‘So I heard,’ said Albrechtson. ‘What are you doing? You don’t have to stand down. You won.’

The Low King laughed. ‘Stand down? Oh, I don’t think so, boyo. You’ll see.’

Turning back to the crowd, Rhys took a deep breath and said, ‘This will be surprising news to many of my subjects, but I am female, just like your mothers were, and therefore am in truth your Queen!’

There it was again. The famous dwarf intake of breath. Even Albrechtson seemed startled. Moist looked at Aeron and noticed the dwarf’s mailed fist was resting, oh so lightly, on his sword. Bashfullsson was standing right behind Albrechtson, watching him closely. Next to Moist, Vimes carefully laid down his glowing cigar on a rock ledge and tensed. This could be very interesting, Moist thought.

‘And if you think your Queen is not as good a ruler as your King, do you really believe your mother was inferior to your father?’ The Queen laughed. ‘I see embarrassment among all of you. That’s good. The thing about being embarrassed is that sooner or later you aren’t, but you remember that you were.’

There was a noticeable shift in atmosphere as the Queen carried on, saying, ‘I have seen that in warm breasts there is a truth which is not to be denied, but we dwarfs seem to deny everything, building little worlds inside a big one. And one might ask what we are trying to escape from – unless it is ourselves. We are dwarfs, yes, but we could be better than our dwarf ancestors stuck in their holes.’

When she had finished the Queen looked around at the assembled dwarfs and said, ‘Well? No dwarf man enough to challenge me?’

Several eyes turned to Albrechtson, who looked thoughtful but did not move. Bashfullsson relaxed his stance.

And suddenly the Queen’s finger was pointing and she said, ‘Shod Orebreaker, I always thought of you as a level-headed dwarf with your head screwed on, although possibly against the thread.’

And Moist felt the exultation of those who hadn’t been the one facing the finger and the misery of Shod Orebreaker, and he wondered: had the Low Queen’s voice changed, or had it always been like that? She hadn’t threatened, but a visible threat was in the air. She had them in her hand, and she was squeezing, and the dwarf stepped backwards as she pointed at him and she said, ‘Where are your grags now, Shod Orebreaker?’

The said Shod became a picture of panic. ‘Not my grags, my Queen!’

This was possibly because Aeron had passed the Queen a thick file. The Queen licked a finger and riffled through the pages, looked down and said, ‘Really? Then I must have been misinformed.’

She turned to the rest of the dwarfs and said, ‘I wonder if I have been misinformed about all of you?’

But the assembled company was watching the flicking pages, trying not to crane to see whether their name was on the list … It was laughable. She had them by the short and curlies, and she said, ‘Strange, isn’t it, that when the chips are down they take other chips with them. If anyone wants to test my claim then let them step forward now!’