'Are you going to stop me taking my people out of here?'

'How can you do that? The dwarfs surround us!,

'We're going to use... diplomatic channels. Just show me where everyone is, and we'll be off. If it's any help I can hit you over the head and tie you up...'

'That will not be required. The dwarf and the troll are in the cellar. Her ladyship is... I assume she's wherever the Baron took her.'

Vimes felt the little trickle of superheated ice down his spine. 'Took her?' he said hoarsely.

'Well, yes.' Tantony stepped back from Vimes's expression. 'She knew the Baroness, sir! She said they were old friends! She said they could sort it all out! And then...' Tantony's voice became a mumble, seared into silence by the look on Vimes's face.

When Vimes spoke, it was in a monotone as threatening as a spear.

'You are standing there in your shiny breastplate and your silly helmet and your sword without a single notch in the blade and your stupid trousers and you are telling me that you let my wife be taken away by werewolves?'

Tantony took a step backwards. 'It was the Baron—'

'And you don't argue with barons. Right. You don't argue with anyone. Do you know what? I'm ashamed, ashamed to think that something like you is called a watchman. Now give me those keys.'

The man had gone red.

'You've obeyed any orders,' said Vimes. 'Don't... even... think... about... disobeying... that... one.'

Carrot reached the bottom of the stairs and put a hand on Vimes's shoulder.

'Steady, Mister Vimes.'

Tantony looked from one to the other and made a life decision.

'I hope you... find your lady, milord.' He produced a bunch of keys and handed them over. 'I really do.'

Vimes, still fighting for breath, wordlessly passed the keys to Carrot. 'Let them out,' he said.

'Are you going to the werewolves' castle?' Tantony panted.

'Yes.'

'You won't stand a chance, milord. They do as they please.'

'Then they've got to be stopped.'

'You can't. The old one understood the rules, but Wolfgang, he doesn't obey anything!'

'All the more reason to stop him, then. Ah, Detritus.' The troll saluted. 'You've got your bow, I see. Treated you well, did they?'

'Dey called me a ficko troll,' said Detritus darkly. 'One of dem kicked me inna rocks.' 'Was it this one?'

No.

'But he is their captain,' said Vimes, stepping away from Tantony. 'Sergeant, I order you: shoot him down.'

In one movement the troll had the crossbow balanced on his shoulder and was sighting along the massive package of arrows. Tantony went pale.

'Well, go on,' said Vimes. 'It was an order, sergeant.'

Detritus lowered the bow. 'I ain't dat fick, sir.'

'I gave you an order!'

'Den you can do wid dat order what Boulder der Lintel did wid his bag of gravel, sir! Wid respect, o'course.'

Vimes walked across and patted the shaking Tantony on his shoulder.

'Just making a point,' he said.

'However,' said Detritus, 'if you can find der man dat kicked me inna rocks, I should be happy to give him a flick around der earhole. I know which one it was. He's der one walkin' wid der limp.'

Lady Sybil drank her wine carefully. It didn't taste very nice. In fact, quite a lot of things weren't very nice.

She wasn't a good cook. She'd never been taught proper cookery; at her school it had always been assumed that other people would be doing the cooking and that in any case it would be for fifty people using at least four types of fork. Such dishes as she had mastered were dainty things on doilies.

But she cooked for Sam because she vaguely felt that a wife ought to and, besides, he was an eater who entirely matched her kitchen skills. He liked burnt sausages and fried eggs that went boing when you tried to stick a fork in them. If you gave him caviare, he'd want it in batter. He was an easy man to feed, if you always kept some lard in the house.

But the food here tasted as though it had been cooked by someone who had never even tried before. She'd seen the kitchens, when Serafine had given her the little tour, and they'd just about do for a cottage. The game larders, on the other hand, were the size of barns. She'd never seen so many dead things hanging up.

It was just that she was certain that venison shouldn't be served boiled, with potatoes that were crunchy. If they were potatoes, of course. Potatoes weren't usually grey. Even Sam, who liked the black lumpy bits you got in some mashed potatoes, would have commented. But Sybil had been brought up properly; if you can't find something nice to say about the food, find something else to be nice about.

'These are... really very interesting plates,' she said dutifully. 'Er, are you sure there's been no more news?' She tried to avoid watching the Baron. He was ignoring Sybil and his wife, and was prodding the meat around on his plate as if he'd forgotten what a knife and fork were for.

'Wolfgang and his friends are still out searching,' said Serafine. 'But this is terrible weather for a man to be on the run.'

'He is not on the run!' snapped Sybil. 'Sam is not guilty of anything!'

'Of course, of course. All the evidence is circumstantial. Of course,' said the Baroness soothingly. 'Now, I suggest that as soon as they have the passes clear, you and the, er, the staff get back to the safety of Ankh-Morpork before the real winter hits. We know the country, my dear. If your husband is alive, we can soon do something about it.'

'I will not have him shamed like this! You saw him save the King!'

'I'm sure he did, Sybil. I'm afraid I was talking to my husband at the time, but I don't disbelieve you for a minute. Is it true that he killed all those men in the Wilinus Pass?'

'What? But they were bandits!'

At the other end of the table the Baron had picked up a lump of meat and was trying to tear it apart with his teeth.

'Well, of course. Yes. Of course.'

Sybil pinched the bridge of her nose. Most of her would not have considered Sam Vimes guilty of murder, actual murder, even on the evidence of three gods and a message written on the sky. But stories did get back to her, in a roundabout way. Sam got wound up about things. Sometimes he unwound all at once. There'd been that bad business with that little girl and those men over at Dolly Sisters, and when Sam had broken into the men's lodging he found one of them had stolen one of her shoes, and she'd heard Detritus say that if he hadn't been there only Sam would have walked out of the room alive.

She shook her head. 'I really would like a bath,' she said. There was a clatter from the other end of the table.

'Dear, you will have to eat your dinner in the changing room,' said the Baroness, without looking round. She flashed Lady Sybil a brief, brittle smile. 'We do not, in fact, have a... have such a, a device in the castle.' A thought occurred to her. 'We use the hot springs. So much more hygienic.'

'Out in the forest?'

'Oh, it's quite close. And a quick run around in the snow really tones up the body.'

'I think perhaps I'll have a lie-down instead,' said Lady Sybil firmly. 'But thank you all the same.'

She made her way to the musty bedroom, fuming in a ladylike way.

She couldn't bring herself to like Serafine, and this was shocking, because Lady Sybil even liked Nobby Nobbs, and that took breeding. But the werewolf scraped across her nerves like a file. She remembered that she'd never liked her at school, either.

Among the other unwanted baggage that had been heaped on the young Sybil to hamper her progress through life was the injunction to be pleasant to people and say helpful things. People took this to mean that she didn't think.