The Fifth Elephant

Chapter 11

"He sounds very well informed for a wolf," said Carrot. Angua almost snarled at him.
"He"s not stupid, you know. He can understand more than eight hundred words. A lot of humans get by on less! And he"s got a sense of smell that"s almost as good as mine! The wolves see everything. The werewolves are out all the time now. They"re chasing people down. The game, we call it. The wolves get the blame. It looks like they"re breaking the arrangement. And there"s been these meetings, right out in the forest where they think no one will see them. Some dwarfs have got some sort of nasty scheme by the sound of it. They asked Wolfgang for help! That"s like asking a vulture to pick your teeth."
"What can you do?" said Carrot. "If even your parents can"t control him - "
"We used to fight when we were younger. "Rough and tumble", he"d call it. But I could send him off howling. Wolfgang hates to think there"s anyone who can beat him, so I don"t think he"ll relish the thought of me turning up. He"s got plans. This part of Uberwald has always, well, worked because no one was too powerful, but if the dwarfs start squabbling amongst themselves then Wolfgang"s the lad to take advantage, with his stupid uniforms and his stupid flag."
"I don"t think I want to see you fighting, though."
"Then you can look the other way! I didn"t ask you to follow me! Do you think I"m proud of this? I"ve got a brother who"s a sheepdog!"
"A champion sheepdog," said Carrot earnestly.
Gaspode watched Angua"s expression. It was one you"d never get on a dog.
"You mean that," she said at last. "You actually mean that, don"t you? You really do. And if you"d met him it wouldn"t worry you, would it? To you everyone"s a person. I have to sleep in a dog basket seven nights a month and that doesn"t worry you either, does it?"
"No. You know it doesn"t." .
"It should do! Don"t ask me why, but it should do! You"re so... unthinkingly nice about it! And sooner or later a girl can have too much nice!"
"I don"t try to be nice."
"I know. I know. I just wish you"d... oh, I don"t know... complain a bit. Well, not exactly complain. Just sigh, or something."
"Why?"
"Because... because it"d make me feel better! Oh, it"s too hard to explain. It"s probably a werewolf thing."
"I"m sorry - "
"And don"t be sorry all the time, either!"
Gaspode curled up so close to the fire that he steamed. Dogs had it a lot better, he decided.
The building that was to be the embassy was set back from the road in a quiet side street. They rattled under an arch into a small rear courtyard containing some stables. It reminded Vimes of a large coaching inn.
"It"s really only a consulate at the moment," said Inigo, leafing through his papers. "We should be met by... ah, yes, Wando Sleeps. Been here for several years, mhm."
Behind the coaches a pair of gates swung shut.
There was the sound of heavy bolts shooting home. Vimes stared at the apparition that came limping back towards the coach door.
"He looks it," he said.
"Oh, I don"t think this is - "
"Good evening, marthterth, mithtreth..." said the figure. "Welcome to Ankh-Morpork. I"m Igor."
"Igor who?" said Inigo.
"Jutht Igor, thur. Alwayth... jutht Igor," said Igor calmly, unfolding the step. "I"m the odd-job man."
"You don"t say?" said Vimes, mesmerized.
"Have you had a terrible accident?" said Lady Sybil.
"I did thpill tea down my thirt thith morning," said Igor. "Kind of you to notith."
"Where"s Mister Sleeps?" said Inigo.
"I"m afraid Marthter Thleepth ith nowhere to be found. I wath rather hoping you would know what"d happened to him."
"Us?" said Inigo. "Mmhm, mmph! We assumed he was here!"
"He left rather urgently two weekth ago," said Igor. "He did not vouchthafe to me where he wath going. Do go inthide, and I will thee to the baggage."
Vimes glanced up. A little bit of snow was falling now, but there was enough light to see that above them, across the whole courtyard, was an iron mesh. With the bolted doors and the walls of the building all around, they were in a cage.
"Jutht a little leftover from the old dayth," said Igor cheerfully. "Nothing to worry about, thur."
"What a fine figure of a man," said Sybil weakly, as they stepped inside.
"More than one man, by the look of him."
"Sam!"
"Sorry. I"m sure his heart"s in the right place."
"Good."
"Or someone"s heart, anyway."
"Sam, really!"
"All right, all right, but you must admit he does look a bit... odd."
"None of us can help the way we"re made, Sam."
"He looks as if he tried - good grief..."
"Oh, dear," said Lady Sybil.
Vimes was not against hunting, if only because Ankh-Morpork seldom offered any better game than the large rats you got along the waterfront. But the sight of the walls of the new embassy might have been enough to make the keenest hunter take a step back and cry, "Oh, I say, hold on..."
The previous occupant had been keen on hunting, shooting and fishing and, to have covered every single wall with the resultant trophies, he must have been doing all three at the same time.
Hundreds of glass eyes, obscenely alive in the light of the fire in the huge hearth, stared down at Vimes.
"It"s just like my grandfather"s study," said Lady Sybil. "There was a stag"s head in there that used to frighten the life out of me."
"There"s just about everything here. Oh, no..."
"My gods," whispered Lady Sybil.
Vimes looked around desperately. Detritus was just entering, carrying some of the trunks.
"Stand in front of it," Vimes hissed.
"I"m not that tall, Sam! Or that wide!"
The troll looked up at them, then at the trophies, and then grinned. It"s colder up here, Vimes thought. He"s quicker on the uptake. Even Nobby won"t play poker with him in the winter. Damn!
"Something wrong?" said Detritus.
Vimes sighed. What was the point? He"d spot it sooner or later.
"I"m sorry about this, Detritus," he said, standing aside.
Detritus looked at the horrible trophy and nodded.
"Yeah, dere used to be a lot of dat sort of fing in der old days," he said calmly, putting down the luggage. "Dey wouldn"t be de real diamond teef, o"course. Dey"d take dem out and put bigger glass ones in."
"You don"t mind?" said Lady Sybil. "It"s a troll"s head! Someone actually mounted a troll"s head and put it on the wall!"
"Ain"t mine," said Detritus.
"But it"s so horrible!"
Detritus stood in thought for a moment and then opened the stained wooden box that contained all he had felt it necessary to bring.
"Dis is der old country, after all," he said. "So if it"d make you feel better..."
He pulled out a smaller box and rummaged among what appeared to be bits of rock and cloth until he found something yellowy-brown and round, like a shallow cup.
"Should"ve bunged it away," he said, "but it"s all I got to remember my old granny by. She kept fings in it."
"It"s a bit of human skull, isn"t it?" said Vimes at last.
"Yep."
"Whose?"
"Anyone ask dat troll dere his name?" said Detritus, and the glint in his voice had a brittle edge to it for a moment. Then he carefully put the bowl away. "T"ings were diff"rent in dem days. Now you don"t chop our heads off an" we don"t make drums outa your skin. Everyt"ing is hunky-dory. Dat"s all we have to know."
He picked up the boxes again and followed Lady Sybil towards the staircase. Vimes took another look at the trophy head. The teeth were longer, far longer than they"d be on a real troll. A hunter"d have to be very brave and very lucky to go up against a fighting troll and survive. It"d be so much easier to go after an old one and later replace the ground-down stumps with sparkly fangs.
My gods, the things we do...
"Igor?" he said, as the odd-job man lurched past under the weight of two more bags.
"Yeth, your exthellenthy?"
"I"m an excellency?" said Vimes to Inigo.
"Yes, Your Grace."
"And still My Grace as well?"
"Yes, your grace. You are His Grace His Excellency the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Your Grace."
"Hang on, hang on. His Grace cancels out the Sir, I know that. It"s like having an ace in poker."
"Strictly speaking this is true, your grace, but great store is set by titles here and it is best to play with a full deck, mmph."
"I was once blackboard monitor at school," said Vimes sharply. "For a whole term. Would that help? Dame Venting said no one could clean a blackboard like me."
"A useful fact, your grace, which may possibly be helpful in the event of a tie-break, mmph, mmhm," said Inigo, his face carefully blank.
"We Igorth have alwayth preferred marthter," said Igor. "What wath it you were requiring?"
Vimes gestured towards the heads that covered every wall.
"I want them taken down as soon as possible. I can do this, can"t I, Mister Skimmer?"
"You are the ambassador, sir. Mmph, mmhm."
"Well, they"re coming down. All of them."
Igor gave the camphor-smelling multitude a worried look. "Even the thordfith?"
"Even the swordfish," said Vimes firmly.
"And the thnow leopardth?"
"Both of them, yes."
"What about the troll?"
"Especially the troll. See to it."
Igor could have been said to have looked as if his world had fallen down around his ears were it not for the fact that he already looked as if this had happened.
"What do you want to do with them, marthter?"
"That"s up to you. Throw them in the river, maybe. Ask Detritus about the troll... Maybe it should be buried or something. Is there any supper?"
"There"th fresh walago , noggit , thclott , thwinefleth and thauthageth," said Igor, still clearly upset about the trophies. "I"ll thop tomorrow, if her ladythip giveth me inthtructionth."
"Is swineflesh the same as pork?" said Vimes. People in drought-stricken areas would have paid good money to have Igor pronounce "sausages".
"Yes," said Inigo.
"And what"s in the sausages?"
"Er... meat?" said Igor, looking as though he was ready to run.
"Good. We"ll give them a try."
Vimes went upstairs and followed the sound of conversation until he reached a bedroom, where Sybil was laying clothes on a bed the size of a small country. Cheery was assisting her.
The walls were carved panels of wood. The bed was carved panels of wood. And the mad fretworker had been hard at work here, too. Only the floors weren"t wood; they were stone, and radiated cold.
"It"s a bit like the inside of a cuckoo clock, isn"t it?" said Sybil. "Cheery has volunteered to be my lady"s maid for now."
Cheery saluted.
"Why not?" said Vimes. After a day like this, a lady"s maid with a long flowing beard seemed perfectly normal.
"The floors are a bit chilly, though. Tomorrow I"ll measure up for some carpets," said Sybil firmly. "I know we won"t be here long, but we ought to leave something for the next people."
"Yes, dear. That would be a good idea."
"There"s a bathroom through there," said Sybil, nodding. "There"s hot springs near here, apparently. They pipe them in. You"ll feel better for a hot bath."
Ten minutes later Vimes was happy to agree. The water was a funny colour and smelled a little of what he would politely call bad eggs, but it was good and hot and he could feel it drawing the tension out of his muscles.
The distressing scent of second-hand baked beans sloshed around him as he lay back. At the other end of the huge bath the lump of pumice stone that he"d been using to rasp the dead skin off his feet banged against the side. Vimes watched it, unseeing, while he filed the thoughts of the day.
Things were starting to smell, just like the bathwater. The Scone of Stone had been stolen, had it? Now there was a coincidence.
It had been a complete shot in the dark. But lately he was on the lucky side when it came to nocturnal targets. Someone had pinched the replica Scone, and now the real one had gone missing, and someone in Ankh-Morpork who was good at making rubber moulds had been found dead. You didn"t need the brains of Detritus in a snowdrift to suspect a connection.
A recollection nagged at him. Someone had said something and he"d thought it odd at the time but then something else had happened and it had gone out of his mind. Something about... a welcome to Bonk. Only...
Well, he was here. No doubt about that.
Absolute confirmation of the fact was brought forth half an hour later, at supper.
Vimes cut into a sausage and stared. "What is in these? All this... pink stuff?" he demanded.
"Er, that"s meat, your grace," said Inigo, on the other side of the table.
"Well, where"s the texture? Where"s the white bits and the yellow bits and those green bits you always hope are herbs?"
"To a connoisseur here, your grace, an Ankh-Morpork sausage would not be considered a sausage, mmph, mmhm."
"Oh, really? So what would he call it?"
"A loaf, your grace. Or possibly a log. Here, a butcher can be hanged if his sausages are not all meat, and at that it must be from a named domesticated animal, and I perhaps should add that by named I do not mean that it should have been called "Spot" or "Ginger", mmm mmhm. I"m sure that if your grace would prefer the more genuine Ankh-Morpork taste, Igor could make
up some side dishes of stale bread and sawdust."
"Thank you for that patriotic comment," said Vimes. "However, these are... Okay, I suppose. They just came as a bit of a shock, that"s all. No!"
He put his hand over his mug to prevent Igor from filling it with beer.
"Ith there thomething wrong, marthter?"
"Just water, please," said Vimes. "No beer."
"The marthter doth not drink... beer?"
"No. And perhaps in a mug without a face on it?" He took another look at the stein. "Why"s it got a lid, by the way? Are you afraid of the rain getting in?"
"I"ve never been quite certain of that one," said Inigo, as Igor shuffled off. "From observation, though, I believe the purpose of the stein is to stop the beer being spilled while using the mug to conduct the singing, mmm, mhm."
"Ah, the old quaffing problem," said Vimes. "What a clever idea."
Sybil patted him on the knee. "You"re not in Ankh-Morpork any more, dear," she said.
"Now we"re alone; Your Grace," said Inigo, leaning closer, "I"m very worried about Mister Sleeps. The acting consul, you remember? He seems to have vanished, mmm, mhm. Some of his personal items have gone, too."
"Holiday?"
"Not at a time like this, sir! And - "
There was a thud of wood against wood as Igor re-entered, pointedly carrying a stepladder. Inigo sat back.
Vimes found that he was yawning. "We"d better talk about that in the morning," he said, as the ladder was dragged towards the horrible hunting trophies. "It"s been a long day, what with one thing and another."
"Of course, your grace."
The bed"s mattress was so soft that Vimes sank into it nervously, afraid it might close over the top of his head. That was just as well, because the pillow was... well, everyone knew a pillow was a sack full of feathers, didn"t they? Not an apprentice eiderdown like this thing.
"Just fold it up, Sam," said Sybil, from the depths of the mattress. "G"night."
"G"night."
"Sam... ?"
There was a snore from Sam Vimes. Sybil sighed and turned over.
Vimes awoke a few times, to the sound of thuds from downstairs.
"Snow leopards," he muttered, and drifted away again.
There was a louder crash.
"Moose," murmured Lady Sybil.
"Elk?" mumbled Vimes.
"Def"nitely moose."
Some time later there was a muffled scream, a thud, and a sound very much like the sound made when a huge wooden ruler is held against a desk and twanged.
"Swordfish," said Sam and Sybil together, and went back to sleep.
"You should present your credentials to the rulers of Bonk," said Inigo in the morning.
Vimes was looking out of the window. Two guards in the rainbow-coloured uniforms were standing stiffly to attention outside the embassy.
"What"re they doing here?" he said.
"Guarding," said Inigo.
"Guarding who from what?"
"Just generally guarding, mmph. I suppose it"s thought that guards give such a finished look to an important building."
"What was that you said about credentials?"
"They"re just formal letters from Lord Vetinari, confirming your appointment. Mmph, mmm... the lore is a little complex, but at the moment the order of precedence is the future Low King, the Lady Margolotta and the Baron von Uberwald. Each, of course, will pretend that you are not calling on the other two. It"s called the arrangement. It"s an awkward system but it keeps the peace."
"If I understood your briefing," said Vimes, still watching the guards, "in the days of imperial Uberwald the whole bloody show was run by the werewolves and the vampires and everyone else was lunch."
"Somewhat simplistic but broadly true, mhm," said Inigo, brushing some dust off Vimes"s shoulder.
"And then it all broke up and the dwarfs became powerful because there"s dwarfs from one end of Uberwald to the other and they all keep in touch..."
"Their system certainly survives political upheaval, yes."
"And then... what was it? A diet of beetles?"
"The Diet of Bugs, mmm. "Diet" being an Uberwaldean word for "meeting", and Bugs being an important town further upriver, famous for its pastries made from flax. Everyone came to an... arrangement. No one would wage war on any of the others, and everyone could live in peace. No garlic to be grown, no silver to be mined. And the werewolves and vampires promised that those things wouldn"t be needed. Mmm, mmm."
"Seems a bit trusting," said Vimes.
"It appears to have worked, mhm."
"What did the humans think about it all?"
"Well, humans have always been a bit of background noise in the history of Uberwald, your grace."
"It must be a bit dull for the undead, though."
"Oh, the bright ones know the old days can"t come back."
"Ah, well, that"s always the trick, isn"t it? Finding the bright ones?" Vimes put on his helmet. "And what"re the dwarfs like?"
"The future Low King is considered pretty clever, your grace. Mhm."
"How does he stand on Ankh-Morpork?"
"He can take Ankh-Morpork or leave it alone, your grace. On balance, I believe he doesn"t much like us."
"I thought it was Albrecht who didn"t like us?"
"No, your grace. Albrecht is the one who would be happy to see Ankh-Morpork burned to the ground. Rhys merely wishes we didn"t exist."
"I thought he was one of the good guys!"
"Your Grace, I did hear you express some negative sentiments about Ankh-Morpork on the way here, mhm, mhm."
"Yes, but I live there! I"m allowed to! That"s patriotic!"
"Across the whole of the world, your grace, there inexplicably appear to be definitions of, mmph, mmhm, "good guy" which do not automatically mean "likes Ankh-Morpork". You will find out, I daresay. The other two are a lot easier to .deal with. It may have been the Lady Margolotta who tried the little trick with the guards last night. She was the one who got me to bring you back, anyway. She has invited you for drinks."
"Oh."
"She"s a vampire, mmm, mmm."
"What?"
Inigo sighed. "Your grace, I thought you understood. Vampires are simply part of Uberwald. This is where they belong. I"m afraid this is something you will have to come to terms with. I understand that now they... obtain blood by arrangement. Some people are... impressed by a title, your grace."
"Good grief."
"Quite so. In any case, you will be safe. Remember your diplomatic immunity, mmm, mhm."
"I didn"t quite see that working in the Wilinus Pass the other day."
"Oh, they were common bandits."
"Really? Has your man Sleeps turned up? Haven"t you taken this to the Watch here?"
"There"s no Watch here, as you understand the term. You saw them. They"re... gate guards, enforcers for the city rulers, mhm, mmm, not officers of the law. But enquiries are being made."
"Does Sybil come with me for this bit?" said Vimes, and thought: we were guards like that, not so long ago...
"It is usually done by the new ambassador and his guards."
"Well, Detritus is staying here to keep an eye on her, all right? She said this morning she really thinks this place would be better for some decent. carpet, and there"s no stopping her when she"s in a tape-measure mood. I"ll take Cheery and one of the lads from outside, for the look of the thing. I assume you"re coming?"
"I won"t be required, sir. Mmm. The new coachman knows the way. Morporkian is the diplomatic language, after all, and... I shall be making enquiries."