Part 29 (1/2)
”I couldn't say, sir. Because no one tells them how to, I suppose.”
”And now you want our gold and iron,” said the king. ”Is there nothing nothing we can keep?” we can keep?”
”Don't know about that either, sir. I wasn't trained for this job.”
The king muttered something under his breath. Then, much louder, he said: ”I can offer you no favors, Your Excellency. These are difficult times, see.”
”But my real job is finding things out,” said Vimes, a little louder. ”If there is anything that I could do to-”
The king thrust the papers at Vimes.
”Your letters of accreditation, Your Excellency. Their contents have been noted!”
And that shuts me me up, Vimes thought. up, Vimes thought.
”I would ask you one thing, though,” the king went on.
”Yes, sir?”
”Really thirty men and a dog?” thirty men and a dog?”
”No. There were only seven men. I killed one of them because I had to.”
”How did the others die?”
”Er...victims of circ.u.mstances, sir.”
”Well, then...your secret is safe with me. Good morning, Miss Littlebottom.”
Cheery looked stunned.
The king gave her a brief smile.
”Ah, the rights of the individual, a famous Ankh-Morpork invention, or so they say. But what rights are they, really, and whence do they come? Thank you, Dee, His Excellency was just leaving. You may send in the Copperhead delegation.”
As Vimes was ushered out he saw another party of dwarfs a.s.sembled in the anteroom. One or two of them nodded at him as they were herded in.
Dee turned back to Vimes.
”I hope you didn't tire his majesty.”
”Someone else has already been doing that, by the look of it.”
”These are sleepless times,” said the Ideas-taster.
”Scone turned up yet?” said Vimes, innocently.
”Your Excellency, if you persist in this att.i.tude a complaint will go to your Lord Vetinari!”
”He does so look forward to them. Was it this way out?”
It was the last word said until Vimes and his guards were back in the coach and the doors to daylight were opening ahead of them.
Out of the corner of his eye Vimes saw that Cheery was shaking.
”Certainly hits you, doesn't it, the cold air after the warmth underground...” he ventured.
Cheery grinned in relief.
”Yes, it does,” she said.
”Seemed quite a decent sort,” said Vimes. ”What was that he muttered when I said I hadn't been trained?”
”He said 'Who has?,' sir.”
”It sounded like it. All that arguing...it's not a case of sitting on the throne and saying 'do this, do that,' then.”
”Dwarfs are very argumentative, sir. Of course, many wouldn't agree. But none of the big dwarf clans are happy about this. You know how it is-the Copperheads didn't want Albrecht, and the Shmaltzburgers wouldn't support anyone called Glodson, the Ankh-Morpork dwarfs were split both ways, and Rhys comes from a little coal-mining clan near Llamedos that isn't important enough to be on anyone's side...”
”You mean he didn't get to be king because everyone liked him but because no one disliked him enough?”
”That's right, sir.”
Vimes glanced at the crumpled letter that the king had thrust into his hand.
By daylight he could see the faint scribble on one corner. There were just two words.
MIDNIGHT, SEE?.
Humming to himself, he tore the piece of paper off and rolled it into a ball.
”And now for the d.a.m.n vampire,” he said.
”Don't worry, sir,” said Cheery. ”What's the worst she can do? Bite your head off?”
Vimes grunted. ”Thank you for that, Corporal. Tell me...those robes some of the dwarfs were wearing...I know they wear them on the surface so they're not polluted by the nasty sunlight, but why wear them down there?”
”It's traditional, sir. Er...they were worn by the...well, it's what you'd call the knockermen, sir.”
”What did they do?”
”Well, you know about firedamp? It's a gas you get in mines sometimes. It explodes.”
Vimes saw the images in his mind as Cheery explained...
The miners would clear the area, if they were lucky. And the knockerman would go in, wearing layer after layer of chain mail and leather, carrying his sack of wicker globes stuffed with rags and oil. And his long pole. And his slingshot.
Down in the mines, all alone, he'd hear the knockers...Agi Hammerthief and all the other things that made noises, deep under the earth. There could be no light, because light would mean sudden, roaring death. The knockerman would feel his way through the utter dark, far below the surface.
There was a type of cricket that lived in the mines. It chirruped loudly in the presence of firedamp. The knockerman would have one in a box, tied to his hat.