‘Yes, and you won’t do it,’ said Adora Belle. ‘You know Mister Bent keeps everything shipshape. All you have to do is go around being friendly to everybody.’

‘And nobody’s trying to kill me, Spike.’

And Adora Belle said, ‘We can but hope.’

At breakfast, Lady Sybil said to her husband, ‘It sounds quite an adventure, Sam. I hear the Queen has changed her name to Blodwen. It means “fair flower” in Llamedos. Isn’t that nice? I must write to her.’

‘She’ll like that,’ said Vimes, whose wife’s capacity to remain in touch with everybody she had ever met was well known and sometimes quite useful. Especially in political circumstances. The commander looked down at his muesli and said, ‘You know, that Lipwig character isn’t quite as bad as I thought. Acts like a scoundrel, but reasonably helpful when the chips are down. Mind you, I’m not going to tell him so.’

He pushed the healthy fibre around his bowl, wistfully recalling the stoker’s fry-ups. ‘But he does like being the centre of attention, of course.’

‘Yes, some men are like that, dear.’

Lady Sybil was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Sam, I know you’re going to be busy what with the backlog and everything, but can I ask a favour?’

‘Anything, dear.’

‘When they have the line to Uberwald running, I’d love to go to visit the Queen, and most of all I’d like a holiday by the train. And Young Sam’s mad about trains, you know. He’s nearly filled up his first notebook already.’

‘Well,’ said Vimes, ‘you know if I have a holiday I walk into a crime.’

Lady Sybil finished her egg and said, ‘Jolly good, dear, you’ll like that.’

Harry King was not entirely surprised when Drumknott arrived at the compound the following day and said, ‘His lordship commands you and Lady King to present yourselves to him within the hour.’ And the secretary winked uncharacteristically at Harry, and his wife when he told her was, according to her, all of a tizzy at the news.

‘The palace in one hour! How can a girl look her best inside an hour?’

‘Come on, Duchess,’ said Harry. ‘You look a treat as always and getting younger every day.’

‘Oh, you teaser, Harry King!’

But Harry said, ‘The coach is here and clean as a whistle and his lordship believes that punctuality is the politeness of Princes and that applies to you, too, young Emily. I expect your boy wouldn’t want you to be late. That’s not the railway … way.’

Harry hadn’t told his wife what to expect, preferring to keep it as a surprise, and so as the coach arrived at the palace, his wife nearly had another tizzy to contend with because there were the great and good of Ankh-Morpork, and presumably some of the silly and nasty as well, just to see Harry King being turned into a Lord. Lord King of the Permanent Way. And in the wonderful ceremony that followed, Lord Harry’s old Dutch did indeed become a Duchess.