Lord Vetinari calmly put down the book he had been reading, sighed and said to Drumknott, ‘It appears, Drumknott, that we have been hijacked by assassins. Isn’t that … nice.’

And now Drumknott had a little smile. ‘Oh, yes, how nice, sir. You always like meeting assassins. I won’t get in your way, sir.’

Vetinari pulled his cloak around him as he stepped out of the coach and said, ‘There is no reason for violence, gentlemen. I will give you everything I have …’

And it was no more than two minutes later that his lordship climbed back up into the coach and signalled for the driver to carry on as if nothing had happened.

After a while, and out of sheer curiosity, Drumknott said, ‘What happened this time, my lord? I didn’t hear anything.’

Beside him, Lord Vetinari said, ‘Neither did they, Drumknott. Dear me, it’s such a waste. One wonders why they don’t learn to read. Then they’d recognize the crest on my coach, which would have enlightened them!’

As the coach got up to what might be considered an erratic kind of speed, and after some thought, Drumknott said, ‘But your crest, sir, is black on a black background and it’s a very dark night.’

‘Ah, yes, Drumknott,’ Lord Vetinari replied, with what passed as a smile. ‘Do you know, I hadn’t thought of that.’

There was something inevitable about Lady Margolotta’s castle. As the great wooden doors slowly opened, every door hinge creaked. After all, there was such a thing as socially acceptable ambience. Indeed, what kind of vampire would live in a castle that didn’t creak and groan on cue? The Igors wouldn’t have it any other way, and now the resident Igor welcomed Lord Vetinari and his secretary into a cavernous hall with spiders’ webs hanging pendulously from the ceiling. And there was a sense, only a sense, that down in the basement somewhere, something was screaming.

But of course, Vetinari reflected, here was a wonderful lady, who had made vampires understand that returning from the grave so often that you got dizzy was rather stupid and who somehow had persuaded them to at least tone down their nocturnal activities. Besides which, she had introduced coffee to Uberwald, apparently exchanging one terrifying craving for another.

Lady Margolotta was always short and to the point, as was the nature of the conversation that followed a splendid dinner a few days later. ‘It is the grags. The grags again, yes, Havelock? After all this time! My vord, even vorse, just as you, my dear, prophesied. How could you have foreseen it?’

‘Well, madam, Diamond King of Trolls asked me the very same thing, but all I can say is that it lies in the indefatigable nature of sapient creatures. In short, they can’t all be satisfied at the same time. You thought the bunting and fireworks and handshakes and pledges after Koom Valley was signed and sealed was the end of it, yes? Personally, I have always considered this a mere interlude. In short, Margolotta, peace is what you have while incubating the next war. It is impossible to accommodate everyone and twice as impossible to please all the dwarfs. You see, when I’m talking to Diamond King of Trolls he is the mouthpiece of the trolls, he speaks for all the trolls. Sensible as they are, they leave it all to him when it comes to the politics.