‘Yeah, but what with you bein’ …’ Nobby’s expression creased as he edged his way into
unfamiliar linguistic territory, ‘… mor phor … log … is . . : ally gifted…’
‘A werewolf, Nobby. I know the word.’
‘Right … well, obviously, you’d be a lot better at lurkin’, an’ … an’ obviously it’s not right, women havin’ to act as decoys in police work…’
Angua hesitated, as she so often did when attempting to talk to Nobby on difficult matters, and waved her hands in front of her as if trying to shape the invisible dough of her thoughts.
‘It’s just that … I mean, people might …’ she began. ‘I mean … well, you know what people call men who wear wigs and gowns, don’t you?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, miss. Lawyers, miss.’
‘Good. Yes. Good,’ said Angua slowly. ‘Now try another one …’
‘Er … actors, miss?’
Angua gave up. ‘You look good in taffeta, Nobby,’ she said.
‘You don’t think it makes me look too fat?’
Angua sniffed. ‘Oh, no …’ she said quietly.
‘I thought I’d better put scent on for verysillymitude,’ said Nobby quickly.
‘What? Oh …’ Angua shook her head, took another breath. ‘I can smell … some … thing … else…’
‘That’s surprising, ‘cos this stuff’s a bit on the pungent side and frankly I don’t think lily of the valley is supposed to smell like this …’
‘It’s not perfume.’
‘ . . but the lavender stuff they had you could clean brass with…’
‘Can you get back to the Chitterling station by yourself, Nobby?’ said Angua. Despite her rising panic, she mentally added: after all, what could happen? 1 mean, really?
‘Yes, miss.’
‘There’s something I’d better … sort out.’
Angua hurried away, the new scent filling her nostrils. It would have to be powerful to combat Eau de Nobbs, and it was. Oh, it was.
Not here, she thought. Not now.
Not him.
The running man swung along a branch wet with snow, and managed at last to lower himself on to a branch belonging to the next tree. That took him a long way from the stream. How good was their sense of smell? Pretty damn good, he knew. But this good?
He’d got out of the stream on to another overhanging branch. If they followed the banks, and they’d be bright enough to do that, they’d surely never know he’d left the stream.
There was a howl, away to the left.
He headed right, into the gloom of the forest.
Vimes heard Carrot scrabble around in the gloom, and the sound of a key in the lock.
‘I thought the Campaign for Equal Heights was running this place now,’ he said.
‘It’s so hard to find volunteers,’ said Carrot,
ushering him through the low door and lighting a candle. ‘I come in every day just to keep an eye on things, but no one else seems very interested.’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ said Vimes, looking around the Dwarf Bread Museum.
The one positive thing you could say about the bread products around him was that they were probably as edible now as they had been on the day they were baked.
‘Forged’ was a better term. Dwarf bread was made as a meal of last resort and also as a weapon and a currency. Dwarfs were not, as far as Vimes knew, religious in any way, but the way they thought about bread came close.
There was a tinkle and a scrabbling noise somewhere in the gloom.
‘Rats,’ said Carrot. ‘They never stop trying to eat dwarf bread, poor things. Ah, here we are. The Scone of Stone. A replica, of course.’
Vimes stared at the misshapen thing on its dusty display stand. It was vaguely scone-like, but only if someone pointed this out to you beforehand. Otherwise, the term ‘a lump of rock’ was pretty accurate. It was about the size, and shape, of a well sat-on cushion. There were a few fossilized currants visible.
‘My wife rests her feet on something like that when she’s had a long day,’ he said.
‘It’s fifteen hundred years old,’ said Carrot, with something like awe in his voice.
‘I thought this was the replica.’
‘Well, yes … but it’s a replica of a very important thing, sir,’ said Carrot.
Vimes sniffed. The air had a certain pungent quality. ‘Smells strongly of cats in here, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid they get in after the rats, sir. A rat who’s nibbled on dwarf bread tends not to be able to run very fast.’
Vimes lit a cigar. Carrot gave it a look of uncertain disapproval. ‘We do thank people for not smoking in here, sir,’ he said.
‘Why? You don’t know they’re not going to,’ said Vimes. He leaned against the display cabinet. ‘All right, captain. Why am I really going to … Bonk? I don’t know a lot about diplomacy, but I do know it’s never just about one thing. What’s the Low King? Why’re our dwarfs scrapping?’
‘Well, sir … Have you heard of kruk?’
‘Dwarf mining law?’ said Vimes.
‘Well done, sir. But it’s a lot more than that. It’s about … how you live. Laws of ownership, marriage laws, inheritance, rules for dealing with disputes of all kinds, that sort of thing. Everything, really. And the Low King … well, you could call him the final court of appeal. He’s advised, of course, but he’s got the last word. Still with me?’
‘Makes sense so far.’
‘And he is crowned on the Scone of Stone and sits on it to* give his judgements because all the Low Kings have done that ever since B’hrian Bloodaxe, fifteen hundred years ago. It … gives authority.’
Vimes nodded dourly. That made sense, too. You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was ‘But we’ve always
done it this way.’ A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?
‘Does he get elected, or born or what?’ he said.
‘I suppose you could say he’s elected,’ said Carrot. ‘But really a lot of senior dwarfs arrange it among themselves. After listening to other dwarfs, of course. Taking soundings, it’s called. Traditionally he’s from one of the big families. But … er…’
‘Yes?’
‘Things are a little different this year. Tempers are a bit … stretched.’
Ah, thought Vimes.
‘Wrong dwarf won?’ he said.
‘Some dwarfs would say so. But it’s more that the whole process has been called into question,’ said Carrot. ‘By the dwarfs in the biggest dwarf city outside Uberwald.’
‘Don’t tell me, that must be that place Hubwards of-‘
‘It’s AnkhMorpork, sir.’
‘What? We’re not a dwarf city!’
‘Fifty thousand dwarfs now, sir.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Of course he is, Vimes thought. He probably knows them all by name.
‘You have to understand, sir, that there’s a sort of big debate going on,’ said Carrot. ‘On how you define a dwarf.’
‘Well, some people might say that they’re called dwarfs because-‘
‘No, sir. Not size. Nobby Nobbs is shorter than many dwarfs, and we don’t call him a dwarf.’
‘We don’t call him a human, either,’ said Vimes.
‘And, of course, I am also a dwarf.’
‘You know, Carrot, I keep meaning to talk to you about that-‘
‘Adopted by dwarfs, brought up by dwarfs. To dwarfs I’m a dwarf, sir. I can do the rite of k’zakra, I know the secrets of h’ragna, I can ha‘1k my g’rakha correctly … I am a dwarf.’
‘What do those things mean?’
‘I’m not allowed to tell non-dwarfs.’ Carrot tactfully tried to stand out of the way of the cigar smoke. ‘Unfortunately, some of the mountain dwarfs think that dwarfs who’ve moved away aren’t proper dwarfs either. But this time the kingship has been swung by the views of the AnkhMorpork dwarfs, and a lot of dwarfs back home don’t like it. There’s been a lot of bad feeling all round. Families falling out, that sort of thing. Much pulling of beards.’
‘Really?’ Vimes tried not to smile.
‘It’s not funny if you’re a dwarf.’
‘Sorry.’
‘And I’m afraid this new Low King is only going to make matters worse, although of course I wish him well.’
‘Tough, is he?’
‘Er, I think you can assume, sir, that any dwarf who rises sufficiently in dwarf society to even be considered as a candidate for the kingship did not get there by singing the hi-ho song and bandaging wounded animals in the forest. But by dwarf
standards, King Rhys Rhysson is a modern thinker, although I hear he doesn’t like AnkhMorpork very much.’
‘Sounds like a very clear thinker, too.’
‘Anyway, this has upset a lot of the more, er, traditional mountain dwarfs who thought the next king would be Albrecht Albrechtson.’
‘Who is not a modern thinker?’
‘He thinks even coming up above ground is dangerously non-dwarfish.’
Vimes sighed. ‘Well, I can see there’s a problem, Carrot, but the thing about this problem, the key point, is that it’s not mine. Or yours, dwarf or not.’ He tapped the Scone’s case.