The Fifth Elephant (23 page)

“I hope so. My gods, look at that damned thing!”

A huge red flag hung from the rafters. In the middle of it was a black wolf’s head, its mouth full of stylized flashes of lightning.

“Their new flag, I think,” said Cheery.

“I thought it was just a crest with the doubled-headed bat?”

“Perhaps they thought it was time for a change, sir—”

“Ah, Your Excellency! Isn’t Sybil with you?”

The woman who had entered was Angua, but padded somewhat with years. She was wearing a long, loose green gown, very old-fashioned by Ankh-Morpork standards, although there were some styles that never go out of style on the right figure. She was brushing her hair as she walked across the floor.

“Er…she’s staying at the embassy today. We had rather a difficult journey. You would be the Baroness Serafine von Uberwald?”

“And you’re Sam Vimes. Sybil’s letters are all about you. The baron won’t be long. We were out hunting and lost track of time.”

“I expect it’s a lot of work, seeing to the horses,” said Vimes politely.

Serafine’s smile went strange for a moment.

“Hah. Yes,” she said. “Can I get Igor to fetch you a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

She sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs and beamed at him.

“You’ve met the new king, Your Excellency?”

“This morning.”

“I believe he’s having trouble.”

“What makes you think that?” said Vimes. Serafine looked startled.

“I thought everyone knew?”

“Well, I’ve hardly been here five minutes,” said Vimes. “I probably don’t count as everyone.”

Now, he was pleased to note, she looked puzzled.

“We…just heard there was some problem,” she said.

“Oh, well…a new king, a coronation to organize…a few problems are bound to occur,” he said. Well, he thought, so
this
is diplomacy. It’s lying, only for a better class of people.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Angua is well,” said Vimes.

“Are you sure you won’t have a drink?” said Serafine quickly, standing up. “Ah, here is my husband—”

The baron entered the room like a whirlwind which had swept up several dogs. They bounded ahead of him and danced around him.

“Hello! Hello!” he boomed.

Vimes looked at an enormous man—not fat, not tall, just built to perhaps one-tenth over scale. He didn’t so much have a face with a beard as a beard with, peeking over the top in that narrow gap between the mustache and the eyebrows, small remnants of face. He bore down on Vimes in a cloud of leaping bodies, hair and a smell of old carpets.

Vimes was ready for the handshake when it came but even so had to grimace as his bones were ground together.

“Good of you to come, hey? Heard so much about you!”

But not enough, Vimes thought. He wondered if he’d ever have the use of his hand again. It was still being gripped. The dogs had transferred their attention to him. He was being sniffed.

“Greatest respect for Ankh-Morpork, hey?” said the baron.

“Er…good,” said Vimes. Blood was getting no farther than his wrist.

“Have seat!” the baron barked. Vimes had been trying to avoid the word, but that was exactly how the man spoke—in short, sharp, sentences, every one an exclamation.

He was herded toward a chair. Then the baron let go of his hand and flung himself onto the huge carpet, the excited dogs piling on top of him.

Serafine made a noise somewhere between a growl and the “tch!” of wifely disapproval. Obediently the baron pushed the dogs aside and flung himself into a chair.

“You’ll have to take us as you find us,” said Serafine, smiling with her mouth alone. “This has always been a very
informal
household.”

“It is a very nice place,” said Vimes weakly, staring around the enormous room. Trophy heads lined the walls, but at least there were no trolls. No weapons, either. There were no spears, no rusty old swords, not even a broken bow had been hung up anywhere, which was practically against the law of castle furnishing. He stared at the wall again, and then at the carving over the fireplace. And then his gaze traveled down.

One of the dogs, and Vimes had to be clear about this, he was using the term
dogs
merely because they were indoors and that was a place where the word
wolf
was not usually encountered, was watching him. He’d never seen such an appraising look on a creature’s face. It was weighing him up.

There was something familiar about the pale gold hair that was a sort of mane. In fact, the dog looked quite like Angua, but heavier set. And there was another difference, which was small yet horribly significant. As with Angua, he had this sensation of movement stilled; but, whereas Angua always looked as if she was poised to flee, this one looked poised to leap.

“The embassy is to your liking? We owned it, you know, before we sold it to Lord V…Ve…”

“Vetinari,” said Vimes, reluctantly taking his eyes off the wolf.

“Of course, your people made a lot of changes,” she went on.

“We’ve made a few more,” said Vimes, recalling all those patches of shiny woodwork where the hunting trophies had been removed. “I must say I was really impressed with the bathroo—I’m sorry?”

There had been almost a yelp from the baron. Serafine was glaring at her husband.

“Yes,” she said sharply, “I gather interesting things have been done.”

“You’re so lucky to have the thermal springs,” said Vimes. And
this
was diplomacy, too, he thought, when you let your mouth chatter away while you watched people’s eyes. It’s just like being a copper. “Sybil wants to go to take the waters at Bad Heisses Bad—”

Behind him he heard a faint growl from the baron and saw the look of annoyance flash across Serafine’s face.

“I’m saying the wrong thing?” he said innocently.

“My husband is a little unwell at the moment,” said Serafine, in the special wife voice which Vimes recognized as meaning “he thinks he’s fine right now but just you wait until I get him alone.”

“I suppose I’d better present my credentials,” said Vimes, pulling out the letter.

Serafine reached across quickly and took it from his hand.

“I shall read it,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Of course, it’s a mere formality. Everyone’s heard of Commander Vimes. I mean no offense, of course, but we were a little surprised when the Patrician—”

“Lord Vetinari,” said Vimes helpfully, putting a slight stress on the first syllable and hearing the growl on cue.

“Yes, indeed…said that you would be coming. We were expecting one of the more…experienced…diplomats…”

“Oh, I can hand around the thin cucumber sandwiches like anything,” said Vimes. “And if you want little golden balls of chocolate piled up in a heap, I’m your man.”

She gave him a slow, blank stare.

“Your pardon, Your Excellency,” she said. “Morporkian is not my first language, and I fear we may have inadvertently misled one another. I gather that you are, in real life, a pol
ice
man?”

“In real life, yes,” said Vimes.

“We’ve always been against a police force in Bonk,” said the baroness. “We feel it interferes with the liberties of the individual.”

“Well, I have certainly heard that argument advanced,” said Vimes. “Of course, it depends on whether the individual you are thinking of is yourself or the one climbing out of the bathroom,” he noted the grimace, “window with the family silver in a sack.”

“Happily, security has never been a problem for us,” said Serafine.

“I’m not surprised,” said Vimes. “I mean…because of all the walls and gates and things.”

“I do hope you will bring Sybil to the reception this evening. But I see that we are keeping you, and I know you must have much to do. Igor will show you out.”

“Yeth, mithtreth,” said Igor, behind Vimes.

Vimes could feel the river of fury building up behind the levees of his mind.

“I shall tell Sergeant Angua you asked after her,” he said, standing up.

“Indeed,” said Serafine.

“But right now I’m looking forward to a really relaxing
bath
,” said Vimes, and watched with satisfaction as both the baron and his wife flinched. “Good day to you.”

Cheery marched along beside him across the hallway.

“Don’t say a word until we’re out of here,” hissed Vimes.

“Sir?”

“Because I want to
get
out of here,” said Vimes.

Several of the dogs had followed him out. They weren’t growling, they hadn’t bared their teeth, but they were carrying themselves with rather more purpose than Vimes had come to associate with groin-sniffers in general.

“I’ve put the parthel in the coach, Your Exthelenthy,” said Igor, opening the coach door and knuckling his forehead.

“I’ll be
sure
to give it to Igor,” said Vimes.

“Oh, not to Igor, thir. Thif ith for
Igor
.”

“Oh, right.”

Vimes looked out of the windows as the horses trotted away. The golden-haired wolf had come to the steps and was watching him leave.

He sat back as the coach rumbled out of the castle, and closed his eyes. Cheery was wise enough to remain silent.

“No weapons on the walls, did you notice?” he said, after a while. His eyes were still shut, as if he were looking at a picture on the back of them. “Most castles like that have the things hanging all over the place.”

“Well, they
are
werewolves, sir.”

“Does Angua ever talk about her parents?”

“No, sir.”

“They didn’t want to talk about her, that’s certain.”

Vimes opened his eyes. “Dwarfs?” he said. “I’ve always got on with dwarfs. And werewolves…well, never had a problem with werewolves. So why is the only person who hasn’t tried to blow me out this morning the blood-sucking vampire?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Big fireplace they had.”

“Werewolves like to sleep in front of the fire at night, sir,” said Cheery.

“The baron certainly didn’t seem comfortable in a chair, I spotted that. And what was that motto carved into that great big mantelpiece? ‘Homini…’”

“‘Homo Homini Lupus,’ sir,” said Cheery. “It means ‘Every man is a wolf to another man.’”

“Hah! Why haven’t I promoted you, Cheery?”

“Because I get embarrassed about shouting at other people, sir. Sir, did you notice the strange thing about the trophies they had on the wall?”

Vimes shut his eyes again. “Stag, bears, some kind of mountain lion…What’re you asking me, Corporal?”

“And did you notice something just below them?”

“Let’s see…I think there was just space below them.”

“Yes, sir. With three hooks in it. You could just make them out.”

Vimes hesitated.

“Do you mean,” he said carefully, “three hooks that might have had trophies hanging from them until they were removed?”

“Very much that sort of hook, sir, yes. Only perhaps the heads haven’t been hung up yet?”

“Trolls’ heads?”

“Who knows, sir?”

The coach entered the town.

“Cheery, have you still got that silver chain-mail vest you used to have?”

“Er…no, sir. I stopped because it seemed a bit disloyal to Angua, sir. Why?”

“Just a passing thought. Oh, ye gods…is that Igor’s parcel under the seat?”

“I think so, sir. But look, I know about Igors. If that’s a real hand, the original owner hasn’t got a use for it, believe me.”

“What? He cuts bits off dead people?”

“Better than live people, sir.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Sir, it’s considered good manners, if one of the Igors has helped you, to put it in your will that they can help themselves to any…bits of you that might help someone else. They never ask for any money. They’re very respected in Uberwald. Very good men with a scalpel and a needle. It’s a kind of vocation, really.”

“But they’re covered in scars and stitches!”

“They won’t do to anyone else what they are not prepared to try on themselves.”

Vimes decided to explore the full horror of this. It took his mind off the missing trophies.

“Are they any…Igorinas? Igorettes?”

“Well, any Igor is considered a good catch for a young lady…”

“He is?”

“And their daughters tend to be very attractive.”

“Eyes at the same height, that sort of thing?”

“Oh yes.”

But the door, when it was finally opened in response to impatient knocking, revealed not the switchback features of Igor but the business end of Detritus’s crossbow, which was marginally worse.

“It’s us, Sergeant,” said Vimes.

The crossbow was removed, and the door opened farther.

“Sorry, sir, but you said I was to be on guard,” said Detritus.

“There’s no need to—”

“Igor’s been hurt, sir.”

Igor was sitting in the huge kitchen, a bandage around his head. Lady Sybil was fussing over him.

“I went to look for him a couple of hours ago and there he was, flat on the snow,” she said. She leaned closer to Sam Vimes. “He doesn’t remember very much.”

“Can you recall what you were doing, old chap?” said Vimes, sitting down.

Igor gave him a bleary look.

“Well, thir, I went out to unpack the foodthtuffth from the other coach, and I’d just got hold of thomething and then all the lighth went out, thir. I reckon I mutht’ve thlipped.”

“Or someone hit you?”

Igor shrugged. For a moment, both of his shoulders were at the same level.

“There’s nothing on the coach worth stealing!” said Lady Sybil.

“Not unless someone was dying for a knuckle sandwich,” said Vimes. “Was anything taken?”

“I checked everything against der list Her Ladyship gave me, sir,” said Detritus, meeting Vimes’s gaze. “There wasn’t anything missing, sir.”

“I’ll just go and take a look for myself,” said Vimes.

When they were outside he walked over to the coach and looked at the snow around it. The cobbles were visible here and there. Then he looked up at the grating.

“All right, Detritus,” he said. “Talk to me.”

“Just a feelin’, sir,” rumbled the troll. “I know ‘fick’ is my middle name…”

“I didn’t know you had a
first
name, Sergeant.”

“I don’t fink this was one of dem accidents dat happens by accident.”

“He
might
have fallen off the coach when he was unloading it,” said Vimes.

“An’ I might be the Fairy Clinkerbell, sir.”

Vimes was impressed. This was low-temperature thinking from Detritus.

“Der street doors is open,” said Detritus. “I reckon Igor disturbed someone who was pinchin’ stuff.”

“But you said nothing was missing.”

“Maybe der thief took fright, sir.”

“What, at seeing Igor? Could be…”

Vimes looked at the bags and boxes. Then he looked again. Things had been thrown down any old how. That wasn’t how you unpacked a coach, unless you were looking for something in a real hurry. No one would go to these lengths to steal food.

“Nothing was missing…” He rubbed his chin. “Who
packed
the coach, Detritus?”

“Dunno, sir. I fink Her Ladyship just ordered a lot of stuff.”

“And we left in a bit of a rush, too…” Vimes stopped. Best to leave it there. He had an idea but…well, where was the evidence? You could say: Nothing that should have been there was missing, so what must have been taken was something that
shouldn’t
have been there. No. For now, it was just something to remember.

They walked into the hall, and Vimes’s eye fell on a pile of cards on a table by the door.

“Dere’s been a lot of visitors,” said Detritus.

Vimes took a handful of cards. Some of them had gold edging.

“Dem diplomatics all want you to come for drinky-poos an’ stories about chickens,” the troll added helpfully.

“Cocktails, I think you’ll find,” said Vimes, reading through the pasteboards. “Hmm…Klatch…Muntab…Genua…Lancre…
Lancre
? It’s a kingdom you could spit across! They’ve got an embassy here?”

“No, sir, mostly dey’ve got a letterbox.”

“Will we all fit in?”

“Dey’ve rented a house for der coronation, sir.”

Vimes dropped the invitations back onto the table.

“I don’t think I can face any of this stuff,” he said. “A man can only drink so much fruit juice and listen to so many bad jokes. Where is the nearest clacks tower, Detritus?”

“About fifteen miles hubward, sir.”

“I’d like to find out what’s going on back home. I think that this afternoon Lady Sybil and I will have a nice quiet ride in the country. It’ll take her mind off this.”

And then, he thought, I’ll wait until midnight, see?

And it’s still only lunchtime.

In the end, Vimes took Igor as driver and guide, and the guards Tantony and the one he would forever think of as Colonesque. Skimmer still hadn’t returned from whatever nefarious expedition was occupying his time, and Vimes was damned if he’d leave the embassy unguarded.

Yet another word for diplomat, Vimes mused, was “spy.” The only difference was that the host government knew who you were. The game was to outwit them, presumably.

The sun was warm, the breeze was cold, the mountain air made every peak look as if Vimes could reach out and touch it. Outside the town snow-covered vineyards and farms clung to slopes that in Ankh-Morpork would be called walls, but after a while the pine forests closed in. Here and there, at a curve in the road, the river was visible far below.

Up on the box, Igor was crooning a lament.

“He told me Igors heal very fast,” said Lady Sybil.

“They’d have to.”

“Mister Skimmer said they are very gifted surgeons, Sam.”

“Except cosmetically, perhaps.”

The coach slowed.

“Do you come up here a lot, Igor?” said Vimes.

“Mister Thleep used to have me drive over on the a week to collect methages, marthter.”

“I’d have thought it’d be easier to have a pickup tower in Bonk.”

“The counthil are dead againtht it, thir.”

“And you?”

“I am very modern in my outlook, thir.”

The tower was quite close now, and loomed. The first twenty feet or so were of stone with narrow, barred windows. Then there was a broad platform from which the main tower grew. It was a sensible arrangement. An enemy would find it hard to break in or set fire to it, there was enough storage room inside to see out a siege, and the enemy would be aware that the lads inside would have signaled for help thirty seconds after the attack began. The company had money. They were like the coaching agents in that respect. If a tower went out of action, someone would be along to ask expensive questions. There was no law here; the kind of people who’d turn up would be inclined to leave a message to the world that towers were not to be touched.

Everyone should know this, and therefore it was odd to see that the big signal arms were stationary.

The hairs rose on Vimes’s neck.

“Stay in the carriage, Sybil,” he said.

“Is there something wrong?”

“I’m not…sure,” said Vimes, who was sure. He stepped down and nodded to Igor.

“I’m going to have a look inside,” he said. “If there is any…trouble, you’re to get Lady Sybil back to the embassy, all right?”

Vimes leaned back into the coach and, trying not to look at Sybil, lifted up one of the seats and pulled out the sword he had hidden there.

“Sam!” she said, accusingly.

“Sorry, dear. I thought I ought to carry a spare…”

There was a bellpull by the door of the tower. Vimes tugged at it, and heard a clang somewhere above.

When nothing else happened, he tried the door. It swung open.

“Hello?”

There was silence.

“This is the Wa—” Vimes stopped. It wasn’t the Watch, was it. Not out here. The badge didn’t work. He was just an inquisitive trespassing bastard.

“Anyone there?”

The room was piled high with sacks, boxes and barrels. A wooden stairway led up to the next floor. Vimes climbed up into a combined bedroom and mess room; there were only two bunks, their covers pulled back.

A chair was on the floor. A meal was on the table, knife and fork laid down carefully. On the stove something had boiled dry in an iron pot. Vimes opened the firebox door, and there was a
whoomph
as the inrushing air rekindled the charred wood.

And, from above, the
chink
of metal.

He looked at the ladder and trapdoor to the next floor. Anyone climbing it would be presenting their head at a convenient height for a blade or a boot—

“Tricky, isn’t it, Your Grace,” said someone above him. “You’d better come up. Mmm, mhm.”

“Inigo?”

“It’s safe enough, Your Grace. There’s only me here. Mmm.”

“That counts as safe, does it?”

Vimes climbed the ladder. Inigo was sitting at a table, leafing through a stack of papers.

“Where’s the crew?”

“That, Your Grace,” said Inigo, “is one of the mysteries, mmm, mmm.”

“And the others are—?”

Inigo nodded toward the steps leading upward. “See for yourself.”

The controls for the arms had been comprehensively smashed. Laths and bits of wire dangled forlornly from their complex framework.

“Several hours of repair work for skilled men, I’d say,” said Inigo, as Vimes returned.

“What happened here, Inigo?”

“I would say the men who lived here were forced to leave, mmm, mhm. In some disorder.”

“But it’s a fortified tower!”

“So? They have to cut firewood. Oh, the company has rules, and then they put three young men in some lonely tower for weeks at a time and they expect them to act like clockwork people. See the trapdoor up to the controls? That should be locked at all times. Now you, Your Grace, and myself as well, because we are…are—”

“—bastards?” Vimes supplied.

“Well, yes…mmm…we’d have devised a system that meant the clacks couldn’t even be operated unless the trapdoor was shut, wouldn’t we?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“And we’d have written into the rules that the presence of
any
visitor in the tower would, mhm, be automatically transmitted to the neighboring towers, too.”

“Probably. That’d be a start.”

“As it is, I suspect that any harmless-looking visitor with a nice fresh apple pie for the lads would be warmly welcomed,” sighed Inigo. “They do two-month shifts at a time. Nothing to look at but trees, mmm.”

“No blood, not much sign of a struggle,” said Vimes. “Have you checked outside?”

“There should be a horse in the stable. It’s gone. We’re more or less on rock here. There’s wolf tracks, but there’s wolf tracks everywhere around here. And the wind’s blown the snow. They’ve…gone, Your Grace.”

“Are you
sure
the men let someone in through the door?” Vimes said. “Anyone who could land on the platform could be in one of these windows in an instant.”

“A vampire, mmm?”

“It’s a thought, isn’t it.”

“There’s no blood around…”

“It’s a shame to waste good food,” said Vimes. “Think of those poor starving children in Muntab. What are
these
?”

He pulled a box from under the lower bunk. Inside it were two long tubes, about a foot long, open at one end.

“‘Badger and Normal, Ankh-Morpork’” he read aloud, “‘Mortar Flare (Red). Light Fuse. Do Not Place In Mouth.’ It’s a firework, Mister Skimmer. I’ve seen them on ships.”

“Ah, there was something…” Inigo leafed through the book on the table. “They could send up an emergency flare if there’s a big problem. Yes…the tower nearest Ankh-Morpork will send out a couple of men and a bigger squad comes up from the depot down on the plains. They take a downed tower very seriously.”

“Yes, well, it could cost them money,” said Vimes, peering into the mouth of the mortar. “We need this tower working, Inigo. I don’t like being stuck out here.”

“The roads aren’t too bad yet. They could be here by tomorrow evening—I’m sure you shouldn’t do that, sir!”

Vimes had pulled the mortar out of its tube. He looked at Inigo quizzically.

“They won’t go off until you light the charge in the base,” he said. “They’re safe. And they’d make a stupid weapon, ’cos you can’t aim them worth a damn and they’re only made of cardboard in any case. Come on, let’s get it onto the roof.”

“Not until dark, Your Grace, mmm. That way two or three towers on each side will see it, not just the closest.”

“But the closest towers are watching they’ll certainly see—”

“We don’t know that there is anyone there to watch, sir. Perhaps what happened here has happened there, too? Mmm?”

“Good grief! You don’t think—”

“No, I don’t think, sir, I’m a civil servant. I advise other people, mmm, mmm. Then
they
think. My advice is that an hour or two won’t hurt, sir. My advice is that you return with Lady Sybil
now
, sir. I will send up a flare as soon as it is dark and make my way back to the embassy.”

“Hold on, I
am
Commander in—”

“Not here, Your Grace. Remember? Here you are a civilian in the way, mhm, mmm. I’ll be safe enough—”

“The crew weren’t.”

“They weren’t me, mhm, mhm. For the sake of Lady Sybil, Your Grace, I
advise
you to leave
now
.”

Vimes hesitated, hating the fact that Inigo was not only right but was, despite his claim to mindlessness, doing the thinking that he should be doing. He was supposed to be out for an afternoon’s drive with his wife, for heaven’s sake.

“Well…all right. Just one thing, though. Why are
you
here?”

“The last time Sleeps was seen he was on his way up here with a message.”

“Ah. And am I right in thinking that your Mister Sleeps was not exactly the kind of diplomat that hands around the cucumber sandwiches?”

Inigo smiled thinly.

“That’s right, sir. He was…the other sort. Mmm.”

“Your sort.”

“Mmm. And now
go
, Your Grace. The sun will be setting soon. Mmm, mmm.”

Corporal Nobbs, President and Convenor of the Guild of Watchmen, surveyed his troops.

“All right, one more time,” he said. “Whadda we want?”

The strike meeting had been going on for some time, and it had been going on in a bar. The watchmen were already a little forgetful.

Constable Ping raised his hand.

“Er…a proper grievance procedure, a complaints committee, an overhaul of the promotion procedures…er…”

“—better crockery in the canteen,” someone supplied.

“—freedom from unwarranted accusations of sucrose theft,” said someone else.

“—no more than seven days straight on nights—”

“—an increase in the boots allowance—”

“—at least three afternoons off for grandmother’s funerals per year—”

“—not having to pay for our own pigeon feed—”

“—another drink.” This last demand met with general approval.