Chapter Text
“Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows — sometimes it does not need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips.”
Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
In Ankh-Morpork, a peculiar sense of excitement hung in the air above the busy streets. This was not the regular bustle of the city or the healthy uneasiness that came with living in a metropolis that had legalised both thievery and assassinations. No, this was something completely new.
There was a rumour going around that change would be coming for the city very soon.
The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Lord Havelock Vetinari, was growing old. While still holding himself regal and proud, he was no longer standing quite as tall as he had ten years ago. His severe dark hair was now more silver than black and seemed very eager to gain as much distance as possible from the rest of the face, receding higher and higher up the man’s forehead.
At least that was what the rumours claimed.
The city’s inhabitants - out of a rare sense of self-preservation - said no such thing, of course. You never knew who could be listening. But rumours did not need any spoken word to travel. Instead, their meaning was conveyed solely through raised eyebrows, pointed nods and meaningful looks.
Sometimes he looks a bit tired - people did not say.
He must be thinking about succession - no one dared to utter.
EVEN THE MOST POWERFUL TYRANTS CANNOT STAY IN POWER FOREVER, reasoned exactly one un-person.
This was a rather rare issue for the city. Usually the succession of Ankh-Morpork’s Patricians was decided with some well-placed poison, the glint of an axe or - on more than one occasion – the strategic application of one or more dragons. Old age and the official negotiation of a possible successor rarely factored into the process.
But Ankh-Morpork had always been a city that was eager to embrace change.1 And so everyone was waiting impatiently to see how this one would play out.
- That was, if your understanding of an embrace included complaints, century-long grudges, pitchforks and knives. [ ▲ ]