‘Polities,’ said Angua. ‘Negotiation. We’re crossing territories.’
Gaspode glanced at Gavin. He hadn’t joined in the howl, but sat a little way off, regally dividing his attention between Carrot and the pack.
‘He has to ask permission?’ he said.
‘He has to make sure they’ll let me through.’
‘Oh. That’s giving him problems?’
‘None that he can’t bite through.’
‘Oh. Er, is the howl saying anything about me?’
“‘Small, horrible, smelly dog.”’
‘Ah, right.’
They set off again a few minutes later, down a long snow-crusted slope in the moonlight towards the forest, and Gaspode saw shadows angling fast across the snowfield towards them. For a moment he was flanked by two packs, the old and the new, and then their original escort dropped away.
So we’ve got a new honour guard, he thought, as he ran in the centre of a wall of blurred grey legs. Wolves we haven’t met before. I just hope the howl added ‘doesn’t taste nice’.
Then Carrot fell over in the snow. It was a moment before he pushed himself up again. The wolves circled uncertainly, occasionally glancing at Gavin. Gaspode caught up with Carrot, jumping awkwardly through the snow.
‘You all right?’
‘Hard … to … run. .
‘I don’t want to, you know, worry you or anything,’ whined Gaspode, ‘but we’re not exactly among friends here, know what I mean? Our Gavin isn’t going to win the prize for the wolf with the waggiest tail anywhere.’
‘When did he last sleep?’ Angua demanded, pushing her way through the wolves.
‘Dunno, really,’ said Gaspode. ‘We’ve been moving pretty fast the last few days.’
‘No sleep, no food and no proper clothing,’ snarled Angua. ‘Idiot!’
There was growling and whining from some of the wolves around Gavin. Gaspode sat down by Carrot’s head and watched as Angua … argued.
He couldn’t speak pure wolf and, besides, gesture and body language played a far greater part than it did in canine. But you didn’t have to be bright to see that things weren’t going well. There was def’nitely a lot of Atmosphere in the atmosphere. And Gaspode had a feeling that, if things went all pear-shaped in a hurry, one small dog had all the survival chances of a chocolate kettle on a very hot stove.
There was a lot of whining and growling. One wolf -Gaspode mentally named him Awkward was not happy. It looked as though a number of wolves were agreeing with him. One of them bared its teeth at Angua.
Then Gavin stood up. He shook some snowflakes off his coat, looked around in an offhand fashion, and padded towards Awkward.
Gaspode felt every hair on his body stand on end.
The other wolves crouched back. Gavin ignored them. When he was a few feet away from Awkward he put his head on one side and said, ‘Hrurrrm?’
It was almost a pleasant noise. But right down inside Gaspode’s bones it bounced a harmonic which said: at this point, we could go two ways. There is the easy way, and that is very easy.
You’ll never know about the hard way.
Awkward held eye-contact for a while, and then looked down.
Gavin snarled something. Half a dozen of the wolves, led by Angua, loped off towards the forest.
They returned twenty minutes later. Angua was human again – at least, Gaspode corrected himself, human shaped – and the wolves were harnessed to a big dog sled.
‘Borrowed it from a man in the village over the hill,’ she said, as it slid to a halt by Carrot.
‘Nice of him,’ said Gaspode, and decided not to pursue the subject. ‘I’m surprised to see wolves in harness, though.’
‘Well, this was the easy way,’ said Angua.
It’s odd, Gaspode mused, as he lay in the sled alongside the slumbering Carrot. He was so int’rested when Bum talked about the howl and how it could send messages right up into the mountains. If I was a suspicious dog, I’d wonder if he knew that she’d come back for him if he was really in trouble, if he decided to gamble everything on it …
He poked his head out from under the blanket. Snow stung his eyes. Running alongside the sled, only a few feet away from Carrot and glowing silver in the moonlight, was Gavin.
This is me, thought Gaspode; stuck between the humans and the wolves. It’s a dog’s life.
This is the life, thought Acting Captain Colon. Hardly any paperwork was coming up here now, and by dint of much effort he’d entirely cleared the backlog. It was a lot quieter, too.
When Vimes was here – and Fred Colon suddenly found himself thinking the word ‘Vimes’ without prefixing it with ‘Mister’ – the main office was full of so much noise and bustle you could hardly hear yourself speak. Completely inefficient, that was. How could anyone hope to get anything done?
He counted the sugar again. Twenty-nine. But he’d had two in his tea, so that was all right. Toughness was paying off.
Colon went and opened his door a fraction so that he could just see down into the office. It was amazing how you could catch them out that way.
Quiet. And neat, too. Every desk was clear. Much better than the mess you used to get.
He went back to the desk and counted the sugar lumps. There were twenty-seven.
Ah-ha! Someone was trying to drive him mad. Well, two could play at that game.
He counted the lumps again. There were twenty-six, and there was a knock at the door.
This caused it to swing inwards, and Colon to jump up in evil triumph.
‘Ah -ha! Burst in on me, eh? Oh …’
The ‘oh’ was because the knocker was Constable Dorfl, the golem. He was taller than the doorway and strong enough to tear a troll in half; he’d never done this, since he was an intensely moral being, but not even Colon was going to pick an argument with someone who had glowing red holes where his eyes should be. Ordinary golems would riot harm a human because they had magic words in their head that ordered them not to. Dorfl had no magic words but he didn’t harm people because he’d decided that it wasn’t moral. This left the worrying possibility that, given enough provocation, he might think again.
Beside the golem was Constable Shoe, saluting smartly.
‘We’ve come to pick up the wages chitty, sir,’ he said.
‘The what?’
‘The wages chitty, sir. The monthly chitty, sir. And then we take it to the Palace and bring back the wages, sir.’
‘I don’t know anything about that!’
‘I put it on your desk yesterday, sir. Signed by Lord Vetinari, sir.’
Colon couldn’t hide the flicker in his eyes. The black ash in the fireplace was, by now, overflowing.
Shoe followed his gaze.
‘I haven’t seen any such thing,’ said Colon, while the colour drained from his face like a sucked ice-lolly.
‘I’m sure I did, sir,’ said Constable Shoe. ‘I wouldn’t forget a thing like that, sir. In fact, I distinctly remember saying to Constable Visit, “Washpot, I’m just going to take this-”’
‘Look, you can see I’m a busy man!’ snapped Colon. ‘Get one of the sergeants to sort it out!’
‘There’s no sergeants left except Sergeant Flint, sir, and he spends all his time going round asking people what he should be doing,’ said Constable Shoe. ‘Anyway, sir, it’s the senior officer who must sign the chitty-‘
Colon stood up, leaning on his knuckles, and shouted, ‘Oh, I “must”, must I? That’s a nerve and no mistake! “Must”, eh? Most of you lot are lucky anyone even gives you a job! Bunch of zombies and loonies and lawn ornaments and rocks! I’ve had it up to here with you!’
Shoe leaned back out of range of the spittle. ‘Then I’m afraid I must take this up with the Guild of Watchmen, sir,’ he said.
‘Guild of Watchmen? Hah! And since when has there been a Guild of Watchmen?’
‘Dunno. What’s the time now?’ said Corporal Nobbs, ambling into the room. ‘Got to be a couple of hours, at least. Morning, captain.’
‘What are you doing here, Nobby?’
‘That’s Mister Nobbs to you, captain. And I’m President of the Guild of Watchmen, since you ask.’
‘There’s no such bloody thing!’
‘All legit, captain. Registered at the Palace and everything. Amazin’ how people rushed to join, too.’ He pulled out his grubby notebook. ‘Got a few matters to take up with you,
if you have a moment. Well, I say a few-‘
‘I’m not putting up with this!’ bellowed Colon, his face crimson. ‘This is high treason! You’re all sacked! You’re all-‘
‘We’re all on strike,’ said Nobby calmly.
‘You can’t go on strike while I’m sacking you!’
‘Our strike headquarters are in the back room of the Bucket in Gleam Street,’ said Nobby.
‘Here, that’s my boozer! I forbid you to go on strike in my own pub!’