.

"Mhust searhch thy coash," said the guard.

"No. Diplomatic immunity," said Vimes. "Tell "em, Cheery."

They listened to Cheery"s urgent dwarfish. Then the other guard, whose face had indicated that there was something on his mind and it was jumping up and down, nudged his companion and pulled him aside.

There was a torrent of whispers. Vimes couldn"t understand, but he caught the word "Wilinus". And, shortly afterwards, the word "hr grag", dwarfish for "thirty".

"Oh gods," he said. "And a dog?"

"Good guess, sir," said Cheery.

The document was handed back hurriedly. Vimes could read the body language, even written smaller than usual: there was probably an expensive problem here, so the guards were inclined to leave it to someone who earned more money than them.

One of them pulled a bellrope by the door. After some time the door slid open, revealing a small room.

"We have to go in, sir," said Cheery.

"But there"s no other doors!"

"It"s all right, sir."

Vimes stepped inside. The dwarfs slid the door back, leaving them in the room, which was lit by a single candle.

"Some kind of waiting room?" said Vimes.

Somewhere far off something went clonk. The floor trembled for a moment and then Vimes had an uneasy sensation of movement.

"The room moves?" he said.

"Yes, sir. Several hundred feet down, probably. I think it"s all done by counterweights."

They stood silently, unsure of what to say, as walls around them creaked and groaned. Then there was a rattle, a passing sensation of weight, and the room stopped moving.

"Wherever we"re headed, keep your ears open," said Vimes. "Something"s going on, I can feel it."

The door slid back. Vimes looked out on to the night sky, underground. The stars were all around him... below him...

"I think we went down too far," he said. And then his brain made sense of what his eyes had seen. The moving room had brought them out somewhere on the side of a huge cave. He was looking at a thousand points of candlelight, spread out on the cavern floor and in other galleries. Now that he could grasp the scale of things, he realized that many of them were moving.

The air was full of one huge sound made up of thousands of voices, echoed and re-echoed. Occasionally a shout or a laugh would stand out, but mostly it was just an endless sea of sound, beating on the shores of the eardrum.

"I thought you people lived in little mines," said Vimes.

"Well, I thought humans lived in little cottages, sir," said Cheery, taking a candle from a large rack beside the door and lighting it. "And then I saw Ankh-Morpork."

There was something recognizable about the way the lights were moving. A whole constellation of them was heading in towards one invisible wall, where reflected light now indicated, very faintly, the mouth of a large tunnel. In front of it was a row of lights.

Think of it as a lot of people heading for something that one row of people was... guarding.

"People down there aren"t happy," said Vimes. "That looks like a mob to me. Look, you can tell by the way they move."

"Commander Vimes?"

He turned. In the gloom he could make out several dwarfs, each with a candle fixed to his helmet. In front of them was, presumably, another dwarf.

He"d seen dwarfs like this in Ankh-Morpork, but always scurrying away. This was a deep-down dwarf.

The robe it was wearing was made of overlapping leather plates. Instead of the small round iron helmet which Vimes had always thought dwarfs were born with, it had a pointed leather hat with more leather flaps all round it. The one at the front had been tied up, to allow the wearer to look out at the world, or at least that part of it that was underground. The general effect was of a mobile cone.

"Er, yes, that"s me," said Vimes.

"Welcome to Schmaltzberg, your excellency. I am the King"s jar"ahk"haga, which in your language you would call - "

But Vimes"s lips had been moving fast as he tried to translate.

"Ideas... taster?" he said.

"Hah! That would be a way of putting it, yes. My name is Dee. Would you care to follow me? This should not take long."

The figure swept away. One of the other dwarfs prodded Vimes very gently, indicating that he should follow.

The sound from far below redoubled. Someone was yelling.

"Is there a problem?" said Vimes, catching up with the fast-moving Dee.

"We have no problems."

Ah, he"s already lied to me, thought Vimes. We"re being diplomatic.

Vimes trailed after the dwarf through more caves. Or tunnels... it was hard to tell, because in the darkness Vimes could only rely on a sense of the space around him. Occasionally they passed the lighted entrance to another cave or tunnel. Several guards, with candles on their helmets, stood at each one.

The well-honed copper"s radar was beeping at him continuously. Something bad was going on. He could smell the tension, the sense of quiet panic. The air was thick with it. Occasionally other dwarfs scuttled past, distracted, on some mission. Something very bad. People didn"t know what to do next, so they were trying to do everything. And, in the middle of this, important officers had to stop what they were doing because some idiot from some distant city had to hand over a piece of paper.

Eventually a door opened in the darkness. It led into a large, roughly oblong cave that, with its book-lined walls and paper-strewn tables, had the look of an office about it.

"Do be seated, commander."

A match burst into life. One candle was lit, all lost and alone in the dark.

"We try to make guests feel welcome," said Dee, scuttling behind his desk. He pulled off his pointed hat and, to Vimes"s amazement, put on a pair of thick smoked glasses.

"You had papers?" he said. Vimes handed them over.

"It says here "His Grace"," the dwarf said, after reading them for a while.

"Yes, that"s me."

"And there"s a sir."

"That"s me, too."

"And an excellency."

"fraid so." Vimes narrowed his eyes. "I was blackboard monitor for a while, too."

There was the sound of angry voices from behind a door at the far end of the room.

"What does a blackboard monitor do?" said Dee, raising his voice.

"What? Er, I had to clean the blackboard after lessons."

The dwarf nodded. The voices grew louder, more intense. Dwarfish was such a good language to be annoyed in.

"Erasing the teachings when they were learned!" said Dee, shouting to be heard.

"Er, yes!"

"A task given only to the trustworthy!"

"Could be, yes!"

Dee folded up the letter and handed it back, glancing briefly at Cheery.

"Well, these seem to be in order," he said. "Would you care for a drink before you go?"

"Sorry? I thought I had to present myself to your king." The swearing from the other side of the door was threatening to burn through the woodwork.

"Oh, that won"t be necessary" said Dee. "At the moment he should. not be bothered with - "

" - trivial matters?" said Vimes. "I thought it was how the thing ought to be done. I thought dwarfs always did the thing that ought to be done."

"At the moment it... would not be advisable," said Dee, raising his voice again over the noise. "I"m sure you understand."

"Let"s assume I"m very stupid," said Vimes.

"I assure you, your excellency, that what I see the King sees, and what I hear the King hears."

"That"s certainly true at the moment, isn"t it?"

Dee drummed his fingers on his desk. "Your excellency, I have spent only long enough in your... city to gain a general insight into your ways, but I might feel you are making fun of me."

"May I speak freely?"

"From what I have heard of you, your monitorship, you usually do."

"Have you found the Scone of Stone yet?"

The expression on Dee"s face told Vimes that he had scored. And that, almost certainly, the next thing the dwarf said would be another lie.

"What a strange and untruthful thing to say! There is no possibility that the Scone could have been stolen! This has been firmly declared! This is not a lie we wish to hear repeated!"

"You told me I - " Vimes tried. By the sound of it, there was a fight going on behind the door now.

"The Scone will be seen by all at the coronation! This is not a matter for Ankh-Morpork or anyone else! I protest at this intrusion into our private affairs!"

"I merely - "

"Nor do we have to show the Scone to any prying troublemaker! It is a sacred trust and well guarded!"

Vimes kept quiet. Dee was better than Done It Duncan.

"Every person leaving the Scone Cave is carefully watched! The Scone cannot be removed! It is perfectly safe!" Dee was shouting now.

"Ah, I understand," said Vimes quietly.

"Good!"

"So... you haven"t found it yet, then."

Dee opened his mouth, shut it again, and then slumped back in his seat. "I think, your grace, that you had better - "

The door at the other end of the room rolled back. Another dwarf, cone-shaped in his robes, stamped out, stopped, glared around him, went back through the door again, shouted some afterthoughts to whoever was beyond, and then made to head out of the room. He was brought up short when he almost walked into Vimes.

The dwarf tilted its head to look up at him. There was no real face there, just the suggestion of the glint of angry eyes between the leather flaps.

"Arnak-Morporak?"

"Yes."

Vimes didn"t understand the words that followed, but the nasty tone was unmistakable. The important thing was to keep smiling. That was the diplomatic way.

"Why, thank you," he said. "And may I say it - "

There was a grunt from the dwarf. He"d seen Cheery.

"Ha"ak!" he shouted.

Vimes heard a gasp. There were other dwarfs clustered around the doorway. Then he glanced down at Cheery. Her eyes were shut. She was trembling.

"Who is this dwarf?" he said to Dee.

"This is Albrecht Albrechtson," said the Ideas Taster.

"The runner-up?"

"Yes," said Dee hoarsely.

"Then can you tell the creature that if he uses that word again in the presence of myself or any of my staff there will be, as we diplomats say, repercussions. Wrap that up in diplomacy and give it to him, will you?"

The corners of Vimes"s ears picked up a suggestion that not every dwarf listening was ignorant of the language. A couple of dwarfs were already heading purposefully towards them.

Dee babbled a stream of hysterical dwarfish, just as the other dwarfs caught up with the gaping Albrecht and led him quietly but firmly away, but not before one of them had whispered something to the Ideas Taster.

"The, er, the King wishes to see you," he mumbled.

Vimes looked towards the doorway. More dwarfs were hurrying through it now. Some of them were dressed in what Vimes thought of as "normal" dwarf clothing, others in the heavy black leathers of the deep-down clans. All of them glared at him as they went past.

Then there was just empty floor, all the way to the door.

"Do you come too?" he said.

"Not unless he asks for me," said Dee. "I wish you luck, your monitorship."

Beyond the door was a room of bookshelves, stretching up, stretching away. Here and there a candle merely changed the density of the darkness. There were lots of them, though, punctuating the distance. Vimes wondered how big this room must be

"In here is a record of every marriage, every birth, every death, every movement of a dwarf from one mine to another, the succession of the king of each mine, every dwarf"s progress through k"zakra, mining claims, the history of famous axes... and other matters of note," said a voice behind him. "And perhaps most importantly, every decision made under dwarf law for fifteen hundred years is written down in this room, look you."

Vimes turned. A dwarf, short even by dwarf standards, was standing behind him. He seemed to be expecting a reply.

"Er, every decision?"

"Oh, yes."

"Er, were they all good?" said Vimes.

"The important thing is that they were all made," said the King. "Thank you, young... dwarf, you may straighten up."

Cheery was bowing.

"Sorry, should I be doing that?" said Vimes. "You"re... not the King, are you?"

"Not yet."

"I, I"m, I"m sorry, I was expecting someone more, er..."

"Do go on."

"... someone more... kingly."

The Low King sighed.

"I meant... I mean, you look just like an ordinary dwarf," said Vimes weakly.

This time the King smiled. He was slightly shorter than average for dwarfs, and dressed in the usual almost-uniform of leather and home-forged chain-mail. He looked old, but dwarfs started looking old around the age of five years and were still looking old three hundred years later, and he had that musical cadence to his speech that Vimes associated with Llamedos. If he"d asked Vimes to pass the ketchup in Gimlet"s Whole Food Delicatessen, Vimes wouldn"t have given him a second look.

"This diplomacy business," said the King, "Are you getting the hang of it, do you think?"

"It doesn"t come easy, I must admit... er, your majesty."

"I believe you have been, until now, a watchman in Ankh-Morpork?"

"Er, yes."

"And you had a famous ancestor, I believe, who was a regicide?"

Here it comes, thought Vimes. "Yers, Stoneface Vimes," he said, as levelly as possible. "I"ve always thought that was a bit unfair, though. It was only one king. It wasn"t as if it was a hobby."

"But you don"t like kings," said the dwarf.

"I don"t meet many, sir," said Vimes, hoping that this would pass for a diplomatic answer. It seemed to satisfy the King.

"I went to Ankh-Morpork once, when I was a young dwarf," he said, walking towards a long table piled high with scrolls.

"Er, really?"

"Lawn ornament, they called me. And... what was it... ah, yes... shortarse. Some children threw stones at me."

"I"m sorry."

"I expect you"ll tell me that sort of thing doesn"t happen any more."

"It doesn"t happen as much. But you always get idiots who don"t move with the times."

The King "gave Vimes a piercing glance. "Indeed. The times... But now they"re always Ankh-Morpork"s times, see?"

"I"m sorry?"

"When people say "We must move with the times," they really mean "You must do it my way." And there are some who would say that Ankh-Morpork is... a kind of vampire. It bites, and what it bites it turns into copies of itself. It sucks, too. It seems all our best go to Ankh-Morpork, where they live in squalor. You leave us dry."

Vimes was at a loss. It was clear that the little figure now sitting at the long table was a lot brighter than he was, although right now he felt as dim as a penny candle in any case. It was also clear that the King hadn"t slept for quite some time. He decided to go for honesty.

"Can"t really answer that, sir," he said, adopting a variant on his talking-to-Vetinari approach. "But..."

"Yes?"

"I"d wonder... you know, if I was a king... I"d wonder why people were happier living in squalor in Ankh-Morpork than staying back home... sir."

"Ah. You"re telling me how I should think, now?"