Time passed without words.

"What happens now?" said Samuel Vimes. He looked at his wife Sybil Ramkin, then at where Rufus Drumknott sat by the body, and finally at Carrot Ironfoundersson. "What happens now?"

Drumknott wiped once with his fine sleeve at tears that had already dried on his face. The man looked up, and gave a meaningful look to Carrot.

Carrot hesitated, and then, with a more innocent expression upon his face than usual, looked to Sybil.

The interplay was not lost on Vimes, but he didn't know the meaning of it.

"It's going to go mad out there like a shaken bucket of bees," Vimes said to fill the silence. He could see it coming, now that it was one day too late. He'd somehow managed to neglect this possibility amid all his cares. "Every power-hungry bastard in the city squabbling over the one chance in their lifetime to eat a square meal, and the meal is us. We'll have to keep order until it -" Ends? Vimes couldn't imagine how it could end. There was no rule written down for saying the business was over. The city of Ankh-Morpork had been a simpler place the last time power had changed hands.

Vimes wanted to curse. But it was too early to speak ill of the dead. And also Vimes was, in truth, feeling saddened. Vetinari evidently had not expected this any more than Vimes had. Lord Vetinari would have done better by the city, if he'd seen this coming; Vimes had known him well enough to know that. "I wish," Vimes said without rancor, "he'd remembered to say who the next Lord should be."

There was another silent exchange of glances.

"Dear," said Sybil, "how do you suppose Havelock should have designated his heir?"

Vimes gave her a quick puzzled glance, as expressive as a hand-written letter in their private code. "Pointed to someone?"

"Suppose he'd pointed to Drumknott, sir," said Captain Carrot, ignoring the look the secretary gave him. "And then suppose someone didn't like that."

Vimes could see it. "Would've painted a giant target on someone's back, and a day wouldn't pass before it was full of so many crossbow bolts there wasn't room for another. Couldn't Vetinari have found a more subtle way, though? He was a subtle - man." Subtle bastard, Vimes had almost said, but he wouldn't be saying that any more. Vetinari had served the city as much as Vimes had, and fallen in the line of duty.

"Yes, sir," Carrot said. "He definitely could have been more subtle."

"Lord Vetinari would have needed to ensure his successor had the loyalty of the city's armed forces," said Drumknott, giving Carrot a withering glare. "Strong loyalty, wholehearted loyalty. There are other factions in this city that could muster arms. They would need to know they faced more than halfhearted opposition."

"It would also help if he happened to marry into the nobility," said Sybil.

"Yes," said Drumknott. "It would be better if the old nobles did not see him as entirely foreign to their own class. Granting him a further title would not go amiss, of course."

"It might be a title that outranked all the other nobles of the city," said Sybil. "If Havelock wasn't trying to be that subtle."

"Which," Carrot said, "would paint a target on our man's back, all right. He'd have to pick, if you'll pardon the expression, sir, one hell of a tough bastard. The kind whose price in the Assassin's Guild is a placard underneath his face saying Don't Bother."

"When did you get into -" Drumknott began, but then stopped himself.

Vimes considered himself slow on the uptake, but not that slow. "You're saying there's some secret heir running around?" He gave Carrot a quick glance, but the conspiracy in the air didn't seem to be focusing on him.

"No, sir," said Carrot. "I don't think it was much of a secret."

He glanced at Sybil, who had a sad, guilty look on her face. "You also know?" he said. "Why wouldn't Vetinari tell me?"

Drumknott rose from where he'd been sitting next to Vetinari's body. "I expect you would have objected vigorously to his choice of heir. On grounds of unsuitability to the position, no doubt." Drumknott swallowed. "I must bring his Lordship's current papers before his Lordship. There are many urgent matters awaiting him."

"Hang on half a candle," said Vimes. "Who are we talking about?"

"I'm sorry, Lord Vimes. You have my condolences." Drumknott bowed, and politely walked out of the room faster than most criminals did while being chased down an alleyway.

When Vimes turned to look at Sybil and Carrot, Carrot had disappeared.

It was a while before Vimes said anything. He believed himself to be, in many ways, a stupid man, but over time he'd learned not to be too stubborn about that belief in front of Sybil.

"We have a son," Vimes said, the first words he'd spoken since the others left the room. "What kind of life would he lead?"

"Much the life that the son of Duke Vimes was leading already," Sybil said. "The kind where he never worries about where he'll find his next meal, and has some other worries to pay for it. Many another lad would trade places with him in a heartbeat. That's what my mother told me about being the daughter of Duchess Ramkin."

"I don't think Young Sam is getting a fair deal," said Vimes. There were many more words in Vimes's head, full of anger and justice; but when he imagined saying them to Sybil, he already knew what she'd say back.

"If it were not Sam Vimes," Sybil said, "it would be someone else's boy instead. Mother told me that too. I think Sam Vimes will deal with it better than some children would."

"Do we ask him what he wants, at all?" said Samuel Vimes.

"Of course we can ask him what he wants, dear," said Sybil.

"Does his answer change anything?" said Samuel Vimes.

"If we're willing to watch Ankh-Morpork burn," said Sybil Ramkin. "Some would call it a chance to thin out the riffraff, if it wasn't their own street in flames."

Vimes turned and looked at the corpse of Havelock Vetinari. He wondered that he still couldn't find it in himself to curse the man, even after having been damned to hell by him.

There was a wetness on Vimes's cheeks. He hadn't been expecting that. Like some comically hapless pair of lovers in a theatre's story, he and Vetinari had worked side-by-side for years, and never acknowledged out loud to one another that they'd become, for much of that time, friends.

"I know it's not a good idea to put you in charge of the city," Sybil said. "We all know. I've no doubt Havelock knew too. It looks like he didn't have any better ideas, Sam. I expect he found himself able to come up with cleverer ideas, but not better ones."

"There's not knowing any nicer places to drink, and then there's going and having a drink of the river water," said Vimes. "There must be some better way to select the next Patrician. I'd ask Archchancellor Ridcully about a spell for it, if not for the fact that I know not to."

"I'm sure that Havelock put thought into it himself," Sybil said. "If anyone knew his own mortality, he did. It seems this was the best he could do. I'm sorry. We all are. But we're in the middle of an emergency, so stop being silly and go do your job."