Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts with a young woman, standing on a street corner, indifferent to the leers and catcalls thrown her way. Neither her dress nor manners suggest Seamstress but there's something about her anyway that encourages the wandering eye to wander on, dissuades the considering gazes, that for their purposes think: easy target.

People bustle around her; men with carts of wood, and iron, and cabbages, women juggling baskets of clothes and mud-stained children. People keep to their own determined, meandering paths, moving individually in chaos, in sea of routine, of movement; and of noise, so much noise.

The tower bells ring out, and peoples' ringing ears supplement the rest. A watchman calls out: Seven o'clock and all is well- oh bugger-. A farmer cries out the price of his wares, a scorned lover yells across the courtyard to his mistress, two women laugh uproariously, elbow deep in suds, and-

And-

Beneath it all is a voice. A woman's voice.

The woman on the street corner speaks. She speaks quietly, and calmly, and with a strange intense conviction. At first, people continue to move around her, deftly navigating this new obstacle.  But gradually, somebody stops to listen, just for a moment, and then somebody else pauses unloading a cart, and somebody else walks a bit slower despite themselves, and suddenly there is a crowd, listening to her every word.

The woman's voice, now, is as clear as glass. There is a rhythm to her speech, a cadence, like a song. Like a chant. Like an incantaction.

It takes a subtle power of its own, weaves around the crowd, draws it inwards, where they wait, breaths held, to hear her talk.

Her name is Eliza Barton, and she has great news of a King.

Monday, 6AM. Drumknott brings in the mornings correspondence on a little tray: two letters from the Klatchian Ambassador, one from Queen Molly, three completely blank files and a postcard from Young Sam. Also, two cups of tea with lemon, of which he takes one gratefully. He sips it quietly, and entertains and dismisses the possibility of holding the cup on his injured leg. The heat would be a welcome sensation; it throbs, painful and ragged, as though protesting at his decision, and also, the cold. He contents himself with drawing the heat into his hands, gritting his teeth, and very deliberately thinking only about the current rate of tax on the rat farms. 

Drumknott slips away to his desk; he, Vetinari, begins on some of the correspondence and paperwork, and all the other glamorous tasks which make up the bulk of his work. Taken like that, it's a miracle that anybody actually wants to be Patrician, particularly since he has the utmost faith in Mr. Drumknott to be as obsequitally unhelpful as possible, should circumstances arise. 

At 8AM, Drumknott brings some more tea, and a copy of the Times, headline up. It reads:

RUMOURS OF KING RETURN TO A.M!

WOMAN HAS VISIONS OF KING, CLAIMS TO BE ABLE TO HEAL THE SICK

SHOCKING! PROBE INTO THE GUILD OF GARDENER'S HAHA

“Well,” he says to Wuffles, shaking the paper out. “Miss Crisplock certainly has a talent for writing headlines.”

And then he reads.

Ankh-Morpork is not unaccustomed to either prophets* nor promises of kings. He is hardly unaccustomed to plots against him, nor doubts of the ability of a cripple to govern. The convergence of the two is new, but not unexpected. And yet-

It is the miracles, he thinks. The power of a king lies in the intangible, the fantasy. But if it begins to intrude upon the mundane reality… 

He thinks back to the dragon. But it has not come to that, not yet, and the world is different now. But people- the people are the same, more or less. People are always the same. 

Wednesday, 9AM. Grey light hesitantly fills the room, as the rain-damp Guild Leaders trickle in. Lord Downey shrugs off his thick fur pile of a coat, water clinging to it like mist; he makes pleasant small talk with Mrs. Palm, whose plumed hat has gone somehow untouched by the weather. He watches them all carefully, watches how they watch him: news travels fast in Ankh-Morpork.

Lord Rust, who, unnoticed, is going deaf, says: “A King, eh? What do you think of that?” to Lady Selachii, who ignores him with regal disdain. 

Lord Veturii murmurs to Mr. Gullet of the Barber-Surgeons: “But of course, the risk of infection… And if there were to be a war, who would lead the troops…” 

Lady Veturii-Begchetwynde trills to the space next to Commander Vimes: “Oh, but if it is true…!”. The Commander grunts in distant acknowledgment, and stares pointedly at the axe embedded in the large oak table.

He, Vetinari, says quietly, “Ladies, Gentlemen, if you please,” and is gratified to hear silence. He beams cheerfully at them all, and ignores the corkscrew pain in his leg, which seems to reach forever deeper through flesh and bone each day. 

After, once the guild leaders and nobles have gratefully removed themselves from the presence of the Patrician and those frescos of cheerfully dancing rats, he limps back to the Oblong Office with Vimes in tow.

Vimes says nothing as he slowly, labouriously, lowers himself into a chair, says nothing when, unfolding his reading spectacles, the tremor in his hands means they clatter. Just waits, until he can say:

“Ah, Vimes. Sit down.”

And he can reply, “Yessir,” and, standing, stare a hole into the wall. As though he is a young, hale man and nothing is at all different. Sybil had said, a few years ago now: he thinks the world of you, Havelock, in his own way. He doesn't see it- or when he does, he sees it as… momentary lapses . As opposed to long-term, irrevocable decay. What consolation. Still, it suits him to play along, and they discuss Miss Barton, and whether she is disturbing the peace, and what, if anything, is to be done. 

“And Vimes,” he says reluctantly, because in truth he has no wish to discuss this. “About Captain Carrot…”

“Yessir?”

He aims for flippant. 

“Nothing unusual about him? No desire for a sudden career change?”

“Don't think so, Sir. He's a copper through and through.”

“Yes , I see. What does he think of the preacher-girl?”

“No idea, Sir. He's gone.”

“Gone?”

Vimes must detect a hint of panic in his tone, because he rubs his neck sheepishly and sits down. “Taken the week off, Sir, gone back to the old country to see his parents. You know how it is. Well-”

“Correct me if I am wrong, Vimes, but Captain Carrot has never taken a week off before. And being kidnapped doesn't count .”

"Yessir. First time for everything, Sir.”

“So this is unusual behaviour for him?”

“Yessir. Thought his old mum sounded a bit poorly down the paper, that's all, Sir.”

“Vimes…”

“Yessir?” 

He sighs. He understands the rationale of sending the Captain away, but he would have preferred him somewhere easier to surveil. It concerns him more that Vimes apparently believes the threat real enough to act in this way, particularly as he claimed to the otherwise. If Vimes thinks him unfit to rule… 

Or perhaps the Commander is merely being cautious, merely reacting to the circumstances as he sees them. Or perhaps Captain Carrot did just really deserve a holiday. He says instead, betraying nothing:

“Speaking of holidays, how is Young Sam?”

Vimes lights up. Yes, he's having a lovely time with Tears of the Mushroom, no, currently he's into Space, no, he doesn't need any presents for his birthday, yes Sybil sends her regards and says that he, Vetinari, could at least write; on way out, the requisite wall-punch sounds positively delighted.

Every day, there are stories: in the paper, via his clerks, on the street. They turn every man on the street into a doctor, a subject, a traitor. They come to him, in various forms, so that if he wished he could assemble a skeleton, a dissection. Here, the Evolution of the Rumour.

A paralysed child walks. A blind woman sees. A man whose family watched in terror and passive sorrow as he convulsed upon the floor now find themselves embracing their lost son. Cancerous growths disappear, abscesses heal. The dead being raised is unremarkable in Ankh-Morpork: the transition from sick to hale is simultaneously so rare as to promise a King, and impatiently expected of the ill. 

He hears word of mind-sickness disappearing too, but nothing yet in the Times. He makes a note of it. He hears word of gold coins, with faded angels of vengeance, who wink in the air flashing obverse and reverse, and wonders wryly how many of the thronging crowds were attracted by the promise of gold.

There are records of miraculous cures at the hands of kings. The Royal Touch, it was called, and people would queue in their hundreds, hands outstretched and desperate, sick with scrofula and leprosy, deaf and blind and dying. The desperation of the half-dead.

There are fewer records of the Royal Touch transmitted by an intermediary, although he puts that down to the recent convergence of religious and monarchal belief, where before the separation was more rigid. There are fewer records too, of Touch transmitted through coins, although those that speak of such things do mention the angels. 

For a moment- a treacherous, subconscious moment, wholly outside his control- he imagines hands he recognises reaching towards him. The promise implicit: believe, and you shall be cured of your pain. For blind faith and complete obedience, I will make you the perfect subject, healthy and hale and useful. 

He closes the records. Then his eyes. Presses his palms into them until all he can see are violet shadows. He does not think of Captain Carrot saying: I only wish to be useful to the city, I only want what is useful to the city. Captain Carrot, after all, is somewhere down a mine-shaft, and is irrelevant to the issue at hand. 

“Drumnknott,” he says; his secretary duly materialises out of the wall furnishings. 

“Your Lordship?”

“Drumknott, please inform Mr. de Worde that he has an appointment with me. Also Dr. Lawn, although perhaps refrain from using the word appointment around him.” 

Drummott gives the impression of politely clearing his throat. “I believe Mr. de Worde has already surmised that, your Lordship. He is turning Turnwise Broadway as we speak.”

“Is he? My word, what an enterprising young man.” 

A series of small, dull noises sound from outside of his office. 

Vetinari duly adds: “And Miss Crisplock and Mr. Von Chriek too? Capital! Do show them in.”

A four-and-a-half minute wait is perhaps a little cruel, but Mr. de Worde is admirably composed. 

“Ah,” he says brightly, steepling his hands together. “How prompt! And I see you've brought your iconogopher too!”

Afterwards, he sits back to take stock, and gives in to instinct, and clutches at his thigh. Were his answers adequate? Yes, he thinks so: acknowledge the rumour and dismiss it, make it seem unimportant and it will become so. After all, as he'd said to Miss Crisplock, unfounded claims of this sort are nothing new. The iconograph, an opportunity. A show of strength, a reminder, proof: he is competent, he is functional, he is healthy if not hale. And after all, he may be hale still; he considers harnessing that natural suspicion that dogs and harasses the sick- are they faking it, are they exaggerating? - among his small achievements. 

Mr. de Worde had asked, wincing imperceptably: What do you say to rumours that you're unfit for office, and that you're planning on stepping down in favour of the king?

A king, Mr. de Worde, and I would very much like to meet the, aha, purveyors of these rumours you claim to have heard…

In the afternoon, he holds an unofficial meeting with the Dark Clerks, in order to coordinate Unofficial Policy: who to watch, what information to gather, all the rest. He ignores the part of his mind that takes their every suggestion, their every argument to the contrary and says: they've seen the news, you're unfit to rule. The King can heal from afar. Whereas you merely persist in staying infirm. He ignores also the part of his mind that is permanently tethered to his leg and screaming. Taken into account, the meeting makes a startling amount of progress.

By the time it ends, the afternoon has long since faded into evening, and frost is inching its way across the window-pane. Drumknott busies himself with relighting the candles, and he, Vetinari, watches him move, as unassuming and indifferent in the Oblong Office as in a crowd. As he works his way across the room, little pools of light well up and throw his creeping shadow on the far wall. 

“Drumknott, I was wondering… you have heard this prophetess speak, I take it?”

“Yes, your Lordship.”

“Speaking freely, what is your impression?” He clarifies: “Of her, of her reception, and so forth.”

“Well, your Lordship,” he says: hesitant, but fluid. “I think she's a very good orator, for Chittling Street. Downstairs, they just think she's faking it, but then again, people say, your Lordship, that they've seen the infirm walk, and eventually there's enough names that sensible people'll start to believe.”

“Do you?”

“No, your Lordship. Lot of old superstition, my mother always said. People seeing what they want to see.” The question hovers on his lips: Do you?, but ever the consummate professional, he says nothing. 

He, Vetinari, says: “Thank you, Drumknott, you've been most helpful. Feel free to have the rest of the evening to yourself.”

Drumknott looks hesitant; he says, “I shan't do any filing, if that worries you,” and Drumknott, ducking his head shyly, takes his leave. 

Later that evening, Downey glitters in the cold night air, and pulls childish faces until allowed in. Later still, they are to be found sitting, backs to headboard, beneath the sort of indulgent quilt he would never have permitted himself before. 

They are, ultimately, men with occupying interests; they trade idle talk about Guild politics and amusingly insolent students, and tax policy, and interviews and paperwork. Downey has heard the news, about the prophetess and the king, and puts it down to the same thirty-second fixation with which he dismisses moving pictures, music with rocks in, and despite all evidence, the clacks. 

What does he plan to do about her? The question indeed. A thought occurs to him; he voices it, because there are certain benefits to going to bed with the Head of the Assassins Guild. 

In response, Downey moves, heavy blankets falling from him like an avalanche. Downey, despite his regular complaints regarding the weather generally, and temperature in the palace specifically, has nevertheless elected to remain undressed. When Petulia gives you a dish, wash up! Vetinari thinks amused: something Madam's girls used to say about certain Johns. In the spirit of it, he chooses to watch Downey openly enough, as he steals a pen and some paper from the desk: age and comfortable living have done great things for him, but his teenage strength is still evident. Downey notices his gaze, and not one for modesty, leers at him with exaggerated lasciviousness and preens. He fixes his gaze resolutely on the ceiling, for enough time that Downey, again seated, can announce:

“AM$7,000, for an inhumation, give or take a few factors. ”

“Such as?”

Downey rambles, albeit not so untidily as the verb implies; Vetinari listens patientally, and with interest, Guild policy having become more standardised since he ceased practising. “And of course,” Downey adds, “with everything in the news, I imagine the amount would increase daily. Shall I be taking a contract out for you then?”

“Not at all, but it's useful to know. And useful to know too that the Head of the Guild of Assassins is so involved with day-to-day knowledge of inhumations.”

Downey stares at him, as if attempting to discern humour. “You're weird,” he informs him solemnly, as though fifteen again; 

“You have informed me often in our acquaintance," he replies, which apparently doesn't help, because Downey just repeats himself and then gropes his jacket pockets for a cigar. 

“You know, my mother used to believe in these street prophets with their miracle cures. Some end-of-the-world rubbish, she used to make Kitty and I sleep under the kitchen table just in case. I don't suppose you remember the name- you might do, it was famous at the time-”

He points out that he was living in Genua at the time, so likely not. Downey clicks his fingers, what was it, what was it, oh yes, Joanna Southcott, ring a bell?

Possibly, he admits, but not from his childhood. 

“Ah, shame,” Downey says. “Lovely woman when she wasn't preaching all fire-and-brimstone. My mother swore blind she cured her headaches, but between you and me, I think she just forgot to have them.”

“What happened to her?”

“My mother? Or Joanna? Lydia's fine, still living with Kitty and behaving like a nervous wreck. Joanna died years ago. She said she was pregnant with a miracle child who would save the world, but after she went they cut her up and found nothing, poor soul.”

Vetinari consults Hughnon Ridcully on the matter of miracle healing on visions, which traditionally falls inside the remit of religions. Does the Guild accept Miss Barton as one of its own? gets a clear answer in the negative; Does it endorse her? gets only a ‘not at the moment, no'. Recent events have been controversial in the Guild, which is impressively conservative, even in Ankh-Morpork terms. The Priests, Sacerdotes and Occult Intermediaries are apparently conflicted on whether this prophetess and her claims fall within their purview, whether their deities of choice are somehow responsible and whether, if the respective answers are yes and no, tackling Unlicensed Visions and Prophecies are really their sacred duties. He listens attentively, and elects not to give an opinion; better the priests are occupied with inter-guild disputes than adding to its cause.

On the plus side, Ridicully mentions cheerfully as he leaves, visions and miracle healing have become “hip again”. “She may not be blessed by Blind Io, but she's saved a waning industry, I'll give her that.” 

Whilst writing up some notes, suddenly his leg is alive and sparking with pain, and daylight blushes purple before his eyes. He digs his nails into his palm- focus- and later, it will amuse him that his only recourse from pain is pain. The living muscles in his leg flex and kick under the strain, missing by an inch the solid weight resting on his ankle. He catches his breath, which comes shamefully ragged and torn. Wuffles shuffles blearily away from his trecherous leg, and learning nothing, merely slumps back down onto the other one.

With the hand unstained with blood, he locates some biscuits in a drawer, and feeds them in apology, hand scraped with rough dog-tongue. Unpredictability is a dangerous asset in a leader, in a dog-owner more so.

Dr. Lawn cannot see him, but writes him a letter from a hospital in Klatch, where they are dealing with an outbreak of sweating sickness. He remembers the sickness distantly, from his childhood: not Klatch, but somewhere close. Djelibeybi? His early childhood can be measured thus: born- Ankh-Morpork- orphaned- itinerant- Genua. But he remembers the fear, the red paint on dusty doors, the speed at which the sickness spread. Merry at breakfast, dead by noon, as they used to say.

In the present- or more precisely, in the near-past- Dr. Lawn has written: 

In my opinion, what she's claiming is not necessarily impossible, just very, very improbable. Assuming it isn't a hoax, or magic, or religious intervention, there are reported instances of ‘the Molko Effect', where it's suggested that in certain situations, belief alone can sometimes ‘heal’ a patient. It's heavily disputed- difficult to verify, contentious to define- although I believe some of the UU lot are working on something. Something about measuring the preponderance of narrativium I think, but I prefer to concentrate on the real medical issues before the potential ones. 

As for the girl herself, the medical explanation for visions tends to be either: as a manifestation or symptom of physical illness or imbalance, or as its own mentally confined imbalance or illness. Or, of course, that she's putting it on. Happens all the time, especially with young women.

He reads over the letter a few times, and then, carefully refolding it, takes out a stack of loosely bound paper from a drawer in his desk. The top one reads: The Firste Manifesto of the Newlly Establishd Society of Aescepieions, as written by an Anonymus and Unnmaed Individuales. 

He flicks through them until he finds the one he wants, and teases it carefully out. A thin document: A monologue of Reason: illness in the mind p1. The Society of Aescepieions intermittently put out these works; he keeps an eye on their output, both professionally and personally. Downey manages to source quite a few, the back of his classroom having become an unofficial secret manifesto swapping library for the more politically enthusiastic students, which amuses him, Vetinari, to no end. 

The part he'd half-recalled reads:

Illnesss of the Mind is not only a physicale phenomenon. Nor is it a soley individuale one. It is the collective extra-territorialisation ofe misery, arising ffrom the contradictione of the limitationse imposede upone us by the Worlde That Is and whate oure life shoulde be.

Thus, women who goe ignorede and unhearde and unseene and beaten have visions ofe Greater Authorities than are over themm: Blind Io, fore example. Ande they then maye be listenede to, or valuede for whate they can knowe, ore else at leaste have power ofe a kind.

Thus also, we cripples who are excluded implicitly and explicitly ffrom participating in Society and as Equals, who are degradede and mockede and villianisede and made pitifule and are disappeared: we, who are become effagies ofe mortality and lifes' caprice: we also turne inwardes ande reconcile ourselves as Madnesss. 

An interesting theory, indeed; he makes a note in the margin: mad/power? LordS/LordW etc.;LMvU? , for later thought, and wonders idly what Dr. Lawn would say about it. Alas, there are more pressing matters at hand, and medial-philosophical wonderings shall have to wait.

December, he catches a fever, and two days in is confined to a bed-chamber.  Two days when he dictates between spasms, when between meetings he vomits neatly and stares blankly at what his body has produced. Weakness bleeds into his limbs like tepid water and on the third day brings him down so completely that it is only on the fifth day that he starts thinking again in words.

He is lucid enough to know what he is suffering from, a sort of visceral recognition, a memory of the flesh. It is what in Ankh-Morpork they call the Brindisi fever, in Brindisi they call the Klatchian rot and in Klatch they know as the Morporkian Plague. It is familiar to him: he had it first when he was six, newly orphaned and arrived in Genua, and again in the summer of his first year at the Guild: once caught, it stays coiled in aching muscles, waiting patiently for something to give. 

There is little to be done but starve it and wait. Distantly, he is aware of preparations being made and set into motion: Charlie has been summoned, what work that can be distributed or postponed is: the appearance of functionality must be maintained. A select few are informed, at his instruction: Commander Vimes, Lady Sibyl, Lord Downey, Queen Molly, Mrs. Palm, Mr. Von Lipwig, Ms. Dearheart, and of course Dr. Lawn. 

Commander Vimes, expressing what might politely be called skepticism that he could fall ill of natural causes, is as intent on seeing him as Dr. Lawn is intent on observing quarantine; in his more conscious moments, he amuses himself by listening to them argue. He thinks he hears Downey cheerfully point out that arsenic poisoning does come under ‘’natural causes', but he hears no reply, so perhaps it is imagined. Still, privately, he feels a little baffled flattery, a hint of vindication by Vimes' continued faith; he himself feels only weary annoyance at yet another betrayal by his body. 

Another three days grace of lucidity, and the fever rushes him and overwhelms him completely. Time collapses in on itself and his sickbed becomes the locus of his life. He is a toddler watching with calm curiosity from where he lies immobile, swaddled in furs, and he is a child enraptured by watching Madam's girls as they joke and gossip and assemble themselves from fabric and paint. He loses consciousness in Überwald attempting to impress a distinctly  unimpressed Margotlotta and wakes up agonising in his office about what to do about Leonard. Pain once again magnifies him, every inch of skin a battleground, every muscle shaking in fatigue. It is not so much that it feels as though it will never end as much as it feels as though there is no ending. He has always been ill, he will always be ill, and instead of time and meaning there is: pain.

But of course, this is only true in the moment. By the third week he is well enough to be brought all the necessary paperwork it takes to keep a city running, if not yet to present himself in public. Drumknott's expression borders amusingly on mutinious , and makes up for it by practically drowning him in hot-lemon-water and dry biscuits; Sybil describes this as ‘sweet, really'.

Madam has sent him a collection of modernist poetry from Pseudopolis, which he thinks might be her idea of a joke. She also sends him knitted socks which he dutifully wears. They are grey with blue paw-prints, and clash dreadfully, and are unbecoming of an Assassin and Patrician both; he thinks: Downey would appreciate these, and dictates a polite thank-you note to Madam over the clacks.

Drumknott brings him news in the meantime: who has been seen visiting the prophetess, who has been asking for cures. Whose money it is that runs secretly beneath everything; his clerks trace the girl's lodgings to a woman known to have had dealings with Lord Selachii. He suspects this functions in part as Lady Selachii's punishment for her husband's many affairs, whose humiliation she has silently borne; also, to distance herself from the matter, though he has no doubt it is her, not her husband, who is the driving force. In a sense, his illness has been fortuitous: the probability of his death has emboldened some of the cautious to privately express more support, in the form of gold and such other things, indicators of guilt more reliable than words. 

From the confines of his sick-room, he reassembles himself into the Patrician, and does his best against the ravages of illness. He takes stock in a mirror: thin, wan face, blue-veined hands, eyes heavy with exhaustion. Make-up will do something, and people's perception of him the rest, but it is not ideal, with this resurgence of scrutiny, to look as he does- that is, infirm. Three weeks bed-bound has done little for his leg either, which now threatens to buckle and twist its gnarled scar-tissue into knots when he attempts to use it to bear some of his weight. 

One of the poets he has been reading says:

We must establish a new language of pain, must crush together the sufferer's pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the people of Babel did in the beginning), until a brand new word in the end drops out. Probably, it will be something laughable.

A new visceral language (of the flesh) is not enough; also, there must be a new hierarchy of the passions.  

Love must be deposed in favour of a temperature of the head- jealousy give place to the pangs of sciatica- sleeplessness play the part of villain- and- the hero become a white liquid with a sweet taste- that mighty Prince with the moths' eyes and the feathered feet, one of whose names is Chloral.

When Dr. Lawn asks him how he is, he says: Tired. Aching. When asked how his leg is: Painful. The language he has at his disposal is the language of the permanently healthy, and thus the words that come to him are clinical, temporary, and dull, and say nothing of any value. 

In the margins of the poem, he writes: Issue. How can the sick create a language when we are exhausted/tired/aching, and must put everything into existing, that is, to be seen trying. Pain robs him of his clarity and demonstrates the illusion of his articulation, it replaces all words with feeling, the unifying commonality of pain.

On the 16th, he returns to his desk. That week he spends fielding all the necessary-but-dull meetings that serve mostly as a reminder: he is alive, he is well (enough), he is dangerous, and he has been watching. Vimes meets with him, and in his awkward Vimesian way offers his sympathies. Captain Carrot is apparently on his way back to the city, his mother being fine after all. 

Downey visits him on the Friday. All but a few students at the Guild have returned home for the Winter Holidays, and it is blissfully peaceful and quiet . He arches an eyebrow: Downey says the same thing yearly, and every year thus far barely makes it until Hogswatchnight before he starts complaining of boredom. 

Still, he has brought spiced wine, which they heat in a copper pan, and his curiously-untouched marzipan cake from the Guild Hogswatch Party. Downey, regrettably, persists in thinking that he is hilarious; even more regrettable is that sometimes he is. 

“This, however, is not one of those times,” he says, which makes Downey pull a childish face and laugh. Still, the cake is nice enough, not overly sweet in the Überwald fashion, and the wine is warm with cloves. 

Downey says, cutting the cake: “It's in the Überwald fashion, you know.”

“I do.”

“Thought it might remind you of your lady friend."

He winks lavisciously. He, Vetinari, merely holds his plate out and refuses to encourage the man with a response. 

Downey has brought with him another back-of-the-classroom pamphlet, which he deposits on his desk. Ought we start calling you the Hogfather? he says wryly. 

Downey laughs, oh yes, and if you don't watch out you'll start getting lumps of coal instead. 

The leaflet this time is entitled Public Sphere: The Leader Made Flesh, and its comparatively high success rate with spelling marks this author out as the probably-assassin. Downey has some ideas: Reginald Perrin, doing a Masters, Craybourne Humphries in upper sixth, Saffron Monsoon in fifth; he's brought the latter's essay on circumventing poison detection with him to mark. 

The Society of Aescepieions are not in favour of him, he gathers: the repressive state apparatus and the ideological pressure of conformity both partially emanate from and utilise him apparently, alongside all the other usual complaints. 

However (it argues) we are forced here to defend the oppressive, unelected, unaccountable Tyrant here!! To be crippled in the public eye is to be rendered child-like, incompetent or weak. The threat of fallibility is tied to the threat of physical collapse. Moreso for a leader, whose health is the health of the city!!

We argue here that to persist becomes a revolutionary act, even if in persisting it is counterrevolutionary! To continue to be publicly sick, to violate the expected response of healing, to make permanent the transient state of illness despite the expectation of healing is a revolutionary act of the sick towards the well!

He dislikes the idea that he has become revolutionary in existing, that his mere insistence on continuing to live and work in the public sphere has turned him into an icon. He also thinks that a surfeit of exclamation points is rarely indicative of a balanced mind, and whilst that is perhaps the point, it does little for their credibility.

He rereads the pamphlet a few times, then joins it with the others. Downey has moved on to marking the first year winter exams, the existence of which has been the subject of his displeasure for many years, but nevertheless has been maintained by a need to keep up with the other highly-regarded educational guilds. He, Vetinari, watches him idly: his hands are in constant motion, scribbling in the margins or fiddling with the pen, or teasing a loose thread on his chair. 

He moves his leg experimentally against the pain, mind evaluating the possibility of relocating from his office: it is 58 steps to his chambers, or 43 with stairs. He still loathes having to ask for help for walking to his own chambers , but Downey at least is neither patronising nor inconsiderate about it, and might in fact be called kind. He does not dwell on that possibility, but suggests instead, aloud, the possibility of recolating. Downey does not ask are you sure you can manage it?, or anything of that sort, just vaguely agrees, gathers up his papers, and patiently holds out an arm. 

11 o'clock, or thereabouts, finds them drinking brandy with the ill-advised abandon of students. He is unusually relaxed about the lack of control such drinking has a tendency to bring: the fever has- briefly, dangerously- exhausted his willingness to care. 

“ Does it matter, though?” Downey is slouched, languid, among the fabric of an armchair dragged out solely for him, but his eyes are bright and his words focused. 

“A king, I can see the argument. He's representative of the people, he's the health of the nation, his health is the people's health. And symbolically, obviously, but also literally-”

“And, of course, if there's a religious link, how else to be assured he's still ruling by divine right, dei gratia , if he is not hale?”

“That too. But a Tyrant- if this whole-”; (here, Downey waves his hands, as if to say: this whole affair, whatever it is ); “If it shows anything, isn't it that people don't see the Tyrant as an erzatz-king precisely because that spiritual or figurative dimension is lacking? So it doesn't matter.”

“But in terms of competence (including perceived competence), it becomes relevant.”

Downey mutters under his breath, “Of course you can pronounce the brackets.” He ignores him.

Out loud, he says: “How so?”

“Because one is legitimised by one's competence (or perceived competence, as that may be, and it really isn't difficult to pronounce the brackets). There is a certain amount of… leeway for Tyrants, because of the narrative, you know, power corrupts, but madness is only allowed, providing functionality is still maintained, at least for the most part-

(Downey, gently amused: “You read those leaflets too much.” )

- As with Snapcase. There is acceptable madness, expected madness- eccentricity, but beyond that, and at some point there'll be a loss of legitimacy.”

After all, from where does the Tyrant have legitimacy? The guilds, the nobles, yes; but from the people also there has to be a tactic agreement, a perception that he is all-powerful and can make them do things they usually would not, that he makes things work, that he is functional.

Downey considers this, as he pours them both more brandy. He is deceptively thoughtful; he thinks: certainly , my teenage self would never have guessed. Although, Downey's teenage self was an unthinking boar, so the folly is not just his.

Downey says, with genuine curiosity: “ Would you say you're legitimised by the will of the people?”

Who are The People? Revolutionaries and such-like are always referring to the People, who are Sensible and Intelligent and want things like democracy and administrative reform. As opposed to people , who tend towards the irrational and mundane and tend to just want tomorrow to be the same as today, and to know that someone somewhere has all the responsibility and is in control. 

He adds, untidily: “People believe that they need a Tyrant to keep themselves and their neighbours in check. To make sure everything works, or as good as. They want to displace responsibility, and to have a symbol of power and evil-” 

He blinks. The drink, it seems, has gone to his head; the words seem to unspool on his tongue and render his speech dangerously imprecise. The lack of eloquence irritates him somewhat, but Downey seems to comprehend, so he dismisses it. 

Jean L’Oignon writes that a Tyrant makes his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes for cruel laws. The difference is that with a King, the desires, however unjust, are nevertheless considered just; his passions are not just substituted for laws but are laws. Also, he considers himself not to be cruel but necessary; but then, he will admit, he imagines most people do. 

Downey leaves at four in the morning, slipping seamlessly into the night. It's a clear night, and the moonlight pools in the crevices of rooftops like liquid silver. There is a stupid desire in him to run out into the freedom of the city-scape and clamber over the buildings once more; it is a stupid desire, because it has long been impossible, because a moment of metal gauged the flesh from his thigh and now all he can do is watch. Downey has taken with him the sick-bed modernist poetry; also, a headache, because emulating the drinking habits of young men does not mean they can emulate their powers of recovery.

He, Vetinari, has marked a poem in the book which reads:

A week later, Downey sends him a note written on the back of a lesson plan on Second Year Organic Poisons and Their Sources (Higher). It says:

Enjoyed The Waste Land and Religious Instruction . Not so much The Second Coming. General lack of coherence seems designed against me specifically. Will be visiting L. Monday-Tuesday. All your fault, you shall have to bare my complaints accordingly. D.

L., that is to say Lydia Downey, mother of the aforementioned; twice a tradesman’s widow, first of a baker then a butcher.

He has a vague memory of Downey, guild-age, reading her letters aloud to the common room as street-theatre. In the subsequent weeks, one could see boys enacting scenes, his mother's neuroses repeated as comedy, so that the hallways rung out with cries of oh my nerves, my poor nerves! and desperate pleas for her daughters to marry rich.

At the time, it had merely reinforced his professed belief in Downey as asinine, attention-seeking and cruel; now, he thinks elements of the same, but wonders more how strange it would be, to hear your mother’s words repeated and echoed like cheap pulp catchphrases wherever you went. Also, he wonders what he had not consciously done before, that is, how did they know the letters were the ones read? Also: how is it his fault? He wonders which poem was responsible: The Second Coming, maybe?

He files the paper away in a drawer, and the thought away into the box marked ‘Downey’. And then he rings a silent bell, because there has been time enough; he sends someone to inform Miss Eliza Barton that she is scheduled for an interview with him.

“Miss. Barton, welcome,” he says courteously, once she has arrived. “Please, sit down. Shall I ring for some tea?”

She doesn't sit. 

“I will not take a tyrant's tea,” she proclaims.

“Whyever not? I hope you don't think me so crass as to poison the tea. ” 

He summons Drumknott: one tea please, no sugar. Just one? yes- if you're sure- yes please. 

And then he walks, pointedly unaided, to the window, and bites back the pain. He turns away from her, conscious of every taut muscle holding him into place, holding him tall and straight and whole and hale. The concentration, the pain, threaten to steal his thoughts and dissolve them; beneath the veneer of Tyrant he feels there is only a creature of exhaustion. Exhaustion and viscera.

Smoothly, unfailingly polite, he asks: "Tell me, Miss Barton, when you look out of the window, what do you see?”

Skeptical, she stares at him for a moment, and then allows her eyes to dart to the window and back. He can almost hear her thinking it over: it is a trap? Should I be careful? And then, foolishly, concluding it can't possibly be, she sees instead an opportunity. Pulls her spine straight with, frankly, enviable ease, points her chin up high. 

I see sick, oppressed people, good people who wait for their king.

He listens. Attentively.

I see a city of vice and of anarchy, a city that has been strangled and driven into the ground under the cruel yoke of a Tyrant.

He continues listening. 

I see- I see honest men starving, honest women begging, I see people crippled and useless, in need of a king.

He listens still. She says nothing. He turns to face her, looks at her, prompts: Anything else?

“Um.” Her eyes dart back to the window, and then to the general vicinity of his. “No?”

“Are you sure?”

“Um.” The animal part of her screams: danger! run! But she rallies herself well enough. “Well, there's also a dog pissing in the corner..”

“Another symbol of our moral decay and oppression, I suppose,” he says, and she looks at him uncertain: is he mocking her nor not? 

Drumknott enters obtrusively with the tea, and gives him the time to sit down and arrange his face. 

Pleasantly, he says, “Miss Barton, regardless of the truth of your beliefs, you must understand the position you are in. It is my belief that you have been manipulated- no, not manipulated perhaps. But the people who claim to support, who have given you your new house in Park Lane, your new clothes, who encourage you to put certain details in your claims of my successor- tell me, do you know them? Do you know their faces? Do you trust them?”

“They are good people, honest people, who see and understand the truth. They are people who just want what's best for the city.”

“Undoubtably, undoubtably. But ask yourself: would they see me hang? Commander Vimes- you know of Commander Vimes? Good. The Commander, you see, has brought it to my attention that there are laws against this sort of thing.”

“Its not illegal to have visions or to cure the sick.”

“No, although I think the Guild of Barber-Surgeons might be voting upon it. But it is illegal to talk treason, and apparently this may be it. Now, ask yourself again: will these friends of yours stand for you? Defend you? Will they join you on the scaffold for your beliefs?”

“Commander Vimes wouldn't do that. Ev'ryone says he doesn't kill people.”

“Oh yes. But as you say, I am a cruel and unjust tyrant, and I do .”

“Ev'ryone says the scorpion pits are just myths,” she says, shakily.

“Oh, do they?” he replies blandly. “Oh, dear me. Well, if that's all…”

Suddenly, desperately, she says: “It's true, it is, I see visions of a King, and I dream he puts these weird coins in my pocket, and when I wake up they're there, and they heal people, they do. Ev'ryone knows what happened to you, I could show you if you let me. I just want to help people.” 

He says: “I know. But a King is not a magical solution to your problems, and the people claiming to be your friends have no such noble aims.”

She says: “I could show you. I could fix you,” and only realises her mistake when a smile briefly cleaves his face in half.

“I have no doubt you could try, Miss Barton. Which is why I am willing to offer you a choice. And it is a choice.”

Continue and face the possible consequences, and hope the Selachii's will stand up for you. Or, go home. Don't renounce what you've said, but keep quiet. Put your skills to good use. Many an enterprising young woman has found a calling at the Lady Sibyl Free Hospital. 

Do you believe in Angels? he asks, and she says, obstinance lost, yes, that's what we call these miracle-coins, Angels , ‘cos they've got an angel on them, look. 

It sits heavily on the table.

No, they don't work on ev'ryone, you've got to want to believe. 

He says: “This is your only chance, Miss Barton. It's all I can offer you,” and steeples his hands neatly against temptation.

Her face telegraphs her thoughts clearly: she thinks, Can he have me hanged?, still unconvinced; she thinks, in her mother's voice, they wouldn't, y'know, these nobs just get away with it, of course he'd know, he's a Lord. They'd just throw you to the dogs and deny everything . She thinks: Maybe working at the hospital wouldn't be too bad, all things considered, its only fair to help people who need it. She thinks: the King'll come to save all of us, one day, but I suppose the dreams never said nothing about a time limit, and there's no use hanging around just waiting.

Unnecessarily, he rings a bell.

“Mr. Drumknott here will see you out, Miss Barton. Please, do not let me detain you.”

And in his mind, a litany of don't- don't- don't - as the King’s Coin flashes at him from the centre of the table, full of promise.

He holds himself tense and terse until Captain Carrot leaves, and makes only the customary pretense at his usual facade, for decency's sake. He learns nothing save for an intensely detailed breakdown of what the Captain did whilst away; his eyes resolutely look away from his hands, he does not think of birthmarks or kings or the promise of freedom for obedience. He meets with Vimes, which at least is more predictable: they discuss the case, he instigates some small talk and says something infuriating, Vimes leaves. To Vimes' evident displeasure, he persuades him away from arresting Lady Selachii, who after all has not technically done anything illegal. More importantly, there is as much power in the lash withheld as applied, with the benefit of allowing one's options to be left open, and so he contents himself with some careful deployment of subtext and on Wednesday manages to increase the rate of paid tax by the aristocracy with no real opposition from the Selachii's. Ultimately, the whole business just- fades away, drifts out of the public consciousness, another thirty-second fixation . Until next time, that is; beliefs of this sort run deep, their shape familiar even as the details blur and shift. But for now- nothing. It's all rather anti-climactic, but better dull than deposed, to be sure. 

Hogswatchnight, the palace is mostly empty, the staff have been given the night off. He plans to spend it catching up on paperwork, which seems to accumulate like dust, and to amuse himself by learning some esoteric skill- lacemaking, perhaps. 

Downey, in typical fashion, arrives stylishly and unexpectedly, and is unrepentant about ruining his sad old man plans . He replies primly that they are the same age, thank you very much, and shouldn't Downey be visiting his mother? 

The susurration of fabric against the fabric echoes unsteadily in his chambers. 

As he undresses, Downey throws over his shoulder:

“Usually, but I've spent enough time with her this month, and I'll be seeing her for new years anyhow. Jane's coming down- she's in Quirm, did I say? With that useless husband of her's- brandy? Say when.” 

It is, despite everything, pleasant to have company, even if Downey insists that they deck his potted plants in leftover decorations from the Guild's supply cupboard. They play cards; he limps painfully to his desk and pens a letter to Madam for tomorrow; and between the clanging of bell-towers, Downey says:

“Did I ever tell you about the time somebody took out a contract on the Hogfather?”

He watches Downey, lounging magnificently, gesturing expansively, and kisses him for the reason that he can. Downey looks vaguely put out at being interrupted which only incentives him to repeat it. And he, Vetinari, feels a vaguely dangerous sort of contentment, the sort that makes one complacent and should ordinarily be avoided, the sort that (he thinks wryly) the Modernist poets never seem to talk about. It ought to concern him, this dangerously close-to-dependency; he finds it does, but not enough to counter the pleasure. And so he does nothing, but listens attentively, and luxuriates in company.