The first man held out a hand as Ridcully bustled off again. ‘Prince Khufurah,’ he said. ‘My carpet got in only two hours ago.’
‘Carpet? Oh… yes… you flew . .
‘Yes, very chilly and of course you just can’t get a good meal. And did you get your man, Sir Samuel?’
‘What? Pardon?’
‘I believe our ambasssador told me you had to leave the reception last week…?’ The Prince was a tall man who had probably once been quite athletic until the big dinners had finally weighed him down. And he had a beard. All Klatchians had beards. This Klatchian had intelligent eyes, too. Disconcertingly intelligent. You looked into them and several layers of person looked back at you.
‘What? Oh. Yes. Yes, we got ’em all right,’ said Vimes.
‘Well done. He put up a fight, I see.’
Vimes looked surprised. The Prince tapped his jaw thoughtfully. Vimes’s hand flew up and encountered a little bit of tissue on his own chin.
‘Ah… er… yes…’
‘Commander Vimes always gets his man,’ said the Prince.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say I–’
‘Vetinari’s terrier, I’ve heard them call you,’ the Prince went on. ‘Always hot on the chase, they say, and he won’t let go.’
Vimes stared into the calm, knowing gaze.
‘I suppose, at the end of the day, we’re all someone’s dog,’ he said, weakly.
‘In fact it is fortuitous I have met you, commander.’ lit is?’
‘I was just wondering about the meaning of the word shouted at me as we were on our way down here. Would you be so kind?’
‘Er… if I…’
‘I believe it was… let me see now… oh, yes… towelhead.’
The Prince’s eyes stayed locked on Vimes’s face.
Vimes was conscious of his own thoughts moving very fast, and they seemed to reach their own decision. We’ll explain later, they said. You’re too tired for explanations. Right now, with this man, it’s oh so much better to be honest…
‘It… refers to your headdress,’ he said.
‘Oh. Is it some kind of obscure joke?’
Of course he knows, thought Vimes. And he knows I know…
‘No. It’s an insult,’ he said eventually.
‘Ah? Well, we certainly cannot be held responsible for the ramblings of idiots, commander.’ The Prince flashed a smile. ‘I must commend you, incidentally.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘For your breadth of knowledge. I must have asked a dozen people that question this morning and, do you know? Not one of them knew what it meant. And they all seemed to have caught a cough.’
There was a diplomatic pause but, in it, someone sniggered.
Vimes let his glance drift sideways to the other man, who had not been introduced. He was shorter and skinnier than the Prince and, under his black headdress, had the most crowded face Vimes had ever seen. A network of scars surrounded a nose like an eagle’s beak. There was a sort of beard and moustache, but the scars had affected the hair growth so much that they stuck out in strange bunches and at odd angles. The man looked as though he had been hit in the mouth by a hedgehog. He could have been any age. Some of the scars looked fresh.
All in all, the man had a face that any policeman would arrest on sight. There was no possible way it could be innocent of anything.
He caught Vimes’s expression and grinned, and Vimes had never seen so much gold in one mouth. He’d never seen so much gold in one place.
Vimes realized he was staring when he ought to have been making polite diplomatic conversation.
‘So,’ he said, ‘are we going to have a scrap over this Leshp business or what?’
The Prince gave a dismissive shrug.
‘Pfui,’ he said. ‘A few square miles of uninhabited fertile ground with superb anchorage in an unsurpassed strategic position? What sort of inconsequence is that for civilized people to war over?’
Once again Vimes felt the gaze on him, reading him. Well, the hell with it. He said, ‘Sorry, I’m not good at this diplomacy business. Did you mean what you just said then?’
There was another snigger. Vimes turned and looked at the leering bearded face again. And was aware of a smell, no, a stench of cloves.
Good grief, he chews the stinking things…
‘Ah,’ said the Prince, ‘you haven’t met 71–hour Ahmed?’
Ahmed grinned again and bowed. ‘Offendi,’ he said, in a voice like a gravel path.
And that seemed to be it. Not ‘This is 71–hour Ahmed, Cultural Attache’ or 71–hour Ahmed, my bodyguard’ or even ’71–hour Ahmed, walking strongroom and moth killer’. It was dear that the next move was up to Vimes.
‘That’s… er… that’s an unusual name” he said.
‘Not at all,’ said the Prince smoothly. ‘Ahmed is a very common name in my country.’
He leaned forward again. Vimes recognized this as the prelude to a confidential aside. ‘Incidentally, was that beautiful lady I saw just now your first wife?’
‘Er… all my wives,’ said Vimes. ‘That is–’
‘Could I offer you twenty camels for her?’
Vimes looked back into the dark eyes for a moment, glanced at 71–hour Ahmed’s 24–carat grin, and said:
‘This is another test, isn’t it… ?’
The Prince straightened up, looking pleased.
‘Well done, Sir Samuel. You’re good at this. Do you know, Mr Boggis of the Thieves’ Guild was prepared to accept fifteen?’
‘For Mrs Boos?’ Vimes waggled a hand dismissively. ‘Nah… four camels, maybe four camels and a goat in a good light. And when she’s had a shave.’
The milling guests turned at the sound of the Prince’s explosion of laughter.
‘Very good! Very good! I am afraid, commander, that some of your fellow citizens feel that just because my people invented advanced mathematics and allday camping we are complete barbarians who’d try to buy their wives at the drop of, shall we say, a turban. I am surprised they’re giving me an honorary degree, considering how incredibly backward I am.’
‘Oh? What degree is that?’ said Vimes. No wonder this man was a diplomat. You couldn’t trust him an inch, he thought in loops, and you couldn’t help liking him despite it.
The Prince pulled a letter out of his robe.
‘Apparently it’s a Doctorum Adamus cum Flabello Dulci – Is there something wrong, Sir Samuel?’
Vimes managed to turn the treacherous laugh into a coughing fit. ‘No, no, nothing,’ he said. ‘No.’
He desperately wanted to change the subject. And fortunately there was something here to provide just the opportunity.
‘Why has Mr Ahmed got such a big curved sword slung on his back?’ he said.
‘Ah, you are a policeman, you notice such things–’
‘It’s hardly a concealed weapon, is it? It’s nearly bigger than him. He’s practically a concealed owner!’
‘It’s ceremonial,’ said the Prince. ‘And he does fret so if he has to leave it behind.’
‘And what exactly is his––’
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Ridcully. ‘I think we’re just about ready. You know you go right at the front, Sam–’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Vimes. ‘I was just asking His Highness what’
‘–and if you, Your Highness, and you, Mr… my word, what a big sword, and you come back here and take your place among the honoured guests, and we’ll be ready in a brace of sheikhs…’
What a thing it is to have a copper’s mind, Vimes thought, as the great file of wizards and guests tried to form a dignified and orderly line behind him. just because someone makes himself pleasant and likeable you start to be suspicious of him, for no other reason than the fact that anyone who goes out of their way to be nice to a copper has got something on their mind. Of course, he’s a diplomat, but still… I just hope he never studied ancient languages, and that’s a fact.
Someone tapped Vimes on the shoulder. He turned and looked right into the grin of 71–hour Ahmed.
‘If hyou changing your mind, offendi, I give hyou twenty–five camels, no problem,’ he said, pulling a clove from his teeth. ‘May your hlions be full of fruit.’
He winked. It was the most suggestive gesture Vimes had ever seen. ‘Is this another–’ he began, but the man had vanished into the crowd.
‘My loins be full of fruit?’ he repeated to himself. ‘Good grief!’
71–hour Ahmed reappeared at his other elbow in a gust of cloves. ‘I go, I hcome back,’ he growled happily. ‘The Prince hsays the degree is Doctor of Sweet Fanny Adams. A hwizard Wheeze, yes? Oh, how we are laughing.’
And then he was gone.
The Convivium was Unseen University’s Big Day. Originally it had just been the degree ceremony, but over the years it had developed into a kind of celebration of the amicable relationship between the University and the city, in particular celebrating the fact that people were hardly ever turned to clams any more. In the absence of anything resembling a .Lord Mayor’s Show or a state opening of Parliament, it was one of the few formal opportunities the citizens had of jeering at their social superiors, or at least at people wearing tights and ridiculous costumes.