“Unfortunately, the right words are more readily listened to if you also have a sharp stick,”

Lord Selachii slapped the table. “We don't have to talk to these people! My lords… gentlemen… it's up to us to show them we won't be pushed around! We must re-form the regiments!”

“Oh, private armies?” said Vimes. “Under the command of someone whose fitness for it lies in the fact that he can afford to pay for a thousand funny hats?”

Someone leaned forward, halfway along the table. Up to that moment Vimes had thought he was asleep, and when Lord Rust spoke it was, indeed, in a sort of yawn.

“Whose fitness, Mister Vimes, lies in a thousand years of breeding for leadership,” he said.

The “Mister” twisted in Vimes's chest. He knew he was a mister, would always be a mister, was probably a blueprint for mistership, but he'd be damned if he wouldn't be Sir Samuel to someone who pronounced years as “hyahs”.

“Ah, good breeding,” he said. “No, sorry, don't have any of that, if that's what you need to get your own men killed by sheer—”

“Gentlemen, please,” said the Patrician. He shook his head. “Let's have no fighting, please. This is, after all, a council of war.

“You're going to let them play soldiers?” said Vimes.

“Oh, Commander Vimes,” said Mr Burleigh, smiling. “As a military man yourself, you must—”

Sometimes people can attract attention by shouting. They might opt for thumping a table, or even take a swing at someone else. But Vimes achieved the effect by freezing, by simply doing nothing. The chill radiated off him. Lines in his face locked like a statue.

“I am not a military man.”

And then Burleigh made the mistake of trying to grin disarmingly.

“Well, commander, the helmet and armour and everything… It's really all the same in the end, isn't it?”