Part 9 (1/2)

”All about Vimes? Sent yesterday morning morning? Before Before I-?” I-?”

”My lord?”

”Tell me,” said the Patrician, ”this...message from Uberwald...it yields no clue at all to the sender?”

Sometimes, like a ray of light through clouds, Leonard could be quite perceptive.

”You think you might know the originator, my lord?”

”Oh, in my younger days I spent some time in Uberwald,” said the Patrician. ”In those days rich young men from Ankh-Morpork used to go on what we called the Grand Sneer, visiting far-flung countries and cities in order to see at first hand how inferior they were. Or so it seemed, at any rate. Oh yes...I spent some time in Uberwald...”

It was not often Leonard of Quirm paid attention to what people around him were doing, but he saw the faraway look in Lord Vetinari's eye.

”You have fond memories, my lord?” he ventured.

”Hmm? Oh...she was a very...unusual lady but, alas, rather... lady but, alas, rather...older than me,” said Vetinari. ”Much older, I have to say. But...it was a long time ago. Life teaches us its small lessons, and we move on. The world changes.” There was the distant look again. ”Well, well, well...” than me,” said Vetinari. ”Much older, I have to say. But...it was a long time ago. Life teaches us its small lessons, and we move on. The world changes.” There was the distant look again. ”Well, well, well...”

”And no doubt the lady is now dead,” said Leonard. He was not much good at this sort of conversation.

”Oh, I very much doubt that,” said Vetinari, coming back to the present. ”I have no doubt she thrives.” He smiled. The world was becoming more...interesting. ”Tell me, Leonard,” he said, ”has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?” ”Tell me, Leonard,” he said, ”has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?”

Leonard picked up his coffee cup.

”Oh dear. Won't that be rather messy?” he said.

Vetinari sighed again.

”Not perhaps as messy as the other sort,” he said, trying the coffee. It really was rather good.

The ducal coach rolled past the last of the outlying buildings and onto the vast, flat Sto Plains. Cheery and Detritus had tactfully decided to ride on the top for the morning, and leave the duke and d.u.c.h.ess alone inside. Skimmer was indulging in some uneasy cla.s.s solidarity and riding with the servants for a while.

”Angua seems to have gone into hiding,” said Vimes, watching the cabbage fields pa.s.s by.

”Poor girl,” said Sybil. ”The city's not really the place for her.”

”Well, you couldn't winkle Carrot out of it with a big pin,” said Vimes. ”And that's the problem, I suppose.”

”Part of the problem,” said Sybil.

Vimes nodded. The other part, which no one talked about, was children.

Sometimes it seemed to Vimes that everyone knew that Carrot was the true heir to the redundant throne of the city. It just so happened that he didn't want to be. He wanted to be a copper, and everyone went along with the idea. But kings.h.i.+p was a bit like a grand piano-you could put a cover over it, but you could still see what shape it was underneath.

Vimes wasn't sure what the result was if a human and a werewolf had kids. Maybe you just got someone who had to shave twice a day around full moon and occasionally felt like chasing carts. And when you remembered what some some of the city's rulers had been like, a known werewolf as ruler ought to hold no terrors. It was the b.u.g.g.e.rs who looked human all the time that were the problem. That was just his view, though. Other people might see things differently. No wonder she'd gone off to think about things. of the city's rulers had been like, a known werewolf as ruler ought to hold no terrors. It was the b.u.g.g.e.rs who looked human all the time that were the problem. That was just his view, though. Other people might see things differently. No wonder she'd gone off to think about things.

He realized he was looking, unseeing, out of the window.

To take his mind off this he opened the package of papers that Skimmer had handed him just as he got on the coach. It was called ”briefing material.” The man seemed to be an expert on Uberwald, and Vimes wondered how many other clerks there were in the Patrician's palace, beavering away, becoming experts experts. He settled down glumly and began to read.

The first page showed the crest of the Unholy Empire that had once ruled most of the huge country. Vimes couldn't recall much about it, except that one of the emperors once had a man's hat nailed to his head for a joke. Uberwald seemed to be a big, cold, depressing place, so perhaps people would do anything anything for a laugh. for a laugh.

The crest was altogether too florid for Vimes's taste and was dominated by a double-headed bat.

The first doc.u.ment was ent.i.tled: THE FAT-BEARING STRATA OF THE SHMALTZBERG REGION THE FAT-BEARING STRATA OF THE SHMALTZBERG REGION (” (”THE LAND OF THE FIFTH ELEPHANT”).

He knew the legend, of course. There had once been five elephants, not four, standing on the back of Great A'Tuin, but one had lost its footing or had been shaken loose and had drifted off into a curved orbit before eventually cras.h.i.+ng down, a billion tons of enraged pachyderm, with a force that had rocked the entire world and split it up into the continents people knew today. The rocks that fell back had covered and compressed the corpse and the rest, after millennia of underground cooking and rendering, was fat history. According to legend, gold and iron and all the other metals were also part of the carca.s.s. After all, an elephant big enough to support the world on its back wasn't going to have ordinary bones, was it?

The notes in front of him were a little more believable, talking about some unknown catastrophe that had killed millions of the mammoths, bison and giant shrews and then covered them over, pretty much like the fifth elephant in the story. There were notes about old troll sagas and legends of the dwarfs. Possibly ice had been involved. Or a flood. In the case of the trolls, who were believed to be the first species in the world, maybe they'd been been there and seen the elephant trumpeting across the sky. there and seen the elephant trumpeting across the sky.

The result, anyway, was the same. Everyone-well, everyone except Vimes-knew the best fat came from the Shmaltzberg wells and mines. It made the whitest, brightest candles, the creamiest soap, the hottest, cleanest lamp oil. The yellow tallow from Ankh-Morpork's boilers didn't come close.

Vimes didn't see the point. Gold...now that that was important. People died for it. And iron-Ankh-Morpork needed iron. Timber, too. Stone, even. Silver, now, was very... was important. People died for it. And iron-Ankh-Morpork needed iron. Timber, too. Stone, even. Silver, now, was very...

He flocked back to a page headed NATURAL RESOURCES NATURAL RESOURCES, and under SILVER SILVER read: ”No silver has been mined in Uberwald since the Diet of Bugs in AM1880, and the possession of the metal is technically illegal.” read: ”No silver has been mined in Uberwald since the Diet of Bugs in AM1880, and the possession of the metal is technically illegal.”

There was no explanation. He made a note to ask Inigo. After all, where you got werewolves, didn't you need silver? And things must have been pretty bad if everyone had to eat insects.

Anyway...silver was useful, too, but fat was just...fat. It was like biscuits, or tea, or sugar. It was just something that turned up in the cupboard. There was no style style to it, no to it, no romance. romance. It was stuff in tubs. It was stuff in tubs.

A note was clipped to the next page. He read: ”The Fifth Elephant as a metaphor also appears in the Uberwald languages. Depending on context it can mean 'a thing which does not exist' (as we would say 'Klatchian mist') 'a thing which is other than it seems' and 'a thing which, while unseen, controls events' (in the same way that we would use the term eminence gris eminence gris).”

I wouldn't, thought Vimes. I don't use words like that.

”Constable Shoe,” said Constable Shoe, when the door of the bootmaker's factory was opened, ”Homicide.”

”You come 'bout Mister Sonky?” said the troll who'd opened the door. Warm damp air blew out into the street, smelling of incontinent cats and sulfur.

”I meant I'm a zombie,” said Reg Shoe. ”I find that telling people right away saves embarra.s.sing misunderstandings later on. But coincidentally coincidentally, yes, we've come about the alleged deceased.”

”We?” said the troll, making no comment about Reg's gray skin and st.i.tch marks.

”Doon here, bigjobs!”

The troll looked down, not a usual direction in Ankh-Morpork, where people preferred not to see what they were standing in.

”Oh,” he said, and took a few steps backward.

Some people said that gnomes were no more belligerent than any other race, and this was true. However, the belligerence was compressed down into a body six inches high and, like many things when they are compressed, had an inclination to explode. Constable Swires had been on the force only for a few months, but news had gone around and already he inspired respect, or at least the bladder-trembling terror that can pa.s.s for respect on these occasions.

”Don't ye just stand there gawpin', where's yon stiff?” said Swire, striding into the factory.

”We put him in der cellar,” said the troll. ”And now we got half a ton of liquid rubber running to waste. He'd be livid 'bout that...if he was alive, o'course.”

”Why's it wasted?” said Reg.

”Gone all thick and manky, hasn't it. I'm gonna have to dump it later on, and dat's not easy. We was supposed to be dipping a load of Ribbed Magical Delights today, too, but all der ladies felt faint when I hauls him outa der vat and dey went off home.”