‘And that was it until later Smack and me tried to find something both of us could drink. A lot of the people were doing the same thing, but the potion he gave me nearly blew my bloody head off. It certainly made my boots burn. Smack has got two kids now, you see, doing all right, working in Ankh-Morpork. Trolls ain’t all that good at writing, but I think of him and I think of Koom Valley every day.’

The old cobbler looked sideways at his son’s face and said, ‘You’re a smart boy. Smarter than your brother was … and I reckon you’ve got a question to ask me.’

The boy coughed and said, ‘If you saw them playing Thud, Dad, can you remember which one was about to win?’

The old dwarf laughed. ‘I asked that when I met Commander Vimes, and he wouldn’t tell me. We reckoned he probably broke a few pieces off so no one knew who the winner would be so some curious little fellow like you wouldn’t go off and try to start the whole damn war again.’

‘Commander Vimes? The Blackboard Monitor?’

‘Yes, it was him all right. Shook my hand. Shook both our hands.’

The boy’s tone was suddenly reverential. ‘You actually shook hands with the actual Commander Vimes!’

‘Oh, yes,’ said his father nonchalantly, as if meeting the famed Blackboard Monitor was all in a day’s work. ‘I suspect you have another question, my lad.’

And the boy frowned. ‘So, Dad, what’s going to happen to my brother?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. I sent a petition to Lord Vetinari, saying that Llevelys is a good lad who got into bad company. And I received a reply, and his lordship said that a young dwarf set fire to a clacks tower while people were working on it. And his punishment will be at his lordship’s leisure. And so I sent him another letter, saying that I had fought at Koom Valley. And I received another reply, and his lordship said that he understood that I didn’t fight at Koom Valley because fortunately nobody did, but he understood that I must do what I can for my eldest son, and as his lordship said, he will cogitate.’

The old dwarf sighed. ‘I’m still waiting, but as your mother says, while we’re not hearing anything, then he’s still alive. Now don’t tell me, my lad, that the grag extremists are on our side, because they ain’t. They’re the ones that’ll tell you that the dead kings have been made up in Ankh-Morpork and were dummies and so were we if we thought they were real. And, my boy, the dumb believe it! But I was there. What I touched I felt, and so did everybody else on that day and that’s why I get angry when the grags start preaching about the horrible humans and the terrible trolls.

‘They want us to be frightened of one another, thinking there must be an enemy, but the only enemy now is the grags and those poor fools like your brother, who set fire to a clacks tower and got badly burned for his trouble. They are the victims of the sneaking bastards in the darkness.’