Part 43 (2/2)

”Oh? Why not seven knives, then?”

”Kind sirs, that would be too simple,” said Lord Vetinari.* ”I am but a humble tumbler. Please let me practice my art.” ”I am but a humble tumbler. Please let me practice my art.”

”Beti?” said n.o.bby, glowering under his veils.

Three fruits arced gently out of the green whirl and thumped on to Al-jibla's tray.

The guards looked carefully, and to Colon's mind nervously, at the cross-dressed figure of the cross corporal.

”She's not going to do any kind of dance, is she?” one of them ventured.

”No!” snapped Beti.

”Promise?”*

n.o.bby grabbed three of the knives and tugged them out of the man's belt.

”I'll give them to his lor-to him, shall I, Beti?” said Colon, suddenly quite sure that keeping the Patrician alive was almost certainly the only way to avoid a brief cigarette in the suns.h.i.+ne. He was also aware that other people were drifting over to watch the show.

”To me, please...Al,” said the Patrician, nodding.

Colon tossed him the knives, slowly and gingerly. He's going to try to stab the guards, he thought. It's a ruse ruse. And then everyone's going to tear us apart.

Now the circling blur glinted in the sunlight. There was a murmur of approval from the crowd.

”Yet somehow dull,” said the Patrician.

And his hands moved in a complex pattern that suggested that his wrists must have moved through one another at least twice.

The tangled ball of hurtling fruit and cutlery leapt into the air.

Three melons dropped to the ground, cut cleanly in two.

Three knives thudded into the dust a few inches from their owner's sandals.

And Sergeant Colon looked up and into a growing, greenish, expanding- The melon exploded, and so did the audience, but both their laughter and the humor was slightly lost on Colon as he sc.r.a.ped over-ripe pith out of his ears.

The survival instinct cut in again. Stagger around backward, it said. So he staggered around backward, waving his legs in the air. Fall down heavily, it said. So he sat down, and almost squashed a chicken. Lose your dignity, it said; of all the things you've got, it's the one you can most afford to lose.

Lord Vetinari helped him up. ”Our very lives depend on your appearing to be a stupid fat idiot,” he hissed, putting Colon's fez back on his head.

”I ain't very good at acting, sir-”

”Good!”

”Yessir.”

The Patrician scooped up three melon halves and positively skipped skipped over to a stall that a woman had just set up, s.n.a.t.c.hing an egg from a basket as he went past. Sergeant Colon blinked again. This was not... over to a stall that a woman had just set up, s.n.a.t.c.hing an egg from a basket as he went past. Sergeant Colon blinked again. This was not...real. The Patrician didn't do this sort of thing...

”Ladies and gentlemen! You see-an egg! And here we have a-melon rind! Egg, melon! Melon, egg! We put the melon over the egg!” His hands darted across the three halves, switching them at bewildering speed. ”Round and round they go, just like that! Now...where's the egg? What about you, shah?”

Al-jibla smirked.

”'s the one on the left,” he said. ”It always is.”

Lord Vetinari lifted the melon. The board below was eggless.

”And you, n.o.ble guardsman?”

”'s got to be the one in the middle,” said the guard.

”Yes, of course...oh dear, it isn't...”

The crowd looked at the last melon. They were street people. They knew the score. When the object can be under one of three things, and it's already turned out not to be under two of them, then the one place it was certainly not going to be was under the third. Only some kind of gullible fool would believe something like that. Of course course there was going to be a trick. There always there was going to be a trick. There always was was a trick. But you watched it, in order to see a trick done well. a trick. But you watched it, in order to see a trick done well.

Lord Vetinari raised the melon nevertheless, and the crowd nodded in satisfaction. Of course course it wasn't there. It'd be a pretty poor day for street entertainment if things were where they were supposed to be. it wasn't there. It'd be a pretty poor day for street entertainment if things were where they were supposed to be.

Sergeant Colon knew what was going to happen next, and he knew this because for the last minute or so something had been pecking at his head.

Aware that this was probably his moment, he raised his fez and revealed a very small fluffy chick.

”Have you got a towel? I am afraid it has just gone to the toilet on my head, sir.”

There was laughter, some applause and, to his amazement, a tinkling of coins around his feet.

”And finally,” said the Patrician, ”the beautiful Beti will do an exotic dance.”

The crowd fell silent.

Then someone at the back said, ”How much do we have to pay for her not to?”

”Right! I've just about had enough of this!” Veils flying out behind her, bangles jingling, elbows waving viciously and boots kicking up sparks, the lovely Beti strode into the crowd. ”Which of you said that?”

People shrank away from her. Armies Armies would have retreated. And there, revealed like a jellyfish deserted by a suddenly ebbing tide, was a small man about to fry in the wrath of the ascendant n.o.bbs. would have retreated. And there, revealed like a jellyfish deserted by a suddenly ebbing tide, was a small man about to fry in the wrath of the ascendant n.o.bbs.

”I meant no offense, oh, doe-eyed one-”

”Oh? Pastry-faced, am I?” n.o.bby flung out an arm in a crash of bracelets and knocked the man over. ”You've got a lot to learn about women, young man!” And then, because a n.o.bbs could never resist a p.r.o.ne target, the pet.i.te Beti drew back a steel-capped boot- ”Beti!” snapped the Patrician.

”Oh, right, yeah, right right,” said n.o.bby, with veiled contempt. ”Everyone can tell me what to do, right? Just because I happen to be the woman around here I'm just supposed to accept it all, eh?”

”No, you just ain't supposed to kick him inna fork,” hissed Colon, pulling him away. ”It don't look good.” Although, he noted, the women in the crowd seemed to be disappointed by the sudden curtailment of the performance.

”And there are many strange stories we can tell you!” shouted the Patrician.

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