At least, until the last few months. He sighed, and went back to his desk.
There was a file open. It contained a report from Commander Vimes of the City Watch, with a lot of exclamation marks. It also contained a more measured report from clerk Alfred, and Lord Vetinari had circled the section headed ‘The Smoking Gnu'.
There was a gentle knock at the door and the clerk Drumknott came in like a ghost.
‘The gentlemen from the Grand Trunk semaphore company are all here now, sir,' he said. He laid down several sheets of paper covered in tiny, intricate lines. Vetinari gave the shorthand a cursory glance.
‘Idle chitchat?' he said.
‘Yes, my lord. One might say excessively so. But I am certain that the mouth of the speaking tube is quite invisible in the plasterwork, my lord. It's hidden in a gilt cherub most cunningly, sir. Clerk Brian has built it into its cornucopia, which apparently collects more sounds and can be swivelled to face whoever—'
‘One does not have to see something to know that it is there, Drumknott.' Vetinari tapped the paper. ‘These are not stupid men. Well, some of them, at least. You have the files?'
Drumknott's pale face bore for a moment the pained expression of a man forced to betray the high principles of filing.
‘In a manner of speaking, my lord. We actually have nothing substantial about any of the allegations, we really haven't. We're running a Concludium in the Long Gallery, but it's all hearsay, sir, I'm afraid. There's... hints, here and there, but really we need something more solid...'
‘There will be an opportunity,' said Vetinari. Being an absolute ruler today was not as simple as people thought. At least, it was not simple if your ambitions included being an absolute ruler tomorrow. There were subtleties. Oh, you could order men to smash down doors and drag people off to dungeons without trial, but too much of that sort of thing lacked style and anyway was bad for business, habit-forming and very, very dangerous for your health. A thinking tyrant, it seemed to Vetinari, had a much harder job than a ruler raised to power by some idiot vote-yourself-rich system like democracy. At least they could tell the people he was their fault.
‘... we would not normally have started individual folders at this time,' Drumknott was agonizing. ‘You see, I'd merely have referenced them on the daily—'
‘Your concern is, as ever, exemplary,' said Vetinari. ‘I see, however, that you have prepared some folders.'
‘Yes, my lord. I have bulked some of them out with copies of clerk Harold's analysis of pig production in Genua, sir.' Drumknott looked unhappy as he handed over the card folders. Deliberate misfiling ran fingernails down the blackboard of his very soul.
‘Very good,' said Vetinari. He put them on his desk, pulled another folder out of a desk drawer to place on top of them, and moved some other papers to cover the small pile. ‘Now please show our visitors in.'
‘Mr Slant is with them, my lord,' said the clerk.
Vetinari smiled his mirthless smile. ‘How surprising.'
‘And Mr Reacher Gilt,' Drumknott added, watching his master carefully.
‘Of course,' said Vetinari.
When the financiers filed in a few minutes later the conference table at one end of the room was clear and gleaming, except for a paper pad and the pile of files. Vetinari himself was standing at the window again.
‘Ah, gentlemen. So kind of you to come for this little chat,' he said. ‘I was enjoying the view.'
He turned round sharply, and confronted a row of puzzled faces, except for two. One was grey and belonged to Mr Slant, who was the most renowned, expensive and certainly the oldest lawyer in the city. He had been a zombie for many years, although apparently the change in habits between life and death had not been marked. The other face belonged to a man with one eye and one black eye-patch, and it smiled like a tiger.
‘It's particularly refreshing to see the Grand Trunk back in operation,' said Vetinari, ignoring that face. T believe it was shut down all day yesterday. I was only thinking to myself that it was such a shame, the Grand Trunk being so vital to us all, and so regrettable that there's only one of it. Sadly, I understand the backers of the New Trunk are now in disarray, which, of course, leaves the Grand Trunk operating in solitary splendour and your company, gentlemen, unchallenged. Oh, what am I thinking of? Do be seated, gentlemen.'
He gave Mr Slant another friendly smile as he took his seat.
‘I don't believe I know all these gentlemen,' he said.
Mr Slant sighed. ‘My lord, let me present Mr Greenyham of Ankh-Sto Associates, who is the Grand Trunk Company's treasurer, Mr Nutmeg of Sto Plains Holdings, Mr Horsefry of the Ankh-Morpork Mercantile Credit Bank, Mr Stowley of Ankh Futures (Financial Advisers) and Mr Gilt—'
‘—all by himself,' said the one-eyed man calmly.
‘Ah, Mr Reacher Gilt,' said Vetinari, looking directly at him. ‘I'm so... pleased to meet you at last.'
‘You don't come to my parties, my lord,' said Gilt.
‘Do excuse me. Affairs of state take up so much of my time,' said Lord Vetinari brusquely.
‘We should all make time to unwind, my lord. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as they say.'
Several of the assembly paused in their breathing when they heard this, but Vetinari merely looked blank.
‘Interesting,' he said.
He riffled through the files and opened one of them. ‘Now, my staff have prepared some notes for me, from information publicly available down at the Barbican,' he said to the lawyer. ‘Directorships, for example. Of course, the mysterious world of finance is a closed, aha, ledger to me, but it seems to me that some of your clients work, as it were, for each other?'
‘Yes, my lord?' said Slant.
‘Is that normal?'
‘Oh, it is quite common for people with particular expertise to be on the board of several companies, my lord.'
‘Even if the companies are rivals?' said Vetinari.
There were smiles from around the table. Most of the financiers settled a little more easily in their chairs. The man was clearly a fool about business matters. What did he know about compound interest, eh? He'd been classically educated. And then they remembered his education had been at the Assassins' Guild School, and stopped smiling. But Mr Gilt stared intently at Vetinari.
‘There are ways - extremely honourable ways - of assuring confidentiality and avoiding conflicts of interest, my lord,' said Mr Slant.
‘Ah, this would be... what is it now... the glass ceiling?' said Lord Vetinari brightly.
‘No, my lord. That is something else. I believe you may be thinking about the "Agatean Wall",' said Mr Slant smoothly. ‘This carefully and successfully ensures that there will be no breach of confidentiality should, for example, one part of an organization come into possession of privileged information which could conceivably be used by another department for unethical gain.'
‘This is fascinating! How does it work, exactly?' said Vetinari.
‘People agree not to do it,' said Mr Slant.
‘I'm sorry? I thought you said there is a wall—' said Vetinari.
‘That's just a name, my lord. For agreeing not to do it.'
‘Ah? And they do? How wonderful. Even though in this case the invisible wall must pass through the middle of their brains?'
‘We have a Code of Conduct, you know!' said a voice.
All eyes except those belonging to Mr Slant turned to the speaker, who had been fidgeting in his chair. Mr Slant was a long-time student of the Patrician, and when his subject appeared to be a confused civil servant asking innocent questions it was time to watch him closely.
‘I'm very glad to hear it, Mr... ?' Vetinari began.
‘Crispin Horsefry, my lord, and I don't like the tone of your questioning!'
For a moment it seemed that even the chairs themselves edged away from him. Mr Horsefry was a youngish man, not simply running to fat but vaulting, leaping and diving towards obesity. He had acquired at thirty an impressive selection of chins, and now they wobbled with angry pride.*
* It is wrong to judge by appearances. Despite his expression, which was that of a piglet having a bright idea, and his mode of speech, which might put you in mind of a small, breathless, neurotic but ridiculously expensive dog, Mr Horsefry might well have been a kind, generous and pious man In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in the wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wandered in out of the rain Snap judgements can be so unfair.
‘I do have a number of other tones,' said Lord Vetinari calmly.
Mr Horsefry looked around at his colleagues, who were somehow, suddenly, on the distant horizon.
‘I just wanted to make it clear that we've done nothing wrong,' he muttered. ‘That's all. There is a Code of Conduct.'
‘I'm sure I've not suggested that you have done anything wrong,' said Lord Vetinari. ‘However, I shall make a note of what you tell me.'
He pulled a sheet of paper towards him and wrote, in a careful copperplate hand, ‘Code of Conduct'. The shifting of the paper exposed a file marked ‘Embezzlement'. The title was of course upside down to the rest of the group and, since presumably it was not intended to be read by them, they read it. Horsefry even twisted his head for a better view.