View source for Clerks

[[Patrician]] [[Havelock Vetinari]] has no standing army and such government agencies as exist in [[Ankh-Morpork]] (the [[City Watch]], the [[Ankh-Morpork Mint|Mint]], the [[Post Office]]) operate at an arm's length. The arm can become very short and strong when necessary, but his motto is ''[[Latatian|Si non confectus, non reficiat]]''. The Ankh-Morpork civil service consists mainly of black-robed, tight-lipped men <sup>1</sup> in every specialty from simple clerks through accountants to [[Assassins' Guild|assassins]]. These form a very efficient information-gathering and processing body (body-processing, occasionally, for the assassins) which keeps Vetinari on top of and usually ahead of local and world events.

The clerks' routine tasks are collecting information, preparing reports and maintaining the extensive [[Patrician's Palace|palace]] files. Now and then some emergency or suspected crime will invoke a [[Concludium]], a fact-finding exercise akin to a Royal Commission or Senate Investigation only much faster. All the clerks in specialties related to the matter at hand convene and sift evidence with computer-like efficiency until the solution is found, likely within a day.

The Chief Clerk and Vetinari's right-hand man currently is [[Rufus Drumknott]], a quiet, studious type who has occasional difficulty with the dry Vetinari wit. This is preferable to his more imaginative but totally mad predecessor [[Lupine Wonse]]. [[Inigo Skimmer]] was a member of the "black-ops" section: a skilled assassin, but no match for a [[Werewolves|werewolf]].



<sup>1</sup> Some of Lord Vetinari's best friends are women and he has great respect for the talents of [[Lady Margolotta]], [[Adora Belle Dearheart]], [[Rosemary Palm]] and others. Clerks, however, are men. [[Dark Clerk]]s, the ''other'' sort, may be of [[Arachne|both sexes]] and indeed of all species. Vetinari is known to retain a [[Pump|golem]] as a Parole Officer, and at least one [[Gargoyles|gargoyle]] works as a surveillance agent whose job is simply to listen, inobtrusively, and to report back afterwards.


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