‘I know nothing about-‘
‘Guards, press his hands firmly against the Scone.’
They stepped forward. Each one took an arm.
‘Again, Dee. Who gave the order?’
Dee writhed as if his hands were burning. ‘I … I…’
Vimes could see the skin whiten on the dwarf’s hands as he strained to lift them from the stone.
But it’s a fake. I’d swear he destroyed the real one, so he knows it’s a fake, surely? It’s just a lump of plaster, probably still damp in the middle! Vimes tried to think. The original Scone had been in the cave, hadn’t it? Was it? If it wasn’t, where had it been? The werewolves thought they had a fake, and it certainly hadn’t left his sight since. He tried to think through the fog of fatigue.
He’d half wondered, once, whether the original Scone had been the one in the Dwarf Bread Museum. That would have been the way to keep it safe. No one would try to steal something that everyone knew was a fake. The whole thug was the Fifth Elephant, nothing was what it seemed, it was all a fog.
Which one was real?
‘Who gave the order, Dee?’ said the King.
‘Not me! I said they must take all necessary steps to preserve secrecy!’
‘To whom did you say this?’
‘I can give you names!’
‘Later, you will. I promise you, boyo,’ said the King. ‘And the werewolves?’
‘The Baroness suggested it! That is true!’
‘Uberwald for the werewolves. Ah, yes… “joy through strength”. I expect they promised you all sorts of things. You may take your hands off the Scone. I do not wish to distress you further. But why? My predecessors spoke highly of you, you are a dwarf of power and influence … and then you let yourself become a paw of the werewolves. Why?’
‘Why should they be allowed to get away with it?’ Dee snapped, his voice breaking with the strain.
The King looked across at Vimes. ‘Oh, I suspect the werewolves will regret that they-‘ he began.
‘Not them! The … ones in AnkhMorpork! Wearing make-up and dresses and … and abominable things!’ Dee pointed a finger at Cheery. ‘Ha’ak! How can you even look at it! You let her,’ and Vimes had seldom heard a word sprayed with so much venom, ‘her flaunt herself, here! And it’s happening everywhere because people have not been firm, not obeyed, have let the old ways slide! Everywhere there are reports. They’re eating away at everything dwarfish with their … their soft clothes and paint and beastly ways. How can you be King and allow this? Everywhere they are doing it and you do nothing! Why should they be allowed to do this?’ Now Dee was sobbing. ‘1 can’t!’
Vimes saw that Cheery, to his amazement, was blinking back tears.
‘I see,’ said the King. ‘Well, I suppose that is an explanation.’ He nodded to the guards. ‘Take … her away. Some things must wait a day or two.’
Cheery saluted, suddenly. ‘Permission to go with her, sire?’
‘What on earth for, young … young dwarf?’
‘I expect she’d like someone to talk to, sire. I know I would.’
‘Indeed? I see your commander has no objection. Off you go, then.’
The King leaned back when the guards had left with their prisoner and the prisoner’s new counsellor.
‘Well, your excellency?’
‘This is the real Scone?’
‘You are not certain?’
‘Dee was!’
‘Dee … is in a difficult state of mind.’ The King looked at the ceiling. ‘I think I will tell you this because, your excellency, I really do not want you going through the rest of your time here asking silly questions. Yes, this is the true Scone.’
‘But how could-‘
‘Wait! So was the one that is, yes, ground to dust in the cave by Dee in her … madness,’ the King went on. ‘So were the … let me see … five before that. Still untouched by time after fifteen hundred years? What romantics we dwarfs are! Even the very best dwarf bread crumbles after a few hundred.’
‘Fakes?’ said Vimes. ‘They were all fakes?’
Suddenly the King was holding his mining axe again. ‘This, milord, is my family’s axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation … but is this not the ninehundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y’know. Pretty good. Will you tell me this is a fake too?’ He sat back again.
Vimes remembered the look on Albrecht’s face. ‘He knew.’
‘Oh, yes. A number of … more senior dwarfs know. The knowledge runs in families. The first Scone crumbled after three hundred years when the king of the time touched it. My ancestor was a guard who witnessed it, see. He got accelerated promotion, you could say. I’m sure you understand me. After that, we were a little more prepared. We would have been looking for a new one in fifty years or so in any case. I’m glad one was made in the large dwarf city of AnkhMorpork, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out to be an excellent keeper. Look, they’ve even got the currants right, see?’
‘But Albrecht could have exposed you!’
‘Exposed what? He is not King, but I will be very surprised if one of his family is not King again, in the fullness of time. What goes around comes around, as the Igors say.’ The King leaned forward.
‘You have been labouring under a misapprehension; I reckon. You think that because Albrecht dislikes AnkhMorpork and has … oldfashioned ideas, he is a bad dwarf. But I have known him for two hundred years. He is honest and honourable … more so than me, that I’m sure of. Five hundred years ago he would have made a fine king. Today, perhaps not. Perhaps … hah … the axe of my ancestors needs a different handle. But now I am King and he accepts that with all his heart because if he did not, he’d think he wasn’t a dwarf, see? Of course he will now oppose me at every turn. Being Low King was never an easy job. But, to use one of your metaphors, we are all floating in the same boat.
We may certainly try to push one another over the side, but only a maniac like Dee would make a hole in the bottom.’
‘Corporal Littlebottom thought there’d be a war-‘ said Vimes weakly.
‘Well, there are always hotheads. But while we argue about who steers the boat, we don’t deny that it’s an important voyage. I see you are tired. Let your good lady take you home. But as a nightcap … What is it, your excellency, that AnkhMorpork wants?’
‘AnkhMorpork wants the names of the murderers,’ mumbled Vimes.
‘No, that is what Commander Vimes wants. What is it that AnkhMorpork wants? Gold? So often it is gold. Or iron, perhaps? You use a lot of iron.’
Vimes blinked. His brain had finally given up. There was nothing left any more. He wasn’t certain he could even stand up.
He remembered a word.
‘Fat,’ he said blankly.
‘Aha. The Fifth Elephant. Are you sure? There’s some good iron now. Iron makes you strong. Fat only makes you slippery.’
‘Fat,’ parroted Vimes, feeling the darkness closing in. ‘Lots of fat.’
‘Well, certainly. The price is ten AnkhMorpork cents a barrel but, your excellency, since I have come to know you, I feel that perhaps-‘
‘Five cents a barrel for grade-one highrendered, three cents for grade two, ten cents per barrel for heavy tallow, safe and delivered to AnkhMorpork,’ said Sybil. ‘And all from the Schmaltzberg Bend levels and measured on the Ironcrust scale. I have some doubt about the long-term quality of the Big Tusk wells.’
Vimes tried to focus on his wife. She seemed, inexplicably, a long way away. ‘Wha’?’
‘Er, I caught up with some reading when I was in the embassy, Sam. Those notebooks. Sorry.’
‘Would you beggar us, madam?’ said the King, throwing up his hands.
‘We may be flexible on delivery,’ said Lady Sybil. ,
‘Klatch would pay at least nine for grade one,’ said the King.
‘But the Klatchian ambassador isn’t sitting here,’ said Sybil.
The King smiled. ‘Or married to you, my lady, much to his loss. Six, five and fifteen.’
‘Six, dropping to five after twenty thousand, three and half across the board for grade two. I can give you thirteen on tallow.’
‘Acceptable, but give me fourteen on white tallow and I’ll allow seven on the new pale suets we’re finding. They’re making an acceptable candle, look you.’
‘Six, I’m afraid. You haven’t plumbed the full extent of those deposits, and I think it may be reasonable to expect high levels of scrattle and BCBs in the lower layers. Besides, I think your forecasts about the amount of those deposits are erring on the optimistic side.’