The Fifth Elephant (Discworld #24) 4

"Exposed what? He is not King, but I will be very surprised if one of his family is not King again, in the fullness of time. What goes around comes around, as the Igors say." The King leaned forward.

"You have been labouring under a misapprehension; I reckon. You think that because Albrecht dislikes Ankh-Morpork and has... oldfashioned ideas, he is a bad dwarf. But I have known him for two hundred years. He is honest and honourable... more so than me, that I"m sure of. Five hundred years ago he would have made a fine king. Today, perhaps not. Perhaps... hah... the axe of my ancestors needs a different handle. But now I am King and he accepts that with all his heart because if he did not, he"d think he wasn"t a dwarf, see? Of course he will now oppose me at every turn. Being Low King was never an easy job. But, to use one of your metaphors, we are all floating in the same boat.

We may certainly try to push one another over the side, but only a maniac like Dee would make a hole in the bottom."

"Corporal Littlebottom thought there"d be a war - " said Vimes weakly.

"Well, there are always hotheads. But while we argue about who steers the boat, we don"t deny that it"s an important voyage. I see you are tired. Let your good lady take you home. But as a nightcap... What is it, your excellency, that Ankh-Morpork wants?"

"Ankh-Morpork wants the names of the murderers," mumbled Vimes.

"No, that is what Commander Vimes wants. What is it that Ankh-Morpork wants? Gold? So often it is gold. Or iron, perhaps? You use a lot of iron."

Vimes blinked. His brain had finally given up. There was nothing left any more. He wasn"t certain he could even stand up.

He remembered a word.

"Fat," he said blankly.

"Aha. The Fifth Elephant. Are you sure? There"s some good iron now. Iron makes you strong. Fat only makes you slippery."

"Fat," parroted Vimes, feeling the darkness closing in. "Lots of fat."

"Well, certainly. The price is ten Ankh-Morpork cents a barrel but, your excellency, since I have come to know you, I feel that perhaps - "

"Five cents a barrel for grade one high-rendered, three cents for grade two, ten cents per barrel for heavy tallow, safe and delivered to Ankh-Morpork," said Sybil. "And all from the Schmaltzberg Bend levels and measured on the Ironcrust scale. I have some doubt about the long-term quality of the Big Tusk wells."

Vimes tried to focus on his wife. She seemed, inexplicably, a long way away. "Wha"?"

"Er, I caught up with some reading when I was in the embassy, Sam. Those notebooks. Sorry."

"Would you beggar us, madam?" said the King, throwing up his hands.

"We may be flexible on delivery," said Lady Sybil. ,

"Klatch would pay at least nine for grade one," said the King.

"But the Klatchian ambassador isn"t sitting here," said Sybil.

The King smiled. "Or married to you, my lady, much to his loss. Six, five and fifteen."

"Six, dropping to five after twenty thousand, three and half across the board for grade two. I can give you thirteen on tallow."

"Acceptable, but give me fourteen on white tallow and I"ll allow seven on the new pale suets we"re finding. They"re making an acceptable candle, look you."

"Six, I"m afraid. You haven"t plumbed the full extent of those deposits, and I think it may be reasonable to expect high levels of scrattle and BCBs in the lower layers. Besides, I think your forecasts about the amount of those deposits are erring on the optimistic side."

"Wha" BCBs?" murmured Vimes.

"Burnt crunchy bits," said Sybil. "Mostly unbelievably huge and ancient animals, deep fried."

"You astonish me, Lady Sybil," said the King. "I did not know you were trained in fat extraction."

"Cooking Sam"s breakfasts is an education in itself, your majesty."

"Oh, well, far be it for a mere king to argue. Six, then. Price to remain stable for two years - " The King saw Sybil"s mouth open. "All right, all right, three years. I"m not an unreasonable king."

"Prices on the dock?"

"How can I refuse?"

"Agreed, then."

"The paperwork will be with you in the morning. And now we really must go our separate ways," said the King. "I can see his excellency has had a long day. Ankh-Morpork will be swimming in fat. I can"t imagine what you"ll use it all for."

"Make light," said Vimes, and, as darkness fell at last, fell forward gently into the welcoming arms of sleep.

Sam Vimes awoke to the smell of hot fat.

Softness enveloped him. It practically imprisoned him.

For a moment he thought it was snow, except that snow wasn"t usually this warm. Finally, he identified it as the cloud-like softness of the mattress on the ambassadorial bed.

He let his attention drift back to the fat smell. It had... overtones. There was a definite burnt component. Since Sam Vimes"s spectrum of gastronomic delight mainly ranged from "well fried" to "caramelized", it was decidedly promising.

He shifted position and regretted it immediately. Every muscle in his body squealed in protest. He lay still and waited for the fire in his back to die down.

Bits and pieces of the previous two days assembled themselves in his head. Once or twice he winced. Had he really gone through the ice like that? Was it Sam Vimes who"d stepped up to fight the werewolf, despite the fact that the thing was strong enough to bend a sword in a circle? And had Sybil won a lot of fat off the King? And...

Well, here he was in a nice warm bed and by the smell of it there was breakfast on the way.

Another piece of recollection floated into place. Vimes groaned and forced his legs out of the bed. No, Wolfgang couldn"t have survived that, surely.

Naked, he staggered into the bathroom and spun the huge taps. Hot pungent water gushed out.

A minute later he was lying full length again. It was rather too hot, but he could remember the snows, and maybe from now on he could never be hot enough.

Some of the pain washed away.

Someone rapped on the door. "It"s me, Sam."

"Sybil?"

She came in, carrying a couple of very large towels and some fresh clothes.

"Good to see you up again. Igor"s frying sausages. He doesn"t like doing it. He thinks they should be boiled. And he"s doing slumpie and fikkun haddock and Distressed Pudding. I didn"t want the food to go to waste, you see. I don"t think I want to stay for the rest of the celebrations."

"I know what you mean. How"s Carrot?"

"Well, he says he doesn"t want sausages."

"What? He"s al - he"s up?"

"Sitting up, at least. Igor"s a marvel. Angua said it was a bad break but he"s just got some sort of device that... well, Carrot"s not even got a sling on now!"

"Sounds a useful man to have around," said Vimes, pulling on his civilized trousers.

"Angua says Igor"s got an icehouse in the cellars and there"s frozen jars of, of... well, let"s just say he suggested that you might like liver and onions for breakfast and I said no."

"I like liver and onions," said Vimes. He thought about it. "Up until now, anyway."

"I think the King wants us to go as well. In a polite way. A lot of very respectful dwarfs came round here with paperwork first thing this morning."

Vimes nodded grimly. It made sense. If he was King he"d want Vimes out of here too. Here"s some grateful thanks, a nice trading agreement, terribly sorry to see you go, do call again, only not too soon...

Breakfast was everything he"d dreamed of. Then he went to see the invalid.

Carrot was pale, grey under the eyes, but smiling. He was sitting up in bed, drinking fatsup.

"Hello, Mister Vimes! We won, then?"

"Didn"t Angua tell you?"

"She went off with the wolves when I was asleep, Lady Sybil said."

Vimes recounted the events of the night as best he could.

Afterwards, Carrot said, "Gavin was a very noble creature. I"m sorry he"s dead. I"m sure we"d have got on well."

You mean every word of it, Vimes thought. I know you do. But it works out all right for you, doesn"t it? It always does. If it had been the other way about, if it had been Gavin that attacked Wolf first, then - I know it would have been you that went over the falls with the bastard. But it wasn"t you, was it? If you were dice, you"d always roll sixes.

And the dice don"t roll themselves. If it wasn"t against everything he wanted to be true about the world, Vimes might just then have believed in destiny controlling people. And gods help the other people who were around when a big destiny was alive in the world, bending every poor bugger around itself...

Out loud, he said, "Poor old Gaspode went over too."

"How? What was he doing?"

"Er, you could say he had our lad"s full attention. A real streetfighter."

"Poor little soul. He was a good dog at heart."

And once again words that would have sounded trite and wrong on anyone else"s lips were redeemed by the way Carrot said them.

"And what about Tantony?" said Vimes.

"Left this morning, Lady Sybil said."

"Good grief! And Wolfgang played noughts and crosses on his chest!"

"Igor"s a dab hand with a needle, sir."

Afterwards, a thoughtful Sam Vimes stepped out into the coach yard. An Igor was already loading the luggage.

"Er, which one are you?" said Vimes.

"Igor, marthter."

"Ah. Right. And, er, are you happy here, Igor? We could do with a... man of your talents in the Watch, and no mistake."

Igor looked down from the top of the coach: "In Ankh-Morpork, marthter? My word. Everyone wantth to go to Ankh-Morpork, marthter. It"th a very tempting offer. But I know where my duty lieth, your exthellenthy. I mutht get the plathe ready for the next exthellenthy."

"Oh, surely - "

"However, fortuitouthly my nephew Igor ith looking for a pothition, marthter. He thould do well in Ankh-Morpork. He"th rather too modern for Uberwald, that"th for thure!"

"Good lad, is he?"

"Hith heart"th in the right plathe. I know that for thertain, thur."

"Er, good. Well, get a message to him, then. We"re leaving as soon as we can."

"He will be tho exthited, thur! I"ve heard that in Ankh-Morpork bodieth jutht lie around in the thtreetth for anyone to take away!"

"It"s not quite as bad as that, Igor."

"Ithn"t it? Oh well, you can"t have everything. I"ll tell him directly." Igor lurched off in a sort of high-speed totter.

I wonder why they all walk like that, thought Vimes. They must have one leg shorter than the other. Either that or they"re not good at choosing boots.

He sat down on the steps to the house and fished out a cigar. So that was it, then. Bloody

politics again. It was always bloody politics, or bloody diplomatics. Bloody lies in smart clothing. Once you got off the streets criminals just flowed through your fingers. The King and Lady Margolotta and Vetinari... they always looked at some sort of big picture. Vimes knew he was, and always would be, a little picture man. Dee was useful, so she"d probably get, oh, a few days breaking bread or whatever it was they gave you here for being naughty. After all, all she"d destroyed was a fake, wasn"t it?

Was it?

But she"d thought she was committing a much bigger crime. That ought to mean something, in Sam Vimes"s personal gallery of little pictures.

And the Baroness was as guilty as hell. People had died. As for Wolfgang... well, some people were just built guilty. It was as simple as that. Anything they did became a crime, simply because it was them doing it.

He blew out a stream of smoke.

People like that shouldn"t be allowed to simply die their way out of things.

But... he hadn"t, had he?

The wolves had gone a long way down the river, Sybil had said, on both banks. There wasn"t a sniff of him. Further down was a mass of rapids and another fall. What couldn"t kill him would certainly make him wish it could.

If he"d gone downstream. But upstream there was nothing but wild water, too, right up to the town.

No, he couldn"t... surely no one could swim up a waterfall...

A chilly little feeling began at the back of Vimes"s neck. But any sensible person would get right out of the country, wouldn"t they? The wolves were looking for him, Tantony wouldn"t remember him fondly and if Vimes judged the King correctly then the dwarfs would have some dark little revenge in store, too.

The trouble was that, if you formed a picture in your mind of a sensible person, and tried to superimpose it on a picture of Wolfgang, you couldn"t get them to meet anywhere.

There was an old saying, wasn"t there: as a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Well, that got Wolfgang coming and going.

Vimes stood up and turned around carefully. There was no one there. Sounds came in from the street gateway - people laughing, the sound of a harness, the clank of a shovel clearing up last night"s snow.

He sidled into the embassy, his back to the wall, and groped his way towards the stairs, peering into every doorway. He ran across the expanse of the hallway, did a tumbling roll, and ended up against the far wall.

"Is there anything wrong, sir?" said Cheery. She was watching him from the top of the stairs.

"Er, have you seen anything odd?" said Vimes, dusting himself off self-consciously. "And I realize that we"re talking about a house with Igor in it."

"Could you give me a hint, sir?"

"Wolfgang, godsdammit!"

"But he"s dead, sir. Isn"t he?"

"Not dead enough!"

"Er, what do you want me to do?"

"Where"s Detritus?"

"Polishing his helmet, sir!" said Cheery, on the point of panic.

"What the hell is he wasting time with that for?"

"Er, er, because we"re supposed to leave for the coronation in ten minutes, sir?"

"Oh, yes..."

"Lady Sybil told me to come and find you. In a very distinct tone of voice, sir."

At that point Lady Sybil"s voice boomed along the corridor. "Sam Vimes! You come here!"

"That one, sir," Cheery added helpfully.

Vimes trailed into the bedroom. Sybil was wearing another blue dress, a tiara and a firm expression.

"Is it a posh do?" said Vimes. "I thought if I put on a clean shirt - "

"Your official dress uniform is in the dressing room," said Sybil.

"It was rather a long day yesterday - "

"This is a coronation, Samuel Vimes. It is not a come-as-you-are! Go and get dressed, quickly. Including, and I don"t want to have to say this twice, the helmet with the feathers."

"But not the red tights," said Vimes, hoping against hope. "Please?"

"The red tights, Sam, go without saying."

"They go at the knees," said Vimes, but it was the grumble of the defeated.

"I"ll ring for Igor to come and help you."

"Things will have come to a pretty pass when I can"t put my own tights on, dear, thank you."

Vimes dressed hurriedly, listening for... anything. Some creak in the wrong place, perhaps.

At least this was a Watch uniform, even if it did have buckled shoes. It included a sword. The duking outfit didn"t allow for one, which had always struck Vimes as amazingly stupid. You got made a duke for being a fighter, and then they gave you nothing to fight with.

There was a tinkle of glass back in the bedroom, and Lady Sybil was astonished to see her husband enter at a run with his sword raised.

"I dropped the top of a scent bottle, Sam! What"s up with you? Even Angua says he"s probably miles away and in no shape to cause trouble! Why"re you so nervy?"

Vimes put down the sword and tried to relax.

"Because our Wolfgang"s a damn bottle covey, dear. I know the sort. Any normal person, they crawl off if they get a beating. Or they have the sense to stay down, at least. But sometimes you get one who just won"t let go. Eight-stone weaklings who"ll try to headbutt Detritus. Evil little bantamweight bastards who"ll bust a bottle on the bar and try to attack five watchmen all at once. You know what I mean? Idiots who"ll go on fighting long after they should stop. The only way to put "em down is to put "em out."

"I think I recognize the type, yes," said Lady Sybil, with an irony that failed to register with Sam Vimes until some days later. She picked some lint off his cloak.

"He"s going to be back. I can feel it in my water," mumbled Vimes.

"Sam?"

"Yes?"

"Can I have your attention for a couple of minutes? Wolfgang is Angua"s problem, not yours. I really need to talk to you very quietly for a little while without you running off after werewolves." She said it as if this was a minor character flaw, like a tendency to leave his boots where people could trip over them.

"Er, they run after me," he pointed out.

"But there"s always people being found dead or trying to kill you - "

"I don"t ask them to, dear."

"Sam, I"m going to have a baby."

Vimes"s head was full of werewolves and his automatic husbandly circuitry cut in ready to respond with "Yes, dear," or "Choose any colour you like," or "I"ll get someone to sort it out." Fortunately his brain itself had its own sense of self-preservation and, not wishing to be inside a skull that was stowed in by a bedside lamp, rewrote Sybil"s words in white-hot fire across his inner eyeball and then went and hid.

That"s why the response came out as a weak "What? How?"

"The normal way, I hope."

Vimes sat down on the bed. "And... not right now?"

"I very much doubt it. But Mrs Content says it"s definite, and she"s been a midwife for fifty years."

"Oh." Some more brain functions crept back. "Good. That"s... good."

"It"ll probably take a while to sink in."

"Yes." Another neuron lit up. "Er, everything will be all right, will it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Er, you"re rather, you"re not as... you..."

"Sam, my family have been bred for breeding. It"s an aristocratic tradition. Of course everything will be all right."

"Oh. Good."

Vimes sat and stared. His head felt like some vast sea that had just been parted by a prophet. Where there should have been activity there was just bare sand and the occasional floundering fish. But huge steep waves were tottering on either side, and in a minute they would crash down and cause cities to flood a hundred miles away.

More glass tinkled, somewhere downstairs.

"Sam, Igor"s probably just dropped something," said Sybil, seeing his expression. "That"s all. Probably just knocked over a glass."

There was a snarl and a scream, abruptly cut off.

Vimes leapt off the bed. "Lock the door after me and push the bed against it!" He paused for a moment in the doorway. "Without straining yourself!" he added, and ran for the stairs.

Wolfgang was trotting across the hall.

He was different this time. Wolf ears sprouted from a head that was still human. His hair had grown around him like a mane. Patches of fur were tufted on his skin, and were mostly streaked with blood.

The rest of him... was having trouble deciding what it was. One arm was trying to be a paw.

Vimes reached for his sword and remembered that it was back on the bed. He rummaged in his

pockets. He knew the other thing was here, he remembered picking it up off the dressing table...

His fingers closed on his badge. He held it out.

"Stop! In the name of the law!"

Wolfgang looked up at him, one eye glowing yellow. The other was a mess.

"Hello, Civilized," he growled. "You wait for me, hey?"

He ducked into the corridor that led to the room where Carrot lay. Vimes tried to catch him up, saw claw-tipped fingers curl around the door and haul it out of its frame.

Carrot was reaching for his sword And then Wolfgang was flying backwards under the full weight of Angua. They landed back in the hall, a rolling ball of fur, claws and teeth.