The Fifth Elephant (3 page)

“I’m sorry about that, sir, but it had been a long day and he was really getting on my—”

“Since when their armed forces have pulled back so far that they are nearly in the next country,” said Lord Vetinari, moving the paper aside. “I have to say that your observation complied only with the general
thrust
of my view in this matter but was, at least, succinct. Apparently you also looked at the ambassador in a very threatening way.”

“It was only the way I usually look.”

“To be sure. Happily, in Uberwald you will only need to look friendly.”

“Ah, but you don’t want me saying things like ‘how about selling us all your fat really cheap?’ do you?” said Vimes, desperately.

“You will not be required to do
any
negotiating, Vimes. That will be dealt with by one of my clerks, who will set up the temporary embassy and discuss such matters with his opposite numbers among the courts of Uberwald. All clerks speak the same language.
You
will simply be as ducal as you can. And, of course, you will take a retinue. A staff,” Vetinari added, seeing Vimes’s blank look. He sighed. “People to go with you. I suggest Sergeant Angua, Sergeant Detritus and Corporal Littlebottom.”

“Ah,” said Carrot, nodding encouragingly.

“Sorry?” said Vimes. “I think there must have been a whole piece of conversation just then that I must have missed.”

“A werewolf, a troll and a dwarf,” said Carrot. “Ethnic minorities, sir.”

“…but, in Uberwald, they are ethnic
majorities
,” said Lord Vetinari. “All three officers come from there originally, I believe. Their presence will speak volumes.”

“So far it hasn’t sent me a postcard,” said Vimes. “I’d rather take—”

“Sir, it will show people in Uberwald that Ankh-Morpork is a multicultural society, you see?” said Carrot.

“Oh, I see. ‘People like us.’ People you can do business with,” said Vimes, glumly.

“Sometimes,” Vetinari said, testily, “it really does seem to me that the culture of cynicism in the Watch is…is…”

“Insufficient?” said Vimes. There was silence. “All right,” he sighed, “I’d better go off and polish the knobs on my coronet, hadn’t I?”

“The ducal coronet, if I remember my heraldry, does not have knobs on. It is decidedly…spiky,” said the Patrician, pushing across the desk of small pile of papers topped by a gold-edged invitation card. “Good. I will have a…a clacks sent immediately. You will be more fully briefed later. Do give my regards to the duchess. And now, please do not let me detain you further…”

“He always says that,” muttered Vimes, as the two men hurried down the stairs. “He knows I don’t like being married to a duchess.”

“I thought you and Lady Sybil—”

“Oh, being married to Sybil is fine, fine,” said Vimes hurriedly. “It’s just the duchess bit I don’t like. Where is everyone tonight?”

“Corporal Littlebottom’s on pigeon duty, Detritus is on night patrol with Swires, and Angua’s on special duty in the Shades, sir. You remember? With Nobby?”

“Oh gods, yes. Well, when they come in tomorrow you’d better get them to report to me. Incidentally, get that bloody wig off Nobby and hide it, will you?” Vimes leafed through the paperwork. “I’ve never heard of the Low King of the Dwarfs. I thought that ‘king’ in Dwarfish just meant a sort of senior engineer.”

“Ah, well, the Low King is rather special,” said Carrot.

“Why?”

“Well, it all starts with the Scone of Stone, sir.”

“The what?”

“Would you mind a little detour on the way back to the Yard, sir? It’ll make things clearer.”

The young woman stood on a corner of the Shades. Her general stance indicated that she was, in the specialized patois of the area, a lady in waiting. To be more precise a lady in waiting for Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Right Amount.

She idly swung her handbag.

This was a very recognizable signal, for anyone with the brains of a pigeon. A member of the Thieves’ Guild would have passed carefully by on the other side of the lane, giving her nothing more than a gentlemanly and above all nonaggressive nod. Even the less-polite freelance thieves that lurked in this area would have thought twice before eyeing the handbag. The Seamstresses’ Guild operated a very swift and nonreversible kind of justice.

The skinny body of Done It Duncan however, did
not
have the brains of a pigeon. The little man had been watching the bag like a cat for fully five minutes, and now the very thought of its contents had hypnotized him. He could practically taste the money. He rose on his toes, lowered his head, dashed out of the alley, grabbed the bag and got several inches before the world exploded behind him and he ended up flat in the mud.

Something right by his ear started to drool. And there was a long, very long drawn out growl, not changing in tone at all, just unrolling a deep promise of what would happen if he tried to move.

He heard footsteps, and out of the corner of his eyes saw a swirl of lace.

“Oh,
Done It
,” said a voice. “Bag snatching? That’s a bit low, isn’t it? Even for you? You could’ve got really hurt. It’s only Duncan, miss. He’ll be no trouble. You can let him up.”

The weight was removed from Duncan’s back. He heard something pad off into the gloom of an alley.

“I done it, I done it,” said the little thief desperately, as Corporal Nobbs helped him to his feet.

“Yes, I know you did. I
saw
you,” said Nobby. “And you know what’d happen to you if the Thieves’ Guild spotted you? You’d be dead in the river with no time off for good behavior.”

“They hate me ’cos I’m so good,” said Duncan, through his matted beard. “’Ere, you know the robbery at All Jolson’s last month? I done that.”

“That’s right, Duncan. You done that.”

“An’ that haul at the gold vaults last week, I done that, too. It wasn’t Coalface and his boys.”

“No, it was you, wasn’t it, Duncan.”

“An’ that job at the goldsmith’s that everyone says Crunchie Ron done—”

“You done it, did you?”

“’S’right,” said Duncan.

“And it was you what stole fire from the gods, too, wasn’t it, Duncan?” said Nobby, grinning evilly under his wig.

“Yeah, that was me,” Duncan nodded. He sniffed. “I was a bit younger then, of course.” Duncan peered shortsightedly at Nobby Nobbs.

“Why’ve you got a dress on, Nobby?”

“It’s hush hush, Duncan.”

“Ah, right.” Duncan shifted uneasily. “You couldn’t spare me a bob or two, could you, Nobby? I ain’t eaten for two days.”

Small coins gleamed in the dark.

“Now push off,” said Corporal Nobbs.

“Thanks, Nobby. You got any unsolved crimes, you know where to find me.”

Duncan lurched off into the night.

Sergeant Angua appeared behind Nobby, buckling on her breastplate.

“Poor old devil,” she said.

“He was a good thief in his day,” said Nobby, taking a notebook out of his handbag and jotting down a few lines.

“Kind of you to help him,” said Angua.

“Well, I can get the money back out of petty cash,” said Nobby. “An’ now we know who did the bullion job, don’t we. That’ll be a feather in my cap with Mister Vimes.”

“Bonnet, Nobby.”

“What?”

“Your bonnet, Nobby. It’s got a rather fetching band of flowers around it.”

“Oh…yeah…”

“It’s not that I’m complaining,” said Angua, “but when we were assigned this job I thought it was
me
who was going to be the decoy and you who was going to be the backup, Nobby.”

“Yeah, but what with you bein’…” Nobby’s expression creased as he edged his way into unfamiliar linguistic territory, “…mor…phor…log…ic…ally gifted…”

“A werewolf, Nobby. I know the word.”

“Right…well, obviously, you’d be a lot better at lurkin’, an’…an’ obviously it’s not right, women havin’ to act as decoys in police work…”

Angua hesitated, as she so often did when attempting to talk to Nobby on difficult matters, and waved her hands in front of her as if trying to shape the invisible dough of her thoughts.

“It’s just that…I mean, people might…” she began. “I mean…well, you know what people call men who wear wigs and gowns, don’t you?”

“Yes, miss.”

“You do?”

“Yes, miss. Lawyers, miss.”

“Good. Yes. Good,” said Angua slowly. “Now try another one…”

“Er…actors, miss?”

Angua gave up. “You look good in taffeta, Nobby,” she said.

“You don’t think it makes me look too fat?”

Angua sniffed.

“Oh no…” she said, quietly.

“I thought I’d better put scent on for verysillymitude,” said Nobby quickly.

“What? Oh…” Angua shook her head, took another breath. “I can smell…some…thing…else…”

“That’s surprising, ’cos this stuff’s a bit on the pungent side and frankly I don’t think lily of the valley is supposed to smell like this…”

“…it’s not perfume…”

“…but the lavender stuff they had you could clean brass with…”

“Can you get back to the Chitterling station by yourself, Nobby?” said Angua. Despite her rising panic, she mentally added:
After all, what could happen? I mean, really?

“Yes, miss.”

“There’s something I’d better…sort out…”

Angua hurried away, the new scent filling her nostrils. It would have to be powerful to combat Eau de Nobbs, and it was. Oh, it
was
.

Not here, she thought. Not now.

Not him.

The running man swung along a branch wet with snow, and managed at last to lower himself onto a branch belonging to the next tree. That took him a long way from the stream. How good was their sense of smell? Pretty damn good, he knew. But this good?

He’d gotten out of the stream onto another overhanging branch. If they followed the banks, and they’d be bright enough to do that, they’d surely never know he’d left the stream.

There was a howl, away to the left.

He headed right, into the gloom of the forest.

Vimes heard Carrot scrabble around in the gloom, and the sound of a key in the lock.

“I thought the Campaign for Equal Heights was running this place now,” he said.

“It’s so hard to find volunteers,” said Carrot, ushering him through the low door and lighting a candle. “I come in every day just to keep an eye on things, but no one else seems very interested.”

“I can’t imagine why,” said Vimes, looking around the Dwarf Bread Museum.

The one positive thing you could say about the bread products around him was that they were probably as edible now as they were on the day they were baked. “Forged” was a better term. Dwarf bread was made as a meal of last resort and also as a weapon and a currency. Dwarfs were not, as far as Vimes knew, religious in any way, but the way they thought about bread came close.

There was a tinkle and a scrabbling noise somewhere in the gloom.

“Rats,” said Carrot. “They never stop trying to eat dwarf bread, poor things…Ah, here we are. The Scone of Stone. A replica, of course.”

Vimes stared at the misshaped thing on its dusty display stand. It
was
vaguely sconelike, but only if someone pointed this out to you beforehand. Otherwise, the term “a lump of rock” was pretty accurate. It was about the size, and shape, of a well sat-on cushion. There were a few fossilized currants visible.

“My wife rests her feet on something like that when she’s had a long day,” he said.

“It’s fifteen hundred years old,” said Carrot, with something like awe in his voice.

“I thought this was the replica.”

“Well, yes…but it’s a replica of a very important thing, sir,” said Carrot.

Vimes sniffed. The air had a certain pungent quality.

“Smells strongly of cats in here, doesn’t it?”

“I’m afraid they get in after the rats, sir. A rat who’s nibbled on dwarf bread tends not to be able to run very fast.”

Vimes lit a cigar. Carrot gave it a look of uncertain disapproval.

“We do thank people for not smoking in here, sir,” he said.

“Why? You don’t know they’re not going to,” said Vimes. He leaned against the display cabinet. “All right, Captain. Why am I
really
going to…Bonk? I don’t know a lot about diplomacy, but I do know it’s never just about one thing. What’s the Low King? Why’re our dwarfs scrapping?”

“Well, sir…have you heard of
kruk
?”

“Dwarf mining law?” said Vimes.

“Well done, sir. But it’s a lot more than that. It’s about…how you live. Laws of ownership, marriage laws, inheritance, rules for dealing with disputes of all kinds, that sort of thing. Everything, really. And the Low King…well, you could call him the final court of appeal. He’s advised, of course, but he’s got the last word. Still with me?”

“Makes sense so far.”

“And he is crowned on the Scone of Stone and sits on it to give his judgments because all the Low Kings have done that ever since B’hrian Bloodaxe, fifteen hundred years ago. It…gives authority.”

Vimes nodded, dourly. That made sense, too. You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was “but we’ve
always
done it this way.” A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?

“Does he get elected, or born or what?” he said.

“I suppose you could say he’s elected,” said Carrot. “But really a lot of senior dwarfs arrange it among themselves. After listening to other dwarfs, of course. Taking soundings, it’s called. Traditionally he’s from one of the big families. But…er…”

“Yes?”

“Things are a little different this year. Tempers are a bit…stretched.”

Ah,
thought Vimes.

“Wrong dwarf won?” he said.

“Some dwarfs would say so. But it’s more that the whole process has been called into question,” said Carrot. “By the dwarfs in the biggest dwarf city outside Uberwald.”

“Don’t tell me, that must be that place hubward of—”

“It’s Ankh-Morpork, sir.”

“What? We’re not a dwarf city!”

“Fifty thousand dwarfs now, sir.”

“Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you
sure
?”

“Yes, sir.”