‘Wha’ BCBs?’ murmured Vimes.
‘Burnt crunchy bits,’ said Sybil. ‘Mostly unbelievably huge and ancient animals, deep fried.’
‘You astonish me, Lady Sybil,’ said the King. ‘I
did not know you were trained in fat extraction.’
‘Cooking Sam’s breakfasts is an education in itself, your majesty.’
‘Oh, well, far be it for a mere king to argue. Six, then. Price to remain stable for two years-‘ The King saw Sybil’s mouth open. ‘All right, all right, three years. I’m not an unreasonable king.’
‘Prices on the dock?’
‘How can I refuse?’
‘Agreed, then.’
‘The paperwork will be with you in the morning. And now we really must go our separate ways,’ said the King. ‘I can see his excellency has had a long day. AnkhMorpork will be swimming in fat. I can’t imagine what you’ll use it all for.’
‘Make light,’ said Vimes, and, as darkness fell at last, fell forward gently into the welcoming arms of sleep.
Sam Vimes awoke to the smell of hot fat.
Softness enveloped him. It practically imprisoned him.
For a moment he thought it was snow, except that snow wasn’t usually this warm. Finally, he identified it as the cloud-like softness of the mattress on the ambassadorial bed.
He let his attention drift back to the fat smell. It had .. . overtones. There was a definite burnt component. Since Sam Vimes’s spectrum of gastronomic delight mainly ranged from ‘well fried’ to ‘caramelized’, it was decidedly promising.
He shifted position and regretted it immediately. Every muscle in his body squealed in protest. He lay still and waited for the fire in his back to die down.
Bits and pieces of the previous two days assembled themselves in his head. Once or twice he winced. Had he really gone through the ice like that? Was it Sam Vimes who’d stepped up to fight the werewolf, despite the fact that the thing was strong enough to bend a sword in a circle? And had Sybil won a lot of fat off the King? And …
Well, here he was in a nice warm bed and by the smell of it there was breakfast on the way.
Another piece of recollection floated into place.. Vimes groaned and forced his legs out of the bed. No, Wolfgang couldn’t have survived that, surely.
Naked, he staggered into the bathroom and spun the huge taps. Hot pungent water gushed out.
A minute later he was lying full length again. It was rather too hot, but he could remember the snows, and maybe from now on he could never be hot enough.
Some of the pain washed away.
Someone rapped on the door. ‘It’s me, Sam.’
‘Sybil?’
She came in, carrying a couple of very large towels and some fresh clothes.
‘Good to see you up again. Igor’s frying sausages. He doesn’t like doing it. He thinks they should be boiled. And he’s doing slumpie and fikkun haddock and Distressed Pudding. I didn’t want the food to go to waste, you see. I don’t think I want to stay for the rest of the celebrations.’
‘I know what you mean. How’s Carrot?’
‘Well, he says he doesn’t want sausages.’
‘What? He’s al-He’s up?’
‘Sitting up, at least. Igor’s a marvel. Angua said it was a bad break but he’s just got some sort of device that … well, Carrot’s not even got a sling on now!’
‘Sounds a useful man to have around,’ said Vimes, pulling on his civilized trousers.
‘Angua says Igor’s got an icehouse in the cellars and there’s frozen jars of, of … well, let’s just say he suggested that you might like liver and onions for breakfast and I said no.’
‘I like liver and onions,’ said Vimes. He thought about it. ‘Up until now, anyway.’
‘I think the King wants us to go as well. In a polite way. A lot of very respectful dwarfs came round here with paperwork first thing this morning.’
Vimes nodded grimly. It made sense. If he was King he’d want Vimes out of here too. Here’s some grateful thanks, a nice trading agreement, terribly sorry to see you go, do call again, only not too soon …
Breakfast was everything he’d dreamed of. Then he went to see the invalid.
Carrot was pale, grey under the eyes, but smiling. He was sitting up in bed, drinking fatsup.
‘Hello, Mister Vimes! We won, then?’
‘Didn’t Angua tell you?’
‘She went off with the wolves when I was asleep, Lady Sybil said.’
Vimes recounted the events of the night as best he could.
Afterwards, Carrot said, ‘Gavin was a very noble creature. I’m sorry he’s dead. I’m sure we’d have got on well.’
You mean every word of it, Vimes thought. I know you do. But it works out all right for you, doesn’t it? It always does. If it had been the other way about, if it had been Gavin that attacked Wolf first, then -I know it would have been you that went over the falls with the bastard. But it wasn’t you, was it? If you were dice, you’d always roll sixes.
And the dice don’t roll themselves. If it wasn’t against everything he wanted to be true about the world, Vimes might just then have believed in destiny controlling people. And gods help the other people who were around when a big destiny was alive in the world, bending every poor bugger around itself …
Out loud, he said, ‘Poor old Gaspode went over too.’
‘How? What was he doing?’
‘Er, you could say he had our lad’s full attention. A real streetfighter.’
‘Poor little soul. He was a good dog at heart.’
And once again words that would have sounded trite and wrong on anyone else’s lips were redeemed by the way Carrot said them.
‘And what about Tantony?’ said Vimes.
‘Left this morning, Lady Sybil said.’
‘Good grief! And Wolfgang played noughts and crosses on his chest!’
‘Igor’s a dab hand with a needle, sir.’
Afterwards, a thoughtful Sam Vimes stepped out into the coach yard. An Igor was already loading the luggage.
‘Er, which one are you?’ said Vimes.
‘Igor, marthter.’
‘Ah. Right. And, er, are you happy here, Igor? We could do with a … man of your talents in the Watch, and no mistake.’
Igor looked down from the top of the coach: ‘In AnkhMorpork, marthter? My word. Everyone wantth to go to AnkhMorpork, marthter. It’th a very tempting offer. But I know where my duty lieth, your exthellenthy. I mutht get the plathe ready for the next exthellenthy.’
‘Oh, surely-‘
‘However, fortuitouthly my nephew Igor ith looking for a pothition, marthter. He thould do well in AnkhMorpork. He’th rather too modern for Uberwald, that’th for thure!’
‘Good lad, is he?’
‘Hith heart’th in the right plathe. I know that for thertain, thur.’
‘Er, good. Well, get a message to him, then. We’re leaving as soon as we can.’
‘He will be tho exthited, thur! I’ve heard that in AnkhMorpork bodieth jutht lie around in the thtreetth for anyone to take away!’
‘It’s not quite as bad as that, Igor.’
‘Ithn’t it? Oh well, you can’t have everything. I’ll tell him directly.’ Igor lurched off in a sort of high-speed totter.
I wonder why they all walk like that, thought Vimes. They must have one leg shorter than the other. Either that or they’re not good at choosing boots.
He sat down on the steps to the house and fished out a cigar. So that was it, then. Bloody
politics again. It was always bloody politics, or bloody diplomatics. Bloody lies in smart clothing. Once you got off the streets criminals just flowed through your fingers. The King and Lady Margolotta and Vetinari … they always looked at some sort of big picture. Vimes knew he was, and always would be, a little picture man. Dee was useful, so she’d probably get, oh, a few days breaking bread or whatever it was they gave you here for being naughty. After all, all she’d destroyed was a fake, wasn’t it?
Was it?
But she’d thought she was committing a much bigger crime. That ought to mean something, in Sam Vimes’s personal gallery of little pictures.
And the Baroness was as guilty as hell. People had died. As for Wolfgang … well, some people were just built guilty. It was as simple as that. Anything they did became a crime, simply because it was them doing it.
He blew out a stream of smoke.
People like that shouldn’t be allowed to simply die their way out of things.
But … he hadn’t, had he?
The wolves had gone a long way down the river, Sybil had said, on both banks. There wasn’t a sniff of him. Further down was a mass of rapids and another fall. What couldn’t kill him would certainly make him wish it could.
If he’d gone downstream. But upstream there was nothing but wild water, too, right up to the town.
No, he couldn’t … surely no one could swim up a waterfall …