Title: Speculations

Summary: Lady Margolotta and Lord Vetinari's relationship turns out to be a bit more complex than it might seem at first glance. After all, they are politicians. Set shortly after UA.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, as always. Special thanks go to the Vaudeville theatre for a stunning performance of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, which sparked the idea for this fic. Cheap In-Sovjet-Russia jokes belong to Yakov Smirnoff, as far as I'm informed. Oh, and the discworld belongs to Sir Terry.

Rating: T for minor suggestive themes and gross injuries.

Characters/Pairings: Margolotta/Vetinari, with a hint of Drumknott/Healstether. You know you want those Manila envelope references. Tons of cameos.

A/N: Reviews are my new favourite food, ever since I read that every bar of chocolate contained eight insect legs. Please don't let me starve.

There had been many speculations about Havelock Vetinari's relationship to Lady Margolotta.(1)

On the one hand, their relationship never seemed to be anything more than purely professional. Even the Times had not been able to detect anything more, and everyone knew that the Times found out everything eventually. Whenever Lady Margolotta was invited to dine at the Palace, or the rare occasions in which his Lordship decided to comply with her request and spend the evening at the Embassy – even then they sat at opposite ends of the long table, engaging in a conversation that was as much sporadic as it was laconic whenever it left the grounds of politics and entered deeper waters. They both sat in their own little private sphere, on the unspoken agreement that If You Don't Ask, I Won't. Even in the very rare case that there simply was nothing to say about politics – even then they would not exchange affectionate or loving glances or even engage in hanky-panky as many wished they would. No, they would much rather find out who could come up with the better In-Imperial-Uberwald-joke. As in: In imperial Ubervald, hotel chooses you. Or: In imperial Ubervald, career chooses you. The current record holder was Lady Margolotta, whose best so far was In imperial Ubervald, manual writes you.(2)

On the other hand – it just couldn't be that simple. No way. The rumours had to come from somewhere. It was a well-known fact that Vetinari had spent quite some time with her on his Grand Sneer, and you just didn't stay with such an attractive woman for six months and all you did was play Thud! in the evenings. Also, she was the only diplomat ever to receive invitations for private dinners with the Patrician – because, according to some, she was the only one who could juggle a whole country that was not even a country with nothing but her mind, and the Patrician knew talent when he saw it. That, so they claimed, was the reason why Queen Keli of Sto Lat or Duchess Susan or the royal couple from Lancre never got any invitations to the palace. Butall agreed that it could just not be that simple! With everyone else, yes, that might have been a valid explanation. But not with such a complex man as Lord Vetinari was.

The worst thing about their 'relationship' was that neither of them found the need to clear matters up. On the contrary; they seemed to encourage obscurity, and the more opinions swayed, the more they enjoyed themselves. Even the most outrageous articles about them in the glossy papers would never provoke even an unofficial statement – screaming captions such as Vetinari and von Uberwald seen holding hands!, when all that had happened was that one of the thousand paparazzi had caught the moment their elbows had accidentally brushed on camera, or The Patrician's Dark Lady? (3)"We are friends," says Lady Margolotta, and blushes!, which was quite impossible since Lady Margolotta, being a vampire, had no blood to blush – even such outrageous captions went with the notes No comment, says the Palace!, and Informant gone missing in Far Uberwald!

And then there were the 'a friend of...' No one really knew who these friends were, but there always seemed to be someone who could tell about how they felt. Some speculated the 'friend' was Lady Sybil; others named Drumknott or even the librarian that travelled with her Ladyship. They always offered remarkable insights: They hardly talk about each other!, so a friend, and such.

In short, everyone was trying to join up the dots of their dot-dot-dot relationship, but since this was Ankh-Morpork, joining up three dots had more than one result. People insisted on adding dots until they resulted in something that satisfied them, like a dolphin, or a football. And why not? It was better than joining them up like any normal person would, because all you got then was a blank.

(1) For some, it already began with the question whether it was his Lordship's relationship with her, or rather to her. But those were the linguists, and everyone knew they were a bit, well, completely nuts.

(2) There's a reason why they are politicians and not comedians.

(3) None of the reporters had actually read Hwel's Dark Lady Sonnets and therefore none of them knew what they were alluding to; however, it had a nice, mysterious ring to it, and so they left it in.