Making Money

Things were getting heated in the conference room. This, to Lord Vetinari, was not a problem. He was a great believer in letting a thousand voices be heard, because this meant that all he actually needed to do was listen only to the ones that had anything useful to say, ‘useful’ in this case being defined in the classic civil service way as ‘inclining to my point of view’. In his experience, it was a number generally smaller than ten. The people who wanted a thousand, etc., really meant that they wanted their own voice to be heard while the other 999 were ignored, and for this purpose the gods had invented the committee. Vetinari was very good at committees, especially when Drumknott took the minutes. What the Iron Maiden was to stupid tyrants, the committee was to Lord Vetinari; it was only slightly more expensive,[14] far less messy, considerably more efficient and, best of all, you had to force people to climb inside the Iron Maiden.

He was just about to appoint the ten noisiest people on to a Golem Committee that could be locked in a distant office when a Dark Clerk appeared, apparently out of a shadow, and whispered something in Drumknott’s ear. The secretary leaned down towards his master.

‘Ah, it would appear that the golems have gone,’ said Vetinari cheerfully, as the dutiful Drumknott stepped back.

‘Gone?’ said Adora Belle, trying to see across to the window. ‘What do you mean, gone?’

‘Not here any more,’ said Vetinari. ‘Mr Lipwig, it seems, has taken them away. They are leaving the vicinity of the city in an orderly fashion.’

‘But he can’t do that!’ Lord Downey was enraged. ‘We haven’t decided what to do with them yet!’

‘He, however, has,’ said Vetinari, beaming.

‘He shouldn’t be allowed to leave the city! He is a bank robber! Commander Vimes, do your duty and arrest him!’ This was from Cosmo.

Vimes’s look would have frozen a saner man. ‘I doubt if he’s going far, sir,’ he said. ‘What do you wish me to do, your lordship?’

‘Well, the ingenious Mr Lipwig appears to have a purpose,’ said Vetinari, ‘so perhaps we should go and find out what it is?’

The crowd made for the door, where it got stuck and fought itself.

As it piled out into the street, Vetinari put his hands behind his head and leaned back with his eyes shut. ‘I love democracy. I could listen to it all day. Get the coach out, will you, Drumknott?’

‘That is being done at this moment, sir.’

‘Did you put him up to this? ’

Vetinari opened his eyes. ‘Miss Dearheart, always a pleasure,’ he murmured, waving away the smoke. ‘I thought you had gone. Imagine my delight at finding you have not.’

‘Well, did you?’ said Adora Belle, her cigarette noticeably shortening as she took another drag. She smoked as if it was a kind of warfare.

‘Miss Dearheart, I believe it would be impossible for me to put Moist von Lipwig up to anything that could be more dangerous than the things he finds to do of his own free will. While you were away he took to climbing high buildings for fun, picked every lock in the Post Office and took up with the Extreme Sneezing fraternity, who are frankly insane. He needs the heady whiff of danger to make his life worth living.’

‘He never does that sort of thing when I’m here!’

‘Indeed. Can I invite you to ride with me?’

‘What did you mean by saying “indeed” like that?’ said Adora Belle suspiciously.

Vetinari raised an eyebrow. ‘By now, if I have been adept at judging the way your fiancé thinks, we should be going to see an enormous hole …’

We’re going to need stone, thought Moist as the golems dug. Lots of stone. Can they make mortar? Of course they can. They’re the Lancre army knife of tools.

It was fearful, the way they could dig, even in this worn-out, hopeless soil. Dirt was fountaining into the air. Half a mile away, the Old Wizarding Tower, a landmark on the road to Sto Lat, brooded over an area of scrub and desolation that was unusual on the heavily farmed plains. A lot of magic had been used here once. Plants grew twisty or not at all. The owls that haunted the ruins made sure their meals came from some distance away. It was the perfect site. No one wanted it. It was a wasteland, and a wasteland shouldn’t be allowed to go to waste.

What a weapon, he thought, as his golem horse circled the diggers. They could collapse a city in a day. What a terrible force they would be in the wrong hands.

Thank goodness they are in mine …

The crowd was keeping its distance, but was also getting bigger and bigger. The city had turned out to watch. To be a true citizen of Ankh-Morpork was to never miss a show. As for Mr Fusspot, he was apparently having the time of his life standing on the horse’s head. There’s nothing a small dog likes more than a high place from which to yap madly at people … No, actually, there was, and the chairman had managed to wedge his toy between a clay ear and a paw, and stopped barking to growl every time Moist made a tentative grab at it.

‘Mr Lipwig!’