Rubber Sonky, floating in his vat...

You dipped in a wooden hand, and out of the vat you got a glove. Hand in glove...

It isn't where you put it, it's where people think it is. That's what matters. That's the magic.

He remembered the very first thought he'd had when he'd seen Cheery staring at the floor of the Scone's cave, and the little policemen in Vimes's head started to clamour.

'What, sir?' said Carrot.

'Hmm?' Vimes forced open his eyes.

'You just shouted, sir.'

'What did I shout?'

'You shouted, "The bloody thing was never bloody stolen!" sir.'

'The bastards! I knew I nearly had it! It all fits together if you don't think like a dwarf! Let's make sure Sybil is all right and then, captain, we're going to—'

'Prod buttock, sir?'

'Right!'

'Only one thing, sir...'

'What?'

'You are an escaped criminal, aren't you?'

For a moment there was only the sound of the runners skimming over the snow.

'We-ell,' said Vimes, 'this isn't Ankh-Morpork, I know. Everyone keeps telling me. But, captain, wherever you are, wherever you go, watchmen are always watchmen.'

A solitary light burned in the window. Captain Colon sat by the candle, staring at nothing.

Regulations called for the Watch House to be manned at all hours, and that's what he was doing.

The floorboards in the room below creaked into a new position. For many months now they'd been walked on around the clock, because the main office never had fewer than half a dozen people in it. Chairs, too, accustomed 'to being warmed continuously by a relay of bottoms, groaned gently as they cooled.

There was only one thought buzzing around Fred Colon's head.

Mister Vimes is going to go completely bursar. He's going to go totally Librarian-poo.

His hand went down to the desk and came back automatically, while he looked straight ahead.

There was the crunch of a sugar lump being eaten. .

Snow was falling again. The watchman that Vimes had named Colonesque was leaning in his box by the Hubward gate of Bonk. He'd perfected the art, and it was an art form, of going to sleep upright with his eyes open. It was one of the things you learned on endless nights.

A female voice by his ear said, 'Now, there are two ways this could go.'

His position didn't change. He continued to stare straight ahead.

'You haven't seen anything. That's the truth, isn't it? Just nod.'

He nodded, once.

'Good man. You didn't hear me arrive, did you? Just nod.'

Nod.

'So you won't know when I've gone, am I right? Just nod.'

Nod.

'You don't want any trouble. Just nod.'

Nod.

'They don't pay you enough for this. Just nod.'

This time the nod was quite emphatic.

'You get more than your fair share of night watches as it is; anyway.'

Colonesque's jaw dropped. Whoever was standing in the shadows was clearly reading his mind.

'Good man. You just stand here, then, and make sure no one steals the gate.'

Colonesque took care to continue to stare straight ahead. He heard the thud and creak of the gate being opened and closed.

It occurred to him that the speaker had not in fact mentioned what the other way was, and he was quite relieved about that.

'What was the other way?' said Vimes as they hurried through the snow.

'We'd go and look for another way in,' said Angua.

There were few people on the streets, which were whitening with the new snow again except where wisps of steam escaped from the occasional grating. In Uberwald, it seemed, sunset made its own curfew. This was just as well, because Gavin was growling continuously under his breath.

Carrot came back from the next corner.

'There's dwarfs on guard all round the embassy,' he said. 'They don't look open to negotiation, sir.'

Vimes looked down. They were standing on a grating.

Captain Tantony of the Bonk Watch was not happy with this duty. He'd been at the opera last night, and later on he'd thought he saw things happening in a way which, the burgomaster had instructed him, hadn't happened. Of course, the thing to do was obey orders. You were safe if you obeyed orders. Everyone in the watch knew that. But these didn't feel like safe orders.

He'd heard they did things differently in Ankh-Morpork. Milord Vimes would arrest anyone, they said.

Tantony had set up a desk in the embassy's hall so that he could keep an eye on the main doors. He'd taken some pains to position his men around the inside of the building; he didn't trust the dwarfs on guard outside. They'd said they'd got orders to kill Vimes on sight, and that didn't make any sense. There had to be some sort of a trial, didn't there?

There was a faint noise from upstairs. He stood up carefully and reached for his crossbow. 'Corporal Svetlz?'

There was another little sound. Tantony went to the bottom of the stairs.

Vimes appeared at the top of them. There was blood on his shirt, and crusted on the side of his face. To the captain's horror he began to walk down the steps.

'I will shoot you!'

'That's the order, is it?' said Vimes.

'Yes! Stop there!'

'But if I'm going to be shot anyway there's no point in stopping, is there?' said Vimes. 'I don't think you're the kind to do that, captain. You've got a brain.' Vimes steadied himself on the banister rail. 'Shouldn't you have called for the rest of the guards by now, by the way?'

'I tell you to stop!'

'You know who I am. If you're going to fire that damn thing, do it now. But first, I suggest it would be a really good career move to tug the bellpull over there. What's the worst that would happen? You've still got the bow pointed at me. There's something you really ought to know.'

Tantony gave him a suspicious look but took a few steps sideways and tugged the rope.

Igor stepped out from behind a pillar. 'Yeth, marthter?'

'Tell this young man where he is, will you?'

'He'th in Ankh-Morpork, marthter,' said Igor calmly.

'See?' said Vimes. 'And don't glare at Igor like that. I missed it when he welcomed me here, but it's true. This is an embassy, my son,' he went on, walking forwards again, 'and that means it's officially on the soil of the home country. Welcome to Ankh-Morpork. There's thousands of Uberwald people living in our city. You don't want to go starting a war, do you?'

'But... but... they said... my orders... you are a criminal!'

'The word is accused, captain. We don't kill people in Ankh-Morpork just because they're accused. Well, not on purpose. And not because someone tells us to.'

Vimes took the crossbow out of Tantony's unresisting hands and fired it into the ceiling.

'Now send your men away,' he said.

'I'm in Ankh-Morpork?' said the captain.

Even in his current state Vimes thought he recognized the harmonics.

'That's right,' he said, putting an arm around him. 'A city which, incidentally, always has a job in the Watch for a young man of ability—'

Tantony's body stiffened. He pushed Vimes's arm away. 'You insult me, milord. This is my country!'

'Ah.' Vimes was aware of Carrot and Angua watching from the landing.

'But I will not see it dishonoured, either,' said the captain. 'This isn't right. I saw what happened last night. You swept up the King and your troll caught the chandelier! And then they said you'd tried to kill the King and you'd killed dwarfs when you escaped...'

'Are you in charge of the Watch here?'

'No. That's the job of the burgomaster.'

'And who gives him his orders?'

'Everyone,' said Tantony bitterly. Vimes nodded. Been there, he thought. Been there, done that, bought the doublet...