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Terry Pratchett wrote:Zwergenbrot: Gilt bei Zwergen als Delikatesse. Läßt sich auch als Waffe verwenden. Enthält alle Dinge, die man braucht, um tagelang zu überleben. Warum Zwergenbrot solche Ausdauer verleiht? Wer einmal Zwergenbrot probiert hat, versucht alles, um einen Ort zu erreichen, wo er kein Zwergenbrot mehr essen muss. Mit Zwergenkuchen verhält es sich ähnlich – er ist nur etwas dicker. Ein geworfenes Stück Zwergenbrot ist eine gefürchtete Waffe, besonders wegen seiner Bumerangeigenschaften.

Terry Pratchett wrote: Bread and Water


(Kindly donated by Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork)


3 whole, freshly baked loaves 1 flagon freshly drawn water


HOWEVER EFFICIENT A ruler may be, there is always someone, isn't there, who feels that his diet might be improved by some artificial additive, such as arsenic. Many rulers have sought ways to avoid this. This is one classical method:


Have sufficient dough made to make three loaves of bread. Bake the resulting loaves in an oven. Both these operations should be supervised by at least two reliable employees.


Select one of the three loaves (the other two must be eaten by the baker). Slice it. Select slices at random and have these tested in your presence by members of the Palace staff (or members of your family if you are not fortunate enough to live in a palace). From the remaining slices select one; place this on a plate selected at random from the kitchens. Have the remaining plates licked by the kitchen staff; pause to observe any negative reactions to this operation, or to the earlier slice-testing.


In the meantime, have a bucket of water drawn from the well. Have this boiled, poured into a flagon and cooled. From this flagon pour four glasses of water. Select three at random and have them drunk by different members of the Palace staff from those who are testing the bread/plates.


You might now believe that you have a glass of water and some slices of bread that are free of poison, in which case you have failed to grasp the situation. There are such things as antidotes, which even a trainee poisoner will have taken as a precautionary measure. And then of course there was the case of Lord Samphire: the bread


passed the test, and so did the water. The problem came to light only if you ate the bread and then drank the water.


Here is my preferred method, which has stood me in good stead.


1 Arrange the politics of the country over a period of years so that poisoning you will be more trouble than it is worth and interfere with the private ambitions of too many people just at the moment.


2 Make sure that there are among the city's civil service some unpredictable men who will consider your poisoning a personal insult against them, and generally cause a lot of fuss.


3 Then eat what you please.