And now Drumknott beamed once again and said, ‘I’m sure his lordship will be glad to hear that your family is so happy and … alive. Long may it continue. I’ll be recommending to him that you could be promoted, as it were, to higher things. And now, since his lordship is expected back within the hour, if you don’t mind I’ll take you out through the back door. We really don’t want to see two Vetinaris in one place, do we?’

Charlie went almost white and said, ‘Oh, no sir, we don’t want that.’

‘Well, we shan’t, shall we,’ said Drumknott. ‘Off you go and I’ll lock the door behind you.’

When Charlie had disappeared, happy but in haste, Drumknott, after a moment’s thought, said to Dark Clerk Ishmael, ‘I’m sure his lordship will want to know that we’ve checked the location of this Mister Fornacite’s salon and the school that our friend’s children go to. Is it the same as last year?’

And the clerk replied, ‘Yes, it is, sir, I checked again the other day.’

‘Well done.’

As his lordship had pointed out: ‘If you take enough precautions, you never need to take precautions.’ It was just a matter of making sure that Charlie didn’t get … well, creative about his future.

Never had Moist been more happy to see his front door than when he got home and his wife opened it before he did, saying, ‘Oh, it’s you. Not dead? Good. How did it go?’

‘Pretty well. The golems were incredible. Sad that we’ve had to leave Iron Girder there until the bridge is repaired. Still, we’ve got so many of Harry’s golems and workers on it now it’s not going to be long before Vetinari can have a special train of his own, if he likes.’

‘To make sure relationships between Uberwald and Ankh-Morpork proceed in a … cordial fashion, no doubt,’ said his wife with a smile.

Behind him, Of the Twilight the Darkness said, ‘Already Uberwald goblins giving themselves railway name. Speaks funny, those ones, but quick clever, like all goblin.’

‘Yes,’ said Adora Belle, ‘that reminds me. We got reports while you were away from clacksmen along the road from the Shires about some rather odd occurrences. Strange rumblings, steam coming out of molehills, that sort of thing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’

Of the Twilight the Darkness reassembled his features into the closest approximation of innocence that a goblin can muster. ‘No ideas, missus. Steaming molehill? Maybe cow eat bad grass. Course, maaany goblin interest in steaming things. Some even practises own little engine. Educational! Clever goblins.’

It was clearly a conversation for another day. Moist headed for the fluffy pillows with a grateful sigh. ‘I’ll have a rest and tomorrow I’ll dally with the Bank. There must be some paperwork for me to sign. It would be nice to have a simple job for a while.’

Adora Belle snorted. ‘How long would that be?’

Moist hesitated. ‘Maybe a fortnight? There might be a lot of paperwork.’