"
A foot on the neck is nine points of the law.
He felt hands rummaging in his pockets.
Another person — he was not able to see much
beyond a few inches of alluvial soil, but from
context it appeared to be an unsympathetic person —
joined in the shouting. He was hauled upright.
The guards were pretty much like guards as
he had experienced them everywhere. They
had exactly the amount of intellect required to hit
people and drag them off to the scorpion pit. They
were league champions at shouting at people a few
inches from their face.
The effect was made surreal by the fact that
the guards themselves had no faces, or at least no
faces they could call their own - their ornate, black-
enamelled helmets and huge moustachioed visages
painted on them, leaving only the owner's mouth
uncovered so that he could, for example, call
his grandfather a box of inferior goldfish
droppings.
'What I Did On My Holidays' was
waved in front of his face.
'Bag of rotted fish!'
'I don't know what it means,' he said,
'Someone just gave it to—'
'Feet of extreme rotted milk!'
'Could you perhaps not shout quite so loud? I
think my eardrum has just exploded.'
The guard subsided, possibly only because he had
run out of breath. He had a moment to look
at the scenery.
There were two carts on the road. One of them
seemed to be a cage on wheels; he made out faces
watching him in terror. The other was an ornate
palanquin carried by eight peasants; rich curtains
covered the sides, but he could see where they had
been twitched aside so that someone within could
look at him.
The guards were aware of this. It seemed to make
them awkward.
'If I could just expl—'
'Silence, mouth of—' The guard hesitated.
'You've used turtle, goldfish and what you
probably meant to be cheese,' he said.
'Mouth of chicken gizzards!'
A long thin hand emerged from the curtains and
beckoned, just once.
He was hustled forward. The hand had
the longest fingernails he'd ever seen on something
that didn't purr.
'Kowtow!'
Swords were produced.
'I don't know what you mean!' he wailed.
'Kowtow, please,' whispered a voice by his ear. It
was not a particularly friendly voice but compared to
all the other voices it was positively affectionate. It
sounded as though it belonged to quite a young man.
And it was speaking very good Morporkian.
'How?'
'You don't know that? Kneel down, press your
forehead on the ground. That's if you want to be able
to wear a hat again.'
He hesitated. He was a free-born Morporkian,
and on the list of things a citizen didn't do
was bow down to any, not to put too fine a point on
it, foreigner.
On the other hand, right at the top of the list
of things a citizen didn't do was get their head
chopped off.
That's better. That's good. How did you know
you ought to tremble?'
'Oh, I thought up that bit myself.'
The hand beckoned with a finger.
A guard slapped him in the face with the
mud-encrusted 'What I Did'. He clutched it
guiltily as the guard scurried towards his master's
digit.
'Voice?' he said.
'Yes?'
'What happens if claim immunity because I'm a
foreigner?'
There's a special thing they do with a wire-mesh
waistcoat and a cheese grater.'
'Oh.'
'And there are torturers in Hunghung who can
keep a man alive for years.'
'I suppose you're not talking about healthy early
morning runs and a high-fibre diet?'
'No. So keep quiet and with any luck you'll be
sent to be a slave in the palace.'
'Luck is my middle name,' he said, indistinctly.
'Mind you, my first name is Bad.'
'Remember to gibber and grovel.'
'I'll do my very best.'
The white hand emerged bearing a scrap of
paper. The guard took it, turned towards him
and cleared his throat.
'Harken to the wisdom and justice of District
Commissioner Kee,'…
"

Pratchett, T. 1994, Interesting times, Corgi Books, London