Vimes looked puzzled. Then understanding dawned.
‘Oh, I get it,’ he said. ‘I bet they say things like “Thank goodness people are keeping up the old ways,” eh?’
‘That’s right, sir. I suppose that inside every dwarf in AnkhMorpork is a little part of him – or her – that knows real dwarfs live underground.’
Vimes doodled on his notepad. ‘Back home,’ he thought. Carrot had innocently talked about dwarfs ‘back home’. To all dwarfs far, away, the mountains were ‘back home’. It was funny how people were people everywhere you went, even if the people concerned weren’t the people the people who made up the phrase ‘people are people everywhere’ had traditionally thought of as people. And even if you weren’t virtuous, as you had been brought up to understand the term, you did like to see virtue in other people, provided it did not cost you anything.
‘Why have these d’r … these traditional dwarfs come here, though? AnkhMorpork’s full of humans. They must have their work cut out avoiding humans.’
‘They’re … needed, sir. Dwarf law is complicated, and there’s often disputes. And they conduct marriages and that sort of thing.’
‘You make them sound more like priests.’
‘Dwarfs aren’t religious, sir.’
‘Of course. Oh, well. Thank you, corporal. Off you go. Any fallout from last night? No sulphurous incontinent cats have come forward to confess?’
‘No, sir. The Campaign for Equal Heights has put out a pamphlet saying it was another example of the second-class treatment of dwarfs
in the city, but it was the same one they always put out. You know, the one with blanks to fill in the details.’
‘Nothing changes, Cheery. See you tomorrow morning, then. Send Detritus up.’
Why him? AnkhMorpork was lousy with diplomats. It was practically what the upper classes were for, and it was easy for them because half the foreign bigwigs they’d meet were old chums they’d played Wet Towel Tag with back at school. They tended to be on first-name terms, even with people whose names were Ahmed or Fong. They knew which forks to use. They hunted, shot and fished. They moved in circles that more or less overlapped the circles of their foreign hosts, and were a long way from the rather grubby circles that people like Vimes went around in every working day. They knew all the right nods and winks. What chance had he got against a tie and a crest?
Vetinari was throwing him amongst the wolves. And the dwarfs. And the vampires. Vimes shuddered. And Vetinari never did anything without a reason.
‘Come in, Detritus.’
It always amazed Sergeant Detritus that Vimes knew he was at the door. Vimes had never mentioned that the office wall creaked and bent inwards as the big troll made his way along the corridor.
‘You want to see me, sir.’
‘Yes. Sit down, man. It’s this Uberwald business.’
‘Yessir.’
‘How do you feel about visiting the old country?’
Detritus’s face remained impassive, as it always did when he was waiting patiently for things to make sense.
‘Uberwald, I mean,’ Vimes prompted.
‘Dunno, sir. I was just a pebble when we left dere. Dad wanted a better life in der big city.’
‘There’ll be a lot of dwarfs, Detritus.’ Vimes didn’t bother to mention vampires and werewolves. Either of those who attacked a troll was making the last big mistake of its career in any case. Detritus carried a 2,OOOlb-draw crossbow as a hand weapon.
‘Days Okay, sir. I’m very modern ‘bout dwarfs.’
‘These might be a bit oldfashioned about you, though.’
‘Dem deep-down dwarfs?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I heard about dem.’
‘There’s still wars with trolls up near the Hub, I hear. Tact and diplomacy will be called for.’
‘You have come to der right troll for dat, sir,’ said Detritus.
‘You did push that man through that wall last week, Detritus.’
‘It was done with tact, sir. Quite a fin wall.’
Vimes let it go at that. The man in question had just laid out three watchmen with a club, which Detritus had broken in one hand before selecting the suitably tactful wall.
‘See you tomorrow, then. Best dress armour, remember. Send Angua now, please.’
‘She’s not here, sir.’
‘Blast. Put out some messages for her, will you?’ .
Igor lurched through the castle corridors, dragging one foot after the other in the approved fashion.
He was Igor, son of Igor, nephew of several Igors, brother of Igors and cousin of more Igors than he could remember without checking up in his diary. Igors did not change a winning formula.*
And, as a clan, Igors liked working for vampires. Vampires kept regular hours, were generally polite to their servants and, an important extra, didn’t require much work in the bedmaking and cookery department, and tended to have cool, roomy cellars where an Igor could pursue his true calling. This more than made up for those occasions when you had to sweep up their ashes.
He entered Lady Margolotta’s crypt and knocked politely on the coffin lid. It moved aside a fraction.
‘Yes?’
‘Thorry to wake you in the middle of the afternoon, your ladythip, but you did thay-‘
‘All right. And-?’
‘It’s going to be Vimeth, ladythip.’
A dainty hand came out of the partly opened coffin and punched the air.
‘Yes!’
*Especially if it was green, and bubbled.
‘Meth, ladythip.’
‘Veil, veil. Samuel Vimes. Poor devil. Do the doggies know?’
Igor nodded. ‘The Baron’th Igor wath altho collecting a methage, ladythip.’
‘And the dwarfs?’
‘It ith an official appointment, ladythip. Everyone knowth. Hith Grathe the Duke of AnkhMorpork, Thir Thamuel Vimeth, Commander of the AnkhMorpork Thity Watch.’
‘Then the midden has hit the windmill, Igor.’
‘Very well put, ladythip. No one liketh a thort thower of thit.’
‘I imagine, Igor, that he’ll leave them behind.’
Let us consider a castle from the point of view of its furniture.
This one has chairs, yes, but they don’t look very lived in. There is a huge sofa near the fire, and that is ragged with use, but other furnishings look as if they’re there merely for show.
There is a long oak table, well polished and looking curiously unused for such an old piece of furniture. Possibly the reason for this is that. on the floor around it are a large number of white earthenware bowls.
One of them has ‘Father’ written on it.
The Baroness Serafine von Uberwald slammed shut Twurp’s Peerage, irritably.
‘The man is a … a nothing,’ she said. ‘A paper man. A man of straw. An insult.’
`The name Vimes goes back a long time,’ said Wolfgang von Uberwald, who was doing
one-handed press-ups in front of the fire.
‘So does the name Smith. What of it?’
Wolf changed to the other hand, in mid-air. He was naked. He liked his muscles to get an airing. They shone. Someone with an anatomical chart could have picked out every one. They might also have remarked on the unusual way his blond hair grew not only on his head but down and across his shoulders as well.
‘He is a duke, Mother.’
‘Hah! AnkhMorpork hasn’t even got a king!’
‘… nineteen, twenty … I hear stories about that, Mother …’
‘Oh, stories. Sybil writes silly little letters to me every year! Sam this, Sam that. Of course, she had to be grateful for what she could get, but … the man is just a thief-taker, after all. I shall refuse to see him.’
‘You will not do that, Mother,’ Wolf grunted. ‘That would be … twenty-nine, thirty … dangerous. What do you tell Lady Sybil about us?’
‘Nothing! I don’t write back, of course. A rather sad and foolish woman.’
‘And she still writes every year? … thirty-six, thirty-seven …’
‘Yes. Four pages, usually. And that tells you everything about her you need to know. Where is your father?’
A flap in the bottom of a nearby door swung back and a large, heavy-set wolf trotted in. It glanced around the room and then shook itself vigorously. The Baroness bridled.
‘Guye! You know what I said! It’s after six! Change when you come in from the garden!’
The wolf gave her a look and strolled behind a massive oak screen at the far end of the room. There was a … noise, soft and rather strange, not so much an actual sound as a change in the texture of the air.
The Baron walked around from behind the screen, doing up the cord of a tattered dressing gown. The Baroness sniffed.
‘At least your father wears clothes,’ she said.
‘Clothes are unhealthy, Mother,’ said Wolf calmly. ‘Nakedness is purity.’
The Baron sat down. He was a large, red-faced man, insofar as a face could be seen under the beard, hair, moustache and eyebrows, which were engaged in a bitter four-way war over the remaining areas of bare skin.
‘Well?’ he growled.
‘Vimes the thief-taker from AnkhMorpork is going to be the alleged ambassador!’ snapped the Baroness.