Faifal gave Colon a big grin.
‘I did hear the entire army has marched away to En al Sams la Laisa, ‘he said. ‘But don’t tell anyone.
‘Have they?’ Colon glanced at the other men. They were watching him with curiously deadpan expressions.
‘Sounds like a massive place, with a name like that,’ he said.
‘Oh, huge,’ said his neighbour. One of the other men made a noise that you might think was a suppressed chuckle.
‘It’s a long way, is it?’
‘No, very close. You’re practically on top of it,’ said Faifal. He nudged a colleague, whose shoulders were shaking.
‘Oh, right. Big army, is it?’
‘Could easily be very big, yes.’
‘Fine. Fine,’ said Colon. ‘Er… anyone got a pencil? I could’ve sworn I had one when–’
There was a noise outside the tavern. It was the sound of many women laughing, which is always a disquieting noise to men.[16] Customers peered suspiciously through the vines.
Colon and the rest of the crowd looked around an urn at the group by the well. An old lady was rolling on the ground, laughing, and various younger ones were leaning against one another for support.
He heard one of them say, ‘What did he say again?’
‘He said, “That’s funny, it’s never done that when I’ve tried it!”‘
‘Yeah, that’s true!’ cackled the old woman. ‘It never does!’
‘ “That’s funny, it’s never done that when I’ve tried if’,’ Nobby repeated.
Colon groaned. That was the voice and tone of Corporal Nobbs in storytelling mode, when wood could scorch at ten yards.
‘ ‘scuse me,’ he muttered, and forced his way through the press to the gateway.
‘Have you heard the one about the ki… the sultan who was afraid his wife… one of his wives… would be unfaithful to him while he was away?’
‘We haven’t heard any stories like these, Beti!’ Bana gasped.
‘Really? Oh, I’ve got a thousand and one of ’em. Well, anyway, he went and saw the wise old blacksmith, right, and he said–’
‘You can’t go round telling stories like that, cor– Beti,’ Colon panted as he lumbered to a halt.
Nobby realized that a change had come over the group. Now he was surrounded by women who were in the presence of a man. A known man, he corrected himself.
Several of them were blushing. They hadn’t blushed before.
‘Why not?’ said Beti nastily.
‘You’ll offend people,’ said Colon uncertainly.
‘Er, we are not offended, sir,’ said Bana, in a small humble voice. ‘We think Beti’s stories are very… instructive. Especially. the one about the man who went into the tavern with the very small musician.’
‘And that was pretty hard to translate,’ said Nobby, ‘because they don’t really know what a piano is in Klatch. But it turns out there’s this kind of stringed–’
‘And it was very interesting about the man with his arms and legs in plaster,’ said Netal.
‘Yeah, and they laughed even though they don’t have the same kind of doorbells here,’ said Nobby. ‘Here, you don’t have to go–’
But the group around the well was dispersing. Water jugs were being picked up and carried away. A kind of preoccupied busyness came over the women.
Bana nodded at Beti. ‘Er… thank you. It’s been very… interesting. But we must go. It was so kind of you to talk to us.’
‘Er, no, don’t go…’
A faint suggestion of perfume hung in the air.
Beti glared at Colon. ‘Sometimes I really want to give you a right ding alongside the lughole,’ she growled. ‘My first bloody chance in years and you––’
She stopped. There was a crowd of puzzled yet disapproving faces behind Colon.
And things might have ended otherwise had it not been for the braying of the donkey, from above.
The stolen donkey, easily pulling away from Nobby’s inexpert tether, had wandered off in search of food. She vaguely associated this with the doorway to her stable and therefore with doorways in general, and so had wandered through the nearest open one.
There had been some narrow spiral stairs inside, but her stall was pretty narrow and steps didn’t worry a donkey that was used to the streets of Al-Khali.
It was only a disappointment when the steps came to an end and there was still no hay.
‘Oh no,’ said someone behind Colon. ‘There’s a donkey up the minaret again.’
There were groans all round.
‘What’s wrong with that? What goes up must come down,’ said Colon.
‘You don’t know?’ said one of his dining companions. ‘You don’t have minarets in Tar?’
‘Er–’ said Colon.
‘We have plenty of donkeys,’ said Lord Vetinari. There was general laughter, most of it directed at Colon.
One of the men pointed to the dim interior of the minaret.
‘Look. .. see?’
‘A very narrow, winding staircase,’ said the Patrician. ‘So… ?’
‘There’s nowhere to turn at the top, right? Oh, any fool can get a donkey up a minaret. But have you ever tried getting an animal to go backwards down a narrow staircase in the dark? Can’t be done.’
‘There’s something about a rising staircase,’ said someone else. ‘It attracts donkeys. They think there’s something at the top.’
‘We had to push the last one off, didn’t we.?’ said one of the guards.
‘Right. It splashed,’ said his comrade in arms.
‘No one is pushing Valerie off’f anything,’ snarled Beti. ‘Any one of you tries anything like that and, s’welp me, you’ll feel the wrong end of–’ He
stopped, and a wide horrible grin appeared behind the veil. ‘I mean, I’ll give you a great big soppy kiss.’
Several men at the back of the crowd took to their heels.
‘There’s no need to get nasty,’ said the guard.
‘I mean it!’ said Beti, advancing.
The cowering guard cringed. ‘Can’t you do anything with her, sirs?’
‘Us?’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘ ‘fraid not. Oh dear… it’s going to be like that business in Djelibeybi all over again, A].’
‘Oh dear,’ said Colon, mugging loyally. The crowd, or at least that part that thought itself sufficiently far away from Beti, started to grin. This was street theatre.
‘I don’t know if they ever got that man down off the flagpole,’ Vetinari went on.
‘Oh, most of ‘im, they did,’ said Colon.
‘Tell you what, tell you what,’ said the guard hurriedly, ‘suppose we get a rope round it–’
‘––her–’ Beti growled.
‘Her, right, and then –’
‘You’d need at least three men up there and there ain’t no room!’
‘Sir, I’ve got an idea,’ whispered one of the guards.
‘I should make it quick,’ said Colon. “cos there’s no stopping Beti once she gets going.’
The guards held a whispered argument.
‘We’d get into trouble if we do that! You know all that stuff we were told about the war effort! That’s why they were all confiscated!’
‘No one will miss it for five minutes!’
‘Yeah, but you want to tell the prince we lost one?’
‘All right, but do you want to explain to her?’
They both looked at Beti. ’And they’re easy to steer, after all,’’ one whispered.
‘Valerie?’ said Sergeant Colon.
‘There is a problem?’ Beti demanded.
‘No! No. It’s a fine name for a donkey, N– Beti.’
‘No-one is to do anything,’ said one of the guards. ‘We will return.’
‘What was all that about?’ said Colon, watching them go.
‘Oh, they’ve probably gone to get a carpet,’ said someone.
‘Very nice, but I don’t see how that’d help,’ said Bets.
‘A flying one.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Colon. ‘They’ve got one of those up at the University–,
‘Ur has a university?’
‘Oh, indeed,’ said the Patrician. ‘How do you think Al learned what a donkey looks like?’
Once again, laughter dispelled doubt. Colon grinned uncertainly.
‘I’m really getting good at this stupid idiot stuff, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘It just sort of happens!’
‘Marvellous,’ said Lord Vetinari.
There was another angry braying from far above.
‘Trouble is, they’re all locked up because of the war effort,’ said someone behind them.
A piece of mud brick shattered on the ground nearby.
‘The way it’s thrashing around up there, it’s going to fall off anyway.’
‘Perhaps I should persuade her to come down,’ said the Patrician.
‘Can’t be done, offendi. You can’t get past on the stairs, you can’t turn it round, and it won’t come down backwards.’
‘I shall consider the situation,’ said the Patrician.
He ambled back into the tavern for a moment, and returned. They saw him enter the door and they heard him climbing the staircase.
‘Should be good,’ said a man behind Colon.
After a while the braying stopped.
‘Can’t turn round, see. Far too narrow,’ said the elevateddonkey expert. ‘Can’t turn round, won’t go backwards. Well–known fact.’
‘There’s always a know–all, right, Beti?’ said Colon.
‘Yeah. Always.’
The tower was full of silence. Several members of the crowd found their attention drawn to it.
‘I mean, if you could get three or four men up the stairs, which you can’t, you could sort of move it a leg at a time, if you didn’t mind being kicked and bitten to death…’