At breakfast early next morning Vimes noticed that the other guests were keeping so far away from him that they were holding on to the walls.
‘The men who went out came back around midnight, sir,’ said Cheery quietly.
‘Did they catch anyone?’
‘Um … sort of, sir. They found seven dead bodies.’
‘Seven?’
‘They think some others might have got away where there’s a path up the rocks.’
‘But, seven? Detritus got one, and … I got one, and a couple were wounded, and Inigo got … one …’ Vimes’s voice tailed off.
He stared at Inigo Skimmer, who was sitting on the other side of the room at a crowded public table. The places around Vimes and Lady Sybil were deserted; Sybil had put it down to deference. The little man was eating soup in a little neat self-contained world among the waving arms and intrusive elbows. He’d even tucked a napkin under his chin.
‘They were … very dead, sir,’ Cheery whispered.
‘Well, that was … interesting,’ said Sybil, wiping her mouth delicately. ‘I’ve never had soup with sausages in it for breakfast before. What is it called, Cheery?’
‘Fatsup, your ladyship,’ said Cheery. ‘It means “fat soup”. We’re close to the Schmaltzberg fat layers now, and, well, it’s nourishing and keeps out the cold.’
‘How very interesting.’ Lady Sybil looked at her husband. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Inigo.
The door opened and Detritus ducked inside, banging snow off his knuckles.
‘It’s not too bad,’ he said. ‘Dey say it’d be a good idea to make an early start, sir.’
‘I bet they do,’ said Vimes, and thought: they don’t want someone like me hanging around. There’s no knowing who’ll die next.
Several faces he vaguely recalled from last night were missing now. Presumably some travellers had started off even earlier, which meant that the news was probably running ahead of him. He’d staggered in, covered in blood and mud, carrying a crossbow and, d’you know, when they went back to look there were seven dead men. By the time that sort of story had gone ten miles he’d be carrying an axe as well, and make that thirty dead men and a dog.
The diplomatic career had certainly got off to a good start, eh?
As they got into the coach he saw the little dart stuck in the door jamb. It was metallic, with metal fins, and overall had a look of speed, as if, when you touched it, you’d burn your fingers.
He walked around to the back of -the coach. There was another, much larger arrow high in the woodwork.
‘They tried to catch up with you on the upgrade,’ said Inigo, behind him.
‘You killed them.’
‘Some got away.’
‘I’m surprised.’
‘I’ve only got one pair of hands, your grace.’
Vimes glanced up at the inn sign. Crudely painted on the boards was a large red head, complete with trunk and tusks.
‘This is the Inn of the Fifth Elephant,’ said Inigo. ‘You left the law behind when we passed Lancre, your grace. Here it’s the lore. What you keep is what you can. What’s yours is what you fight for. The fittest survive.’
‘AnkhMorpork is pretty lawless too, Mister Skimmer.’
‘AnkhMorpork has many laws. It’s just that people don’t obey them. And that, your grace, is quite a different bowl of fat, mmhm, mmph.’
They set off in convoy. Detritus sat on the roof of the leading coach, which lacked a door and most of one side. The view was flat and white, a featureless expanse of snow.
After a while they passed a clacks tower. Burn marks on one side of the stone base suggested that someone had thought that no news was good news, but the semaphore shutters, were clacking and twinkling in the light.
‘The whole world is watching,’ said Vimes.
‘But it’s never cared,’ said Skimmer. ‘Up until now. And now it wants to rip the top off the country and take what’s underneath, mmph, mmhm.’
Ah, thought Vimes, our killer clerk does have more than one emotion.
‘AnkhMorpork has always tried to get on well with other nations,’ said Sybil. ‘Well, these days, at least.’
‘I don’t think we exactly try, dear,’ said Vimes. ‘It’s just that we found that-Why’re we stopping?’
He pulled down the window. ‘What’s happening, sergeant?’
‘Waiting for dese dwarfs, sir,’ the troll called down.
Several hundred dwarfs, four abreast, were trotting across the white plain towards them. There was, Vimes thought, something very determined about them.
‘Detritus?’
‘Yessir?’
‘Try not to look too troll-like, will you?’
‘Tryin’ like hell, sir.’
The column was abreast of them before someone barked the command to halt. A dwarf detached himself from the rest and walked over to the coach.
‘Ta grdzk?!’ he bellowed.
‘Would you like me to take care of this, your grace?’ said Inigo.
‘I’m the damn ambassador,’ said Vimes. He stepped down.
‘Good morning, dwarf [indicating miscreant], 1 am Overseer Vimes of the Look.’
Lady Sybil heard Inigo give a little groan.
‘Krz? Gr’dazak yad?’
‘Hang on, hang on, I know this one … 1 am sure you are a dwarf of no convictions. Let us shake our business, dwarf [indicating miscreant].’
‘Yes, that will just about do it, I think,’ said Inigo. ‘Mmph, mmhm.’
The senior dwarf had gone red in those areas of his face that could be seen behind the hair. The rest of the squad were taking a renewed interest in the coach.
The leader took a deep breath. ‘D’kraha?’
Cheery dropped down from the coach. Her leather skirt flapped in the wind.
As one dwarf, the column swivelled to stare at her. Their leader went pop-eyed.
‘B’dan? K’raa! D’kraga “ka’ak “!’
Vimes saw the expression that appeared on Cheery’s small round face.
Above him there was a clunk as Detritus rested
the loaded Piecemaker on the edge of the coach.
‘I know dat word he said to her,’ he announced to the world. ‘It is not a good word. I do not want to hear dat word again.’
‘Well, this is all very jolly, mmph, mmhm,’ said Inigo, getting down. ‘And now if everyone will just relax for a moment we might get out of here alive, mmph.’
Vimes reached up and carefully pushed the end of Detritus’s crossbow towards a less threatening direction.
Inigo talked very fast in what seemed to Vimes to be a torrent of perfect dwarfish, although he was sure he heard the occasional ‘mmph’. He opened his leather case and produced a couple of documents fixed with big waxy seals. These were inspected with considerable suspicion. The dwarf pointed at Cheery and Detritus. Inigo flapped a hand impatiently, the universal symbol for dismissing that which was not important. More papers were examined.
Eventually, with more universal body language meaning ‘I could do something bad to you but right now it’s just too much bother,’ the dwarf waved Inigo away, gave Vimes a look that suggested that, against all physical evidence, Vimes was beneath him, and strode back to his troops.
An order was barked. The dwarfs set off again, leaving the road and heading off towards the forest.
‘Well, that all seems sorted out,’ said Inigo, getting back into the coach. ‘Miss Littlebottom was a bit of a sticking point, but a dwarf does respect very complicated documents. Something’s up. He wouldn’t say what it was. He wanted to search the coach.’
‘The hell with that. What for?’
‘Who knows? I persuaded him that we have diplomatic immunity.’
‘And what did you tell him about me?’
‘I tried to convince him that you were a bloody idiot, your grace. Mmph, mmhm.’
‘Oh, really?’ Vimes heard Lady Sybil repress a laugh.
‘It was necessary, believe me. Street dwarfish wasn’t a good idea, your grace. But when I pointed out that you were an aristocrat, he-‘
‘I am not an-Well, I’m not really a-‘
‘Yes, your grace. But if you’ll be advised by me, a lot of diplomacy lies in appearing to be a lot more stupid than you are. You’ve made a good start, your grace. And now I think we’d better be moving, mmhm.’
‘I’m glad to see you’re being less deferential, Inigo,’ said Vimes as they got under way again.
‘Oh well, your grace, I’ve got to know you better now.’
Gaspode had confused recollections of the rest of that night. The pack moved fast, and he realized that most of them were running ahead of Carrot, to flatten down the snow.
It wasn’t flat enough for Gaspode. Eventually a wolf picked him up by the scruff of the neck and carried him bodily, while making muffled comments about the foul taste.
The snow stopped after a while and there was a slip of moonlight behind the clouds.
And all around, near and far, was the howl. Occasionally the pack would stop, in a clearing or on the crisp white brow of a hill, and join in.
Gaspode limped to Angua while the cries went up around them. ‘What’s this for?’ he said.